During this (2018) winter I attended a school camp with my 11 year old daughter and her classmates in an area of New Zealand called Wakarara (situated between Hawke’s Bay and Palmerston North at the foot of the Ruahine Ranges on the eastern side). It was a rewarding and satisfying time spent with kids and adults who generally are drawn to the Kiwi outdoors. 

However, what fascinated me on the night that the attending kids prepared fires within purpose-built concrete BBQ fixtures and proceeded to cook BBQ meals for themselves and the accompanying parents, was that less than half the number of kids had ever struck a match in their lives to light a fire ! So the adults went about teaching kids how to strike a match so as to not burn themselves and to ensure that wind didn’t snuff the flame out.

During the parent “debrief” back at school following the end of the camp I raised my observation that so many kids had no experience at lighting a fire prior to attending this camp; to which one parent suggested that if they needed to know how to light a fire then they could always learn how to do it by watching a video on YouTube. I was astounded at this response.

What I see going on is an ever-increasing reliance being placed on the internet for knowledge, rather than acquiring the same knowledge through practical experience (i.e. “doing”). For me, acquiring knowledge from the internet is comparable to a student only ever having studied a text book in order to complete a tertiary qualification, and then be expected to run a production plant of some description. i.e. they’ve only learned the “theory”.

If a child relies on a YouTube video to understand how to strike a match, this is only an act of “acquiring theory” – no more and no less. It is not until the child has held a box of matches in their hand, taken a match out and lit it have they actually acquired the skill of lighting a fire. 

Be careful not to think of the internet as a substitute for practical knowledge/ understanding. It is “not” a teacher of “practice” – it is only a source of knowledge/ theory.