SAT Practice Essay

People today do put too much emphasis on learning practical skills. They see their goals and will sometimes focus all of their energy into achieving those goals. In Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible, there are two characters at opposite ends of this spectrum of learning only for practical purposes and learning just to learn. Nathan Price is a missionary, sent to the Congo to bring Christianity to the natives there. He tries everything he can think of, all with single-minded determination and the belief that he is doing the right thing. He is not interested in learning anything about the place he is imposing himself upon, only in changing their ways. Brother Fowles is the missionary that was there before Nathan. Although he has the same mission, he looks beyond his goal of Christianizing the natives, and instead focuses most of his energy on his surroundings. He learns everything he can about the birds, plants, and people in the African village that he inhabits. Not only does his approach gain a lot more followers than Nathan’s, he also has a much more self-fulfilling experience than Nathan does. He leaves the Congo with new knowledge and understanding of the world he lives in. All the knowledge that Nathan gains has to do with his failed attempts at baptizing the villagers.
It can be easy to get caught up in the state of mind that Nathan Price does in The Poisonwood Bible. A goal is set and knowledge is gained for the purpose of achieving that goal. Learning for learning’s sake can answer questions we didn’t realize we had or provoke new ones within us. If people did not think beyond practical skills, nothing new would ever be discovered. Learning for learning’s sake can give us a better understanding of the world we live in and it often helps us with the practical purposes too. Brother Fowles’s knowledge of the forest and the people gained him their respect, although he didn’t intend for it to. This, therefore, helped him in achieving his goal of spreading Christianity because the villagers were more willing to listen to him.
People put too much emphasis on practical knowledge and skills. While these things are important, learning beyond what we need to is also important to gain depper understanding of the world around us.