School is no match for experience, and the smartest A plus honor student who has memorized every procedure can't hold a candle to someone who has been a hands on expert for most of their life.
Some things just can't be taught in a classroom, and while you might know protocols and procedures that have been indicated in your textbook, it might be a completely different scenario once you encounter problems with hands on experience.
Someone who has never been to school and has learned from their peers at a young age has an advantage over the college graduate. Hands on experience at the job, a social group that they can call upon for advice, different ways to combat varying degrees of temperature changes which affects their worksite, which is something you will never learn in school.
I have never been impressed with a new worker at any job who constantly lets me know their grades and how smart they are, the proof is in the pudding, or put your money where your mouth is, and most importantly, don't tell me how much you know and how good you are, show me instead.
School is the basis for a job or career that you want to enter into, and it has it's merits but in my opinion, experience is the best teacher. There is, however, one problem that a long term career oriented person tends to obtain, is the lack of being able to change their ways. Learning to do tasks only one way for 40 years tend to do that.
Figuring a way to do something that has never been explained in a book takes a certain type of brain, and someone who has been at the same job for 20 plus years obviously has that type. If you can learn something from someone else and make it even better with your own ideas then that is your own personal type of genius and something for which School is No Substitute.
Scott Goerz
