Theory Before or After Practice? Neither… It’s Theory Through Practice
Improving Through Practice vs Improving The Practice
Theory is why it works. Practice is how it works. Which should come first?
If the goal of learning is to practice, then we should learn the minimum theory in order to practice. We hear this most often when learning technical skills such as programming. The general advice is to ‘get out of the building’ and focus on building real, tangible projects. Once we are competent at the practice, we go back to learning theory to improve further. Put simply, what we are doing here is:
- Learning the minimum theory to practice
- Improving practice through learning established theories
From this lens, theory is a prerequisite for practice.
However, if the goal of learning is to better the practice, then we should aim to establish new theories. Improving practice does not just come from applying existing theories, but can also come from a process of trial-and-error; A conscious effort to understand why a practice works, and establishing new theories based on this practice creates a common language which would better the practice. From this lens, practice is a prerequisite for theory.
Theory should come before practice. But it too comes from practice.
