At this point, it will be helpful to digress briefly to say a few things about the nature of knowledge. Now actually, we don't really know what knowledge is, but this much is clear: Most knowledge is not verbal. Knowledge of words and about words is verbal, but such knowledge is logically circular. That is to say, if a word is defined only in terms of words that are, in turn, defined only in terms of words, it goes around in verbal circles without any real tangible meaning. That is why dictionaries have pictures; I can not really tell you what a cat is, but I can show you pictures of various cats and you can form the concept.
Once you stop to think about it, it is obvious that world knowledge is largely non-verbal. Non-verbal animals certainly "know" things; dogs know who feeds them, where they live, and what cats are. For that matter, you know many things without having words for them. A very familiar experience is pausing in the middle of a sentence while searching for a word that correctly expresses an idea. Obviously, the idea itself is not verbal. Indeed, you can usually formulate a number of sentences to express the same idea. In general, words should not be confused with the non-verbal concepts they represent.
Although knowledge is not verbal, it is usually transmitted in verbal form through books and lectures. The essential nature of the communication process is depicted in Figure 3.1.
For example, when you are in love with someone, you may search around for words to describe your feelings. Your loved one, in turn, tries to construe the meaning of your words. In sum, one person codes an idea into words, and the other person decodes the words into an idea. . .hopefully very much the same idea.
Figure 3.1 should explain why the Principle of Active Participation is true. The only person with access to your knowledge system, to your memory, is you. Nobody, not even the greatest teacher in the world, can teach you anything in the sense of putting knowledge into your memory. YOU have to learn it. Good teachers can express ideas in words that their students can understand. I give frequent examples from everyday life because students have told me that such examples help them "get" the ideas. But in the last analysis, you have to be an active participant and figure out what the words signify.