Experience versus service, and self-development

Tareq al-Suwaidan distinguishes experience from service: serving thirty years does not mean having thirty years of experience; whoever repeated one year's experience for thirty years has one year of experience, not thirty — experience means benefiting from one's past trials and knowledge so as to develop oneself ^{1 2}. He recounts that at the American Creativity Academy he applied a rule rejecting Arab applicants with more than ten years' experience, because the West has an obligatory development system (a teaching licence renewed every four years by examination) while Arabs have none, so that years of service accumulate rather than experience (the speaker's policy and view) ^{3 4}.

His minimum standards for whoever wants to develop: two books a month — one in the specialty and one in general culture; three courses a year, two of them in one's field; following one specialist journal and one general cultural journal; attending the scientific conferences of one's specialty; and following two great scholars of the field — their books, articles and lectures — for whoever relies on his own effort stays limited ^{5 6 7 8}. He adds that whoever fears training his subordinates lest they take his place is weak and complicated; the strong trains them, and rises while they rise with him ⁹.