Researching is Real World Experience for a Researcher

[sanantone]

Seeing/experiencing the objects in real life enhances their/your understanding,

How? This is true for jobs that contain a physical component, but you will usually have hands-on training for those fields.

you can read and read all you like if you can't do the actually work then what is the point of all the book knowledge in the world.

When you're getting a PhD, you learn how to conduct research. That is the actual work that professors are doing.

1) You skipped over the part of the argument in the other thread that was about real world life experience not just field experience. People need to have real life experience in order to relate to those they may be placed in charge of or may have working underneath them. Teachers can teach better when they can relate to what their students are going through.

This thread is not about life experience. Most professors went the traditional route and are teaching traditional students. Just by being older than their students, they tend to have more life experience by default. If you're teaching economically disadvantaged students and you don't come from a similar background, then there is nothing you can do about that.

2) I have met many (way too many in the army) history majors who don't know anything about history and many of their facts are wrong. Sending their butts to they actually sites or to see the objects would help them tremendously.

This is your anecdotal experience, but there could be a number of reasons for why these history majors don't know much.

1. Bad school.

2. Bad teacher.

3. Bad curriculum.

4. Poor textbooks.

5. Students have bad memories.

6. Students did the bare minimum to pass.

7. Students cheated their way through school.

8. Poor methods of assessment.

Seeing a building or a piece of land is not going to correct factual errors.

3) Wasn't the other thread shut down because it started evolving into an argument, how is starting another thread about a subject that got the other thread shutdown a good idea or good thing to do?

The subject of this thread is different from the subject of the other thread.

No, but it should of enhanced your understanding of the Battle of the Alamo and help you teach a class on the Battle of the Alamo, may be not a class on the Texas Revolution, but I wouldn't expect a trip to a battle site to teach me about the diplomatic matters of a war/battle.

It didn't. High school books and tours include the sugarcoated history of the battle. I learned more by reading works from less biased historians. Like many historical sites, The Alamo has been greatly altered. Neither the building nor its surroundings are in their original form. Even if it were close to its original form, a picture and a map with dimensions would have been just as good. If I needed to teach a class on the Battle of the Alamo, the first thing I would do is pick up a book to refresh myself. Seeing the The Alamo for the 100th time (I lived in San Antonio for a long time) would do absolutely nothing for me.