Making R&D a priority (2)

Socrates, considered one of the greatest ancient Greek philosophers, said once, “An unexamined life is not worth living.” This dictum is the underlying principle that Socrates used in teaching his students, now widely known as the “Socratic method.”

Teachers using this method ask their students seemingly interminable questions until such time students realize both weak and strong points in their arguments or positions. Then, once the teachers are satisfied with students’ answers, the latter are made to think of ways to use the same method in examining the pros and cons of issues and topics they are assigned to study. This method is useful in training students to use higher order thinking skills, like critical thinking, since they are exposed to various perspectives or arguments that will lead to a more rational, appropriate answer. It can also be an avenue for teaching students the value of being curious and endlessly inquisitive about anything or any phenomenon they observe or experience.

Students who are not used to being “grilled” with rapid-fire questioning that some teachers use as part of the Socratic method tend to be threatened, and consider their ever-questioning professors as classroom “terrorists.” This is the response of those who just want an easy way out of learning a course, or subject, through simple rote learning or memorization. Sad to say, this is the prevailing attitude among students. There is a dearth of teachers who go to great lengths to prepare well for teaching their classes and use the Socratic method effectively.

But both critical thinking and curiosity are requisites for research and development work. We must look at issues and topics from different perspectives to come up with the most appropriate solution to a problem. Critical thinking is always accompanied by curiosity since not questioning why a certain phenomenon exists makes us accept rote learning as the only way to go, and that there is only one way of doing things. Many students are quite scared to ask questions since they had been oriented by many teachers to accept what they teach, “no questions asked.” A student advisee once shared with me that one of his undergraduate professors told him, “just pretend I am right and you are wrong; I am the professor here, and you are not.”

So how can we instill critical thinking and curiosity among students who learn via rote learning? How can we develop students who will, later on, take the cudgels of engaging in tedious and arduous research and development work when they have embedded only the rote ways of learning things?

Over the weekend, I was privileged to have been visited by a small team of very young, female researchers collaborating with us on a huge research project interrogating gender roles and related issues in the women, peace, and security agenda in conflict-affected areas of the Bangsamoro region. In the local collaborating team are a few of my former colleagues and one of my brilliant former students, who now holds a prominent position in the academic hierarchy of the state university here in General Santos City.

Two of our female and smart young researcher visitors were from Indonesia, and one was from Bombay, India. They were classmates in a class in London when they were students under a Chevening scholarship of the British government. Two years ago, they cofounded a small research group focusing on gender issues and problems.

The Indonesian researchers told us that their government invests quite heavily in training young students who have just finished their bachelor’s degrees. Their government sends them to internationally accredited educational institutions with scholarship funds from the finance ministry. At one time, their government sent as many as 10,000 students to get graduate degrees from prestigious institutions in various parts of the world.

In contrast, our government, both in the past and in the present, has not invested heavily in this kind of capacity building for young and promising scholars. Students need to work hard to apply for scholarships to study abroad on their own.

(To be continued)

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