Every year, the Ateneo holds a special ceremony to recognize exemplary students, as well as student projects and student research that address social problems.
Last week, I sat with my thesis advisees as they received a special recognition award from the university. You might have read about them in this column: They did a deep study of women’s standpoints on issues of safety on the light rail transit (LRT) systems and then used their findings to create a campaign.
After my students completed their thesis, they met with their stakeholders, with the hope that their project could be implemented. They were either ignored or laughed at. Their work was called a mere class exercise, their findings invalid, their results “not generalizable,” their campaign not “positive” enough.
They were asked for statistics, which was neither required nor advisable because they were dealing with deeply seated cultural constructs — something that their stakeholders could not, or perhaps refused to understand.
After every meeting, they left disheartened. The award from the Ateneo, therefore, was a little celebration to give them a break from their disappointment with the government and its supposed public service.
This year, they were up against stiff competition. There were students who worked with a junior high school in Antipolo, an urban poor community in Zone One Tondo, persons with disability in Baguio, coffee farmers in Bukidnon. Even if they didn’t win the top prize, they were still judged as equals among the greats of the Ateneo: the athletes who worked excellently both in competition and in the classroom, the student leaders who worked well on academics while speaking out against social injustices, the organizations who fought for the rights of indigenous peoples, the projects that spoke valiantly against a society that simply wanted to let things be.
In all these projects, there was a common thread that went beyond “helping” others.
There was always research: It was not some statistics-laden, big numbers-crunching behemoth; it was deep, one-on-one, bringing students closer to communities so that they engaged people in dialogue. The projects were contextualized: They dealt with specific needs of specific vulnerable groups, targeted these groups without making individual identities disappear into a solution, and had implications for how we could understand the human condition.
A few days before the ceremony, I sat in a meeting with colleagues from University of the Philippines Los Baños’ Department of Science Communication, where we talked about a possible national framework for science communication for the Department of Science and Technology. At one point in our conversation, we found that it was not so much a drilling of knowledge that was needed; it was encouragement of curiosity in more people so that they could live lives of inquiry rather than assumptions.
It was this curiosity that was so apparent in this year’s winning projects. My students did not assume that women would feel safe by simply being given a carriage to themselves, or by being told to look at the LRT in a more positive light. My students were curious enough to ask questions about the very culture that made true safety nearly impossible. The same was true for the students who asked about how junior high school students understood what they read, how an urban poor community made meaning of its reality, how people with disabilities understood where they lived, what coffee farmers needed to improve their livelihoods. They always began with questions — not assumptions, answers, or arrogance. This year, the ceremony’s speakers encouraged students to be both salt and light in the world: to be the necessities that did not ask for recognition, but pervaded all of humanity; the elements that gave of themselves without expecting reward.
As I sat with my students, I realized that there is no such thing as “just a student project.” When our young people are given a chance to have their questions answered, and their answers to these questions welcomed in the public arena, we, too, become their salt and light.
We do not expect that the world will always be the same, so we illuminate the path for the next generation, give them a voice, and allow them to question what we leave behind.
It is only then that we can truly have any hope for the future.