Dramatic Intellectual Shift At University

  

Dramatic Intellectual Shift At University

M. Bakri Musa

 

Excerpt # 8 from my Qur’an, Hadith, And Hikayat:  Exercises In Critical Thinking

 

Midway through the first semester of my freshman year at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, I was stunned when given a “take home” test, while for another course, an “open book” one. Imagine, doing a test at home with your notes as well as textbooks readily available! Unheard of back in my native land; an encouragement to cheat and copy!

 

         It was obvious that those Canadian professors were not interested in how well or fast we could regurgitate what they had taught us or what we had read in the textbooks. They wanted us to think.

 

         That was not my only surprise. After the first test in Chemistry, our professor decided to start a special experimental laboratory program for the few top students. I was fortunate to be selected. I am not bragging here. After going through Sixth Form in Malaysia (13 years of schooling), the first year of university, at least in the sciences, was a breeze for me. The Albertans had only twelve.

 

         We were paired and each group was assigned a separate experimental problem. Mine was to measure minute quantities of a given compound. A sample was given to us. We had all the departmental facilities and equipment at our disposal. My partner was a student from a rural high school in Alberta.

 

         The first thing we did was go over the balance scales and to see how we could adjust it to measure tiny weights. That had its limits. Then we were on to the sensitive analytical balance. That too could get us only so far. We still could not accurately measure minute amounts. We wracked our brains but could go no further.

 

         After about 30 minutes or so our professor, as he had promised, stopped all of us and asked us to discuss our problems with the rest of the class. Just before that discussion, one of the other students suggested to me that instead of using the weighing scale, I should dissolve the compound and measure the color density with the spectrometer.

 

         The moment he said “dissolve the . . . ,” a light bulb switched on in my head. He did not have to go further. So when our professor came by, we told him that we would dissolve the compound in a known volume of water, then serially dilute the sample, and plot the color density readings with the dilutions. We could thus measure to more than a thousand-fold decrease in amounts through such serial dilutions. It helped that our material was a copper compound so we could see the visible blue of the solution lightened with subsequent dilutions. The spectrometer quantified our visual assessment.

 

         Pleased as I was in finding the solution to our problem, nonetheless I was still tormented by the thought that I had failed to even think of it until my fellow classmate had suggested it. Later I learned that he was a graduate of an elite magnet experimental high school in the city where they were taught to think and solve problems, instead of the usual memorization regime at schools elsewhere, Malaysia included.

 

         That was a salve of sorts for me. The corollary to my insight was that I too could learn that skill. Critical thinking, like other skills, can be taught and strengthened throughout our life by using and exercising them.

 

         That episode early in my undergraduate years taught me two lessons. First, be aware of distractions when trying to solve problems. Mine was with the wording of the assignment. It said to measure, and because I was given a sample with a known weight, I immediately thought of weighing and the balance machine. I could not get off that track. Perhaps I would have had an open mind and not been sidetracked had the word “quantify” been used instead of measure.

 

         Second, that incident disabused me of the value and meaning of test scores. Yes, you have to have sterling scores to get that coveted scholarship or academic prize, but that means nothing if you cannot solve problems. Getting good test scores simply means you have correctly anticipated what the examiners wanted out of you. It is but a variation of my earlier successful high school exercises in spotting likely questions for an upcoming examination.

 

         That student who had suggested the right solution had test scores lower than mine at our first test, though still up there. As an update, he had a long and distinguished tenure as Professor of Chemistry at our alma mater.

 

         As for the value of examinations and test scores in real life, the ancient Chinese civilization lasted for centuries as the beacon of an efficient administrative system in part because the Imperial Palace would select only the top candidates from its famed civil service examinations. For centuries, but not forever. The Chinese were later easily outclassed by Western forces. The reason? In part the candidates selected through those tests were not the best or smartest candidates but only those whom the establishment thought were the best and brightest. Or the smartest who could “spot” the questions or could give the answers that the examiners had wanted.

 

         A century later, America would repeat that same mistake. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, Berkeley alumnus and star Harvard Business School graduate, recruited only the “best and brightest” (his “Whizz Kids”) to help direct the Vietnam War of the 1960s and 70s. McNamara also instituted his infamous “body count” as a measure of the progress of the war. Unfortunately, as events later proved, Harvard’s best was no match for those pajama-clad jungled-tested Viet Cong generals.

 

         As for the wisdom of “body count” as a measure of progress of a war, that would be akin to predicting the ending of a football game by counting the number of first downs or yards gained early in the first quarter. The dynamics of a war, like a football game, can change quickly and dramatically.

 

Next:  Excerpt #10:  Religious Texts As Exercises In Critical Thinking