EDU-6920
Essay 1
The nature of truth in our society is tenuous. This is especially so when “truth” is backed up with “research”. As a child, I often sat at the knee of my grandfather, who read several newspapers daily, and scoured them voraciously for what he felt was the truth. Sometimes, as he stubbed out his Salem menthol cigarette, he would hand me a chunk of the paper and ask me to read an article. As I did so, he would ask me what I thought of certain aspects of the article, and whether I was familiar with the topic or not. He was assessing my prior knowledge of a topic.
As time went on, I began to learn what answer he was looking for, and it was often clear just by taking note of what newspaper it was in and who had written the article. The Boston Globe was usually on the mark, simply by virtue of being the biggest paper around, yet as it is today, Gramp & I found the Globe to be a bit soft at times. The Boston Herald was exciting to me with its’ magazine format, sensational headlines, and more pedestrian language. Yet often, the Herald had too much glitter and not enough hard facts. Our local paper, The Nantucket Inquirer & Mirror? It was either purely scandalous or the word of god, depending on the topic. I did not realize it, but I was doing research. What I took away from this last observation is that sometimes a topic is too close to your heart to take objectively.
Grampa was a good man, and highly intelligent. Whether either of us knew it, he was preparing me to think in a way that was objective yet pessimistic, pragmatic but critical. I believe these to be some of the qualities of a good researcher.
Truth should be the outcome of prior knowledge, critical thinking, and scrutinizing reliable research. The more sources and types of research the better. When I taught earth science I always reminded my students that science does not prove anything right, only wrong. By eliminating the different ideas and theories that do not work, we can then extrapolate what does work- the truth.
Becoming a critical thinker is not a natural condition, it is a skill that must be taught and nurtured. As a child, things are correct or incorrect, black or white. Only as our minds develop do we gain the capacity to question, especially when we are students and are expected to hang on every word the teacher says. It is not an environment that exudes support for outside the box thinking, and in fact, some critical thinking leads to trouble if it is not based in research. Yet people like Rush Limbaugh get away with it every day.
As we become older and move on through life, these critical thinking and research skills become even more important, and the lack of them indeed hurts us as a society. What is car shopping? Research. Apartment hunting? Research. Dealing with a medical issue? Research. The more organized you are going into any of these endeavors, the better of you will be. The more critical, logical, and thorough the research, the better or more affordable car or apartment, or the more quickly you can seek another doctor’s opinion. The ability to research to gain knowledge and discover the truth is a crucial life skill.
