Teaching What’s There; Studying What’s Not

For some years I taught a graduate seminar where we read peer-reviewed articles to identify what questions raised by the work were not answered by the article. The key findings were only a launching point. Instead, we asked, “What questions relevant to the key focus of the articles remained unanswered?”

Then, once those questions were identified, the challenge was: how could they be answered? What research would have to be mounted to address them?

Reflecting on my memories of this work, the students found it very difficult. It required multiple passes of the article in question. First, the reader had to consume the description of the research itself. Next, the reader had to assess key steps in the argument. Are there hidden assumptions? Does the design of the research offer the right platform for the conclusions? Are there weaknesses in the evidence presented that are not fully addressed?

The class experience reminded me that much of my own formal learning experience did not prepare me well for my research/scholarship experience. In the structured learning I experienced, I was exposed routinely to the best work in a field. It was presented as the core truth of the field. My job, as a student, was to absorb it and commit it to memory. The next step was to begin the long process of synthesizing the knowledge with other material I was learning.

As I began my research career, the opposite mental muscles were exercised. I had to imagine knowledge that didn’t yet exist. Of course, the knowledge would be incremental to the findings of earlier work, extending and challenging those results in new ways. But it required a rereading of work, looking for omissions or incomplete evolution of evidence. In essence, I had to find what was not there.

Much of the discipline and the capacities that are required for such work is common to what we now call “experience-based learning” or “research-based learning” or “entrepreneurial experiences.” That is, the person must identify weaknesses in the existing status of the environment or in a given knowledge domain. They need the capacity to invent. The task is not informed by a predefined question; there are no answers in the back of the book. Instead, the student must intensely examine what is known and what is not known. The “what is not known” part becomes the focus of invention. Such experiences will undoubtedly be helpful to our students as they navigate their lives after they complete their degrees.

Of course, we in academia call this kind of work “research” or “scholarship.” In other fields it is called “problem solving” or “creative thinking.” Because of the devotion of academia to serve societies, the results of its research are openly reported in books and journals. In other domains, the solutions are “owned” by the author and are used as a source of personal enrichment.

Regardless of the ultimate outcome of the creative acts, they share two features. First, there is a great talent in defining the question, identifying the problem, or sensing the knowledge gap to be filled. The best question/problem/gap is the one which, when answered/solved/filled, has great impact on the world. Second, work of this nature has a very high rate of failure. When one works at the edge of human understanding, only rarely are breakthroughs experienced. So, resilience is a key attribute of a successful scholar or a scientist or an entrepreneur or an artist.

To the extent that we can expose our students to this exercise in creation, over and over again, we will enrich their lives in a permanent way.