(More on Andrell, Nae, Hirome, and
Charmaine downstairs). Have you ever seen a real ghost? Seriously, no
kidding. If you haven’t seen a Tarahumara runner, then you haven’t seen
any real ghost. You’ll see ghosts only when the Tarahumaras wish to
reveal themselves. Silly you if you’re now looking around or behind you;
the Tarahumaras live only in the treacherous and unforgiving Copper
Canyons of Mexico. The Tarahumara (read: Tara-oo-mara) runners are known
in the community of marathoners as the best--literally the best--runners
in the world. We don’t know the Tarahumaras because, like I said, they
are a ghost, an historically ultra-shy phantom. But they could be
defined by saying, A triangle is to three angles as a Tarahumara Indian
is to running. Tarahumara runners are known to be capable of covering
long distances that are equivalent to multiple marathons (i.e., hundreds
of kilometers). (The UP academic oval is only 2.2 kilometers.) Some
Tarahumaras are known to have even run nonstop for more than two days.
Are they superathletes then? Silly you. Of course, they are. But were
they born runners? For this question, if you answered “yes,” again,
silly you. Of course, no one was born a runner. To say that is an
exaggeration, one that’s fit only for titling a book. Obviously, unlike
horses, the Tarahumaras, just like any humans, were born with weak legs.
So here’s the point, even the Tarahumara runners, who are known for
their demonic endurance and ferocious legs, are built—rather than
gifted—by their own cultural and environmental circumstances.
And just as no human was born a runner, no pre-service education major was born a researcher. The latter is quite obvious, all right. I want to write about the place of research and, inevitably, publication, too, in the pre-service program of the UP College of Education as, aside from turning out professors of future schoolteachers, one of the things that should separate the UP Educ from other teacher education institutions (TEIs) in the country is its ability to turn out high-caliber researchers. This, understandably, could not be accomplished within the span of four years of training and education at the undergraduate school, but UP Educ students should be introduced to research and publication as a way of life of those who enter and graduate from the College. Ok, this will sound like I’m already very old but I assure you that I age very slowly and, perhaps, if you’re some kind of a marathoner in the department of aging, you’ll be able to catch up with me in no time. Ok, here it is: Since I started teaching in UP Educ, I’d hear one chancellor or UP president after another doubting the validity
of continued existence of the undergraduate program of the College. Sadly, we barely let out a squeak to justify why it should go on living. The only high-ranking UP official that I had personally heard saying he wanted—and I believe him—to keep the educ undergrad program was former UP president Fidel Nemenzo. But after his term, I’d hear from our former college officials that UP administrators tend to ask why the educ undergrad program should be kept when there are other TEIs that could accommodate those who want to pursue a career in teaching after high school. First, our own pre-service education students remain significantly better prepared to teach than their counterparts in any TEI. No slight intended to the faculty and educ students of other TEIs. I'm just stating a fact. Second, unlike other TEIs in the country, the business of UP Educ undergrad program does not end in the mere production of effective schoolteachers as school teaching is just a means to our higher end. UP Educ trains its undergraduate students with the vision that they will become educational leaders or professors of future schoolteachers someday. And third, unlike other TEIs, the UP undergrad school of education is also a school of research and publication for the future professors of schoolteachers.
Today I’d like to focus on the production of researchers at the undergrad level. Doing so is comparable to the making of ultra-runners in the deepest regions of the deadly Copper Canyon. I opened this post with a brief talk about the awe-inspiring Tarahumara runners. I can’t help it because just like the Tarahumara runner, an ultra-educational researcher can’t just appear in the scene without having been made. But the question is, How should researchers be made? I’ll respond to this problem not as an expert in research, but as someone using his reason and commonsense.
In the Tarahumara culture, the making of the ultra-runner begins at a very young age. The Tarahumara children also play the game called "rarajipari," a Tarahumara sport played by men. The women’s version of rarajipari is called "dowerami." Both events require the players to run hard, but it's the adult male Tarahumaras that cover a longer distance of around 150 miles on a rugged terrain, where each member of their competing teams would take turn dribbling a baseball-sized wooden ball all throughout the race. When the Tarahumara children play rarajipari, they are preparing themselves for some serious running in the adult stages of their life. Since rarajipari is just a game, even if by childen's standard it's as exhausting as the more serious Tarahumara business of hunting-by-running-till-the-prey-drops-from-exhaustion, the little ones and the adults enjoy this part of their culture.
Research in education is like a marathon or long-distance running. Without training, relevant experience, or appropriate preparation, one can expect failures, errors, or frustrations in research, which is often a protracted activity. One, for instance, may later realize before reaching the finish line that his/her research instrument or the whole of his/her methodology is defective. Worse, one finds that he/she has nothing to offer but sheer journalistic information, something that everyone already knows. Nevertheless, if research training at the undergrad level must succeed in the long run, the conduct of which should be nothing like a ridiculously narrow-minded and obsessive pursuit of the so-called truths in the realm of education. For this is not fun. And anything that is not fun is often avoided by the students. Mistakes and failures in research thus should be regarded as a natural part of the educ undergrad school’s academic rarajipari. I'm not saying that we just laugh off all sorts of mistakes. But undergrad research should be done the way rarajipari is played by the Tarahumara children. It's highly relevant to what many of them will do in the future yet it's fun. Take note, even the Tarahumara adult runners initially failed, owing to their lack of proper knowledge, when they were first brought to the Unites States to compete at the Leadville 100-mile run in Colorado. The failure of the Tarahumara to win at the Leadville marathon was attributed to their lack of familiarity with the race course and equipment. At night, they held their flashlights as though they were carrying torches. At the aid stations their natural shyness had rendered them weak and nearly helpless. They were too shy to ask for food and drinks. Dehydrated and unable to keep up with the well-nourished marathoners, they had had their first taste of defeat.
At the Hong Kong International Conference in Education, Psychology, and Sciences (HKICEPS), our first Leadville academic marathon, I’d say that I was scared to death for some of my former EDFD 120 students, whom I tasked to lead the presentation of our research outputs. But they had played their rarajipari well in October 2013, two months before attending the HKICEPS, our first Leadville academic marathon. Thanks to Dr. Mariciris Acido for opening the doors of the graduate students’ conference to my EDFD 120 students. Thanks, too, to the DELPS faculty for accommodating my students, free of charge, as research paper presenters at the National Conference for Research and Teaching in Education. In both events, there probably was a lot of pressure but no one passed out due to emotional or mental exhaustion. In both events, my EDFD 120 students were given the opportunity to present their initial findings--without any teacher taking the limelight from them--before finally concluding their respective studies.
At the HKICEPS, Nae Ayson was the first one to stand among us. She led the presentation of our research output. Her whole family was right behind us during the entire presentation. I was hardly breathing while I was synchronizing the slide presentation with what Nae was saying. I must admit I was irrationally nervous until Nae had concluded the presentation of our work. Then I found myself wondering why I should be scared when Nae knows so well her way around our work. Silly me. Then there was Hiromi Urabe, Andrell Guiseppe Flores and Charmaine Go doing the presentation of our research output via poster presentation. The poster was the research output of around 11 people whose names I shall insert here later. I didn’t actually tell Charmaine, Andrell and Hirome that the poster presentation scares me more than the oral presentation because our work was out there, on display, naked, all throughout the day for everyone to see and scrutinize line by line. Those who are curious about our study had all the time in the world to formulate the most devastating questions, if any, about our work. But it seems that we are now out of the woods. Then, it was Andrell’s turn to lead the presentation of our research output in the afternoon. Andrell, too, has just got the kind of panache UP scholars are known for when presenting a well-done work. All things considered, it was a perfect day for all of us. I was the last one to present a paper, my own paper. My students then, I believe, had already left the conference site for more pleasurable pursuits. After all, they were in HK and not in the Copper Canyons.
Nae is now back to the Philippines. Andrell is still enjoying the abnormally chilly weather in Hong Kong at this writing. I think Charmaine and Hirome are also still vacationing in Hong Kong. Me, I ate all the noodles--about 10 miles long--that I could eat there before heading with my family back to the Philippines. Perhaps, my ultra-eating in HK is the reason why I suddenly spotted a significant overlap between the making of the lean runners of the Copper Canyon and the production of academic Tarahumaras in our institution.
It’s been fun running side by side with young ultra-academic marathoners in the making. The good thing about this exercise is that we are all just getting warmed up. And, mind you, more young academic Tarahumaras shall be joining the pack sometime next year. I just hope, I will still be around to run with the rest when it’s their turn to show what we got in our research. Because I think the next scenes will be in the US, Canada, and other parts of the world, places where my students said last sem they want to go and read their papers. Truly, it’s fun and I want to run with ultra-academic Turamaharas in the making. But OMG, where will I draw for my airfare, after my first and, probably my last, trip abroad next year? I hope I could find a pair of flying "huaraches," the Turamahara running sandals made from used tire and leather straps. Hahaha!
I know, I know. You've just done a marathon reading. Hahaha!
And just as no human was born a runner, no pre-service education major was born a researcher. The latter is quite obvious, all right. I want to write about the place of research and, inevitably, publication, too, in the pre-service program of the UP College of Education as, aside from turning out professors of future schoolteachers, one of the things that should separate the UP Educ from other teacher education institutions (TEIs) in the country is its ability to turn out high-caliber researchers. This, understandably, could not be accomplished within the span of four years of training and education at the undergraduate school, but UP Educ students should be introduced to research and publication as a way of life of those who enter and graduate from the College. Ok, this will sound like I’m already very old but I assure you that I age very slowly and, perhaps, if you’re some kind of a marathoner in the department of aging, you’ll be able to catch up with me in no time. Ok, here it is: Since I started teaching in UP Educ, I’d hear one chancellor or UP president after another doubting the validity
of continued existence of the undergraduate program of the College. Sadly, we barely let out a squeak to justify why it should go on living. The only high-ranking UP official that I had personally heard saying he wanted—and I believe him—to keep the educ undergrad program was former UP president Fidel Nemenzo. But after his term, I’d hear from our former college officials that UP administrators tend to ask why the educ undergrad program should be kept when there are other TEIs that could accommodate those who want to pursue a career in teaching after high school. First, our own pre-service education students remain significantly better prepared to teach than their counterparts in any TEI. No slight intended to the faculty and educ students of other TEIs. I'm just stating a fact. Second, unlike other TEIs in the country, the business of UP Educ undergrad program does not end in the mere production of effective schoolteachers as school teaching is just a means to our higher end. UP Educ trains its undergraduate students with the vision that they will become educational leaders or professors of future schoolteachers someday. And third, unlike other TEIs, the UP undergrad school of education is also a school of research and publication for the future professors of schoolteachers.
Today I’d like to focus on the production of researchers at the undergrad level. Doing so is comparable to the making of ultra-runners in the deepest regions of the deadly Copper Canyon. I opened this post with a brief talk about the awe-inspiring Tarahumara runners. I can’t help it because just like the Tarahumara runner, an ultra-educational researcher can’t just appear in the scene without having been made. But the question is, How should researchers be made? I’ll respond to this problem not as an expert in research, but as someone using his reason and commonsense.
In the Tarahumara culture, the making of the ultra-runner begins at a very young age. The Tarahumara children also play the game called "rarajipari," a Tarahumara sport played by men. The women’s version of rarajipari is called "dowerami." Both events require the players to run hard, but it's the adult male Tarahumaras that cover a longer distance of around 150 miles on a rugged terrain, where each member of their competing teams would take turn dribbling a baseball-sized wooden ball all throughout the race. When the Tarahumara children play rarajipari, they are preparing themselves for some serious running in the adult stages of their life. Since rarajipari is just a game, even if by childen's standard it's as exhausting as the more serious Tarahumara business of hunting-by-running-till-the-prey-drops-from-exhaustion, the little ones and the adults enjoy this part of their culture.
Research in education is like a marathon or long-distance running. Without training, relevant experience, or appropriate preparation, one can expect failures, errors, or frustrations in research, which is often a protracted activity. One, for instance, may later realize before reaching the finish line that his/her research instrument or the whole of his/her methodology is defective. Worse, one finds that he/she has nothing to offer but sheer journalistic information, something that everyone already knows. Nevertheless, if research training at the undergrad level must succeed in the long run, the conduct of which should be nothing like a ridiculously narrow-minded and obsessive pursuit of the so-called truths in the realm of education. For this is not fun. And anything that is not fun is often avoided by the students. Mistakes and failures in research thus should be regarded as a natural part of the educ undergrad school’s academic rarajipari. I'm not saying that we just laugh off all sorts of mistakes. But undergrad research should be done the way rarajipari is played by the Tarahumara children. It's highly relevant to what many of them will do in the future yet it's fun. Take note, even the Tarahumara adult runners initially failed, owing to their lack of proper knowledge, when they were first brought to the Unites States to compete at the Leadville 100-mile run in Colorado. The failure of the Tarahumara to win at the Leadville marathon was attributed to their lack of familiarity with the race course and equipment. At night, they held their flashlights as though they were carrying torches. At the aid stations their natural shyness had rendered them weak and nearly helpless. They were too shy to ask for food and drinks. Dehydrated and unable to keep up with the well-nourished marathoners, they had had their first taste of defeat.
At the Hong Kong International Conference in Education, Psychology, and Sciences (HKICEPS), our first Leadville academic marathon, I’d say that I was scared to death for some of my former EDFD 120 students, whom I tasked to lead the presentation of our research outputs. But they had played their rarajipari well in October 2013, two months before attending the HKICEPS, our first Leadville academic marathon. Thanks to Dr. Mariciris Acido for opening the doors of the graduate students’ conference to my EDFD 120 students. Thanks, too, to the DELPS faculty for accommodating my students, free of charge, as research paper presenters at the National Conference for Research and Teaching in Education. In both events, there probably was a lot of pressure but no one passed out due to emotional or mental exhaustion. In both events, my EDFD 120 students were given the opportunity to present their initial findings--without any teacher taking the limelight from them--before finally concluding their respective studies.
At the HKICEPS, Nae Ayson was the first one to stand among us. She led the presentation of our research output. Her whole family was right behind us during the entire presentation. I was hardly breathing while I was synchronizing the slide presentation with what Nae was saying. I must admit I was irrationally nervous until Nae had concluded the presentation of our work. Then I found myself wondering why I should be scared when Nae knows so well her way around our work. Silly me. Then there was Hiromi Urabe, Andrell Guiseppe Flores and Charmaine Go doing the presentation of our research output via poster presentation. The poster was the research output of around 11 people whose names I shall insert here later. I didn’t actually tell Charmaine, Andrell and Hirome that the poster presentation scares me more than the oral presentation because our work was out there, on display, naked, all throughout the day for everyone to see and scrutinize line by line. Those who are curious about our study had all the time in the world to formulate the most devastating questions, if any, about our work. But it seems that we are now out of the woods. Then, it was Andrell’s turn to lead the presentation of our research output in the afternoon. Andrell, too, has just got the kind of panache UP scholars are known for when presenting a well-done work. All things considered, it was a perfect day for all of us. I was the last one to present a paper, my own paper. My students then, I believe, had already left the conference site for more pleasurable pursuits. After all, they were in HK and not in the Copper Canyons.
Nae is now back to the Philippines. Andrell is still enjoying the abnormally chilly weather in Hong Kong at this writing. I think Charmaine and Hirome are also still vacationing in Hong Kong. Me, I ate all the noodles--about 10 miles long--that I could eat there before heading with my family back to the Philippines. Perhaps, my ultra-eating in HK is the reason why I suddenly spotted a significant overlap between the making of the lean runners of the Copper Canyon and the production of academic Tarahumaras in our institution.
It’s been fun running side by side with young ultra-academic marathoners in the making. The good thing about this exercise is that we are all just getting warmed up. And, mind you, more young academic Tarahumaras shall be joining the pack sometime next year. I just hope, I will still be around to run with the rest when it’s their turn to show what we got in our research. Because I think the next scenes will be in the US, Canada, and other parts of the world, places where my students said last sem they want to go and read their papers. Truly, it’s fun and I want to run with ultra-academic Turamaharas in the making. But OMG, where will I draw for my airfare, after my first and, probably my last, trip abroad next year? I hope I could find a pair of flying "huaraches," the Turamahara running sandals made from used tire and leather straps. Hahaha!
I know, I know. You've just done a marathon reading. Hahaha!
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