I heard an interesting comment the other day:

“The smartest person in the room is not the one that knows the most, but the one that can ask the most interesting question”

Dr. Jeanette Fyffe

The view that we take on intelligence is formed by our experiences and by our perception of the world around us. In many ways the education system on which we build our society trains us to perceive that the smartest people are the ones that have all the answers. This idea is further enhanced by our media through TV shoes like Jeopardy, The Eggheads and QI to name a few. However in the years I have spent studying and expanding my knowledge I have found that learning something new often raises more questions than answers.

It is an interesting perspective to look back on the road I have traveled and try to pinpoint the time that I recognised what Jeanette put so eloquently into words. That as we learn and equip ourselves with knowledge true intelligence shows itself by connecting the dots and probing for more. I have known it for a while now, at least on some level I may have always known it, I have always been asking questions, (though not always the most interesting ones). To pin down the time that I recognised it consciously I would probably assign it to interactions with my masters supervisor and a German professor at La Trobe University in 2010-2011. Watching them as they approached a problem and interacted with students and other researches I learnt that often the trick to learning something about the world is to ask of it the right questions, and keep working till you find some answers.

It is a challenging thing to instill in someone the idea that they do not have to have the correct answer to be seen as intelligent, for so long students struggle to differentiate themselves from the pack by knowing more. Working now on the other side of the university system I can see that some students still want to have the correct answers all the time. When you get to a postgraduate level and are working in science to have all the answers is a waste of time… To do something unknown and to stretch the boundaries of human knowledge that is where the rewards lie.

I want to help students to become researchers, where the primary challenge is to put what you know into practice by trying to solve a problem or answer a question, but first you have to come up with that question. Teaching students to look at a project and ask what do we need to make that a reality and to troubleshoot their solutions when they don’t work is probably one of the most important skills that we can impart. It is not the failure or success that is important but like so many things in life, the journey.

I don’t know how to do it yet, but I am thinking carefully and asking myself how to be a good supervisor, to encourage and develop the people that I work with into independent thinkers. This is a journey that I myself am taking but thankfully I have some great people to bounce my ideas off and to help me find the right questions to ask.

Cheers,
Daniel