“Education is not only about conveying information – as information is readily available to nearly everyone today – but about guiding thoughts and encouraging reflection. In fact, education is mostly about creating a context for motivation. It is about why we should learn, not only what we should learn,” said Professor Mike Bruton.
Addressing the Rhodes University Faculty of Science graduation ceremony on Thursday (12 April), Prof Bruton said science lives in the domain of the mind. He maintains that progress in science is driven largely by individual curiosity but also by the innately restless personality of scientists who are ill at ease with the status quo.
“The goal of science is to develop a better understanding of the natural world, not only by individual scientists or by an educated elite, but by society as a whole. Based on this definition, research is an important early link in the chain, but not the only link. Science journalism and formal and informal science education, and related fields, are equally important links in the broader scheme,” he added.
After leaving the tertiary education sector, Prof Bruton has been involved primarily in informal science education, in the interrelated worlds of the aquarium, museum and interactive science centre.
He has made a huge contribution to the popularisation of the public understanding of science and has increased access to high quality demonstrations of a scientific nature through the development of various science centres.
“These are educational institutions that place themselves close to the heart beat of a fast-changing environmental and technological world. They are places where scientific and technological advances are understood in their appropriate contexts, and where the construction of meaning takes place,” said Prof Bruton.
“Furthermore, they have a point of view about the value of science and the limitations of technology. This is a point of view that favours ideas that make sense, one that challenges us to rethink the ways in which we normally conduct ourselves, and encourages us to lead caring, sustainable lives.”
Prof Bruton has learned one important lesson in the science centre world, that it is wrong to ‘dumb down’ science. “Likewise, in research, it is wrong to avoid questions whose answers are difficult to quantify.”
Prof Bruton urged the science graduates to stay hungry for new ideas, to acknowledge the multi-cultural roots of science, to take delight in communicating graduates excitement in science to the broader public, and to live a story worth telling.
He challenged the graduates to be important agents of change in modern society and to grasp the opportunity with both hands.
Rhodes University conferred Doctor of Science (DSc) on Prof Bruton today (12 April).
The honorary doctorate recognises an excellent South African scientist who has devoted a great deal of his working life to increasing public understanding of science; to increasing access to science; and to increasing the public awareness of the roles played scientists in Africa and the Islamic world to the advancement of knowledge.