A different ballgame

Basketball to Filipinos is like football (soccer) to Brazilians. We just love the game. So much so that if one goes around the Philippines, you’ll find basketball courts in villages everywhere, even in the middle of the streets (the two rings are on either side of the street). Not to mention a lot of the work offices, both private and government. And, everyone watches.

As such, I thought it would be a good idea to have one of the basketball teams of the hacienda carry the name ‘Maral’ (the local name for the leopard cat). After all, everyone comes to the game, even people from other haciendas. This annual basketball league games start from the second week of November and lasts until before Christmas; quite a bit of exposure for the leopard cat, and an unconventional one at that.

So I went to my first game earlier today. The team’s jerseys were just hot off the tailoring shop, and I was eager to see how they’d fare. More importantly, I was anxious to see how the audience will receive them. This is already their second game, and they had changed their name from ‘Wildcats’ to ‘Maral’.

The game has already started by the time we got there. My team is on its element. And the people were cheering: "Maral! Maral!" I was fervently hoping that subconsciously, their cheers for the cat that frequents their cane fields will penetrate them, and that consciously, they will be our allies in conservation.

“…We will understand only what we are taught.”

It was our trial run: Ara-al Elementary School. Having experienced doing a full-on lecture with elementary students, I begged off this time. I wanted to do something that is easily digested, informative, fun, and something that will get them to think. We succeeded with the story-telling and the modified 20 Questions.

However, there is one huge frustration, and I noticed this when I played Frans Lanting’s 2005 TED talk to pass time while one class goes out and another comes in. The children, in all levels, readily identified the large African mammals. I thought, I wonder how they’d do with Philippine wildlife? I already had a hunch they won’t do as well as they did with the African fauna, and I was proven right when I flashed a leopard cat photo and the class roared, “Tiger!”

I would’ve thought that these children, who are growing up in an area teeming with native wildlife, would know them. City kids don’t fare well with native wildlife because TV exposed them to exotic fauna, and having grown up in the city, is limited to pets and commensal species. But apparently, these rural kids are about the same.

My frustration is two-pronged. One is with their teachers, who it turns out, teach their kids exactly what they know and were able to identify (i.e. exotic megafauna). And the second, and more important one, is with myself and colleagues in the conservation sciences. And the first is actually very much connected to the second.

How many of us scientists will admit that we lack the ability to communicate ourselves to those we call the general public? Even more so, how many of us will admit that we cannot teach?

Having read quite a few papers, scientific publication isn’t really very digestible. And I’d probably get shot for saying this, but it is boring, and frigid. Boring and frigid to those who do not belong in that field. I’ve spent about six years in two universities, and I’ve had numerous professors, most of them scientists. Almost all of them shine in their respective fields, and are well-respected by colleagues. But only a handful can actually reach out to their students; communicate with them (as opposed to ‘TO them’); and impart themselves to their students.

My thoughts? For those who can teach, teach. For most of us who can’t, inform those who teach.