Chile is one of his favourite countries, and particularly, the city of Concepción, considering its scale and its academic and human potential. A lover of simplifying the complex, he dedicates his life sharing the knowledge he has acquired by implementing ‘cheap science’, a way of learning and development that has taken him to accompany the training of Tibetan monks living in India.
An astronomer specialised in one only planet, this is how he presents himself. Smiling, modest and practical. The diversity of countries he visits and the science and astronomy meetings he has attended, has taught him to adapt, approaching people quickly and break barriers, because he considers that each opportunity in every single new day has a high value and a huge result: learning.
After 25 years of work, Modesto Tamez is Emeritus Professor at the Exploratorium Museum in San Francisco, California, a space open to science and exploration that relies on 650 permanent exhibitions and everything is allowed in terms of research, consulting and discussing. Visiting Concepción within the 4th Summit from the Chilean Network for the Education and Spreading of Astronomy, organised by CONICYT and the University of Concepción, we discussed education, science, development and the simplicity of the human being.
What is your opinion on making progress on developing technology, robotics or artificial intelligence in countries with high unemployment rates? How do you see the opportunity for science to open new spaces?
You might get surprised by my answer, but I am not against technology. I use it very little, because it takes money and requires training, and what I’m trying to promote is ‘stingy science’ or ‘cheap science’, where I use paperboard, available objects or what many consider waste. What I do believe is that so-called smartphones or tablets are very harmful, children are acting like robots and that is my enemy, and I must fight against it, because doing things is the best way of learning. Those devices are producing isolation, filters that separate you from reality. I use technology a lot for communicating, but not so much for teaching.
What I do is building robots, very simple, with 1-dollar small engines that are rather mechanical than electronic because, in order to understand electronics, first you need to understand basic electricity. Many are doing the leap from ‘nothing’ to computers, and there are intermediate things and phases they’re skipping, not experimenting.
Are Teaching methods like Montessori and Waldorf just more choices or should they become part of educational programs?
It’s very important to understand that we are born as people doing experiments. A kid on a chair breaking throwing dishes and spoons for 2 or 3 years is not being badly raised, he’s experimenting instead. We already know that’s generalised after 3 years, it’s necessary for survival. I seek to take students that age to experiment, because that’s the way of learning.
During the class, the students must be thinking and reflecting on what they’re doing and the teacher must be trained for guiding and motivating by ‘what’s happening?’ I published an article in an Austrian magazine that we might translate as “A man going crazy for the idea nobody has never taught anything”, and then we explain that this is not about teaching, but learning instead. Every one of us, while attending a school, we were taught nothing, we learned it ourselves.
Our educational system has experienced different modernisation processes and we are still facing huge gaps that determine a person’s future in terms of accessing some type of education or not. How should these changes happen?
I do agree with the importance and urgency you’re raising, but when a government says “We want our students to learn 90% of the subjects we’re teaching them,” that is not going to happen. Both teachers and institutions should be more modest on expectations. If there’s a 10% in mobility, that’s not little, it’s a lot. In Chile there’s a universe of 2 to 3% of scientists. If it’s 3 to 4% it’s one more third, and that’s huge. Don’t expect it to go from 3 to 10, that’s foolish. It’s very important to progress from the base, because that sustains the rest.
“With Tibetan monks the transfer of knowledge and experience is mutual, and they permanently seek learning.”
Learning with Tibetan monks
Modesto Tamez was a science teacher for students from Kindergarten to 12th grade, in both English and Spanish, and after taking a specialisation in Geology, he began teaching for undergraduate and postgraduate students. Today, at age 71 and 2 years after retiring, he travels across different countries in the world, knowing history, science and experiences from native people and modern societies, he implements ‘non-cost laboratories’ through ‘cheap science’, and takes part in learning and training for Tibetan monks currently residing in India.
He stops in order to detail every stage of his life, where he illustrates with modest examples the need of experimenting in order to make progress in knowledge and development. Starting with his childish curiosity, he dedicated to ‘learning by doing’ in every single new professional challenge. That’s how he got to the Exploratorium, where he met “University professors with large amounts of content and school teachers with huge pedagogy. So we sealed a very good ‘marriage’ between both parts, doing it for 25 years. Since then we started being known and invited to different places and countries. That’s how I arrived in Concepción for the first time, and also Turkey, Costa Rica, Europe and India.”
It might seem curious that, from the West, we are teaching something to the East in terms of studies they have been developing for thousands of years, how was getting to share your experiences with Tibetan monks?
One of my friends, a physicist who is member from the Exploratorium, always showed interest in the Dalai Lama. So, he found him, knocked on his door, and could transmit him our intention in how to learn more, how to cooperate with each other. The Dalai Lama knew our proposal and, as he considered the Exploratorium a good place, we began a work in which 8 members of our team have travelled to work with them.
It has been a very cute and interesting work, because we found lots of craving for knowledge. When we started our work, they asked the Dalai Lama what he wanted or expected for his monks to learn from us, my colleagues. “We want to talk about higher physics, astronomy and perception,” they answered. Well, we said, if you are into 15th century’s science, would it be better to start with Galileo instead of Einstein?
We might imagine it has become permanent to share experiences…
That’s it. Another important thing is that we never insult each other or say that someone is wrong. They teach us their way to be and they’re amazing. It has been a very lovely relationship, in fact the Dalai Lama says: “We are people of philosophy and religion. If you want to know something about science, then ask a scientist.” This doesn’t happen in most religions.
Monks are adults at body but 9 year old children at spirit. They’re different by having a sense of love that fascinates me, focusing on studying the sciences they know, the ancient ones, 500 or more years old. For example, the physics of colour is difficult to study for someone who has never seen this matter. For us as scientists, if the eye’s sensor doesn’t have anything, so black is the lack of colours, but they say “no, black is a colour” and we had very lovely discussions, as senses are very important for them, and that’s where it emerges a lot we can start talking about, despite not reaching consensus sometimes, but they are very gratifying experiences and discussions.
We have the impression they are very wise men…
They’re human and they work hard to memorise their mantras, but they’re very human. The sweetest thing is they accept very much, even more than we do. The transfer of knowledge and experience is mutual, and they permanently seek learning. For example, we ask ‘who has any doubt?’ And they all raise their hand. They always want to learn more. Let’s consider they spend 13 hours a day to practice their mantras. 5 to 6 hours with us is nothing.
Now, the main point of this whole experience is that this is a cultural encounter, where we arrived with a burden that makes us behave a different way or make some type of decision, before their way of living which is indifferent to material things.
The other interesting thing is they are very close physically. Everyone has a wall, Latin Americans have less walls than North Americans, and those have less walls than the Japanese, as an example; but when the monks talk to you face-to-face, they hug you and you realise they’re feeling good. When that happens, you know you can get closer, you’ve trespassed the limit and the walls have vanished.