The Pale Blue Dot and Why I Teach

There are two great minds who have inspire me greatly, one of whom you would have met in my exposition in the "Teaching Philosophy" section. The first is Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize-winning physicist and one of the greatest educators of science in the 20th century, a man whose insatiable curiosity and wonderment of the reality never ceases to remind me why I love Physics so much and how beautiful the world is if we simply let our curiosity guide us. 

The other great mind is scientist and writer Carl Sagan. Sagan was not only a brilliant astronomer but a man who could translate the beauty of the Cosmos into words: words that not only flow beautifully when heard and read, but inspire a sense of duty within each and every one of us to explore and learn. His words instill within us the sense of duty to protect our Planet, the only home we know and to preserve our existence. 

These sentiments were captured beautifully in a reflective monologue titled the Pale Blue Dot (you can listen to the audio recording here), a piece inspired by a photo of Earth from the vicinity of the planet Saturn, taken by the Voyager probe. From that distance, Earth is nothing but an insignificant pale blue dot in the darkness of the universe, showing how small we actually are in the grand scheme of things. 

See that tiny little bright pixel on the centre right, a little speck floating in a sunbeam. That's Earth from 6 billions kilometres away. That's you, me and everything that we know, all on a tiny pixel in a photo. That same picture, zoomed in, is the picture I have used for the header of this website. I circled the Pale Blue Dot, and labelled it with the exact words that Sagan used to describe that speck, "That's here, that's home, that's us..." 

So, how does the Pale Blue Dot monologue influence my principles and ideas about teaching? Why does it occupy so central a role in my philosophy?

Here's a quote from the reflection:

"Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark"

For one, I believe, we as educators, not only teach concepts and hard facts, we also teach perspectives. The reason Sagan chose to show us this photo of a pale blue dot is to tell us that we, as humans, are not special. More often than not, we get pre-occupied with the small things, the jealousy, the conceit and the pride of our everyday achievements. We bask in our own glory when we beat someone else in a competition, but take a step back and consider, is that really all that matters to us?

This is an important lesson in humility, that even though I can feel content and comfortable that I have achieved and learnt all there is to be learnt about a particular subject, there is always more that can be done, more to see, more to do, more to explore. After all, my achievements amount to nothing more than a small triumph on a small corner of a small dot in space. I must remember that there are boundless possibilities beyond what I have just succeeded at, and thus, a great reminder that there is more out there to learn and do.

How does it matter to the way I teach? It comes down to demonstrating the motivation to explore. Both Sagan and Feynman teach not only the facts, but brings out the awe in their audience to further discover and further improve our understanding. The concepts and formulae and facts I teach are not ends in themselves, nor are they means to a short-term end (read: exams). They are just stepping stones to inspire and expedite further exploration into understanding reality and the discover the intricacies of the subject they are learning. It boils down to showing just a sneak preview of how much there is to learn, and if that little teaser is delivered beautifully enough and is sufficiently awe-inspiring, the motivation to learn will come from within the learner. That I find is my ultimate goal for my role as an educator.