Hard versus Soft Science

Today I was covered by an umbrella of excitement to appear for the first time in the class as an international MSc. student in this international college. Our group managed to pull the hamstrings to be on time because "First impression is said to be the last impression".  

 

We had an interesting session on  Research in Science and Technology Education by an Asst. Professor Dr Khajornsak Buaraphan, PhD in Science Education.  

The Research King: Dr Asst. Professor Dr. Khajornsak Buaraphan

As the class was in its full swing, I was taken aback to unearth much pedagogical paraphernalia that easily encourages the Thais to proclaim that they are in the 21st century. 

The class was dressed with a Thai made a sound system that helped reduce Thai professors to maximize the minimal muscle pullout of their vocal cords to produce a sound of higher frequencies. A feeble murmur of words echoed the room like a visible spectrum of notes available at our disposal. A crack of unexpected laugh waves might impair the concrete university walls. Such was the quality of the product that can dance into the limelight of a global economy tagged as "made in Thailand". But I won't believe and have never seen Thais producing a higher-pitched sound. Hearing that a mammoth Thai could speak loud would be an integer next to the infinity. And Thais are in general the softest speaking social creatures on this earth. None can defeat them to beg, had there been, an Oscar Prize for the softest speaking humans on the hardest world.  

These educators are on the same road as what Malcolm Forbes asserted, "Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one". Educations have shaved their mind from the dust of ignorance, complacency and narrowness. These professors retreat near us like a friendly facilitator smiles like a wide opened cave accepting without exceptions, talks homely like we spent our togetherness for years ago and educate us with crystal clear visions with all organs of humanity in place. That was fantastically mind-blowing. Three Cheers. 

As we walked some length of road to discuss some research paradigms, one PhD student happened to ask the professor a question. 

"Ajarn, Can you explain to me the differences between Hard Science Versus Soft Science?" Ajarn in Thai means a teacher or an educator.

We laughed aloud till we lost some calories of heat in that cold room fanned with an AC. 

It was a nice mingle with those PhD students that I heard about such sciences although I claimed to be a science teacher back there in my country. It sent me an alert curfew through the canals of my brain that I was a teacher with a science body without exactly knowing its organs. What an embarrassment! I thought. 

Although the term has lesser relations with the thematic science studies because it's a jargon of research science, the word was that powerful to captivate the windows of our eardrum to hear it. 

Anyways, I learned it now and thanks to the wonderful class I had for my first MSc. Class in Mahidol University, Thailand.