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THE BEST WAY TO LEARN
Why we should teach logic in schools
K RANGA KRISHNAN
T
here is an interesting saying:
“Tell me and I forget, teach me
and I may remember, involve
me and I learn.”
Benjamin Bloom, an American
educational psychologist, and many
others in the educational field have
conceptualised the acquisition and re-
tention of knowledge as having many
domains or levels of depth.
The first domain is remembering.
In essence, it refers to retaining facts.
Unfortunately, retaining facts without
understanding them is of little value.
It also has a very limited lifespan.
The next level is comprehension or
understanding. This is shown by our
ability to express in our own words the
meaning of the information.
With understanding, we can start
to analyse, catalogue or break down
the knowledge, to judge, appraise or
evaluate the knowledge, and to relate
it to a new context, or to synthesise by
integrating it with other information.
When learning many skills in law,
medicine and other areas of study, it is
critical that we have the ability to use
knowledge. Without this ability, the
facts by themselves have limited worth.
One element that is essential in
this progression of knowledge acqui-
sition is reasoning. To reason is to in-
fer, to draw conclusions from data, in-
today • Friday 10 May 2013
Students learn Formal logic is the systematic and
more from being organised application of the principles
involved in of logic. The principles of logic are uni-
learning rather versal and apply to all fields. There are
than merely many strands of logic, with many dat-
listening to
lectures.
ing to Aristotle.
TODAY FILE PHOTO
There are two kinds of logic: deduc-
tive and inductive.
Deductive logic refers to conclu-
sions where all the premises are true,
and in which case, there can be no way
for the conclusions to be false. The fun-
damental element in deductive reason-
ing is syllogism, where a deduction is
inferred from two suppositions, each
of which has one term in common with
the conclusion. For example:
All animals are alive.
Cat is an animal.
formation or premises. The term logic Cat is alive.
is commonly used to describe codes of In medicine and in many other
good reasoning. It used to be a subject forms of science, it is difficult to use
taught in schools. But now it is rarely deductive logic. Deductive logic is
formally taught. absolutist. It offers black and white
Informal logic is sometimes de- standards, where the conclusion ei-
scribed as critical thinking. It tells us ther follows from the suppositions or
how people reason things out, figur- it does not.
ing out whether the conclusions follow Inductive logic or reasoning is not
the assumptions. absolutist or definite but provides a
quantitative range of possibilities.
While deductive reasoning is seen
as top down, from a general principle
to the specific, inductive reasoning is
bottom up.
Most medical research tends to be
of the inductive type. So does most
scientific research.
In medicine, this type of reason-
ing forms the basis of what we call
evidence-based medicine (EBM).
EBM is the use of data (evidence)
to assess risks and benefits of treat-
ments and diagnostic tests. The data
has to be then used to decide treat-
ments for a particular patient.
Application of EBM data, therefore,
depends on many factors such as the
condition of a patient, his preferences
and a number of other factors. Under-
K Ranga Krishnan standing logic helps us to learn the
is Dean of the
proper use of EBM, given its limits.
Duke-NUS
Graduate Medical Thus in medicine, as in many other
School Singapore. fields, understanding and reasoning
A clinician-scientist are essential elements for us to analyse,
and psychiatrist, he synthesise, evaluate and create knowl-
chaired the edge and apply it in a practical sense.
Department of It is not enough to know facts and
Psychiatry and knowledge. Learning to understand
Behavioural a given situation is a more important
Sciences at Duke skill than memory alone. In today’s
University Medical
world, this position is even more crit-
Centre from 1998 to
2009. ical as facts are easy to find. What
This is part of a is more important is to learn how to
weekly series on the apply knowledge.
way we learn. To Logic as a way of learning and rea-
read the first two soning is a worthwhile goal. It is a key
pieces by Prof element for innovation. At Duke-NUS,
Ranga, go to this is a critical focus. To take care
tdy.sg/comranga or of patients, physicians must be able
scan the QR code to apply knowledge in a contextual
framework, hence the importance of
involving our medical students ear-
ly in the treatment of patients. They
learn more from such experience than
merely listening to lectures.