From UPLIFT to Societal Metamorphosis (original) (raw)
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Cultural Studies of Science Education, 2009
I describe how Joe Kincheloe experienced learning from a peer during his pre-school life only to see how his friend was unable to succeed at school. Joe’s commitment to empowered cognition was grounded first, by his friend, Larry’s mentorship—teaching him the environmental nuances of the mountains in rural Tennessee, and secondly, the contradiction of schooling being unable to afford learning for Larry. This article discusses how Kincheloe became a scholar, the salience of Einstein’s work with his own, and the evolution of his research and scholarship. Examples of Kincheloe’s work addressed are: postformalism, bricolage, critical theory, and alternative knowledges, and how this work has contributed to science education.
Celebrating science education from people for people: a tribute to Wolff-Michael Roth
Cultural Studies of Science Education, 2010
I (Giuliano) remember being in a room full of scientists and educators who were collaborating together in a million-dollar interdisciplinary project. Michael-as he repeatedly told us to call him )-had invited a few of his graduate students to attend the meeting because we were involved with the data collection and dissemination of the results. At one point during the conversation, a climatologist asked Michael to explain the meaning of a word (i.e., ethnography) he kept using to describe his research. While those of us doing educational research are not foreigners to the term, especially after having had a chance to know Michael's work , it was an unlikely lexicon in the professional jargon of other disciplines let alone climatology! For a split second, I felt as if the question had been directed to me and immediately I started thinking about possible ways to explain what
Nurturing the scientific mind in school: Transdisciplinary experiences avant la date
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Learning Development Institute It is now more than 40 years ago that I received my training as a theoretical physicist and, on the side of it, ventured out in becoming an educator as well. While preparing to become a physicist, I needed to support myself financially and found an opportunity to do so by teaching physics classes, on a part-time basis, to senior grade students at the local Gymnasium in the Dutch city of Delft, where I also studied. It generated a modest income and, more importantly, allowed me to acquire experience in an area I had thitherto been unfamiliar with. I never regretted that economic needs drove me to familiarize myself with the world of learning and instruction. Some of my best-and some of my worst-experiences are grounded in that world. They have provided depth to my thinking about what really matters in creating the conditions for human growth. Structured and planned intervention into helping other people grow presents fascinating challenges to those who find themselves in the role of facilitator or coach of learning human beings. Sensible people, who end up in that position, will immediately recognize that helping someone learn implies dealing with another human being, the whole person, body and soul, rather than with some specific functional part of that person, such as the brain, or a particular subject area, a discipline like physics, mathematics, or history. Surprisingly, that rather obvious notion does not transpire from the average school curriculum. Only in rare cases does one find schools whose day-today practice is based on the recognition that real people live in them. While working in imperfect circumstances, I was fortunate enough that, on several occasions, I had the opportunity to divert from teaching to the set curriculum without putting the fate of my students at risk. Whenever such circumstances occurred, I always eagerly pursued the opportunity. The cases in which this happened invariably had
Connecting science education to a world in crisis
Asia-Pacific Science Education, 2015
Even though humanity faces grand challenges, including climate change, sustainability of the planet and its resources, and well-being of humans and other species, for the past 60 years science educators have been preoccupied with much the same priorities. Adherence to the tenets of crypto-positivism creates problems for research in the social sciences (e.g., over reliance on statistical analyses leads to oversimplified models that strip away context and are reductive). Hypotheses and associated statistical tests support causal models that rarely predict social conduct or blaze pathways for meaningful transformation. In contrast to the mainstream of research in science education, I advocate a multilogical methodology that embraces incommensurability, polysemia, subjectivity, and polyphonia as a means of preserving the integrity and potential of knowledge systems to generate and maintain disparate perspectives, outcomes, and implications for practice. In such a multilogical model, power discourses such as Western medicine carry no greater weight than complementary knowledge systems that may have been marginalized in a social world in which monosemia is dominant. I describe research methodologies that have the potential to transform science education and our ongoing research in urban science education. I show how our research evolved to include studies of science for literate citizenryexpanding foci to address birth through death and all settings in which learning occursnot just schools. Our research aims to be transformative since it includes interventions developed to use what we learned from research to ameliorate intense emotions, improve learning, and enhance the well-being of participants. I explain how we incorporated Jin Shin Jyutsu, a complementary medical knowledge system, to ameliorate intense emotions, become mindful, and improve well-being of participants. I also address research on meditation and mindfulness and their potential to improve learning, emotional styles, and wellness. In a final section I address three of the most important questions raised by colleagues, including scholars from Asia, as I exhort science educators to address grand challenges that threaten the Earth and its social institutionsthe alternatives are catastrophic.
Developing a Deeper Involvement with Science: Keith's Story
2006
Abstract Much research in science education has focused on the conflicts that exist between individuals' ways of knowing the world and science. We have been left without an image of the compatibility or congruency that is necessary for science to occupy a fundamental position in a person's life. In this study we argue that Keith, a Jamaican American pre-service teacher, provides us with such an image.