Chaos in the Classroom Chapter15: Back to the Source (original) (raw)
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Chaos in the Classroom Chapter 14: A Fragment of a Fractal Essay on Chaos in Language
This essay is intended as an appendage or fractal to my essay " Chaos in the Classroom ". In that essay, I try to explain why there is more disorder and chaos in English language teaching than is dreamed of in current or past theories of language, and that these qualities are the point of teaching which should turn its back on the orderliness of what we have thought up to now about language teaching. Because I tried to condense or compress so much into that essay, I have the feeling that the lines or currents I wanted to follow in our study of language have yet to be described, let alone explained. This essay is an attempt to make such descriptions and explanations. I deliberately forget the theories and ideas of the past, not because they are totally wrong, but because they prevent me thinking about what I want to think about.
This is the first of three volumes on research methodology. It deals with theoretical issues, while the second volume works from close readings of fiction, plays, and poems, and the third volume synthesises the findings. I apologize in advance for the typographical mistakes. I do not want to start revising the text...at least not yet...until I have everything written at least in draft. The immediacy of the writing is part of the research methodology I am developing.
But tho' education be disclaim'd by philosophy, as a fallacious ground of assent to any opinion, it prevails nevertheless in the world, and is the cause why all systems are apt to be rejected at first as new and unusual. (Hume: I: III: X) Ideas found in Chaos Theory already exist in Buddhist and Taoist cultures. These deep ideas are actually some of the most powerful initial conditions in the minds of the students and teachers here in Asia. While such ways of thinking may not be easily accepted by teachers who have too much dependence on Western models of teaching and learning , or who come to teaching with a predetermined idea that teaching is what they think of as a science, the teacher in Asia may sense that much of what is offered in these Western models is flawed insofar as these models assume initial conditions that don't exist in Asia. If Chaos Theory holds any water, then we should be careful not to ignore the power of our sensitive dependence on initial conditions in any system we try to implement. If the initial conditions are different in Asia, then the results of any system that develops in those conditions will also be different here when compared to results obtained in the West. As the ideas of Chaos Theory are already being accepted by scientists in Asia and in the West, there is a possibility that by using such a model in our English Language Teaching (ELT), we can develop, at last, a sound scientific or knowledge-based framework for our thinking and practices which recognizes the contributions of ideas from Asia and sets them in the context of a more truly liberal arts model of education.
Chaos in the Classroom and the Ecology of English Language Teaching
But tho' education be disclaim'd by philosophy, as a fallacious ground of assent to any opinion, it prevails nevertheless in the world, and is the cause why all systems are apt to be rejected at first as new and unusual. (Hume: I: III: X) Ideas found in Chaos Theory already exist in Buddhist and Taoist cultures. These deep ideas are actually some of the most powerful initial conditions in the minds of the students and teachers here in Asia. While such ways of thinking may not be easily accepted by teachers who have too much dependence on Western models of teaching and learning , or who come to teaching with a predetermined idea that teaching is what they think of as a science, the teacher in Asia may sense that much of what is offered in these Western models is flawed insofar as these models assume initial conditions that don't exist in Asia. If Chaos Theory holds any water, then we should be careful not to ignore the power of our sensitive dependence on initial conditions in any system we try to implement. If the initial conditions are different in Asia, then the results of any system that develops in those conditions will also be different here when compared to results obtained in the West. As the ideas of Chaos Theory are already being accepted by scientists in Asia and in the West, there is a possibility that by using such a model in our English Language Teaching (ELT), we can develop, at last, a sound scientific or knowledge-based framework for our thinking and practices which recognizes the contributions of ideas from Asia and sets them in the context of a more truly liberal arts model of education.
The Coming Demise of the Human Race
This paper is a follow-on to my paper entitled " A New Look at Evolution ". In the second part of that paper I propose that humankind will eventually create a conscious machine and that, from that point, the human race must decline until it is extinct.