Day 11: All The World is a Stage and the Final Act

Thea:  It is definitely an-other way of being.

Cy:  It's not appropriating.

Thea:  It's almost like...it's meeting at a common place.  

Cy:  Yeah, it's like the space in between.

Ida:  It's not one or the other, it's both. 

Oberg, Blades, Thom-Untying a Dreamcatcher

We begin our final class by sharing the stories of our own academic creations (our papers) and finish with a little theater.  It is a nice way to wrap up my first course here in Canada.  For me the theme of today was an exploration of culture in the context of human activities.  Specifically we use the case for incorporating aboriginal cultural perspectives within the sciences at the University.  It quickly morphs into a larger metaphor for increasing cultural awareness and diversity within the curriculum we teach and learn within but for the moment I want to focus on aboriginal education and culture (in the United States we refer to it as Native American studies and culture). 

At this point in time I feel I can only superficially address First Nations' issues here in Canada. From your article I can see that many of the experiences and oppression aboriginal peoples felt here in Canada were the same as those in the United States.  Prior to conquest, Howard Zinn argues in his famous text The People's History of the United States that Native Americans (or First Nations) had a relationship with nature that was one of the most beautiful ones in the entire history of humanity.   He then traces how European colonists systematically destroyed many of these cultural foundations over 500 through more than years of physical and cultural genocide.  

In his wonderful history on the education of dominated cultures, Joel Springs writes about how the educational systems of Native Americans were designed to sever cultural ties and prepare them for work within the growing factories of the dominant cultures.  He goes on to say that African Americans had the right to vote before many tribes had the right to teach their own children.  Both are obviously horrible examples of oppression but though many people know about the struggles of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, fewer still understand the challenges many aboriginal communities face today.  

Before continuing on it is important to note that Native American or aboriginal education transcends colonization by thousands of years.  Through both formal and informal processes, aboriginal children throughout what would become North, Central, and South America (and the thousands of islands off the continents coasts) learned through direct experience, storytelling, and important ceremonial processes how they related to both the natural world and other members of their Nation.  

As these traditional educational processes were supplanted (often violently) by westernized Native American schools, many tribal leaders were disappointed by the educational outcomes for their children as exemplified by this quote:

"For tribal elders who had witnessed the catastrophic developments of the nineteenth century - the bloody warfare, the near extinction of the bison, the scourge of disease and starvation, the shrinking of the tribal base, the indignities of reservation life, the invasion of missionaries and white settlers - there seemed to be no end to the cruelties perpetrated by whites. And after all this, the schools. After all this, the white man had concluded that the only way to save Indians was to destroy them, that the last great Indian war should be waged against children. They were coming for the children." (Adams,1995, p.337) 

From my experience in tribal schools in Washington State, the key to educational processes for Native Americans is the re-empowerment of tribes to recreate educational processes and structures that have existed for thousands of years.  That does not mean going backwards but using these deeply ancient experiences to craft what the future of what the Native American culture should be based on the unique cultural diversity that each First Nation has to offer.  The process is firmly grounded in the nonlinear, cultural, ecological, and cognitive systems we have examined over the past few weeks.

Going back to this case as a metaphor for exploring the complex relationships between culture and the curriculum, the Native American experience is not particularly unique.  African Americans were denied an education during slavery and segregated in many parts of the United States prior to the Civil Rights Movements of the sixties.  Many Chinese and Japanese students were also segregated during the early history of San Francisco and World War II respectively.  

Today there is an effort to deny education to the children of undocumented migrants (predominantly Hispanic and Latino) in parts of the Southwest.  Some politicians are also encouraging restrictions on the ability of same sex parents to adopt unwanted or abused children stuck in an overburdened foster care system.  Instances of bullying Muslim children also appears to be on the rise suggesting more difficulties for many Islamic communities in the United States as well.

There are many things we as educators can do to insure the cultural and religious diversity of our nation and I would refer readers to the works of James Banks on multicultural eduction.  Also, we need to overturn the myth of science education as a predominantly tightly structured white Euro-centric process.  Science as a process is as old as religion itself as evidenced by ancient taxonomies of nature by cultures predating Linus, the discovery of fire, the manipulation of metals, and so on and so on.  Only through the recognition that science is the fundamental human endeavor of exploration and understanding shared by all cultures, not just ours, will this process truly become empowering.  

We must actively resist and overturn the dominant paradigm of one scientific worldview that is currently encapsulated in the individualistic egos of a few smart individuals doing "expert" research, the self centered methods of exclusive scientific patents/trademarks, and narrow focus on efficiency and exploitation of resources discovered/created in our nations largely secret public laboratories.  

Wow...okay....time to relax a little. All these thoughts from your play.  One final question I have is connected to how the play is constructed.  It seems to follow the Socratic method of reasoning.  Am I correct in this?  The structure of plays like this allows for multiple interpretations which is another benefit of integrating the arts into science. 

 Citation:

David Wallace Adams, Education for Extinction - American Indians and the Boarding School Experience 1875-1928, University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, 1995.

Day 10: Bateson and Global Responsibility

"Educational renewal is about modifying schools so that their graduates will be effective participants in the world around them."

-Mary Catherine Bateson, Education for Global Responsibility

 While we were slated to discuss two articles today, we focused our discussion around Bateson's work.  However, I have already reflected upon Jardine's other article in my previous blog and you can find comments and thoughts about that article there. My focus too will be on Bateson.

I liked how Mary asked us to start by finding key words and phrases and end on a poetic or wordle summary.  Do you remember my earlier thoughts on Jardine's use of the word let.  Such a small but powerful word.  Well, Bateson sculpts with interesting words as well such as the words: changes, actions, responsibilities, renewal, contexts, patterns, and of course systems. 

If I could boil down Bateson's work into a bumper sticker this is what it would look like this:

This article attempts to bridge the philosophical foundations of deep ecology with educational pedagogy and praxis.  This is one article where the wording of the first sentences in most sections eloquently describes the path Bateson takes through this article.  For example:

"Individual human beings affect the global story"-  Bateson links individuals within larger complex natural global systems and calls us to action based on the recognition that we all play a role.

"Children identify easily across species"-  Isn't it amazing the role animals continue to play in society despite the fact that some impoverished children in large urban ares may never see actual wildlife in the wild.  I loved her discussion of the Lorax as well as it is one of my favorite children's books of all time (along with Richard Scarry's Busy Town series).  The Native American author Joseph Bruchac advises some caution in the use of animals as we have lost our ability to communicate with them as evidenced in the First Nations stories that began "Long ago when the animals spoke and the humans understood them there was..."

"Humans learn and teach though stories"-  Aristotle again haunts me as Bateson describes how he identifies the elements of drama in his work poetics.  Her description of the heroic journey of the water drop (I have done this with my students)  through the water cycle as a analogy  of the myth of the hero's quest illuminated one of the great failures of science educators in the modern age.  This failure was in eliminating the element of the story and replacing it with dry, cold, narrative as evidenced in the majority of our textbooks used in schools today.  It is time to bring back the ancient art of storytelling and artistic creativity into our science laboratories.  

Finally a quote not at the beginning of a section but buried in the lush undergrowth of the article itself.

"Perhaps the model for classrooms could correspond to ecological patterns that can be observed in the natural world, complex and multifaceted, that just might offer useful analogies for human society and social policy."  

Ahh...now wouldn't that be great.  Instead of the cold walled edifices we typically build to house and educate students, the very concept of what is a classroom is transformed into the complexity that is our world.  There is a school without walls movement that I am familiar with but it has never gained much traction as it is not as easily managed and observed by administrators and accountants.  Thank you Prof. Bateson!

Day 9: Jardin, Kauffman, and the Nonarithmatic Variable "X"

 "Let Eric's age be 'x'."   

David Jardine, Back to the Basics of Teaching and Learning

As we are moving into the final week it has become a little difficult balancing life and my studies.  However, overall, I am content with this experience and my "reanimation."  Today's topic is a perfect example of my own reanimation.  Reanimation is the process of initiating or starting again.  For the past five years or so my instruction has felt static.  I was an educational zombie teaching children according to the educational systems and requirements of my district and school.  Yes, I was still passionate about my students and creative in my approach to instruction and curriculum design.  But, ultimately, I was just another cog in the educational system serving up the required linear material and assessing it along an "expected" trajectory that Jardine critiques in his article.  

Now I am reanimated (which of course may ultimately frustrate me more if I ever want to have a professional (ie "paid") relationship within this complex system).  But once in a while it is empowering just to wake up for a moment and see the world from a new angle.  Just as a solid foundation is to the overall design and longevity of a building, so it is with education.  Writing about a wide range of topics, ultimately, Jardine to me illustrates the inherent disharmony between the linear efficiency model of education which dominates the structure of our schools today and the more nonlinear and organic nature of our students.

Using multiple examples of drill and kill and the superficial nature of modern teaching that undermines the inherent curiosity that exists within learners, Jardine presents a strong case for change which makes me want to read his other works to see what his solutions are.

As a side note I enjoyed his smaller essays on the variable "X" and math phobias and the need for play.  The common word that tied these sections together was "let."  It is such a short word but so empowering.  Think about it for a moment in the phrases:


Let them play.
Let them explore.
Let them try.
Let them find out for themselves.
Let them ask the questions.

As an educator.  I like the message this simple word conveys though you have to watch out for its antithesis:

Let me waste this opportunity.
Let me out of here. 
Let someone else do if for me.
Let me out of this work.
Let me go.  

I am sure there are questions and thoughts that immediately arise out of this second area, but for now I am going to let them go.  Let...it is a powerful word.

"What does it mean to act wisely when we cannot calculate the consequences?  This will be part of our issue in considering a global ethic."  

-Stuart Kauffman, Beyond Reductionism:  Reinventing the Sacred

I was astounded by his background as you presented the information on this individual.  What a life he has lived!  I had many of the same assumptions that Scott noted just before our discussion.  In this reflection I do not want regurgitate our discussion this afternoon but instead explore two aspects of the article not discussed today.

Aristotle & Plato

First, I absolutely loved his discussion of Aristotle (isn't it amazing that we are still discussing this man?) and in many ways Kauffman lays the blame on him for reductionistic thinking.  Specifically, Kauffman states that Aristotle "...argued that scientific knowing is deduction from a universal premise and a subsidiary premise to a conclusion:  All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore Socrates is a mortal."  Just think about the level of scientific knowledge available to Aristotle at the time.   Yet I think Kauffman has some justification in his argument.  Look at the development of the structure of the scientific method.  It seems entirely connected to the thinking Aristotle might be engaged in.  Too bad these two great thinkers couldn't meet over a pint of beer.  Wouldn't it be great to hear what they might say to each other?  Assuming they could speak the same language of course. 

Second, I loved the simplicity of Kauffman's chessmen playing together and constructing increasingly intricate models of one another in order to gain some kind of ascendancy over each other.  Yet, in the end the unpredictability of a system as simple as this leads to collapse and constant reorganization.  Then applying these algorithms within complex systems that may have recognizable patterns but are ultimately non-algorithmic like the economic system Kauffman analyzes very illuminating in light of the recent economic crisis rippling through our worldwide economic system.

I wonder if Michael Moore (Director of Capitalism:  A Love Story) has heard of Stuart Kauffman.  His interview of the mathematicians generating economic algorithms (which ultimately fail) for Wall Street corporations might be seen in a new light after reading this article.

Days 7 & 8: Martuswicz, Suzuki, and Our Endangered Food Systems

"So, we might ask...which different cultural practices matter more to maintaining collaborative intelligence and sustaining life?...What in our day-to-day lives or in our political and economic practices needs to be conserved,  and what changed?  These are questions that call us toward recognition of, and conscious participation in, a collaborative intelligence-that is, a dependence on a living system, where everything including our knowledge is created within an interactive web of communication, an ecology of mind."

-Rebecca Martusewicz, Education for Collaborative Intelligence

As Scott said in our discussions yesterday and today.  This is where our philosophical rubber hits the road.  Or in food terms, the lips kiss the chocolate!  Our conversations were delicious, sweet, and soup for the heart and soul.   First we had a great presentation by Mercy on Martusewics.  Mercy did an excellent job of summarizing the text and applying it within both historical and modern contexts.

I thought she did an nice job of discussing how the ancient Zenu cultures in historic Columbia and their agricultural practices.  There are many examples of ancient cultures living more harmoniously in relationship and in many ways a more sophisticated level of collaborative intelligence (as described in our text) than many of our post industrial cultures today.  Examples that come to my mind include many aboriginal cultures in Austrailia, the Inuit cultures of North America, and the Lakota cultures that once occupied vast stretches of the Great Plains.

However, there are ancient examples that support the opposite position as well.  Where humans were unable to form this sustainable relationship with the land.  Two ancient examples include the deforestation of many parts of modern day Lebanon by ancient cultures and Easter Island being extreme examples of a relationship between humans and the natural environments they lived in being out of balance.  As modern states and the huge technological structures are over layered across the fabric of older and more largely sustainable cultures and communities, the impacts can be devastating as demonstrated by this video of the impacts of large hydroelectric dams on the local indigenous communities in Columbia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x8ZpIqPdWg

Mercy then explored this concept within the modern day examples of the Gulf Oil Spill and Hurricane Katrina which I thought was a wonderful application of Martusewicz's work.  It was obvious in our small and class discussions to see the misapplication of technological intelligence and science in this horrific environmental catastrophe.  Both the corporations and government entities involved failed to act within the framework Martusewics presented.  As a result of this cognitive lapse and misapplication of ethics and corporate greed, people died needlessly in a catastrophic explosion, the surrounding ecosystems were seriously degraded, and many communities are seeing economic livelihoods that have existed for generations evaporate.

While BP and the government may be reporting that most of the oil has been collected or simply evaporated and disappeared.  And that Mother Nature did her job and it looks like we are all going to be okay...amen (isn't it a nice way to start reducing payments to the affected workers and communities?), there are significant effects that (as evidenced by research in another oil spill in Alaska) will impact this region for decades if not longer.

My final thoughts on this event reflect back to Brower's concept of the ecological and cultural commons.  What are the impacts of this event on other countries that share in the ecological well being of this region (Cuba, Mexico, Belize, etc...)?  Do we have an obligation to them?  I think so.

"Although the international community has managed to control population growth somewhat, we are still expected to have close to nine people on the planet by 2050.  That's a big family to feed..."

-David Suzuki & David Taylor, The Big Picture

 The familiar metaphor "soup for the soul" works here.  For me this article was very fun to read in light of all the previous work we have done until this point.  In my mind Suzuki seamlessly moves from the philosophical foundations of the deep ecology movement to praxis and activism.  In this text and on his programs, Suzuki uses the language of science as a lens to for deconstructing presenting complex topics (in this case our agricultural and ecological systems directly connected with the intimate relationship we have with our food) in empowering ways for his audiences.

In my opinion Suzuki seems to argue that it is only through understanding of our ecological and evolutionary dependence upon these complex natural systems in partnership with the practice of  "sound" science that will solve many of these complex environmental issues facing humanity. While I am used to experts who stand on the mountain yelling that only the experts can save us, David is fundamentally different than your traditional scientist or scientific solution.


While he may argue for both scientific and industrial reform, he also eloquently connects environmental change with members of the public.  By example, in trying to protect the world's fisheries or our organic food systems he not argues for change in business practices and government reform, he shows viewers how their economic choices and actions can contribute to the solution as well. 

 
In preparing my presentation on Suzuki I was enticed again and again by the passion evident the his "praxis" of science.  In my experience, very few scientific experts have the knowledge, skills, expertise, and passion for change and act on them is ways that Suzuki does.  Delicious and empowering soup for the soul indeed.

Film

As someone madly writing my final paper for this course, it was nice to take a break from reading and watch this documentary.   Both Suzuki and Garcia examine our agricultural systems.  Like Suzuki, the makers of this documentary are critically examining the dangers of industrializing our food systems.  However, a key difference with Suzuki in this documentary is in how it describes the impact of science.

Garcia lays out a very convincing case about the dangers of genetically modifying our food.  While some changes may initially appear benign such as enhancing flavor or shelf life, others are much more unsettling such as the infusion of insecticide production within plants or a "terminator" gene which kills the plants ability to produce viable seeds for future generations.  The implication here, Garcia, argues is that farmers would be increasingly reliant on these mutant seeds which require chemical inputs from the corporations engineering them.

Given the apparent distrust of these sciences (rightfully so in my opinion) it would be interesting to see Suzuki's perspective on how science is presented in this documentary.  There are clues in Suzuki's article about the ancient relationship between food and how humans gathered and eventually cultivated it.  Suzuki rightfully argues, and I think Garcia would agree, that organic gardening is an ancient and intimate process by which humans used "sound science" to create the thousands of varieties of crops that are currently at risk by huge industrial monocultureral practices used in many countries today.

The answer, Suzuki and Garcia might argue, does not lie in the future but in our co-evolved relationships with these animals and plants in the past.

Day 6: Breathing in Abram and Bower

"What a mystery is the air, what an enigma to these human senses!  On the one hand, 

the air is the most pervasive presence I can name, enveloping, embracing, 

and caressing me both inside and out, moving in ripples along my skin. 

-Abram

Before getting into this entry, I have to say that I agree with many of the reviewers about how David Abrams writes.  It is both lyrical and illuminating.  It read like cognitive rhythm.  First to the rhythm of various first nations as he explored the very meaning of the wind itself from the perspective of the Lakota and the Dine cultures of North America.  

Breath itself, Abrams argues,  is the wind in microcosm and it is connected in consciousness to the world itself.  It makes sense that breath and the conscious and unconscious act of breathing would signify more than the expansion and contraction of the chest for many different cultures.  Perhaps the emergence of death itself lies in the act of a still chest.  It is said that dogs have the ability to detect death in the breath we exhale and a few lives have been saved through the presence of a canine alert to the imminent health needs of an owner going into cardiac arrest.  

Science may one day find ways to diagnose and cure various respiratory ailments based solely on the sample of our breath, catching some "essence" of what makes us sick or strong.  It is thought by many people within our own culture that a person's dying last words (or last breaths) contain some significance for the survivors.  

Having witnessed death on several occasions myself, the final moments when the act of breathing becomes gasps, gurgles, and finally nothing is both disturbing but also profoundly moving.  Being in the presences of death when the last breath has gone often subconsciously brings loved ones closer to the deceased.  In the cases I have witnessed hands are held, hair is caressed, eyes may or may not be peered into and most importantly reverent whispers of love are exchanged just after the realization that the spirit or last breath has departed and just before the explosive realization of loss fully hits.  So yes, I see value in the link between spirit and breath that Abrams describes.

 I wonder why we whisper though.  Is it because the imminent awareness of loss saps strength or something deeper.  Death is never pleasant.  Perhaps we are quite because we are uncomfortable.  The only times I really remember whispering is when I was having fun with friends, on a date, or speaking quietly so as not to scare wildlife.  I am sure if my life was threatened by violence and I needed to hide and communicate, I would only whisper then as well.  What does whispering signify in this instance, I do not know.  

David Abram

Anyway, back to Abrams...I enjoyed his description of early Hebrew texts and the absence of vowel phonemes which created space for interpretation.  There seems to be some disappointment on behalf of Abrams and member of our discussion group about the sadness of fixing the spiritual interpretation to one sound.  I myself am not surprised as the development and expansion of written languages in the this region of the world would come to be dominated by the Greek alphabet.  How many times has the bible been translated and written into other languages and forms.  Now you can find graphic novel versions of the bible and a controversial version that includes photographs from pop culture and modern history.  There there are new versions and interpretations like the Mormon bible.  

Should this surprise us if we believe that social cognition is a dynamic and ever changing process?  I think not. What should surprise us is that some groups become so disfunctionally fixated on one version or system of thinking that they lose touch with evidence that overwhelmingly disagrees with their older encapsulated beliefs.  What happens when this occurs is either a paradigm shift or cognitive entrenchment.  But that is another discussion.

"Exercising ecological intelligence would focus on the history of cultural forces 

that led to this taken-for-granted-pattern of thinking." 

-Chet Bowers

Ah...Chet Bowers.  Though I did not remember it at the time of our group discussion, I have read his work.  Both he and David Orr greatly influence my concept of ecological literacy during my graduate work at The Evergreen State College.  This article has been a nice way to reacquaint myself with  his work and see its evolution in the time since I have last studied his work.  

I have been an environmentalist since before I was born, though I grew up on a ranch I grew up to become a biologist who worked with and taught about wolves.  I college we went to local hardware stores to see about getting donations for a new campus recycling program (now the college has a huge edifice dedicated to environmental science).  There was no environmental degree at Mesa, so I blended biology with political science.  Then I worked for environmental and wildlife organizations.  

One day during my hundredth (or more) presentation, I came to the realization that if you wanted to save wolves or other wild places, you needed to teach the children how to ride a bicycle (then you would not need so much oil).  I decided to become a teacher.

Chet Bowers

After ten years in the field I have come to the realization that Bowers talks about in this article.  The educational system is culturally entrenched and encapsulated and by and large, is failing to teach children basic ecological skills (I would also argue skills for democratic literacy as well).  

As a teacher of at risk children (ESL kids in grades K-5), I wanted to show them how to ride a bicycle, grow a garden, and recycle.  But the system was not so flexible.  My position was restricted to teaching speaking, listening, reading, and writing in English.  While many times I was creatively subverted my administrators encapsulated worldview, she had a point as well.  Children need to be able to communicate, read, and write to change the world.  There are examples of illiterate peacemakers but they are few and far between.  

So a question arises which I will probably research in more detail in the coming weeks.  Is there a connection between academic literacy and ecological literacy/intelligence that Bower speaks of.  Bower writes about the ecological and cultural commons.  What about an educational commons?  Shouldn't there be, in this day and age, a  common educational right that all children and adults should have a right to?  And, if there is an educational commons, what are the current educational enclosures? 

While the educational system utterly failed to teach me ecological literacy, through trial and error (an an inherent intelligence in the natural world as discussed by Howard Gardner) I was able to emerge more ecologically conscious and aware than most of my peers.  I do not consider myself gifted in this area but I am aware. Why wasn't this fire ignited in my peer community?  I am not sure.  But one factor I can pinpoint as a possible suspect was an educational system and pedagogy encapsulated in outdated paradigms about humanities relationship within the natural world.  

Day 5: Maturana and an Excercise in Patience

"We learn to live the particular psychic experience 
that arises through configuration of emotioning 

that we live a s babies and children.  
It is the emotioning entailed in what we 
hear, see, touch, smell, or say, 
or in what is said to us that 
constitutes our 
psychic existence."

-Humberto Maturana

Okay, when I read this I must have been in a bad mood because alarm bells went off within the first page.  In my initial mind (prior to our group discussion) I increasingly questioned many of the underlying assumptions Humberto was making in his article.  Luckily, Jennifer advised me wisely to just "let the questions lie" and that is what I did.  But they are still there.   

First we need a little background.  Earlier that day we heard an interesting speech by Maturana entitled "Our Genome Does Not Define Us."  The speech was quite interesting.  As he discussed the traditional mechanistic viewpoint that everything is determined by genes and invited us to think from a different viewpoint.  Well that is what we did.  While having studied genetics in some detail in college, additional questions arose from his speech about variability in genomic expression, overall, I tend to agree with many of his statements.

While his article on the origin of humanness in the biology of love article was equally interesting, there are many areas that I believe Maturana needs to examine in more detail.  I enjoyed his thoughts on evolutionary biology and early human history though I do have additional questions. 


Most of my questions revolve around his critique of the patriarchy as something that is undoubtedly bad for most societies.  While I too have issues with patriarchal systems as well, I would not be willing to write them off as completely destructive as Maturana has.  There are elements of patriarchy that are probably beneficial for our species and the environment just as there are examples where matriarchal systems occasionally overstep their bounds (much more rare as there are more patriarchal systems than matriarchal ones. I would wonder if we should strive to find the good in both systems and strike an ecological, gender, and cultural harmony rather than supplant one for the other. 


Another area I would like to discuss is the reproductive history of women that Maturana discusses.  Given the lack of reliable and safe birth control that really only became widely available to women in the developed world in the sixties, what was reproductive life like for women prior to that.  Maturana writes, "As sexual intercourse must have been lived by our early ancestors as a source of pleasure and not procreation, pregnancy and birth must have appeared to them as a spontaneous manifestation of life through the female in its continuous changing, present..."  (p. 113).  Given the high rates of miscarriages, abortions, and premature deaths of women from difficulties in childbirth and the sheer challenge of raising many mouths (even in communal societies).  I would think that experienced and older women might be more cautious as they got older and saw peers die from the complications associated with childbirth prior to the advent of modern day prenatal care and delivery.

I wonder if Maturana's thoughts in this regard are a byproduct of sexual revolution and the practice of free love in the sixties and seventies.  These trends would mature and evolve as the growing AIDs epidemics of the eighties would appear forcing some measure of more conscious thought and careful consideration that might have been absent one or two decades earlier.  As an educator it is extremely sad to see teens needlessly becoming pregnant or infected with a STD because we have failed to provide them with the information they need to make informed decisions.  All children should be wanted children and one day I hope this is a dream that is achievable around the world. 

Day 4: Varela Knows How and What

"We always operate in some kind of immediacy of a given situation." -Varela

As if this quote wasn't illuminating enough, my internet resisted all attempts to connect over the weekend so these next few entries are late.   Varela is a fascinating theorist.   I must admit I struggled through his paper to some extent initially and am now digging my way through it again in light of the film and our discussion on Maturana (see next post).  It seems that both of these men are connected.  

Varela himself stated that he felt at times the wandering troubadour.  Displaced in many ways by the chaos erupting in his home country of Chile, Varela spent a significant portion of his life moving from home to home (the United States then back to Chile).  It appears that he eventually settled on France.  Tragically he died relatively young in 2001.  

Having known a few people who have died of cancer before their time (in my opinion), I wonder if the chaos of his life and early illnesses helped intensify his thoughts on Microworlds and Microidentities.  I think these concepts of the complex cognitive structures of even the most simple tasks and Varela's belief in how individuals live in the immediacy of the time and space they occupy will be the concepts that stick with me the most.

Francisco Varela

Like Naess, Bateson, and Capra, Varela comes from a scientific background.  He was a biologist whose research on the vision function of the eye was ultimately transcended by reflective thinking on more complex cognitive process.  It would cause him to wonder about current theories in cognition and theorize that "...a radical paradigm shift is imminent."  

I am familiar with paradigms and paradigm shifts.  Thomas Kuhn writes about scientific revolutions, the social construction of knowledge, and paradigms in his classic text The Structure of Scientific Knowledge.  Based on what I have observed about cognitive theory as it relates to the pedagogy of educating teachers like me at the turn of the new millennium, the paradigm and praxis train has yet to arrive.  

Day 3: Word Eco, a Fox, and a Daughter

"Transpersonal ecologists claim that ecology, and modern science in general, provide a 

compelling account of our interconnectedness with the world."

-Warwick Fox, Toward a Transpersonal Ecology

Day 3  

We spent a pleasant time at the beach discussing Warwick Fox and Mary Bateson.  Both conversations were quite interesting but before getting into them I need to resolve the definition of the Latin root "eco-", which rolls around these essays like a great wave building power and transforming as it moves from author to author.  

Eco- is a French word derived from the earlier Latin or Greek word "oeco" or "oikos" respectively.  Originally meaning "house or household", how did this root evolve into its more modern meaning of "being related to ecology or the environment?"   That I have not found yet but I did find some related material on the history of ecology. 

While ecology as a science emerges at the professional level in the middle of the last century, the practice of ecology, or the study of the environment, is much older.  In his study of scientific history, Francis Ramalay, suggests that Aristotle may have been one of the earliest ecologists.  I am sure many different cultures can find important historical figures who wrote or thought about elements that are now considered many of the fundamental cornerstones of this discipline.  Important figures that come to my mind include St. Francis of Assisi, Lineus, Darwin, Chief Sitting Bull, and Chief Seattle here in the Pacific Northwest.  It seems that the concept behind the root eco- predates the actual word itself.  

Warwick Fox

For me Warwick Fox was a dense article and I appreciated Scott's summary of it (which greatly helped me link Warwick's three selves with Frued's).   What struck me personally about this article was his consistent reference to the concepts developed by Naess.  Scott's free association activity around the words "freedom, potential, and nature" was also illuminating for me as he took it a step further and asked us to try and write down a description of our own ecological self.  I cam up with this:

"The SELF should become the WE and the WE should become the we as we are only specks in a larger system that ultimately transcends and evolves beyond us or we."

Where did this come from?   Hmmm....I have been thinking about it for a while in relation to Fox's fear of anthropocentrism and I believe this statement boils down to the following.  The systems that Capra and Naess are talking about are much more complicated than we as a single species can comprehend.   Yes, we have extensive abstract reasoning and inquiry based skills at our disposal for exploring these concepts but in my opinion we will never fully understand the nonlinear and dynamic nature of our universe because it is nonlinear and dynamic.  It is changing and evolving in ways that continue to elude us.  

That does not mean we will never successfully establish a sustainable relationship within this complex system.  No, by our very survival through evolutionary time to the point where we can designate ourselves as a species within the context of Lineus proves our success in this point and time of this dynamic evolutionary system.  However, variable can change causing less favorable outcomes for our species as well.  

I would modify what Naess and Capra are saying about our SELF (or "we" as I like to call it) and state that they are correct in challenging us to see the connections with all other elements (nonhuman life and the Gaia itself) of the universal system.  Where I would differ is in our role in it.  Though we may be some of the more self conscious nodes within this system, if it were the hemispheres of a larger brain we would be merely spots on either the right or left hemispheres (Which hemisphere?  That is another discussion.).  We are not even near the portion of this brain that maintains the essential control for life or our existence.  And outside the theoretical brain of course is the universal body and on and on.... 

I would focus on us as a species and explore why we have been so successful.  This perspective would be anthropocentric in nature...but...ultimately because we understand our environment only through the sensory input we receive from our limited senses.  I completely concur with Naess however that we should be concerned about the "intrinsic value" of other lifeforms and environments.  However, I agree for a different reason.

The fossil record and the science of paleontology tell us time and time again that species rise...live for a while and go extinct.  Most species last no more than 2,000,000 years though there are extraordinary exceptions like stromatolites, the Ceolocanth, or sharks.  However, this is the exception rather than the rule.  Given the fact that we as a species within this system exist, we are obligated to follow its rules meaning that we will live for a while and go extinct.  

We should be concerned about our impact on various elements of this system that directly relate to our evolutionary success and ability to survive.  The reason why we should be concerned is that by changing or eliminating key elements in our ecosphere (keystone species and loss of biodiversity) alters the combination of variables that support our current success as a species.  As a result, the axiom "do unto others as you would have them do onto you" holds true as the damage we do unto other lifeforms in our system ultimately reflects back upon ourselves.  It reflects back not only to the detriment of our world but quite possibly ourselves and our ability to thrive as a species or "we" within this system.  

Failure to act in a way that helps us thrive (protecting key variables of the system that support us) causes changes in the system which may force us in the struggle to merely survive and we know from the numerous species that we pushed into survival mode as endangered species, this is not a pleasant position to be in to say the least.  There is much more to this but I need to move on.

Bateson

I enjoyed how Anna incorporate the love activity into this discussion.  I chose four areas.  Three of which were commonly identify by other members of our discussion: family/friends, animals/pets, and nature.  The fourth was unique to me: bicycles.

I love bicycle!  As I stated in our discussion, bicycles mean freedom and exploration.  I discussed my first bicycle and how it took me everywhere I needed.  It took me to school, to the store to by candy, and to my friends house.  As I grew older my bike took me to college, to work, on vacations, and other expeditions (even when looking into UVIC).  The bike has always been a reliable source of transport and my bikes in many ways remind me of the horses we had when I was growing up on the ranch.  

What I loved about Bateson's article about her dialogue with her father was the relationship between love and wisdom as it related to the pursuit of science.  I can see how the experience of growing up from the horse age to the nuclear one influenced who he was and why he would urge caution in the pursuit of science.  It seems that he was writing about subjects other than science at the time of his most important writing but it is a compliment to him and his daughter that these arguments still hold traction in the electronic and biomedical age.  It would be interesting to hear his thoughts on these subjects if he were alive today.

"The problem is not to resist falling in love.  The problem is to fall in love and be the wiser thereby."

-Mary Bateson, Angel Fears

 

Day 2: Capra and Naess

"The decisive advance of the systems view of life has 
been to abandon the Cartesian view of mind as a thing, 
and to realize that mind and consciousness 
are not things but processes."

-Fritjof Capra, Hidden Connections:  
A Science for Sustainable Living

Now we plunge into the material with some free writing.   We started with a request to identify and think about questions the film and early work in this course might me initiating.  For me, as a trained ecologist, I was intrigued in how the word was being utilized by the various thinkers we have been exposed to thus far.  More specifically my question is:

Ecophilosophy and Praxis:  What are these concepts and how do they relate to the field of ecology?

Given my ten year sabbatical from formal graduate work, obviously this question arises from being in this course and pursuing studies once more.  Giving how broadly used the word ecology is applied in the scientific, popular, and academic worlds, I wonder how it became so popular.  I believe its roots lie within a rising environmental consciousness that is traced back to the sixties with the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.   Carson's book was a pivotal book in the importance of critiquing the rapidly expanding and often uncontrolled application of new technologies and chemical inventions like DDT.

Rachel Carson

While ecology is an old branch of the scientific tree, new buds in the fields of environmental science and risk assessment would rise out of this earlier discipline.  Although the field of environmental science has become well established in the canon of modern sciences, the world environment itself is more contentious and political.  It seems to me that people are using the term ecology as a safer or more benign harbor to use than the words environmental ethic or environmental philosophy. 

While I do not think Capra or Naess are misapplying words here, there is danger in the misapplication of langage.  In the case of ecology I agree with Capra in his break from Cartesian thinking and that cognitive  processes are wrapped around individual/shared experiences, nurobiological processes, and the nonlinear dynamics of cognition.  Naess's views on deep ecology are even more intricate and I will save this discussion for another blog after more work in class.  The danger I mentioned earlier relates to the political misapplication of the word ecology.

Although the field of environmental science is becoming increasingly institutionalized like all its predecessors in the fields of science, the political use of the word environment on  both sides of the debate (pro or anti environment) has a tendency to create drag on the field as a whole.  While I believe this field will ultimately be a useful ways of exploring human relationships within the natural world, many political and conservative sectors (in the United States) dismiss environmental science as a pseudo or mystical profession rather than a concrete and legitimate intellectual pursuit.

Fritjof Capra

Ecology faces this same dilemma today.  With the word environmental falling out of favor among the various social, political, and commercial sectors of society, it seems that ecology (or more specifically the Latin root eco)  has become a new catchphrase for a wide variety of ideas, philosophies, and commercial products unrelated to the word.  We will look at this issue, starting with the meaning of the root word eco in our next blog. 

Day 1: Introductions and Arne Naess

 "Human nature is such that, with sufficient comprehensive maturity, 
we cannot help but identify ourselves with all living beings."     
-Arne Naess, Ecology of Wisdom

We started with simple introductions and an examination of the course syllabus.  According to the syllabus, this course is "...by design is an invitation for educators and professionals in leadership roles to explore the manners in which ecological theories occasion a view that all life is fundamentally one..."  Once this viewpoint is understood than it allows us as educators and leaders to redefine traditional roles in the pedagogy of education and praxis.

We then turned to the life of Arne Naess and a documentary about him entitled Crossing the Stones:  A Portrait of Arne Naess~An Intimate Biography of the Nowegian Founder of Deep Ecology.  Released in 1993, the film traces the life and philosophical evolution of Arne Naess.  For those of you unfamiliar with Naess, he was a well known Norwegian philosopher and alpinist who preferred to live in a simple cabin nestled under a mountain and located high above treeline.  From there he contemplated life and wrote many of his seminal works including The Ecology of Wisdom, Skepticism, and Spinoza and the Deep Ecology Movement.  Members of today's deep ecology movement ascribe Naess as one of the founders as well.

There are many other famous writers who connected deeply with the land as Naess did.  Most notably for me are Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Terry Tempest Williams, and Edward Abby.  Like many of his predecessors, Arne tends to come from status of prestige that blesses him with the time and resources to contemplate his ideas more deeply.  What strikes me as different about him is how traumatic world events such as the Nazi invasion of Norway during World War II and his awareness of human suffering and struggles for justice in India and other parts of the world influenced his writing as his thinking evolved.

By the mid to late sixties, Naess was well on his way to another deep transformation.  He himself describes the influence Rachel Carson's Silent Spring had on his growing awareness of an ecological crisis.  This would move him to environmental activism throughout the rest of his life and he is noted for his participation in Greenpeace Norway and the Green Movement as well.  I will be examining his writing in more detail in another entry.