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.