Why is the Garden Full of Footballs?
Yes, that's an interesting question, isn't it? I first asked this question back in 2001, as part of a project about developing inter- and multi-disciplinary education modules. A few years later, I received an award from the Education Ministry for this and other projects; it was in the same year that I was asked to stop being Dean of Sciences. But that's not important really; the key question is: "What has happened to inter- and multi-disciplinary education?"
The thing is that the rot began with C P Snow's infamous disquisition on 'The Two Cultures' in which he wrote about a divide between the sciences and the humanities. Later hands dug deep to widen the crevice into a crevasse, and then into a grand canyon.
It is of course all rubbish. Whereas in retrospective cynicism one may describe two different sets of paradigms and assign one kind to 'sciences' and another to 'humanities', the fact is that science stems from 'natural philosophy' and 'natural history' before it becomes 'natural sciences' and then 'applied sciences' or 'technology'. The sciences are a small and over-specialised area of the humanities; this is their proper relationship, and not one of opposed equals.
To give an obvious example: consider medicine as a 'science'. As a physician (haha, yes, that is the right term), you establish a personal confidential relationship with the patient. You then proceed to act as an historian, interviewing either the patient (if lucid and conscious) or his neighbours, relatives etc (if patient is not lucid or conscious) and perhaps resorting to eyewitness accounts or physical evidence. Then you make an hypothesis, adjusting it in the light of geographical, biological, racial, and perhaps economic evidence. Then you act on the hypothesis and seek to effect a corrective regime.
You might as well be a politician, or a judge, or a restorer of paintings. You would follow similar steps. This is because human knowledge and human inclinations drive all human inquiries. Science is as much a product of the fertile human cerebral engine as any other area of knowledge. We define these areas and the paradigms by which we research and examine them. We decide what evidence is valid and what is rational or not.
There is no external validator that we trust; we place much more trust in our own experience based on the results of our actions or how closely things match our predictions. We tend to trust in our own understanding without question as to the basis of that understanding, its origins, or its relevance to the universe as a whole. And here is where the educated man collapses as a being of straw and light and mirrors, of smoke without fire and fact without context. It is all very sad.
But what can be done?
I refer you back to the original question. "Why is the garden full of footballs?" When this question was posed, the first reaction from the educators was, "What a stupid question!" The reaction from the students was slightly more encouraging, "What a strange question! Let's give you some answers."
To date, I have actually received more than a hundred different answers. But the point, as the students eventually discovered and the educators struggled to realise, was that each answer (whether intended to be trivial, serious, comic, or sarcastic) was capable of generating an entire universe. For example, one bright spark said, "Because there are none elsewhere." Can you imagine what kind of universe would place footballs in the garden outside but nowhere else in all infinity? It boggles the mind.
Similarly, and on a different scale, the response, "The boys were playing an April Fool's joke on the gardener." The questions here are even more interesting: "Why boys?" "Why assume that there is something called an 'April Fool's joke' ?" "Must a garden have a gardener?" and so on.
Every response we make towards every source of response-provocation generates worlds. This is why the narrow-minded should have their brains forcibly expanded. Cognitive dissonance is a key tool of this enterprise, and any educational leader (de jure, de facto, or de profundis) to be worth his salt must engage in exercises which unsettle his own lofty perch so that he can learn. The educator who will not learn is like the teacher of literature who cannot write, yet another joker who cannot practice what he preaches. But I've spoken of the cure elsewhere.
Sometimes, I have felt like changing the question to "Why is the School Full of Idiots?" because that would be more provocative as the title of a presentation made to educators. The main problem is that this is never completely true (with respect to 'full') and it is always partly true of any institution (with respect to 'idiots'). We are always plagued by the narrow and tiny-minded. But it is our Sisyphean work to make sure we are not like that ourselves, and to help others toil towards the same end alongside.
=====
Note: Oh yes, I must say that the comments to this memetic post were all very amusing too. I note that many of them make reference to me as a teacher. And many of them are delighted to mention that I was not a very 'good' teacher either, although apparently able to teach half a dozen different things. Haha, I'm sorry!
The thing is that the rot began with C P Snow's infamous disquisition on 'The Two Cultures' in which he wrote about a divide between the sciences and the humanities. Later hands dug deep to widen the crevice into a crevasse, and then into a grand canyon.
It is of course all rubbish. Whereas in retrospective cynicism one may describe two different sets of paradigms and assign one kind to 'sciences' and another to 'humanities', the fact is that science stems from 'natural philosophy' and 'natural history' before it becomes 'natural sciences' and then 'applied sciences' or 'technology'. The sciences are a small and over-specialised area of the humanities; this is their proper relationship, and not one of opposed equals.
To give an obvious example: consider medicine as a 'science'. As a physician (haha, yes, that is the right term), you establish a personal confidential relationship with the patient. You then proceed to act as an historian, interviewing either the patient (if lucid and conscious) or his neighbours, relatives etc (if patient is not lucid or conscious) and perhaps resorting to eyewitness accounts or physical evidence. Then you make an hypothesis, adjusting it in the light of geographical, biological, racial, and perhaps economic evidence. Then you act on the hypothesis and seek to effect a corrective regime.
You might as well be a politician, or a judge, or a restorer of paintings. You would follow similar steps. This is because human knowledge and human inclinations drive all human inquiries. Science is as much a product of the fertile human cerebral engine as any other area of knowledge. We define these areas and the paradigms by which we research and examine them. We decide what evidence is valid and what is rational or not.
There is no external validator that we trust; we place much more trust in our own experience based on the results of our actions or how closely things match our predictions. We tend to trust in our own understanding without question as to the basis of that understanding, its origins, or its relevance to the universe as a whole. And here is where the educated man collapses as a being of straw and light and mirrors, of smoke without fire and fact without context. It is all very sad.
But what can be done?
I refer you back to the original question. "Why is the garden full of footballs?" When this question was posed, the first reaction from the educators was, "What a stupid question!" The reaction from the students was slightly more encouraging, "What a strange question! Let's give you some answers."
To date, I have actually received more than a hundred different answers. But the point, as the students eventually discovered and the educators struggled to realise, was that each answer (whether intended to be trivial, serious, comic, or sarcastic) was capable of generating an entire universe. For example, one bright spark said, "Because there are none elsewhere." Can you imagine what kind of universe would place footballs in the garden outside but nowhere else in all infinity? It boggles the mind.
Similarly, and on a different scale, the response, "The boys were playing an April Fool's joke on the gardener." The questions here are even more interesting: "Why boys?" "Why assume that there is something called an 'April Fool's joke' ?" "Must a garden have a gardener?" and so on.
Every response we make towards every source of response-provocation generates worlds. This is why the narrow-minded should have their brains forcibly expanded. Cognitive dissonance is a key tool of this enterprise, and any educational leader (de jure, de facto, or de profundis) to be worth his salt must engage in exercises which unsettle his own lofty perch so that he can learn. The educator who will not learn is like the teacher of literature who cannot write, yet another joker who cannot practice what he preaches. But I've spoken of the cure elsewhere.
Sometimes, I have felt like changing the question to "Why is the School Full of Idiots?" because that would be more provocative as the title of a presentation made to educators. The main problem is that this is never completely true (with respect to 'full') and it is always partly true of any institution (with respect to 'idiots'). We are always plagued by the narrow and tiny-minded. But it is our Sisyphean work to make sure we are not like that ourselves, and to help others toil towards the same end alongside.
=====
Note: Oh yes, I must say that the comments to this memetic post were all very amusing too. I note that many of them make reference to me as a teacher. And many of them are delighted to mention that I was not a very 'good' teacher either, although apparently able to teach half a dozen different things. Haha, I'm sorry!
etched with acid at 3:34:00 pm
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