Week 6 Feb. 23 - March 1

I started this week’s reading with week three’s reading, chapter ten.  I thought that it would be important for me to have a least a familiarity of Davis’ initial descriptions of interobjectivity.  On page 101, I found a description that reads, “the mutually affective relationships between phenomena and knowledge of phenomena”.  Does this sound familiar to anyone, considering the use of the term, “mutually”?  If you were thinking it sounds like mysticism, I was too.  I’m glad that Davis helps clarify the difference, though. Throughout chapters ten and fourteen through sixteen, the author reminds us that a mysticism views Knowledge (big K) as “out there”, predetermined, and ideal, whereas interobjectivity views knowledge (little k) a product (or productions) of interactions -- and we get to participate!  Davis states, “Knowledge...is understood to inhere in interactions”, and “what we do contributes to the unfolding of the cosmos” (101).  Equally as important is the idea that mysticism deals in the non-physical realm where as interobjectivity deals in the physical world.

     To better understand the idea of complexity science, it helped me to think of other areas that I’ve personally studied, ones that seem to be self-organizing and self-transformative.  I thought of certain genres of music, like Baroque and Classical music.  In my study of these two styles, it seems that no one in particular made the announcement, “Now henceforth, upon the death of J.S. Bach and in accordance with the stylistic musings of W.A. Mozart, this period will be no longer be know as Baroque, but rather as Classical.”  According to my readings and observations, Bach and Mozart did not initially label their works as being part of a certain musical period.  Instead they were part of an emerging style, affected by socialization with other musicians, previous musical stylings, and even other art forms.  As a side note, music genre titles typically mimicked titles found in visual art and literature genres.
     In reference to the modern day classroom, Davis explains that there are four components that are necessary for the formation of a complex system: a certain level of diversity among the body of students to promote novel innovative responses, a certain level of redundancy so that structural coupling can occur based on familiar activities or experiences, liberating constraints to guide but not stifle production, and decentralized control so that everyone, including the teacher, becomes a learner.  My thought is that these four components are critical to avoid the top-down hierarchical structure found in empirical models. (I’m over-simplifying Davis’ explanation, so can anyone help expound on these components?)
     In chapter ten, Davis specifies the origin of the term ‘ecology’ as ‘oikos’, Greek for ‘household’.  In chapters fourteen and sixteen, he describes ‘ecology’ as a model for the reincorporation of humans into a larger collective body, as in a household or something greater than the individual parts.  He explains that, as opposed to the complex science metaphor, which is in part concerned with how intertwining in the cosmos occurs, ecology focuses on the ethical question of why it is important that such intertwining occur.  

I think this model is appropriate given the vastly different demographic in today’s Western society, and in the United States in particular.  The idea of teaching as conversing and mindful participation with and between students is, in my opinion, vital in consideration of not only nature but race, class, gender, and sexuality.  The idea of teaching as conversing initially prompted me to think of a graduate level classroom.  I’m reminded, however, of an appropriate application in the 1968 documentary ‘A Class Divided’, addresses race discrimination.  Does anyone know of other examples of proper applications of teaching as conversing, or did anyone notice other interesting aspects of interobjectivity in general?

Week 5 February 16-23

From the Davis readings this week I can clearly see a break from the umbrella of thought of metaphysical to what I now better understand as physical. I have to admit that the only way I see intersubjectivity  as physical is its complete opposition of the metaphysical theories we have previously covered.  In my mind I would like to think of the “physical” as being concrete, proven, easily seen, etc.  but it seems as a whole intersubjectivity is the complete opposite of these ideas. One of the main shifts I saw between metaphysical was the use of “language.”  In both structuralism and poststructuralism  language is no longer a descriptor or tag of something but now “language” is explanation, interpretation, and it is evolving. It seems that the truths or meanings are not something based off of strictly logic or seen facts, but are now an interpretation of collective knowledge and especially those things that have to be inferred and are not clearly seen. Learners must be allowed to explore and the teacher’s role becomes one of more guiding, liberating, empowering, prompting or enabling. Davis said, “for structuralist, the individual is not a monad locked in a biological prison, but an emergent and evolving form entangled with other emergent and evolving forms.” (pg. 137) It seems in both structualist and poststructuralist views that all sorts of external and even “non-formal teaching” lead to a learning or knowing experience. On page 132 Davis said that in these theories it is understood that we know more than we know, each and every action contributes to knowing, and learning is an uncontrollable phenomenon.

I feel that constructivist theory is born and manifested in intersubjectivity thought. Would you agree? One thing I struggled with during the reading is the difference in constructivism and constructionism. I am not sure if I am correct so please let me know what you think, but I see constructivism as more from the outside looking in as one would look at and better understand development. And learning would be continually adaptive to outside experiences. Whereas constructionism referred to as “social constructivism) seems more internal to the individual learner. Constructionism seems to be of how the individual is going to process knowledge in terms of socialization or enculturation. Please let me know how you see the difference in constructivism and constructionism.   

Week 4 Feb 9 - Feb 16

This post is relevant because this chapters are getting deeper with some many theories to consider. It is fascinating to me the way Davis uses Descartes' first principles notions to develop the evolution of episteme concepts (rationalism v empiricism). To me he develop Descartes' logic of rationalism and deduction while bifurcating Bacons' notion of empiricism and induction, to plant the seeds of verifying knowledge. From Descartes grew the focus on the individual, rigid analytical logic, and cognitive psychology. From Bacon grew positivism and measure, then statistics and the focus on populations and the "normal" concept. Then confound into this evolution "nativism". and Wala! emerges behavioral psychology. Behavioral psychology and other meta-physical metaphors drive today's teaching structures and methods. Davis conclude that these epistemic structures are too rigid, based on conjecture, and are from the wrong perspective. What I find intriguing is that he suggests episteme thinking in the educational community has evolved into mysticism. This raises the question is episteme an evolution from gnosis or a departure? Why? and How?

Week 3  February 2- February 8