Holistic education and complexity thinking

Paper proposal for the SIG Holistic Education at AERA 2007 Title: Holistic Education and Complexity Thinking Ton Jörg IVLOS Institute of Education University of Utrecht The Netherlands A.G.D.Jorg@ivlos.uu.nl ABSTRACT In this paper I link complexity thinking with Holistic Education (HE). It is a challenge to show how HE may benefit of thinking in complexity. For me thinking in complexity is a way of humanizing our scientific thinking. It asks for a reform of our thinking. The rethinking of common concepts like interaction and complexity itself as a dynamic process has important effects on the concepts of learning and education. A link should be made between complexity theory, learning theory, and evolution theory. It may lead to a reinvention of learning and education. The learner's learning and development can be described as a complex process of coming into being with others. This process of learning is based on diversity and variety operating in interaction, like in evolution. The reinvention of learning and education, with its new language of learning, will simultaneously be the building stone for a new Complex Pedagogy with its own concepts and generative metaphors, its generative principles and mechanisms for enabling the coming into being of learners as whole human beings In my presentation I want to show the link between complexity theorizing and holistic education (HE). It is a challenge to show how HE may benefit of thinking in complexity. For me thinking in complexity is a way of humanizing our scientific thinking. The French philosopher and pedagogue Edgar Morin stated that “Complexifying, that is humanizing the sciences” (Morin, 2002). It gives an opening for a richer description of reality, i.e of humans in their learning and development as basically emergent processes evolving through human interaction. The complexity perspective accepts that reality is much more complex than we always believed it to be: “we are at the beginning of a new scientific era. We are observing the birth of a science that is no longer limited to idealized and simplified situations but reflects the complexity of the real world.” (Ilya Prigogine, quoted in the program book of the Complexity, Science and Society Conference 2005, organized by The Centre for Complexity Research). The real message is that we should not take complexity for granted: “The complexity of the world is real” (Axelrod & Cohen, 1999, p. 2). We should not only try to describe complexity in the real world but also try to understand the complex dynamics of it, and the nature of the complex processes involved. We should become more explanatory of the complex dynamic processes and the mechanisms involved in the processes of generating effects which may be nonlinear in time (Ibid., p. 2). To my (own) mind, this view is very much inspired and informed by the work of the Russian educational psychologist Lev Vygotsky and by Edgar Morin. One important way of ‘complexifying reality’ consists of linking the concept of learning with the concept of evolution. Evolution, in turn, is strongly linked with Holism, as we know from the work of Jan Christiaan Smuts (1926/1999). His original work is still a source of inspiration (see e.g. the recent book “Holistic Darwinism”, 2005, by Peter Corning). Is it possible, now, to link holism with learning and evolution, and with Holistic Education? One of the fundamental problems, then, is what ‘the whole’ means in Holistic Education? To link complexity with the field of learning and education is not an easy task. Most people in this field simply stick to describing complexity, taking complexity as a kind of ‘given’ reality, and taking its relationship with that reality of learning and education for granted as well. The discipline of psychology needed for that has been described as “a stern uninventive discipline” (Valsiner & van der Veer, 2000, p. 2), on its way “eventually to commit intellectual suicide” (Ibid., p. 2). So, one may state that the field seems to have encountered a conceptual deadlock. The field seems not able to develop a new, complex view of learning as a potential nonlinear process with explosive possibilities in the spaces of possibilities (see Barab & Kirshner, 2001; Davis & Sumara, 2006). What is really needed is to become explanatory about (dynamic) complexity and education, as Vygotsky already advocated in his main work (Vygotsky, 1978). More recently, Bruner stated that we have to rethink educational psychology (Bruner, 1996, p. 53). To do so, we may have to reform our thinking (Morin, 2001; Mainzer, 2004). This reform of thinking implies a thinking in dynamic complexity, the complexity of the radical social process of ‘coming into being’ of the learner as a whole person (Biesta, 2006), and the hitherto still unknown causal dynamics of the multidirectional processes involved in such complexity (Vygotsky, 1978). Only by taking this challenge seriously, we may be able to reinvent the field of learning and education (Jörg, 2004). It will be the start for a ‘New Learning Science’ (Jolles et al., 2005). It may become the start for redescribing education in complex terms (Osberg, 2005), and, consequently, the potential development of ‘a new language of learning’ (see Biesta, 2006). What seems necessary for that is, at first, an agenda of rethinking. We need not only a rethinking of the traditional concept of interaction, but also a rethinking of complexity (Jörg, 2004, 2006a,b). All this rethinking may bring us not only to a new concept of learning, but also to the development of a new language of learning. Such a focus of rethinking may lead to a trans-disciplinary perspective, offering “a new way of looking at the dynamic process of social influence” (Axelrod, 1997, p. 151; Jörg, 2004, 2006b). This new way of looking may imply the linking of complexity thinking with the fields of Cognitive Science and Brain Research and the field of learning and education (Jolles et al., 2005; Jörg, 2005, 2006a,b,c). The challenge for taking complexity more seriously, and not taking it for granted, implies a moral obligation for the educator too: “The educator is thus morally obliged to do something that he cannot comprehend: to consider something as possible even though he cannot understand the conditions of possibility.” (Luhmann & Schorr, 2000, p. 158) The educator has to face the real problem that he/she may obstruct the complex process of coming into being (see also Osberg, 2005, p. 82). The reinvention of learning and education, with its new language of learning, will simultaneously be the building stone for a new Complex Pedagogy with its own concepts and generative metaphors, its generative principles and mechanisms for enabling the coming into being of learners as whole human beings (Jörg, 2005, 2006b,c). To summarize our aims: to renew the concept of Holistic Education from a complexity perspective, we should 1. not take complexity of learning and education for granted but extend it, to enable the humanizing of education: both as a science and in practice 2. to rethink interaction and develop a new concept of interaction beyond the traditional Newtonian view of mechanistic interaction 3. to rethink complexity and develop a new concept of dynamic complexity 4. escape old habits of thought about learning by linking this concepts with evolution 5. to show how thinking in complexity may become explanatory about the processes of learning and education in practice 6. at the end we may be able to formulate a new concept of learning and of education 7. which will bring us a new language of learning and education 8. formulate holistic education as a more scientifically based one, with a Complex Pedagogy, inviting for a more human humanistic education of learners as whole human beings. References Axelrod, R. (1997). The complexity of cooperation. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press. Axelrod, R. & Cohen, M. D. (1999). Harnessing complexity. New York: The Free Press. Barab, S. & Kirshner, D. (2001). Rethinking Methodology in the Learning Sciences [Special Issue]. Journal of the Learning Sciences, vol. 10: 1&2, pp 5-15. Biesta, G. (2006). Beyond Learning. Democratic Education for a Human Future. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers. Bruner, J. (1996). The Culture of Education. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press. Corning, P. (2005). Holistic Darwinism. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Davis, B. & Sumara, D. (2006). Complexity and Education. Inquiries into Learning, Teaching, and Research. Mahwah (NJ): Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers. Jolles, J., de Groot, R., van Benthem, J., Dekkers, H., de Glopper, C., Uijlings, H., and Wolff-Albers, A. (2005). Leer het Brein Kennen (Understanding the Brain). Den Haag: NWO. Jörg, T. (2004). Complexity Theory and The Reinvention of Reality of Education. In: B. Davis, R. Luce-Kapler, and R. Upitis (eds.), Proceedings of the 2004 Complexity Science and Educational Research Conference, Sep 30-Oct 3, pp. 121- 146, (University of Alberta, Institute for Complexity and Education), Available at http://www.complexityandeducation.ca Jörg, T. (2005). Complexity theory as a building stone for a new science of learning and education through peer interaction. Paper presented at the “Complexity, Science & Society Conference, 11-14th September 2005, Liverpool, The Centre for Complexity Research, University of Liverpool. Jörg, T. (2006a). Minds in Evolution through Human Interaction. Cognitive Systems, nr. 6-4, April 2006, pp. 363-386. Groningen (NL): European Society for the Study of Cognitive Systems (ESSCS). Jörg, T. (2006b). A Generative Complexity Theory and a Complex Pedagogy. Educational Philosophy and Theory. (submitted) Jörg, T. (2006c). Toward a New Learning Science for Education: A Trans-disciplinary Perspective. Paper for presentation at the Asia-Pacific Education Research Association International Conference 2006, 28-30th November, Hongkong. Luhmann, N. &a

Récupéré en direct depuis OpenAlex et désinversé. Les résumés ne sont pas conservés dans cette base de données : les index inversés représentent 8,6 Go des 9,3 Go de texte de la base, et le serveur dispose de 13 Go libres.