final reflection origins of human behavior

7/31/2019 Final Reflection Origins of Human Behavior

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Reflections on the Class: Origins of Human BehaviorProfessor Regina RitscherBy Jan Herder, August 8, 2012

The first time I read Bachelard it was like water to a person dying of thirst. His prose

and sense of intimacy draws you into the book. I was just out of college in 1978,

and carrying it with me camping and travelling in the pacific northwest. He captured

beautifully that wonderment and mythopoetic relationship to space. Nesting in my

sleeping bag or awestruck at the immensity of the vast grandeur from the Elwha River

range on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. Baudelaires wine and opium

induced visions of reality were appealing to a 21 year old; Bachelard made them

sensical.

The word vast, for Baudelaire, is also the word that expresses the highest degree

of synthesis....the lyrical spirit takes strides that are as vast as synthesis while

the novelists mind delights in analysis. (1)

This aesthetic was critical in my creative development and appreciation of nature. I

translated this hyper awareness of space into my designs on stage, playing with the

paradoxical perceptions that Bachelard articulated for me. And in terms of appreciation

of nature, you can never look at a nest again and not think of interior space, imagining

what it feels and looks like! The enduring vision I carry from Bachelard is that ability to

inhabit intimate and vast places with my imagination and to see everything living and

magical.

For me learning about the different theorists, and especially Piaget, made sense

out of many questions I have about learning. Now it seems everywhere I look I run


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into blogs, research papers and theses that rehash the line of theorists we discussed

in class. The discovery I made about how Seymour Paperts Artificial Intelligence,

constructionism, evolved from Piagetian constructivism, continuously makes me think.

(2) I have to say, the elephant in the room is technology. As a stage technician and

designer I have always been around technology. In the context of technical theater

technology augments reality and your ability to create, using technology in many

amazing and unlikely ways.

There are tremendous changes emerging in our world. Perhaps the changes in the

functions of young peoples brains due to multitasking are an evolutionary adaptation

to solve the problems of climate change and other stupid human moves. In Lovejoys

vision of Gaia, technology is not separate from the earth, as it is the creation of humans,

creatures of the earth, who could help Gaia reproduce through space exploration. (3)

There is no denying that the synapses of the brain are mimicked by electronic networks.

The evolution of the world brain mimics our brain.

What it means to me to be an educator alive in this incredibly quickly changing world

is to encounter and understand technology and use it so it does not use me. Bringing

awareness of the paradigm shift, and guiding as best we can, our students into the

future is imperative. In the research I have done about the effects of neurological

changes due to technology in young people, it is the loss of the big picture that is

concerning. Short attention spans, inability to focus on one thing and see it clearly and

understand it deeply, is juxtaposed with quickly changing and shifting realities--schema.

Being able to understand complexity needs an ability to be agile in ones learning. To

make connections you have to understand things. Being able to synthesize diverse


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creations characterize the connectivist approach to learning and knowledge making

in the 21st Century. This tension exists in the split of paradigms of education that we

see going on today. On the one hand you have the Common Core (4), One-Size-Fits-

All approach. This seems to fly in the face of what we learned about how people learn

by our theorists. And then on the other hand we have what I like to think of as the

the Maker Faire, an individualized learner centric approach that focuses on creating

and constructing knowledge. The Maker Faire approach believes,

All modes of composition are valid and valuable methods of expression.

All modes of composition benefit from design thinking, rapid prototyping

(a.k.a. repeated failure), iteration, and user feedback.(5)

This second approach is in line with what we learned about the theorists, specifically

Piaget, Montessori, Dewey and Vygotsky as constructionists and social constructivists.

Papert takes the next step with constructionist knowledge, with Downes and Siemens

following up with connectivism. Naturally there will be new emerging theories adapting

to the increasing pace of change and the need for greater, networked and collaborative

strategies to solve our problems.

What is the answer to this encounter with technology and the splits occurring in our

approach to education and how we see the future unroll? I believe it is in the vision

of Bachelard, that deep respect and awe of nature and the local place that provides

the answer. If I think about what I learned from the creative process in my research

project I get a glimpse of this. The collaborative project anchored in a specific time

and place, an event, keeps the technology focused on the learning community, and

the local community. This is the hotbed of creativity and innovation. Yes, this could


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be simulated in cyberspace. But what is lost is the earth in that case. Learning,

creation, collaboration, discoveries--many things can be simulated and experienced in

cyberspace. But if we lose our location we lose an essential part of our nature. This is

true in neurology as well. Where the synapses in the brain occur are a critical part of

what part they play in cognition. Why shouldnt the same be true of our bio mimicked

networks and communities? In terms of Kagans Guiding Themes (5), I am borrowing

from the biological metaphor of human development. I am suggesting that to bring our

earth and our education back into equilibrium we must disrupt some systems, introduce

disequilibrium. And again, in Kagans terms, introducing discontinuity. This is occurring

anyway, we cant stop it.

This class was my first class in the Master of Arts in Education Program, and the first

class I have taken (that was not a computer class) for 30 years. I learned a tremendous

amount from the form and content of the class. Today I finished the second class of

the summer, Technology in Education. The technology piece is central to the future

success of our students and our species. Having the Origins in Human BehaviorClass

provided a foundation for scaffolding these tech tools into my practice of teaching.

It feels like I learned about Piaget and Kagan just in time-- It would not have made

anywhere near as much sense without what I learned with Origins. I am fortunate to

be able to apply what I have discovered directly into my learning community in a few

weeks. An amazing feeling. I have never had any formal education in teaching. I have

just followed my intuition and my curiosity. Looking over the learning outcomes for

your class I was pleasantly surprised to see that I had acquired the foundation for these

outcomes.


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1) Knowledge of theories and research in meaning making have deepened my

awareness of the tools I use and the strategies I use to engage learners. Having an

understanding about how we learn reinforced my approach to using design based

learning.

2) Strategies for analyzing perspectives on identity, the impact of biology and

culture on development, interpreting human activity and using the appropriate methods

to generate original findings-- these things came into more clarity after I analyzed

my research findings. It may sound silly, but I never realized I could borrow into the

students processes like I did with the questions I asked. I understand I am just a

neophyte in research, but you have to begin somewhere.

3) and 4) feel like processes that I have begun to understand. What is important

to me is that I have a better idea of the direction I want to go in terms of my thesis and

MA ED work. The tension between local and global, the dynamics of creativity and

knowledge construction, the use of design as a base for learning--in a connectivist

environment --looks like a fruitful place to explore. I am interested in hybrid and

blended models of education. Where technology augments reality, but place based

education is honored, where we have the affordances of the internet but remain

grounded and learner centric, respecting the earth.


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final reflection origins of human behavior

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