Can science be feminine?

I am sitting in a workshop for Playback Theatre. We are invited to tell our stories about Women's Business/ Men's Business. I find myself saying I have a story, even though I have no idea what it is...

I surprise myself as I explain how for many years I worked in a man's world of science, engineering and industry and how I strove to fit into this world earning the respect of its inhabitants. But then I began to realise that in embracing this scientific modernistic economic rational perspective and ways of doing and being that I was supressing a really important part of myself.

When I started creating sculptures of femine forms I realised that I was beginning to reclaim this part of myself - my women's ways of knowing and being. My further research into women's ways of knowing (Belinky et al) helped me to see that I wasn't alone in wanting more from science - I wanted to come to know the world in rich interconnected ways, marrying objectivity with intuition, relationships and history - and this is what women want!

As the actors play back my story showing the conflict between the masculine and feminine I wonder why this story came to the surface. After all, the research on women's ways of knowing has been around since 1982, and formed part of feminine discourse for last 20 plus years. But has it really filtered down into everday science education that we see in schools?

What is science anyway? At the core of its meaning is the verb "scire" - to know.... to inquire into something.... and over time this has become associated with a particular way of coming to know.

While we see more ethical issues, more stories about science and more relevant contexts to appeal to girls in science classes, modernist science seems to still dominate the way students discuss and think about science - dispassionate debate, creating assertions and defending them. Does this turn off the female students? Mine certainly have said so. Perhaps we need to allow students to be in three minds about something, to admit to uncertainty and change in thinking, to role play possibilities, consider other ways of knowing, get inside the thinking of the scientist, and to reflect on their own ways of knowing and being that they are bringing.

So are these different approaches a result of the gender divide? Is there a mens science and a womens science? Perhaps they also reflect the difference in modernism (a more masculine voice) and post-modernism (a more feminine voice)? What might then be an integral voice?

As we see english curriculum move to embrace post-modernist sensitivities, should science be doing the same? After all this generation have only grown up in a post-modern world... perhaps relevance to them is more than providing current contexts, it is also being congruent with the very knowledge paradigm that they are living in.

So what might an integral science be like and could this honour both men's and women's ways of knowing the world?

Oops, I forgot the unfoldment of the soul!

I have just spent a little while putting together a presentation for science teachers about how to integrate soul in science (see previous post) and I think I have completely forgotten to say a key aspect of a soulful education.....unfoldment (sue bangs her head!)

I looked at how science might help develop the individual - creating wise, ethical beings who are able to create sustainable futures - and how teachers can be more mindful of the different development lines that contribute to this, seeing ethics as founded on a much wider base than engaging in ethical discussion. E.g. ethics comes from a development of caring, aesthetics, connection, cognition, foresight, spiritual practice, self-understanding as well as values and ethical dilemmas and actions.



But the very notion of developing "ethical and wise beings" is based on an assumption that education is about "developing". What about the unique unfolding of the individual? What is the difference between education which might "lead out" and education which aims to "develop"? Do I have what an ethical/wise being looks like in mind when I say this? Is there a fixed endpoint?

I think I would like to value-add science by showing how it can be involved in development of the whole child as well as just teaching "stuff", skills or thinking capacities. But as soon as I try to construct logical arguments that can fit within a 30 minute power point presentation for a specific audience a whole lot of bigger issues slide out of view. The very use of graphical organizers puts us into a certain headspace, and leads to perhaps unwarranted assumptions of learning, evolving and the nature of what it means to be human, despite my intentions of addressing just these concerns! Hmmmm.

I guess that is why my thesis is 180,000 words (about twice the size of a normal one) - I needed that many words to second guess myself all the time!

So I would be really interested in people's comments on the presentations - how might they lead into possibilities as well as corral thinking in limited ways?

Integrating Science and Soul presentation

What are some key ways that we can integrate science and soul in education?

Here is a PowerPoint presentation, with narration, that I have put together for the CONASTA / ICASE conference in July in Perth.

In Part 1 I introduce some key ideas from my thesis and provide some conceptual frameworks using lenses from Integral Theory. I try to show how engaging soul can be an integral part of curriculum design.

In Part 2 I look at a current concern of science educators - sustainability. How might we help to develop ethical and responsible citizens for sustainable futures? What does it mean to develop ethics in science and what can we learn from taking a holistic approach to this?

The presentations take about 30 mins in total.

Part 1:

Part 2: