104 Chapter 2 Marr (2013), colleagues at California State University in San Bernardino, made this connection, presenting their ideas and experiences under the title Emergent Teaching: A Path of Creativity, Significance, and Transformation. Crowell (2013) presented himself as an applied philosopher focused on ‘translating the “new sciences” into educational understandings, interpreting neuroscience research for classroom practice, and applying holistic perspectives and transformative approaches to teaching and learning’ and as one of the founding members of the Spirituality and Education Network (p. ix). Reid-Marr (2013) was trained and ordained as a Zen monk and presented his education as inspired by art, allowing ‘the emotional and creative life of the students to unfold’ (p. ix). Crowell and Reid-Marr (2013) claimed that ‘our current educational models will not work in contexts where complexity, creative chaos, and openness are required’ (p. 4) and that the educational system is in real trouble because ‘learning has become about accumulating information for its own sake’ (p. xiii). They presented the idea of emergence as neither a methodology nor a pedagogical theory; they simply borrowed it from open systems theory and applied it to an educational approach that is profoundly contextual, eventcentric and non-linear. Therefore, Crowell and Reid-Marr (2013) cited Osberg and Biesta (2010) concerning the space of emergence, something that presents itself and has to be utilised with pedagogical tact: The space of emergence occurs when learners have an opportunity to question, explore and share their understandings and deepest concerns with others. Emergence means that the whole is constantly changed and transformed by the parts even as the parts, too, are changed. (p. 8) To find these spaces of emergence, which are unpredictable, as well as to respond to them with pedagogical tact, requires a different way of seeing. Crowell and Reid-Marr (2013) claim that ‘our tendency, especially in the West, is to focus and act on that aspect of a problem that seems most apparent, that is glaring us in the eye’ (p. 8). But when the central concern is to solve the problem as quickly as possible, the interrelatedness of aspects is easily overlooked. ‘When learning becomes defined by high test scores, teachers tend to put all the emphasis on fixed results to the exclusion of everything else’ (Crowell & Reid-Marr, 2013, p. 8). An organismic view of things and, in the end, the whole universe is needed to correct the severe impact the Enlightenment and reductionism have had on education, especially in the West: An organismic view of the universe is not new. It has ancient roots in both Eastern and Western cultures and in indigenous societies as well. What is new is the science behind these ideas and the contrasting paradigm this
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTk4NDMw