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From: Maia Cheli-Colando <maia>
Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2005 00:35:11 -0700
Monica asked if narrative is preferred for children's science books? Perhaps that ties in with my question about which styles tend to appeal to which genders?
As an adult reader, I am able to understand formal presentations (paper abstracts, academic/research magazines) reasonably well, but the joy I find there is limited to my resonance with the subject matter itself.
(/The Way Things Work/ gives me a headache; it feels disruptive and disjointed.) It is only in integrating the formal work within my internal (yes, emotional) network of ideas, images, and "sensory" impressions that is becomes satisfactory.
In contrast, give me a new essay by Terry Tempest Williams, Barry Lopez, Kathleen Dean Moore or Rick Bass any day, and I shall feel rich and content, for it will be full of both data /and /voice. I know who is speaking; I don't feel stripped of half the experience. If I can locate the "I", I can perceive much more.
Voiceless (much of the nonnarrative) presentations have no sound or taste or feel in my brain. Perhaps something must become experientially sensory to become real. (For me.) And voice is a faster step to sensory experience. (For me.) I have also noticed that my daughter enjoys science with a voice, but has a harder time reading depersonalized presentations of our world.
I am a science?le adult, and can process a Calculus or Physics text without much assistance, but my /enjoyment/ of that text is limited without voice. Perhaps a desire for narrative has more to do with personality/desire or other individual traits than with what a child can or cannot do? And if, in general, the desire (learned or genetic) for voice* tends to be higher in girls than boys, then could this be related to the seeming difficulties that girls have with math and science?
Of course I am speaking only in generalities -- as Monica's tastes in other books suggest, she is able to tolerate and enjoy more disruption than I am. (I offer/ Alice/ as evidence! ) We differ within each gender more than across genders, and all that...
Beyond gender, I think there are ethic/cultural differences. Folks who experience the world intimately, personally, and whose languages express the world as alive, often have a difficult time within the walls of western science. I sent the following note to the childlit list in February, during a discussion of Intelligent Design; the article I read in ASTC Dimensions went a significant ways towards expressing some of my own struggles, and struggles I saw in others:
/ At the local Natural History Museum today, a staffer put a copy of the Nov/Dec 2004 ASTC Dimensions, the Bimonthly News Journal of the Association of Science-Technology Centers, into my hands. This edition focused on diversity in sci/tech museums. An article by Bonnie Sachatello-Sawyer and Teresa Cohn entitled "Native Waters: Integrating Scientific and Cultural Ways of Knowing" addresses our conversation about the critical importance of how we write, speak and teach about science-nature?rth-cosmos within a learning environment. The below quote mirrors my own experience, as well as feelings that I have heard expressed by other biology students and "natural resource" professionals
(foresters, biologists, etc.) as well:
"As plant ecologist and Potowatomi tribal member Robin Kimmerer writes in a recent issue of / /Bioscience, 'A number of very capable students tell the story of abandoning their science education, and a potential place in the scientific community, because of the perception that science prohibits the expression of a personal connection to nature. At a time when our ecosystems are threatened by imbalance between humans and nature, we cannot afford to discourage such students from membership in the scientific community.'"
And, "Through learning to respect each other's disciplines, worldviews, and differences, students can find the benefits of what Native educator Gregory Cajete calls 'healing the split' (/ /pingeh heh in the Tewa language) between modern and traditional ways of knowing about the world."/
Thus back to girls -- do they abandon science not only because they fear they are dumb, or would be nerdy, or because of the constant undercutting of girls in science and math classes... and/or do they reject science out of a sense, if often unarticulated, that pursuing science would require them to abandon a critical piece of themselves?
Last thought for the night: Arguably, most events on our planet are biologically interactive -- our electrons, nutrients, chemicals constantly cross boundaries between "living" and "nonliving." Bones make rock matter, petroleum is the rot of previous generations... perhaps most expressively, water circles eternally through animals, plants, estuaries, aquifers, glaciers and the air...
I tend to find the oft-expressed dualism between life and physical sciences perplexing. Our cells build and break down according to chemical and physical laws, just as we create events that are chemical and physical in nature. Only at the single-organism level can we separate "life" from "nonlife"... and the work of both physicists and biologists suggests that the single-organism level isn't the only or greater "real." I don't know if it is harder to write about a geologic event than a reptilian one... but I would hazard a guess that most western kids learn early the idea that biology is /in here/ while geology is /out there/... thus shaping in part whom will be interested in which?
Maia
/p.s. I just finished Survival: Species Imperative #1. A great sci-fi read for those interested in bioethics... Can't wait to get my hands on
#2!/
Monica Edinger wrote:
Received on Fri 15 Jul 2005 02:35:11 AM CDT
Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2005 00:35:11 -0700
Monica asked if narrative is preferred for children's science books? Perhaps that ties in with my question about which styles tend to appeal to which genders?
As an adult reader, I am able to understand formal presentations (paper abstracts, academic/research magazines) reasonably well, but the joy I find there is limited to my resonance with the subject matter itself.
(/The Way Things Work/ gives me a headache; it feels disruptive and disjointed.) It is only in integrating the formal work within my internal (yes, emotional) network of ideas, images, and "sensory" impressions that is becomes satisfactory.
In contrast, give me a new essay by Terry Tempest Williams, Barry Lopez, Kathleen Dean Moore or Rick Bass any day, and I shall feel rich and content, for it will be full of both data /and /voice. I know who is speaking; I don't feel stripped of half the experience. If I can locate the "I", I can perceive much more.
Voiceless (much of the nonnarrative) presentations have no sound or taste or feel in my brain. Perhaps something must become experientially sensory to become real. (For me.) And voice is a faster step to sensory experience. (For me.) I have also noticed that my daughter enjoys science with a voice, but has a harder time reading depersonalized presentations of our world.
I am a science?le adult, and can process a Calculus or Physics text without much assistance, but my /enjoyment/ of that text is limited without voice. Perhaps a desire for narrative has more to do with personality/desire or other individual traits than with what a child can or cannot do? And if, in general, the desire (learned or genetic) for voice* tends to be higher in girls than boys, then could this be related to the seeming difficulties that girls have with math and science?
Of course I am speaking only in generalities -- as Monica's tastes in other books suggest, she is able to tolerate and enjoy more disruption than I am. (I offer/ Alice/ as evidence! ) We differ within each gender more than across genders, and all that...
Beyond gender, I think there are ethic/cultural differences. Folks who experience the world intimately, personally, and whose languages express the world as alive, often have a difficult time within the walls of western science. I sent the following note to the childlit list in February, during a discussion of Intelligent Design; the article I read in ASTC Dimensions went a significant ways towards expressing some of my own struggles, and struggles I saw in others:
/ At the local Natural History Museum today, a staffer put a copy of the Nov/Dec 2004 ASTC Dimensions, the Bimonthly News Journal of the Association of Science-Technology Centers, into my hands. This edition focused on diversity in sci/tech museums. An article by Bonnie Sachatello-Sawyer and Teresa Cohn entitled "Native Waters: Integrating Scientific and Cultural Ways of Knowing" addresses our conversation about the critical importance of how we write, speak and teach about science-nature?rth-cosmos within a learning environment. The below quote mirrors my own experience, as well as feelings that I have heard expressed by other biology students and "natural resource" professionals
(foresters, biologists, etc.) as well:
"As plant ecologist and Potowatomi tribal member Robin Kimmerer writes in a recent issue of / /Bioscience, 'A number of very capable students tell the story of abandoning their science education, and a potential place in the scientific community, because of the perception that science prohibits the expression of a personal connection to nature. At a time when our ecosystems are threatened by imbalance between humans and nature, we cannot afford to discourage such students from membership in the scientific community.'"
And, "Through learning to respect each other's disciplines, worldviews, and differences, students can find the benefits of what Native educator Gregory Cajete calls 'healing the split' (/ /pingeh heh in the Tewa language) between modern and traditional ways of knowing about the world."/
Thus back to girls -- do they abandon science not only because they fear they are dumb, or would be nerdy, or because of the constant undercutting of girls in science and math classes... and/or do they reject science out of a sense, if often unarticulated, that pursuing science would require them to abandon a critical piece of themselves?
Last thought for the night: Arguably, most events on our planet are biologically interactive -- our electrons, nutrients, chemicals constantly cross boundaries between "living" and "nonliving." Bones make rock matter, petroleum is the rot of previous generations... perhaps most expressively, water circles eternally through animals, plants, estuaries, aquifers, glaciers and the air...
I tend to find the oft-expressed dualism between life and physical sciences perplexing. Our cells build and break down according to chemical and physical laws, just as we create events that are chemical and physical in nature. Only at the single-organism level can we separate "life" from "nonlife"... and the work of both physicists and biologists suggests that the single-organism level isn't the only or greater "real." I don't know if it is harder to write about a geologic event than a reptilian one... but I would hazard a guess that most western kids learn early the idea that biology is /in here/ while geology is /out there/... thus shaping in part whom will be interested in which?
Maia
/p.s. I just finished Survival: Species Imperative #1. A great sci-fi read for those interested in bioethics... Can't wait to get my hands on
#2!/
Monica Edinger wrote:
Received on Fri 15 Jul 2005 02:35:11 AM CDT
