This is the final excerpt of the 1985 book entitled WOMEN'S WAYS OF
KNOWING. I've posted these excerpts because an important task as teachers
is to assist our students in maturing their thinking. Physics is our
framework, of course, but our purpose encompasses much more - all of life,
in fact. (You know the saying, '... teach a man to fish and you've fed him
for life')
Since most college physics professors - myself included - haven't studied
developmental psychology, and since intellectual development is an
important purpose of our teaching, this synopsis seems a valuable
contribution. Also, physics courses need more women, and this is an
attempt to provoke our thought on how to draw in more females (and more
males, I might add).
In fact, in this final stage of 'constructed knowledge', the differences
between typical male and female patterns of thought diminish. This is most
apparent in another book that I'm reading, by a professor who studied 100
men and women (50 of each) at Miami University in Ohio. The author
interviewed these students yearly for 5 years, starting in their freshman
year. The sad thing is, out of the 100 students, only 2 of them reached
this 'constructed knowledge' (or 'knowing in context') stage by their
senior year!
The following year (after they'd graduated), 12% of them exhibited this
stage of intellectual development. What struck me is the huge positive
effect that they said certain of their senior level courses had, on helping
them attain this stage. The courses they described have several important
characteristics of Modeling Instruction: lots of student discourse to come
to consensus, modeling (in whatever field of study), student responsibility
for constructing their own knowledge, in-depth focus on complex problems;
and little rote memorization & lecture note-taking. Clearly, the way we
teach our courses can make a big difference in the development of our
students' thinking skills - or can have little effect at all. The research
indicates that we teachers have much to do, to improve our teaching.
Cheers,
Jane Jackson
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Synopsis: WOMEN'S WAYS OF KNOWING
STAGE 4: CONSTRUCTED KNOWLEDGE (constructivism)
"It is in the process of sorting out the pieces of the self and of
searching for a unique and authentic voice that women come to the basic
insights of constructivist thought: ALL KNOWLEDGE IS CONSTRUCTED, and THE
KNOWER IS AN INTIMATE PART OF THE KNOWN. At first women arrive at this
insight in searching for a core self that remains responsive to situation
and context. Ultimately constructivists understand that answers to all
questions vary depending on the context in which they are asked and on the
frame of reference of the person doing the asking."
"Theories become not truth but models for approximating
experience..." "A senior honors student in science said, 'In science you
don't really want to say that something's true. You realize that you're
dealing with a model. Our models are always simpler than the real world.
The real world is more complex than anything we can create. We're
simplifying everything so that we can work with it, but the thing is really
more complex. When you try to describe things, you're leaving the truth
because you're oversimplifying.' Such views are a far cry from the
perception of science as absolute truth or as a procedure for obtaining
objective facts, views women at other positions hold."
Question posing and problem posing become prominent methods of
inquiry..."
"They appreciate expertise but back away from designating anyone
an 'expert' without qualifying themselves. An evaluation of experts is not
only possible but is an important responsibility that they asume. For most
constructivists, true experts must reveal an appreciation for complexity
and a sense of humility about their knowledge." Experts had to reveal that
they 'listened' to people and gave equal weight to experience and
abstractions."
"When asked how they feel about experts disagreeing, many
constructivists say that they are challenged, not daunted, by contradiction
and conflict. If they are exposed to the methodologies of several
disciplines, acquiring the analytical skills and methods of each, they
experience themselves as investigators and search for truths that cut
across the interests and biases that lie within a single disciplinary
perspective. Unlike procedural knowers, who remain subservient to
disciplines and systems, constructivists move beyond systems, putting
systems to their own service. They make connections that help tie together
pockets of knowledge. There is a new excitement about learning and the
power of the mind." One student said: 'I am starting to CARE about
academics. I'm beginning to feel that my courses have been connected. It's
much more interesting once one discipline starts to interconnect with
others. You can go through your own courses, pull together your own
connections, figure out connections yourself.'
"There is also an emphasis on a never-ending search for truth,
which is coordinate with a never-ending quest for learning. As [one woman]
explained, 'It isn't the finding the truth that's so wonderful. It is in
the looking for it, the exploring, the searching...' "When truth is seen
as a process of construction in which the knower participates, a passion
for learning is unleashed."
"We observed a passion for knowing the self in the subjectivists
and an excitement over the power of reason among procedural knowers, but we
found that the opening of the mind AND the heart to embrace the WORLD was
characteristic only of the women at the position of constructed knowledge."
INTIMACY: "As we have seen [in stage 3: procedural knowing],
empathy is a central feature in the development of connected procedures for
knowing. This empathic potential ... is particularly characteristic of
constructivist women. "For women at this position, attentive caring is
important in understanding not only people but also the written word,
ideas, even impersonal objects. Constructivists establish a communion with
what they are trying to understand. They use the language of intimacy to
describe the relationship between the knower and the known."
"Barbara McClintock, whose important work on the genetics of corn
plants won her a Nobel prize, used the language of intimacy in describing
her way of doing science. She told her biographer, Evelyn Fox Keller, that
you had to have the patience 'to hear what [the corn] has to say to you'
and the openness 'to let it come to you'. McClintock could write the
biography of each of her corn plants. As she said, 'I know them
intimately, and I find it a great pleasure to know them'."
[Although I don't have Keller's biography, I do have Keller's book
entitled REFLECTIONS ON GENDER AND SCIENCE (1985). In her last chapter,
which is on McClintock's thinking, Keller characterizes McClintock's
scientific vocabulary as being "of affection, of kinship, of empathy....
Indeed, the intimacy she experiences with the objects she studies -
intimacy born of a lifetime of cultivated attentiveness - is a wellspring
of her powers as a scientist." Keller quotes McClintock on chromosomes: "I
found that the more I worked with them, the bigger and bigger [the
chromosomes] got, and when I was really working with them I wasn't outside,
I was down there. I was part of the system. I was right down there with
them, and everything got big. I even was able to see the internal parts of
the chromosomes - actually everything was there. It surprised me because I
actually felt as if I was right down there and these were my friends... As
you look at these things, they become part of you." (Evelyn Keller started
her career as a mathematical biophysicist, by the way. She is at M.I.T.)]
CONVERSATION: "Constructivists make a distinction between 'really
talking' and what they consider to be didactic talk in which the speaker's
intention is to hold forth rather than to share ideas. In didactic talk,
each participant may report experience, but there is no attempt among
participants to join together to arrive at some new understanding. 'Really
talking' requires careful listening; it implies a mutually shared agreement
that together you are creating the optimum setting so that half-baked or
emergent ideas can grow. 'Real talk' reaches deep into the experience of
each participant; it also draws on the analytical abilities of each.
Conversation, as constructivists describe it, includes discourse and
exploration, talking and listening, questions, argument, speculation, and
sharing."
"At times, particularly in certain academic and work situations in
which adversarial interactions are common, constructivist women may feel
compelled to demonstrate that they can hold their own in a battle of
ideas... However, they usually resent the implicit pressure in
male-dominated circles to toughen up and fight to get their ideas across."
COMMITMENT AND ACTION: "More than any other group, they are
seriously preoccupied with the moral or spiritual dimension of their lives.
Further, they strive to translate their moral commitments into action, both
out of a conviction that 'one must act' and out of a feeling of
responsibility to the larger community in which they live."
"Constructivist women mitigate any single choice by considering the effects
it will have on others. Further, all these women are careful to describe
not only the commitment to career that they foresee but also the commitment
to relationships....it is a LIFE foreseen rather than a single commitment
foreseen." "Many of the women told us, with a sigh and luckily a sense of
humor, about their 'juggling act' with the pieces of their life... they
could be, at times, overwhelmed as they tried to balance their commitments
- work, children's schedule, groceries, political action, time with their
husband or lover, the needs of friends and parents, reading, learning, time
with nature. Inclusion ('doing it all') rather than exclusion ('turning
the world off') was an ideal as well as a formidable problem."
"Constructivist women aspire to work that contributes to the
empowerment and improvement in the quality of life of others. More than any
other group of women in this study, the constructivists feel a part of the
effort to address with others the burning issues of the day and to
contribute as best they can. They speak of integrating feeling and care
into their work - 'using my mind to help people', 'cradling the
environment', and 'humanizing cities'."
--------------------------
Jane Jackson, Co-Director, Modeling Instruction Program
Box 871504, Dept.of Physics & Astronomy,ASU,Tempe,AZ 85287
480-965-8438/fax:965-7331 <http://modeling.asu.edu>
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is
our inability to understand the exponential function."
- Al Bartlett, Prof of Physics, Univ of Colorado