Beyond the Scientific: A Comprehensive View of Consciousness.

Social Science Education Consortium, Inc., 855 Broadway, Boulder, Colorado 80302 ($5.95)

N

158

National Science Foundation, Washington, DC.

SED-67-00222-A09

SSEC-Pub-214

Books; Cognitive Processes; Concept Formation; Creativity; Critical Thinking; Discovery Processes; Educational Practices; Elementary Secondary Education; Humanistic Education; Imagination; Learning Theories; Literature; Metaphors; Perception; Self Actualization; Social Studies

Eight papers which discuss rational and nonrational modes of knowing and consciousness and their relevance to educational practice are presented. Richard Jones in "Looking Back and Forth on Consciousness" considers two modes, the rational and the metaphoric, in a discussion of dreams. Alfred Kuhn discusses random variation and selective retention (RVSR) as operations of left and right brain. The combination of the two produce rationality. Maxine Greene focuses on imaginative literature as expressing an array of modes of consciousness. Arthur Wellesly Foshay in "Intuition and Curriculum" pleads for the legitimacy of intuition and offers several examples of how the intuitive leap may be encouraged in school. Ronald Lippit and Eva Schindler-Rainman in "Knowing, Feeling, Doing" call for a fully linked person. The three elements in the title are necessary for the education of the whole person. Robert Samples makes a sharp distinction between right and left hemisphere activities and explains the dominance of the linear, logical, rationalist mode of thinking in schools chiefly through the lack of trust engendered in the classrooms. Mark Phillips describes confluent education, which recognizes and employs all forces present in classroom activity at a given time. John Haas discusses the term synectics, which refers to the unity of the metaphoric and the analytic in the creative process, and uses examples drawn from actual experience. The implications of all the papers are that there are many modes of knowing of which the rational is one and if we are to function fully we ought to make full use of all modes. (Author/KC)

1980

ED177080