Hi David
At 01:22 PM 5/10/2004 +1000, David Sless wrote:
>Suffice to say that the we gradually and reluctantly came to the view
>that these 'irritants' formed a pattern, the cumulative effect of which
>was to inhibit the development of our research program.
I have been reading the two discussion streams on the list at the moment
and see a correspondence that seems to be a merging point... for me at least?
The cultural paradigm of higher education, evident at all levels of the
system from learning models to room structures, is a limiting factor for
non-normative educational paradigms...there is a specific cultural pattern
(being reinforced and protected) here ...it becomes very evident if you
attempt to instigate formations from another learning paradigm.
In terms of institutional management ...the mathematics usually employed as
a basis for decisions at many levels in this cultural system have often
become (in recent years in Australia) an earlier (fundamentalist)
measurement and verification schema...most often presented as neutral
(value free) benchmarks for positive economic outcomes...a pattern is also
evident here which supports specific categories of research over others and
acts to limit qualitative and especially critical approaches.
In this purely Australian (I hope) social movement the earlier conceptions
of mathematics as a science of quantity and space are presented as primary
to contemporary definitions of mathematics as the science of pattern and
deductive structure. There is a pattern here also where the non-numerical
and pattern oriented research paradigms in design and humanities are seen
as becoming irrelevant due to the popular imposition of an earlier more
limited version of what measurement and verification 'are'.
I find the developments in mathematics ...particularly informational
positioning theory & symmetry theories...presented well for the
non-mathematician by Stewart (1998) "life's other secret" and other works
...really work in well with students engaged with environmental and
Indigenous design courses. These pattern oriented investigations fit well
with design and lead to a deeper understanding of the mathematics of
living...greatly divergent from the static formalisms that often constrain
us in the social/political present.
Norm
Dr. Norman Sheehan
Lecturer
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit
University of Queensland
Brisbane QLD 4072
Phone (07) 33656699
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