Charles Wallace went up to Mrs. Whatsit.
"I see. Now I understand.
You were a star once, weren't you?"
Mrs. Whatsit covered her face with her hands as though
she were embarrassed, and nodded.⁹⁵

The Rationalism of Panexperientialism

Writes David Griffin: "We can therefore envision, without being naively utopian, a far better order, with a far less dangerous trajectory, than the one we now have."⁹⁶ In the book, The Reenchantment of Science and Founders of Constructive Postmodern Philosophy, Griffin and other contributing authors conceptualize constructive postmodern philosophy as creative synthesis of modern and premodern truth and values. The authors use the term postmodern to designate the era beyond modernity. Griffin and others distinguish two types of postmodernism: deconstructive or eliminative and constructive or revisionary.

Deconstructive postmodernism overcomes the modern worldview through anti-worldview: it deconstructs or eliminates the ingredients necessary for a worldview such as God, self, purpose, meaning, a real world, and truth as correspondence. Constructive postmodernism, however, seeks to overcome the modern worldview not by eliminating the possibility of the worldview as such, but by constructing a worldview through a revision of modern premises and traditional concepts.

The purpose of constructive postmodern philosophy is to imagine a better, less destructive order beyond the modern world. The worldview portrayed by this philosophy resembles the vision of ancient societies, but approached from the more sophisticated re-enchanting dimensions of contemporary science. This worldview is essentially organic, and for this reason, postmodern constructive philosophy is also called the philosophy of postmodern organicism.

From the perspective of postmodern organicism, rational modern science and philosophy are profoundly anti-rational because they do not meet the criteria of self-consistency and adequacy for all the facts of experience. From Webster's dictionary, rational is a sane, sensible, reasonable, logical basis, exposition of principles. Modern philosophy assumes that ultimate units of matter are completely devoid of experiences and of spontaneity of self-motion the capacity to initiate movement of any sort.

But is it really rational to think that mental, emotional, and spiritual human experiences can emerge out of non-experiencing passive matter? How could it be sane to believe that my anxieties, intentions to complete this manuscript, or my ecstatic feelings of being a mother can spring out of mechanistic collisions of mindless and insensitive atoms? There is no adequate account for this phenomenon in modern philosophy. The best it could come up with is a mind-matter dualism. To recover the ideal of rationality and to account for modern inadequacies, the postmodern constructive philosophy offers panexperientialism, the hypothesis that views all entities in the universe as occasions of experience, from the very large - up, up to the galaxies, to the very small - down, down to the mysterious subatomic world.

Finally, the universe perhaps thinks, I am not a machine anymore! Indeed, today it can enjoy a plethora of metaphoric choices: Great Thought, Unfolding Flower, Hologram, Garden, Self-organizing Being, Breathing Cathedral, or Cosmic Organism. Such plurality of metaphors suggests that the emerging post-mechanistic world remains under creation; however, there is something undoubtedly common to all these metaphors. They portray an organic world.

Quantum Leaps of a Pulsing Heart:
A Holonomic Inquiry as a Research Methodology

If we knew how to access it, we could find the Andromeda
galaxy in the thumbnail of our left hand.⁹⁷
                                                                        (Michael Talbot)

Holonomic inquiry is an invitation to re-imagine, re-create the world and consequently school science curriculum, which is geared to a materialistic, deterministic, atomistic, reductionist, and objective vision of the universe. If I re-imagined the universe, I must internalize it. I must start living in the world as if it is not mechanistic but complex, alive, and holographic. I have to prove the authenticity and meaningfulness of this new reality through my own living in it; otherwise, my imagined world will become yet another abstract, idealized world.

While imagining the re-enchanted holographic universe, I shall look at my own experiences, seeking a hint that, indeed, I am an unbroken wholeness with the living world and that the same currents running through our human blood run through swirling galaxies and colossal solar systems. This is the essence of a holonomic inquiry.

The uniqueness of a holonomic inquiry is manifested in its research question: through what experience and under what circumstances do I feel unified with the world or observe its unity? While aiming to find the Andromeda galaxy in the thumbnail of our left hand, holonomic research is an invitation to listen to ourselves and to others with understanding that our experiences are cosmic experiences. In the re-enchanted world, where the researcher is the Cosmos, his or her presence within research is not hidden; on the contrary, it shines throughout the entire project as a light reflected form the sparkling diamond.

A single wave, of which
I am the accumulating sea;
you, of all possible seas the most frugal,
space to be used.
How many of these places in space were already
within myself, many
a wind
is like a son to me.
Do you know me, air,
still filled with my habitations?
You, sometime the smooth outer skin,
the rounding and leaf of my words.⁹⁸

For the holonomic researcher, experiences of empathy and love provide invaluable data that indicate our unbroken wholeness with the world. Laszlo suggests that the holographic unity of our reality also reveals itself through spontaneous communications, when a social group becomes more than sum of parts, transforming into as a single organism. This phenomenon might occur due to holofield-mediated coordination.⁹⁹

Days of the Physical Science in Elementary Schools Course
(A soap opera)

It is the first day of class. We met in the science lab. It is always so exciting to meet the new students. Intrigue and mystery of novelty: who are they? After the usual introductions, I invited the prospective teachers into another room, where I had made thorough preparations in the form of chairs arranged in a circle, lighted candles, burning scents, fresh flowers, and the chanting music of the group Enigma. I started the lesson with a shocking and desperately non-scientific invitation: Let's talk about love, empathy, awe, and enchantment. I intended to use this invitation as a strange attractor for creating a chaotic butterfly of the unfolding self-organizing course, but I felt acutely that those, who hardly knew each other, spontaneously became a single entity, a newborn organism that sent the strong message of shock, surprise, and non-acceptance: what kind of science class was this? I understood this message intuitively. It was frustrating, I must admit.

From John's reflective journal:

My initial thoughts: What is she talking about? I thought we were dealing with science. Science is not about story telling and about plays and dance. Science is about research and learning facts. What do you mean that we are all connected in some universal way? Where are we going with this? What is this class about? Am I going to learn anything that will help me to become a better teacher? So many questions and so many worries.
This is all so new and cutting edge.

My inner voice whispered:

The chaotic attractor I created is too strange.
Next time, I have to think of a less shocking beginning.

THE VOICE IN THE NIGHT

A voice whispered to me last night:
"There is no such thing as a voice whispering in the night!"
(Haidar Ansari)

Science Education as a Sonnet to Life

1. anti-manual how to imagine
    re-enchanted universe(s) into existence

imagining universes into existence,
(especially if re-enchanted)
is not an easy task
there is no manual provided
it would be nice to simply go to a cosmic store
and buy something like:
"A step-by-step manual for hands-on creation of universes!"
the problem is, where to find such a store?
I once tried to look through a cosmic telephone directory,
but very soon realized the impossibility of this task
it is obvious that human life
does not provide enough time to browse through
the many millions of very long starry numbers...
trying not to think how much such a long distance call might cost
hoping for a miracle, I randomly dialed

A-11-22-33-99......100000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000

after a considerable period of silence
the telephone's speaker suddenly exploded with a loud voice:

"North Star is speaking, how may I help you?"

a star? I was lost...dumfounded.
what to say?
I do not have any instructions on how humans must speak with the stars.

"oh dear North Star, I need your help
do you happen to know the number of a cosmic store
which sells manuals for imagining universes into existence?
since I am a human from a modern mechanistic world,
I am not sure if I can do anything without
a manual, prescription, instruction, description, or recipe.
I have to have something solid to rely upon..."

"oh, dear, I too, was once human, but now I am a star
and stars, by the way, are usually much busier than humans
I am late for a cosmic festival!
I must hurry!
call me in five hundred years,
maybe then I will have time to help you...

while listening to the busy signal of the hang up,
frequently interrupted by cosmic waves,
I decided that for me five hundred years was
a little too long a period to wait,
which is why I had better imagine the universe independently
without using external assistance or recipes
for this purpose I invented my own anti-manual
which does not include step-by-step procedures
but is based on the nonlinear interplay of

particles and waves
trials and errors,
body and mind
ice and fire
magic and real stuff
eternity and single moments,
"pros" and "cons"
hope and despair,
flux and permanence,
hatred and love
interior and exterior
light and darkness,
"yes" and "no",
humans and angels
"plus" and "minus"
quarks and galaxies
poetry and prose,
microcosm and macrocosms
happiness and tears
elements and compounds
music and silence,
soul and science,
the complex and the simple
the past, the present, and the future,
all necessary for creating a living and feeling universe

the most challenging task is to press
            all of that into a singular point

                                          BIG BANG

the cosmic egg is broken
                                    order out of Chaos
                                                            a quantum leap

        LET IT BE!

Now, when a baby-universe is born, it is time to begin a cosmic story.

2. at the beginning was a cosmic story

Stars, galaxies, circled in cosmic pattern, and the joy of unity was greater than any disorder within.¹⁰⁰
                                                            (Madeleine L' Engle)

Disenchanted mechanistic science curriculum is dead. Indeed, it is quite challenging to stay alive while being dissected into disjoined fragments. You can study states of matter in physical science, the digestive system of a fish in life science, and volcanic activities in earth and space science. Then studying science turns into collecting isolated bits, facts, and fragments of information about the world. Each school year increases the sheer volume of fragments.

Of what use is the universe?
            What is the practical application
                                    of a million galaxies?¹⁰¹

The story of mechanicism is told in the language of numbers, graphs, charts, and proofs.
It is the story of a dead abstract world. Re-enchanted science curriculum is alive. Its autopoietic pattern of organization is structured around the living cosmic story. Such curriculum evolves along the broadening hermeneutic DNA spiral of a living Cosmos. Each grade contributes a new turn to the spiral. Students and the cosmic story grow together.

There are no cosmic stories in the modern school science curriculum, and this is, as Swimme writes,¹⁰² a terrible loss. Without the benefit of a cosmic story that provides meaning to our existence as Earthlings, we were stranded in an abstract world and left
to invent nuclear weapons, chemical biocides, ruinous exploitations, and waste.

In The Holistic Curriculum, John Miller¹⁰³ writes that the story of a new curriculum should reflect the interconnected world portrayed by new scientific insights. The contemporary story told by the avant-garde science, unifies humans of all nationalities into the cosmic race. If included into school science curriculum, this story could install students into the living and feeling Cosmos, where galaxies are nurseries of the stars, where black holes are baby-universes, where each atom is an experiencing entity enfolding the entire living world, where each human has a cosmic status as a holographic macrocosm, and where the beautiful and fashionable Goddess Gaia is alive, experiencing, feeling, and perhaps, even conscious.

planet Earth, Mother Earth, Gaia
in the glamour of your blue-white beauty
you dance into the spell of darkness
along with born and vanishing stars.
who knows, maybe at some unimaginable level
you communicate with other living planets
gossiping about some hottest interplanetary news?
or, perhaps while orbiting about the sun,
you are rushing to some important cosmic event
fully ready and prepared:
your winds brushed your hair, crowns of trees,
your fashionable dress is decorated with flowers,
your makeup is composed of a colorful palette,
the red and yellow of your autumns,
the blue and green of your springs,
and the vivid rainbows of your summers.
your winter diamonds, pieces of ice, glistening radiantly.

As you drift in spacetime,
all your creatures, big and small
unified into an incredible web of life,
are nourished with air to breathe, water to drink, and food to eat.

Planet Earth, Mother Earth, Gaia.

Hello, Gaia,
how are you?

The cosmic story glues re-enchanted science curriculum and its world into an unbroken wholeness. The deeply re-enchanted world is a complex, holographic, evolving organism, alive throughout its totality. In such a world, there is no division between living and non-living entities, and therefore, the arbitrarily separation of science curriculum into physical science, life science, and earth and space science loses meaning. Biology is the study of the larger organisms, says Alfred Whitehead, whereas physics is the study of small organisms.¹⁰⁴ And in the light of modern cosmology, adds Rupert Sheldrake, physics is also the study of the all embracing cosmic organism, and the galactic, stellar and planetary organisms that have evolved with it.¹⁰⁵

Not just the structure, but also the entire content of the new school science curriculum has to be re-conceptualized if following the footsteps of avant-garde science. New, deeply re-enchanted science curriculum would be based not on mechanistic, but on cosmic worldview, since living Cosmos approaches us not only through space travel, but also through the dimension of our inner space!

What an interesting universe might unfold! What an enchanting science education might leap into existence! Listening to the quantum leaps of my heart, I begin the flight of my imagination, proposing to teach school science as a cosmic Sonnet to/of Life, an exciting story of the complex holographic organic poetic mysterious world.

A Magic World! Enchanting, says Thomas Berry.¹⁰⁶

In such a world, even a rock is in some way alive, for life and intelligence not only in all matter, but in energy, space, the fabric of the entire universe, writes David Bohm.¹⁰⁷

        LET IT BE!

MATTERENERGYSPACETIME IS ALIVE

In the living world living knowledge grows out of explorations through the three eyes-- the eye of flesh (senses, emotions), the eye of mind (logic), and the eye of contemplation (beauty, spirituality, intuition, imagination).¹⁰⁸

William Doll analyzes Whitehead's philosophy of education:

Technical proficiency alone, Whitehead believed, would lead only to mediocrity and dullness. He commented that one could understand all about the sun and all about the atmosphere and all about rotation of the earth and still miss the radiance of the sunset. What was wanted, therefore, was an appreciation of the infinite variety of vivid values achieved by an organism in its proper environment.¹⁰⁹

Days of the Physical Science in Elementary Schools Course
(A soap opera)

Teacher:
-Today we have an outdoor lesson

Chorus:
-Yes!!!!

Teacher:
-We are going hiking with a purpose to use our scientific skills of observation and to honour the world by producing a collective video. I invite you to look around and to capture the image that enchants you. It could be a cloud or a leaf or the branch of a tree or… Think about two words to associate with your image. It could be a literal description or a poetic metaphoric expression. Videotape your image and simultaneously speak your words. For instance, I see this dry broken branch from a tree lying on the ground. For me, this image is broken memories.

During next lesson, we watched not a video, but our collective poem that honoured the living, feeling, and poetic world with all its dreaming clouds, illusive hopes, frozen tears, forgotten flowers, and lost suns.

From Duncan's reflective journal:

This class was the day we went outside to create metaphoric snapshots of the environment. I was reluctant to do this as it seemed pointless at the time. The activity seemed more suited to art than pure science. The idea that the environment, which I respect greatly, is inspirational is the domain of Romantic poetry rather then scientific inquiry. Looking back I realize that I was being close-minded and unimaginative. I did not do a snapshot because I did not think about anything, which was no doubt attributable to my narrow perspective. The idea of using video cameras is excellent because it provides students with an opportunity to explore the synergy of the environment and technology in a hands-on way. I regret not participating because I lost the opportunity to benefit from experience.

Duncan's comments made me think: was this activity scientific or was it exclusively artistic? Does my plea for re-enchantment ignore or distort real science? I find this question not easy to answer. Where was the science in this activity? Learning observational skills. What was the art? Making poetic, metaphorical associations. But was not this activity altogether an expression of our deeper knowing of the world that embraces our inner and outer experiences? Perhaps it is time to re-think what the real science is.

The topic of another lesson was Chemical and Physical Processes. Rusting is a good example of a chemical reaction. You can conduct a scientific experiment, placing a steel wool in a test tube with water and then observe the process of rusting. You can explore rusty and non-rusty iron with a magnet. Rust is not magnetic. It has different properties than iron. You can go outside to collect rusty objects. You can also create a magic video-story, where iron and oxygen decided to produce the new compound rust in the presence of water. If the teacher would take the role of Rust, dressing accordingly, the video-story unites class and teacher into a holographic unity.

NO ONE LIKES RUST

No one likes Rust.
Rust is not an attractive compound at all.
It symbolizes aging and destruction,
and it ruins many useful things
Who is to blame for such an unpleasant event as rusting?
Oxygen is the guilty party!
Of course, I do not think
oxygen intentionally complicates our lives
by producing Rust.
Probably, it is just having fun,
flying around, searching for elements
which do not mind reacting with it.
While wandering about,
oxygen perhaps noticed
a piece of iron
and decided to make a deal with it.
Using all his charm, oxygen said:
"Hey, iron! How are you?
Aren't you bored being alone?
would you like to participate
in a neat chemical reaction with me?
We will produce a great new compound "iron oxide"
if you do not mind lending me just a few tiny electrons
to complete my electronic configuration!"

Iron, probably, replies:
Well, your deal sounds good.
A few little electrons are actually
not a very high price to pay,
but it is against my nature
to make hasty decisions.
I have to have some time to think!

Here comes water:
"Come on, iron! There is nothing to think about!
Hurry up and react!

Iron says:
OK, I am convinced.
I will react with you, oxygen,
in the presence of water.
You can have my electrons if you wish.

The deal was done. The reaction was completed.
Rust, which is iron oxide was produced.
Elements make their own deals
and we make ours.
Sometimes their and our deals are not in agreement,
But if we ever found a way
to contact the elements,
we could possibly negotiate

From humans to elements:
Please do not produce rust on our things!

Voices from the chorus:

- I like using movie making as a tool for students to show that they have learned about a particular concept. Making your own video puts a person in the role of teaching. Teaching something enables a person to learn and remember something to a much higher degree.

-It is more fun and more thoughts. Children will remember and learn so much better via doing the video. Other benefits: writing scripts, acting, collaborative work, learning to film and to edit, integration with other subjects.

-The video describes what rust is and how it was formed. It explains how the element iron in presence of water reacts with oxygen creating a new substance. The video helps students visually see or understand the process of these elements reacting by dramatizing (acting out) this process. The effort required in making video helps lead to greater student engagement (interest), motivation which furthers deeper thought leading to greater understanding, retention, and learning.

Other rusty ideas from prospective teachers:

-Create video presentation where the audio is a variety of students' tunes and rhythms that incorporate the following rust-prevention chant.

We must, we must, we must
We must reduce rust!

-Invite students to present mini-dramatizations of images in their lives, depicting where it may be useful to anticipate and prevent the oxidation of iron, the magic of rust! For example, protectively painting a bicycle and storing it inside or undercover (rather then outside in the rain and moist air), or cleaning, drying, and putting away garden tools, or putting a protective cover on the back yard barbecue. Investigate your neighborhood on your walk home, use your imagination for more ideas!!!

Rust through art:

Images of Chemical Change:

Brush a mixture of white glue and water over an entire sheet of construction paper (Black? Silver?) Place a found/fallen leaf or array of leaves onto the sticky paper (leaves change colour: chemical or physical change?). While paper is still damp with glue mixture, use steel wool or sandpaper with a set of rusty objects. Shave the rust onto the paper so that the page is covered thoroughly with rusty particles. Carefully peel off the leaves. They will leave clear silhouettes/shadows/memories of the leaves, surrounded by a sprinkled shower of rust!

Rusty fairy tale:

Role-play the tin man from Wizard of Oz.
Rusty dancing:
How would rusty robots dance?

Rusty connections to language arts and technology:

Build fairy tale/story characters of everyday pieces of metals (safety pins, paper clips, tin foil, zippers, nails, nuts/bolts).
Set characters outside to oxidize.
Predict: which parts of your character will rust? Why?
Take pictures and make drawings of observed changes overtime.
Use photos and your drawing to accompany creative writing of a story fairytale or adventure story about our rusty characters.
Videotape a role-played story.

A voice from the chorus:

-I would create a story that defends rust. Everyone seems to blame it, but actually it is doing a good job recycling metals. If there were no rust, our world would be even
messier with old metallic things thrown everywhere.

Yes, it could be a great story, and the story must have a room within science education. If you give a story freedom, if you turn it loose, it tends to write itself poetically and ethically, even if this story is about scientific observations. Poet Leggo described a project where he and a teacher invited elementary students to write stories while studying a unit on butterflies. When represented by the story, their observations were no longer filled with scientific jargon and recitations of facts, but with human feelings and wonderment. With awakening human feelings, ethical questions about caring for butterflies emerged. Then there is the science that asks the deeper questions, one that asks whether we should even be keeping the butterflies in captivity.¹¹⁰

            Butterfly
Butterfly, butterfly,
Oh where are you butterfly fluttering through the wind?
You can see me but I can't see you when you're
Behind the tree.
Oh butterfly show me where you do travel; and where
Your life journey began.
I hope to see you again one day, oh butterfly, butterfly, butterfly.¹¹¹