Why Multispecies’ Flourishing?

For a while now we have been working on an idea, a framework/perspective/way of knowing, being, and doing that we believe needs to be more explicitly considered and written about in mathematics, science and technology education. In this editorial we intend to introduce this idea, what the important parts of it are, discuss why we believe it is important for both research and the teaching of children, how it could be incorporated into science, mathematics and technology classes, and why we think it important enough to be researched and written about for future issues of this journal.

Unspoken Modernity: Bamboo-Reinforced Concrete, China 1901-40

Engineering science in the China of 1901-40 had unique characteristics that disrupt the idea of a universal approach to its history.1 The following case study describes the ideas and trials of introducing bamboo into the seemingly globalised technology of reinforced concrete—an innovation developed across the borders of mechanical, naval, civil, and aeronautical engineering. The article showcases a way of knowing and working by twentieth century engineers that has not been fully acknowledged, and is not only a phenomenon of China. While bamboo was a complicated and somewhat marginal object for engineering, it did make the European concrete technology more viable in the construction sites of China, and stimulate engineers’ experimental and resourceful spirit in mobilising both craft and scientific knowledge. It also opened up a challenge to engineering science of the time.

Thinking Otherwise: Bringing Young People into Pediatric Concussion Clinical and Research Practice

Background: As rates of pediatric concussion have steadily risen, and concerns regarding its consequences have emerged, pediatric concussion has received increased attention in research and clinical spheres. Accordingly, there has been a commitment to determine how best to prevent and manage this injury that so commonly affects young people. Despite this increased attention, and proliferation of research, pediatric concussion as a concept has rarely, if ever, been taken up and questioned. That is, little attention has been directed toward understanding what concussion ‘is’, or how young people are regarded in relation to it. As a result, pediatric concussion is understood in decidedly narrow terms, constructed as such by a biomedical way of knowing. Aim: We aim to demonstrate how conceptualizing concussion, and young people, ‘otherwise’, enabled the co-production of a more nuanced and complex understanding of the experience of pediatric concussion from the perspective of young people. Approach: Drawing on an illustrative case example from a critical qualitative arts-based study, we demonstrate how bringing young people into research as ‘knowers’ enabled us to generate much-needed knowledge about concussion in young people. Implications: The critical thinking put forward in this paper suggests a different approach to pediatric concussion, which is shared in the form of implications for clinical and research practice.

Images beyond Representation: Evidence and Depth of Meaning

In this article I consider images from a philosophical point of view starting from its definition and its relation to thinking. Some analogies with imagetic signs and words are established. And in doing this, I try to value seeing, not to the expense of saying or thinking, but as a way of getting in touch with images that privilege a certain way of knowing.

Expanding God’s Redemptive Fractal: Spirit-Centered Counseling and the Transformative Wisdom of Jesus

Using the image of a fractal, a Spirit-centered approach to counseling is proposed that conceptualizes the Spirit’s activity as seeking to replicate the patterns of God’s redemptive story throughout creation by facilitating deep second-order change. Involving an epistemological shift from ways of knowing shaped by the conventional wisdom of culture to a renewed mind grounded in the transformative wisdom of Jesus, this deep change is explored from the perspectives of science and Scripture. Integrating findings from systems theory with the ministry and message of Jesus, this approach to counseling emphasizes relational premises and values believed to be characteristic of the mind of the Spirit. Defined as the capacity to know and see in ways that are consistent with the passion and purposes of God, cultivating the mind of the Spirit is viewed as the essence of Spirit-centered counseling. Presumed to be seen most clearly in the life of Jesus, this model focuses on his distinctive way of knowing and seeing by examining what can be learned about the epistemological facets of perception and meaning-making when comparing his Way with the patterns of this world. It is proposed that Spirit-centered counseling is guided by the premises and patterns contained in Jesus’ transformative wisdom.

Coda—Out of Time

The Coda addresses my decision to locate this project, both thematically and textually, during a particular and somewhat localized expanse of time, and to justify that choice by arguing for the value of reconfiguring the way we think about and investigate the past. Because of this decision, it will be tempting for readers to see Collective Understanding as part of the ongoing debates in literary studies about the relative merits of formalism(s) and historicism(s). In recent years, this debate has taken on a renewed sense of urgency as critics, weary of politics, suspicion, and critique, have contended that scholars have strayed too far from the proper focus of disciplinary attention; they no longer talk about literature, aesthetics, or form. Only by rejecting these former focal points, the argument goes, and returning to our disciplinary roots, can we hope to salvage the discipline as both a way of knowing and an institutional presence. It is the Coda’s contention, however, that the current iteration of this dispute does more to distract from the urgent socio-epistemological issues that literary studies faces than it does to help move us towards a meaningful resolution. Rather than rehearsing the dispute between formalism and historicism, the chapter talks about time as a vector that not only resists the process of being “dynamized into a force of history itself,” it organizes the interpretive and cognitive possibilities of hermeneutic movement.

Erotic desire as a woman’s way of knowing the divine

This article examines a Japanese novel written by Arishima Takeo, A Certain Woman (first published in Japanese in 1919), in order to explore women’s ways of knowing, focusing on the body and erotic desire as a locus where the human–God relationship is embodied. This novel shows a way of knowing the Divine beyond language and the sanitized notion of love, describing the life of a modern Japanese Christian woman who refuses both Japanese colonial woman-hood and Christian (Victorian) sexual ethics. Depicting the divine presence in the protagonist’s promiscuous and stigmatized body, Arishima asks theological questions about the role of eros and violence in the pursuit of God, and seeks radically free God and humans who may go beyond any existing boundaries.

A Video Note Taking System to Make Online Video Learning Easier

Recent coronavirus lockdowns have had a significant impact on how students study. As states shut down schools, millions of students are now required to study at home with pre-recorded videos. This, however, proves challenging, as teachers have no way of knowing whether or not students are paying attention to the videos, and students may be easily distracted from important parts of the videos. Currently, there is virtually no research and development of applications revolving specifically around the subject of effectively taking digital notes from videos. This paper introduces the web application we developed for streamlined, video-focused auto-schematic note-taking. We applied our application to school-related video lectures and conducted a qualitative evaluation of the approach. The results show that the tools increase productivity when taking notes from a video, and are more effective and informational than conventional paper notes.

“Useful Knowledge” in Charles-Alexandre Lesueur’s visual and textual accounts of Missouri in 1826

Artist and naturalist Charles-Alexandre Lesueur (1778-1846) valued his work as useful to science generally and to France in particular, including during the time he lived and traveled in North America from 1816 to 1837. Starting with Daniela Bleichmar’s concept of “visual epistemology: a way of knowing based on visuality, encompassing both observation and representation,” this essay claims that Lesueur’s art and scientific practice adhered closely to a belief in the authority of art from direct observation in nature, and they served different professional, educational, community, and potentially commercial purposes. It charts the conditions under which he produced the art, the purpose(s) of the art, the types of art (sketches, paintings, prints, landscape drawings), and the intended audience through four types of subjects from the expedition to Missouri in 1826: the challenges of scientific fieldwork, Blacks in Missouri, lead mining, and inland but especially riverside towns.