Abstract
This chapter problematizes Western progress narratives and linear notions of time using postformal thinking, co-autoethnography and metaphor. The authors describe the features of Western positivist thinking and detail postformalism as a framework for disrupting formal, reductionistic notions of time that reinforce Western notions of progress. Through a postformal analysis of the authors’ autobiographical narratives, they demonstrate the artificiality of linear notions of time and progress in learning and propose ecotopes, or discrete micro ecosystems, as a different way to think about learning and learners in order to respect and value the present as learning unfolds.
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Notes
- 1.
Stages 1-3 (sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete) occur from birth until 11Â years.
- 2.
We note here that Kincheloe and Steinberg were reacting to applications of the work of Derrida and other postmodern deconstructivist philosophers. While, they shared similarity with postmodern philosophers like Foucault who was concerned with the machinations of power, postformalism is a more expansive lens that looks not just at meshes of power but the totality of human experience (I.e., web of reality), including notions of time and space.
- 3.
For a detailed description of how to conduct a postformal analysis see Kress and Lake (2021).
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Kress, T., Lake, R. (2024). Educational Ecotopes: A Postformal Problematization of Time in Educational Research. In: Cole, D.R., Rafe, M.M., Yang-Heim, G.Y.A. (eds) Educational Research and the Question(s) of Time. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-3418-4_29
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