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ERIC Number: EJ1157225
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017
Pages: 24
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-1710-5668
EISSN: N/A
On Reinventing Education in the Age of Complexity: A Vygotsky-­Inspired Generative Complexity Approach
Jörg, Ton
Complicity: An International Journal of Complexity and Education, v14 n2 p30-53 2017
Reinventing education is the ultimate aim of this contribution. The approach taken is a radical new complexity-inspired bottom-up approach which shows complexity as the fount of creativity and innovation. Organizing complexity accordingly may be the foundation for a new complexified vision of education. It all starts with new thinking in complexity about how complexity is actually generated in the real world. Such thinking offers new kinds of complexity like generative and emergent complexity. The approach taken is very much inspired by the genius of Vygotsky, as a visitor from the future. His focus was not only process-oriented, but also very much possibility-oriented. His method was bottom-up, and opened new spaces of the possible, like the Zone of Proximal Development. Yet he was not able to deal with the problem of complexity in his days. He "simply" lacked an adequate causal framework, which showed causation as a generative bottom-up process, to be linked with potential nonlinear effects over time. He could not explain what he saw as possible: the turning points and upheavals of learning and development. In this contribution the focus will be on the link between the new thinking in complexity and the causal, generative nature of complexity in the real world. This link may show the ontological creativity of the entire world in general, and of human learning and development in particular. It may show the power of generativity to unleash this creativity by a new way of theorizing on education. The complexity-inspired theory of development as generative change, as thriving on the generative power of interaction, is fundamental and foundational for this new theorizing.
University of Alberta. 347 Education South, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2G5, Canada. e-mail: complicity.journal@gmail.com; Web site: https://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/complicity
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A