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Hermeneutics & Science Class

Kalman, C. (2011). Enhancing students’ conceptual understanding by engaging science text with reflective writing as a hermeneutic circle.  Science & Education, 20:159-172.

            This research article was absolutely fascinating to me as it contains a very strong correlation to what I am personally interested in with my research and my pedagogical practices as a teacher and teacher educator with literacy and science.  The basis for Kalman’s study is looking at who science understanding has changed or can change within a student by looking at the idea of conceptual change theory and then merging that into practice with reflective writing and the idea of hermeneutics put forth by both Heidegger and Gadamer. 

            The study done was not a study using hermeneutical methodology but was a study that used hermeneutic practices to look at students conceptual understanding of science that they are exposed to in entry level university courses.  This is of major benefit to me as my research goal is to look at how students or anyone who self-identifies as being religious, uses their religious literacy and understanding to inform their scientific literacy and the types of questions that they are continually asking themselves in the process of developing their conceptual understanding.  Kalman’s study did essentially this, but without the emphasis on religion, which was either not addressed or entirely lacking. 

            The role of reflective writing within the Kalman’s study is the major hermeneutical facet in that the purpose of the reflective writing is for an internal role of developing understanding within the student and not for any external source.  While the reflective writing is analyzed by the researchers and they are essentially external of the writing process, the writing is not seen by the course instructors and is thus not responsible for any source of graded material.  By limiting away the external source to the writing, the idea of the reflective processes and hermeneutical understanding can take place internally to only the student as they seek to conceptualize the scientific concept sought.  McDermott & Hand (2010) note that “Writing was not being viewed as a knowledge telling process, where students may know the content, or a knowledge regurgitation process, where they give words back to the teacher without understanding them, but rather as a process whereby they were able to construct new knowledge.”  Reflective writing leads back to Gadamer’s statement towards textual interpretation that “either it does not yield any meaning or it’s meaning is not compatible with what we had expected (237).”  This is the place were a dialogue between the student and the text begins to take place in the writing and the ‘horizons’ may begin to shift. “A horizon is not a rigid frontier, but something that moves with one and invites one to advance further (Gadamer, 217).

            Kulman’s methodological practice believes that students are incapable of hiding how their knowledge is formed when they reflect honestly on their reflective writing practices.  By explicitly asking students how they engaged in self-questioning and self-dialogue, the researcher can see how the hermeneutic circle plays a part in understanding science content.  In doing reflective writing, students set up their own horizons that interacts with either the horizon of the information presented by the textbook or by the information given by the professor (166). Through reflective writing and using the hermeneutic circle, students who participated in the research came to understand they brought with them pre-understanding and conditions that were not present in the science concepts that adversely effected their understandings, but through using reflective writing, they were able to make sense of the science concepts by identifying these pre-conditions.

Al Capone Rocks

This week I had my class read Al Capone Does My Shirts.  It is simply an awesome read for any young adult.  What personally makes the book fascinating to me is that the story revolves in idea around Al Capone, but he never makes an appearance in the story until the very last page.  I would suppose that the story could be classified as historical fiction over general fiction.  Gennifer Choldenko did an extensive amount of research on Alcatraz and the mythology surrounding Al Capone to draw the reader into a story that could have realistically been set at any prison, but is infinitely more fascinating because of the contexts of Alcatraz and Al Capone.

What I really find fascinating in the book is that I have to remember that back in 1935, there was no diagnosis for autism and that people who would become known as autistic were often treated as mentally deranged and placed in conditions equal to, if not worse then those of prisoners.  Being institutionalized was the same thing for both populations.

The ultimate reason I selected this book for my ELA content area literacy classes to read was not because it was historical fiction, but because of it's authentic portrayal of a family living with a family members autism.  This was a point in time when autistic individuals did not receive any type of support system from the government, yet the family still managed to survive, though it was not easy.  While inclusion is mandated by federal law for students that are high functioning on the autism spectrum, the reality is that this may not always happen and that many middle school and high school students will never know the benefits and pleasures of being friends with an individual with autism.  One of my best summers was right before I started teaching and I worked at a camp for adults with special needs.  The campers had a range of conditions, but my favorite campers were those in the autism spectrum because they were such unique and wonderful people when you spend time with them and got to know.  While every student in my classroom and my students future classroom will not have the opportunity to know an autistic individual, I think they should have that opportunity.

Introduction to Philosophical Hermeneutics

Grodin, J. (1994).  Introduction to philosophical hermeneutics. London: Yale University Press.

The first required read of the year for my Hermeneutics Research class and I would have to say that I really enjoyed the book.  This isn't normally the case for research books, but I think I have found this text to be very useful in my understanding of philosophical hermeneutics.  Perhaps it is due to the historical nature of the text; it reads very much like a history textbook on the subject, or it is because I actually know that I am interested in hermeneutics as my overarching philosophy and research methodology for my dissertation; thankfully, it is a year away before I get to begin that endeavor.

While I haven't yet read Gadamer's Truth & Method, or only partially, as it is current reading for another class, the farther along I made it in Grodin, the clearer my Truth & Method reading has become.  What I am lead to wanting to read, or if not wanting, intrigued to read are Heidigger's Being & Time and Kant's Critique of Reason.

Lot's to read and not a lot of time to do it in.