A Fear of Physics: Interdisciplinary Learning in Grade Four

Abstract

In this autobiographical study, I investigate Fritjof Capra’s assertion that seemingly diverse elements share commonalities and that the arts are best suited to visualizing and mapping those commonalities. Looking back at myself as a pre-service teacher, I trace interdependence across disciplines in curriculum pitched at the junior level. Through narrative and reflective modes, I identify transitional moments in a Grade 4 classroom that triggered both my students’ and my self-expression and nurtured diversity in our learning community. I seek as well to discern myself as an open, self-organizing system that initially operates at a distance from equilibrium in the teaching process, only to later create sound and creative learning from that point of instability. I also examine how the facet of self that co-creates with students encourages my development as a teacher and writer. Finally, I address the overarching question that underlies a systemic analysis of learning and the complexity theory that incorporates such an analysis: How do multiple pedagogies and modes of expression weave together into a complex whole?