Evidence for Addressing the Unsolved through EdGe-ucating or Can Informing Science Promote Democratic Knowledge Production?

Abstract

Introduction This article suggests that it is possible to tap the potential intellectual energy of ordinary citizens to work at the frontiers of scientific breakthroughs. It offers evidence that this can be done by applying educational experiences of the present and the past (often not in schools or universities), but it also calls for the design of entirely new curricular strategies to educating citizenry for working at the intellectual frontiers of what is known. This set of new strategies will be called The intent of this article is to challenge researchers, educators, and problem solvers to consider how their work can greatly accelerate the creation of new thought and action by engaging ordinary citizens of all societies to work at our intellectual frontiers. Included in my aim is to interest Informing Science readers in edGe-ucating because I know, as an educator, that educators alone cannot do what is required to get ordinary citizens to the edges of professional understandings. Too few of us educators have enough experience at the edges of knowledge to do the necessary work, as can be seen by the lack of attention to edges in curriculum theory. Furthermore, few educators seem to be interested in breaking through their own intellectual frontiers, which may explain the cyclical movements in educational thought over the past century, regardless of the huge transformations of human understandings over the same time. Researchers and problem solvers from all fields of knowledge production are needed if citizens of the world are to be edGe-ucated. It will also become clear in this article that much work, more investigation and experimentation, must be done before the processes of edGe-ucating are fully understood and capable of being practiced in range of different settings, disciplines, and citizen populations throughout the world. In short, the primary challenge in this article rests upon readers carrying the next steps of edGe-ucating further than this author has. What is EdGe-ucating? EdGe-ucating is the intentional effort to guide neophyte to work at the edges of the unknown and expand the frontiers of expert inquiry. (In The Oxford English Dictionary, neophyte is a beginner, novice, one who is new to subject; thus neophyte captures the sense of someone not yet aware of the knowledge and traditions of field.) The processes of edGe-ucating are what we do to bring neophytes to the intellectual frontiers of expert knowledge and understanding, and to work at those frontiers, in order to extend expert knowledge. Readers may ask, why invent new term for this process? Three reasons: first, to move away from traditional assumptions about teaching and learning; second, to remove edGe-ucating from current educational reforms; third, to appeal to those outside of education, especially researchers and problem solvers. From the brief description above, there are two essential steps to edGe-ucating. The first step of edGe-ucating is to bring neophytes to frontier of an unknown, including what may be required to extend beyond that unknown. The second step of edGe-ucating is to provide guidance and opportunities for the neophyte to extend, or assist in extending, beyond an edge of expert knowledge. The second step must be realized for edGe-ucating to occur successfully. There are three primary features to edGe-ucating. First, is the intent to bring neophytes to particular frontier of field for the purpose of helping to extend that frontier. Second is the application of specific strategy or set of strategies to reach that aim. Third is this process of becoming informed, and then engaging with the frontier is accomplished within comparatively short time frame of few months. Evidence for success in edGe-ucating would include citizens of any age and background entering the frontiers of expert understandings in field of inquiry and intentionally reaching beyond those understandings. …