The wrestle for a holistic wreality through science and religion : a science teacher's autoethnography

Abstract

I am an experienced science teacher and express my love of science through poetry. This autoethnography digs deeply into the how and why of my life-long wrestle for a holistic wreality that believes that meaning-rich learning is needed in the science classroom. This wrestle led me to several significant personal experiences and to question many assumptions within my ethnographic background, science and religion. It also opened me to the ideas of Rudolf Steiner and Plato and led to the combined holism of Jan Smuts and Wolfgang von Goethe that became the theoretical framework for this autoethnography. As a science teacher, I love the training of disciplined observation and thinking as well as the empowerment implicit in the independent investigation that science offers. Research shows, however, that the materialist, positivist assumptions of Physical Science create conceptual and alienation challenges for many science students and that the use of the arts can help to address some of these. Research also shows that many science Nobel Laureates practice the arts or are religious. My experiences in the science classroom affirm the benefits of artistic and religious meaning-making. This thesis presents my wrestle for a holistic wreality that contextualises objective scientific facts within subjective indigenous and religious knowledge, for a defragmented or holistic understanding and working relationship between them. This thesis introduces the concept of wreality as an individual’s construct of reality and adds to the field of autoethnographic methodology through the development and use of a Concept Map of Autoethnography. It also demonstrates a metaphorical world using Boal’s ‘theatre of the oppressed’ to allow for a creative and liberating framework for my data presentation and analysis. Findings from this research include the Holism Evolution Graph of my holistic wreality which hypothesises the emergence of a new substance into our holistic universe. The nature of this substance and how we may have an experience of it is described in my autoethnography and referenced against religious texts and researched personal experiences. Findings of a personal nature, such as a reflection on the ethnographic worlds of my youth and my possible mild autism, also emerged