Why There's No Hero Engineers?

Dan brought up this question in ENE seminar class.

There are hero artists(Vincent Van Gogh...) , hero musicians(Beethoven...), hero scientists (Einstein, Newton, Madam Curie... ), but why there seems no hero engineers?

Actually, there is, like Edison, Bell, Armstrong, and Amelia Earhart, etc. But when people talk about these people, they normally do not consciously recognize that they are engineers. They think Edison and Bell are inventors or scientists, Armstrong is astronaut. The underlying reasons are:

(1) Engineers do not have a common identity. People usually regard different branches of engineering differently, they don't regard them as a whole: engineers. We don't learn them in elementary school as hero-engineers.

(2)We maybe could find some clues in linguistics. The different suffixes "-ist, -er, and -ian..." actually represent different levels of social status, like physician is different from physicist. Physicist more likely become hero, because they are doing work representing the whole human wisdom. Engineers are regarded as smart, but scientists are talented, gifted, and brilliant. In the Chinese language, the word to describe scientist and engineer are also different. The word for scientist is more like they are gifted, and creative, they are born with those wisdom in their mind, and they are doing things for the whole human being. The word for engineer is more like they gain their knowledge from experience and practice, they could master all the skills, so they are smart.

Most of the time, heroes are more related to being poor and struggle, and still do thing for human welfare or just because of their own talented brain. but engineers are more social, more related to money. They are just a group of people who are smarter than ordinary people, and they make money for themselves from that, but they are not heroes.

Linguistics is so interesting! Many things are originated from language, or have reasons or clues in language. That's all human wisdom, all how human communication our knowledge.

My Research Interests by Now

Mostly thanks to the Quick and dirty review of 2005-2009 JEE paper reading assignment, and also my previous and current learning experience, I am locating and shaping my research interests:

1. engineering major does necessarily make an engineer. Engineering students' career decision (mostly for Inquiry course, inspired by my personal experience and an article from LICHTENSTEIN, JEE 2009)

2. active-learning, e-learning, online-learning, all about digital revolution (inspired by nanoHUB, and Michael Wesch's video, and the digital revolution), this is what I will research into for a long period in the future.Learning on Virtual Organizations.

3. engineering epistemology. daily narratives of engineering faculty, industry practitioners, senior students--> junior, freshman. and the public. narratives are often very different from what is written on publicity materials, and often have invisible huge power, which may be negative and harmful to the public image of engineering.(inspired by my personal experience and a brilliant paper by dear Dr. Alice Pawley drawing against the NAE Changing the Conversation report). If possible, if I have opportunity, this will also be what I will do in the future for a long period.

My Gift Wishlist

I saw the Purdue Snuggie (a blanket with sleeves) again at PMU purdue shop. oh, so adorable! I definitely will have purple or red one for myself one day! en, some day in the near future!!!

My Answers to the Wk4 Guiding Questions

Guiding Questions for Week4: Dall'Alba:

/*Last week we explored the role of epistemology in thinking about the aims and process of education. This week we're going to read a "contemporary" take on education philosophy that critiques an overemphasis on epistemology (theory of knowledge) and an artificial separation of "mind" from "body".

Q1: What is the basis of Dall'Alba's critique on current views of education? (what is her argument?)

Q2:What alternative framework does she put forth?

Q3:What might it look like to design an education based on this alternative framework? */

Me: we are human beings facing multiple possibilities. We become what we are by pressing ahead into one of them. According to Dewey, education should open doors and give connections to students' growth. However, only opening doors is not enough. That is, we teach students lots of knowledge and skills, which will give them lots of possibilities. Then, how to choose one possibility. If the education helps the students to make this choice by claiming that(though some programs do not explicitly address this): we are a engineering/medical/law programs, so you will be an engineer/doctor/lawyer. That's dangerous. This leaves all the integration work to the students themselves. The students have their own stands, but maybe unclear(not clear about what kind of people they want to be, but they have some belief deep in their heart, education should help them to develop that belief, and to make it clear), education should help them to form and shape their own stands of what kind of people they want to become, help them go through the struggle of becoming, and tell them the ambiguities are not conflicts to be solved.

Q3: What might it look like to design an education based on this alternative framework?

I finally realize that what philosophers do is not create theories of education(or teaching, learning, like that); instead, they have analyzed theories and arguments--sometimes enhancing previous arguments, sometimes raising powerful objections that lead to the revision of abandonment of theories and lines of arguments(Noddings). In other words, philosophers of education answer "what is education?", but they do not usually answer "what education should do?"--they do not answer questions about pedagogical details.

Dall'Alba mainly gives the framework (Q2, this is a conceptualism), and do not obviously answers what the education will look like based on this framework(Q3), but she does give some clues about that and also should be in some of her previous work she cites as references in this articles.

The Education based on Ontological dimension simply looks like that students are offered a bunch of activities in line with their future professions, and during the activities, students learn knowledge. Wow, this looks like Schon's "knowing-in-action"!!! Probably, this sounds ridiculous,my feeling based on my super-shallow philosophical knowledge is that, Schon says "knowing-in-action" is another aspect of epistemology, but Dall'Alba says this belongs to ontology aspect.

Reference:

Dall’Alba, G. (2009). Learning Professional Ways of Being: Ambiguities of Becoming. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 41(1), 34-45.

Schon, D. A. (1995). 'Knowing-in-action: the new scholarship requires a new epistemology'. Change, 27(6), 26–34.

Reading Summary of Dall'Alba's Ambiguities of Becoming

History and Philosophy Week4 Reading Summary


Research Problem: About *Professional Education*

(My Q here: what is the definition of "professional education"? In my opinion, the idea of this paper suitable for probably all kinds of education leading to a job. What if the education not necessarily leading to a job? e.g. undergraduate education, both leading to job and graduate school and research. Now I understand why this article is only about professional education. Then my question should be: okay, professional education is like this, what about other forms of education? What other factors should be added into universities education? Also, I still couldn't fine a proper word to describe "non-professional education"? Is liberal Art Education is totally the opposite of Professional Education?)

Key Ideas:Epistemology(what we know and can do,how we act,or knowledge and skills)is not enough for education. Ontology(the process of becoming/transformation)should be emphasized.

Claim: The purpose of professional education programs can then be conceptualized in terms of developing ways of being the professionals in question, rather than simply as a source of knowledge and skills acquisition.

Research Questions: what does it mean to develop "professional ways of being"(mentioned in Dall'Alba's previous work)? Where the focus is becoming the professionals in question, not simply knowing as an end in itself?

Method: For the 1st research question: The ambiguity mentioned by Merleau-Ponty, opens up possible ways "to know, to act and to be" that interrelate with the stands we take on our being. It provides openings for re-thinking our taken-for-granted assumptions. Exploring implications of this ambiguous relation to our world for professional education can enable us to better grasp what it means to learn professional ways of being.

Structure: aspiring professionals-->transition period-->practising professionals
(1) The importance of ontological education. transition period: knowledge and skills, also transformation of self. Professional education should lead to the transformation (Heidegger)
(2) Our ambiguous relation with the world.(Merleau-Pony)
(3) Some features/ambiguities during the period of the transition. (Dall'Alba)
(4) Conclusion

Martin Heidegger: Being and Time, (1)He considered it's necessary to clarify what it means to be human if we are more fully to comprehend thinking and knowing as modes of being human. He regarded modes of knowing as ways of being. This means if we are fully to understand knowing , we must understand the being of those who know. (2) "being-in-world", we are absorbed in and take for granted, the routine and everyday--"average everydayness". so we generally do not place them under scrutiny. (3)Being human means having possibilities, or possible ways to be. We also understand ourselves in terms of possibilities. We are continually in a process of becoming, or we are already (oriented to) what we are "not yet"--commitent. (4) distinction between "being-possible" and "ability-to-be" (5) The purpose of education, is transformation of the self. interrogating what we take for granted, challenging assumptions we make or historically made. "turning around the whole human being" (6)difficulties: being we interwined with our world, but we are also interwined in traditions. In other words, the traditions of which we are a part tend to be taken for granted and are not transparent to us: the fish is the last to discover water. so, transformation of the self

Jain Thomson: Blattner "opening up the range of possibilities, and pressing ahead into one of them". (1)We become what we are "not yet" by pressing ahead into (or projecting ourselves upon) our projects. (2) not only have possibilities, but also it matters to us who we are and who we are becoming. we take stands on our being, and we are defined by that stands. (3)In the process of the forming and shaping of the stands we take, education plays a key role. "who we are becoming" includes: "what we come to know","how we act", and "who we are".

Both Michael Bonnett& Jain Thomson are doing explanation of Heidegger's philosophy of education.

(My Q here: what is "re-thinking education"? what is "re-thinking ontology"? This maybe a language problem. I feel something, but couldn't totally understand.)

Maurice Merleau-Ponty: Ambiguous relation to our world.

Note1: E.g.: nurse/wounds,architect/locate a building on a designated site, engineer, historian,medical practitioner, teacher, musician, economist

Note2: This paper is actually an extension of a previous research by Dall'Alba, so there might be more things in previous work.

Note3: There are some interesting references I might look into in the future.

Reference:
Dall’Alba, G. (2009). Learning Professional Ways of Being: Ambiguities of Becoming. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 41(1), 34-45.