Glimpses of Children’s Minds

by Jeff Bloom

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• “It would go rrraa right into his mouth” — A Grade 1 Boy Talking About Animals

Introduction

This collection of stories, short investigations, and snippets are from my research projects, work with children in various teacher education projects, and my K—12 teaching. Most of my work with children involved topics related to science, but between the children, my own interests, and just the way complex conversations go and complex minds work, we often meandered off into a variety of other topics.

Many of the conversations were audio or video recorded and transcribed. For easier readability and clarity, transcripts have been put into conversational paragraph form. Most “ums,” “ahs,” and irrelevant talk has been omitted.

This collection is a re-visit to earlier research. My own thinking has developed and changed over the years, although much of this early work seems to stand up to the test of time. But, my own understandings of complexity and the nature of complex living systems have developed way beyond where my thinking was at that time. Although I was influenced greatly by Gregory Bateson (one of the grandfathers of complexity sciences as they are known today), my understandings of his work were just beginning to develop during my early research into “contexts of meaning.” In fact, it was during the first year, 1988, when Jeannette Borstad, my research assistant and I were cutting up clips of transcripts of children’s talk and laying them out in categories on a table top, when Bateson’s work hit me like a phantom locomotive. I was standing there looking at the piles of paper and I said something on the order of, “This is what Bateson was talking about! It’s all contexts of meaning!”

Contexts of Meaning

The following is a list of aspects of contexts of meaning. However, it is essential that we don’t split these aspect or contexts into discrete parts. All of these aspects or contexts intertwine and merge in the dynamics of our thinking. In the experience of minds, there are no distinctive borders. If this list seems like an odd combination of things, it is. These contexts are not at the same levels of abstraction, nor do they work in similar ways. But, they are all at play in various ways in the thinking of human beings, and I suspect in many, if not all, living organisms to one degree or another.

All of these contexts and aspects of meaning or meaning-making are also embedded in a larger sense of our humanity and our place among all other living organisms. Nora Bateson refers to this as “Warm Data,” [1] which is the information and qualities of being alive. The whole of these contexts of meaning certainly seem to be the basis for the primary characteristic of complex living systems: The Whole (in this case all of these aspects—contexts, plus our physiological and physical being) is Much Greater than the Sum of Its Parts. Or, how we manifest in everyday life is more than just looking at all of our parts and expect to understand who we are. As a whole, all of these parts or aspects or contexts or systems working together creates something much larger than what might be suggested by examining all of the parts.

I’m sure there other aspects that can be included, but those listed above are some of the most commonly noticed cognitive contexts and aspects of what I’ve been calling “Contexts of Meaning.” For example, Andy diSessa [2] coined the term P-prims or Phenomenological Primitives as a set of processes and ideas that would probably be included in what I’ve called Interpretive Frames. They are “phenomenological,” because they are based on personal experiences and observations of real phenomena. And, they are “primitive,” because they have assumed a level of “self-evidentiary” truth, and are not particularly based in a conscious level of understanding.

NOTES:

[1] Bateson, N. (2017, May 18). Warm Data: Contextual research and new forms of information. Hacker Noon, 17.

[2] diSessa, A. A. (1993). Toward an Epistemology of Physics. Cognition & Instruction, 10(2 & 3), 105–225.

I want to thank the following people for their essential collaboration with me and my research that has been used in this collection. There are some people I’ve missed. My computer records have not always been kept up to date with new versions of the software that was used 30 to 40 years ago, and my memory is a bit splotchy. I am truly sorry if I missed someone. I valued highly all my research assistants, whether you are included here or not.

Jeannette Borstad, for her insightful and thorough assistance with the original contexts of meaning research, which included transcribing and, especially, her help with data analysis;

David Birch and Andy Smith, for the exceptional help with the tedious work of transcribing audio and video recordings of my complexity of discourse work;

The principals and teachers with whom I worked and collaborated, and who graciously allowed me to interview, observe, and work with children for lengthy periods of time.

And, all of the children for their wonderful ideas and great interactions, and all of the parents who supported our work.

Portions of the research addressed here have been presented at conferences or published in a number of papers and books. Selected sources are listed here:

Bloom, J. W. (1990). Contexts of meaning: Young children’s understanding of biological phenomena. International Journal of Science Education, 12(5), 549–561.

Bloom, J. W. (1992). Contexts of meaning and conceptual integration: How children understand and learn. In R. A. Duschl & R. J. Hamilton (Eds.), Philosophy of science, cognitive psychology, and educational theory and practice (pp. 177–194). State University New York Press.

Bloom, J. W. (1992). Contextual flexibility: Learning and change from cognitive, sociocultural, and physical context perspectives. The History and Philosophy of Science in Science Education:  Proceedings of the Second International Conference on the History and Philosophy of Science and Science Teaching, 115–125.

Bloom, J. W., & Dagher, Z. (1993, April). The meaning children attach to the notion of Earth and life on Earth: A comparative study between North American and Lebanese children. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching, Atlanta.

Bloom, J. W. (1994, June). A grade 5 unit on machines: Children’s understandings and discourse. Canadian Society for Studies in Education, Calgary, Alberta.

Bloom, J. W. (1994). Views of life on Earth: Children’s narratives and contexts of meaning. Manuscript, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario. — A version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the National Association of Science Teachers in collaboration with Zoubeida Dagher — SEE: Bloom & Dagher (1993, April) above.

Bloom, J. W. (1995). Assessing and extending the scope of children’s contexts of meaning: Context maps as a methodological perspective. International Journal of Science Education, 17(2), 167–187.

Bloom, J. W. (2001). Discourse, cognition, and chaotic systems: An examination of students’ argument about density. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 10(4), 447–492.

© 2024 by Jeffrey W Bloom

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