I was very grateful for the presentation by Reiji Takayasu of Japan's National Museum of Nature and Science today. I had a couple of questions but wasn't sure if they were appropriate. I was very interested in impact of the earthquake (and subsequent events) upon the people of Japan; if that event has changed the visitor demographics and expectations of the visitors to the museum? It seems like it must have done . . . and I'm wondering how this impact may have presented the museum with an opportunity to help the people of Japan deal with the terror that they went through. How are families in Japan handling the uncertainty of global climate change and what those changes might mean for the future? I wasn't sure however if it would have been a welcome topic. The earthquake was devastating and it must still be very difficult for Japan.
I also wasn't certain if I should ask about the arguments for and against the employment of abductive reasoning in experiential education because, well, it is a contentious debate, isn't it? It seems like much of what human beings do in the meaningful development of knowledge is based upon association and inference but some of the traditionalists will go running down the halls, shouting: "Oh no! It's a potential causal fallacy! Post hoc ergo propter hoc! Run away! Run away!"
And yet . . . to me, it's in those moments when we deeply and viscerally experience the environment and say to ourselves "Oh, I see the connection now," --then in turn share that awareness with others--it's in those moments that knowledge becomes life affirming. But if I understood the presentation it seemed to me that there was a wonderful balance of classical inductive and deductive reasoning to form a checks-and-balances relationship with the inclusion of the abductive approach.
Some of what I found most interesting about Japan's National Museum of Nature and Science is the social reciprocity of their 'Science Communicator' programme. The museum's educational facilitation is developmentally co-productive! Eventually, the participating visitors are leading the seminar sessions themselves.
I was grateful for the presentation as well as the gifting of a sample of the sort of family oriented merchandise that the museum has available. In other words, Reiji Takayasu brought us toys! They were miniature models representative of some exhibition regions of the museum itself. Some of us received dinosaurs, some contemporary wildlife or models of cultural artefacts . . . I received a fisherman/huntsman and his dog:
