On becoming edGe-ucated

how uncertainty can link the frontiers of expert inquiry to the education of all

Abstract

In his 55 years as an educator, G. Thomas Fox has taught elementary school, researched educational policy and practice at primary school through university levels, and guided teachers and other educators as they researched their own professional settings. He has done this work in three countries: the U.S., England, and Iceland. In the past three decades he has drawn attention to much research showing that untrained citizens of the world have engaged successfully with frontiers in the sciences and other expert fields of inquiry and explained what it can mean for education. He calls the processes that are applied for the untrained to understand and engage with expert unknowns, “edGe-ucating.”

Fox tells stories that show how his teaching and researching experiences could rarely be considered edGe-ucating -- and explains why in terms of the abilities shown by his students and educational colleagues that he had not realized they had. He then describes and analyzes how others, primarily from the sciences and other fields of inquiry, have achieved edGe-ucating through a range of its possible manifestations. Thus, the process certainly is often gainfully harnessed, but outside what we normally classify as education. Combining what he has learned about edGe-ucating with experiences others have reported, he suggests how edGe-ucating can be more intentionally accomplished through integrating education with the fields of expert inquiry – institutionally as well as procedurally. The secret for such an integration, he suggests, is in acknowledging the human capacity to deal with uncertainty. That is what makes engaging with expert unknowns possible at all levels of schooling along with other settings requiring problems solving. And he argues that schools should take note.

The excitement found in this book is both in how educating occurs within the challenges of classroom teaching and in the work of bringing research into educational settings. The passion shared is about the new opportunities that could be created for individuals, cultures, societies, and fields of inquiry if all citizens were working at the frontiers of expert unknowns – with or without schooling.

The book thus endeavors to present a novel and refreshing view of education showing how students, at all ages, can gainfully be taken directly to the constantly advancing frontiers of knowledge. The journey also presents the reader with a profound and critical view of important aspects of educational research and graduate training and thereby bringing to life the bond between education and research.