Skip to main content

Week 1 - Two Cultures


Visual that shows how education may allow individuals to fight for what they believe in.
(Courtesy of: https://tcedfair.org/2015/05/)
As an aspiring social justice science educator in the environment of secondary education, it is my duty to instill the belief that knowledge is freedom and the key to freedom is accessible through education. As David Bohm said, the quality of creativity is important in education and is acquired through the application of various academic cultures. This is a constant reminder to myself that it is important to build a diverse curriculum to encourage students to practice a diverse set of skills. 

       In the setting of my own education at UCLA, the physical divide between “north campus” and “south campus” strongly supports the idea that there are groups that conform and believe in the idea that arts and science has a division as mentioned by C.P. Snow in “Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution” and in the video “Changing Education Paradigms” by The RSA.

As a life science student who has focused on completing his undergraduate courses early, I personally do feel very disconnected from individuals who are in the arts and humanity, in fact most of my friends are biology students, not only because we may have classes together, but it’s just easier to hang out because our classes are more likely to be closer in proximity.
           
(Self guided tour map from UCLA Undergraduate Admission with the additional edits of circling of North and South campus done by me!)
            The readings made me more cognizant of the different cultures of academia, and made me realize that students entering into UCLA for their undergraduate education are in ways forced to choose to focus on one culture. There are different admission requirements for the different department of arts, College of Letters and Science, nursing, and UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science. The third culture of technology, intersects most with engineering, and I often observe well-rounded students in the high school setting do tend to go for the “in between”, which is technology, as described by Dr. Vesna.
This is a cell structure project that students often enjoy doing, sometimes they bake a cake then make the internal cell components with icing! (Courtesy of: diy.org)
           
My excitement for this course stems from the fact that I believe this course will help me better understand the three cultures of art, science, and technology in our society, which will allow me to better provide the proper tools and guidance for students when it is their time to choose the culture that will be their focus in higher education. 

 REFERENCES:

Bohm, D. “On Creativity.” Leonardo, vol. 1, no. 2, 1968, pp. 137–149., www.jstor.org/stable/1571951.

Snow, Charles Percy. “Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution.” Reading. 1959. New York: Cambridge UP, 1961. Print.

The RSA. "RSA ANIMATE: Changing Education Paradigms." Online video clip. Youtube. YouTube, 14 October 2010. Web. 7 April 2017.

Vesna, Victoria. “Toward a Third Culture: Being in Between.” Leonardo 34.2 (2001): 121-25. Web.

Wilson, Stephen. “Myths and Confusion in Thinking About Art/Science/Technology” College Art Association Meetings. New York. 2000. Web.





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Event 2 - Tangent Contemporary Art Gallery

I visited the Tangent Contemporary Art Gallery in downtown San Francisco. One of their ‘reverspective’ window pieces caught my eye and inspired me to further explore the type of art in their gallery. From the curator, I learned that stimulus like light, and environment, wall color, may influence greatly how the art is perceived. In my previous psychology class on sensation and perception,   different visual cues can alter the focal image, thus it makes sense that the environment is very important and needs to be considered for a ‘reverspective’ art piece. Additionally, there is research that supports the fact that the absence of specific painted cues can affect how the art piece is perceived (Papathomas 525). This art exhibit inspired me to make lots of connection my major of psychobiology. The concept of binocular cues is important in viewing the art at this gallery. If I closed one eye, the perceived image will lose the aspect of depth. Binocular
Post a Comment
Read more

Event 1 - Acoustical Visions, Bill Fontana

Bill Fontana's artistic vision In this presentation, Bill Fontana proposes his vision of art and how it was during certain state of minds, or moments, when he feels musical, that sounds around him also becomes musical (Fontana 1978). As a science student, I initially imagined that being like my ‘Aha! moment’, but as his presentation went on, it changed. Fort Mason in San Francisco, a presentation slide from Bill Fontana One of Fontana’s early project took place in San Francisco, which is also my home! He recorded the sounds of fog horns at Fort Mason, in San Francisco. In this project, Fontana approaches the sounds of the fog horns as a structure that allows sound to bring together the real time between different spaces. During the presentation, I felt conflicted because I was not sure how real time and different spaces could be connected through sound, since sound travelled at a set speed, 343 meters per second, people at different locations would e
Post a Comment
Read more

Week 7 - Neuroscience + Art

This week we tackled the collaboration between neuroscience and art. As a psychobiology major, Ramon y Cajal is often mentioned in my psychology classes for the technique of staining cells. The idea of neuroscience and art allowed me to develop a better understanding of my presence and renders a reflective aura that makes me see my own life through a more artistic lens.  Consciousness is an idea prefaced by Dr. Vesna, and I believe the idea of brainbow, allowing us to see the neuron in the brain is a step towards "expanding our consciousness" (Vesna). To better the understanding of our body is one that can help us better our lifestyle. I believe this idea that machines might take over the world is similar to the whole issue with guns. It is up to us, based on policy and regulation on how involved we want machines to be for our society. Consciousness can be furthered evaluated through the idea of a "modern man". In the abstract text by Carl Jung, he states
Post a Comment
Read more