Page 84 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

6 Local Matters, EcoJustice, and Community 61

Fig. 5 The structure of human activity systems

Early forms of division of labor led to new forms of activity all of which were
important to the survival of the society as a whole. Progressive divisions of labor
– including the one that led to the division of those who employed sophisticated
theories and those who employed sophisticated practical skills (architects and mas-
ter builders, education professors and teachers) – led to increasingly diversified
societies and eventually to the emergence of early cities (in what is today northern
Iraq). But each of these activities is producing something that others need and are
willing to exchange something else for it. The theory is powerful because it even
explains why professional sports exist, although they do not produce anything useful:
People are willing to spend (exchange) money to be able to watch a game for their
enjoyment, and the players are willing to do nothing but practice to be able to play
at a level where they can make sufficient income to meet all their needs.
An important activity system in the present context is that of formal schooling,
where teachers and professors teach, that is, make available the theoretical forms of
knowledge that each generation bequeaths to the next. Up to the present day,
schooling has prepared younger generations for the work in factories in a more or
less stable world, whereas our current lives show – economic turmoil, environmental
disasters such as Chernobyl or the cane toad in Queensland – that we need to prepare
new generations that are forward looking, prepared for an ever-changing world that
may bring more dangers than safety.
Each system has its special forms of knowledge, its means of production, and its
physical and social environments. Each system also has its motive that links present
materials and final products, such as producing grain (wheat, corn, rice) or making
bread, which orient everything that happens on a grain-producing farm and in a
bakery, respectively. These systems are inherently meaningful to those who partici-
pate in them in knowledgeable ways. Thus, what is a meaningful action in one system
would not be a meaningful action in another, or, if there are in fact two actions in
different systems, they tend to have a different sense (meaning). Knowledgeable
participation, therefore, is meaningful because it occurs within and in the form of a
connected and meaningful whole. Participants do what they do because it makes
inherent sense to act in this rather than that manner; and individuals participate
without asking the question about theories that explain what they do. An easily
accessible example is grammar. Children learn to speak their mother tongue fluently
without ever having a problem with grammar. And even without knowing any formal