Houser, Neil,Clift, Keith A.2013-08-162013-08-162006http://hdl.handle.net/11244/1098Modernist science is a discourse that separates us externally from our environment, socially from one another, and internally within ourselves. This study not only examines the role education plays in developing our perceptions of meaning, but it also explores the cognitive, linguistic, and cultural-historical aspects of why humans began separating themselves from the organic processes of the natural world over 300 years ago.This study incorporates a two-pronged methodological approach similar to that developed by French historian Michel Foucault. The archeological portion of the study examines how discourses from both the sciences and arts operating during the period surrounding the Scientific Revolution began shifting away from an earlier medieval conceptual framework of integration with nature toward our own modernist framework of a separation from nature.The study then shifts focus to a discussion of how the modernist curriculum operates as a primary form of discourse dividing us conceptually from our world today. The study concludes by recommending three broad conceptual approaches for expanding modernist curricular discourses. These conceptual approaches encourage seeing meaning more comprehensively, developing historical consciousness, and approaching nature as a "living discourse" to be read holistically with the analytical intellect and the synthetic imagination.The genealogical portion of the study examines the cultural-historical context surrounding the Scientific Revolution and suggests four main areas of social change that may have subtly influenced a conceptual shift toward the externalization, depersonalization, and dichotomization of humans and the natural world. These four areas include Humanism, Puritanism, political discussions regarding the Divine Right of Kings, and Mystical Science.viii, 135 leaves ;Education, History of.History of Science.Education, Curriculum and Instruction.Philosophy of nature History.Education Philosophy History.Thesis