Order Out of Chaos: Restructuring Schooling to Reflect Society’s Paradigm Shift Barbara S. Spector College of Education Univeristy of South Florida Tampa, Florida 33620-5650 ... The only constant is change (Specter, 1988). The Setting: A Restructured Society Tumultuous, anarchic, lunatic are all descriptors observers have used to label the dramatic changes in our society during the past three decades. "Breaking down ultimately leads to breaking through" (Houston, 1989). This chaos is the evolution of a new world view. In 1982, Naisbitfs Megatrends revealed the high speed changes were not as random as perceived. The content analysis of more than two million articles in American newspapers exposed patterns in the chaosour society was moving from an industrial base to an information base, from either/or to multiple options, from hierarchies to networks, from institutional help to self-help, from a national economic system to a world economy, and more. The perception of chaos and the patterns and trends reported fit Kuhn’s model of a paradigm shift (see Figure 1). Figure 1. Kuhn’s paradigm Pre-Paradigm Period . ^ Paradigm Emerges ^. ^ Normal Science (Problem Solving) Anomaly / \ Ignored Concern -Crisis Emerges A-mal Science Anomaly Is Perceived .solves Problem As Insoluble Experiment Yields New Paradigm Candidate [ Paragdigm Shift (extraordinary or revolutionary science) i (Spector & Lederman, 1990) In 1990, another social thinker and fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Toffler, added Power Shift to Future Shock (1970) and Third Wave (1980) completing his trilogy which reports 25 years of study "to make sense of the astonishing changes propelling us into the 21st century" (1990, p. xvii). He documents the way "many seemingly unrelated conflicts and changes swirling around us actually result from (1990, jacket)... a new system for wealth creation" (1990,p. 10), and tremendous shifts ofpower at the global level and "in the intimate everyday world we inhabit - the world of supermarkets and hospitals, banks and business offices, television and telephones. Power shifts are transforming finance, politics, and the media, together creating a now radically different society" (1990, jacket). "Disrupting and supplanting older, more familiar methods, the new system transforms work, capital, and money itself- and therefore power at every level of society" (1990, jacket). Requirements for jobs are changing from following orders and conforming to management directives to "asking questions, challenging assumptions... becoming part of everyone’s job" (1990, p. 211). The twenty-first century "needs workers who can quickly adapt to, and even anticipate, repeated changes in work methods, organization, and daily life" (1990, p. 335). Toffler’s theory of the transformation of power identifies knowledge as the highest quality, most versatile, and most coveted form of power, thereby placing schools in the limelight of society. "Because knowledge - including art, science, moral values, information (and misinformation) - now provides the key raw material for wealth creation, today’s power struggles reach deep into our mind, psyches, and personal lives" (1990, jacket). One thing upon which all futurists agree is change is to be a constant companion in the twenty-first century. The changes transforming all disciplines from art to zoology will continue to evolve in new directions and distinguish themselves. The increase in diversity itself will expose new linkages. There will be more interconnections among disciplines creating a new organization, a new whole. Dimensions of this new whole can be seen in the emerging relationships between disciplines not commonly thought of as being linked, for example, between the performing arts and medicine. The study of the physiological changes, especially in the immune system, which occur as actors assume different roles on stage is providing insight to the nature of multiple personality disorders in which similar physiological changes Volume 93(1), January 1993