ALL YOU NEED IS SCIENCE, OR IS IT? EXPLORING SCIENTIFIC, THEOLOGICAL AND OTHER “WAYS OF KNOWING” Mark Laynesmith AIMS OF THE CHAPTER n This chapter explores how teachers might encourage pupils to consider a range of possible answers to any question, allowing theological answers to sit along- side other “ways of knowing” the world. n A distinction between necessary and sufficient knowledge is introduced and one between information and wisdom. n The chapter shows how the variety of “ways of knowing” offered by different disciplines can relate to one another within the concept of “emergence”. n A sample lesson plan is given. INTRODUCTION Time is short! One of the things this means is that when we try to make sense of the world we often try to reduce a question to the simplest answer. These “short-cut” answers can be highly useful. However, they can also hide the fact that there are other kinds of answer that run in parallel. Moreover, the kind of “short-cut” answer we choose to privilege may reflect certain cultural conventions and assumptions. For example, “Why is my hair the way it is?” may often receive a simple biological answer: “Because of your DNA.” But this answer needs to sit alongside other, possibly more pertinent, answers such as: “Because of your culture.” Teachers frequently ask questions, and answer children’s questions. They do so for a variety of purposes: to provoke children’s thinking, to find out what children’s ideas are, to monitor and regulate progress in an activity, and to check on understanding. The focus of this chapter is on how teachers’ framing of questions and answers implicitly shapes children’s thinking, their enquiry skills, and their views of the cosmos. 11 n 2 CHAPTER