The use of language in understanding subject matter

Empirical results show that frequently the meaning of expressions used by students in expressing their understanding of subject matter does not correspond to the meaning of those expressions in the subject matter theory that the students are expected to learn. There is also often a lack of identity of meaning between the same students’ use of the same expression from one use of the expression to another, in very similar contexts. The context gives a specific meaning to any expression. This variation in context and meaning is very central to the phenomena of teaching and learning. In educational research there is a need to differentiate between specific meanings expressed in conceptualizing subject matter, on the one hand, and concepts and meanings seen as parts of cognitive systems and social languages, on the other. The contextual character of the use of language is crucial to the understanding of teaching and learning and needs to be more carefully considered. The article is a discussion of the problem of varying meanings of language expressions in relation to major traditions of research, focusing on meanings and concepts within the field of learning and teaching.     

Ecofutures in Africa: Jenny Robson’s Savannah 2116 AD

Jenny Robson’s Savannah 2216 AD, a dark, futuristic novel for young adults, provides a strong critique on much of the world’s predilection for saving Africa’s animals at the expense of those human communities who are perceived to be in the way of the preservation of the continent’s remaining wild spaces. Using Robson’s novel as template, this article examines a few of those discourses regarding wilderness and conservation that have attached to Africa. Savannah 2116 AD strongly yet indirectly hints that literary educators should revisit the often unquestioned adoption of ‘greening’ agendas in school curricula which persist in re-colonising geo-political spaces by ignoring the fact that erecting fences between perceived conservators and destroyers, between spaces for wild animals and humans, merely condemns Africa’s animal riches to eventual death.