Dissipative Structures: New Metaphors for Becoming in Education

Abstract

In today's schools, turbulence is identified with disorder and disarray. A turbulent classroom would be seen as noisy, disorganized, and undesirable. Only recently in science has it been discovered that turbulence is also a source of order. New theories, based on the construct of “order through fluctuations,” have arisen and lead to new understanding of the emergence of creativity from turbulence both in the universe and in education. We capture this creativity in new metaphors for becoming in education. © 1985, Sage Publications. All rights reserved.