This paper explores the learning of both individuals and organizations within the context of a 3-year professional development program for mathematics and science teachers in a middle school. We propose to extend the notion of awareness from individuals to autonomous systems as a means to study the learning of teachers, mentors, the school, and the organization that provided the program. We describe how the notions of structural determinism and co-evolution through structural coupling informed the enactment of the program, as well as how this perspective informed the design of research on teachers’ experiences of their deepening understanding of mathematics for teaching during this time. Then we elaborate on the levels of awareness developed by teachers, mentors, the school, and the organization as a result of the constant interactions and mutual influence along and beyond the program. Data consisted of post-interviews with eleven mathematics teachers, our own reflections, and the documents generated during the program.

Key words: structural determinism, co-evolution, noticing, teacher educators, autonomous systems

Open peer commentary on the article “Metalogue: How to Understand Bateson? In Memoriam Graham Barnes (1936-2020)” by Graham Barnes & Miran Možina. Abstract: Two therapists, daughter and father, are using the non-linear form of the metalogue to reflect upon Barnes and Možina’s metalogue. As the father shows admiration for Batesonian ideas and the daughter challenges them, their relationship creeps into the discussion, ultimately allowing them to find common ground through noticing their perpetual misunderstanding. From this interplay of content and relational structure of the dialogue, critical questions arise about their theoretical assumptions and their ways of understanding their personal and therapeutic relationships.

In order to obtain, as the author himself puts it, “a successful internalisation of the comparative metadiscourse” necessary for “the survival of comparative literature,” the author refers to constructivism by noticing crucial similarities between the two directions in terms of their historical development and character. The author does not agree with the accusation of the secondary status of comparative research in relation to other fields of science. He points to the fact that the existence of a rich comparative metadiscourse, which implies analogy with constructivism and accounts for the status of comparative studies as an important area of research, is omitted. Relevance: By means of referring to Niklas Luhman, the author identifies comparative studies with second-order observation, that is, focusing not on the objects of comparative studies (those seem to be as numerous and various as the reality surrounding the human being), but on the nature of the comparative process, in other words on the manner in which the comparison of the above mentioned objects is carried out.

Key words: Constructivism, crisis of comparative literature, metadiscourse, metatheory, Niklas Luhmann, multiculturalism