Stretching the Border: Living in Complementary and Contradictory Spaces

I approach this paper from a critical retro-reflective stance, which explores borders both physical and educational through my pedagogical experiences in a high school in India, home experiences in the geographical borderlands of Nepal and India, and my current work in Nepal and the United States. All of the anecdotes or data originate from my personal experiences that include my siblings, friends, neighbors, teachers, and students. Through these anecdotes, I attempt to show how multiple facets of border pedagogy influence what happens at the socio-psychological level and in science teaching and learning contexts. Critical retro-reflective pieces presented in this paper exemplify complex nature of complementarities and contradictories of identity, pedagogy, history, economics, culture, and experiences in classrooms, communities, and other cognitive spaces. Furthermore, what possibilities of border pedagogies and spaces exist that enhance science teaching and learning for equity and social justice. In the context of science education, there have always been struggles to find legitimate teaching and learning environments in which students are encouraged and supported to challenge dominant ways of knowing and understanding. Therefore, retro-reflective approach allows me to examine how geographical borders, in this case Nepal-India, and science classrooms as intellectual borders, present opportunities and struggles to deconstruct oppressive systems and reconstruct possibilities for socially just science learning spaces. The process of reflection aids in reexamining my own relationship to culture, language, history, and local economy with science education.