9 the learning coach and wisdomchapter 9 – the learning coach & wisdom. 9 - 1...

Chapter 9 – The Learning Coach & Wisdom. 9 - 1

G5_Home_Mac:ForPhD:PHD_FINAL_BDM:Sect IV-ReflectionOnPract-789:9 - Chapter The LC and Wisdom:Chap9-LC&Wisdom.doc Last printed 2/9/09 16:25

9 The Learning Coach and Wisdom Chapter Overview

This chapter will examine:

9.1 the nature and forms of our epistemology of knowledge.

9.2 the thinking of recent Philosophers including Heidegger.

9.3 the SECI- process, knowledge and emergence.

9.4 The argument for a move from a Philosophy of Knowledge towards

a richer understanding of our world based on care, knowledge

emergence and a Philosophy of Wisdom.

________________________________________

This chapter argues that Polanyi and Rajaan have recently extended the

model of knowledge, to include tacit knowledge and wisdom. Since teaching

and learning involve people, a consequence of this extended model of

knowledge is that education schemes should attempt to inculcate a sensitivity

to wisdom, as a form of knowledge. After all, learners are sentient beings. (The

reader may wish to read the notes in A9.1 - The Death of a Student before

continuing.)

The views of Philosophers from Kierkegaard, Husserl, Heidegger,

Gadamer are traced showing an increasing interest in people, rather than

things, over the years.

The Nonaka et al SECI process for knowledge emergence, with its

emphasis on group processes and ba. Von Krogh’s notion of care is relevant

here.

Maxwell takes this further, suggesting there should be an

epistemological realignment away from a Philosopy of Knowledge towards a

Philosophy of Wisdom.

9.1 Knowledge and its forms. From the Enlightenment onwards a simple model of knowledge has been

‘data’-‘information’-‘explicit knowledge’. This is shown in Figure 9.1



Figure 9.1 - Enlightenment view of knowledge

Rajan1 (2000) has outlined five hierarchical elements which together

constitute the term ‘knowledge’ as it is used at the workplace:

• data: these are raw numbers or words which in themselves are not

revealing

• information: this constitutes the messages from the data, once they are

analysed for meaning

• explicit knowledge: this can be transmitted in oral, written or pictorial

language; it is about combining information with beliefs and

judgement; it is about making enough sense out of information to be

able to act on it

• tacit knowledge: this is personal, context-specific but hard to formalise

and communicate – in oral or written form – because it comprises

insights, instincts, intuitions and eperiences

• wisdom: this combines all categories of knowledge to the extent that its

deployment requires mental and emotional intelligence; learning

and experiencing; thinking and doing.

This model suggests an explicit layer (data, information & explicit

knowledge) and an implicit layer (tacit knowledge & wisdom).

DATA

INFORMATION

EXPLICIT KNOWLEDGE

Increasing Knowledge



The explicit layer is the knowledge shown and articulated in scholarly

papers and books, since the Enlightenment. This is not an attack on the

Enlightenment, rather it is an attempt to show the types of knowledge we have

not given due emphasis since then.

The implicit layer is the knowledge bound to a particular context and to

a particular person. Consequently, it is hard to universalise.

The Learning Coach should be aware of these levels of knowledge, or

ways of knowing, in herself and her students. Harri-Augstein and Thomas talk

of knowledge on various levels: the task-bound, the task focused, the learning-

focused and the life-focused.

The Enlightenment model, shown diagrammatically in Figure 9.1, may

be contrasted with recent developments that extend this simple three tier

model, to a five tier model. The five tier model is shown in Figure 9.2.

9.1.1 Tacit knowledge

Figure 9.2 – Rajan’s model of Layers of Knowledge

Rajan’s Hierarchy of Knowledge.

1. Data

2. Information

3. Explicit Knowledge

4. Tacit Knowledge

5. Wisdom

Increasing Knowledge Levels



Tacit knowledge is where ‘we know more than we can tell’, as

Polanyi2(1983:4) has described so well. An example is recognising a person’s

face from many, yet we cannot say explicitly how we did so.

Another is riding a bike. We know we can do it, but find it hard to put

that knowledge into words.

Polanyi addresses the problem of moving up the levels of knowledge

with his concept of emergence. Polanyi says (1983:37):

The most striking feature of our existence is our sentience. The laws of physics and chemistry include no conception of sentience, and any system wholly determined by these laws must be insentient. It may be in the interest of science to turn a blind eye on this central fact of the universe, but it is not in the interest of truth. .... the study of life must ultimately reveal some principles additional to those manifested by inanimate matter, ...

In the context of a machine, one principle - additional to those of

physics and chemistry - is the Principle of Marginal Control. Thus a machine

will embody engineering design to achieve the purposes of a machine, which in

turn is made up of material that obeys science (i.e. physics and chemistry).

Generally any behaviour of the machine can be explained by reference to its

‘shaped’ design – except when there is failure.

Failure and breakdown can only be explained by the science of the

property of the machine’s materials (i.e. physics and chemistry). Polanyi puts it

well:

Liability to failure is, as it were, the price paid for embodying operational principles in a material the laws of which ignore these principles. (p. 39)

How can a machine follow both sets of laws, science and engineering, at

the same time? If it obeys the laws of science then an element may burn out,

but, by the laws of engineering, that may not be the intention.

What determines the machines success or failure?



Polanyi suggests that ‘shaping’ provides a clue. In the context of a

machine following engineering design principles, parts may be shaped

artificially to carry out some desired function which is not self-evident in the

laws of physics and chemistry. These are the boundary conditions.

In this way we have a dual control system: the operations of the

upper level (engineering) control the lower level (physics and chemistry). The

principles of the upper level are arbitrarily embedded, by shaping, in the

material of the lower level.

Thus a given level can only function properly when under the control of

a higher level. Hence the notion of emergence, which is vital to counter

reductionist arguments. In a real sense the whole is greater than the sum of the

parts. This is important.

Learning is never finished, so educational institutions often use time as

a boundary condition to ‘shape’ learning. This is invariably the case on final

year Project work, so it is important to understand The Principle of Marginal

Control more fully.

Assignments are given four weeks (say) to be completed, examinations

are given two hours and projects may last a year. The educational institution

operates at this higher level, with the aim that good learning may emerge. The

schedule controls the learning in the same way that engineering controls the

physics and chemistry in Polanyi’s example above.

Learning is a separate activity to the scheduled time allocated to it:

learning is not in the time allocation that shapes it. But the coherent allocation

of time by those that manage learning is a powerful stimulant to that learning.

Project management of student projects immediately comes to mind.

Not paying attention to the time needed for learning by students is to

court Polanyi’s ‘liability to failure’.

9.1.2 Wisdom.

Wisdom is perhaps the hardest element in the knowledge hierarchy to

pin down. As Rajan says amusingly :



Indeed, of all categories of knowledge, wisdom is perhaps the hardest one to define. On a lighter note, though, probably the only person to have had a handle on this concept is Baroness Thatcher. She is alleged to have said once that ‘What this world needs are leaders who can combine wisdom with humility because there are so few of us left who can do that.’

Being highly personalised, tacit knowledge and wisdom reside in the

individual because they are accumulated insights and experiences. As such,

these insights and experiences are fragmented: they are not easy to integrate

into a formal body of knowledge. It is not easy to say who owns such

knowledge: for one person’s experiences may be totally different to another’s

experiences.

Explicit knowledge may be universalised and distributed via the use of

electronic technology. An example of this is the explosive growth of the World

Wide Web from 1993 to 1995, with rates of growth as high as 200 fold over the

two year period (see Gray3, M. at Massachussets Institute of Technology

(MIT)).

Yet the same organization, MIT, has received a grant of $11 million from

the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett

Foundation to make all of its course materials available for free on the World

Wide Web. As Paul Brest4, president of the Hewlett Foundation, says:

Our hope is that this project will inspire similar efforts at other institutions and will reinforce our the concept that ideas are best viewed as the common property of all of us, not as proprietary products intended to generate profits. We salute President Vest and his colleagues at MIT for having the courage to launch this forward-looking initiative. We are pleased to join with the Mellon Foundation in providing start-up funding.

Many University departments would shake their collective heads in

amazement at this turn of events, for they would indeed see their teaching

material as ‘proprietary products intended to generate profits’. The wisdom

behind this move by MIT is extremely interesting.



The hope seems to be that a quality marker will be put down for distance

learning material to the world’s Higher Education institutions in the English

speaking world. All by establishing a ‘commons’ for learning on the Web.

In our own times we are seeing a rape of the planet happening at an

incredible rate, destroying in years species that have taken thousands and

million of years to evolve. But business and economics continues to flourish

based on old assumptions of ‘sustained growth’ from 'finite resources'. Never

has the call for wise stewardship been more necessary. I find myself asking the

question “In education, are we working to old assumptions?”

Knowing when to resist change and knowing when to embark on

change is the problem facing each learner, manager and organisation. Doug

Blomberg5 (1998) addresses the problem of ‘knowing when’ in 'The Practice of

Wisdom: knowing when.' He refers to it as the problem of Wisdom.

It is the art of knowing when to act and when to refrain. It is not

“know-how”. It is not the same as knowing how to do this or how to do that.

Nor is it “knowing that”. It is not the retention of encyclopaedic

quantities of information in the manner of Bradley Headstone in Dicken’s

“Hard Times”.

Harri-Augstein & Webb do say the learning coach “should have a feel for

timing”, and perhaps were moving towards the notion of wisdom as a quality to

be associated with a Learning Coach, in the sense of knowing when to move

students to the next stage.

The next section traces the development of ideas away from over reliance

on ‘objective science’ towards a science as if people mattered. It does this by

examining the work of many philosophers, but Heidegger in particular.

9.2 Heidegger and other Philosophers. In the nineteenth century Science was in full swing. Compte was

proclaiming his positivism and the idea that through science we would

understand the world and ourselves.



But there were voices of disquiet with this. Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

recognised the burgeoning rationalism could not be applied to Christian faith.

His work embraced “subjective truth”. His The Concept of Dread anticipates

Heidegger.

Husserl, the German philosopher, became interested in Phenomenology.

He believed phenomena in the lived world (Lebenswelt) must be the basis of

philosophical reflection. Husserl’s view was that the mind does not create

reality but interacts with it. Husserl’s pupil was Heidegger (1889-1976).

Heidegger’s lifelong quest was for an “Ontology of Being” in the lived

world (one which excluded God), rather than a physicist’s knowledge of

particles in the physical world. Rather than things, Heidegger was interested in

the relations a man adopts. Heidegger felt man’s human experience could be

summed up in the notion of “being-there” or Dasein. A basic trait in all

Dasein, Heidegger suggests is care (or concern). To confront the arbitrary

nature of the world Heidegger suggested man must make a full-hearted

commitment to living life fully or authentically.

However, in life there will be a danger that this will foster what

Heidegger calls a ‘technological attitude’. This is essentially a self-oriented

view of what is in the world and it leads to the danger of regarding all things as

stuff, bestand or standing reserve.

Whether material is available freely, or not, on the web there is the

danger that web pages will become regarded as stuff, standing reserve or

material. Indeed one could say the same thing about books in a library.

I have heard colleagues say “I have put the material on the web.” By

‘material’ they do not mean cloth but rather the Heideggerian notion of stuff,

bestand or standing reserve. The ease of access to the Web is both one of

its benefits and one of its dangers. Learners can get information from the web

to gain a form of learning, which exists at the surface level but does not

penetrate to the core of the Learners being. It can keep learners from

recognising their need to change from Heidegger’s average-everydayness to

an authentic stance to a connected world. There is an interesting parallel here

between Harri-Augstein and Heidegger.



Table 9.1 - Contrast in “awareness” between Harri-Augstein & Heidegger Harri-Augstein’s awareness

Heidegger’s “awareness”

no awareness of learning

average-everydayness

awareness of doing the task

inauthentic

awareness of doing the task & learning to learn

authentic

Surface learning has all the hallmarks of adaptive learning and none of

the artistic qualities of generative learning. Notions such as reconstructing,

reflecting and reviewing are highly personal to a learner – they are

manifestations of tacit knowledge. Where a student is under pressure, the

temptation to exploit the Web can be great. The Learning Coach has an

important task here in supporting real conversations, with “marsing”

techniques, that encourage and nurture learning.

Lemay and Pitts6 (1994:81) put it like this:

But technology keeps us from recognising Being. For Heidegger, overcoming the technological attitude toward the world is necessary for our recognition of Being, and for the survival of thinking, itself. Heidegger believes that we have forgotten Being, and when we see the world through the lens of technology, we preclude the possibility of recognizing the splendor of the world, of Being.

This is profound. For a learning experience to be palpably authentic,

and not the mere repetition of facts, there must be some interaction with other

human beings, as well as with a rich learning environment.

That is one of the reasons I was so pleased with the 2003 Multimedia

Exhibition. Final year students’ wanted to show their work to others that cared.

Second year students were there because they cared about their own

development, and needed to converse7 with those who had been where they

were going. The 15 May 2003 Multimedia Exhibition (see Appendix A4.4) is an

“awakening” experience of a higher order than my contrived attempts back in

May 2000 (see Appendix A2.1).



Essentially its greatest quality was being grounded in reality. The

students saw other students’ work, they were inspired, amazed, conversed and

had fun. Students at Level II were awe struck. Students at Level III were proud

to be part of a resounding success. This Exhibition was one of those jumps in

the “internal motivation meter” that lead to a willed determination to do

something as good. With students in such a state of commitment they need

mentoring, care, encouragement and concern — otherwise a lapse into sullen

resentment in which work is churned work out, simply to survive, will result.

The Learning Coach has an important role here in the learning process:

to encouraging students to articulate their ideas to one another - and critically

testing each student’s assumptions, beliefs and methods in a spirit of loving

kindness. Or, as Heidegger puts it, exhibit care (or concern). The process of

showing care is important ( as von Krogh has written recently).

The Learning Coach role should support and nurture this collective

entity of inquiry. That an ersatz form of the Learning Coach may exist on the

World Wide Web is a real possibility, but it would not have something

important – live interaction with other sentient people. The use of technology

(e.g. email, bulletin boards) as a tool to support interactions between a

Learning Coach and a group of student learners is very useful. I have used these

myself, but they tend to not show the body language and visual cues a learner

would. And remember wisdom has not been built into them.

But it is the Learning Coach as a human being who is key and primary,

not the technology.

Heidegger’s pupil was Gadamer. Where Heidegger was obscure,

Gadamer was clear and lucid. These two were in the hermeneutic tradition laid

out by Schleiermacher and Dilthey. The hermeneutic tradition represents a

close study of texts that tell stories in the lived world. It is a Philosophy of

Understanding.

Gadamer lived to the ripe old age of 102. He died recently in 2002.

Blom8 (2002) has written an excellent Obituary on Gadamer for the

Independent. (See Appendix A9.2) Blom says of Gadamer:



As a philosopher and a man Gadamer was interested in other people, and his philosophy seems quintessentially a dialogue, to be recast and reformulated everytime anew, not writ in stone. It is this dynamic, the nature of dialogue and communication, of understanding and interpretation, that formed his main philosophical interest.

In talking about human values, Fromm9 (1979:196), says there are two

groups ‘those who care and those who do not care’ and he goes on to say:

People today are yearning for human beings who have wisdom and convictions and the courage to act according to their convictions . (My emphases.)

For if this does not happen, a spirit of anomie and alienation will infect

the challenge and the love of learning itself.

From a different perspective care is understood as ‘volitional necessity’

by Frankfurt (1988). In his intriguing philosophical essay he argues for two

familiar modes of inquiry, what to believe (epistemology) and how to behave

(ethics), and then goes on to suggest a third based on what we care about.

Frankfurt (1988:80) says:

It is also possible to delineate a third branch of enquiry, concerned with a cluster of questions which pertain to another thematic and fundamental preoccupation of human existence – namely what to care about.

This view relates strongly to student projects - they are encouraged by

me to choose a project which interests them, which they care about, Frankfurt

(1988), and which has intrinsic motivation for them, Amabile (1998).

A Learning Coach is faced with this issue of care in no uncertain terms.

The authentic Learning Coach will be engaged in supporting learning in diverse

ways: the coach will support learners, as well as supporting the growth of

organizational learning. There needs to be the humility and strength of

character to put the interests of others first. Frankfurt points to the enduring

nature of our care for issues, ideas, people and processes. Necessarily it is

subjective in the sense that



We are led to the third branch on inquiry … because we are interested in deciding what to do with ourselves and because we therefore need to understand what is important or rather, what is important to us.

(Emphases in the original)

It is this notion of the ‘importance of what we care about’ that helps the

Learning Coach assist learners in reframing their current project activity. That

Learners will feel the necessity to reframe their project is beyond doubt. This

reframing may be due to changed external circumstances (e.g. costs are too

great) or internal circumstances (e.g. interest in a topic has moved on

significantly due to further reading).

“Learning to change”, as Harri-Augstein & Webb put it in their 1995

book, implies that reframing is a critical faculty that must be developed within

the learner. Heidegger also addresses framing.

However Heidegger recognises a danger here. He recognises that

technology can provide means by which Learners can be regarded as stuff.

The handbook and website and bulletin board are examples of forms of

technology that can ‘deal with’ students as Learners. Heidegger is wary of this

“technological attitude” or gestell. He contrasts it with care, which sees a

dassein as being part of a connected world.

The word gestell translates into ‘framing’. Framing in the sense of

dividing knowledge up into categories and zones as typified by e.g. the Library of

Congress classification system. All human knowledge is treated as stuff and

divided up for easy access: this is an expression of a technological attitude. Such

a world soon loses its holistic properties: a learner is such a world soon loses

contact with her primordial contexts. This is why Maxwell argues for a

Philosophy of Wisdom in part 9.4 (below).

However, Heidegger introduces the notion of care. Care recognises the

interconnections among things as part of Being. It sees things from different

perspectives. The problem with gestell is that things are seen from a single

perspective: this is stuff that I can use. I can cut, divide and use this stuff for

my purposes.



But care opens the way for an artistic interpretation. It values and

generates viewpoints from within. It is generative. Reframing, with care, is

altogether different to gestell. In recognising the interconnectedness that

exists in the world, the Learner will reframe wisely (I was going to say

cautiously) nurturing the development of his learning and awareness.

Following Frankfurt (1988) and Heidegger what we care about is

extremely important: for a Learning Coach it is doubly important.

The issue here is one of balance: is it wise to chop and change from one

problem to another? Or is it better to face waning interest here and opt for

burgeoning interest elsewhere? Or, is it better to stick with the current line of

inquiry through volitional necessity? Which is the more important line to take?

Who makes the judgement?

This is the problem the helmsman faces when steering his boat in

turbulent conditions: changing course, as conditions dictate, is expected of him

in getting from A to B. Pointing the boat from A to B and then setting off is

naive. The necessity to change for any pilot is always present and taken for

granted: as is the fact that he cares about getting from A to B. Reframing is part

of the journey. Students should be encouraged to follow a project they

personally care about. Furthermore, they should expect to reframe – with care

– as they go.

In the next few paragraphs I will raise current issues in which reframing

is an important human preoccupation. (Also it has been built into my

Blended Approach.) I hope you will see the tension between the two attitudes:

gestell and care.

a) Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is, in my view, wise to pull

the rug from under the feet of those Universities who see the provision of

electronically distributed learning materials10 as a way of making money.

They are doing the Higher Education world a service by encouraging a

re-examination of those values a university should practise, as well as

espouse, before technology - in the seductive form of the World Wide

Web - gets a grip. MIT seems to view the web as a ‘creative digital

commons’ where there is much of value for all people to use.



b) The current attempts to colonise the World Wide Web are worrying.

This global commons is under threat. As Patti Waldheimer (Financial

Times, 28 February, 2002) puts it in her article on the US Supreme

Court intellectual property decision over copyright protection and public

access to ideas:

Beyond the semantics lies a much more important debate about the nature of property on the Internet. In a world where the theft of copyrighted property has been rendered effortless by technology, how can creators be rewarded without stifling the flow of ideas necessary to feed future creation? How can society balance private and public rights in ideas? The issue was forced to the justices’ attention by a group of academics campaigning to defend the “public domain”. James Boyle … paints this domain as a kind of creative common land where we all graze for inspiration. (My emphasis)

Graze for inspiration, yes; graze for copying, no.

c) The Entertainment Industry in America – particularly around

Hollywood – have been so distraught by the digital copying of “their

material” that they have lobbied for and used the controversial Digital

Millennium Copyright Act (1998) to close down the Napster movement

(Alderman11 2001). The furore this caused has given many academics

reason to stop and think again. The Internet, as it is perceived at the

moment, is a wonderful vehicle for communication and information

gathering. But this is under threat through the unwise behaviour of

some of the key players.

Perhaps Lessig (2001:23) puts the threat to the Internet best in

his powerful book “The future of ideas: the fate of the commons in a

connected world”. Lessig argues that the Web is constructed in a neutral

way and should be viewed as an “innovation commons”. It has got this

far through management by norms. However, powerful lobbying forces

in the Hollywood entertainment industry are unilaterally trying to create

“walled gardens” on the Web where the rules of fair-use are giving give

way to extensive controls on web traffic. Copyright laws are being used

as a weapon.



The Open Source Movement take the opposite view. It espouses

copyleft, particularly for its software.

In this a user is free to do whatever she likes with software

provided that when it is passed on to someone else it is still retrievable in

its original form. Free as in ‘no charge’.

Eric Raymond12 describes two approaches to developing software:

the Cathedral (Apollonian, reasoned, and principled and payment

oriented) – and the Bazaar (Dionysian, babbling, opportunist, and free

as in “no payment required”).

He has to conclude, in surprise, that an unruly collaboration is

more effective than a hierarchical other-organised management

system. Linus Torvalds developed the Linux operating system in the

manner of a Bazaar. As well as being robust the Linux code is also free.

Collaborators were free to explore and collaborate with their ideas and

have produced enduring software such as the Apache software the runs

on most Internet servers.

Because these collaborators cared, we have a working Internet.

The parallel with Self-Organised Learning is obvious: ideas were allowed

to emerge and become meaningful under the watchful eye of a

moderator13. (There are similarities between the Open Source

‘moderator’ and a Learning Coach.)

Ideas must be important to a Learning coach. Ray Perry Barlow

in his seminal web essay “The economy of ideas”14 echoes the sentiment

that ‘ideas are free’ – first expressed by Jefferson in the Declaration of

Independence. Consider Barlow’s subtitle: “A framework for patents

and copyrights in the Digital Age. (Everything you know about

intellectual property is wrong.)”. Barlow begins by saying:

Throughout the time I've been groping around cyberspace, an immense, unsolved conundrum has remained at the root of nearly every legal, ethical, governmental, and social vexation to be found in the Virtual World. I refer to the problem of digitized property. The enigma is this: If our property can be infinitely reproduced and instantaneously distributed all over the planet without cost, without our knowledge, without its



even leaving our possession, how can we protect it? How are we going to get paid for the work we do with our minds? And, if we can't get paid, what will assure the continued creation and distribution of such work?

He is in good company. Putting aside the current Digital

Millenium Copyright Act (1998), (DMCA) dispute, since it had not been

written when Barlow wrote his paper, the wise words of Jefferson

resound across the centuries in a memorable opening quotation:

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property." - Thomas Jefferson (Barlow, J. The Economy of Ideas)

This reads to me like a Learning Coach’s Creed.

The sentence “He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction

himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives

light without darkening me” is something a Learning Coach would want to

endorse. It is the promotion of ideas as light for all. Jefferson concludes by

saying “inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property”.

We are witnessing the spectacle of unwise attempts to colonise the Web,

a behaviour that must be explained to our students. America is the “Land of the

Free”, yet the “Business of America is Business”. Here we have a cruel

dichotomy.



The two key guiding principles in the USA are now in a head on clash.

The current emphasis of exploring with the web may have to give way to a

commercialised exploitation of the web. This is akin to the land-grabs of

yester-year e.g. Enclosure Movement in England and the colonisation of Africa

in the nineteenth century.

It is to be hoped that the power of the ideas in Lessig’s “The Future of

Ideas” do their work in affirming that some ideas are so powerful that they

cannot be stopped. As Eric Stallman wrote, “Information wants to be free”.

Following Rajan (2000) we can but hope that Wisdom wants to be free too.

Both Hollywood and the Open Source movement care about their

respective positions. One can trace this care in the case of the Open Source

Movement through reading lobbying web-sites like www.anti-DMCA.org. What

is interesting here is that one mans output on the web-site is another man’s

input. Structurally this is just like a deep conversation or the dialogue between

two people, but without the synchronicity.

Thus many minds contribute to the debate on copyright. Through a

myriad interactions they become increasingly informed about what they care

about. As Jefferson said:

That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature.

The Learning Coach must deal with the ‘magic of conversation’ to

support Learners in their Inquiry. Nurturing the love of learning, of learning to

live and of wisdom seems to be more important than an uncritical acceptance of

the use of the World Wide Web to access information. Wisdom is higher up in

the knowledge hierarchy, as suggested by Rajan (2000), than information.

9.3 Care, ba and the SECI process I propose to develop the notion of care further, together with the

associated idea of ba, with particular reference to knowledge emergence.



The essential question belongs to Whitmore15 (1997): “How can we move

from need, and greed, towards the freedom to learn co-operatively?”

The Learning Coach receives students as separated individuals, arriving

perhaps for the first time at University.

They have in all probability no friends, are unsure of the course

structure, the department layout and various systems. These students have

needs. It is not particularly difficult to get them working together and knowing

each other. Techniques such as ice breaker sessions and interview assignments

in the Induction programme help here.

The difficult part is to get students to want to trust each other and co-

operate together. Perhaps this is due to the fact that students have regarded

learning as something that is done on your own. If you have better marks than

another student then there is no sense in helping that other student, since her

marks will get closer to yours. Your advantage over her will be eroded.

At this point the notion of care needs to be developed in the direction of

organisational learning. The argument here is that knowledge development, in

both the individual and the group, is a fragile process. So fragile, that the social

relationships in organisations must be given more attention than is customary

at present.

Particularly, attention must be given to the relationships between

students and lecturers. This is highlighted by the lip service given to “life long

learning” as opposed to the espoused practice of many lecturers who are “just

delivering” their module. If life long learning is important, it seems lecturers

should look beyond their module, perhaps to the course as a whole, or – further

– looking at life as a learner moving from HND to Degree to Masters towards a

Doctorate. A corollary is that lecturers should nurture such ideas as life long

learning and Continuing Professional Development, for they might find

potential researchers among their students.

This is a competitive advantage over other Universities that are not

sufficiently enlightened to develop their own researchers.



It was a matter of great concern that many staff at the WLBS, seemed to

want to keep the students on the HND Computing programmes very separate

from the Degree programmes. This view of separation was based on A-level

point scores. The argument would go something like this:

HND students have an average point score of ten, whereas our degree students have a point score of eighteen. Therefore our degree students can do better work. We do not want our degree students ‘tainted’ by HND students.

Up to 1996 there were two students who left and within the year gained

first class honours degrees in Information Systems at South Bank University

and Thames Valley University. These students had a distinction profile and

were admitted directly to the final year of the respective degree programmes.

A third student gained an MSc in the Theoretical Foundations of

Computing at Westminster University in two years by part-time study, coming

top of his class. Subsequent to establishing the BSc Multimedia Technology &

Design in 1999, three firsts (out of a total of nine awarded in June 2001 and

June 2002) have been awarded to ex-HND students. That degree routinely

takes HND students of an appropriate standard directly into its second year.

I feel the refusal of computing lecturers on the Computing/Business

Studies degree at WLBS to accept HND students, other than on sufferance,

unnecessarily polarised our thinking at that time. They would have been better

off getting on with their research. It is interesting to note that by September

2001 they had all left, bar two.

Arguments for such a direct entry arrangement fell on deaf ears at

WLBS. It was a persuasion battle that was not won. The HND Computing

Courses were operating in a department that was not totally caring and

nurturing – as far as the Computing lecturers were concerned. They were seven

staff out of thirty five in the WLBS.

The notion of care takes thinking beyond that of the cognitivist notion

that the organisation is a machine for information processing and problem

solving. The cognitivists maintain that such a “machine” would need to store,

manipulate and retrieve knowledge (Kilduff16, 1992; Morgan17, 1986).



Knowledge may be of a social or individual character, it may be explicit

or tacit and, finally, it may be understood or agreed upon in the organisational

world. Von Krogh18, Ichijo & Nonaka (2001) ask the question:

What characterizes organizational relationships that enable effective knowledge development in business organizations?

They then go on to assert that care is the answer.

Knowledge development, especially social knowledge development of the organization, cannot be taken for granted, and relationships in organizations must be given more attention. Knowledge development is fraught with emotions, misunderstandings, misconceptions and so on. Care, which involves patience, emotional forbearance, and so forth, is the remedy for such difficulties. (p 34)

These are wise words. In my experience, being available and open to

students and staff on the HND Computing course has paid dividends. Examples

are:

• For the students: designing in experiences for the benefit of student

learning (e.g. planning Integrated Assignments across modules, organising

short study trips in another country).

• For the course team: promoting togetherness at the beginning of the

relevant teaching period (e.g. calling meetings at the start of the semester so

that all members of the teaching team know who each other are, discussing

quality procedures for setting assignments and examinations).

• For external moderators: creating a feeling of inclusion by sending them

minutes of Course Team meetings and of Staff-Student Meetings.

Why is this important? Quite simply, anything that promotes the

rhizomic myriad interactions in a co-operative knowledge creation process

between students, staff, external moderators, and students’ clients is a benefit.

As a consequence this promotes the knowledge creation process within

the department itself.



This study was fortunate in that it took place within a department

organised on autopoietic lines. The department was enabled to learn and grow

following the principles of autopoiesis.

It grew from nine staff in 1986, when I joined, to 35 staff by 1999. It went

from twenty full time students to around 1000 full time students in 1999.

Learning processes were a keen interest of the department, as was course

development. This was at a time prior to the Research Assessment Exercise.

The Head of Department and Senior Lecturers did not give sufficient

attention to research. However six Ph.D. researchers were appointed during

this time but their impact on research was minimal, if not counter-productive.

CPD work was more effective, with £0.5M earned each year by running evening

courses.

The merger between WLI and Brunel came at a difficult time. Most

Departments at WLI did not overlap with teaching at Brunel, and simply

moved into the merged university with little change. However, the WLBS and

the Department of Management did overlap. As a consequence new structures

were agreed with departmental headship going to a Professor19. We had a new

Head of Department and a new name Brunel School of Business &

Management (BSBM).

Our new found confidence in course development – particularly the

binding of Self-Organised Learning with multimedia - did result in a new BSc

Multimedia & Technology Design starting in September 1999, proved to be a

success in the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering.

But an era of fragmentation started, with split campus and split building

teaching. Travelling thirteen miles there and thirteen miles back between

campuses, several times each week, was not a very satisfactory way to start life

at Brunel University.



Teaching & learning strategies as well as course development took a back

seat. The particular loss was the spirit of knowledge creation as part of

cooperative processes amongst ourselves. We were now involved in running

down our courses: the degree courses were scheduled to run out by June 2003,

the HND courses (by now there were four) were closed down with the last

intake in 1999. There were no HND awards after June 2001.

The remarkable thing in all this travail is the emergence of two powerful

ideas. The ideas were Self-Organised Learning and Learning Conversations. I

had become committed in my research to these ideas and the period 1996-1999

was one of quietly working in a stable environment developing my methods and

my thinking.

Then extreme turbulence and change characterised the period from

1999-2002. The teaching semesters from September to June in 2001-2002

almost resulted in a dead stop on this thesis.

It took the whole summer in 2002 to get back on track. My HND courses

were closed, with just enough time for results to be available for the

longitudinal study on HND Computing Project pass rates in Chapter 6.

That turbulence and epiphany enabled a previously unimagined

possibility: to develop the Self-Organised Learning ideas on another course

(B.Sc. MMTD), in another department (ECE) at a different campus (Uxbridge).

This was to eventually prove to be successful.

But getting back to learning as knowledge-creation in a cooperative

process. What exactly is meant by a learning conversation? What are its

characteristics? How does it create new knowledge? It is at this point that the

notion of ba must be developed. Then the knowledge transformations of

Nonaka & Takeuchi (1995), Nonaka20 (1996) and Michelis (2002) should be

given their voice. They believe ideals and ideas have their place in knowledge

creation.

Nonaka21, Konno & Toyama (2002) define knowledge as:

A dynamic human process of justifying personal belief toward

the “truth”. (p 14)



(Note the use of the word “human” and recall it in part 9.4 where

Maxwell argues for a Philosophy of Wisdom.)

Tacit knowledge is highly personal and difficult to formalise. It is

difficult to share with others. Such tacit knowledge includes students' hidden

thoughts and desires as “reasons” for doing this project, rather than that

project.

Since I need to be sure the student is doing the right project, for her,

there is a need to make this tacit knowledge much more explicit. I required the

HND students to meet together for three hours on a particular day each week

so that we can hear and participate in four or five “Project Presentations”.

Later, on the degree course this reduced to one hour a week as I became more

fluent in my approach.

This, in simple terms, is a ba or a safe place - a place that harbours

meaning. To create knowledge about student project intentions a ba is created.

By managing the ba effectively and relevantly, the Learning Coach can capture

this knowledge for its assessment, learning and situating purposes.

Ba is a knowledge creation platform, a time-space nexus, where

knowledge is created, shared and exploited through spiralling. It is similar to

the Harri-Augstein & Thomas ideas of ‘marsing’ and the ‘three life levels’, with

the key difference that it must be social and it must involve myriad

interactions. It is a place that ‘harbours meanings’ - it is a port in a storm.

Since 1996 I have created these places ( or bas) by the use of position

power. I have used my authority as Director of Studies to require students to

attend a given slot on the timetable in a given room. I was feeling my way. (It

was not until 2002 that I came across the Nonaka et al (2001) text on

knowledge emergence.) It was good to find I was not alone.



I demanded the space where assessment took place for the first element

of the Project Module. This was a battle with the timetable unit. But that did

not make it a ba — in reality it was the myriad social interactions that were

taking place that gave the timetable slot the status of a rich ba. It is with regret

that I did not extend the ba to include a bulletin board to capture our thoughts.

(Although there is evidence based on bulletin boards based on my delivery of

the EE3106B:eCommerce module. See Appendix A4.3)

Becoming involved in the ba is to share in emerging relationships (from

face-to-face to virtual relationships) in the programme team. This involvement

often transcends one’s limited viewpoints. As Nonaka, Konno & Toyama

(2002) put it:

Ba is the world where the individual understands him - or herself as a part of the environment on which his or her life depends. (p 19)

These writers then describe different forms of ba, depending on the

activity taking place. These are 1) originating ba, 2) dialoguing ba,

3) systematizing ba and 4) exercising ba.

Each of these forms of ba is where EITHER tacit knowledge is turned

into explicit knowledge OR explicit knowledge is turned into tacit knowledge.

By adjusting the ba, the learning coach is able to move up and down the

Rajan22 (2000) levels of knowledge. (It is similar to changing gears in a car.)

1. Orginating ba. This is the world where teams share feelings, apprehensions and hopes.

A group will meet and empathise with each other. In the process, barriers

between selves dissolve. Care and trust emerge from this process. On the HND

Computing students were invited to share the ideas they were thinking about,

as part of the assessment for the Computing Project module. I put emphasis on

the physical face-to-face encounter since this tells participants so much.



One distinguishes between students. Between student-A who has worked

out every word that will be spoken, yet is shaking violently all over since the

experience of presenting is intimidating, and student-B who stands up and

confidently puts across ideas that are superficially interesting but underneath

are glib and almost facile.

Neither would earn a high grade: what is interesting is the difference

between the two performances. If the industry of the first presenter can be

combined with the poise of the second presenter we have the germ of a better

presentation. This is the conversion of tacit knowledge into tacit knowledge.

It is the result of the Heideggerian social experience of being “thrown

in the world”. Its strength is derived from a strong and direct encounter with

other individuals.

2. Dialoguing ba. This is a more deliberate and consciously constructed ba. Dialoguing ba

is where tacit, inchoate ideas are made explicit. With the HND students I asked

them to generate selection criteria for choosing one project from the three they

had previously told us about.

They were free to choose any criteria they thought would be useful in

deciding which project to do. (An example from student RB is in Appendix

A9.3)

In this way individuals in the audience share in the presenter’s thoughts,

but also reflect on their own thoughts.

Clearly, it is also associated with the externalization process implicit in

giving a presentation. Dialoguing ba became institutionalised in the HND

Computing course culture.

If the course had not been terminated and the department not merged, it

would have been interesting to run two courses in parallel and adding a third at

a later date to see if similar improvements took place. Then a degree course

(possibly the BSc Leisure Management) could have been added to the process.

In this way the ba could have been extended to all the courses within the WLBS

department.



3. Systematizing ba. In this ba the newly acquired knowledge is combined with existing

knowledge. This is the place for dissemination elsewhere at the right time. Here

the earlier intuitions are explicitly refined, clarified and analysed. They can be

written down. In student project work, I used to say you can now write an

interesting first chapter or two (i) an introduction to the project and how it

came to be chosen followed by (ii) a review of the relevant literature. Online

journals can be updated rapidly here and ideas shared electronically with

significant others through chat rooms, bulleting boards and workgroup

software.

4. Exercising ba. Exercising ba encourages refinement of ideas and concepts: they

become owned and part of one.

Rather than teaching based on analysis, learning is by continuous self-refinement. … Peripheral and active participation is stressed in this ba.

is how this ba has been described by Nonaka, Konno & Toyama (2002).

Exercising ba synthesises the transcendence and reflection through action, while dialoging ba achieves this through thought.

Nonaka23 & Takeuchi have developed a sophisticated process model for

knowledge creation that spans both tacit and explicit knowledge forms. This is

SECI24 process given in Table 9.2 below.

The table is augmented by Michelis’ notions of a learner as, variously, a

Performer or a Customer. I have come to see strong similarities between it and

my approach in developing learning conversations with HND Computing

Project students.



Table 9.2 – Knowledge Creation Transformation Processes

Tacit Knowledge (Performers)

to

Explicit Knowledge (Customers)

Tacit Knowledge (Performers)

from

1. Socialization

{Empathizing}

2.Externalization

{Conceptualizing}

Explicit Knowledge (Customers)

4. Internalization

{Embodying}

3. Combination

{Connecting}

The four knowledge transformation processes are 1) socialization,

2) externalization, 3) combination and 4) internalization.

1. Socialization.

Student-actors indirectly exhibit tacit knowledge, when in a performer

position (e.g at Project Management Learning Conversations when they are in

giving a presentation position).

The audience, whether students or assessors, notice some learned

routines which are similar to but more efficient than skills they have.

This learning is not explicitly stated but it is noticed through social

intercourse. In this process we are empathizing.

2. Externalization.

The same student-actors directly exhibit explicit knowledge when they

declare their thinking to me in a customer position. (e.g. when explaining

criteria used and scoring possible projects against those criteria.) Their views

are put on paper, and are explicit for an assessor to read, and for students to

listen to.

I - in a customer position - and the rest of the student group, have

listened to their articulations. I have required the students to articulate their

thoughts and it follows I want to hear them. I am a customer.



If externalisation by the student is poor then I do not get any satisfaction

from a presentation. I do not care for it. I might say as much to justify a lower

grade. On the other hand I and the students must have explicit grading

criteria25 (see Appendix A9.4) in which I describe the kinds of performance a

student might give for a Pass grade, for a Merit grade and for a Distinction

grade. Students are given this at the start of the final year. Thus students can

anticipate a presentation and channel their energies in a focused way. I might

use the criteria to help me think aloud and arrive at a grade in presence of the

audience. In this process we are conceptualizing.

3. Combination

Combination involves a customer-customer relation. A student has

presented and there are two sets of customers. There is myself as an assessor

and there are other students wishing to benefit from the presentation.

When there is accord between the student customer and assessor

customer (e.g. an astonishing around of applause for an excellent presentation

confirmed by praise from the assessor) via explicit clapping and explicit

comments, we have a form of triangular verification between presenter, student

audience and assessor. This is reliable and confirmed knowledge generation.

It is interesting to notice that through this process, I find I know quite

deeply which project each students has chosen to carry out and why. Somehow

this process leads to improved memory on my part, much better than having a

list of names and the intended project by each name if I were to operate in an

administrative capacity only.

Somehow this knowledge – derived through these learning

transformations - abides deeply in my memory. It seems to be a feature of

collaborative arrangements. We are connecting.

4. Internalization

Internalization, like externalization, involves a customer-performer

relation. A customer at a presentation hears a presentation in which criteria are

discussed.



These criteria might reflect reasons for choosing to do a set of projects

e.g. “the project I choose must be challenging” and the implication is the more

challenging the better.

This is a tacit view on the part of the performer who is challenged from

the floor with the question: “What do you mean by challenging I would not

want to do a project that is too challenging.” If the customer posing the

question has a deeper insight into what it means to be ‘challenging’ the

Performer – the person who gets the question – has to explain as well as he

can. If he has settled for a poorly understood version of challenging (e.g. not

boring) the flaw will be exposed.

If on the other hand the performer giving the question has simply

misheard she might be bought off by a trite explanation.

What is clear is that when real progress and clarification has taken place,

new learning has been created. We are embodying this new knowledge.

All four types of interaction are important and no single approach

should dominate. All four interactions should be regarded as constitutive

elements in a learning conversation rhizome. This is helpful, for in such a

complex of conversations as emerges in and after a formal presentation, people

switch conversational roles.

At the end of a presentation, a Presenter fields a question from the floor.

The student is now a Customer rather than a Performer. Another student,

incensed by the question, asks a question of the questioner from the floor. The

first questioner is now a Customer of the second student’s question.

Since we cannot assess all students in one session, and the process of

assessing groups of students for an assessment element is repeated over two or

three weeks, some might say this is a waste of effort. They might say there is

great redundancy in what is taking place. In this context - especially the first

assessment HND Computing Project element which involves students in

discussing their three ideas - Nonaka26 (1996:26) has this to say:

Redundancy is important because it encourages frequent dialogue and communication. This helps create a 'common cognitive ground' among employees and thus facilitates the transfer of tacit knowledge. Since members of the



organization share overlapping information, they can sense what others are struggling to articulate. Redundancy also spreads new explicit knowledge through the organization so that it can be internalized by employees.

It is interesting to notice the similarities between these words and the

Vygotskyian position that all learning is first socially mediated and only then

conceptualised.

Further more, it is also interesting to hear Dewey27 (1909:216)

concluding in "How we think":

When a topic is to be clinched so that knowledge of it will carry over into an effective resource in further topics, conscious condensation and summarizing are imperative. In the early stage of acquaintance with a subject, a good deal of unconstrained unconscious mental play about it may be permitted, even at the risk of some random experimenting; in the latter stages, conscious formulation and review may be encouraged. Projection and reflection, going directly ahead and turning back in scrutiny, should alternate. Unconsciousness gives spontaneity and freshness; consciousness, conviction and control. (pp. 216-217)

There is no reference to learning conversations here but the

Harri-Augstein and Thomas notion of "marsing" and the Nonaka knowledge-

generation spiral are implicit in the sentence "Projection and reflection, going

directly ahead and turning back in scrutiny, should alternate."

Dewey's idea of mental play is not situated, as in Nonaka's notion of ba.

I have found that creating a timetable space and adopting a democratic stance

and encouraging students to articulate their thoughts as performer/learners

has all the hallmarks of a Nonaka ba.

The rhizomic nature of such conversational processes is rich,

somewhat unpredictable and searching. There is no obvious one-to-one

relationship with the various learning processes. But learning does occur. The

attention of the students at these complex learning conversations displays this.

As De Michelis28 (2002) says



Considering learning within cooperative processes as a knowledge-creation process offers new insights … . On the one hand, it focuses on the dynamic nature of the knowledge organisations use while performing, avoiding its reduction to the information they store in electronic or physical archives; on the other, it avoids the reduction both of learning to adaptation and of social to individual learning. (p 128)

De Michelis seems to be saying there is benefit from “learning together”.

There are issues to do with non-attendance at presentations, through

students not being able to attend. Not all people can be in a given conversation

event (all people cannot be in the same place, or ba, at the same time).

Even if they could be, there is no guarantee that a given performer will

do well. The case where all performers are part of the same organisation is a

rare case. That it has been possible in the main with one cohort does not mean

it can scale up to all students in all disciplines. There can only be incomplete

and partial overlap. But because there is overlap one student will talk to one

another. Below is a typical snippet:

Student 1: "How did the presentations go?"

Student 2: " They were good. Michelle was brilliant, but John and Nish were awful."

Student 1: "What about Kate - she is determined to do a database. ... How did she get

on?"

Student 2: "Oh, yes Kate. She was all right. So was that Peter bloke. What is his

surname?"

Student 1: "I don't know. But what about Kate's presentation? Was it any good. Did she

give any hand-outs?"

Student 2: " You sound keen. If you are so keen, why were you not there? I think there

were handouts. ... But you should have seen Michelle's presentation - it was

fantastic. Brian said it was superb and gave her an A. Do you know he has

only given two A- (A minus) grades so far? This was the first full blown A.

It was a complete wow. She was embarrassed by the applause and went

red!"



Participation in knowledge creation is more than access to documents

and videos (even though these exist). It is the existential quality of a

conversational coherence that gives these cooperative exercises their edge.

Participation – as direct as possible – is vital.

This is only possible if a strongly directing display of power is abandoned

by the Learning Coach in favour of a more democratic and caring approach. In

this way group (or social) learning conversations are held in which the

learning transformations of socialization, externalization, combination

and internalization are allowed to emerge.

Although an individual presenting student feels she is centre stage, with

all eyes on her, we in fact have different forms of learning taking place at the

same time.

I identify the above learning transformations of socialization,

externalization, combination and internalization as taking place. This

represents a move beyond self-organised learning towards group-organised

learning. This movement is a vital skill for the Learning Coach to master.

Egan29 (1998:7) suggests the goals of the 'Skilled Helper' should be:

Goal 1: Help Clients manage their problems in living more effectively and develop

unused or under-used opportunities more fully.

Goal 2: Help clients become better at helping themselves in their everyday lives.

These are reasonable objectives for the Learning Coach. But Egan goes

on to emphasise there is a greater need for humanity than cleverness. I think

this is a profound point and addresses students' conative needs. Egan

emphasises wisdom, rather than being smart, when helping. He says:

The helper who understands and uses the model together with the skills and techniques that make it work might well be smart, but he or she must also be wise. (p. 17)

Sternberg30 (1990) has written on the characteristics of helping wisdom.

He suggests some of these characteristics in Table 9.3. I find these qualities to

be remarkably accurate and fit with my conception of what a Learning Coach

needs to be like and care about.



Harri-Augstein & Thomas hint at these qualities rather than spell them

out. However, there is one striking recommendation that is made - certainly by

Harri-Augstein & Webb - and that is "There must also be a feel for timing, of

knowing when to act" - Harri-Augstein & Webb (1995:65). This has parallels

with the notion of a counsellor, a significant person who can provide the

"scaffolding" to help learners learn how to learn. The idea of "knowing when to

act" is picked up by other writers in the context of wisdom (e.g. Blomberg,

1998).

Table 9.3 - Sternberg's qualities of "Helping Wisdom". 1 Self-knowledge, maturity; the guts to admit mistakes and the sense to learn from them. 2 A psychological and a human understanding of others; insight into human interactions. 3 The ability to "see through" situations; the ability to understand the meaning of events. 4 Tolerance of ambiguity and the ability to work with it; being comfortable with messy and

ill-structured cases and, in general, the messiness of human beings; openness to events that don't fit comfortably into logical or traditional categories.

5 The ability to frame a problem so that it is workable; the ability to reframe information. 6 Avoidance of stereotypes; holistic thinking; open-mindedness; open-endedness;

contextual thinking; "meta-thinking" or the ability to think about thinking and become aware about being aware.

7 The ability to see relationships; the ability to spot flaws in reasoning; intuition; the ability to synthesize,

8 The refusal to let experience become a liability through blind spots; the ability to take the long view on problems.

9 The ability to blend seemingly antithetical helping roles - being one who cares and understands together with being one who challenges...

The Learning Coach should work to acquire be appropriate character

traits associated with a typical counsellor (see Table 9.3 above).

Nonaka, Konno & Toyama (2001:27) embrace these ideas too.

Summarising the SECI31 process they emphasise the

‘enabling conditions’ of autonomy, creative chaos, redundancy, variety,

love, care and commitment.

A further quality for a Learning Coach is that he or she should be clear

about the purpose of education, and the role of the Learning Coach in it. For

me, like Maxwell, a key question is: "Is the purpose of education the pursuit of

human aim-oriented wisdom?" Counter-intuitively, in teaching and learning, it

seems power is best kept by giving it away.



Maxwell proposes a move away from a Philosophy of Knowledge

towards a Philosophy of Wisdom. This draws on the Rajan (2000) model of

knowledge and the very human processes in Self-Organised Learning and the

Nonaka SECI process. We must also recall von Krogh’s arguments for care:

seizing , transacting, bestowing and indwelling.

This new way of learning has much more in common with controlled

creativity than the current penchant for over testing. It sets the scene for

Nichloas Maxwell to make his case in part 9.4.

9.4 From a Philosophy of Knowledge to a Philosophy of Wisdom. Maxwell (1984) suggests we need to change the emphasis we place in

what we take to be knowledge about some aspect of our world and proposes a

radical change in current intellectual aims and inquiry methods. He feels

intellectual effort is largely focused on enhancing knowledge. Rather, he

suggests the fundamental aim should be enhancing wisdom, both social and

personal.

In part 9.3 the notion of care, as introduced by von Krogh, is added to

the Nonaka et al SECI knowledge creating process. This process is similar to

the Harri-Augstein & Webb (1995) notion or ‘marsing’. Both are spiral

processes, unlike the Kolb process.

The difference is that SECI uses a ba to generate knowledge over the

tacit-explicit divide in Figure 9.2. Both von Krogh and Nonaka realise social

realities and concerns.

Buber has suggested man is born relational. He says there are two main

ways in which persons relate: the first is with other persons, the second is with

things. These are I-Thou relation and I-It relations. The former relations, Buber

maintains, are more important than the latter. Maxwell takes a similar position

and goes further to suggest a Philosophy of Wisdom should be adopted in the

academe.

In Part 9.2 Heidegger’s work has eliminated the subject-object divide in

relations, and relations between entities are seen to be more reflexive.



In part 9.1, Rajan’s model of knowledge was contrasted with the simpler

3-layer model we have used from the Enlightenment and has become

embedded in our modern notions of technical rationality. The top layers of

Figures 9.1 and 9.2 are regarded as the highest forms of knowledge in their

respective model.

For the love of learning associated with the enlightenment model I

propose the term a Philosophy of Knowledge. Explicit knowledge is top of

Figure 9.1.

For the love of learning associated with the Rajan model, I propose the

term a Philosophy of Wisdom. Wisdom is top of Figure 9.2.

Adopting a Philosophy of Knowledge view, Science gives preference to

those theories that simplify and unify. By testing theories against nature truth

is assured, in some sense. This is called “standard empiricism”. This commits

science to the presupposition that unity exists in nature, often in the form of

universal laws. This unity, as expressed in a universal law, is to be discovered.

Maxwell (1984) comments on the dominance of Science in a Philosophy

of Knowledge. He asks the questions:

What grounds can we have for holding conjecturally that some kind of unified pattern is implicit in all phenomena? How is it possible for there to be consciousness in the field? How is it possible for us to exist, experiencing, feeling, enjoying and suffering beings?

He suggests the pursuit of Explicit Knowledge is indifferent to the aims

and purposes of most human beings.

Maxwell goes on to say:

If all that we are and do conforms to a fixed pattern of physical law, how can there be any freewill? How can we be responsible for our own actions and our thoughts, desires and decisions? How can our lives have any meaning or value?



Maxwell seems to be suggesting that science has simplified out the very

things that matter — ourselves. He seems to be suggesting that greater

consideration be given to participative articulation. (Here I feel he is echoing

Gadamer.) He feels a more human form of inquiry is a richer way forward.

Reason & Rowan (1981) echo this too. For, Maxwell (1984:99) says, to not do so

will lead to this consequence:

Failure to articulate the scientific aim of improving understanding may well lead science to degenerate into nothing more than the enterprise of predicting more and more phenomena, more and more accurately.

Maxwell is hinting that all is not well in the Philosophy of Knowledge

with its apparent lack of concern for human aspiration.

Maxwell argues science, in the light of a richer model of knowledge,

must seek wisdom in the form of humanly valuable truth, with ‘explanatory

truth’ being one kind of ‘valuable truth’. He calls this a Philosophy of

Wisdom. It fits well with the model of knowledge found in Rajan (2000).

But for Maxwell, “standard empiricism” excludes a discussion of human

values. He notes that in the political realm science has become

Other-Organised, so an endeavour seeking to inquire into a potentially useful

human activity can easily not get funds to make such research possible. “That is

not what we understand by science,” a Research Council might say. Thus the

meaning of human inquiry has been hijacked.

Maxwell (1984:05) argues not for “pure science” but for

curiosity, wonder, knowledge, and understanding achieved by, and shared between, people.

(my emphasis.)



Personal Interlude 9.1 I found this letter to the Financial Times very apposite. Letters to the Editor Financial Times, 1 September 2001 (Weekend, p. 8)

Adding little to the sum total of wisdom

From Prof Bruce LLoyd

Sir, Thomas Barlow’s provocative article “The great thing about frivolous research” (FT Weekend August 4-5) raised some challenging issues. There is obviously a case for some (but how much? and who decides?) “frivolous” research but, surely, particularly if public money is involved, it is entirely justified to ask questions about the potential benefits of any expenditure. However, the main point I wish to raise relates to the recycling of the Clinton quotation that “the entire store of human knowledge now doubles every five years”, combined with the fact that apparently a decade ago the figure was reported to be 14 years.

The subsequent discussion considered the key question: “But how much of it is actually useful?” The important question can be answered only within the context of an understanding of the critical relationship between information, knowledge and wisdom. There is certainly little doubt that the figure quoted earlier could easily apply to information. But, after conducting a detailed study of the role and nature of wisdom in knowledge management (available on the World Future Society web-site www.wfs.org), there is little to suggest that the sum total of wisdom (supposedly the “highest” form of knowledge) increased significantly in the 20th century.

To consider the specific position of knowledge sandwiched ambiguously between information and wisdom is not easy. However, it would be beneficial for us all if we focused on linking knowledge more closely with an agenda defined by wisdom, rather than confusing knowledge with information.

Bruce Lloyd South Bank University, 103 Borough Road, London SE1 0AA

End of Personal Interlude 9.1

Maxwell emphasises people. He calls for a “person centred science”. This

phrase is reminiscent of Kelly (1955) and his notion of a learner as a ‘personal

scientist’.

Maxwell is arguing for a reassessment of science in the light of human

priorities: he seems to be arguing for a move away from something that is

essentially allopoietic and exclusive, towards something that is autopoietic and

inclusive.



He feels humanly valuable truth has been excluded from the Philosophy

of Knowledge, and a reassessment of priorities is needed so that a Philosophy

of Wisdom has primacy. In this primacy, explicit knowledge and “standard

empiricism” will be seen as tools to be used in the pursuit of these higher level

objectives.

Certainly Maxwell is not alone. Reason and Rowan (1981) have argued

for “human inquiry” in their eponymous text. What we have in Maxwell’s

argument is a plea for an inversion of the status quo.

At this point I would like to add an inversion of my own. This was in

course design. Earlier, I have explained how the transition from HND

Computing (Information Systems for Business) to HND Computing

(Multimedia) at Osterley, WLI took place during the 1990s. The two courses

continued to run in parallel. The transition process was actually an inversion.

The multimedia course was rich, interactive, diverse, vibrant. In artistic

terms, the palette had all the colours of the rainbow. It represented a move

toward a wiser curriculum.

The earlier Information Systems course was based on Technical

Rationality. Its “no pain, no gain” approach was exemplified in teaching the

computer language C++ over three successive semesters out of four. (There

were four modules a semester.) It was compulsory and took place over 75% of

the courses duration. Such was the load and difficulty, some students felt it

was 75% of the course. The palette was black, white and gray.

But the introduction of option modules into the Information Systems

course had an amazing effect. As staff, we were interested in how these modules

had gone down with the students. The students in turn could not hide their

pleasure. Staff and students chatted quite equally and democratically. There

was no hiding it: we could have an equally good, if not better course by

inverting the two years.

Year two would be the new year one with all its optional modules

becoming compulsory, and year one would become the new year two with its

compulsory modules becoming optional.



This re-sequencing had a profound effect. The new HND Computing

(Multimedia) was a great success. It introduced aesthetic elements, judgement,

marketing, web-design and video and retained programming, computing

fundamentals and systems design. It was the test bed and proving ground for

the BSc Multimedia Technology and Design degree, which was awarded a high

grade by HEFCE a few years later.

My point is that inversions are not always wrong. Sometimes they lead to

an improved state of affairs. Re-sequenced thinking, through discussions in a

group, can lead to powerful consequences. Through relating to the Head of

WLBS over this change, the Learning Coach model and “Systems 7” - with its

link to the Head of Learning Services - immediately became very meaningful to

me. We, the Head of WLBS and I, had attended to our students enthusiasm

and had dropped “you do as I say” attitudes and had reaped a huge benefit.

Maxwell (1984:107) asks:

What is it in life that we should seek to attend to, to realize, to cherish and to love?”

Figure 9.3 - Timely value selection – a move towards Wisdom.

Clearly this is timely value selection. What and when will we choose to

govern our actions? It might not be “scientific” but it has its own validity. It is

action consented to freely within a group at the right time without power

relations distorting the field. It is Self-Organising behaviour.

Governing values

Action strategies

Consequences

Single-loop Learning

Double-loop Learning

Wisdom -interpretsvalues in differentcontexts

Triple-loop Learning



This is shown in Figure 9.3 which is an extension to Argyris’ model of

double-loop and single-loop learning. The value selection is where wise choices

are made in a timely fashion from a group of candidate options all equally

plausible.

Let me illustrate Figure 9.3 with an example. In the earlier Appendix

A9.1 - the reader was confronted with some information about the death of a

student, four weeks before the end of a two year course. This occurred just as

students were getting ready to hand in their Projects, be assessed on them by

two Assessors at a Viva Voce and revise in preparation for their examination

revision. The students were distraught. The student NP, killed so suddenly,

was popular and was organising a holiday for half the group. The

administration sent me an email to say the student had been removed from the

university databases and they were grateful for being told.

But I had a group of distraught students. I reflected-in-action and I

instantly added to Argyris’ double-loop learning diagram. (See Figure 9.3.)

Governing variables were insufficient. I realised the time had come to do

something other than run the course. Fortunately we had been meeting in a ba

- we were in conversational contact. As a group we agreed we must spend the

next ten days burying NP.

The students rallied round. Many went to counselling, two retrieved

NP’s project from her home computer, along with some assignments. Two

students wrote poems, which they read out at a simple ceremony of

Remembrance run by the Chaplaincy Committee. I read Philippians32 (4:8-9)

a simple but highly relevant pair of verses. After the Ceremony, we all took part

in planting a tree in memory of NP. Each student shovelled a spade full of soil

into the hole to support the tree — both boys and girls. The spade was brand

new: the steel was so shiny. It was a thoughtful touch by someone. The tree was

a symbol of NP’s life.

The students rallied around again. All demonstrated their projects well

and all passed their examinations.

Why am I saying this? To make the point about wisdom as “knowing

when” (Blomberg, 1998).



I knew the time had come to suspend the usual values of teaching on the

course and pressing ahead with inappropriate schedules. Quite simply the time

was right to bury NP together, to honour her, grieve and then get back on track.

The Head of the Brunel School of Business & Management (BSBM) was

there too. He said to me afterwards, that he thought belief systems were useful.

For some reason, I have always remembered that.

It seems a grim example but it is the best I can think of in my self-

appointed role as Learning Coach (1996-2003) to emphasise the importance of

wisdom.

Furthermore, by way of a reminder, reflect back to Polanyi’s work and

understand The Principle of Marginal Control more fully. It seems that when

the course was in trouble it could not help itself other than by resorting to a

higher principle (wisdom) and feeling the time was right to do something

completely different.

________________________

All this is entirely consistent with the approach adopted by Kelly (1955),

Rogers (1961,1967), Schön (1983, 1991), Blomberg (1998), Reason & Rowan

(1981).

From the work of philosophers like Kirkegaard, Husserl, Heidegger,

Gadamer, Fromm and Buber we see there is much value in recognising “we are

here, and no doubt about it”. We must relate to each other to make our

purposes and meanings clear, and conversation is a marvellous way of doing

this, as Isaacs (1999) has shown. It seems trite to say so, but it is as if we have

to rediscover something the ancients of old were very familiar with.

Finally, let me conclude with what Harri-Augstein & Webb have to say.

Augstein and Thomas (1991:33) seem to have spotted something is awry in the

world and point to the conversational entity that marks us out as different to

things and offer an alternative to existential despair. They hint the current

technological view is erroneous (as do Schön (1983), and Blomberg (1998))

and point to the objective deterministic thinking derived from Descartes as a

possible source of error.



It is this experience (the conversational entity) that suggests

Descartes did not have the whole story. I can occasionally know nature,

myself, or another, therefore I have value. This suggests it is the miracle of the

conversation that might be better accepted as the basis of our becoming. This

assumption clears many psychological and philosophical obstacles out of our

path. The Conversational entity proposition makes the way look clear.

Harri-Augstein and Thomas in Learning Conversations (1991:33) then

make seven points to support this non-deterministic line of reasoning.

1. I can converse therefore I am becoming.

2. I can converse with nature, with myself and with another, therefore I have value and I experience quality.

3. Conversing is not pre-emptive, it does not imply identity of meaning, only the sharing of experience.

4. Therefore all personal knowing is prior but is positioned in conversational space. That is where meaning lies.

5. Each position in conversational space has its own perspective with reference to other positions and with reference to time and quality.

6. Thus it is only by appreciating a full relativity of meaning that conversation can be enhanced and we can, as Self-Organised Learners, be free.

7. Through the miracle of conversation we may learn to fly. By construing our nature we may create our own destiny. By construing our environment we may learn to converse and live in harmony with it. By construing the meaning of our own universe we have the freedom to explore, reconstruct and change.

I will argue that these points can be checked against philosophers

thinking from Descartes through to today, and show that Heidegger’s work

marks a turning point in the history of ideas and attitudes to thinking and of

the world itself.

In particular I have shown – via Maxwell (1984) —that there has been a

loss of balance in the development and discussion of ideas, particularly those

with humanly valuable truth.

Isaacs33 (1999:13) describes the ideas developed and espoused by the

Ancient Greeks and have had an enduring impact to this day. The Ancient

Greeks espoused three balanced domains in their thinking:



... the pursuit of objective understanding, the subjective experience of beauty, and the shared activity of coordinated and just action. They called these three the True, the Beautiful and the Good.

Wilbur34 (1998) has argued these have become dis-associated and

fragmented to the extent that it is rare to find all three taught on the same

course, department or faculty of any UK University. In three different faculties -

yes.

Yet as Isaacs (1999:14) says of the True, The Beautiful and The Good in

the context of conversation

... all three are essential. And it takes all three to have a genuine and balanced dialogue.

Lucius Seneca has said “The best ideas are common property”. Victor

Hugo has said : “Greater than the tread of mighty armies is an idea whose time

has come.” As we face an uncertain future we must turn to each other, listen

and hear what we have to say.

For Learning Coaches and Self-Organised Learners, who are following

their learning conversations, a Philosophy of Wisdom makes perfect sense: it is

a humanly valuable truth.



9.5 Qualitative Research Summary. The summary of primary qualitative research data in this ninth chapter

is given in tabular form in Appendix A1.4.



Endnotes for Chapter 9.

1 Rajan, A. Leadership in the Knowledge Age. Journal 2|4, 1999 - 2000 Lectures, 12 January 2000 at URL http://www.rsa.org.uk/texts/acrobat/Rajan_Parfitt.pdf

2 Polanyi, M. (1966, 1983) The Tacit Dimension. Gloucester, MA: Doubleday. 3 Website is at URL http://anxiety-closet.mit.edu:8001/people/mkgray/net/ 4 Quoted in MIT News at URL http://mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2001/ocwfund.html 5 Blomberg, D. (1998) 'The Practice of Wisdom: knowing when.' Journal of Education &

Christian Belief, Vol 2:1, Spring 1998. 6 Lemay, E. and Pitts, J.(1994) Heidegger for Beginners. New York: Writers and Readers

Publishing. 7 One final year student, SC, with a speech impediment, had to explain her work (such was

the interest) for 2 hours non-stop. She said “I have never talked so much in my life.”

8 Blom, P. (2002) Obituary: Hans-Georg Gadamer. [Online], Available at http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=278521 Accessed on [2002, May 27]

9 Fromm, E. (1979) To Have or To Be? London: Abacus Books. 10 Vice Chancellor Vest introduced the Open Course Ware initiative to the world in his

2001 address. This can be viewed as “Disturbing the Educational Universe: Universities in the Digital Age — Dinosaurs or Prometheans?” at http://web.mit.edu/president/communications/rpt00-01.html

11 Alderman,, J. (2001) Sonic Boom. London: Fourth Estate. 12 Eric Raymond (1997) The Cathedral and the Bazaar. [Online]. Available:

http://www.tuxedo.org/ esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/ 13 Linus Torvalds was the Moderator for the thousands of suggestions for the next version

of Linux code. There was great faith in his discernment. In my view, in choosing between various suggestions he had to show great wisdom.

14 http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.03/economy.ideas.html 15 Whitmore, J. (1997) Need, Greed or Freedom. Shaftesbury, DORSET: Element Books. 16 Kilduff, M. (1992) ‘Performance and Interaction Routines in Multinational Corporation’.

Journal of International Business Studies, Vol 23:133-145. 17 Morgan, G. (1986) Images of Organization. London: Sage. 18 Von Krogh, G. , Ichijo, K. & Nonaka, I. (2001) ‘Bringing Care into Knowledge

Development of Business Organizations’ in Nonaka, I. & Nishiguchi, T. (2001) Knowledge Emergence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

19 As of 1 August 2002, David Sims left Brunel to take up a post as Professor of Organizational Behaviour at the Cass Business School (formerly the City University Business School).

20 Nonaka, I. (1996) 'The knowledge-creating company' quoted in Starkey, K. (Ed.) (1996) How Organisations Learn. London: Thompson. Chapter 1, pp. 18-31.

21 Nonaka, I., Konno, N. & Toyama, R. (2002) ‘Emergence of “Ba”.’ In Nonaka & Nishicuchi (2002:14) Knowledge Emergence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

22 Rajan, A. (2000) 'Leadership in the Knowledge Age'. RSA Journal, 2|4, 12 January, 2000.

23 Nonaka, I. & Takeuchi, H. (1995) The Knowledge-Creating Company. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

24 SECI stands for Sovialisation, Externalisation, Combination and Internalisation. 25 An example of grading criteria is in Appendix A9.4 26 Nonaka, I. (1996) 'The knowledge-creating company' quoted in Starkey, K. (Ed.) (1996)

How Organisations Learn. London: Thompson. Chapter 1, p. 26. 27 Dewey, J. (1909) How we think. London: Heath & Co. 28 De Michelis, G. (2002) ‘Cooperation and Knowledge Creation’ quoted in Nonaka &

Nishiguchi (2002:128) Knowledge Emergence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.



29 Egan, G. (1998) The Skilled Helper.(6th edn.) Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company.

30 Sternberg, R. (1990) 'Wisdom and its relations to intelligence and creativity'. In Sternberg, R. (Ed.) Wisdom: Its nature, origins and development. (pp. 124-159). New York: Cambridge University Press.

31 The SECI process is the continuous and self-transcending process of knowledge-creation through emergence, involving the four bas in which the four knowledge transformations occur ( socialization, externalization, combination and internalization). This knowledge is shared and amplified with others. Leaders who wish to gain organizational knowledge must build, maintain and energize ba by providing the enabling conditions of autonomy, creative chaos, redundancy, variety; and love, care and commitment.

32 In the NIV version of the Bible this is rendered as: ‘Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me – put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.’

33 Isaacs, W. (1999) Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together. New York: Currency. 34 Wilbur, K. (1998) The Marriage of Sense and Soul. New York: Random House.

9 the learning coach and wisdomchapter 9 – the learning coach & wisdom. 9 - 1...

Documents