Paying attention to the relational action of university life

The final step in getting a doctorate is the viva voce; the conversation between the examiners and the PhD candidate when they defend their thesis – several hundred pages of work that can take up to six years to complete. The stakes are high. And so it was today that I walked up the stairs to the committee room and opened the door to meet the other examiner for the first time. There is tension here too, you never quite know how the relationship with the other examiner will go. We exchange views and agree on an approach and the questions that we will ask. A few moments later the candidate is brought into the room and the chair formally starts the viva voce. Ninety minutes later we are finished and my head is buzzing – we have had a fantastic conversation and we are in agreement that the thesis is a significant contribution to the field of social sciences and education (subject to a few changes). We finish the paperwork and depart. The candidate’s carefully written thesis is the artefact, the downloadable object that will soon be available from the British Library. It can be easy to lose sight of what mattered in bringing the ideas and careful argument to life, namely hundreds of hours of conversation between dozens of people. The name a few these will include – formal doctoral supervision meetings, conversations with other students and the wider academic community in the university, seminar sessions, interviewees who took part in the study, the librarians, family, friends and partners, conferences, and candidate’s workplace conversations. The list goes on in planned set-piece meetings but also in casual discussions that both explicitly and implicitly address the research. And all of this is mirrored by the conversations that the research will enable in the future. But how do we value these conversations only a tiny percentage of which any of us will be aware of?

James Traeger and I have started a new project on relational critical thinking. Our aim is to focus attention away from the idea that the individual is solitary intellect and the source of his or her thinking towards a recognition that we spark off the people around us and our environment (physical and non-physical). We are talking about an emphasizes not absolutes, in other words, we are not entirely relational or entirely solitary – we are both at the same time. However, there is an important question as to what we pay attention to as this defines what we value and prioritize as a society. In a recent conversation James and I got onto the subject of labour, work and action, a collection of ideas from Hannah Arendt (Arendt, 2000), the twentieth-century political theorist, about the contemplative and active life that was published in the Human Condition. It is dangerous to distill Arendt’s ideas, to do so loses the meticulous argument she builds with other philosophers and ideas. That said, in essence, labour is what we need to keep us alive: food, fuel and shelter. Work is what we create and build, they are the artifacts around us in physical and non-physical form that stand the test of time. However, action is ephemeral, it is what we do together but then evaporates as soon as we walk away, it has no legacy other than in the minds. It is how we reveal who we are to others and how they reveal who they are to us – and in doing so we develop, learn and move on.

Going back to the viva, the work is in front of me, with brightly coloured post-it notes highlighting key pages I am keen to talk about. However, it is the action that is of value in that 90-minute conversation and the fact that as we leave, we all see the world in a slightly different way. And as I said this is just one conversation of hundreds that have happened over the last six years to create our newly appointed doctoral colleague. This is what university life is about. It is this action that creates new knowledge and develops people in social and relational processes with each other, along with important outcrops of work along the way. The question is: how is action valued? Whilst work is counted in important board meetings in universities and is measured in government metrics (in the UK we have REF, KEF, TEF etc that control what universities do and how much money they get) where is the voice for action?

People need time to ponder, read, talk, and think. I am not advocating a taxi-type meter that clocks up time at the start of each conversation. The relationship between action and work is not guaranteed, action needs to be supported and nurtured with its own conversation at those important meetings in universities and government. In short, action needs its own advocates when it comes to recognizing the value of university life.

Arendt, H. (2000). The Vita Activa. In P. Baehr (Ed.), The Portable Hannah Arendt. Penguin.

Artful ways – practice-based learning.

In our latest project James Traeger and I have returned to the traditions of smudgy ink and thin paper of the pamphlet. At its heart is a reminder that we are people and change happens through relationships, in all their forms. Here we make the case that development comes from getting close the grain. By this we mean that we can find rich learning in the fine detail of our day to day work and the relationships that sustain or diminish our efforts.

Tight knit arguments and focused data sit under the influence of the scientific method. This has led to all manor of good things (and a few problems), but it is not the whole story. In fact it suppresses other ways of knowing, particularly when it comes to being creative and artful and it is this that we explore.

To read our smudgy pamphlet here it is: Artful Ways Pamphlet

Displacing the arrogant with thoughtful and curious people

We are soon to get a new Prime Minister and the chances are that it will be Boris Johnson. His greatest gift is his confidence, a blade with two sharp edges. One being the courage to do what few will dare, the other foolhardiness for which we will all might pay. Years ago my son used to play chess. He went to an ordinary state school where Garry would come in every Wednesday to run a chess club. As his ability grew so did his confidence. Soon I was organising lifts to take part in inter-school competitions. Then I was driving further afield when he became a player for our county. Many of the competitions were in fee paying schools more like Hogwarts rather than the drab utility buildings we were used to. The children had much the same ability but most of them oozed a confidence evident in how they interacted with adults and children, an ability that was evident in how they spoke and acted.

As a university lecturer, what is my role? To impart knowledge or to build that confidence? OK, it is not a binary choice and they are connected: it is an issue of emphasis and it is a question that needs to be asked when it comes to widening access of opportunity. This is particularly the case for students that that I work with who do not tend to come from privileged backgrounds. It is not just about coming out of university with a first of 2:1. From my experience we do not build that confidence by standing in front talking at them, but we can achieve something by being with them and having conversations and encouraging their voice and spirit of inquiry. In doing so we can develop a virtuous cycle where knowledge, inquiry and confidence build upon each other.

We do not need anymore arrogant people with an overripe sense of their own ability. Instead we need to nurture and support thoughtful intelligent people from all backgrounds to develop their own curiosity in the world, to find their voice and ability to listen to others. If I can achieve this, in whatever small way, I will have achieved something.

SML v2.0 – practice based learning

Ideas are bubbling up for a new research project. And one keeps coming back to me and it is this: what might Self-Managed Learning (SML) look like in the 21^st Century? This begs two initial questions: 1) what is self-managed learning (SML); 2) what is so special about the 21^st century. In summary SML was developed by Ian Cunningham (Cunningham, 1999) whereby participants had greater control over defining what their learning goals were to be and how they would go about demonstrating their learning.  This was in contrast with most programmes with fixed learning outcomes, exams and other ways to demonstrate knowledge.  Here SML challenges participants to think carefully as to what they want to achieve and why. As for the 21^st century, we are clearly living in a faster paced world that is less stable with daunting existential threats such as climate change.

In bringing these two together questions and ideas swirl in my mind, some of which will survive time and scrutiny, others will not. To give myself a chance I am looking at postgraduate study in the fields of leadership and the development of organisations. To emphasise, I am making a clear link between the individual and their social working melee, both are a part of each other.

The first question I come to is: what counts for knowledge for learning and organisations now? This question is too big; perhaps better described by what it is not, or rather how things are shifting. In organisations there was the ‘go to’ expert, often senior with longstanding. Similarly in academia there is the peer reviewed journal for example, expert authors with expert reviewers behind the scenes. But how are we to make sense of fast moving fleeting knowledge that relates to one context but less so of another, yet avoiding the trap of ‘fake’ in its often contested nature. And having understood what is around us how do we build on this with others and communicate something useful. Similarly how we understand and contribute to other’s knowledge work. In this sense critical thinking becomes less of the individual and more social.

In this situation what might be the role of developers and universities be? This particularly important if we are seen less for our expertise? In addition, how might this be recognised in a qualification programme such as a Post Graduate Certificate? How do we explicably recognise the three-way role of the participant, the organisation and university or developer more explicitly given the slipperiness of understanding and knowledge? Perhaps what I am really interested in is Socially Mediated Learning?

Hot from the publication of our book, Organisation Development: A Bold Explorer’s Guide, this is a project that I’ll be working on with James Traeger. This week we met to make a start with a walk on the deserted winding beach at Pagham, a small harbour village on the south coast of the UK. Here we began the process of shaping what defines and interests us about the topic. I have laid out my initial thoughts and these will change and grow in the conversations we will have, as James’s views will do likewise. In fact, to catch the shift in thinking we are starting to talk about this as practice based learning. And very soon we will be having conversations with others. In short, to start the process of socially mediated learning.

Cunningham, I. (1999). The wisdom of strategic learning: The self managed learning solution. Oxford: Gower Publishing Ltd.