Random Riffs
The Sceptical Muse: “What Is The Question For Which This Is The Answer?”
August
17
2009
I left off the July Random Riff referring to a comment made by a Charlie Rose guest who said that while he didn’t believe that leadership could be taught, he did believe it could be learned. It was a notion that resonated nicely with the process of imitation – assimilation - innovation by means of which musicians find and develop their own distinctive voice and artistic sensibility; a movement from “without”− the domain of imitation and credentialing, to “within” − the domain of innovation and our muses. And it got me thinking about the difference between teaching and learning.
By its very nature, teaching homogenizes both its subjects and its objects. Learning, on the other hand, liberates.
Warren Bennis, “On Becoming a Leader”
I once heard the public education system described as an enterprise that had as its purpose “the moral and technical socialization of the young.” This was a deal that the state had made with my parents: in return for their tax dollars, the system would transform me into a productive and responsible citizen. I was the object of this enterprise; the receptacle into which was to be poured an arbitrary selection of the wisdom and knowledge of the ages. I pretty much breezed through it because I had figured out how to give my teachers the impression that I had been taught something.
But while being cleverly and proactively acquiescent may be a way to get through the school system, it’s not a particularly fulfilling way to get through life. But the habit of pleasing teachers persists well beyond adolescence. I’m put in mind here of a conversation I had with an OD consultant who was reflecting (ruefully) on the fact that teams function well when facilitators are around but regularly go back to what they’ve always done when left on their own. While they appear to have learned the skills necessary for effective team functioning, they don’t seem to stick. The question that came to mind was: had the team assimilated the new skills and made them their own or had they simply imitated the behaviours taught to them by the consultant?
Let me begin to draw what I see to be the important distinction between teaching and learning; between the “without’ and the “within” with this from Eric O’Connor, one of the founders of the Canadian Mathematical Congress and the Thomas More Institute, an educational enterprise committed to adult learning.
In my own case I remember that in starting to study mathematics I had some questions of my own. In most other things I studied in college I had got the answers long before I had any glimmer of what the question was; in fact, whole beautiful theories of things, and I didn’t know – nobody had even told me – that I should have found the questions. One of the wisest men I know once said to me, “Well, the way to know what a person is saying is, first of all: can you find what question his statement is an answer to?” And he didn’t always mean an explicit question. Adults don’t want first a set of definitions and a theory; they want to be brought into what the questioning was, first. They will get the definitions if it seems that the theory promises an understanding. I do see a great advantage in occasionally providing a clear proof – but only to show another way of bringing together what they have almost done themselves. How to bring off something similar in other subjects – especially where “proof” is not easy – is one of my questions to you.
A TMI publication devoted to Eric’s thought and aptly titled, “Curiosity at the Center of One’s Life”, gives this account of self-discovery reported by a person new to the Institute.
My learning up till now has been sustained, long undefined, and, I would say, totally unconscious. In fact, I had almost given up hope of any possible advance; when suddenly this year, I got the necessary insight that has enabled me, put me on the road to a more conscious way of learning. Incredible as it seems, up till this year knowledge was always something I always expected to receive from the outside. I looked upon myself (unconsciously) as a passive partner.
Curiosity and getting to the questions that give rise to the answers represent an important transformation from one who is taught to one who becomes a learner; from oneself as object to oneself as subject; from passive consumer of ideas to proactive producer of ideas.
The maverick psychologist, Gordon Allport, captures the disposition of the person who has become a learner nicely here.
Neither positivistic nor psychodynamic schools of thought allow for the fact that our psychological constitution permits both total tentativeness and total commitment. Such a paradox reminds us of the electron that is able to go in two opposite directions at the same time. Taken by itself tentativeness is disintegrative; commitment is integrative. Yet the blend seems to occur in personalities that we admire for their soundness and perspective. Whenever the two attitudes coexist in a life we find important desirable by-products from the fusion. One is a deep compassion for the human race...The other by-product is likewise graceful; it is the sense of humour. Humour requires the perspective of tentativeness, but also an underlying system of values that prevents laughter from souring into cynicism.
I first encountered Allport’s formulation a very long time ago. I liked it then and I like it now. My interest at that time was in adult education and it seemed to describe perfectly the attributes of the active learner. The combination of tentativeness and commitment seemed a disposition perfectly suited for real learning: tentativeness, as the attribute needed for asking the further question, for not settling for what you know, for sustaining curiosity, and for being open to the new insight; commitment, as the attribute that allows for the integration and consolidation of new insights and sustains the learning project.
It also seems to me as the perfect disposition for good leadership. Given that we live in an age of uncertainty, leaders simply have to be learners. I think that when Jim Collins of “Good to Great” fame talks about Level 5 leaders as possessing a paradoxical combination of personal humility and powerful will, he has something of Allport’s psychological constitution in mind. It leads me to believe that Charlie Rose’s guest was right: leadership can’t be taught but it can be learned.
Is there a place for teachers in the lives of learners? Absolutely, yes! I believe there’s a place for wise mentors, talented coaches, inspiring role-models – if you’re going imitate anyone, make sure it’s a learner. But it’s an adult-adult, not a parent-child, relationship. I mentioned in my last Random Riff that I was taking piano lessons for the first time since I mutilated Beethoven for several years during puberty. I’ve been studying with Frank Falco for a couple of years now and as I began to find my own voice with the help and prodding of my muse, I found that I couldn’t play many of the ideas she was putting in my head. My “chops” (musician talk for technique) weren’t good enough so I asked Frank to help me with that. He knew exactly what I needed so I’m doing what he’s prescribing. Frank, of course, has known for two years what I needed, but if he’d suggested that I invest in that practicing schedule, it would have been an answer that arrived before the question was asked. But now that I’ve asked the question, I see these hours of work as a great investment of time and effort. By the way, my muse loves Frank because he’s helping her have her way with me!
