July 15, 2019—The field of education is rife with paradoxes, two things that are distinct yet cohere into one unified frame of reference. In a paradoxical relationship power is contingent on the equal strength of each side of the pair. If one side is more powerful than the other than the paradoxical relationship is weakened and the full potential of the pairing is not realized. For instance, in the teacher/student paradox if the student holds all the power than the wisdom, voice, and understanding of the teacher is only weakly present to inform the learning trajectory of the student. And when the teacher voice is too loud, students are limited in their choice of content, product, or learning style. The goal in paradoxical relationships is integration, not balance or resolution of the tension. John Dewey in Experience and Education cautions against either/or thinking and instead he advocates for both/and conceptualizations of teaching and learning. The emphasis between the poles should shift back and force, dialectically, in dynamic tension, always in response to the particularities of the educational context. Sometimes the student should have more power and other times of the power shifts to the teacher. The when and how is dependent of learning outcomes that allow for the greatest potential for growth and transcendence of the student and teacher. Common paradoxes in education include: freedom/structure, formative/summative, content/experience, individual/community, and external/internal.
One paradox that has grabbed my attention lately is knowledge/knowing. It has materialized in my studies of theology, education, and critical theory. If knowledge/knowing is truly a paradox then it offers some explanatory power to describe a core weakness of contemporary forms of education. Although both terms are evident in education the power differential is skewed, mostly in favor of knowledge. This is evident, it seems, in the emphasis on content knowledge, standardized assessments, and performance indicators in the curriculum. What is lost or weakened is the unexpected, transcendent, and unanticipated.
Let me broaden out my definition of the knowledge/knowing paradox before I go much further. Dwayne Huebner (1985) in his essay Spirituality and Knowing provides the following contrast between knowledge and knowing.
“Knowledge is form separated from life… It stands by itself, removed from the vitality and dynamics of life, from the spirit” (p. 351).
“Every mode of knowing witnesses to the transcending possibilities of which human life is a part. All knowing requires openness and vulnerability” (p. 350).
I find this distinction helpful as I approach the process of preparing, delivering, and evaluating my teaching. When I’m leaning too heavily toward knowledge in the paradox I engage in the following behaviors: I focus on product; I engage learning as if it were a commodity to be exchanged or transacted; and I form a relationship with knowledge is if it were a “thing”. When acting more fully in my knowledge-teaching mode I’m teaching from a Western tradition which conceptualizes knowledge as a thing, capital, a noun; something not-me. As Huebner notes: “knowledge is form separated from life”. To be clear, there are times when teaching from a knowledge orientation is important; standards and expectations can help to keep everyone pointed in the direction of flourishing and fulfillment. When I move my teaching too far in the direction of knowing my instructional behaviors include: I’m concerned with process; learning occurs as interaction between the self and the other; and my relationship with knowing is as if we are both elements of life engaged in a mutual dance of exploration. My knowing-teaching leans heavily toward Eastern-Tribal ways of knowing which means treating knowing as a being, life, and a verb; something that is-me. As Huebner argues, knowing drives toward the “transcending possibilities of which human life is a part”.
The discipline of Theology offers a different, and helpful, way of understanding the knowledge/knowing paradox. And by Theology I’m thinking of the diverse ways that humans connect with and are in relationship with something greater than self which is often but not exclusively defined by religious traditions and practices. In various faith traditions a form of irrationality is understood as separation from the Divine source of knowing; to be outside of one’s wholeness and out of synch with the completeness of the living world. A sort of unrootedness and disconnection that is the result of too much reliance on the markers of success in this world. On the other side of the spiritual equation it can be equally problematic to invest too much on the ineffable and transcendent elements of the Divine in the world. Under these circumstances a person is cut loose from the lived world and a sort of disconnection from the practical problems and concerns of life materializes. Although a person may appear saintly in their behavior and someone to aspire to they may also act removed and aloof, unconcerned with the wants and needs of this world.
Both examples from Huebner and Theology are applicable to my teaching. I can be so grounded in the practicalities of curriculum that I measure my educational success by the metric of student evaluations, the number of times students talk in class, or comparisons between the learning of my students and the students of other faculty. Concrete forms of knowledge that can be characterized and charted dominate my understanding of teaching. In contrast, I can sometimes be so “up in my head” with my theories and conceptual models that I’m just talking to myself. I’m busy spinning complex ways of understanding that may make me feel smart but may leave my students wondering what I’m talking about. Huebner’s observation that “all knowing requires openness and vulnerability” is for me a good marker of when I’m more or less successful at integrating and elevating the knowledge/knowing paradox. When I’m truly open to knowing instead of knowledge I avoid the trap of the theory/practice distinction. I embrace wisdom and knowing from both perspectives. When I approach teaching with vulnerability I resist the temptation of anchoring knowing exclusively in my sense of selfhood; instead I welcome the unexpected, the unpredictable, and the dynamic. In short I try to live with the curriculum in the ways that it lives in and through me.