Stephen Mitchell

Part of my reading this week is this: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07294360.2012.642841?scroll=top&needAccess=true&instName=University+of+Dundee

A paper that links the idea of liquid modernity to how institutions might support learners (and leaders) to a future, which is yet to be known.  How can you adequately prepare someone with the skills and knowledge to compete well in an unquantified arena?  Well, simply put – you can’t.

If the future is unknown, what would it mean to learn for it? There is the makings of a logical conundrum here. The unknown cannot be anticipated so how can a learning take place that is adequate to the unknown, to the unanticipated?

What you are able to do is prepare individuals to be productive navigate liminality or liquid modernity.  These states are challenging when the answer is unknown.  Linking this to the ethical dilemma I am exploring for my summative, I know that there is no amount of knowledge that would make navigating COVID easier.  However, I do know that some problem-solving strategies, aligned with a thorough application of ethical frameworks would support me in making academically (and this is important) decision.

For what is in question in a situation of supercomplexity is neither knowledge nor skills but being.  Your identity and how it interacts with the situation it is in.

From a teaching perspective, the pedagogical task is none other than the eliciting of a mode of being that can not just withstand incessant challenge to one’s understandings of the world, such that any stance one takes up is liable to be challenged, it is the even more demanding task of encouraging forward a form of human being that is not paralysed into inaction but can act purposively and judiciously. It is a form of action in the face of incessant challenge that can still find reasons for such action. Such action springs from a form of being that is authentic in character.

Authenticity.

As I am learning, academic decisions are not completely sound and foolproof- they do not fit every situation and more often than not, a hybrid application of their theories is the best way to approach a situation.  That’s certainly what I am finding in the exploration of my own ethical dilemma.

Authenticity is the key to sound and trusted decision making.  In the face of the unknown, this application requires strength of character and conviction.