Chaordic phenomena

Dr Brian and His Thoughts
Dee Koek has written the Chaordic Age. One reviewer said:
His insights, however, are clear and provoking. In the Chaordic Age, he contends,

success will depend less on rote and more on reason; less on the
authority of the few and more on the judgment of many; less on
compulsion and more on motivation; less on external control of people
and more on internal discipline.

This is the internal discipline of the artist. Chaos and order exist side by side.

Creativity and Technical Rationality

Ones view on these two is incredibly important. Creativity is open, whereas Technical Rationality is closed.

Creative people are open to experience, they want to 'know' the world. Technical Rationalists work inside a closed domain, they want to make the world more reliable, they want to make the world more predictable.

In the new millenium the education must keep a balance between these two perspectives on the world. But our world in the UK at least, is skewed heavily towards the predicatble world of what is known and what can be managed by hierachies and bureaucracies. New ideas are often not wanted, they interfere with the smooth running of the institution.

If we say students are free to organise themselves, to be agents in knowledge formation, what do we make of students who choose to move in a safe predictable world grazing on hard facts? Do we recognise they are being 'creative' in making their own choices, or do we feel they are being 'timid' by playing safe? What is our position - do we ask for the design of courses to build in creativity and design, or do we say "this area is known, do you want to know it too?"

Should we allow students to learn in a closed system or in an open system? Is it not the case that in the world anything can happen? If so, why allow students the comfort of a safe harbour when in fact the seas are rough and the currents may be strong? Is the philosophy of the neophyte encouraging us to be over-protective of the learning experience?

The carapace

Dr Brian and His Thoughts
A starting point is the contrast between Techical Rationality and Creativity. Techical Rationality is bounded, whereas Creativity is unbounded.

Creative people are in the world to make something new, to bring about a new way of looking at things and, all in all, are open to experience. They recognise there is a "rough magic" in the world. This magic may, or may not, be repeatable. They do not say 'something cannot be' from an a priori position. They do not seek to standardise eveything, they do seek to understand and express everything that they can. They are not respecters of boundaries.

Technical Rationalists work within a given domain. They respect boundaries. Boundaries define their 'closed system' for them. These boundaries may act as a carapace - an enclosing shell that keeps the rationalist in his world. Techical Rationalists seek to standardise their world. Looking at open systems introduces an unnatural, and unwelcome, turbulence into their world. They eschew the unpredictable for the predictable.

These two views have implications for education, especially in the knowledge era. Techical Rationality gives a false impression of the world as predictable, known and unfree. These are serious implications; indeed they should be regarded as reservations.

But the open world of Creativity has problems when viewed from the perspective of control. Our world of bureaucratic systems cannot handle creativity very well. It is not predictable enough.

Which world are we educating students for? The one, or the other, or both?

Studying and all that Jazz

So here I am, post the PhD and the associated pressure, wanting to think about creativity, self-organising systems, flow and leadership.

I am not sure where this will go, except that the beginning is very important. The four talking points in the opening sentence can be fleshed out with a pair of subsidiary indicators. Thus: Creativity (Van Gogh and Piccasso), Self-Organising Systems (conversations and friendships), Flow (enjoyment and friction-free work, Csikszentmihalyi and Amabile) and Leadership (hefting sheep and taking people where they have never been before).