I watched a video from the 2009 TED conference
recently about practical wisdom and it struck me as relevant to a
lot of what I do when I design learning programs for adults.
It
seems like U.S. society as of late has emphasized a growing
anti-intellectualism among the populace. I would argue that the
anti-intellectual movement was a primary reason for the ascendancy of
George W. Bush. There is a thirst in the country for a lurch away from
the "educated elite" and their supposed progressive policies and
thinking. This, combined with the high cost of education, may be a key
component in the dismal numbers of higher-educated Americans: only 36%
of adults in this country possess a college degree.
Barry
Schwartz in his TED presentation discussed how society needs to place
more emphasis on practical wisdom and empathy to help regain common
sense and moral virtue. He used examples of rigid interpretation of the
rule of law such as removing a child from his family because the father
accidentally gave him alcohol in a lemonade drink, as a glaring case of
society's inability to "improvise" outside of didactic rules to apply
common sense. Our abdication of "improvising" to find solutions for day
to day situations is forcing us to become morally bankrupt, and is
fostering an inability to make decisions that serve all parties in
their best interest.
Morally wise people know when and how to
improvise, when to make exception to the rule, and use moral skills to
serve other people. Schwartz stated in his talk that "wise people are
made, not born." "Moral wisdom," he goes on to say, "requires
experience. Wise people fail and learn from failure."
I agree,
and would go even further to state that people learn best when failing.
Failure is good, because it requires a person to try and understand how
their performance was irregular, wrong, or inefficient enough to result
in said failure. Through that deduction, people learn... you've heard
the saying many times, probably from your own mother, "If you fail,
then try try again."
An over reliance on rules denies us the
ability to learn from failure, to do the right thing, and to be
empathic to others. By divorcing ourselves of having to make a
decision, we instead rely on over-restrictive guidelines, such as the
one mentioned above, and become unwilling to take any situation in its
conditional context and apply a common sense solution. Instead, we let
the state interfere, and apply its own process to the matter, often
resulting in over-regulation, under-regulation, or nonsensical
solutions.
It is incumbent upon those of us who design
curricula to establish relevant "failure zones" in the interactions,
and to foster moral wisdom through those interactions. How do we foster
moral wisdom? Schwartz stated that "Any work you do that involves
interaction with others is moral work." By placing an emphasis on
collaborative learning, designers can encourage connections between
participants, and help transfer the singularity of individual
accomplishment to the crowd. By leveraging the "wisdom of the crowds"
the designer is doing their part in appealing to virtue. Through this
new-found collaborative learning effort, and the feeling that it's OK
to fail, learners will feel more confident in sharing and encouraging
others: two key components of empathy.
If teachers would be
allowed to introduce empathy into their lesson plans, we might also be
able to address the growing anti-intellectual movement. For society to
move away from this troubling trend, we must begin to teach children
the value of virtue, and respect, and not be disinclined to look beyond
the rigidity of rules to find solutions for specific situations.
By
appealing to the "wisdom of the crowds" and involving others in the
fostering of collective wisdom, we may just be able to bring back the
belief that it's OK to apply common sense to problems we face, and to
incubate practical wisdom in our students.
