The above scenarios reflect interactional situations that are as old as the role of learner and mentor. Philosopher John Locke (1632-1704), an empiricist who believed that knowledge comes from experience, and one of the first to address the above ideas and human development, believed that children were tabula rosa - as blank slates - written on and shaped by the interactive process with others as it occurred through the lifespan, particularly the early years (White 1989). Identity, according to Locke, is shaped by personal experience and the memories of such. Early phenomenologists such as Henry Rousseau (1712-1778) believed that each individual comes into the world bearing unique gifts of personality and talent. Rousseau also believed that the aim of education should be to offset the corrupting influence of institutions, and that children should be allowed to develop without interference, especially from church or state (Dworetsky 1990, p.6).


Based on my interactions with my daughter and other experiences I will take the position that the perspectives of both Rousseau and Locke might offer insight; a special talent can be enhanced by interactions with nurturing mentors, just as it can be quashed by the internalization of doubt, delivered by unsupportive, critical individuals. As adult education theorist Stephen D. Brookfield writes,

We assimilate and gradually integrate behaviors, ideas, and values from others until they become so internalized that we define 'ourselves' in terms of them. Unless an external source places before us alternative ways of thinking, behaving, and living, we are comfortable with our familiar value systems, beliefs, and behaviors (Brookfield 1992, pp. 12-15).

Hopefully, the alternative ways of thinking, behaving, and living offer us choices and the ability to appreciate, contextualize, and build upon our existing experiences. Another adult educational theorist and holistic psychiatrist, Richard Crews, M.D., a Harvard alumnus and president of Columbia Pacific University has mused upon the following question and one particular reply, (1994) "Where do dreams go to die? Often they go to graduate school". Crews' statement certainly indicates a paradigm clash between the graduate student and the education delivery system. It would appear also from Crews' statement that something could be lost for the learner as he/she embarks upon the graduate learning process in a traditional University. My thesis, in keeping with the above statement by Brookfield, is that the narrative self, as authored by the learner, is lost as the learner becomes re-authored by the knowledge-discourse which he/she becomes immersed in while attending the traditional University. Some might add that this personally authored self lies in close proximity with the soul. Heidegger (1947) has cautioned us to recognize "the seductions of the public realm", certainly the arena in which the knowledge-discourse dwells. As Socrates explains

We do not know - neither the sophists, nor the poets, nor the orators, nor the artists, nor I - what is the true, the good, and the beautiful. But there is this difference between us; that although all these people know nothing, they all believe they know something. I, however, if I know nothing, at least am not in doubt about it. Thus all that superiority in wisdom accorded me by the oracle reduces to being convinced that I am ignorant of what I do not know (Socrates, as cited in Rousseau, 1750).

Like the knowledge-discourses of the era of Socrates the knowledge-discourse today needs to look good in the modern Athens - the arena of the public, to stand behind what appears as a solid foundational podium of research, the assumptions of what constitutes validity and reliability in research, and the blessing of the institutions of power. It also needs to be able to convince the mostly ignorant public and proponents of other knowledge-discourses of its power and greatness. The knowledge-discourse is closely aligned with the intellect and the intellect's obsession/insecurity for knowing truth, and as Moore (1992, p.245-246) writes, the intellect needs to know and have proof that it is on solid ground.


Thomas Moore, a Jungian psychotherapist, who has written Care Of The Soul, provides an illuminating example of the contrast between the narrative soulfulness of personal experience and the lack thereof in the knowledge-discourse:

Once I was asked to sit in on the oral defense of a master's thesis in psychology. I read the quantitative research paper, and found one paragraph, on page ninety-five, devoted to "discussion". During the questioning I asked the student why the discussion of her study was so brief. The rest of the committee looked at me with alarm, and later I was told that the discussion was supposed to be at least that short since "speculation" wasn't to be encouraged. The word speculation rang out like an obscenity. Whatever was not firmly grounded in quantitative research was considered speculation and had little value in comparison. To me, though, speculation was a good word, a soul word, coming from speculum, mirror, an image of reflection and contemplation. This student had fulfilled the spirit, so to speak, of her topic by doing a careful quantitative study, but she had done little for its soul. She could recite the hard details of her research design, but she couldn't reflect on the deeper issues involved in her study, even though she had spent hundreds of hours gathering data and working up her research. She was rewarded for this while I was considered out of touch with modern methodology. She passed, but I failed.

The intellect often demands proof that it is on solid ground. The thought of the soul finds its grounding in a different way. It likes persuasion, subtle analysis, an inner logic, and elegance. It enjoys the kind of discussion that is never complete, that ends with a desire for further talk or reading. It is content with uncertainty and wonder. Especially in ethical matters, it probes and questions and continues to reflect even after decisions have been made.

The alchemists taught that the wet, sludgy stuff lying at the bottom of the vessel needs to be heated in order to generate some evaporation, sublimation, and condensation. The thick stuff of life sometimes needs to be distilled before it can be explored with imagination. This kind of sublimating is not the defensive flight from instinct and body into rationality. It's a subtle raising of experience into thoughts, images, memories, and theories. Eventually, over a long peiod of incubation, they condense into a philosophy of life, one that is unique for each person. For a philosophy of life is not an abstract collection of thoughts for their own sake, it is the ripening of conversation and reading into thoughts that are wedded to everyday decisions and analysis. Such ideas become part of our identity and allow us confidence in work and in life decisions. They provide a solid basis for further wonder and exploration that reaches, through religion and spiritual practice, into the ineffable mysteries that saturate human experience.

Soul knows the relativity of its claim on truth. It is always in front of a mirror, always in a speculative mode, watching itself discovering its developing truth, knowing that subjectivity and imagination are always in play. Truth is not really a soul word; soul is after insight more than truth. Truth is a stopping point asking for commitment and defense. Insight is a fragment of awareness that invites further explanation. Intellect tends to enshrine its truth, while soul hopes that insights keep coming until some degree of wisdom is achieved. Wisdom is the marriage of intellect's longing for truth and soul's acceptance of the labyrinthe nature of the human condition (Moore 1992, pp.247-247).

I will also add to the above position the perspectives of constructivism and social constructionism. Both of the latter perspectives are quite similar, and work well together. Constructivism addresses the individual's perception of the world, while social constructionism addresses interactions within society. Constructivism takes the view that persons cannot fully know the world around them, by virtue of biological defects in the perceptual senses (Maturana & Varela, 1987; von Forster, 1984; von Glaserfeld, 1984). According to constructivism we perceive/experience the world and make maps or impressionist stories of it which go into memory. The process entails certain random deletions, and our stories and maps are not completely representative of our experience. We try to make sense of our experience, and the meaning we give to things shapes our identity and possibly the schemas by which we will use to give meaning to future experiences; the building blocks of cognition, the packets by which we organize and make sense of experiences are known to cognitive psychologists as "schemas" (Goleman, 1985, p.75).


In most cases the process of making sense of our experience enters into a relational domain, that is, we talk to others, compare notes, or enter into possible context-building activities such as reading or interaction with other media. These relational activities are a process by which sense is made, meanings are established and reality is brought into being, socially constructed through a process of interaction with others and ideas. Social constructionism, compared to constructivism, is an expanded view which includes the individual in a speaking discourse with a community of individuals, interacting with others and creating common agreements/disagreements about the nature of the world in which they live (Gerger, 1985; Buirs & Martin, 1995, p.154). This expanded context enables the view that "truth" about anything is a constructed agreement between people in conversation, based on a reconciling of individual perceptions or conclusions. On a larger social scale this is a compounded process where people are shaped/encouraged to conform to the conditions of culture and tradition in which, as Heidegger (1947) observed, they are "thrown" into. As Weinstein (1997) has observed, it is not until such conditions become unbearable do people revolt, hopefully bringing about change. In a world in which we are expected to conform there is little room for attention to soul, and most of us live out our lives conforming to the expectations around us.


Goleman (1985) writes about how certain socially constructed "frames" of agreement between people set the basic rules of behavior. Attributing the origin of the notion of "frames" to Erving Goffman (1974), Goleman writes the following:

A frame is the shared definition of a situation that organizes and governs social events and our involvement in them. A frame, for example, is the understanding that we are at a play, or that "this is a sales call", or that "we are dating". Each of those definitions of social events determines what is appropriate to the moment and what is not; what is to be noticed and what ignored; what, in short, the going reality involves. When the frame is a nursery school carnival the "S-word" is off limits.

A frame is the public surface of collective schemas. By sharing the understanding of the concepts "play", "sales", and "date", we can join in the action, enacting our parts in smooth harmony. A frame comes into being when its participants activate shared schemas for it; if someone does not share the going schema, the results can be embarrassing.

If two persons are on a date, certain activities may be considered as the norm, such as a goodnight kiss. If one person does not initiate the goodnite kiss the absence of such may be interpreted by the other person as a lack of sexual interest, or as a sign that a social gaffe was made earlier in the evening. If the kiss is too sexual, it may be interpreted as beyond the threshold of appropriate first date behavior, and possibly that the other person's ultimate agenda for the evening is only sex, as opposed to being related together. At the office, a much different frame of reference, the same kiss planted on the lips of a colleague could bring a charge of sexual harassment. When I was attending a training on Neuro Lingusitic Programming, an approach to relational communications and modeling behavioral excellence, the trainer observed that much of conflict is actually "frame wars", people operating out of different frames of reference (personal conversation with Wyatt Woodsmall, Ph.D., 1991).


Most of the frames of social protocol are akin to scripts that have been pre-written for us, rooted in either early or recent "politically correct" tradition, bringing about some semblance of social order. It appears that we are "thrown" as Heidegger suggests into this order. Of course, such ideas are not new. Even Krishna speaks about such matters to his disciple Arjuna in the ancient Hindu text known as the Bhagavad Gita. At one point in his pre-battle conversation with Arjuna Krishna notes the confusion of living in a world where we are pulled by allegiances and other social protocols. Krishna counts the person who is born into a family of Yogis - those who can see through these practices of social order - as very lucky. While we agree to some frames, there are many that we do not agree to, but follow along with so as to avoid undesired negative attention. As history has revealed, what is politically correct frequently changes from one era to the next. While it was politically correct to hunt down and kill Wiccans centuries ago, it is no longer in favor. The social persecution of homosexuals is no longer politically correct but was condoned for centuries. Blacks and whites are no longer separated in North America. Based on the large decrease in church attendance in the past decades, some would surely say that religion is no longer politically correct. Living with a significant other before marriage was not politically correct until the sixties brought in certain widescale social changes. Now marrying one's significant other might not be politically correct, at least to the large population that no longer believes in marriage. On these latter matters there is now some semblance of being able to make a choice.


Many of the changes we have seen since the sixties are examples of the people's rebellion against politically correct frames of reference that they did not believe in. Once the winds of change began to blow in their direction - bringing what anthropologist Gregory Bateson (1979) called "news of difference" - people began to see that choice was possible and rebelled against the old order. Gays and lesbians started coming out of the closet, women demonstrated for equality, there was a huge backlash to the Viet Nam war, Afro-Americans campaigned for equal rights, divorces increased, etc. In fact, many persons found that the social frames of reference that were the norm were actually oppressing their more natural instincts toward making their own decisions, taking personal responsibility for such decisions, learning, building on such learning, and self-actualizing their potential. One of the great values in lifting repression is that people get to have a chance to experiment, to learn, to grow. So we in North America experienced a sexual revolution and a social revolution.



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Reflection: Back to the Two Learning Stories from Personal Experience

Now let's return to the earlier examples. In the case of my young daughter we wanted to provide opportunity for her to develop any talent she might show. We wanted her to enjoy her drawn circles and the process of doing so, to let the process of making those circles on the kitchen wall lead her to whatever state it led to, even peak experiences. We wanted to provide support for this naturally unfolding process and, like Socrates, to "draw out" this talent and whatever learning she would make from it. By supporting her, encouraging her, and staying out of her way we would allow her to identify with her creation, and allow her to participate in the formation of her own identity by doing, being and engaging in her activity in such a way as Moore describes earlier, the "mirror, an image of reflection and contemplation". By being in her own process, by her interactions with her work, and by our positive reflections she could make her own narrative, a narrative of discovery and joy at her creation and its acceptance and love from those around her.


Hopefully her story would be a happy and fulfilling story. To enable that we had to stay out of her way, avoid repressing her ideas, as well as offer continued encouragement, which we did. Our daughter would become her own experimenter from an early age, and as Maslow has stated, perhaps a sense of self-actualization would lead to the creativity that is so present in self-actualized individuals. Piaget (cited in Goleman) has written that cognitive development is cumulative. Understanding grows out of what has already been learned. I recently asked my daughter how far back she could remember drawing. He paused for a moment and then replied, "From age four". I then asked her if she had learned much from her own practices and experiments in art and poetry and in her dialoging with others, in comparison with what she is learning formally in her college art program. "Absolutely" was her reply. I then proposed a written set of reflective questions to my daughter to acquire a sense of what she has learned from practice, reflection and dialogue with others - her narrative knowledge. The questions are as follows:

• What skills, knowledge, and experience have you accumulated since you can remember doing art and poetry, but before you began taking formal training in these areas?
• How do you know that you have attained such skills and knowledge?
• How can you demonstrate those skills and knowledge to others? For example, through a test, written summary, evaluation from others, or other activity, performance, or demonstration?
• What would be your criteria for the success of such a demonstration of skills and knowledge?
• If you have already demonstrated such skills and knowledge write a little about how you have done so and what feedback you have received from others that help you believe in your success at demonstrating such skills and knowledge.
• When did you begin to believe that you were an artist/poet, or creative individual?

My daughter's written answers are as follows:

• Under Construction!!! My Daughter's Answers Will Be Posted Soon!!!

As Rousseau states,

It is a grand and beautiful sight to see a man emerge somehow from nothing from his own efforts; dissipate, by the light of his reason, the shadows in which nature had enveloped him: rise above himself, soar by means of his mind into the heavenly regions; traverse, like the sun, the vast expanse of the universe with giant steps; and, what is even grander and more difficult, return to himself in order to study man and know his nature, his duties, and his end (Rousseau, 1750).

As Goleman writes (1985, p.75), "We have become who we are, learned what we know, by virtue of the schemas we have acquired along the way. Schemas accrue with time; the schemas we have at a given point are the end product of our particular private history". My daughter established at an early age that she liked creative endeavors. She had support and recognition from her loved ones for such endeavors, without any accompanying pressure. Her developing schemas opened up for her what postmodern family therapy psychiatrist Karl Tomm has termed as "conceptual space" and its attendant possibilities in creativity, rather than close down such conceptual space and possibilities. In discussing the benefits of people having access to "conceptual space" in their lives, Tomm (1988, p.54) notes that naming or externalizing constraints that engender schemas of inaction and powerlessness (and the experienced related problem) can lead to the internalizing of personal agency. Freedman and Combs (1993, p.296) note the importance of "opening space for recovering and generating alternative experience and knowledge" (p.296).


And my daughter started evolving as an active artist from the moment she drew her very first circle on the wall. But what if we, her parents, interfered with her desire to express herself with circles on walls? Or didn't encourage her creativity? Would she take to creative activities in later years when the opportunity formally presented itself via an art class? Or would she have a painful experience that might constrain her from full and active participation in creativity? Would creativity or art have a negative association for her? Would she become one of the many persons that, upon seeing a musician, artist, poet, sculptor, or woodworker, exclaim "I wish I had your talent - if only I could do as you, you're so lucky"? In the earlier example of the child being told that he "took after" a relative, what if the implication of "taking after" a relative is painfully negative, for example what if young Johnny is said to take after the uncle Joe, the serial child rapist/murderer? How will these not-so-favorable experiences effect or constrain the identity of the child, the "Here I Am", as Ricoeur (1992) terms it?


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The Narrative/Textual Self and Socially-engendered Constraints to Praxis Learning

Although the term "praxis" will be dealth with in greater depth in a later section, Schon (1983) tells us that praxis learning is a learning process that is achieved through a combination of action and reflection. Brookfield (1986) defines praxis as a continual process of (1) activity, (2) reflection on activity, (3) collaborative analysis of activity, (4) new activity, (5) further reflection, and (6) further collaborative analysis. This is quite similar to the naturalistic ways in which persons learn what they learn, whether it be infantile crawling and walking or successfully hammering a nail. One implication of Miller, Galant & Pribram's TOTE model of behavior/learning proposed in their Plans and the Structure of Behavior (1960 - cited in Dilts, Grinder, Bandler, Bandler, & DeLozier, 1980) is the realization that persons are always learning, even unconsciously, via a process of modeling - employing sequences of test-operate-test-exit involving thoughts/speech/and actions. Such sequences usually begin with curiosity, an aspect of conceptual space which stays open, available for the learning/investigative process rather than closing down; another relevant term here is "possibility". The life strategies that persons develop are the results of such modeling, and one question pertaining to same might be "Are the various strategies one uses well-formed enough to achieve their intended outcomes?". Schemas that are unconsciously constructed from such modeling experiences sometimes serve to open conceptual space and engender great possibilities, experimentation, learning, and knowledge. Other developed schemas result in closing down conceptual space and producing self-doubt and disempowerment followed by inaction. The internalization of shame is one means by which a schema is formed which produces self-doubt. The person has learned something for sure, but what is learned is that "I am no good", or some other self-concept that would result in a denial of achieving desired outcomes. The outcomes achieved by a person operating from such a schema might be those of failure - outcomes that perpetuate the self-identity as it is perceived by its owner.


Woodsmall (1988) writes that the schemas of high performers usually incorporate (1) enabling beliefs that support high performance, (2) values that motivate the high performer to such levels of performance, (3) and internal mental approach (cognitive strategy) that involves a specific mental syntax and sequence, and (4) a related physiology - "mental and physical 'postures' that lead to increased performance . . . of the activity involved". Even communication, according to recent research (Potter & Wetherell, 1987), is carried out as a strategy, a series of moves performed for the purpose of bringing something into reality rather than simply to represent things as they are perceived from the world. Burr (1996) comments on this view of communication proposed by Potter and Wetherell:

Wetherell and Potter suggest that, rather than take what people say as an expression of internal states or underlying processes we should look at what people are doing with their talk, what purposes their accounts are achieving. And since a person may be trying to bring about different effects with his or her talk at different points in the interview, it is not surprising that we find the variation that we do. This view therefore denies that there are any internal structures to the person that we could call "attitudes" and instead looks at what people say as intentional, socially directed behavior which performs certain functions for them (Burr 1996, pp. 114-115) .

From Potter and Wetherell's social constructionist perspective speech is action and speech/action makes certain things happen - bringing certain realities into being. Language from this perspective incorporates sentences performing acts, and language is seen as a human social practice. Gergen (1989) holds a view that dovetails with Potter's and Wetherell's perspective, that persons are "motivated by a desire for 'speaking rights' or 'voice', and to have their interpretation of events accepted as the truthful one. The person who is able to 'warrant voice' is therefore a skilled operator with a good understanding of warranting conventions" (cited by Burr 1996, p. 120). Burr states that from this perspection those that are able to warrant voice will enjoy greater power in society, greater resources (money, jobs, education, etc.), and generally higher social standing.


The self-identity, seen from the constructivist/social constructionist view, is informed by the meanings assigned to a multitude of personal experience stories, and further informed by imputations of others. Crites writes that

. . . I cannot conclude from my childhood memories that I was issued this self at birth or in the womb and that it has simply unfolded . . . In the first place a self-identical self is not the pre-condition of experience, but its consequence. The sense of self, rooted in a personal past, arises out of manifold interactions with things, some of them, like the crack in the baseboard or the jingle, reiterated over longer or shorter periods of time. In one case, the reiteration of the crack called forth the spontaneous memory of the original situation, in the other case, a complex analogy of situation called forth the appropriate jingle. "My" self with its personal past takes form out of just such networks of analogous experience present and remembered. But in the second place, experience is itself mediated by coded sound, image, language, all presupposing a vast social processing of such forms, perhaps long antedating the awakening of the personal self to consciousness (Crites 1986, p.158).

While a person can continue to be identified over time by the known/observable aspects of his/her character, it can be difficult for the person to maintain a constancy of character over time. As with Crites (above) identity is seen by Ricoeur as a relationally storied process. The "Who I Am" exists in front of the Other. Because I am there for the Other I am accountable; but can a constancy of this accountability be maintained over time? If it is not maintained . . . what/who of identity do I become? In the other's eyes? And in my eyes? Ricoeur has asserted that the characterization of selfhood - one in relation with one's experiences, thoughts, actions, passions is not without ambiguity.

. . . there is no doubt that the "Here I Am!" by which the person recognizes himself or herself as the subject of imputation marks a halt in the wandering that may well result from the self's confrontation with a multitude of models for action and life, some of which go as far as to paralyze the capacity for firm action. Between the imagination that says, "I can try anything" and the voice that says "Everything is possible, but not everything is beneficial (understanding here, to others and to yourself)," a muted discord is sounded. It is this discord that the act of promising transforms into fragile concordance. "I can try anything", to be sure, but "Here is where I stand"! (p. 168).

How does the standing "here" as Ricoeur terms it - the "but Here is where I stand!" - differ from Martin Heidegger's (1947) phenomenological/existential description of "Standing into the truth of Being"? In Ricoeur's statement the speaker acknowledges that "everything is possible" but chooses to "stand here", to move no further. What constrains the speaker? The "muted discord" tells us there is the presence of doubt and such doubt has more strength than the utterance that "Everything is possible". Heidegger's "standing into" indicates a movement forward, a stand that is not to be toppled easily, a conviction that is commitment in Being. Heidegger writes of "the quiet power of the possible", and "to accomplish means to unfold something into the fullness of its essence, to lead it forth into this fullness - producere. Therefore only what already is can really be accomplished. But what 'is' above all is Being". Just what can it be that constrains the flow of possibility - of Being the 'already is' of identity? It seems that the answer lies with Ricoeur's description of "the self's confrontation with a multitude of models for action and life, some of which go as far as to paralyze the capacity for firm action". Such models for life and action are aspects of discourses we find ourselves embedded within - part of the agreement frames and/or descriptions of reality which constitute social order as it exists at any given moment.


According to Parker (1992) "the self is constructed in discourses and re-experienced within the texts of ordinary life". Texts, according to Parker, are delimited areas (such as thrillers, terrorism, or ego psychology), "of the wide ranging discourses in a culture, which constitute an object of interest". Parker points out that even the discourses of new professional paradigms, despite having made a break from their parent paradigm, can be embedded in wider culturally bounded discourses. The self in interaction with the world becomes a storied/textual self. As eminent cognitive psychology theorist and Harvard professor Jerome Bruner (1986) writes

Like Clifford Geertz and Michelle Rosaldo, I think of Self as a text about how one is situated with respect to others and toward the world - a canonical text about powers and skills and dispositions that change as one's situation changes from young to old, and from one kind of setting to another. The interpretation of this text in situ by an individual is his sense of self in that situation. It is composed of expectations, feelings of esteem and power, and so on (Bruner 1986, p. 130).

Meaning-making becomes a central activity in the personal process of authoring the textual self-identity and the naturalistic learning process which incorporates the unconscious construction of schemas. Yet, simultaneously, from the various positional perspectives of others who witness the acts of an individual, come other writings of the storied/textual personhood of that individual; others are writing their own version of the individual's textual identity -shaping their own narratives and opinions of the person. The person stands indentified in the midst of those who identify him. A problem occurs when the writings/readings of a person's life that are made from the various perceptual positions of others are different from the individual's account of his own identity. Which rendering of such identity does the self assume? Will the individual's own sense of self be privileged, or will it be pushed under by everyone else's version of that individual as an entity in the world? In the case of the native shaman, will he be seen as a supersticious old fool by a more powerfully statused scientist? And will the instructor who trains teachers in home economics see the experienced-trained homemaker only as a homemaker, a doer of menial tasks? Sartre provides insight on the constraining nature of self/identity authored by others in the following example of how certain working individuals must constrain their behavior and attentional range as befits their role:

Their condition is wholly one of ceremony. The public demands of them that they realize it as a ceremony; there is the dance of the grocer, of the tailor, of the auctioneer, by which they endeavor to persuade their clientele that they are nothing but a grocer, an auctioneer, a tailor. A grocer who dreams is offensive to the buyer, because such a grocer is not wholly a grocer. Society demands that he limit himself to his function as a grocer, just as a soldier at attention makes himself into a soldier-thing with a direct regard which does not see at all, which is no longer meant to see, since it is the rule and not the interest of the moment which determines the point he must fix his eyes on (the sight "fixed at ten paces"). There are indeed many precautions to imprison a man in what he is, as if we lived in perpetual fear that he might escape from it, that he might break away and suddenly elude his condition (Sartre 1956, 59).

Shotter (n.d.) writes that "one of our tasks in understanding an Other is to do justice to the uniqueness of their otherness". If we are going to author the Other's identity, we should find out who this individual is, from his/her own subjective position. What is the knowledge which the person possesses? What are the artifacts of this person's existence? What are this person's interests? Naturalistic research has been calling for this practice of understanding the Other from the Other's position for some years (Lincoln & Guba, 1985).


Family therapists White & Epston (1990) write the following on the ambiguous notion of a textual self which is constantly being authored and reauthored:

Social scientists became interested in the text analogy following observations that, although a piece of behavior occurs in time it is attended to, the meaning that is ascribed to the behavior survives across time. It was this ascription of meaning that drew their attention, and in their attempts to understand this they began to invoke the text analogy. This enabled the interaction of persons to be considered as the interaction of readers around particular texts. This analogy also made it possible to conceive of the evolution of lives and relationships in terms of the reading and writing of texts, insofar as every new reading of a text is a new interpretation of it, and thus a different writing of it p.(9).

Noting that the "I" of the philosophies of the subject has been without any assured place in discourse Ricoeur (1992, p.16) stresses that a hermeneutics or way toward interpretation of the self ought to include three elements: (1) the detour of reflection by way of analysis, (2) the dialectic of selfhood and sameness, and (3) the dialectic of selfhood and otherness. To gain greater insight into the workings of the self Ricoeur poses the question "Who", as in "Who is speaking?", "Who is acting?", "Who is recounting about himself or herself?", and "Who is the moral subject of imputation?" Expanding on this by pointing out the relationship between language and action Ricoeur observes the following:

. . . it is in statements - hence in propositions, in particular on the basis of verbs and speech acts that the agent of action designates himself or herself as the one who is acting. In another sense, the second subset annexes the first, inasmuch as sppech acts are themselves action and, by implication, speakers are themselves actors. The questions "Who is speaking?" and "Who is acting" appear in this way to be closely interconnected (Ricoeur 1992, p. 17).

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Related Views from Freire, Maslow, and Sartre

Applying such ideas to social interaction, one can understand how a person or culture can feel a sense of less-than in identity, disempowerment and shame when bullied, colonized, and made to feel lower than by the other. Writing from a naturalistic perspective on the effects of social oppression the educational philosopher Paolo Freire (1970) asserts that

The oppressed suffer from the duality which has established itself in their innermost being. They discover that without freedom they cannot exist authentically. Yet, although they desire authentic existence, they fear it. They are at one and the same time themselves and the oppressor whose consciousness they have internalized. The conflict lies in the choice between being wholly themselves or being divided; between ejecting the oppressor within or not ejecting him; between human solidarity or alienation; between following descriptions or having choices; between spectators or actors; between acting or having the illusion of acting through the action of the oppressors; between speaking out or being silent, castrated in their power to create and re-create, in their power to transform the world (pp.32-33).

Maslow expands on this further:

The timid man may . . . tend to identify probing curiousity as somehow challenging to others, as if somehow, by being intelligent and searching out the truth, he is being assertive and bold and manly in a way that he can't back up, and that such a pose will bring down upon him the wrath of other, older, stronger men. So also may children identify curious probing as a trespass upon the prerogative of their gods, the all-powerful adults. And of course it is easier to find the complimentary attitude in adults. For often they find the restless curiousity of their children at least a nuisance and sometimes even a threat and a danger, especially when it is about sexual matters. It is still the unusual parent who approves and enjoys curiousity in his children. Something similar can be seen in the exploited, the downtrodden, the weak minority or the slave. He may fear to know too much, to explore freely. This might arouse the wrath of his lords. A defensive attitude of pseudo-stupidity is common in such groups. In any case, the exploiter, or the tyrant, out of the dynamics of the situation, is not likely to encourage curiousity, learning and knowledge in his underlings. People who know too much are likely to rebel. Both the exploited and the exploiter are impelled to regard knowledge as being compatible with being a good, nice, well-adjusted slave. In such a situation knowledge is dangerous, quite dangerous. A status of weakness or subordination, or low self-esteem inhibits the need to know. The direct, unhibited staring gaze is the main technique that an overlord monkey uses to establish dominance. The subordinate animal characteristically drops his gaze.

This dynamic can sometimes be seen, unhappily, even in the classroom. The really bright student, the eager questioner, the probing searcher, especially if he is brighter than his teacher, is too often seen as a "wise guy", a threat to discipline, a challenger of his teacher's authority (Maslow 1962, pp. 59-60).

Note how Maslow observes that the dynamic he speaks of has its high-stakes existence entwined with power and control. Those in power or some form of dominant status invoke the overlording gaze by which they can shame or even oppress those others whom they perceive as a threat to such power and position. Maslow also cites Freud's view that the greatest cause of much psychological illness is the fear of the "knowledge of oneself - of one's emotions, impulses, memories, capacities, potentialities, of one's destiny" (p. 57). Maslow writes, further:

But there is another kind of truth we tend to evade. Not only do we hang onto our psychopathology, but also we tend to evade personal growth because, this, too, can bring another kind of fear, of awe, of feelings of weakness and inadequacy. And so we find another kind of resistance, a denying of our best side, of our talents, of our finest impulses, of our highest potentialities, of our creativeness. In brief, this is the struggle against our own greatness, the fear of hubris.

As Maslow asserts, the fear of knowledge of oneself is brought about by a conditioning. This can be understood further by an example from the field of family therapy and clients from the lowest socioeconomic class. As a therapist that provides services to British Columbia's provincial child protection agency, I meet with many people that are members of the lower socioeconomic class. This activity has led me to become attuned to how members of this group tend to respond less favorably to making behavioral changes from talk-therapy than members of the middle class. Salvador Minuchin, a family therapy pioneer who forged an influential career out of working with families in the slums of America, recently commented that the problem with the poor was that while they knew how to nurture their children they were "ineffective in taking control of their kids. What they did not have was the constancy that allowed them to give the children a sense of self-efficacy" (in Simon 1996, p.53). Why was this much lauded "constancy", primarily devised as a distinction by middle class therapists originating from middle class family backgrounds, not present in the parents from the poor class? What was needed to understand the lack of such "constancy" was a political analysis of power. While Freire (1970) wrote on power and oppression in Latin America, it was not until the 1980's that the political analysis of power and its relations to economics and class came into use within the family therapy field. Such an analysis was brought in by feminists and from the writings of Foucault, and by White & Epston (1990).


The above lack of a political analysis of power is made obvious by Minuchin's reflections on his early work. Reflecting on his early pioneering work, Minuchin observed that the naiveté of he and his colleagues was that they could not look beyond the families they worked with and "recognize the impact of the larger culture" on their lives. The impact of the larger culture upon the lives of the lower socioeconomic class includes the effects of conquest, colonization, power differential, and objectification. Often those in the lower socioeconomic class live on social welfare, are segregated from the rest of society in social housing projects and reservations, have education levels that are below the social norms, and are constrained by what some term as a learned helplessness. Learned helplessness, if we follow the thinking of Sartre, and Freire, is not learned but taught, through socio-political processes, and perpetuated through shame, dehumanization, and disempowerment, which are acquired via an internalized dualistic hierarchical identity. Sartre writes that pure shame is the feeling of being an object in front of another, in that the individual recognizes oneself as a "degraded, fixed, and dependent being, which I am for the Other" (1956, p.384). Freire (1970) writes that the oppressed suffer from the duality that establishes itself in their innermost being, in that they have internalized the consciousness of the oppressor in addition to their own; the struggle becomes an internalized struggle. Freire asserts that the result is that the oppressed person is divided, "castrated in their power to create and re-create, in their power to transform the world" (p. 33).


What is usually lacking in the lives of such people is a sense of "power" - the ability to create or bring about desired realities through personal agency or the warranting of voice. The experience of power that does exist for these persons is a diminished or restrained power. These persons are denied the rewards that those who can warrant voice are able to reap - power, money, social status, education, and valuable employment. Employment is virtually non-existent, food and clothing are limited, and foodbanks are depended upon weekly. These persons feel a sense of shame by their place in the community, and any sense of possibility is diminished. Some enact their limited experience of power over family members through violence, or gain temporary escape from their condition through misuse of alcohol or other mind-altering substances. These persons' sense of self as a speaker/actor/agent is mediated by external social circumstances, a discursive authoring of their identies by those authorities they engage with and their experienced lack of power. The identification with the condition of their circumstances and internalized shame gets in the way of identifying and using their own narrative knowledges.


There seems to be a strong correlation between social oppression and shame. Shame has been identified by existential philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (1956) as a relational process brought about under the gaze of a condescending other. His comments are as follows:

Pure shame is not a feeling of being this or that guilty object but in general of being an object; that is, in recognizing myself in this degraded, fixed, and dependent being which I am for the Other. Shame is the feeling of an original fall, not because of the fact that I may have committed this or that particular fault but simply that I have "fallen" into the world in the midst of things and that I need the mediation of the Other in order to be what I am (p. 384).

Shame, then, is a state that is incited when one is defined and classified (the authoring of identity) by others with greater social status, power, and authority. The relationship between a degraded, fixed, and dependent being in the face of others who have the power to classify or define the status of that being is one which is both dehumanizing and oppressive. I conclude that oppressive social relationships and the social and architectural structures that originate and maintain their imbalances of power breed shame, dehumanization, and disempowerment via the process by which marginalized individuals and marginalized groups subjectify themselves - as Madigan (1992) writes - "internalized dialogue mediated through external cultural norms". Internalised shame, then, may be the greatest block to both creative learning and the integration of narrative knowledge that is so important to actualization toward one's potential. But, then, the processes by which such shame is brought about are agents of the desire to keep the weaker in their place of weakness, for the benefit of those who dominate, whether it be in education, rights to knowledge, or government.



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Praxis and the Naturalistic Importance of Narrative Knowledge

The University is commonly understood as a "place" where one goes in order to gain higher knowledge that is in some way certified as being higher knowledge and accepted as so in the community and workplace. Post-structural philosophers Michele Foucault and Jean-Francois Lyotard identify two kinds of knowledge in their writings:

1. "Narrative" Knowledge:
   What a person knows from personal and cultural experience. This informally acquired knowledge could also be gleaned from working in a vocational area, and much of it is acquired via oral means, written means, as well as by carrying out various activities, all depending upon the nature of the vocation. A homemaker might actually possess skills in envisioning, organizing, investigation, problem solving, scheduling, consultation, and other areas, all related to management. She most likely also possesses additional skills that are "high touch", (Naisbett, 1992) related to care-giving, (listening, administering medication, etc.), all of which are associated with some care-giving professions, some of which will be learned formally within certain programs in a university setting. Most, if not all, of these skills have been learned "on the fly" and in consultation with others (e.g., at the morning coffee klatch after the kids are off to school). Another person, a native Indian shaman for example, might possess an elaborate understanding of traditional first nations spirituality and approaches to healing. The late Frank Fools Crow from South Dakota was one such person; he possessed such local narrative knowledge of enormous breadth and depth, yet it was not validated until anthropologist Thomas Mails published his two books on Fools Crow. Prior to that what Fools Crow knew was underground, contained locally within the culture in which he practiced his vocation. If Fools Crow, before his death, decided to get a degree in Souix shamanism would he have to go to a university and learn it from a white anthropologist or ethnobotanist even though he was the defacto expert in the subject? This view of knowledge as being personal or contextual to a person's being is held by Schon (1986). Within Schon's view such narrative knowledge exists within the person as representations of life experience.
   
   
   
2. Formally Acquired Knowledge:
   This knowledge lays claim to being "true", to be representative of the workings of both natural phenomena and human processes in the world as they actually occur; claiming to have wrestled, as Francis Bacon asserted, "the earth's secrets from her". It is based on the nineteenth century positivist belief that that there is knowledge "out there" in the external; there is a right answer and I can find it. Such knowledge is claimed to be arrived at via processes now normally found in an academic environment. It is usually claimed to have beeen acquired via a set of rigorous research or analytical procedures, and it is legitimated by the paradigmatic discourse of the particular professional field in which it is discovered, and in cooperation with the political and institutional powers that be. Regarding research in the social sciences, many influetial academics are writing that such research, carried out in the old manner (at least in the social sciences) are missing the mark, doing an injustice to the uniqueness of the being of Others (Shotter, 1999; Wittgenstein, 1953; Bruner, 1986), creating a "hegemony" over us (the researchers) "that of trying to explain the causes of event in terms of our own abstractions from them (Shotter, 1999)".

A third kind of knowledge - not specified as such, probably best described as a critical thinking skill, and implied in the writings of authors such as Foucault, Ricoeur, Lyotard - is known as discourse analysis. Discourse analysis is a practice which identifies distinctions of power relations and related practices associated with professional knowledge-discourses. Consider for a moment the relationship between knowledge-discourses and local narrative knowledge. When it comes down to recognizing informally acquired knowledge in universities the power relations and practices of knowledge-discourse have a bullying, colonizing, and genocidal effect on local narrative knowledges - marginalizing them, forcing them underground, refuting them as invalid, and even wiping some of them out as anything of meaning or importance. While the traditional University mostly concentrates on disseminating and developing professional knowledge-discourses there is some small attention paid to discourse analysis in some social science departments. There is virtually no attention being paid to local narrative knowledges, other than to "represent" the narrative knowledges of some cultures and marginal groups for the purpose of educating/entertaining the voyeuristic society we now live in. But what about the local narrative knowledge of the adult learners in such an education system? Such local narrative knowledge continues to remain unrecognized. Most establishments that would recognize such knowledge and attempt to help the learner incorporate it into an academic program are automatically labelled by some conservatives in this knowledge-as-commodity era as "degree mills" or other terms which lead one to wonder what might be the combination of emotion, thought, and political/power intention behind this type of name-calling, and how such institutions could be perceived as a threat by the purveyors of the traditional knowledge-discourse. I write of the importance of discourse analysis because it is a critical skill by which, with much effort, the learner will be able to see through the almost opaque veil of discourse which higher education is becoming, perhaps one of far less importance than it leads itelf and others to believe.



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A Related View from Education Philosopher Henry Giroux

Despite the trend in universities toward formal knowledge-as-a-commodity that can be traded (Lyotard 1984, pp.3-6), educational philosophers such as Henry Giroux have expressed the need for higher education to develop a critical pedagogy and address the learner's status as a political entity within the community. This entails helping learners locate themselves as political subjects in a political society, and drawing out from learners critical skills that are congruent with their lived experience. Writes Giroux:

Education must be understood as producing not only knowledge but also political subjects. Rather than rejecting the language of politics, critical pedagogy must link public education to the imperatives of a critical democracy (Dewey, 1916; Giroux, 1988a). Critical pedagogy needs to be informed by a public philosophy dedicated to returning schools to their primary task: places of critical education in the service of creating a public sphere of citizens who are able to exercise power over their own lives and especially over the conditions of knowledge production and acquisition. This is a critical pedagogy defined, in part, by an attempt to create the lived experience of empowerment for the vast majority. In other words, the language of critical pedagogy needs to construct schools as democratic public spheres.

In part, this means that educators need to develop a critical pedagogy in which the knowledge, habits, and skills of critical rather than simply good citizenship are taught and practiced. This means providing students with the opportunity to develop the critical capacity to challenge and transform existing social and political forms, rather than simply adapt to them. It also means providing students with the skills they will need to locate themselves in history, find their own voices, and provide the conviction and compassion necessary for exercising civic courage, taking risks, and furthering the habits, customs, and social relations that are essential to democratic public forms . . . A critical pedagogy for democracy does not begin with test scores but with the questions: What kinds of citizens do we hope to produce through public education in a postmodern culture? What kind of society do we want to create in the context of the present shifting cultural and ethnic borders? How can we reconcile the notions of difference and equality with the imperatives of freedom and justice (Giroux 1991, 47-48)?

Giroux's statement (above) clearly indicates the importance of learners being able to exercise power over their own lives and over the conditions of knowledge production and acquisition, finding their own voices and taking risks, thus engendering a greater society of free thinkers who are willing to stand up to certain injustices with a new ethical vision. Giroux writes that educators must

. . . go beyond the postmodern notion of understanding how student experiences are shaped within different ethical discourses. Educators must also come to view ethics as a relationship between the self and the other. Ethics, in this case, is not a matter of individual choice or relativism but a social discourse grounded in struggles that refuse to accept needless human suffering and exploitation. Thus, ethics is taken up as a struggle against inequality and as a discourse for expanding basic human rights. This points to a notion of ethics attentive to both the issue of abstract rights and those contexts which produce particular stories, struggles, and histories. In pedagogical terms, an ethical discourse needs to be taken up with regards to the relations of power, subject positions, and social practices it activates.

But Giroux's use of the term "finding voice" implies that there is a sense of "lostness" of crucial expression, or that "voice" has been constrained or silenced to the degree that it seems to be lost. Perhaps this is the powerful effect of the knowledge-discourses, which render as unimportant and invalid the "voices" of narrative knowledge. To "find voice" requires interacting with and recognizing the conditions of one's lived experience, often amongst support and encouragement from others in an academically produced world where people must look to see just where their voices went to. Such interaction is where the stage of congruency will be set as one connects with the pains, failures, wins, and wisdoms of one's personal and/or cultural narratives, in relation to those forces which restrain the privileging of knowledge gained from such lived experience. This has been aptly demonstrated by feminism, which has self-organized by building on the lived experience of women, and by privileging the voices of their lived experience, pains, experience of injustice, gifts, joys, uniqueness, and wisdom. Feminist writers, for example, have located the voice of womens' lived experience (self-descriptions) as exhibiting greater priority, representation, and meaning over descriptions from others (experts) in matters of family life and work life. Similarly, writing on research practices, Robson (1993) states that feminist writers, such as Stanley and Wise (1983)

. . . maintain that objectivity is, in principle, impossible to achieve and that all research is effectively ' . . . "fiction" in the sense that it views and so constructs "reality" through the eyes of one person' (p.174). This stance casts serious doubts on the possibility of a science based on research generating cumulating knowledge (Robson, 1993, p.65).

In the family therapy literature such notions as above are echoed by such feminist writers as Rachel Hare-Mustin and Jeanne Marecek (1988, p. 455), who observe that within the discourse of therapy there are cultural assumptions about gender relations. The authors challenge the idea of a single meaning of reality and suggest that meanings result from social experience. Feminism has played an enormous role in influencing the emerging post-structural collaborative approaches to family therapy. The feminist critique of family therapy has made its practitioners aware of the unique experience and perspective of women, and increased awareness within the profession of how traditional (modernist) therapeutic practices had marginalized the experience and "voices" of women clients (Hare-Mustin, 1978; Hare-Mustin, 1987; Coleman, Myers Avis, & Turin, 1990; Feinstein, 1990; Goldner, Penn, Sheinberg, & Walker,1990; Myers-Avis,1992; Hare-Mustin, 1994). The feminist critique of family therapy has also played an important role in establishing therapeutic approaches that address the experience and needs of women from a female perspective, thus providing a space for such voices of self-expression.



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A Related View from Education Philosopher John Dewey

John Dewey, a well-known educational philosopher and psychologist in the early 20th. century, called for education to include the local narrative knowledge of the learner. Crews (1989), observes some interesting ideas from Dewey on the integration of local narrative knowledge into an academic program.

He emphasized the importance of individualizing education, of having education flow out of personal interests, and of having intellectual activity relevant to and integrated with vocational activity. Also, without using the word "wholistic", he recognized the importance of a wholistic perspective in education and in other aspects of life. The following quotations are from his Democracy and Education: An introduction to the Philosophy of Education, which was first published in 1916:

• The inclinations to learn from life itself and to make the conditions of life such that all will learn in the process of living are the finest products of schooling.
  
  
• Education means the enterprise of supplying the conditions which insure growth, or adequacy of life, irrespective of age.
  
  
• The criteria of the value of school education are the extent to which it creates a desire for continued growth and supplies means for making the desire effective in fact.
  
  
• The aim of education is to enable individuals to be able to continue their education . . . the object and reward of learning is continued capacity for growth.
  
  
• A wagon is not perceived when all its parts are summed up; it is the characteristic connection of those parts which makes it a wagon. And these connections are not those of mere physical juxtaposition; they involve connection with the animals that draw it, the things that are carried on it, and so on.
  
  
• Aristotle was permanently right in assuming the inferiority and subordination of mere skill in performance and mere accumulation of external products to understanding, sympathy of appreciation, and the free play of ideas. If there was an error it lay in assuming the necessary separation of the two: in supposing that there is a natural divorce between efficiency in producing commodities and rendering service, and self-directive thought; between significant knowledge and practical achievement.
  
  
• There is already an opportunity for an education which, keeping in mind the larger features of work, will reconcile liberal nurture with training in social serviceableness, with ability to share efficiently and happily in occupations which are productive.

Criticisms of Dewey's ideas have centered around the concern that children do not know enough about adult occupations for their interests to be a safe guide for their education. They are naïve and fickle. A child may want to be a soldier one day and a clown the next. Further, children do not have a broad fund of knowledge. They do not know enough about the adult world and the society in which they live to make reasonable educational choices. They do not understand the significance or context of what they are doing and what they are learning. Notice that all these objections disappear when Dewey's principles are applied to the education of accomplished adults (Crews, 1989).

Both Giroux and Dewey write about incorporating the lived experience of the self - local narrative knowledge - into academic programs. Finding one's voice, as Giroux terms it, can also means standing up ethically to any oppression that one experiences from others, and how such oppression may attempt to shape one's identity. Yet, finding one's voice usually occurs with the assistance of others and some self-searching. Ricouer provides interesting insight on this self/other relation in the accumulating of identity by observing that the self-identity does not exist in the world by itself. While it might come into the world, as Rousseau believed, through a phenomenological unfolding, self gathers identity and meaning as it moves narratively through lived experience. As Sarbin (1986) has noted, people try to make sense and meaning of the world by placing the pieces of personal experience into narrative form. As Madigan writes, "the story of our lives through time is said to be performed within a set of language rules or "games" (Wittgenstein, 1963). It is a person's storied discourse, a discourse shaped and spoken through a socio-political cultural context, that eventually determines the meaning given to an experience (Madigan, p.258).



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A Batesonian View: Narratives as Storehouses of Experience and Abstract Complexity

The importance of narrative, from the perspective of the late anthropologist and luminary thinker Gregory Bateson, is revealed by physicist Fritjof Capra (1988). Capra writes that Bateson "considered stories, parables, and metaphors to be essential expressions of human thinking, of the human mind" (p. 78). Capra writes that although Bateson was a complex abstract thinker, hi delivered his ideas via stories, so that they would be experienced concretely by the listener. Bateson viewed stories as a language of relationships, and viewed relationships as "the essence of the living world". Capra expands on this perspective:

Stories, Bateson would say, are the royal road to the study of relationships. What is important in a story, what is true in it, is not the plot, the things, or the people in the story, but the relationships between them. Bateson defined a story as "an aggregate of formal relationships scattered in time", and this is what he was after in all his seminars, to develop a web of formal relations through a collection of stories (Capra 1988, p.78).

and

One of the central ideas in Bateson's thought is that the structure of nature and the structure of mind are reflections of each other, that mind and nature are of a necessary unity. Thus epistemologically - "the study of how it is that you can know something", or, as he sometimes put it, "what it's all about" - ceased to be abstract philosophy for Bateson and became a branch of natural history (Capra 1988, p. 80).

Stories, then, can convey a complex set of relationships that can exist systemically at any given moment and can vary over temporal linearity. I have already established that all events, whether experienced subjectively or not, become structured as story (also known as narrative) (Sarbin, 1986) for the purpose of remembering, operating on to establish meaning, and for the purpose of retelling (can be considered as "performing"). Even one individual's witnessing of a discussion between two other individuals becomes a narrative which can be performed from three distinct positions, the position of the witness, the position of speaker #1, and the position of speaker #2. Such narratives are structured temporally into event sequences or chapters (e,g., he said this, and then he said that, and then she replied that, etc.). The process of making sense of an event after it occurs - interacting with and reflecting on the developing story - usually involves activity akin to what conversation analysis research Jerry Gale (1996, p.117) has termed as a period of "soaking" oneself in the data, the data being the pieces of the event and resulting sequences. Narrative summaries of events are rarely structured utilizing the structural categories outlined by Labov as denoting "well-formedness" (1972, 1982; Labov & Waletsky, 1967; Riessman, 1993). Riessman, (1993, p.19), citing Labov's outline for a "fully formed" narrative, states that a narrative should include six common elements:

. . . an abstract (summary of the substance of the narrative), orientation (time, space, situation, participants), complicating action (sequence of events), evaluation (significance and meaning of the action, attitude of the narrator) resolution (what finally happened), and coda (returns the perspective to the present). With these structures a teller constructs a story from a primary experience and interprets the significance of events in claused and embedded evaluation (p.19).

The reason that narrative summaries are often not well-formed is that the process of meaning-making is often mediated by dominant social discourses which provide mainstream meanings that have truth-value - they are accepted as the politically cultural correct norm. One of the reasons that so many people use the services of therapists is to make sense of their experience by finding alternate meanings other that the mainstream meanings available. That's because sometimes the mainstream meanings are socially oppressive. Consider this - if an adolescent is somewhat hyperactive in the class room setting does that mean that he has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and needs to be placed on Ritalin? Has anyone ever identified the fact that schools are highly invested in attentive behavior and if one is not attentive or is troublesome it interrupts the flow of the entire endeavor, which is didactic learning for the whole class? Has anyone noticed that boys tend toward more inattentive activity than girls? Can curriculum be designed to utilize such differences rather than marginalize the children that are singled out as troublesome and then pathologized?


In the process of the self making meaning important information becomes deleted. Constructivists have already proved that biologically we will delete aspects of information because we are biologically structurally determined that way - it is not possible to remember everything (von Glaserfeld, 1984; von Forster, 1984; Maturana & Varela, 1987; Bandler & Grinder, 1975). A well-formed narrative summary should provide a story that would represent and bring to mind, as closely as possible, the key events that had occurred in the example discussion between the two people. While each speaker's view is subjective, each sees only the other speaker, the witness has an binocular view of both speakers. The act of the three people debriefing each sharing one's version of the events that make up the discussion has the potential to generate a collaboratively understood narrative. This would be similar to the practice, in naturalistic research, of obtaining validation in an effort to establish desirable levels of trustworthiness (Yin,1989; Robson,1993; Lincoln & Guba, 1985).



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Praxis, the Narrative Self and Experiential Learning

Examined from a postmodern/post-structural perspective the self in interaction with the world becomes a storied/textual self. As eminent cognitive psychology theorist and Harvard professor Jerome Bruner (1986) writes

Like Clifford Geertz and Michelle Rosaldo, I think of Self as a text about how one is situated with respect to others and toward the world - a canonical text about powers and skills and dispositions that change as one's situation changes from young to old, and from one kind of setting to another. The interpretation of this text in situ by an individual is his sense of self in that situation. It is composed of expectations, feelings of esteem and power, and so on( Bruner 1986, p. 130).

In the case of the adult individual the matter of creating a well-formed narrative of life experience for the purpose of integration into an academic curriculum is both more-simple and more-complex simultanously. That is why special attention needs to be paid to coaching this individual adult and helping to "draw out" the related life experience narrative so that it is contextual to the curriculum subject areas and properly presented in an academic format. This is where the notion of "praxis" comes in. Ricoeur (1992, p.173) informs us that praxis, in the view of the philosopher Aristotle, means "practical science", that praxis "is an activity that produces no work distinct from the agent, an activity that has no end other than action itself". Here are Aristotle's comments on the relation of praxis to practical wisdom:

Regarding practical wisdom we shall get at the truth by considering who are the persons we credit with it. Now it is thought to be the mark of a man with practical wisdom to be able to deliberate well about what is good and expedient for himself, not in some particular respect, e,g., about what sorts of thing conduce to health or strength, but about what sorts of thing conduce to the good life in general. This is shown by the fact that we credit men with practical wisdom in some particular respect when they have calculated well with a view to some good end which is one of those that are not the object of any art. It follows that in the general sense also the man who is capable of deliberating has practical wisdom (cited in Ricoeur 1992, p.175).

and

Practical wisdom . . . is concerned with things human and things about which it is possible to deliberate; for we say this is above all the work of the man with practical wisdom, to deliberate well, but no one deliberates about things invariable, nor about things which have not an end, and that a good can be brought about by action. The man who is without qualification goos at deliberating is the man who is capable of aiming in accordance with calculation at the best for man attainable by action (cited in Ricoeur 1992, p.175).

Ricoeur writes that the first great lesson that Aristotle leaves us with is "to seek the fundamental basis for the aim of the 'good life' in praxis". The second great lesson that Aristotle leaves us with is "to attempt to set up the teleology internal to praxis as the structuring principle for the aim of the 'good life' ". The good life can be seen as "living well", or whatever image each of us has of a full life. There is a certain reflexivity, or self-reflection, that is called for by the comments of Aristotle and Ricoeur. Indeed, Ricoeur, in addressing the self poses the question who, as in (1) who is speaking, (2) who is acting, (3) who is recounting about himself or herself?, and (4) who is the moral subject of imputation?. In Ricoeur's view the self is the speaker, the actor, the narrator, as well as the subject of the imputations of others. Therefore, the structuring of a life experience narrative for integration into aspects of a degree program involves revisiting actions of the past, and reflecting upon those actions to determine what was learned that is now applicable to the "good life", which certainly is the aim of the action of any degree program. Once again, we are back to Riessman's (1993, p.19) citing of Labov's outline for a "fully formed" narrative, which states that a narrative should include six common elements:

. . . an abstract (summary of the substance of the narrative), orientation (time, space, situation, participants), complicating action (sequence of events), evaluation (significance and meaning of the action, attitude of the narrator) resolution (what finally happened), and coda (returns the perspective to the present). With these structures a teller constructs a story from a primary experience and interprets the significance of events in claused and embedded evaluation (p.19).

Thus, praxis involves action and reflection. Dr. Paul Robinson, a medical doctor who uses some of these concepts in the training of medical practitioners regards praxis as alternating between Activity and Reflection. He takes a broad definition of the two terms, defining Activity as possibly being physical activity such as a manual skill, but also includes listening, reading, and thinking. He defines Reflection as possibly including a physical element, and may refer to discussion as well as contemplation. Education theorist Stephen Brookfield (1986) utilizes the word "praxis" to describe an adult learning process which entails a cyclic process of activity, reflection, and analysis. D.A. Kolb is known for his work with learning styles, and developed the Learning Styles Inventory, which is well known in adult education. Kolb's model of experiential learning incorporates a four element cycle of:

1. Concrete experience
2. Reflective observation
3. Abstract conceptualization
4. Active experimentation

Robinson provides an explanation of Kolb's four-element cycle:

The four elements are drawn from two dimensions, each of which forms a dialectic, and represent the things that can be done with information. The first is to grasp the information, ie to become aware of it. The dialectic lies between grasping information by first hand experience (concrete experience), which he refers to as apprehension, and grasping by calling up a memory (abstract conceptualisation), whichhe refers to as comprehension. The first of these is external and the information is only available in the 'here and now': only when you are actually touching a piece of ice does it feel cold. The second is an internal process and is not bound by the instant of time.

The second is to transform the information. Similarly, there is a dialectic between the external process of active experimentation and the internalised reflective observation.

The transformation of information is the key to creating knowledge and is crucial that learning is an active process.

Implications
Kolb says that all four elements are required for effective experiential learning. Individuals have different preferences and natural styles which can be represented as different points along each of the two dimensions. Similarly different occupations call for different types of knowledge.

It is important for both learner and teacher to be aware of their own positions on these dimensions, so that they can pay additional attention to tasks which fall outside their natural preferences. There is an inventory for determining learning styles in these terms presented in the book (Robinson, 2000).

Renner expands further on Kolb's four part model of experiential learning:

A learner, to be fully effective, needs four different abilities. She must be able to involve herself fully,openly, and without bias in new experiences (CE), she must be able to reflect on and observe these experiences from many perspectives (RO), she must be able to create concepts that integrate her observations into logically sound theories (AC), and she must be able to use these theories to make decisions and solve problems (AE).

To state it another way, learning can be seen as a process in which a person experinces something directly, not vicariously, reflects on the experience as something new or as related to other experiences, develops some concept by which to name the experience, and uses the concept in subsequent actions as a guide for behavior. Out of those four steps the person derives a new set of experiences that lead to a repeat of the learning cycle (Renner 1989, p. 129).

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Not All Persons Learn in the Same Manner

It is important to remember Kolb's findings that all people do not learn in the same manner. Kolb, a developmental psychologist, has identified four learning styles, as found in the Learning Styles Inventory (LSI). Kolb and his colleagues have tested the LSI on different groups which include managers, college students, medical students, and colege faculty. The four learning styles identified are as follows:

Converger
The Converger's learning style emphasizes abilities in Abstract Conceptualization (AC) and Active Experimentation (AE). An individual with this learning style seems to do best in activities requiring the practical application of ideas. His knowledge seems to be organized so that through hypothetical deductive reasoning he may focus it on specific problems. Research has shown convergers to be relatively unemotional, having a prference for working with "things" rather than people, and having narrow technical interests, generally choosing to specialize in engineering and physical sciences.

Diverger
The Diverger has a learning style oposite to that of the Converger, with strenght in imaginative ability and being able to view complex situations from many perspectives. He performs well in "brainstorming" sessions. Research has shown Divergers to be interested in people, having broad cultural interests often specializing in the arts. This style of learning is characteristic of humanities and liberal arts programs. Counsellors, personnel managers, and sociologists tend toward this style.

Assimilator
The Assimilator's dominant learning abilities are Abstract Conceptualization (AC) and Reflective Observation (RO). Persons with this learning style excel in the creation of theoretical models and inductive reasoning. Although he is concerned with the practical use of theories, it is more important to the Assimilator that the theory be logically sound; and if the theory does not fit the "facts", he is likely to re-examine those facts. This learning style is more characteristic of persons in the basic sciences and mathematics than the applied sciences.

Accomodator
The Accomodator's learning strengths lie in doing things and involving oneself in new experiences. Quite the opposite of the Assimilator, this person excels in situations where he mustadapt to specific immediate circumstances, and if his plan or theoretical explanation does not fit the situation, he will discard it. He tends to solve problems in an intuitive, trial and error manner, relying on others for information instead of his own analytic ability. The Accomodator is at ease with people and often found in action-oriented jobs in business, marketing or sales (cited in Renner, 1989).

The implementation of narrative knowledge into higher education programs will require attention to the different learning styles. (Please note: More will be posted on this later).



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Praxis and Narrative Knowledge Viewed from A Transpersonal Psychological Perspective

Ken Wilber, one of the major theorists in the field of transpersonal psychology, has concluded that personal growth or the actualizing of one's potential consists of ongoing cycles of identification, dis-identification, and transcendence - within sequenced structures that emerge in consciousness. As each structure is dis-identified with, the self transcends it, thereby gaining the ability to operate upon it. As this is happening, the self is concurrently identifying with the next higher-ordered structure that is presenting itself. Here is how Wilber describes this process:

At each stage, a higher-ordered structure - more complex and thereafter more unified - emerges through a differentiation of the preceding, higher-order level. The higher-order is introduced to consciousness, and eventually (it can be instantaneous, or can take a longer term) the self identifies with that emergent structure (Wilber 1980, p.104).

An interesting observation about Wilber's theory is that it seems to incorporate the point of view of the early developmentalists - Rousseau, and later - Gesell. William Crain, author of Theories of Development, provides the proof of this observation:

Rousseau introduced several key ideas into developmental theory: (1) That development proceeds according to an inner biological timetable. For the first time, we have a picture of development unfolding fairly independent from environmental influences. Children are no longer simply shaped by external forces, such as adult teachings and social reinforcements. They grow and learn largely on their own, according to Nature's plan . . . (2) Rousseau suggested that development unfolds in a series of stages, during which children experience the world in different ways. Children differ from adults not because they are blank slates which gradually take on adult teachings, rather, at each stage, the child's patterns of thought and behavior have their own unique characteristics. (3) Rousseau proposed a new philosophy of education, one which we would c all "child-centered" . . . we should fit our lessons to the child's particular stage of development. In this way, children will be able to judge matters according to their own experience and powers of understanding.

Gesell suggested that development is influenced by two factors: (1) The child is a product of the environment; (2) But more fundamentally, Gesell believed, the child's development is directed from within, by the action of needs. Gesell called this process maturation . . . . In Gesell's hands, Rousseau's idea of an inner developmental force became the guiding principle behind extensive scholarship and research. Gesell showed how the maturational mechanism, while still hidden, manifests itself in intricate developmental sequences and self-regulatory processes. Gesell indicated that there are good reasons to suppose that development follows an inner plan (Crain 1980, pp130-23).

Wilber expands on the relationship of his theory to the specifics of personal growth:

. . . at each point in psychological growth, we find:

1. A higher order structure emerges in consciousness (with the help of symbolic forms).
   
2. The self identifies its being with that higher structure.
   
3. The next-higher-order structure eventually emerges.
   
4. The self dis-identifies with the lower structure and shifts its essential identity to the higher structure.
   
5. Consciousness thereby transcends the lower structure.
   
6. And becomes capable of operating on that lower structure from the higher order level.
   
7. Such that all preceding levels can then be integrated in consciousness, and ultimately as Consciousness.
   

We noted that each successively higher-order structure is more complex, more organized, and more unified - and evolution continues until there is only Unity, ultimate in all directions, whereupon the force of evolution is exhausted, and there is perfect release in Radiance as the entire World Flux.

Every time one remembers a higher-order deep structure, the lower-order structure is subsumed under it. That is, at each point in evolution, what is the whole of one level becomes merely a part of the higher-order whole of the next level (Wilber, 1980 p. 80).

And

[In psychological and transpersonal development] as each higher-order structure emerges, the self eventually identifies with that structure - which is normal, natural, and appropriate.

As evolution proceeds, however, each level in turn is differentiated from the self, or "peeled-off" so to speak. The self, that is, eventually dis-identifies with its present structures so as to identify with the next higher-order emergent structure. More precisely (and this is a very important technical point), we say that the self detaches itself from its exclusive identification with that lower structure. It doesn't throw that structure away, it simply no longer exclusively identifies with it. The point is that because the self is differentiated from the lower structure, it transcends that structure (without obliterating it in any way), and can thus operate on that lower structure using the tools of the newly emergent structure (Wilber, 1980 p. 80).

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Some Ideas of Ken Wilber Applied to Praxis and Narrative Knowledge

The key terms here are "identify" with, disidentify" with, "transendence" and "operate on". When we are in a compelling state of learning we actually want to experience a new emerging structure, by which will be delivered "difference". We want the prize, a discovery, what is waiting around the corner. Yet when we are engaged in action/reflection we are also in a process similar to siphoning - trying to get the juices of that inner developmental force flowing up the hose. Another key theme (although not explicitly mentioned by Wilber as "reflection") is that "reflection", more importantly, "perturbs" the natural force of maturation - catalyzing/alchemizing the spirit, producing a quickening or shift of consciousness, while drawing forth the systems of relationships that are embedded within one's life experience, upon which the person can now "operate on", having moved to a higher-ordered structure of awareness.


When I reflect on I am engaging in a process of identifying/disidentifying. The disidentifying occurs by a process of observer-observing-the-observer observing the observed, which is not dissimilar from certain meditative practices which originate in the East. From a western point of view this notion is described by a theory known as second order cybernetics, (more will be presented on this theory in this article and in the 3rd major section of this document). While this phenomenom seems a little far-fetched, it actually represents the notion that persons are able to enter into creative higher-ordered states of awareness where they can organize themselves around, reflect on, and operate upon life experience. Under such states of awareness - peak experiences - even long-standing problems can be solved. Some therapists, for example, have been able to perturb and transform their clients translation of the meaning of events via subtle and nonobtrusive conversation in such a manner as to facilitate such advanced levels of awareness - peak experiences if you will. Family therapists that engage in such conversational story practices, such family therapists as those operating from a second order cybernetics and post-structural perspective, describe themselves as adopting a non-expert stance which eschews any claim to an objective understanding of families. How can a non-expert stance bring about transformation in the perspectives of families on their relational problems? Boscolo, Cecchin, Hoffman, and Penn (1987) explain, observing that such therapists adopt the view that

. . . Therapists can never know a priori how a family should be, the therapists must act as a stimulus, a perturbation that activates the family's capacity to generate its own solutions. In a sense, the neutral position presents a double message to the family. It states the solution they have found has been perfect until now, but from this moment on they have entered into another interaction (the therapy) that will allow the therapist and the family to invent together other possibilities from which new solutions may arise (p.98).

Writing about the Milan Team, a group of Italian therapists which used the second order cybernetics perspective, the above authors note that

The stance the Milan Team takes in regard to intervening in human systems has been influenced most recently by second order cybernetics and Humberto Maturana's formulation of structural autonomy in living systems. The rise of second-order cybernetics took away the notion of an "objective" observer who is out to influence a system in a predictable way. In addition, we are more and more compelled to take note of and respect the events in the system that represents the family's self-creative activity - that is what the Milan Team means when they refer to the family's capacity to heal itself. This idea comes from Maturana, who claims that the response to any perturbation offered to a living system will be determined by that system's inherent structure. Therefore, the therapist can no longer search for specific interventions that will produce specific results; rather, he or she must try to achieve a structural coupling with the system - that is, the point where the interaction between the therapist and the family is in continual calibration, and that calibration is in the service of the self-organizing capacity of the system (Boscolo, Cecchin, Hoffman, and Penn, 1987, p.102).

The role of educator (in theory) is somewhat similar to that of the therapist, although the result of exposure to education nowadays is seldom similar to the results of therapy. Wilber writes that the role of the therapist (or guru/mentor/educator, for that matter) is to be a translator or mediator of one's experience in the world, or to help the individual make personal translations that are well-formed in that those translations bring about a transformation of the meaning of the situation- to allow the individual to grow beyond it in such a manner as to be able to operate on it as opposed to being operated upon by a situation. This is particularly useful for persons when the dominant discursive contexts for interpreting such experience privilege repression rather than growth. Wilber writes the following as an example of the therapist as translator:

The therapist helps the individual re-translate the symptom/symbol back to its original form. This is called "the interpretation", and a good therapist is a good interpreter. The therapist might say, for example, "You're feelings of depression are masked feelings of anger and rage" - he translates the foreign language of the symptom back to the original form. He "tells" the individual the "meaning" of his depression (or helps him discover it for himself), and thus helps him re-translate it in terms more consonant with the deep structure from which the symbols and symptoms originate.

The therapeutic translation continues in that fashion (the working through) until a genuine and more-or-less complete transformation of consciousness from the lower to the upper level occurs, so that the symbol becomes sign, and the anger can enter awareness in its original form, which, as it were - dissolves the symptom. (Wilber, 1980).

What we have above is a transformation of meaning of the particular symptom or concern, and indeed, a transformation of meaning of the entire experience. The systemic set of relationships within the narrative are now shifted as the interpretation shifts. In the story above - if the interpretation makes sense to the client, the feelings of depression are identified as masked anger and rage. If they are experienced as such by the client during the therapeutic conversation, the problem context shifts to dealing with the symbols of anger and rage, and perhaps the source under which the anger and rage unfolded. The experience has been reflected on (in this case, through dialogue), transformation has occurred, and new insights have arrived - thus producing new knowledge. More importantly, the client has experienced some form of shift into a heightened awareness (this comes along with the insight and the felt emotions which were cut off by the situational depression).


With th