Red Dust Healing – Book Review

Imagine you are sitting in a yarning circle¹, a fire blazing in the middle. Maybe you are outside sitting around a fire in a desert in Western Australia. Uncle Tom Powell is telling stories. Uncle Tom’s stories have power – power to heal.

This imaginative fire and yarning circle is what it is like to read through Red Dust Healing: the One Day Workshop.² Tom Powell has been running Red Dust Healing workshops, seminars, and story-telling for more than twenty years. This delightful short book is a transcription of one of his one-day workshops.

Tom is a Warramunga man from the Wiradjuri Nation³ and brings 60,000+ years of accumulated knowledge and wisdom of his people into his workshops. He uses various tools, images, and metaphors to help workshop participants to heal their pains, traumas, abuses, and other forms of suffering.

The healing offered by Tom can be applied at personal, family, and collective levels. As Tom is wont to say, ‘It’s not your fault.’ Recognising that pain and suffering may have arisen in an abusive childhood, or from years of colonisation that Australian first-nations people have suffered, the tools for healing can be learnt and applied by anyone, including the descendants of colonisers.

Many of Tom’s tools and metaphors come from the natural world. Trees, fish, birds, kangaroos, and feathers are all offered as means towards remembering the lessons in his stories. It has always been this way – nature is our healer.

Tom is also known for his paradoxical one-liners, which he uses to further reinforce the lessons contained within his stories. Many of his one-liners are scattered throughout the book. A particularly poignant one-liner of Tom’s is, ‘Follow me, I’m right behind you.’ Tom states this with humility and graciousness. As he writes on the final page:

‘What I teach in Red Dust Healing is everything I’ve learned from my Mum and Dad. Everything I’ve learned from our Old People; everything I've learned I’ve learned from you. I get my strength from you. It’s true. I mean it and I wouldn’t tell you if it wasn’t true.’

Even the way the book acknowledges his authorship recognises this teamwork. The cover of the book does not state by Tom Powell; rather it states, with Tom Powell – you, me, and all those who participate are co-authors.

Tom’s sense of collaboration comes through in every page of the book, yet he always acknowledges the uniqueness of every participant in his workshops. Another of his one-liners summarises this well; ‘Scatter out and stick together.’

Tom relates stories in a kind, compelling, and humorous manner. This book captures that story-telling style well.

The book is only 80 pages long and includes many diagrams and graphics, making it very easy to read in one sitting, although you will most likely want to dip into it many times to connect with the tools and metaphors within.

Red Dust Healing is only available through the Red Dust website (https://thereddust.com/) It is available for A$50 plus postage. A phone number is provided to order a copy. For those outside of Australia, there is a ‘Contact’ form. I’m sure that if you contact Tom through this means he will be willing to let you know the cost of postage to wherever you are.

Notes:

1. A yarning circle is a process that comes from Aboriginal culture. It is where people learn, share, pass on knowledge, and build respectful relationships through a narrative format.

2. Tom Powell (with), Red Dust Healing: the One Day Workshop, Red Dust Healing Pty Ltd., 2025

3. The Wiradjuri Nation occupy land to the west of Sydney, Australia.

University of Unlearning

Al-Qarawayyin University 

Universities are institutions of higher learning and research. They are often the repository of centuries worth of accumulated knowledge. In fact, the world’s first University was established more than 1,100 years ago in Morocco. Al-Qarawayyin University was founded in 859 A.D. in the city of Fez, by a Tunisian-born woman, Fatima al-Fihri. The University exists to this day.

Fatima’s concept and vision was adopted later in Bologna, Italy where Catholic monks established the University of Bologna in 1088. Eight years later (in 1096) Oxford University was founded in England.

Over the following 1,000 years universities spread throughout the world with more than 25,000 now established.

Unsurprisingly, the pace of education has rapidly expanded during this time.

So too has the pace of technology, a direct result of accumulated knowledge. Similarly, the pace of the accumulation of knowledge has expanded, so much so that we can claim that “pace” itself has expanded. With that has come an accelerating pace of change – something that Alvin Toffler wrote of and warned of in 1970¹. Toffler and his co-author (his wife, Adelaide Farrell) defined Future Shock as a perception of ‘too much change in too short a period of time.’  Toffler died in 2016, and most likely was shocked by the acceleration of change that he had seen in the forty plus years of his life following the publication of Future Shock.

In such a world how can universities respond?

That question can be answered in a variety of ways. We could say that the vocational education (training) provided by many universities is out-of-date within just a few years. For example, one of my degrees conferred in the mid-1970s was in a vocational discipline. Before the turn of the century, technology had transformed that industry so much that my learning was no longer relevant.

The question can also be answered by noting that the research carried out in universities is instrumental in introducing new technologies to the world. Ironically, this research makes the previous knowledge obsolete, as my own example above alludes to.

We could also answer the question by noting that the process of learning itself helps to equip students with knowledge and skills that prepare them for the future.

Yet, the future is looking more and more bleak the more knowledge we gain of the workings of the world: its ecosystems, the dynamics of carbon, water, and other life cycles.

Humans have interfered in these ecosystems and cycles without fully understanding how they work and interact. Our universities have abetted this lack of knowledge through a number of means: e.g. by compartmentalising (and silo-ing) aspects of knowledge, by viewing the world in mechanical terms and analysing its parts, rather than the whole, by side-lining, and invalidating indigenous knowledge, by valuing some subjects (such as science, economics, commerce, medicine, law) over others (such as the arts and humanities.)

Yet today, some university subjects are discovering the knowledge of systems, inter-connections, and wholeness – e.g. ecology, systems analysis, quantum physics, meteorology, anthropology.

Yet, even these subjects are still bound to one of modernity’s projects – the accumulation of knowledge and learning.

We are still being future shocked, we are still exploiting and polluting the earth, we are still battling each other, we are still exterminating other-than-human species.

Perhaps it is time for a new University to be established.

We need an University of Unlearning.

Such a university won’t be able to guide us to un-know all the accumulated knowledge of centuries. Such a university won’t be able to help us un-learn skills.

Such a university may, however, assist us in unlearning the ways of being that we have learnt over many centuries.

I wonder what courses could be offered at a University of Unlearning? What would the introductory course of Unlearning 101 consist of?

Do you, dear reader, have any thoughts?

Notes:

1. Alvin Toffler, Future Shock, Random House, New York, 1970

Nature Disconnect – 4 “Simple” Lessons From Hindsight

The last three blogs have considered Nature Disconnect in 7 “Easy” Steps. This blog asks: If we know what the steps have been, then are there any lessons to be learnt from hindsight?

Oscar Wilde once aid, in his typically acerbic manner, ‘Experience is the hardest kind of teacher. It gives you the test first and the lesson afterwards.’ The same could be said of hindsight. In this case, are there lessons to be learnt?

Yes, there are.

1.     We mess with nature at our peril.

The Agricultural Revolution, the Scientific Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution were all supposed to “improve” the world towards human benefit. Most of these “improvements” involved disrupting, tinkering with, or obliterating nature.

Yet, this desire to “improve” things has often led to damage to our own health and the health of the planet. The Covid virus is a good example of this, as had been the many plagues and viruses over previous centuries.

The Industrial Revolution initiated our love affair with energy available from fossil fuels. Nowadays we are witnessing increasing global temperatures, more severe heatwaves, flooding, and hurricane devastation. These have resulted in crop failures, massive infrastructure damage, and loss of life, both human and non-human.¹

2.     Learning to Apply Foresight.

Hindsight, if considered conscientiously and consciously, can provide insight. And insight, in turn, can lead us towards foresight. We cannot just assume that hindsight will automatically imbue us with insight We have to work at it. Hindsight is much like the learning available in experience.

The prominent community educator, Myles Horton, had this to say about experience:

“You know, people say that we learn from our experiences.  I say that we don’t.  We only learn from the experiences we learn from.”

The learning must be consciously taken in and applied. It is the same with hindsight. Once that lesson is learnt, then insight and then foresight can be obtained.

3.     We Are Not Exceptional.

One of the myths that we have taken onboard is the myth of human exceptionalism. Whether this came from religious notions of dominion over the animals, or from early ideas of evolution as humankind being at the apex of the tree of life, human exceptionalism is a dangerous belief.

Setting aside our notions of superiority and exceptionalism would be a powerful lesson to learn from hindsight.

4.     Sapient Teachings

As noted in the series Nature Disconnect in 7 “Easy” Steps many of the steps along the way were taken because they seemed like a good idea at the time.

We innovate and invent with little regard for the future consequences. An oft-quoted saying is, ‘He or she who says it cannot be done should get out of the way of the person who is doing it.’² It is a quote that bears interrogation.

That something can be done is no justification for doing it. Wisdom comes in deciding not to proceed with something, because the (often unintended) consequences can be harmful. In scientific circles this is known as the Precautionary Principle.

Hindsight could provide us Homo sapiens with some sapience. Such sapience (wisdom) implies that we ask not; can we? or how do we? but, rather, should we?

In each of the steps along the path of Nature Disconnect there were those asking; Should we do this? Even during the early years of the Agricultural Revolution the question seems to have been asked.³ However, eventually, those taking a precautionary approach were drowned out by the voices of opportunity, ignored, and then ceased to ask the questions.

Today too, there are those asking; Should we do this? And, just as in previous centuries and millennia, the voices of progress at all costs drown them out. Now, as then, these questioners are being ignored.

Yet, if we are to learn one of the lessons from hindsight, it would be that those questioning the opportunism of innovators and inventors just may have some very pertinent questions to ask.

Undoubtedly there are other lessons that could be drawn from the hindsight available to us when we map out the steps of our journey of disconnection from nature.

Notes:

1. In late 2019 and early 2020 massive, and extensive bushfires raged through many parts of Australia causing millions of dollars worth of damage with 33 people dying. The loss of life for non-humans was almost unbelievable, with an estimated 2 billion (yes, billion, not million) animals being killed in those fires.

2. This quote is often attributed to Confucius, yet there is no evidence that he ever made such a statement. Indeed, it is a statement that Confucius, in his wisdom, is likely to have disputed.

3. One example of this occurring is that of the builders of Stonehenge. Having initially taken up the farming practices of continental Europe, it seems that from around 3,300 BCE, they gave up the cultivation of cereals and returned to hazelnut gathering as a staple food source. See: Graeber & Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything, Penguin Books, UK, 2021, pp 105-106. 

Community Development Degrees

Do you want a job in community development?  These days it is possible to get a qualification in community development.  A Masters of Community Development, even a PhD if you so desire. That’s a good thing isn’t it?  People become trained and qualified to deliver community development programmes, plans and projects.  It must be good.

Well, no, not really.  Like any upper level educational qualification it sets the haves against the have-nots.  If I have a degree in community development then that suggests I know more about the process of community development than many of those in the communities I am working with.  And that is absurd.

The very notion of community development is premised on the understanding that local communities are capable of understanding the issues that face them, of working out solutions, of discovering what skills they already have, and determining the resources they need.  Community development degrees set up an “expert” mindset that may lead some to believe that they do not have the necessary intellectual, psychological or emotional resources to become “experts” in their own community.  Once that thought takes root then a downward spiral ensues.

Of course it is highly desirable that those who choose to work in community development undergo learning and development opportunities.  But this learning should be firmly rooted in active, experiential, participatory styles based in community settings. 

One of the earlier models developed within community development settings was that of the Action-Reflection model of learning and practise.

The model simply suggests that following analysis, we act.  But that is not the end.  Action-Reflection says that after we have acted, we analyse and reflect on what happened, what the effects or outcome was.  By doing this we learn what went well, what went badly, what more we need to take into consideration.  With this new understanding it is now possible to plan our next action.  The cycle then repeats, and continues to repeat. (see diagram)

A key element of the Action-Reflection model is that of learning from experience.  The maxim of “learning from experience” is often bandied about, without too much thought.  Action-Reflection, however, notes that we do not necessarily learn anything just by having an experience.  The experience must be actively, consciously, reflected on.  It is the active questioning of the experience that allows for the learning to take place.  We must actively ask ourselves: what did we learn from this experience?

Having a degree in community development may be required by many employers, but having the ability to consciously reflect on experience, in participation with the community itself, is of far greater benefit to the community.  Ultimately it is also of greater benefit to the community development worker themselves.

Learning From Experience

Myles Horton

In 1986 I had the good fortune to meet and attend a talk by Myles Horton, then 81 years old.  Even at that venerable age he beamed and smiled with bright and twinkling eyes.

Myles Horton was one of the most effective and influential community educators the world has seen.  Horton had studied theology but discovered that oppressed peoples needs went beyond those of religion.  People wanted to make sense of their lives, understand their environment and learn how to make changes for the good.

Horton became an educator – but not a traditional one.  He decided, much like Paulo Freire (with whom he had a friendship), to begin with peoples’ own stories.  He went on to establish the Highlander Research and Education Centre in his native Tennessee.  One of his pupils, Rosa Parks, went on to spark the Montgomery Bus Boycott and thus play an important role in the American Civil Rights Movement.

Back to the story of attending a talk by this remarkable man.  In a room of about 60 people Myles spoke engagingly.  Halfway through his talk he stunned me with these words:

“You know, people say that we learn from our experiences.  I say that we don’t.  We only learn from the experiences we learn from.”

What on earth was he saying?  Was it just hyperbole?  As he spoke further I began to understand his meaning.

Of course – we don’t learn just because we’ve had an experience.  Otherwise why would we often repeat bad or misguided experiences?  Horton was saying that in order to learn from our experiences we had to do so in a conscious manner.  In other words, we must ask ourselves: what did I learn from this experience?  Then we have to be open to what that critical enquiry is really telling us.

The skill, or art, of critical thinking must be in the toolbox of any Community Development Worker or Educator.  If community development has a goal of a more just, more equitable, more sustainable world then we must learn to reflect critically upon our experiences.

Three questions allow us to consciously reflect upon our experience:

• What happened?  (physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually)
• How did it happen?
• Why did it happen?

Today, learning from our experience is of utmost importance.  “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it” Sir Winston Churchill once quipped.  As I watch the news, with it’s reports of bombings, wars, famine and disease, it seems that we continue to repeat history.

“… people say that we learn from our experiences.  I say that we don’t.  We only learn from the experiences we learn from.”

Thank you Myles Horton. 

Myles Horton died in 1990 at the age of 84.

Headband Game

Photo: Auberon (Creative Commons)

Community Development is often very close to Community Education in it’s objectives especially when it comes to helping communities to understand the influences and expectations placed upon them.  When we participate in groups – our family, a community organisation, our local neighbourhood, our nation or even at an international level we unconsciously (sometime consciously) assign roles to others in the group.  Here is a simulation game designed to help us explore and understand the dynamics of role expectations.  I first came across this game in the 1970s.

This works well with a group of around 12-15 participants.  Ahead of time the facilitator prepares sufficient headbands made from cardboard.  Each headband has printed upon it (felt pen is best) an unique role and brief explanation of how other participants should react to that role.  For example, the headbands could be:

• EXPERT.  Ask my advice.
• COMEDIAN. Laugh at me.
• V.I.P.  Defer to me.
• INSIGNIFICANT PERSON.  Ignore me.
• HELPLESS.  Give me assistance.
• FOOLISH.  Dismiss me.
• BULLY.  Back down from me.
• BOSS.  Obey me.
• etc., etc.

The roles could be written for a specific setting.  For example, suppose you (the facilitator) are working with a group working with homeless people.  Then you might have: HOMELESS PERSON, ADMINISTRATOR, FUNDER, POLITICIAN, CLERGY, REPORTER etc., with appropriate brief explanations.

When everyone is assembled the facilitator places an headband upon each participant so that they cannot read it but so that others can easily do so.  A topic for discussion is then introduced (e.g. providing lodgings for people on the street).  Each person is told to interact with others naturally – i.e. not role-playing.

The other participants are to react to others according to what is on that persons headband.  They are not to tell people what is on their headband though. 

Allow the discussion to proceed for around 20 minutes and then stop the discussion.  Participants are then asked to guess what is on each of their headbands and then take them off to read them.

Discussion can then take place around the experiences that participants had in the game.  Some possible prompt questions include:

• What were some of the pressures experienced when trying to be yourself, yet subject to role expectation?
• How did it feel to be misinterpreted?
• Did the way you interacted change because of the role expectations of others?
• How significant is role expectation within society?

Make sure that participants adequately debrief and do not take on the persona of the headband that they were assigned.

Can Community Development Save Us?

Society is unhealthy.  We are ill.  We suffer from debilitating inequality, global terrorism, wars, malnutrition, mistrust and doubt.  Our environments are filling with CO₂  emissions, spilt oil and toxins.  World-wide we demand greater transparency and accountability from our elected leaders, yet we trust them less and less.

We need professional intervention.  Which of the many professions can we look to?  The political or legal profession?  Both are too enamoured with an adversarial approach.  Business and financial leaders?  The last couple of years should shy us off that road.  Academia perhaps?  Certainly academics have supplied us with compelling analysis and information, but lack the capacity to translate that into a common vocabulary or action.  Perhaps professionals from within the sporting or musical arenas can inspire us?  Notwithstanding the worthy efforts of the likes of Bono or Sir Bob Geldof, celebrities have not been able to initiate widespread change beyond big-scale, high-profile events that come and go like, well - pop songs.

The profession of Community Development has many attributes going for it that other professions do not.  Community Development professionals:

• Attempt to work in a consensus model, respecting the contributions of all.
• Seek to empower people no matter what their status.
• Espouse a vision of equity, social justice, respect and diversity.
• Understand the connections between people and their environment.
• Work in an holistic manner.
• Take a bottom-up, rather than top-down approach.
• Realise that community development requires a long-term, sustainable strategy.
• Recognise that in order to solve many of our problems, we need to look for underlying causes and not just treat symptoms.
• Understand the need to have a big picture, yet are able to work at a local level.
• Reject the notion of the “expert” and put their faith in the collective wisdom of local communities.

Of course, the political and legal professions may embody some of these attributes, as also do some business and financial leaders.  My contention is that, community development may be one of the only professions that can lay claim to espousing all of these attributes, and this is what gives the profession of Community Development an unique place in the future of humanity and the earth.

Let us not get complacent however.  Professionals acting within a community development framework have some serious work and thinking to do.  To help guide us through the many and complex issues facing humanity over the coming decades community development practitioners must think about:

• Becoming community educators, enabling communities to understand the forces at work in society that have shaped our predicaments.
• Furthermore, helping communities to understand that global forces are having serious impacts upon local lifestyles and vice versa.
• Enabling communities to understand that climate change and environmental breakdown will impact seriously on the lifestyles that we have become used to.
• Also enabling communities to understand that corporate globalisation seriously impacts upon the wellbeing of local communities throughout the world.
• So much so that, community development/education professionals will need to understand and be able to translate the message that our current lifestyles are no longer sustainable.
• Assisting communities to become resilient in the face of possible breakdown.
• Helping communities establish alternative economies, workplaces, transport, agriculture, energy production, leisure and recreation.
• Empowering communities to discover forms of governance and public decision-making that encompass diversity and broad participation without giving rise to party politics or career politicians.

Can we do it?  Can community development professionals rise to the challenge?  Hopefully, we have not become too complacent and that we have not bought into the idea that community development is nothing more than developing communities within the current paradigm.

The role of community development professionals must be to act as change agents to help society reject its current unhealthy lifestyle and find a way of living that is sustainable, just and equitable.

Maybe the Mayans

We have less than two months.  At least that is what the doomsayers say about the coming end of the Mayan calendar.  Just four days before Christmas this year a 5,125 year long Mayan calendar cycle comes to an end.

Some predict that this heralds the end of the world.  Others say that it means that humanity will undergo a spiritual transformation.

The systems thinker, Ervin Laszlo, has used the date as a reference point to the crossroads at which humanity presently stands.  His view is that we are in a period of transition.  Transition to what?  Reflecting the conflicting predictions of the Mayan calendar believers, Laszlo suggests that we face one of two scenarios; breakdown or breakthrough.

We could breakdown and experience catastrophic natural disasters, wide-spread famines, rampant global pandemics, lingering droughts, severe flooding, serious water shortages, increasing distrust and anger.  All of which could fuel resource wars and acts of global terrorism.  In short, a breakdown of any semblance of human decency and order on a grand scale.

Or, suggests Laszlo, we could breakthrough and realise a humanity based on greater compassion, respect and mutual cooperation.  Concurrent with greater social cohesion and well-being would also come a desire for equitable, sustainable practises that would slow, halt and, eventually, turn back the detrimental effects of our growth-at-all-costs mentality of the past few centuries.

To Laszlo and others the end of the Mayan calendar could be a wake-up call that we humans need to hear.

So too could hurricanes such as Superstorm Sandy currently making headlines around the world.  Although Hurricane Sandy is a weather system and cannot be thought of as climatic in nature, many climate scientists find it difficult to track the connections between climate change and specific weather patterns, but acknowledge a link

In order for an hurricane (along with typhoons and cyclones) to form, the sea surface temperature must be warm.  Over the past few decades sea surface temperature has increased and in that time the annual number of intense storms (category 4 and 5) has nearly doubled.  Not only has the number doubled but they also make up a much larger share of all categories of storm.  In short, storms are getting more intense and bigger.

Indeed, Superstorm Sandy is the largest diameter Atlantic hurricane on record.

Another wake-up call?

A Role for Community Development

Community development workers must be amongst the first to hear those calls and respond to them.  It will increasingly become a fundamental role of the community development worker to enable communities to build resilience in the face of dawning changes.  Simultaneously, helping communities to envision a future of breakthrough will also be a key task for community development workers.

If community development workers haven’t heard or understood the thinking behind the phrase “think global, act local”, now is a time to do so.

It is time for community development workers to actively become community educators also.

Can we do it?  Can we breakthrough rather than breakdown?  Have we passed the tipping point?
Who can tell?  I’m reminded of the Chinese diplomat who, when asked what he thought of the French revolution, responded with “hmmm… too early to tell.”

It may be too early to tell.  It may (pessimistically) be too late to alter the outcome.

But it’s not too early, or too late, to act.

The Wave

Walk a mile in another person’s shoes.  A piece of counsel often heard.  It’s origin is uncertain, although there is an old aphorism of the Sioux:

"Oh Great Spirit, grant me the wisdom to walk in another's moccasins before I criticize or pass judgement."

As well as the advice to reflect before passing judgement it can also suggest recognising our differing perspectives.  Another analogy for discovering different perspectives is The Wave.¹

The Wave is a useful tool for introducing discussion about differing perspectives and getting us to recognise that where we stand makes a difference on how we perceive issues.  As such it is an handy tool in the toolbox of people working in community education or community development.

In the diagram (Diag 1) below we see four people.  One in a boat, one on shore, one standing on top of a hill overlooking the sea and one on the other side of the hill.  A wave is about to crash over the boat.  What perspective do each of these four people have on this situation?



For the person in the boat (1) the situation is critical and immanent.  In order for this person to deal with the situation they must understand a number of factors: the dynamics of waves, where to place their boat in relation to the wave and how the wave is formed in the first place.

The person on the shore (2) is able to look out and see that the person in the boat is shortly going to be in an awkward situation.  If the boat is swamped this person may be able to swim out to rescue the person from the boat or perhaps raise the alarm.  Maybe they even suggested earlier that the person in the boat not attempt to pass through the wave, or gave them advice as to how to do so safely.  However, at this moment, watching from shore, although they can see what is happening, they have little influence upon the situation.

Standing atop the overlooking hill this person (3) gazes out to sea and perhaps thinks to themselves “what a lovely pattern the breaking waves are making” (diag. 2 shows an aerial view).  If they see the boat at all, because of distance they may not understand that the person in the boat is in any danger.  On the other hand, however, because they can see the bigger picture they may be better placed to see the specific location of the reef and maybe even gaps in the reef through which the boat may be able to pass safely.  Equipped with this knowledge though it is of little use if it is not translated to the person in the boat.  At some stage the hilltop sightseer must descend at least as far as the shore.

Meanwhile, behind the hill this person (4) has no direct knowledge of the wave and in response to news may even reply with “what wave?”  It may be to our peril to ignore them though - perhaps they are a boat designer or a meteorologist.

This tool is a handy one because it allows us to:

• recognise that we all see things differently, that we have differing perspectives,
• that from these differing perspectives we gain differing knowledge,
• realise that where we stand evokes differing feelings,
• understand that our feelings may urge us to act in differing ways.

The Sioux were wise when uttering the aphorism that began this post.  All of the people in the wave analogy have differing perspectives and if we wish to understand the perspective of another then we may need to put on their moccasins and walk to where they are standing.  Together, both may then walk to an entirely different spot and view the issue through another perspective.

However, let us not forget that in the analogy above it is the person in the boat who is most at risk of suffering a calamity.

1. I first learnt of “The Wave” analogy in the early 1980s at workshops run by Filip Fanchette from the Paris-based INODEP (Ecumenical Institute for the Development of Peoples).

The Edge of Knowledge

“Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty”. How very true. A Polish-Jewish British historian of science, Jacob Bronowski, is credited with that quotation.

Just what do we know? What’s more, what don’t we know? Is it important? I think it is (but I don’t know that for a fact!). The first reason that I think that it is important to know that we don’t know is because otherwise we can fall into the trap of believing our own beliefs. From there it is easy to take the next step of believing ourselves to be experts. Another step on and we believe we have a greater knowledge or better understanding than others. The road to oppression, authoritarianism and tyranny then opens up ahead of us.

A second reason is that knowing that we don’t know is a precursor to learning. To be open to learning and the opportunity of something new we have to be prepared to admit that that we don’t know. Too often though, our decisions (personal and political) are made as if we know it all. Decision-making becomes trapped within what we know rather than looking for the questions that arise. Einstein said it well when he noted that our problems cannot be solved with the thinking that created them.

But what happens as we learn? We find that there is yet more to learn. For every question that we find an answer to it seems that dozens more questions then arise. Why is that? A simple model may help to illustrate what is happening.

Diagram 1 is a simple model of what we know. What we know is the area inside the circle. What we don’t know can then be thought of as the circumference of the circle: the edge of the circle or the edge of knowledge.

If we expand our knowledge (Diag 2) by asking questions and getting answers to them, the body of knowledge (the area of the circle) gets larger. But what happens to the circumference of that circle? It too, expands, and we now see that there is a lot more beyond the circle (Diag 3) than we first thought.

If this model is a reasonable one, then is it ever possible for us to know everything?

Perhaps rather than asking that question we might ponder whether an insight posed by Socrates twenty-five centuries ago is more apt. When it was suggested that he was the wisest man living Socrates replied that “the only true wisdom is knowing that you know nothing”.

When working for social justice and community development knowing that we know nothing may be exactly the knowledge that we need to bring with us.        

Word Development

Before I get too far in my posts it may be worth mentioning my thoughts on the meaning of development.  Those of us working towards a better or brighter future talk of community development and community education almost glibly.
Let’s stop and ask ourselves what we mean when we use these terms.  The words development and education have chequered and sometimes contradictory meanings or interpretations.  What’s more, those contradictory interpretations have significant implications for our work. 

Community development is a field awash with definitions.  Just about every text on the subject that I have read begins with a definition.  Sometimes three definitions: one for community, one for development and a combined definition for community development.  It is the word development that I wish to focus on in this post.

The common usage understanding of the term development would suggest that development begins with a situation of want, neglect or waste.  The purpose of development is then to add something in order to improve or correct the situation.

I’ll come back to the language and ideas of development in a moment.  First though, I want to take a trip into the use of the term education.  Community education is often employed alongside community development.

Ask people what they mean by the word educate.  Mostly you’ll get answers of: instilling knowledge, teaching skills, passing on the culture or similar.

Again, the idea of adding to, improving upon.  Indeed, if we think of educating young people we can get an image of a young person’s head with ideas, skills, knowledge and formulae being crammed into it.

So, both development and education have this common usage concept of adding to and/or improving upon at the base of their meanings.  There’s nothing wrong with adding to or improving upon.  But, we might want to beware that thinking of these terms strictly in this way can blind us to their truly liberating possibilities.

ROOTS OF DEVELOPMENT AND EDUCATION

Its ironic to consider that the word develop has itself developed over time in the sense that it has changed, adapted and taken on a somewhat different meaning.

Etymology is the study of the derivation of words.  Where do they come from,what has been their meaning?  Almost like a word family tree.  Develop has derived from the French word développer, itself emerging from an Old French word of the 12th Century – voloper and the prefix – des.  Voloper meant “to wrap up” and des is a prefix expressing the opposite.  Think of the English prefixes de and dis.  Thus, we get des-voloper – to unwrap, unfold.

The English word envelope has the same etymology.  Think of what we do when we envelope something?  What would de-envelope mean?

So, development could be thought of as a process of unwrapping, unfolding, or “bringing out latent possibilities”. 

Educate too, has an interesting etymology, this time from Latin.  The term comes from the words e (meaning “out”, “from” or “from within”)  and ducere  (meaning “to lead” or “to draw”).  Thus: e-ducere: to draw out. 

Hence, if we consider the etymological roots of these two terms, develop and educate, we find concepts that almost suggest the opposite to those in common usage.

With develop, rather than adding to, there is the idea of stripping away, unfolding.

With educate, rather than cramming in, there is the idea of drawing out.



Photo credit: Brian Metcalfe, flickr.com

IMPLICATIONS

And that is where I think that we can sometimes blind ourselves to empowering and liberating possibilities.  If we don’t think about the words we use and our meanings of them, if we blindly accept common usage, then our thoughts can lead our actions into doing something the very opposite of what we wish to do: to empower. 

If we begin from an understanding that development or education are about adding on and cramming in then we easily slip into an expert role whereby we know what’s best and we can plan for the development of a community or the education of people.

If, however, we think of development and education as unwrapping, unfolding, drawing out and leading out then we end up in a decidedly different relationship with those we are working with.  We end up as co-facilitators on journeys of discovery.  We end up as sometimes teacher/sometimes learner.  We begin to ask: “who is the expert here?”  It just may not be us!