by Jane Robb, Arinola Adefila, José Pablo Prado Córdova
In this series of essays, we use stories from the life experiences of the three international authors to air the pitfalls we come across while sharing knowledge and discuss how this can influence practice in higher education and what this might mean for life outside academia.
Use of language
José Pablo Prado Córdova, Tenured Professor, Department of Social Sciences and Rural Development, Faculty of Agronomy, Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala
At the risk of committing an act of discursive funambulism, I’d say that knowing that we don’t know something, opens up a crack in the mechanical obsession with certainty. The realisation of a knowledge void triggers curiosity and sets our mind in a state of enquiry. We grasp reality, concepts and even socially sanctioned ways of being in a socialisation process starting from scratch. Ignoring falseability, for instance, brings about intellectual stiffness and, in the most extreme cases, sheer fundamentalism.
Critical historians, for example, suggest a similar intellectual exercise when fathoming the connection among past, present and future, particularly within those contexts in need of radical change and where the ‘what-if’ arguments catalyse creativity and the desire of altering the status quo (Wurgaft, 2010). This boils down to making a choice between deeming reality as the inexorable consequence of linear progress or as the open-ended not-yet aspiration of transformative change (Davidson, 2021). This bold movement in considering time, in my view, resonates with the aforementioned realisation of a knowledge gap, whose materialisation turns into a triggering mechanism for intellectual curiosity and discovery. In the same vein, one can also see the need to ‘unlearn’, as it were, given the deeply seated cognitive structures regulating our subjectivity.
In a recent attempt to publish a paper on forestry and traditional knowledge, one of my reviewers inadvertently provided me with the empirical demonstration of the need to unlearn when questioning my use of the word subaltern as, to him, it sounded like a ‘sociological highly exotic term’. His academic subjectivity, it seems to me, has been shaped through a learning process where exotic and native categories interact as subaltern and hegemonic tenets in need of some unlearning. I also like to bring this discussion closer to home use the following example to nuance my argument.
I live in a Spanish-speaking country whose mixed cultural background entails a syncretic society where both Spanish- and Maya-descent traditions shape some sort of mixed-race sense of collectivity. Be that as it may, arguably the proximity to the US has left an imprint in daily culture. Birthday celebrations, for instance, provide an example of how tricky ‘unlearning’ is when normalcy becomes a stiff mindset. Most people in this country sing Happy Birthday to their loved ones in English. A few years ago, I started questioning this practice on the grounds of how Mexicans or Argentinians sing their own Spanish version of Happy Birthday. To me, this was a sheer act of cultural resistance but no one in my family circle has dared to sing along with me in Spanish because that is how things have always been. For some reason, these subjectivities are reluctant to unlearn something that they were brought up with, even if it perpetuates a subaltern sense of cultural inferiority vis-à-vis the US.
The reality principle in which these subtle dynamics play out perpetuates a sense of normalcy, where we are unable to problematize cultural asymmetries and the distorted notions of reality stemming from those. In my view, this horizon of meaning works so well that it even blocks spontaneity and intellectual curiosity making sure that the prevailing social order gets permanently internalised as the one and only desirable state of affairs.
An emancipatory stance vis-à-vis the current social order entails a human consciousness capable of dissent and willing to delve into those knowledge gaps oftentimes trivialised by mainstream academia, e.g., traditional ecological knowledge, citizen science, or participatory action-research. This also resonates with decolonial approaches to higher education insofar as subaltern perspectives help make a case about the validity and reliability of non-western ways of knowing.
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Epistemic directions in higher education – a collective summary
Current education ecosystems are increasingly trying to support lifelong and lifewide learning which integrates unlearning, ditching the traditional models of ‘sage on the stage’ teaching approaches which do not acknowledge the agency of the learner to develop knowledges beyond that which is received. Accordingly, active learning supports the enrichment of knowing, unlearning, and developing wisdom.
Though an active learning educational trajectory is complex and requires a whole new system of facilitating knowledge development, assessment and governance, the digital age is accelerating the transition to learning as a journey, rather than knowing the right response. The competencies (e.g. communication relationship, empathy, compassion, etc.) that educators focus on supporting in the digital era are dominated by artificial intelligence technologies and include the very human and personal proficiencies which will enable us to solve problems that machines (without conscience) may not have the aptitude to tackle.
Helen Keller (2012) argued that “The highest result of education is tolerance.” Tolerance is a multidimensional concept as on the one level; it demonstrates a willingness to engage curiously with the unknown and develop knowledge and understanding. On the other hand, tolerance could be unconstructively benign, almost passive; this form of “tolerating” is not enriching as it does not support holistic or transformative learning. Tolerance that encapsulates persistent biases and traditions cannot be critical, innovative or problem solving. Learning should indeed support broader tolerances which encourage learners to learn from and with others, but also challenges norms and cultures. We should seek to understand diverse epistemologies and appraise the accompanying beliefs and value judgements that underpin these, as well as the practice and identities linked to knowledges and behaviours. Active and genuine tolerance is not stagnant but always disrupting, a cyclical, lifelong mindset of continuous effort and practice (Mezirow & Taylor, 2009).
As many of us now in higher education feel the tensions between teaching, scholarship and meeting administrative demands, we may be at an important point of departure from the neoliberal norms. Both Zembylas (2023) and Churcher and Talbot (2020) note this ‘moment’ as one where the ‘politics of boredom’ that have derived from intense disenchantment with the system may drive resistance and reform. Here, we support the notion of ‘pedagogical bravery’ (Craven & Frick, 2024) in response to boredom-as-creativity that we may need as those teaching in higher education.
Unlearning: from higher education into life – our vision
Our stories cross what is considered education in a number of ways – through being a teacher, to being taught and the experiences we learn from every day by living our lives.
Seen through one facet on the face of a metaphor, ‘journeying’ depicts the never-ending progress and the need to acquire more relevant skills. Through another, journeying is a process which involves visiting many different places to gain something new from each, arriving at a juncture of new perspectives and infinite possibilities. This second conceptualisation of journeying is what we consider to represent the process of unlearning.
Unlearning can be a painful process, especially when breaking down structurally formed and embedded practices or biases (conscious or unconscious), which can be a significant early barrier to co-creating new knowledge – especially when that knowledge challenges the ‘known’ for an individual. It is this challenging of the ‘known’ that can be so terrifying – if we do not possess a ‘known’, then what are we left with? An absence of knowledge and its related social and structural status – a problem of infinite possibilities.
Here, we argue that there is no absence of knowledge when we reject and reframe what we believe to be ‘known’, and instead that this space is where an acceptance and cultivation of positivity around the idea of ‘not knowing’ comes into play.
If we were to fully embrace the concept of ‘not knowing’ as valid in westernised education and society, maybe the process of unlearning could be made easier. Maybe, we could happily inhabit the wide unknown without desperately seeking for an answer that often doesn’t exist. We might be able to stop flagellating ourselves and others for not being able to provide that answer. Maybe, it would make slipping between the known and unknown (a repetitive process of unlearning?) smoother, accepting mistakes, and removing the need to create a (sometimes misguided or fake) known from an unknown.
Or maybe, not. It might be that the right way to leave this essay is as a delightful ‘dipping of the toe’ into the deep waters of the unknown. That, rather than offering ‘solid’ recommendations for how we put our thoughts into action, we instead end with an invitation for more stories to contribute to an ongoing discussion and co-creation of what it might mean to ‘not know’ in a contemporary educational environment.
Contributors
José Pablo Prado Córdova is a tenured lecturer on social sciences and rural development at Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala. Interested in the intersection between ecology and critical theory, just been elected as board member for ActionAid International, and have published on conservation sciences, agrarian history and political ecology. Currently working on two 5-year research projects on agroecology, and social justice for Earth observation science in Guatemala. Member of the Development Studies Association in the UK and U of Edinburgh alumnus.
Jane Robb has broad-ranging theoretical and practitioner knowledge of formal education and lifelong learning, with experience in public science communication in the UK and Europe, as a qualified teacher of chemistry and geography in the UK and a qualified Forest School leader. Her PhD applied behavioural theory to understand the use of natural resources in Guatemala and her peer-reviewed publications cover science communication, citizen compliance, heritage and natural resources. At the time of writing, Jane was a Lecturer in Outdoor Learning and Biodiversity at Staffordshire University. Now, Jane is developing an independent artistic practice alongside delivering and evaluating local creative health programmes. Her situation as both an academic and a practitioner across the arts and sciences lend her a unique lens through which to view lifelong and transformative educational practices.
Arinola Adefila is a professor of Social Policy and EDI. She has an established track record as a leading transdisciplinary researcher who examines transformative learning environments, just transitions and sustainable futures. Arinola is an educational practitioner, who believes lifelong learning should transverse sociocultural learning spaces enabling collaboration, and social action that tackle wicked problems. Prof Adefila’s transdisciplinary research focuses on climate change, conflict resolution and peace partnerships; she works with practitioners, researchers and civic organisations to interrogate pathways which promote socio-cultural cohesion and transformative learning.
References
Wurgaft, B. A. (2010). The uses of walter: Walter benjamin and the counterfactual imagination. History & Theory, 49(3)
Davidson, J. (2021). A dash of pessimism? ernst bloch, radical disappointment and the militant excavation of hope. Critical Horizons, 22(4), 420-437. doi:10.1080/14409917.2021.1957364
Keller, H. (2012). Optimism Start Publishing LLC. Retrieved from https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Optimism/Helen-Keller/9781625585561
Mezirow, J., & Taylor, E. W. (2009). Transformative learning in practice: Insights from community, workplace, and higher education Jossey-Bass.
Zembylas, M. (2023). Higher education and the politics of boredom: Towards an affirmative account. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 0(0), 1-13. doi:10.1080/14767724.2023.2233451
Churcher, M., & Talbot, D. (2020). The corporatisation of education: Bureaucracy, boredom, and transformative possibilities. New Formations, 100(100-101), 28-42. doi:10.3898/NewF:100-101.03.2020
Craven, A., & Frick, L. (2024). Boredom as a basis for fostering creativity in higher education: A call for pedagogical bravery. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 61(1), 168-180. doi:10.1080/14703297.2022.2134171