EDUCATION FOR
PRACTICE TOPICS:
9
Educating the Deliberate
Professional
By Franziska Trede and Celina McEwen
Reference for this occasional paper:
Trede, F., & McEwen, C. (2013). Educating the deliberate
professional (Occasional Paper 9). Sydney: The Education For
Practice Institute, Charles Sturt University.
ISSN 2201‐8395 (Online)
© EFPI
Contact details:
The Education For Practice Institute
Division of Student Learning
Charles Sturt University – Sydney
Locked Bag 450
Silverwater NSW 2128, Australia
http://www.csu.edu.au/efp/
[email protected]
We wish to thank the following scholars for
their contribution to robust debates about this
concept: David Boud, Lesley Cooper, Bill Green,
Joy Higgs, Monika Nerland, Mike Newman,
Janice Orrell and Rainer Winter.
The purpose of this occasional paper is to introduce the
idea of educating the deliberate professional (DP). A DP
is someone who consciously, thoughtfully and
courageously makes choices about how to act and be in
the practice world. The conduct of the DP is informed by
moral consideration of the interests and actions of self
and others. The core aspect of being a DP is questioning
of professional practice around the why, with whom and
for what purpose rather than only around the what and
how of practice.
We find it important to write about educating the DP and
the deliberateness in education for two broad reasons.
First, because the current social, economic and political
conditions have created a context within which students
are not adequately being prepared for future practice and
global citizenship. Second, with all the current emphasis
on universities preparing work-ready graduates there is a
risk that the associated curricula may fail to address the
higher and more enduring capability-enhancement goals
of stimulating creativity, fostering courage, critiquing
stifling systems and providing alternatives to the norm or
status quo.
Social, economic and political conditions
The key agenda for most public universities around the
globe today is to produce a skilled, educated and
resourceful workforce. This means that education is
becoming more and more defined by efficiency and
focused on standardised and measured outcomes.
Universities are required to deliver programs that addvalue to industry and meet governments‟ employability
agendas. Professional entry courses need to adhere to
many conditions in order to be accredited by professional
bodies. This trend only addresses the immediate needs
and short-term goals of students, governments and
industries and risks preparing students for yesterdays‟
world and not for the world and work of tomorrow and the
future.
Bauman (2005) coined the term liquid modernity. This
identifies the current conditions we live under as volatile
and constantly changing, and the social structures and
practices as liquefying before they can solidify. In liquid
times, we experience the collapse of long-term thinking,
the exclusion of minority groups, a focus on short-term
goals and a shift of the burden of liability onto the
individual. Academics, workplace learning educators and
students are not immune to the impact of this precarious
situation. Preparing students for future and emergent
professional practices thus requires preparing students
for uncertainty and rapid change.
Learning is not straight forward, nor is it a smooth
journey. As Barnett (2010, p.5) writes, “there is no stable
world of practices to which higher education could
„correspond‟ even if it so wished”. A standardised and
rational professional education curriculum does not
encourage students to critically engage with liquid times.
It does not readily advance professional practice, but
rather stifles it. Within this current political, social and
economic environment, we run the risk of educating and
cultivating unimaginative, submissive and unquestioning
educational designers, lecturers, workplace learning
educators and students. To strive and succeed in liquid
times, university education needs to incite learners to
delve into uncertainty, diversity and the many global,
ethical and moral issues that are entrenched and often
invisible in practice. Most importantly, these issues need
to be presented in a way that stimulates and raises
learners‟ levels of consciousness.
Underlying theories for educating the deliberate
professional
Our concept of the DP is grounded in practice and
education theories located within the hermeneutic and
critical traditions. Both traditions play a role in commenting
on how economic rationalism, globalisation, social media,
and the vocationalisation of academia are affecting social
conditions, and people‟s lives and identities (Winter &
Zima, 2007; Newman, 2009).
We share with Habermas (1987) an optimism and belief in
the human capacity to use reason deliberately with the
intention to pursue a just, diverse, moral and inclusive
practice. In that respect, the core concept inherent in the
DP is anchored on theoretical thought about meaning,
action and experience (Roberge, 2011). Together, these
elements are the necessary foundations for educating the
DP about the sayings, doings and relatings that constitute
professional practice. We align our hermeneutic
perspective with those of Arendt, Gadamer and Habermas
who qualified and problematised dialogical processes of
meaning making and preparation for action (Trede, Higgs
& Rothwell, 2009). Gadamer (1996, p.112) acknowledged
that interpretations and shared understanding are shaped
by tradition and culture through “our communicatively
unfolded orientations in the world”. He argued that being
situated in the world implies that we have limited
perspectives of the world. He advocated for an
engagement in deep dialogues as an approach to gaining
new understandings. Arendt (1996) claimed that
understanding is the key requisite for making up your own
mind and taking informed action. She warned that the
biggest risk to civil society was conforming to mass
opinion without understanding the consequences of one‟s
actions and inaction. Habermas (1972, 1987) cautioned
us that dialogues are influenced by interests and
motivations, and can, even unknowingly, become coerced
conversations. He concluded that the search for critical
understanding is underpinned by two contrasting
dispositions: openness and scepticism. Together these
dispositions make robust dialogue, calculated critique and
courageous action possible.
A social change agenda can be achieved by fostering
increased levels of consciousness, providing opportunities
for collective responses to exclusionary social conditions
and promoting experiences of being a thriving critical
learner (Freire 1973; Newman 2006). This change relies
on three key features of critical theory: conscientisation,
self-realisation and self-expression at individual and
collective levels. There is also an assumption that change
occurs through learning that is contextualised and based
on people's experiences. For the DP this means:
understanding experience as being subjective; adopting a
critical distance to taken-for-granted assumptions; and
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acting in a way that is based on balanced deliberations
about diverse interests and motivations.
The DP understands that practice, culture and identity
are in reciprocal relationships, where each influences and
is shaped by the others. Thus, within the context of
educating the DP, students are encouraged to use
discretion about the broader social and university
education settings that enable and hinder their
development as future professional practitioners.
Practice
The key goal for the DP is to consciously identify the
interests and intentions that underpin what people say
and do and how they relate to others. The DP
distinguishes rhetorical, polemic, hegemonic practices
from rational, creative and emancipatory practices and
makes a deliberate choice about what to say, how to act
and with whom to relate in particular practice settings.
This requires an understanding of the key dimensions of
what Bourdieu (1994) calls „fields of practice‟.
Bourdieu‟s sociology offers a useful framework to
examine human relations, interactions and transactions,
with a particular focus on social positions and actions. His
concepts of „field‟, „capital‟ and „interest‟ (Bourdieu, 1984
& 1994) are useful in unpacking the inner workings of the
time and space within which professional practices take
place. They also help us understand the explicit and
implicit as well as possible, probable and impossible
processes and changes that might be enacted by
practitioners. More specifically, his concept of „field‟ helps
us understand practice, including professional practice,
as “structured arenas of conflict” (Swartz, 1997, p. 9) or
spaces that attract human activities, events and
relationships because of a common history and a
common understanding of the rules and rewards
(Bourdieu, 1984, 1994). Thus, a professional field of
practice can be seen as a competitive environment where
colleagues strive to acquire specific resources that
enable them to act as well as provide them with certain
social recognition and status, according to particular
(although contestable) ways of doing, saying and relating.
Other dimensions of practice that professionals engage
with are the physical and material dimensions (Fenwick,
Nerland & Jensen, 2012). These include professional
tools, such as the stethoscope, computer software and
professional uniforms, and also academic tools, such as
assessment criteria and classrooms. Material and
physical dimensions of practice complement traditions
and hierarchies of professions in often powerful symbolic
ways. Also, these offer additional opportunities for
interpretation and engagement with practice (O‟Toole,
2001).
Culture
Becoming a DP cannot be realised in isolation. The DP
pays attention to traditions and norms about professional
relationships, dialogues and actions. The theory of
communicative action (Habermas 1984, 1987) is helpful
here because it postulates three ideal conditions for
participation, dialogue and reflection that lead to critical
meaning making: 1) a willingness for reason to prevail
over power; 2) a self-reflective stance; and 3) a curiosity
of otherness. Habermas developed these conditions
because he was sceptical that participation and dialogue
in themselves could lead to better outcomes, democratic
relations and emancipation. The use of the terms
„dialogue‟ and „participation‟ and the ways in which these
processes are implemented can, at times, be misleading.
There is a danger for dialogues and participation in
academic classrooms or in the workplace to be naive,
conforming or oppressive, especially when they are
conducted within taken-for-granted value frameworks and
rigid power relations, and when they are geared towards
narrowly defined assessment criteria. Without questioning
or challenging existing value frameworks and work
practices, deliberateness cannot occur.
Identity
Blending becoming and being makes professional identity
development a complex and fluid process. Developing
professional identity is a meaning making process
informed by an understanding of what is accepted as
good practice in that moment (Trede & McEwen, 2012).
Developing a deliberate professional identity includes
questioning and participatory processes that blend
personal, professional and political aspects of identity. It
requires developing one‟s:
1. Personal self: self-knowing, self-learning, selfquestioning.
2. Professional self: identification with a community
of practice, knowing others, questioning others.
3. Political self: self and others in context,
questioning systems, organisations and
frameworks.
Towards a pedagogy of deliberateness
The pedagogy of deliberateness provides a framework
where: students are seen as citizens, academics are seen
as autonomous professionals who facilitate learning and
change, and workplace learning educators are seen as
critical practitioners. This pedagogy is characterised by
the development of a range of dispositions and is realised
through an interwoven web of activities. These include
strategic questioning, being curious and not afraid to
question self, articulating the invisible, purposefully
engaging with motivations, critical dialoguing, taking
informed risks, acting collectively and critically appraising
action and their consequences.
The pedagogy of deliberateness is a teaching approach
underpinned by an understanding of professional practice
as socially, culturally and historically constructed sayings,
doings and relatings. It equips students with skills and the
capacity for ongoing learning and improvement. It also
provides a framework for self-assessment and imagining
other possibilities. Finally, it prepares students to make
change happen and to solve elements of conflicts and
contradictions within their everyday practice.
Educating the DP requires a culture of listening
underpinned by acceptance and tolerance. This listening
culture is further underpinned by reflection and critique
within a democratic learning environment. It also requires
nurturing students‟ capacity to take responsibility for their
own learning and actions in order to reconcile learner
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autonomy (the personal) with social interdependencies
(the situational).
To educate the DP, therefore, draws on the following
three pedagogical concepts: 1) critical consciousness
raising; 2) autonomy and self-directed learning; and 3)
critical thinking. In Freire‟s writing (1973) consciousness
raising is a collective dialogical process that leads to
change, such as learners having greater control over
their everyday lives or creating new realities. Autonomy
and self-directed learning reminds us that learners have a
self-concept with developed principles (Candy, 1991).
Developing critical thinking skills is about “getting
students […] to recognize and question, the assumptions
that determine how knowledge in that discipline is
recognized as legitimate” (Brookfield, 2012, p.28). As
Brookfield argues, developing critical thinking is about
connecting it to moral action. Critical thinking in the DP
framework means thinking for self and with others, and
not allowing others to think for us. It means, in the first
instance, questioning the traditions and motivations that
shape practices, which then leads to action through
participating in shaping other possibilities for future
practices.
Limitations
Deliberateness and its questioning quality should be
treated cautiously. We are aware that becoming
deliberate might place students and practitioners at risk
of being isolated and/or excluded from participating in
education and professional practice. Educating the DP
can be criticised, because it is confronting and
challenging to ask students to be sceptical and
questioning at times when they are newcomers in their
professional practice. Being deliberate needs to be
strategically timed and based on the recognition of its
consequences on learning, teaching and assessing. For
this reason, we believe that integrating the qualities of the
DP early in curriculum is better than postponing critical
thinking and questioning, because choosing the latter
means setting the scene for marginalising the DP and for
students to learn that critical thinking is a core part of
their practice.
Teachers, mentors and supervisors, particularly in their
role as assessors, require appreciation and training in the
pedagogy of deliberateness. This means taking on the
role of mediators and working with and through themes
emerging in the personal-political, personal-situational,
and self-others spheres.
Conclusion
A DP is aware of complex relational dimensions in
practice that shape the way professionals think, talk and
relate to self, others and the wider context around them.
As a result, they behave thoughtfully and courageously.
Deliberateness is not about disavowing accepted
practices, but rather about acknowledging and
appreciating as well as critiquing traditions in order to
enrich and improve given conditions. It is about opening
spaces that allow novice as well as expert professionals
to take ownership of their practice within uncertain and
rapidly changing times.
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