Learning to learn in the moment: Working with paradox, metaphor and complexity
in professional education and practice
Dr Gillian Ruch
Division of Social Work Studies, University of Southampton.
Introduction
This short thought piece paper outlines a personal account of my journey into new
conceptual arenas that I have not, as yet, reviewed in terms of the existing literature.
Confessing, in this way, at the outset of this paper is my attempt to defend, without
becoming defensive, my explicit intention to first and foremost explore my own
understandings of the new ways of thinking I am engaging with, before examining in
more detail, and by implication being influenced by, existing ideas and thinking.
Adopting this stance immediately creates a resonance with the conference theme
and the questions posed in the conference outline about what constitutes legitimate
knowledge and why and how certain forms of knowledge are privileged and others,
such as personal, first person accounts, become marginalised.
The journey into this paper began with the publication of the report into the death
of Victoria Climbié (Department of Health, 2002). In this report two terms were
coined that have become widely used in social work contexts - respectful uncertainty
and healthy scepticism. I found them helpful phrases that unsettled professional
complacency and invited social work practitioners and academics to think differently
about approaches to practice. I am not sure what these phrases constitute, as they
are not quite paradoxes. It is, however, because of their close alignment to the
notion of paradox that I was alerted to its place in professional practice, developed
an interest in the role it serves and became curious about how it might be utilised as
a creative pedagogic device and integrated more fully into repertoires of
professional education and practice. So my first invitation in this brief outline paper
is to explore how we understand paradoxes and the function they can serve in
professional education settings.
In beginning to explore ideas relating to paradox and paradoxical thinking,
connections began to develop in my mind about how we use metaphors to make
sense of difficult cognitive concepts and affective experiences. I am curious to know
if the use of metaphor to descriptively capture what is an essentially elusive concept
–paradox – might help us understand paradoxical thinking better. So my second
invitation is to think about how we understand and utilise metaphors in our
professional practices and their relationship to paradox.
The third connected area of interest and exploration is the field of complexity
theory. As a complete novice in this field I was delighted recently, in the context of a
seminar on ‘Complexity Theory, sychoanalysis and Society’, to discover the
prevalence of paradoxical thinking within complexity theory. Indeed, one can go so
far as to suggest that paradox is an inevitable and essential dimension of complexity
theory. Therefore, my third invitation is to consider how aspects of complexity
theory, including its paradoxical dimensions and the metaphorical opportunities it
generates, can inform approaches to professional education.
As my own professional identity is in social work it is from within this professional
field that my thinking emanates. It is my hope that the inter-professional
representation of this paper’s audience will generate rich discussion about the
relevance and role of these literary conceptual devices and theoretical frameworks
in diverse professional educational and practice domains.
Before beginning to explore these literary devices as educational tools it is necessary
to briefly outline the prevailing professional context in which they might usefully
operate.
Bureaucratic Configurations of Professional Practice and Learning
The past decade has seen the emergence of increasingly bureaucratic and
prescriptive approaches to professional practice and education which are mutually
reinforcing: practice partner agencies influencing the characteristics of the
educational system in order for them to ‘produce’ the type of professional that ‘fits’
the current restrictive configurations of the practice domain; and educators,
colluding with competency-driven curricula, that ‘produce’ professional ‘technobureaucrats’ who satisfy the requirements set by the professional field. Any
explanation for these trends must take into account the wider social, political and
economic context in general and the expansion of New Public Management models
in particular. Central characteristics of these models are their privileging of
professional approaches to education and practice that firstly, diminish
understanding of human behaviour to one that is predominantly technical-national
in nature and secondly, and related to the previous point, that promote false
certainty and risk averse practices. These trends have persisted for a number of
years, despite their obvious incompatibility with the inherently and unavoidably
uncertain, risky and ambiguous nature of the human services professional domains
in which they are located and operate.
More recently there is evidence of a growing realisation within a number of the
human services professions - social work, education and nursing and midwifery – of
a worryingly visible disjuncture between the type of professional practitioner being
developed by the prevailing professional educational systems to satisfy the politically
designated role of professional practitioners and the type of professional
practitioner that is required to effectively work with the everyday actualities of
contemporary practice contexts. This disjuncture might indeed itself be understood
as a paradox i.e. more prescriptive practices are adopted in response to the
increasing recognition of complexity and uncertainty in human affairs. The growing
realisation of the significance of this disjuncture, however, is leading to a gradual
moving away from the more narrowly conceived competency models of professional
education and practice to ones which embrace a more relational stance and which
recognise the complexity of professional practice that is focussed on working with
people. Opportunities are emerging to explore more sophisticated, subtle and
flexible understandings of what constitutes appropriate education and practice. It is
in this context of shifting perspectives on professional education and practice that
my interest in paradox, metaphor and complexity theory is situated. The
unwillingness of these conceptual devices to ignore the complexities and
idiosyncracies of professional practice, or to ‘dumb them down’ into simplistic
binaries and nomothetic approaches, makes them ideally suited to the more openminded perspective that is beginning to appear.
Defining and Delineating Paradox
According to the Oxford English Dictionary the origin of the word paradox lies in the
mid 16th century (originally denoting a statement contrary to accepted opinion) and
is derived from late Latin from Greek paradoxon ‘contrary (opinion),’ neuter
adjective used as a noun, from para- ‘distinct from’ + doxa ‘opinion.’ It defines
paradox as:
 a statement or proposition that, despite sound (or apparently sound)
reasoning from acceptable premises, leads to a conclusion that seems
senseless, logically unacceptable, or self-contradictory;
 a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when
investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true : in a
paradox, he has discovered that stepping back from his job has increased the
rewards he gleans from it;
 a situation, person, or thing that combines contradictory features or
qualities : an Arizona canyon where the mingling of deciduous trees with
desertic elements of flora forms a fascinating ecological paradox.
It is this uncomfortable, but potentially creative, tension at the heart of paradox that
makes it simultaneously so appealing and frustrating. Trying to grasp and capture a
paradox seems to destroy its essence and it is in it elusive qualities that it’s power
seem to reside. My own musings on paradox have led me to connect it, not only with
complexity theory, already acknowledged above and discussed below, but with the
theoretical ideas associated with critical reflection, and more specifically the
unsettling of assumptions. Critical reflection seeks to question dominant discourses,
identify marginalised voices and open up alternative perspectives on what are often
entrenched ways of seeing the world. Paradoxical thinking, I want to suggest, plays a
similar, role in opening up new ways of approaching familiar territory through the
nonsensical, absurd juxtapositioning of seeming incompatible and contradictory
elements. Within my own professional domain I have recently begun to play - and I
think the use of the verb ‘to play’ in this context is apposite and instructive, as
paradoxical thinking invites playful engagement – with the idea of vulnerable
competence and confrontational empathy. Both of these paradoxical configurations
have arisen out of my research and partnerships with practitioners in the field of
childcare social work and in response to the challenges social workers encounter in
practising effectively.
What function do we think paradox serves?
How do we cognitively and affectively respond to paradox?
Are there ways that we can creatively embed paradoxical pedagogic practices into
our curricula?
Metaphor
The word metaphor, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is derived from the
late 15th century French métaphore, via Latin from Greek metaphora, from
metapherein ‘to transfer’. It is defined as:

a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action
to which it is not literally applicable
 a thing regarded as representative or symbolic of something else, esp.
something abstract
Use of metaphors, much like paradoxes, appears to invite playful responses in what
can sometimes feel like sterile pedagogic spaces and places. By introducing colourful
images they provide alternative ways of engaging with circumstances and
information. In some respects metaphors can create rich narratives, that can elicit
non-linear and affective, as well as cognitive, responses.
What function do we think metaphor serves?
How do we cognitively and affectively respond to metaphor?
Are there ways that we can creatively embed metaphorical pedagogic practices
into our curriculum?
Complexity Theory
To simplify complexity theory in order to summarise it into a few paragraphs is itself
somewhat paradoxical as by definition complexity theory is complex and requires a
degree of detail to be adequately grasped. That said, I’ll have a go! Complexity
theory identifies iterative patterning – fractuals- within seemingly random
sequences. Within these sequences it is unknown when something different might
happen but in professional contexts, it is this borderline transitional moment that
provides the opportunity for something new to emerge. From a complexity theory
perspective complex systems are understood to be self organising and
unpredictable. Small, intentional and unintentional changes can spontaneously occur
with disproportionately big impacts. For practitioners the challenge is to sit with that
sense of ‘not knowing’ in order to allow ‘the moment’ to arrive and evolve. Hence
one paradoxical dimension of complexity theory is that in order to do something,
one is required to do nothing. In our overly bureaucratised and prescriptively
constraining professional workplaces such an imperative is almost inconceivable and
consequently almost unbearable because of the oppositional forces such a stance
could potentially, and unwittingly, unleash.
How can the notion of fractuals – the detailed, iterative sequencing of events - in
complexity theory help us to ‘not know’?
What pedagogic strategies might be incorporated into the curriculum in order a)
to explore the ‘not knowing‘ stance in professional practice that is integral to
complexity theory and b) to address the urgent paradoxical imperative for
students to become more of a ‘human being’ through becoming less of a ‘human
doing.’