Tackling Risk

A Field Guide to Risk and Learning

Dr Robert Long and Roy Fitzgerald

Contents
Forewords............................................................................................................................... viii
Introduction.............................................................................................................................. xi
Acknowledgements.................................................................................................................. xii
What This Book Is About........................................................................................................ xii
What is a Field Guide?............................................................................................................xiv
A Risky Philosophy..................................................................................................................xv
Learning and the Unconscious .............................................................................................. 10
The Mystery of Motivation...................................................................................................... 12
The Psychology of Goals.......................................................................................................... 15
Who is an Educated Person?................................................................................................... 19
The Non-Sense of ‘Machine Learning’.................................................................................... 24
Workshop Questions............................................................................................................... 28
Transition................................................................................................................................. 28
Schooling is not Education...................................................................................................... 30
Critical Issues in Learning and Tackling Risk......................................................................... 32
Workshop Questions............................................................................................................... 77
Transition................................................................................................................................. 77
The Nature of Learning Climates............................................................................................ 80
Situated Learning.................................................................................................................... 84
Learning Through Immersion.................................................................................................. 85
Learning Through Community................................................................................................ 86
Learning Practice..................................................................................................................... 90
Practical Essentials in Learning............................................................................................... 90
Service Learning...................................................................................................................... 91
Experiential Learning Strategies in Training........................................................................... 93
Micro-Training (Teaching).................................................................................................... 100
Semiotic Walks...................................................................................................................... 101
Workshop Questions............................................................................................................. 103
Transition............................................................................................................................... 103
The Social Psychology of Risk Body of Knowledge............................................................... 107
A History of Semiotics.......................................................................................................... 118
Elements of Visualisation...................................................................................................... 137
A Field Guide to Praxis......................................................................................................... 149
Framing Challenges in Education, Learning and Risk.......................................................... 154
The Current Challenges for Risk and Curriculum................................................................. 154
What is Curriculum?............................................................................................................. 156
How to Construct a Curriculum............................................................................................ 158
Behaviour Management......................................................................................................... 160
The Ten D’s of Strategic Behaviour Management................................................................. 161
Critical Thinking.................................................................................................................... 167
A Deeper Understanding of Cognitve Dissonance................................................................ 171
The Social Psychology of Conversion.................................................................................... 175
Conclusions and Close........................................................................................................... 180
Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 183
The Authors........................................................................................................................... 200

iv Tackling Risk
 Further Research and Study................................................................................................... 202
Programs and Resources........................................................................................................ 202

Introduction v
Forewords
During my career I have built a range of leadership tools from the base of formal training
but more importantly many years of practical application. Each time I used this tool kit I
refined my approach based on the effectiveness of application and feedback from the people
I worked with.
However it wasn’t until I was introduced to Doctor Robert Long that I was really able
to satisfy many of the questions that I had. Rob was able to translate highly technical
academic information into practical useful tools for our business based on his many years of
application and client feedback.
Rob has been part of our business for the past five years and through his guidance we have
seen amazing results. Our employees speak and think differently, we engage with each other
at another level and the knowledge we have learnt has become part of the fabric of our daily
operational business.
I am excited to be able to provide this foreword for you the reader as I know that the
information within this book will change the way you may perceive risk and safety.
Damian Ziebarth
General Manager Operations
Queensland Sugar Limited

I have known Rob for over ten years and Roy for five years and I am so glad that they have
combined their many years of knowledge into an insightful book on learning and risk. As
you read through this book you will see that it is not a theory book but a very practical
piece which we have been implementing within our business for the past 5 years with
extraordinary results.
I first met Rob when I was involved in high-risk work for a global chemicals company and
found his message refreshing and different. What he said resonated with my mindset that
was not anchored in a rationalist space but how humans make decisions and recognition of
the influence our unconscious has. I really enjoyed his approach on tackling and developing
risk maturity in people.
I had an interesting and broad approach to finding my career however my first formal
qualification was in commercial design with a passion for semiotics and how signs and
symbols communicate consciously and unconsciously. There seemed to be a void in Australia
on the discipline of semiotics within organisations and when I came across Rob’s work
in this area it aligned completely to what I had been taught and practicing from my early
days within design. Unfortunately there is still not an association for Semiotics in Australia
and we are forced to travel abroad to learn more on this foundational topic that helps
explain why humans warm to certain things and how we make choices in our daily lives. A
knowledge of semiotics was foundational in marketing and advertising and I was surprised
when I transitioned into a role in management and leadership in risk and safety that there
was nothing about this subject.

vi Tackling Risk
In 2016 I completed my Graduate Diploma in the Social Psychology of Risk under Rob’s
guidance. This is also where I met Roy. Roy too is an educationalist and we connected
instantly because of all his semiotic work through his unique methodology. Roy’s work
globally speaks volumes for his insight into learning and risk. His tools are also very practical
and can be applied immediately.
As you read through the book I hope you learn more about the challenges of understanding
how humans ‘tackle’ risk. Gone are the days when we consider the challenges of risk as some
paperwork exercise, a simple problem of ‘checklisting’. We know that excessive paperwork
just makes the process of tackling risk more elusive; the old ‘tick and flick’ rules supreme. To
really help people understand and tackle risk effectively we need to better understand the
risk making and decision making process.
My studies in the Social Psychology of Risk has really helped transform the way we tackle
risk in my organization. If you were to visit and walk about and listen you will hear a whole
new language and semiotic about how we understand and practically tackle risk. We have
transformed the old view of risk and safety into a new and more relevant dynamic that
actually works, and this is where this field guide may help you. Yes, there are a few spots in
this book, as in previous books, that are a little academic but we need this challenge, we need
to be placed into dissonance to learn. If the academic material is not your thing then you will
certainly engage with the stories and semiotics/graphics in this book.
I recommend this book to you (and also the previous books) as a source of inspiration
and motivation to engage in a more sophisticated way in thinking and practicing risk. As
the sub-title states, this is a book about learning. We have nothing to fear about learning,
growing and maturing, it is the energy of living.
Hamish Hancox
Manager Operational Risk and Leadership
Queensland Sugar Limited
__________________________________________________________________________

Contact Websites
Rob - www.humandymensions.com; cllr.com.au
Roy - www.metadymensions.com

Contact Phone and email

Rob - +61 (0) 424547115; email: rob@humandymensions.com
Roy - +61 (0) 419912248; email: roy@metadymensions.com

Introduction vii
Introduction
Welcome to the sixth book in the series on The Social Psychology of Risk (SPoR). Dr Rob
Long has teamed up with Roy Fitzgerald to explore the challenges of Tackling Risk and
Learning. Both Rob and Roy have extensive experience in learning and education including
tackling risk in: schools, higher education, workplace training, leadership, risk intelligence
education and executive critical thinking. They have international experience for the
planning and design of learning and education programmes for small and very large groups.
They have worked with government, non-government and community organisations and
many other sectors of industry, which includes manufacturing, buiulding and construction,
remote mining, oil and gas, logistics, operations and maintenance divisions.
This is the fourth book using a collaborative approach to authorship, which in itself is
intended to exemplify a central theme in learning philosophy. Collaboration is foundational
to a SOCIAL Psychology of Risk, an approach that takes seriously Martin Buber’s i-thou.
There is no real education or learning that is not social, nor is there any sense in which
an educational philosophy can be individualistic. Just as tackling risk and developing
risk intelligence is for ‘social good’, learning and education is also for the ‘upbuilding’ of
community, society and collective well being. It is through learning and education we
develop social maturity and the shaping of personhood. This is the meaning and purpose of
education and learning. It is the nature of propaganda, indoctrination, power discourse and
fundamentalism to exploit, dehumanise, control and to manipulate; and these cannot be
‘educative’.
Whilst there are strong links to other books in the series, this book can also be read as a
stand-alone. However, an understanding of the Social Psychology of Risk gleaned from
previous books will assist in getting the most from reading this book.

Dedication
This book is especially dedicated to our dear friend and fellow traveller in life-long learning
and risk - Max Geyer. Max joined the journey in the Social Psychology of Risk with
two-dozen others in 2014 when the Programme was first conducted at the Australian
Catholic University, in Canberra.
Those who meet Max are instantly infected by his positivity, happiness and love for others. It
is nothing to be with Max and watch him break into tears as he talks about the people who
are dear to him. He understands what matters and has little time for the love of objects over
subjects. Max hasn’t done an education degree but he is a teacher, he has no Community
Services degree but knows all about caring and helping. His passion for learning through
relationships, love and community is infectious.
At the time of writing this book Max took ill, spent some time in hospital and is currently
convalescing at home; and so this dedication is to Max. Many a time has been spent in Rob’s
study with Max who always shows up for coaching and learning with gifts of rare wine to
enjoy and savour after a day of discussion, questions and laughter. This book is a prayer for
Max, Sylvia and family.

viii Tackling Risk

Acknowledgements
A big thanks to Roy and Julie who have done the painstaking work of editing this book, as
well as the many discussions on learning and tackling risk, the short field-trips and semiotic
walks with Roy and for contributions on specific chapters and ideas.
To Roy’s daughter Niobe, a first year BSc Psychology student, a special thank you for
your support and understanding during the many times spent apart; and to Julie for the
inspiration and tireless encouragement for the work we do in tackling risk and assisting
others in education and learning.
To Rob’s daughters Kerrie who is in her final year of Teacher Education, and Jenni in her
final year of Nursing Education, may this book confirm our many conversations. A special
thanks to Helen, Rick and Josh for your support.

What This Book Is About

When Josh and Rob considered writing the first book they were tempted not to call it Risk
Makes Sense but rather, Learning Makes Sense. They were not sure if it would have been
as successful: as everyone considers them-self as an expert in learning. There is no living
without learning just as there is no learning without risk. In one sense we are all experts
in learning if we embrace risk; but in another sense we are not experts in learning. Not
many step back and analyse their experiences and meta-learning, which goes beyond to
the method and philosophy of learning. This book seeks to explore meta-learning and its
dynamics in relation to a Social Psychology of Risk.
I must say it has been such a delight to meet Roy and get to know him and his family. It was
through a unique connection with his brother David and Roy’s Post Grad studies with me
in Social Psychology of Risk. Roy is one of those humble guys who quietly goes about his
work as an educator, facilitator and thinker, enabling executives and leaders to better think,
plan and design ‘visual’ learning and risk forums. Roy does so much work overseas and yet
not many know of his work here in Australia. I hope this book might change that. His work
with Visualisation was certainly new to me at the time we met, but I am so glad we are
working together now as we share such a similar vision for learning and risk.
Why write such a book on learning and tackling risk?
It is simply because many parts of the wider community and most industry sectors don’t
talk about learning and risk. The notion of education and learning within these sectors is
known more for parroting in training and indoctrination; rather than open trans-disciplinary
learning. There is seemingly a fixation on objects, numerics and mechanics, not the learning
of subjects. This book seeks to address this issue by making humans-in-learning ‘known’ to
the discourse in risk.
Why have we used the word ‘tackle’ in the title of this book?
The challenges for the community and industry to deal with risk are not just complex
problems; they are ‘Wicked Problems’. Wicked Problems have been discussed extensively in

Introduction ix
previous books. In the face of a Wicked Problem there is no possibility of ‘taming’, ‘solving’
or ‘fixing’ situations. Wicked Problems are intractable, messy and for every action there is
always a trade-off and complex by-product. What appear to be solutions usually result in
greater alienation and necessity, creating a paradox. For example, risk aversion mitigates
learning by making a group or individuals who are less experienced more ‘fragile’. This
fragility leads to greater risk. Sometimes we seek technical solutions only to pay the price in
depersonalised processes and alienation in meaning and purpose in work.
Does this mean we give up if risk is a paradox when something contradicts what we want to
do or is it seemingly unacceptable to proceed? Of course not, because we can always ‘tackle’
a problem and make improvements, adjustments and alleviate aspects of the problem rather
than just step back and let the problem evolve. Most of all, the process of ‘tackling’ is all
about the movement of learning. The challenge is determining, maintaining and sustaining
the trajectory of humanising, against the forces that dehumanise in the name of control and
compliance. The challenge is to make humans ‘known’ to the discourse of risk and to claim a
place for people amongst the ideology of objects.
We have used the tackling metaphor to conjure up ideas informed by sport such as blocking,
charging, checking, holding and bringing someone down; but this is only limited attribution
giving meaning to the word ‘tackle’. In this book the word ‘tackle’ means to ‘take hold of ’,
to ‘grapple with’, ‘to struggle with’ and to ‘strategically engage’. We cannot tackle something
if we don’t understand, cannot ‘see’ or perceive it. The tackling metaphor is intended to stir
up the essential need for change and movement in education and learning. This is why the
notions of dialectic, technique and a triarchic dynamic are discussed in this book. Unless we
focus on moving the discourse of risk away from binary dynamics to more open and flowing
dynamics, education and learning will remain foreign territory.
The tackling metaphor is most associated with ‘Wicked Problems’ where the language of
‘taming’ and ‘tackling’ are held in juxtaposition e.g. Brown, Harris & Russel, (2010) Tackling
Wicked Problems: Through the Transdisciplinary Imagination. A focus on tackling learning
is also a focus on maturation. Learning is neither ‘fast or slow’ as Kahneman supposes but
rather everything in between. A Social Psychology of Risk understands the human mind as
Fast-Slow, with an emphasis on the hyphen as the necessary triarchic tension and dialectic
where social forces and contradictions need further enquiry. Learning is all about the
‘movement between’ and learning maturation, which is rarely quick, or easy. Humans don’t
just ‘arrive’ but are always journeying, always fallible, always maturing in face of the seduction
of perfection and utopias.
It is also important to grapple with Wicked Problems with suitable methods and a sound
methodology. When it comes to complexity and ‘Wickedity’, simple training will not suffice.
Risk cannot be ‘tamed’, it can never be ‘fixed’. What is needed to tackle Wicked Problems is
a transdisciplinary and ‘open’ approach to education and learning. This is the approach taken
by Julia Sloan (Learning to Think Strategically) and comments:
Executives, consultants, and executive development professionals have succumbed
to the business culture myth of simple and short with regard to strategy thinking,
seeking a quick how-to approach for even the most complex of problems. Our

x Tackling Risk
 unchallenged mantra is fast, faster, fastest equals good, better, best. The lure of the
myth has enticed us to deny or ignore the complexity, ambiguity, paradoxes, and
contradictions that are inherent in the learning process required to think strategically.
As Senge et. al. (Schools That Learn) reminds us, learning and maturation is best served by the
metaphor of ‘the dance’ rather than the metaphor of ‘banking’ by Freire (Cultural Action for
Freedom). Tackling risk has more in common with the tango than the mechanics of deposits
and withdrawals. Metaphors of certainty and control simply don’t capture the paradox,
uncertainty and faith required to tackle risk and learning. We need not be afraid of the
dance; its beauty and flow should engage us, even though we don’t know the next step. Yes,
we make mis-steps as we learn a dance and it takes years to get the flow of the dance and
even then it is not about the technique of the dance but rather the art and emotion of the
dance. In the tango, we wait and pause and consider the next step. The tango demonstrates
to us and teaches us the validity of that moment of doubt. The dance captures the essence of
Following-Leading in Risk as a Humanising Dynamic.
People often ask what is the underlying philosophy and whilst it would be easy to give this
a name Rob prefers ‘existential dialectic’ but this would in no way do it justice. The Body of
Knowledge depicted in Chapter 4 of this book provides some idea of the complexity of the
philosophy of The Social Psychology of Risk; but essentially it involves a community and
person-centred hermeneutic as an interpretation of life and text. This means the focus of
learning must be social and people-centred and that object-centredness must be rejected as a
discourse for dehumanising, de-personalising and on a trajectory, which is mis-educative.
There is a limit to what we can put forward in a book and in many places we have knowingly
skipped over concepts and simply highlighted them in bold text. These are for you to
investigate and discover, research or postpone for another time. We have tried to keep a
balance between academic expressions, ideas, stories, graphics and practical tips. This book
is a combination of all of these. If anything, it is a generalist scan of all that is available for
those seeking a new way of tackling risk.

What is a Field Guide?

Some may understand the idea of a ‘field guide’ as a ‘how to’ book and others as a resource
available to help ‘identify’ and ‘guide’ understanding of something. The latter sense is the
approach we have decided to take; and it is the purpose of this field-guide to help managers and
leaders in the community and in sectors of industry to better identify the nature of education
and learning with respect to tackling risk. It is also a book of ‘meta-learning’, id est, learning-
about-learning and to go beyond single and double loop learning for its application to risk.
The nature of training in small and the largest of organisations is such that the need to
establish understanding about learning and education seems to be accepted as unnecessary.
Many industries misunderstand training as education and learning. This is evidenced by
current practices for workplace inductions, training and approaches to knowledge transfer. It
seems to be that the idea of education and learning is confused for schooling, which can be left
to educators and other disciplines; where all we need to deal with risk is a checklist.

Introduction xi
Education and learning are mostly foreign territory for tackling risk in both the community
and industry sectors. There is next to nothing in training or in any courses for a training and
assessment qualification that has a mature approach to education and learning. Hence the
perceived need for this book.
This is not a book about trouble shooting or a ‘how to’ guide. It is a book about education,
learning and risk with the praxis, as the enacted theory, of the risk / learning paradox. There
can be no learning without risk.

A Risky Philosophy
In some ways this book is a Philosophy of education and learning, which involves some risk
of ‘movement’ to discussion of philosophical concepts. In past books the values have been
present, but we have not ventured into a specific philosophical discourse because this makes
the book less appealing and more difficult to read for some people. Venturing into a discourse
in philosophy is a risk we had to take.
So, some new concepts that are critical to a Social Psychology of Risk have been articulated
at a deeper and more philosophical level in this book. This is why a chapter at the end of the
book is committed to a glossary. Evenso, the concepts discussed in this book are not new and
are embedded in the work of previous books but were not discussed explicitly. For this reason,
some of the concepts introduced in more detail in this book are:

• Archetypes.
• Dialectic.
• Hidden Curriculum.
• Meta-Learning.
• Personhood.
• Praxis.
• Semiotics and Visual Learning.
• Technique.
• Triarchic Thinking.
• Wickedity.

These concepts are crucial for understanding a theory of learning and education in a Social
Psychology of Risk. We trust the words themselves do not become a block to your reading and
that the stories and graphics that are included will help you navigate through the tough bits.

xii Tackling Risk

Bold Highlighted Text
Any words highlighted in bold text throughout the book designate critical concepts for
education, learning and risk. Whilst a comprehensive Glossary is provided at Chapter 6, it is
assumed the reader will further research such key ideas or already have an understanding of
such concepts. For the purpose of this book, each highlighted concept will not be explored
or footnoted so as to maintain the flow of the narrative.
Some key concepts are reinforced through the use of semiotics from previous books in
the series.

Structure and Use of the Book

This book is structured in two parts.

Section One: Learning, Knowing and Signalling Risk

This section sets out a discussion on education and learning fundamentals as a foundation
for understanding the structure of risk and risk intelligence. Chapter 1 explores ‘modes’ of
learning, motivation and psychology of goals. The critical issues of personhood and learning
are discussed with regard to the erroneous idea of ‘machine learning’. Chapter 2 explores an
overview of research about learning, including the notion of ‘education’. The critical issue
of ‘dialectic’, ‘indoctrination’, ‘pedagogy’ and ‘technique’ are discussed. Chapter 3 looks at
experiential learning, immersion, play and learning climates. Three experiential learning
activities are provided as examples and the section concludes with a discussion of micro-
training and semiotic experiences.

Section Two: Meta-Learning

This section concentrates on the nature and use of visual learning with a special emphasis on
the philosophy and practice of meta-learning using visualisation methods.

The Meaning of Icons

There are three icons at the base of the book cover and each page. These signify a focus on
Risk, Wickedity and Dialogue. The dice remind us that risk is about faith in the face of
uncertainty and trust that our movements in risk will be reliable. The celtic knot signifies
a never ending triarchic flow of one into three and three into one, a dialectic dance that
knows no end. The knot poses a wicked problem which canot be ‘fixed’ as the web of flow of
learning and risk intertwine into one. Wickedity can only be tackled, hence the title of the
book. The third icon signifies the importance of dialogue between the binary black and white
and polarities of binary thinking. It is in dialogue that we develop praxis and learning, in
listening, conversing and visualising risk. The icons form a semiotic framework for the book
and an iconic rationale for understanding.

Introduction xiii
xiv Tackling Risk
SECTION
ONE
Learning, Knowing and
Signalling Risk
CHAPTER 1
Learning, the Flip Side of Risk 1
The ‘humanism’ of the ‘banking’ approach masks the effort to turn men into
automatons - the very negation of their ontological vocation to be more fully
human. Freire - Pedagogy of the Oppressed

But why assume that sensation and rationality are the only points of
correspondence between the human self and the world? Parker J. Palmer -
To Know as We are Known

Learning to Risk
What’s Under the Bonnet
My eldest brother Bruce ran Long Tiling Company in Adelaide for thirty years and
I worked for him two days a week. It was my first year of University, back then called
a College of Advanced Education (CAE). I had just left Marion High School after
jumping a year and had turned seventeen years of age. I had my vehicle driver’s licence
for a year, was on the lookout for a car and was working towards getting an ‘old bomb’
but thought that was some time away. I had also been working (cleaning) after school
three nights a week in a mechanics workshop on the corner of South Road and Daws
Road (long before they built the over pass).
It was 1971 and my first year at Bedford Park Teachers’ College. Back then we
were ‘bonded students’ which meant we received a small allowance to study under
a contract to go wherever we could be ‘posted’ at the end of our third year of study.
This meant we could be ‘posted’ anywhere in South Australia from Nungicompeta
to Mount Gambier and from Ceduna to Leigh Creek. If the bond was broken the

Chapter 1: Learning, the Flip Side of Risk 1

 study fees had to be paid back. As it happens after three years my first posting was to
Lucindale in the South East of South Australia to an ‘Area School’. But I’m getting
ahead of the story.
I started to work with my brother Bruce a few days each week to supplement my
student teacher allowance. It was experience where I learnt a trade and managed to
save for my first car. One day we were working on a block of flats when I saw an FJ
Holden for sale in the driveway of a house beside the job. The FJ was a 1954 model,
the same year I was born, two tone blue with ‘spats’, roof racks and needed a paint job.
The price was $50 and a bargain at that. It blew a little smoke (oil) but that was OK
according to Bruce. The price of petrol back then was twenty-eight cents a gallon (or
eight cents a litre) and oil was cheap.
Knowing nothing about cars I relied on Bruce for his wise judgement and advice. I
bought the ‘J’ and was as excited as a kid in a toyshop. Bruce had heaps of experience
with cars. He had left school at the age of fourteen and played with cars in our
backyard in Epping, a suburb of Sydney, when we were kids. His first two cars were
an old Vauxhall and the other was a Vanguard. Our home in Epping had a backyard
big enough for him to drive them around in circles. Back then Epping was an outer
suburb with plenty of farm country and houses built on huge blocks of land. Bruce
was often under and learning about the cars, in the school off ‘hard knocks’. His third
car was a legend, a hotted up FJ Holden with wide mag-wheels and a metallic green
paint job, a magnet for police attention. He had his own old shed in the backyard and
worked on his car with his mates and sometimes on his own. He worked during the
day as a tiler and at night on his car. I never participated in ‘tinkering’ at the time but
was rather more interested in playing music and sports. Little did I know then that
Bruce would become my mentor and coach, in many things, including mechanics.

Picture 1. Rob with the FJ

2 Tackling Risk
 I bought the ‘J’, drove it home, showed my parents and opened up the bonnet of a car
for the first time. I had no idea what I was looking at. I bought a maintenance Manual
for the ‘J’ on the way home but relied on Bruce and his knowledge of cars. What a
great older brother he was and always so generous and patient.
I learned pretty quickly that I had purchased a ‘bomb’ that would need a valve grind, a
reconditioned ‘head’ and plenty of TLC. I learned that I had bought a six-volt car and
this would be a huge problem when I needed parts or auto electrical work. But I had
a car and was keen to learn as this would save money and give me all the mobility and
independence I craved at the age of seventeen.
When I first started driving the ‘J’ I tended to ignore the mystery of what was under
the bonnet. As long as it worked and wasn’t making too many noises, all was fine. It
did not take long before I was jolted into a new mindset by a number of breakdowns.
The breakdowns were inconvenient, like dropping the tailshaft on the corner of North
and West Terrace when a universal joint snapped. I was quickly motivated with a
passion for mechanics.
I had to learn a whole new language and system of thinking. The more I learnt about
the ‘J’; the more I began to keep spares in anticipation of troubles and this included
water, oil and a toolkit. I remember driving for the first time up to Renmark to see my
girlfriend, Helen (later to become my wife) and carrying half a mechanics workshop
in the boot. No GPS back then and got lost on the way getting out of Adelaide. I had
never driven on a country road before.
The ‘J’ soon became a form of identity with Helen and I; with each of our friends also
having ‘old bombs’. My best mate Craig bought an old Ford Prefect panel van and he
and his brother dropped a six cylinder Holden motor in it, wow did it go! My other
friends had a Mini, Austin 1800 and a VW. When we all got together it was often
conversation about friends and cars, what we learnt and what we knew.
After a year of ‘blowing smoke’ with the ‘J’ we decided to change the motor with
the help of Bruce and Craig’s brother. Not long after the engine change Helen
and I loaded the ‘J’ up to the roof to go to Lucindale, for our first year posted as
schoolteachers. The next year we were married and with a teacher’s income we bought
a much more reliable car.
In many ways the experience with the ‘J’ was a baptism in learning as well as being in my
first year of Teachers’ College. Driven by necessity and desire, I learnt not only what was
under the bonnet but a methodology of revelation, a new relationship, trust and hope and
reliance on others, not self. Learning is like that; there is so much more to learning than the
mysteries of what is under the bonnet or the ingestion of data and content.

Chapter 1: Learning, the Flip Side of Risk 3

Themes in the Book
In this brief interlude to the stories of this chapter there needs to be some discussion of
critical themes in understanding this book. In the discussion that follows, critical themes
are indicated in bold text. More detailed explanations of themes and ideas are discussed
in full in the Glossary at the back of the book. By highlighting these many themes one
immediately understands the complexity of learning and that learning is complex.
Before buying the FJ I had no idea what was under the bonnet (for Roy it was his cream
coloured 1955 Austin A40) but it would be a mistake to think that knowledge acquired
about mechanics is learning. Many confuse data, information, knowledge, indoctrination
and propaganda with learning. Learning is much more than information, just as meta-
learning (extra learning hidden in the learning process) is much more than method.
Meta-learning is the going beyond the phenomenon of learning and is more about learning-
to-learn. It is what happens in what is not obvious (under the bonnet) in learning and this
makes it distinct from training. Knowledge without change is simply information. Data
is not learning and there is no learning without risk. There is much more to learning than
knowledge acquisition rather, there is a whole process in learning (meta-learning) that
is often hidden to the learners themselves. When one studies in Teacher Education the
first thing confronted is the Philosophy of Education. The methodology (philosophy) of
education is complex and hidden and we will bring some of this to the surface, which is a
purpose of this book.
One of the mysteries of learning about the ‘J’ was understanding its parts. However, humans
are not cars even though we have biological ‘parts’. One cannot know the ‘whole’ simply
by putting together the sum of its parts, something dynamic and mysterious is lost in the
process. Also one cannot ‘know’ what the ‘whole’ is by analysis of parts (reductionism). This
is like imagining the workings of a car based upon knowledge of the dashboard. So often in
learning it is what is happening in the unseen and the unconscious that is more important
than the dashboard. This is where we need to start if we wish to better understand how
humans learn and make decisions about tackling risk.
People often confuse learning for what Freire (1972. p.46) called ‘banking’. Freire (Pedagogy
of the Oppressed) suggests that making knowledge deposits and withdrawals is not learning
and we certainly agree with him. Learning is not: schooling, training, data and curriculum
(subject content). Freire draws our attention to the politics of learning and the discourse
of learning (power embedded in methodologies of knowledge transmission) and makes it
clear that ‘narration’ or ‘telling’ is not learning. Freire calls this a characteristic of an ‘ideology
of oppression’ and demonstrates that a ‘banking’ model of education is fundamentally
‘alienating’, which is anti-human.
The ‘banking’ metaphor of Freire captures what is delusional about data transmission and
withdrawal, as if getting data in objects and extracting data is ‘knowledge’. Data extraction
is sometimes called ‘parrot learning’ but there is no learning involved. Knowledge recall is
neither comprehension nor learning. Learning is much more than deposits and withdrawals.
The binary and simplistic notion of training, banking and narration does not capture the
complexity of learning nor the importance of the unconscious in learning.

4 Tackling Risk
To illustrate these themes I will tell another story and then continue on with the discussion
of themes in this book.

A Road Accident and Learning About Many Things

At twelve-years of age I was a member of a boys’ club called The Boys’ Brigade
that met every Thursday night. The Boys’ Brigade was founded in 1883 in Scotland
combining military drill, fun and play with supposed ‘Christian values’. The stated
object of the Boys’ Brigade is ‘The advancement of Christ’s kingdom among Boys
and the promotion of habits of Obedience, Reverence, Discipline, Self-respect and all
that tends towards a true Christian manliness.’ The motto on the Brigade crest chosen
by the founder Alexander Smith is from Hebrews 6:16 ‘Sure and Steadfast’ placed
between the sign of an anchor and a cross (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. The Boys’ Brigade Crest

My best friend David didn’t really like the club because of its religious emphasis but his
older brother Peter joined. I used to walk to the church hall every Thursday with Peter and
this involved crossing Carlingford Road, which was one of the busiest roads in Epping and
Sydney. It was peak hour traffic when we crossed the road, without a pedestrian crossing
at the corner of Carlingford and Ray Roads. It was dusk and as I got to the other side on
the kerb I heard a terrible noise and as I turned saw Peter being scuttled by a car; pushed
to the side and laying on the ground. I stood there stunned, as this was one of the first
terrible accidents I had witnessed. Little did I realise not long after I would witness two road
fatalities in Epping in a matter of a few months. After some delay with police, ambulance,
shock and confusion, I wandered on to Boys’ Brigade. There was no counselling for trauma
back then; just say your prayers and go to sleep.
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,

Chapter 1: Learning, the Flip Side of Risk 5

 If I should die before I wake,
Receive my soul for Jesus sake.
This was the prayer ritual I was taught to say (like a mantra) each night and it was a
comfort in the face of death.
It seemed those few months were a flood of learning. In the past Peter and I had
always walked to Boys’ Brigade through Boronia Park, a short cut to the church.
Until one night, when I was unwell, a friend named Tom was walking alone through
the park and was sexually assaulted at the public toilets. After that we never walked
through the park and were always fearful of the park at night. A few years earlier, in
1960, the whole of Sydney had been awakened to fear at the kidnapping of Graeme
Thorne. Until then we did not lock our doors and always thought walking to school or
walking at night alone was OK.
The accident with Peter soon brought me into a courtroom, my first experience
of such and reminded me very much of the process of church. The sacred person
out front and pews of followers facing a proceeding. I was familiar with the pews,
congregation and the special person out front but was learning more about power and
language through this experience.
I doubt these days a twelve year old would be placed in the dock to give evidence but
this was the case back then. There are many things I learnt at this time, not because
I wanted to but more because of what I experienced and on reflection most of my
learning was unconscious.
My memories include witnessing two fatalities that year. One, a motorbike accident
where I saw a body zipped into a black body-bag and another, a head-on crash
involving a Mini-Minor outside my house where the head of the driver was taken off
on the rear-view mirror. Cars were not fitted with seat belts back then.
I will return to the learnings of The Boys’ Brigade later in the book (see Pictures 2 & 3) and
hidden learning, often called Hidden Curriculum, but this experience of witnessing serious
accidents and appearing in court taught me a great deal about power, authority, obedience,
respect, testimony, Semiotics (the discourse of signs, language and significance) and the
nature of learning. We will return to these themes in the middle chapters of this book.
I remember being questioned in court about the framing of words whilst in the dock (at the
age of twelve!!!) and being asked to reconsider words I used in my testimony. I had no idea
why I was being asked to change my story, change my words or clarify my perceptions but
was to learn later just how important words and symbols are to unconscious learning.
It was the same year I was baptised (immersed) into my church and it was through this
event I learnt that one form of baptism was preferred by one group over the other. I was
indoctrinated and trained to believe that one symbol was wrong and another was right. This
was what must be believed if I was to belong. I enjoyed The Boys’ Brigade experience with
the many young people and friends at church and belonging was critical for a twelve year
old. At the same time puberty was just beginning and so much was happening that places of
security and belonging took on greater significance. During this time I used to travel with

6 Tackling Risk
my father on his public speaking engagements and bonded with him much more than in the
past. I found great assurance in his confidence, conviction and passion of belief. So much
of my learning in these years was not by ‘telling’ but by ‘discovery’. Discovery is the most
powerful of all learning because it operates through the dynamic of ownership.
One of my favourite sayings is ‘there is no learning without risk’ and this emphasises the
paradox of both learning and risk. Wouldn’t it be convenient and comfortable if learning
and risk were binary (either/or) and not complex? As we will discuss later, the challenge
of risk and learning is a ‘wicked problem’. That is, like many things in life, some things are
unsolvable, intracticable and unfixable. For many things in human life there is no solution
indeed, solutions thinking doesn’t fit the complexity of being human, fallible and mortal.
This is why the title of this book is ‘Tackling Risk’ rather than ‘fixing’ or ‘taming’ risk. One
cannot ‘tame’ the ‘wickedity’ (turbulence, randomness and unpredictability) of life. Life
for fallible and mortal people is one with pain, mistakes, suffering and learning, these are
all interconnected. One can ‘tackle’ life and navigate the journey but its vast chasms of the
unknown, randomness and uncertainty aren’t something one can control. Sometimes things
can go well but in real life wheels fall off, people get sick, the seasons of life move and the
many unseen by-products of life decisions unravel. What makes one truly human is the
resilience and capability to tackle, navigate and explore life for all it offers but it can be
never ‘tamed’.
In all that we learn through life’s experiences and its many interconnected relationships,
we realise that human life is punctuated by the Butterfly Effect, one act often enacts many
by-products which we often don’t see and only in hindsight do we understand. Life is so
emergent, random, interdependent and multi-layered. That is what makes living so fulfilling
and exciting. This is essential to learning.
Now looking back to the militaristic indoctrination of The Boys’ Brigade, I realise the many
unconscious and hidden learnings were at play whilst enjoying the camaraderie and activity
of a boys’ club. I now appreciate the many hidden learnings as semiotic signs, symbols and
language I received in the church and The Boys’ Brigade that served to create belonging,
competition, Christian fundamentalism, symbolic attachment, Christian militarism (Onward
Christian Soldiers), discipline and the language of salvation (see Pictures 2 & 3).

Chapter 1: Learning, the Flip Side of Risk 7

Picture 2. An Inspection of the Boy’s brigade 1917

Picture 3. Rob on Parade (second from left, front)

8 Tackling Risk
The FJ and The Boys’ Brigade speak to us about experiential learning and how much of
learning is either ‘under the bonnet’ or hidden in symbols and signs of significance. So much
of what is underneath the surface (see Figure 2. The Unseen and Unconscious in Learning)
is what is ‘realised’ through bringing things to the surface. Often we don’t realise what we
have learnt or how we have learnt something until reflection, awareness and ‘surfacing’.
The remainder of this chapter and book will look at the nature of learning and respond to
some of the following questions: What is learning? What is motivation? How do people
learn? What is the goal of learning? Why do people learn? What is non-learning? What is
education? Are humans ‘blank slates’ to be ‘filled’? What is the difference between training
and learning? What part does culture play in learning? How is learning designed and
facilitated? What makes a learned and educated person? How is learning assessed? Can one
learn without risk? Why is risk the flip side of learning?
These questions and more guide the discussion of this field guide.

Figure 2. The Unseen and Unconscious in Learning

Chapter 1: Learning, the Flip Side of Risk 9

Learning and the Unconscious
Before we jump into the nature of learning it would be good to have a look at the
unconscious. Must we be conscious of learning in order to learn? Can our unconscious learn
and yet we not be conscious of it? What about deficit subconscious learning? What happens
when we learn in an unconscious mode? How do we explain thinking and decision making
that seems to have no learned cause? Can we know more than we can tell (Polanyi)?
There are many things humans do ‘without thinking’, Bargh (2007) calls this ‘automaticity’.
Defining the unconscious is not a task for the faint-hearted. Its existence was and is
sometimes still in doubt. One intrepid blogger, despite propagating that the unconscious
does not exist, paradoxically provides us with this enlightening definition ‘it is simply you
hiding stuff from you’. Fortunately, we have dedicated and well qualified professionals who
have made it their vocation to provide a clearer understanding of what the unconscious mind
is about. Many like Bargh (The New Unconscious), Claxton (The Wayward Mind), Robinson
(Out of Our Minds) and Mlodinow (Subliminal, How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your
Behaviour) clearly help to understand the nature of the unconscious mind.
Bargh states: ‘the unconscious processes are defined in terms of their unintentional nature
and the inherent lack of awareness of the influence and effect of the triggering stimuli
and not of the triggering stimuli’. This understanding results in regarding the unconscious
not as dumb but rather as highly intelligent. When we apply Bargh’s understanding, the
implication is that when a chain smoker sees briefly a glossy ‘Camel cigarette’ advertisement
in an inflight magazine (the triggering stimuli) the influence and the effect of seeing the
advert takes place within the smoker’s unconscious mind resulting in an effect (agitation).
Why a person is agitated may be a mystery to their conscious mind, as it had nothing to
do with the influence and the effect brought about by the advert. The same will apply if the
smoker happens to smell tobacco (triggering stimuli).
Mlodinow supports Bargh’s definition and description of how unconsciousness works. He
refers to the ‘New Unconscious’ to distinguish the modern understanding from the one
defined by Freud’s perjorative view (subconscious) that the unconscious was ‘hot and wet, it
seethed with lust and anger; it was hallucinatory, primitive and irrational’.
We need our unconscious to be intelligent as the slow conscious mind is only capable of
handling small and limited bits of information (see Norretranders or Simon on Bounded
Rationality). The conscious mind cannot effectively deal with the (approximately) eleven
million bits per second of information, including visual information, which our human
sensory systems are ‘flooded’ with each second.
So much comes into our mind that it is impossible to process rationally but this doesn’t
mean that this information is either ‘discarded’ or has no effect. Many experiments by Bargh
and others demonstrate that we learn many things unconsciously. This is the source of the
principle of the Hidden Curriculum.

10 Tackling Risk
Cars Are Cars
The FJ was more than a car, it was more than identity, it was more than just
mobilisation and it quickly became the ‘vehicle’ for every thing and every activity.
Whilst learning about the FJ was initially instrumental, that soon changed. My
brother taught me the basics but dependence on Bruce for every solution was not
sustainable. I was so dependent on the FJ for everything I began to generate my own
learning and soon, I was developing innovative solutions to problems.
I quickly realised that the FJ had a shelf life. Every time I had an electrical problem,
the six-volt system was costing more and parts were more difficult to source. I was not
about to take up an interest in engineering machine parts or auto electrics and hence a
new found motivation to save up for a better car. It was imminent that the attachment
to the ‘first car’ and its many memories would pass and pragmatically I needed
something much more reliable to travel the extensive isolated distances of country
South Australia. The prospect of being stranded somewhere on a lonely road between
Lucindale and Renmark was an increasing possibility. A ‘paradigm shift’ came after
one final breakdown too many. I took out a loan and purchased an XW Falcon. I had
traversed all triple loops in learning.

Informal Learning
Much about the FJ, cars and The Boys’ Brigade was learnt ‘informally’, I did not go to any
mechanics classes and learnt by observation, participation, community and modelling /
mentoring. Informal learning is learning that is predominantly experiential, self-directed,
non-institutional, non-routine and is often undertaken as a ‘spin off ’ or ‘by-product’ from
structured or unstructured and planned or unplanned activities. Informal learning often
happens unconsciously and in everyday situations and occurs through a dialectical pedagogy
(movement between motivations and binary choices). Further to this discussion the
following describes three highly effective methods of informal learning.

Implicit, Incidental Learning

Implicit learning results in what Polanyi (1967) calls tacit knowledge; that which we know
but cannot tell at the moment but can be made explicit later. Polanyi says: ‘I know more
than I can say’. It may be that no knowledge is totally implicit or explicit. Implicit learning
engages interactively with the participant in a ‘non-formal’ mode of learning in which tacit
knowledge may be gained or used, simultaneously or otherwise. Six forms of knowledge are
encouraged by implicit learning:

• knowledge acquired by implicit learning of which the knower is unaware of what is acquired;
• knowledge constructed from the aggregation of experiences in long-term memory through
interaction with visualised data;
• knowledge inferred by observers to be capable of representation as implicit theories of action,
personal constructs, schemas and through focus group discussion;

Chapter 1: Learning, the Flip Side of Risk 11

• knowledge that enables rapid, intuitive understanding or response;
• knowledge entailed in transferring knowledge from one situation to another;
• knowledge embedded in taken-for-granted activities, perceptions and norms in group interaction.

Tacit knowledge provides much of the basis for the way we interact with people and
situations. Implicit methodology and its interactive nature facilitates learning ‘unthinkingly’
or in a reactive engagement of assumptions, values and knowledge through the rapid
interface of statements, experiences and visual representation. Much research has been
undertaken at Harvard University on implicit knowledge and learning, which has been
captured in the popular translation of this concept in Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink.
Two critical elements in implicit learning are Motivation and the Psychology of Goals
and on most occasions, it is often in hindsight that one realises what ‘force’ drew oneself to
something and what ‘caused’ learning to happen.
Most often what motivates us is hidden, even to ourselves. The energy for movement
towards something and away from something else involves much more than just positive and
negative reinforcement. In many ways Motivation is mysterious and much more tied up with
who we are individually and socially and how we construct meaning and purpose. This is
why the simplistic and raw notion of positive rewards and punishment don’t work very often.

The Mystery of Motivation

The theory of motivation by positive and negative reinforcement is a product of Behaviourist
Theory. The idea that humans are motivated by inputs and outputs, to produce outputs is
a mechanistic construct imposed on what it means to be human. What was conveniently
forgotten in the Behaviourist paradigm is that humans are profoundly social beings and not
machines. The binary Behaviourist model of ‘carrots and sticks’ is profoundly inadequate in
explaining why people do as they do. Higgins calls this the Hedonic Principle. This is critical
when thinking about learning, education and risk. Part of the reason why so much training
within industry and in the wider community is so boring is because these sectors are wedded
to mechanistic worldviews and know precious little about a trans-disciplinary approach to
Motivation.
A good place to start with the challenge of motivation is with Deci’s book, Why We Do What
We Do. Although not a comprehensive text, it is easy to read and challenges many of the
Behaviourist assumptions of common approaches to risk discourse. At another level is the
excellent work by E. Tory Higgins Beyond Pleasure Pain, How Motivation Works. Then, not
for the faint-hearted, the work by Vohs and Baumeister (eds.) Handbook on Self Regulation,
Research, Theory and Applications.
We chose to start this book with the stories of the FJ, The Boys’ Brigade and road crashes;
because at the heart of many of the problems of philosophy we encounter is the fundamental
problem of risk and an inability to deal with fallibility and suffering. Nothing tests a theory
of learning, education and motivation better than the reality of suffering. If humans were
the sum of inputs and outputs, how does one explain the motivation to seek suffering for the

12 Tackling Risk
good of others or the community? How does one explain the pain associated with self-
sacrifice and altruism without imposing some model of motivation to suit a Behaviourist
assumption? Even if one believes in the highest order of physical or metaphysical promise,
what enables us to suppress immediate pain and suffering for another gain? At a deeper
level, what sustains people on a daily basis in suffering and pain, mostly without reason and
with no immediate or long-term promise of reward? Many of us simply do not know in the
middle of a process whether it will be pleasant or un-pleasant, nor what makes us persevere.
In many situations we simply lack the insight to see or understand what lies ahead but we do
it anyway. Risk in such circumstances is much more about a ‘leap of faith’ or a ‘leap of feeling’
rather than some rational choice.
Higgins suggests that motivation has very little to do with positive and negative inputs or
outputs but rather these only make sense in light of three key factors:
• Meaning-Purpose Effectiveness.
• Value-Truth Effectiveness.
• Control-Coherence Effectiveness.
In many ways this model of motivation is a triarchic model that is intra-dependent and
through this intra-dependence sits the dynamics of positive, neutral or negative dynamics.
This is illustrated in Figure 3. The Triarchic Nature of Motivation.

Figure 3. The Triarchic Nature of Motivation

Chapter 1: Learning, the Flip Side of Risk 13

When we understand motivation more holistically, then we do not fall prey to simplistic
strategies in tackling risk that depend on the ‘carrot and stick’ principle and wonder why they
do not work. People often wonder why key performance indicator (KPI) incentives do not
work and why corruption is so prevalent in high places, when already earning multi-millions.
This is because humans crave much more than financial remuneration and the money-carrot
incentive only lasts a few months.
People crave meaning and purpose, value and truth and control and coherence in their
lives much more than a shot of materialism. This is why we label motivation a ‘mystery’ as
much of what motivates us is hidden in the unconscious and sometimes not even known
at the time to ourselves. We would be wise to move away from populist, behaviourist and
mechanistic notions of motivation if we want to truly understand Why People Do What They
Do (Deci).

Discipline, Pain and Loss

There were many times in the learning curve with the FJ that could only be
characterised as endless suffering and pain. Why did I persevere? Sunk cost?
I remember breaking down on a lonely road in outback South Australia late at night,
I thought I would be sleeping in the car that night and walking a long way for help.
There were no mobile phones. At the time and for many months the burden of the car
was unbearable, sometimes we hang on to things in some strange sense of hope with
no evidence or logic. There is certainly no reward in sight.
I remember only one car coming by on that narrow road and it was a farmer in a ute
complete with tow gear and a wonderful helping attitude. Back then we all trusted
people, sometimes to our detriment but in this case I had a saviour who towed me to
a service station where his mate was still working under another ‘bomb’ who was able
to get me going again. I was indebted and broke, unable to give them anything except
my heartfelt ‘thanks’ and a connection with that sense of ‘common good’ we receive
from helping and being helped. It still means something to us, regardless of the
ruthlessness of our contemporary society.
In so many events like this we learn something physical but we also learn much more
unconsciously and it is in those higher-order goals and activities we find our greatest
meaning and purpose; this is where we are most motivated. So, just as the notion of
motivation is complex, so too is the psychology of goals, deeply intertwined in how we
make judgements and decisions about risk and learning. As a guide, the following are ten
suggested essentials to create a climate for motivation:
A first essential in motivating others is climate / culture / environment. Without a climate
of acceptance, learning, belonging, respect and integrity there is little chance that anyone will
be motivated. This is developed through an understanding of self and listening to others.
A second essential is an emphasis on learning. Organisations that do not emphasise
learning are usually not learning organisations. Have a look through any organisation’s
documentation and do a search for the use of the word “learn”.

14 Tackling Risk
A third essential in the motivation of others is being long-sighted rather than short-
sighted. Actions that gain compliance in the short term but resentment over the long term;
result from self-focused gain not sustainable well-being. Long-sightedness is the result of
vision and those who can imagine where we are going and communicate it well will inspire
others.
A fourth essential is knowing that motivation can be both extrinsic and intrinsic. Intrinsic
(internal) motivation or self-motivation is most powerful. Extrinsic motivation (external)
depends on others and is tied to an external pay-off. If the pay-off stops the motivation
decreases.
A fifth essential in motivation is ‘readiness’ (state of desire). Helping people to mature
when they are at a state of readiness is the key to development, change and learning.
A sixth essential is organisation, meaning and purpose. Higgins tells us that this means
helping others realise ‘control effectiveness’, ‘truth effectiveness’ and ‘value effectiveness’.
People are rarely motivated by chaos and meaningless, yet people who feel secure and
positive are easily motivated. The key is setting desirable and achievable goals.
A seventh essential to motivate others is diminished anxiety. People under distress (not
stress) tend to operate out of their ‘shadow’, their least preferred capacity and skill. Looking
over one’s shoulder for the Police may motivate compliance but the anxiety associated with
the strategy drives mistakes through anxiety rather than effective concentration.
An eighth essential in motivation is to meet the needs and wants of the other. Maslow
discovered that fulfilling the fundamental hierarchy of need is required before people can be
motivated.
A ninth essential for motivation is positive reinforcement. There is nothing more
motivating than recognition, acknowledgement, respect and trust.
A tenth essential to motivate others is an understanding of human thinking, judgement,
decision-making and people skills to act on that understanding. When one accepts that
motivation is more mysterious than mechanical, then one is more realistic about goal setting,
transformation, education, learning and change.
When one accepts that motivation is more mysterious than mechanical, then one is more
realistic about goal setting, transformation, education, learning and change.

The Psychology of Goals

It is naive to believe that goal setting is simple and objective. How many times have you set
a goal only to give up and fall back into old habits? The failure of New Year resolutions is
testament to the psychological difficulty in setting and keeping to goals. Just as suffering,
conscience and pain tests one’s theory of motivation, so too does the notion of temptation
test one’s theory of goal setting.
Goals do not sit in isolation, all goals compete and all goals involve by-products and trade-
offs. All goals involve a hidden dimension related to human fallibility, randomness and

Chapter 1: Learning, the Flip Side of Risk 15

predictability. This is why all strategic thinking is paradoxical; see Raynor, (The Strategy
Paradox). Most individuals and organisations set goals but rarely achieve them. Goal setting
is planning; it is a learning activity. For guided reading see Michael, (Learning to Plan and
Planning to Learn). Goal setting is a process of boundary setting, Michael (1997, p. 4)
comments:
By boundaries, I mean those perceptual arrangements we use to separate and unite,
differentiate and connect ourselves to the world. Our personally and culturally
learned modes of conduct and expectations are reified, operationalized, expressed, and
maintained by boundaries of many kinds - physical, temporal, ideological, territorial,
factual, conceptual, procedural, relational, as well as organisational. They establish and
maintain rules and expectations - hence behaviour, rewards, sanctions, policies, and
culturally-driven behaviour.
Goals serve as boundaries in planning and in expectations of what ‘might’ happen but
nothing is more predictable than the unpredictability of human activity and worldly
randomness. Boundaries and goals help us discriminate between what we do and what does
and does not fit. Goals help us create boundaries for confident living but we rarely achieve
all our goals. Organisations rarely achieve full completion of their strategic plan. This is
where learning comes in. Michael comments (p. 20):
No amount of information alone, no matter how elaborately available in depth, is
sufficient for deciding. If it were, we could leave it to the computers. Indices and other
such data-combining procedures, designed to shorten the time needed to understand
and act, do not obviate the need to slow down the system. Such procedures by their
very nature, lose information. Time is needed to understand and respond to the
changing boundary complexity we live in: time to learn how to judge the value of
more and different information that characterizes, or should characterize, the feedback
across those boundaries.
Michael reminds us that all our decision-making and judgement is actually a process of
‘Satisficing’ (see the work of Gigerenzer). The nature of the world is random, the nature of
humans is fallible and infinite data does not enable education, learning or better judgement.
Indeed, the more information we receive the harder it is to make a decision. Human
decision-making about risk is profoundly uncertain and incomplete. There cannot be any
maximising that would require infallibility, there can only be satisficing.
This is why strategy, planning and goals are a paradoxical learning activity. Strategy and
goals at best declare aspirations not actuality. This does not mean we should give up on goal
setting or strategic thinking, both are essential to learning. The paradox is that we build
decisions on incomplete knowledge and manage to survive and live quite well. Planning is a
pedagogy for learning. There can be no learning without fallibility. This is why the ideology
of zero is such non-sense.
So how should we set goals and strategy? How can we plan? There needs to be some balance.
If we set goals to eliminate risk, then we also compete with goals that seek to produce
learning. Risk elimination is learning elimination.

16 Tackling Risk
We set goals all the time consciously and unconsciously. A goal is a desired end state that is
constrained by: time, feasibility, other competing goals, motivation, desirability, ‘life space’,
framing and disposition.
Goal setting is complex and multi-dimensional. There are three main goal-states, these are:

1. High-order goals e.g. ‘I wish to be a better person’.

2. Mid-order goals e.g. ‘I want to give up sugar’.

3. Low-order goals e.g. ‘I want to achieve 85% in my mathematics test’.

These three levels of goal-states all command different quantitative and qualitative
measurement. Goals also compete against each other. Low-order goals tend to be easily
measurable and high-order goals less measureable. Mid-order goals tend to be semi-
measureable. Each of these goal-states operate at conscious and unconscious levels. Each
goal-state also tends to have either a promotion or prevention focus. These goal-states, levels
and foci are represented in Figure 4. Human Goal States.

Figure 4. Human Goal States.

Chapter 1: Learning, the Flip Side of Risk 17

It is important when setting goals to remember that for every conscious goal one sets, there
are also unconscious by-products and trade-offs that result. Often these trade-offs involve
the challenges of cost, time and resources (human and social). It is impossible in this human
world to optimise, as many of our decisions are simply satisfactory (satisficing) given the
constraints (e.g. human fallibility and slow rationality) and the realities of the real world
(time and resource limited).
Some of the by-products in real world engagement can result in poor learning (hidden
curriculum) and others can result in enlightenment (community ethics). This is what is
meant by the old saying: ‘values are caught not taught’. Another (nonsense) saying: ‘If you
can’t measure it, you can’t manage it’ only lead to ‘measurement myopia’ that plagues the
wider community as well as most sectors of industry with a fixation on zero, binary thinking,
fundamentalism and lower order goals. Michael comments (p. 26):
The extreme and most dangerous form of boundary preservation obstructing civil
learning is fundamentalism. This anti-learning mode can reinforce any source or
group identity, whether it be spiritual, ideological, conservative, or New Age. In this
form group identity/belief boundaries are impermeable to disconfirming feedback,
that they provide their members with complete and certain meaning. Sometimes the
advantages provided to its members by such a boundary are so absolute, that what is
fed through their boundary is insistence that those defining themselves according to
other boundary criteria are deluded, damned and even merit destruction.
This has certainly been the case with the challenging of the fundamentalist ideology of
zero in both the wider community and industry. In the end I had to go off all social media
because of death threats and abuse. Two people even constructed their own websites and
blogs with no other intention than hate for me personally. This is what binary; absolute zero
does to people. It creates a fundamentalist boundary that is anti-learning and anti-human,
all encased in the demand for measurement, metrics and statistics as a meaningful construct
but attribution to aspects of risk in organisations. I call this ‘measurement myopia’.
The problem with ‘measurement myopia’ is that it fixates people on low-level goals and a
calculative mindset. The problem with ‘measurement myopia’ is that it results in extensive
blindness (scotoma) that equates numerics with objective evidence. The real problem here is
that low level goals and motivation do not help create an educated person and have nothing
to do with learning. Low order motivations and goals are more associated with single-loop
training than double or triple-loop-learning.

Goal Setting
Many think that setting goals is a simple matter, but do not consider the psychology of
goal setting itself. The text book approach to goal setting recommends that all goals should
be SMART - Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Relevant and Time considered. Yet,
when it comes to risk many companies throw the goal setting rulebook out the window.
They set goals for others that they would never set for themselves; setting goals justified

18 Tackling Risk
by ‘aspirations’ that are unachievable, absolute and perfectionist. Such goal setting requires
humans to be omnipotent (all powerful) and omniscient (all knowing). The reason why
perfectionism is listed as a mental health disorder (DSM-V) is because using god-like
language applied to humans is a recipe for depression, anxiety and frustration.
The most important thing to consider in goal setting is that the language and discourse of
all goal setting have psychological trade-offs and by-products. When people set goals in
language that ‘primes’ failure, hiding and ‘masking behaviour’ they ignore the psychology of
goals that considers the longitudinal by-products of goal setting. This was discussed in detail
in the second book in this series on risk: For the Love of Zero, Human Fallibility and Risk.
Goals can be: immediate goals (low-order goals) e.g. I want to make lunch and eat it.
Delayed goals (mid-order goals) e.g. I want to make one thousand sandwiches and feed
an army and ‘wicked goals’ (high-order goals) that are miraculous e.g. I want to feed ten
thousand people with five loaves and two fish. Many of the things we value most in life are
high-order goals and are immeasurable e.g. Creativity, Imagination, Love, Care, Tolerance,
Learning, Resilience and Motivation. Indeed, if we seek to measure and control high-order
goals, we drag those goals down to a distortion of what they really are. This is what happens
when people drag the high-order goal of ‘Care’ down to a low-order goal and confuse injury
data with a measure of Care. Absolute and perfectionist goals such as zero: demotivate
humans, create a blaming culture and are anti-learning.

Who is an Educated Person?

This is perhaps the most challenging of all questions about learning and goals in learning.
The misuse of the word ‘learning’ and mis-attribution of the word ‘learning’ to training
demonstrates so clearly that our society mostly associates the word ‘learning’ with ‘banking’
(Friere - meaning ‘data in and data out’). The same can be said for the notion of ‘education’,
so often confused with the concept of schooling / training. The best way to test one’s
definition of learning and education is not by discussing curriculum or content (data) but by
discussing the nature of personhood.
So often we see technical experts and people with a mechanistic ‘worldview’ applying the
word ‘learning’ to the replication and regurgitation of data and algorithms. This will be
discussed in the next section of this book on the non-sense language of ‘machine learning’.
Seeking to define who is an ‘educated person’ is underpinned by one’s educational
anthropology (by the way: machines are not humans). When one gives a machine a human
quality, this is called ‘anthropomorphising’, that is, using a human construct to apply to
something nonhuman. We often see this in poetry and the use of metaphor, but we know
the sun does not get angry and the moon does not love.
Every educational theory and methodology has at its core this question: Who is an educated
person? This begs the complementary question: What is it to be truly human? Both
questions are a philosophical challenge for any educator and the question itself assumes
an anthropology that seeks a response found in one’s ethics, values, morality, aesthetics,
epistemology and metaphysics.

Chapter 1: Learning, the Flip Side of Risk 19

What does it mean to be an educated person? This question is most associated with the
powerful educational thinker of the 1970s R. S. Peters. Peters explored this question in a
number of his texts, the most notable The Concept of Education (1967) and Education and
the Development of Reason (1972). During their Teachers’ College training, both authors
were introduced to and used the texts of R. S. Peters, with one of Rob Long’s mentors, Bill
Andersen, supervised by R. S. Peters for his PhD.
Peters links education to ‘reform’ and improvement and critically ‘betterment’ in a moral
way. This is more than just ‘doing good’ but is about the ‘betterment of persons’. Personhood
is a profoundly social state of being; one cannot be a person in isolation. There is no
individualism in personhood. One is only a person in relation to others: Buber’s I-Thou.
The relationship is not just any kind of relationship either; it must be qualified by the
nature of and ‘kind’ (quality) of relationship. If one has a relationship with another that is
dehumanising then this cannot be deemed ‘education’.
Note: It is at this stage that the authors wish to highlight that they are aware of the
philosophical complexities in defining the nature of personhood. However, for the purposes
of this book:
Education is about the upbuilding of persons for well-being.
If one ‘learns’ something that is dehumanising then this is anti-social (de-personal) and as
simulacra (wrongful imitations) of true learning. Most people who enact anti-societal and
dehumanising practices, according to our definition, are being mis-educative. If people are to
tackle risk they must be an ‘educated person’ with an orientation to upbuild others.
We need to understand the semantics, semiotics, semiology and grammar used to define
personhood. I may ‘lust’ after a car or a house but the car cannot ‘lust’ after me! In order for
us to discuss learning in a human way we cannot separate out what is unique to humans e.g.
values, aesthetics, ethics, morality, spirituality, conscience, hope, faith and love. I may love my
computer but it can never ‘love’ me.
The educated person has to go beyond just understanding of data to understanding and
action in the world (socially). For Peters, being educated is more than just having data or
some skill, being educated has to be transformative in a triple-loop learning sense, which
will be discussed in Chapter 3. Whilst education requires cognition, simple cognition is not
education. Data transference by algorithm is not ‘learning’.
One cannot separate the nature of learning with the purpose and meaning of learning.
Learning can only be learning if it is defined biologically, socially, morally and
metaphysically. Peters suggests learning has to be knowledge and understanding that has
a human, moral, intellectual, social and metaphysical dimension. For Peters, conceptual
understanding just leaves everything as it is; knowledge must be about much more than
‘knowing what’ or ‘knowing how’ but rather ‘knowing who’ and ‘knowing why’.
Being educated is about orientation to social good, good conscience and moral well being in
community / society otherwise, one is not truly ‘educated’.

20 Tackling Risk
Galilee and The Educated Person
When Rob Long founded the work of Galilee, many of the young people who entered
that service were dehumanised and, had learned to dehumanised others (refer to Book
One in the series Risk Makes Sense). Many of the young people were sociopathic,
violent, disconnected, drug affected, abused and abusive, self interested, anti-social and
yet highly intelligent. Many knew how to ‘use’ society but did not know how to live in
it. Had they continued on this trajectory many would be either dead or incarcerated
in prison. Quite a number of the young people who were in Galilee have already died,
many from substance abuse, suicide and violence.
There were many orthodox teachers and officials who came to the school who
emphasised the importance of literacy and numeracy as a pathway for the young
people to escaping their plight. The Behaviourists would always prattle on about
literacy and numeracy every time they came to visit the service. Whilst I was keen
to take their funding (Education and Community Welfare Departments) I was
not keen on taking their worldview. I used to say: ‘whilst literacy and numeracy are
important, without a social connection literacy and numeracy would simply help them
better count their victims and exploits’. We had two boys in Galilee who had sexually
assaulted a dog and killed it. Both were street smart and cunning but neither had a
social conscience. One was highly skilled in seducing young children, the other had
next to no moral compass to speak of and most of the young people were smart but
not ‘educated’ in the true sense of personhood.
Education occurs when there is an intentional ethical undertaking to bring about
changes for good in persons. This ‘upbuilding’ is what we sought to do in Galilee
as education. One of the first things I sought to do as the founder of Galilee was to
create a community of reciprocation, mutuality, purpose, meaning and engagement
with a high emphasis on self-regulated discipline. To do so required staff who
understood what it meant to be truly educated, rather than being caught up in the
superficiality of ‘training’, ‘data skills’ and ‘literacy’. Once the young people became
truly educated, training was easy.
A commitment to educate and learn is a commitment to change and upbuilding. Education
and learning need to happen in triple loop learning (see Figure 13 in Chapter 3) or there is
little ‘reform’ or change. More will be discussed about the triarchic nature of learning later in
the book.
The purpose of education is not to make people smarter in cognition but to know how
to live in the real world, the world of risk. Neither can risk aversion educate, just as
indoctrination cannot stimulate maturity or wisdom. In the next chapter we will look at
the need to learn how to learn and a range of issues in learning that are critical if people are
to mature in the way they tackle risk.

Chapter 1: Learning, the Flip Side of Risk 21

Un-learning and Conversion, a Pathway to Wisdom, Discernment
and Learning
One of the first steps to conversion is unlearning. This is usually triggered by some
painful challenge in Cognitive Dissonance (discussed in detail in the final chapter
of this book). It is at this point that people have a choice to deny their previous
learning and associated evidence and ‘reframe’ the way they see the world. This was
the challenge at Galilee. Most of the young people who came to the service had learnt
how to be dysfunctional; most had no parental guidance, many lived on the streets
or were abused in foster care. I remember each one who came into our ‘school’ and
remain in contact with quite a few who are not dysfunctional any more.
Suzie (not her real name) was one who was street smart, rebellious, in out-of-home
care, had been locked up many times, was highly manipulative (boys in particular),
out of school, substance abusing and had a great deal of ‘sunk cost’ in all she could get
by being dysfunctional. She came into the service at fifteen years of age with many
having given up any hope for her. Somewhere along the line these kids either learn to
hope or die. Suzie was one who did a heap of un-learning, converted into personhood
and is now a very successful professional athlete.
We do not really know much about unlearning and conversion and we do not really
know what causes that ‘blink’ moment (Gladwell) and a transformation. We do not
really know much about why someone turns face about and goes the other way. It is a
mystery of motivation and learning. If we could bottle it then all kinds of people could
be transformed out of darkness into light, from addiction into living and from toxic
living to well-being.
We do not really know much about unlearning and conversion and we do not really
know what causes that ‘blink’ moment (Gladwell) and a transformation. We do not
really know much about why someone turns face about and goes the other way. It is a
mystery of motivation and learning. If we could bottle it then all kinds of people could
be transformed out of darkness into light, from addiction into living and from toxic
living to well-being.
We can learn a great deal from organisations like Hillsong and others in the wider
community, especially about conversion and un-learning. We can also learn from people with
addictions, after all, these are the experts in conversion. There is very little that is different
about religious conversion and any conversion from one worldview or ideology to another.
If you are a person who works with risk or in a position as an advisor or a risk manager you
must wonder why it is so hard to convert people to becoming ‘believers’ in the rules and
procedures about risk. The psychology of conversion is discussed fully in the final chapter.
A friend who is a manager describes how they deal with risk on workplace inspection walks
and audits as ‘changing a dummy (pacifier) from one mouth to another’. Another friend
describes such walks as ‘a walk in the discovery of wrongness’. This is pretty negative stuff.
It would be an interesting study to see the dropout rate from these professions who are the
appointed people in positions as advisors and managers of workplace risk; and what they

22 Tackling Risk
determine to be contributing factors. Their frustrations are most probably directly connected
to a lack of conversion and their frustrations in engaging people who think risk is an
embuggerance.
How frustrating for people to be appointed to manage risk and to spend so much time
playing the same broken record or finding out after playing the big stick, that people just
don’t report or just ‘spin’ the truth. This is where our evangelical religious friends can teach
us something about attraction, motivation, transformation, un-learning and conversion. The
cognitive dissonance that keeps people in cults is the same cognitive dissonance that helps
them out.
Many people working in risk in industry and community organisations act as the Police
and evangelists in what they do. Rather than get people into heaven or utopia, they want to
keep people intact and connected by the end of the day. However, the methods often chosen
for policing and conversion are sporadic and often unsuccessful. Whilst some conversion
instruments have some success the blunt instrument of Behaviourism does not understand
the sophistication of human complexity nor the social psychology of conversion. Whilst
limited success is good, it would be nice to know a bit more about how humans change, how
they are motivated and how to strive for conversion?
For the moment let us leave the discussion to cognitive dissonance and conversion to the
final chapter, a useful way to end this book.
The important thing is to accept the challenge of cognitive dissonance by entering into
an existentialist dialectical worldview. There will be discussion of this later but this
understanding of dialectic is not Hegelian but based on the work of Jacques Ellul. An
Ellulian (existentialist not existential) Dialectic does not understand that thesis and anti-
thesis bring synthesis. Ellul proposes that dialectic is the movement between competing
triarchic forces and that one never ‘arrives’. This dialectic is much more about being satisfied
and content to be ‘piggy in the middle’ than any notion of a ‘grand narrative’ or absolute
‘technique’. More on Ellul, dialectic and technique later.
It seems that organisational leadership is preoccupied with reducing and removing
turbulence. The populist idea of ‘disruption’ in 2016-2017 was most associated with the
‘spin’ of leadership not the realities of leadership. Most people resist change and leaders are
rewarded for the way they create stability and certainty in their organisations.
We find many people in our study programmes resist the challenge to be themselves if it is
likely that such will bring them into conflict or place others in cognitive dissonance. When
turbulence comes, people just want to ‘cope’, they do not want more turbulence. As a result,
many organisations resist turbulence in organising and become fragile and vulnerable to
turbulent upheaval (see Taleb, Anti-Fragility), with a cultural emphasis on control, risk
aversion and predictability. The idea of anti-fragility is that people and organisations benefit
from disorder and turbulence.

Chapter 1: Learning, the Flip Side of Risk 23

The Non-Sense of ‘Machine Learning’
One of the greatest delusions in learning is the popular notion of ‘machine learning’. The
term ‘machine learning’ refers to the automated detection of meaningful outcomes and
regeneration of further meaningful outcomes by set algorithms. The following are cited
for context:
In the past couple of decades it has become a common tool in almost any task
that requires information extraction from large data sets. We are surrounded by a
machine learning based technology: search engines learn how to bring us the best
results (while placing profitable ads). Anti-spam software learns to filter our email
messages and credit card transactions are secured by a software that learns how to
detect frauds. Digital cameras learn to detect faces and intelligent personal assistance
applications on smart-phones learn to recognize voice commands. Cars are equipped
with accident prevention systems that are built using machine learning algorithms.
Machine learning is also widely used in scientific applications such as bioinformatics,
medicine, and astronomy. Shai, Shalev-Schwatz and Shai, Ben-David (cited April
2017 http://www.cs.huji.ac.il/~shais/UnderstandingMachineLearning/understanding
machinelearning-theory-algorithms.pdf )
As regards to machines, we might say very broadly, that a machine learns whenever it
changes its structure, program or data (based on its inputs or in response to external
information) in such a manner that its expected future performance improves. Some
of these changes, such as the addition of a record to a database, fall comfortably
within the province of other disciplines and are not necessarily better understood for
being called learning. But, for example, when the performance of a speech-recognition
machine improves after hearing several samples of a person’s speech, we feel quite
justified in that case to say that the machine has learned. Nilsson, N., (cited April
2017 http://ai.stanford.edu/~nilsson/MLBOOK.pdf )
Pattern recognition has its origins in engineering, whereas machine learning grew
out of computer science. However, these activities can be viewed as two facets of
the same field, and together they have undergone substantial development over the
past ten years. In particular, Bayesian methods have grown from a specialist niche to
become mainstream, while graphical models have emerged as a general framework
for describing and applying probabilistic models. Also, the practical applicability of
Bayesian methods has been greatly enhanced through the development of a range
of approximate inference algorithms such as variational Bayes and expectation
propagation. Similarly, new models based on kernels have had significant impact
on both algorithms and applications. Bishop (cited April 2017) http://users.isr.ist.
utl.pt/~wurmd/Livros/school/Bishop%20%20Pattern%20Recognition%20And%20
Machine%20Learning%20-%20Springer%20%202006.pdf )
It is easy to see how people in mechanistic disciplines (e.g. engineering and computer
science) who know so little about learning, education and metaphysics; could come up with
such a non-sense discourse. The discourse just assumes an anthropology for a machine.

24 Tackling Risk
Such a discourse assumes that learning is about data transference and replication. What this
non-sense teaches us is that just because certain language is used does not make it so.
Let us therefore look at some serious problems associated with this discourse.
1. The idea that learning is about data is so removed from the real meaning of learning that
it makes such language meaningless. According to this definition, anything can ‘learn’.
2. There is no reference to subjects but only objects in this theory of machine learning
3. Machines do not have an unconscious, and cannot be self-conscious. How does a
machine dream? How does it ‘get an idea’? How does a machine ‘daydream’? How does
a machine pray? How can a machine meditate? How does a machine create? How does
a machine innovate? When a machine ‘switches off ’ what does its ‘mind’ do? How does a
machine imagine? How does a machine formulate a metaphor?
4. Machines cannot have a conscience or sense moral necessity in and of themselves. How
does a machine experience confusion and paradox? How can an object ‘believe’? In what
sense can a machine be a person? How can a machine express faith?
5. Machines have no sense of social identity; nor any sense of meaningfulness to the
notion of family or group. On what basis does a machine choose between competing
moral values? Some of the latest research shows clearly that artificial intelligence
(AI) cannot ‘cooperate, collaborate or even ‘think’ in such a way. Indeed, when given a
comparative task AI becomes more aggressive. A classic quote from the research is: ‘We
are fascinated by ‘machine learning’; but in the end, the machines only learn what we tell
them to learn.’
6. See (https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/02/ai-learned-to-betray-others-heres-
why-thatsokayutm_content=buffer2d2c2&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.
com&utm_campaign=buffer).
7. The idea that some thing ‘artificial’ (e.g. artificial intelligence) can be made non-artificial
(human) is also a non-sense. I wonder how a machine defines ‘trust’? How does a
machine heal itself when it gets a virus? What is a machines immune system? How does
a machine sexually reproduce? How does ‘it’ understand the ‘miracle’ of birth? How does
it ‘know’ that the heart is not just a pump? How does a machine die or grieve for the loss
of another machine?
8. Despite the attributions from this discourse that machines display personhood, such
anthropomorphic attribution is simply non-sense. (see: At what point should an
intelligent machine be considered a ‘person’?
9. World Economic Forum cited April 2017 https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/02/
at-what-point-shouldan-intelligent-machine-be-considered-a-personutm_
content=bufferf48cf&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_
campaign=buffer). How can a machine ‘feel’? How can a machine be irrational and
aRational? How can a machine ‘love’?

Chapter 1: Learning, the Flip Side of Risk 25

10. Since when did a capacity to process data become a ‘mind’? How can data transfer and
data replication properly be labelled ‘thinking’ or ‘learning’? How can a machine create,
innovate, sing, invent, write poetry, self generate art, belong, meditate, hope, cry, have
faith, trust and possess countless metaphysical qualities?
11. There is no ‘learning’ that can be attributed to an object. Humans are much more than
the sum of shifting data and change. Learning without an anthropology of personhood
cannot be learning.
The ideology of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Knowledge (STEM)
and perfectionism is hidden in this discourse on machine learning. One can only believe
in machine learning as an act of faith, something a machine cannot have. So, we see, there
is no machine ‘learning’ because machines do not have unique personhood. Without an
anthropology of learning and capability of personhood there is no ‘learning’. We saw in
Australia during 2017 how the ideology and discourse of ‘machine learning’ can come
undone.

The Centrelink Debacle

At the start of 2017 the Department of Human Services and Centrelink in Australia
went into meltdown. The naive and erroneous faith in ‘big data’ met its match with
reality. The disaster is now known as the ‘robo-debt’ debacle. (See Sydney Morning
Herald cited April 2017 http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/politicalopinion/
how-the-centrelink-debt-debacle-failure-rate-is-much-worse-than-we-allthought-
20170124-gtxh8q.html).
The robo-debt debacle illustrates how machines cannot ‘learn’ and expose the
delusions of ‘big data ideology’ and ‘machine learning’.
What happened was that Centrelink tried to create a set of algorithms with ‘big
data’ in order to ‘catch out’ people who had been overpaid by the Centrelink and
Government systems. It was to do so by matching Centrelink data with other data
sets from banking, social traffic and collections of Government data (e.g, taxation,
disability allowances and pensions). Unfortunately on the receiving end of this debacle
were human beings. Human beings, who live in a random world, making fallible
decisions in unpredictable ways and in unpredictable circumstances. Machines cannot
think or learn like humans.
The consequence of this ideological disaster was up to 90% of Centrelink clients being
forced to repay debt they did not own. People were distressed and suicidal over this
debacle because data matching was machine determined and the debt that was owed
was determined by pattern matching. Tens of thousands of Centrelink clients were
sent letters demanding payment. Humans on the other hand, do much more than
match computer generated patterns.
On the basis of this ideology the Department of ‘In-Human’ Services staff were
instructed to not correct errors despite knowing the debt notices were wrong

26 Tackling Risk
 (Cited April 2017 https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/
the-centrelink-robo-debt-debacle-has-only-just-begun,9951).
Unfortunately, Centrelink had ‘learnt’ how to dehumanise a long time ago. It has
been common practice to sell debt or pass debts on to a debt collection agency so that
Centrelink cannot be approached (now a third party) to consult about the problem.
In addition, people know that a visit to Centrelink to talk about concerns is a waste of
time; with waiting up to three hours or more for service and for telephone service it is
even worse.
Naive politicians, with no idea about Centrelink culture or welfare climate simply
exacerbated the problem by telling the public (on TV) to just call up Centrelink and
sort out the problem.
This follows on from the Census Debacle of 2016 (Cited April 2017 http://www.
theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/census-debacle-senateinquiry-into-what-went-
wrong/news-story/6de67fdcb7c74fc7878586420671f d0a).
In the world of risk in the wider community and all sectors of industry the same ideology
shows up in the nonsense of ‘Predictive Analytics’, which is the belief that future events
can be predicted on the basis of ‘big data’. In organisations that deal with risk it is the latest
ideology in the quest to control humans and seek perfection and zero in everything. You can
read more about this new faith and ideology here: http://www.predictivesolutions.com/lp/
making-case-predictive-analyticsworkplace-safety/.
Just look at the language and you will see that this analytics can forecast and prevent
injuries. Omniscience (knowing all) is the only trajectory if the ideology is zero harm. When
searching for zero, only god will do. The same ideology seeks to also be omnipresent through
cameras positioned in all places on site.
All of this non-sensical and delusional mis-representation about learning and faith in
machines is just technique and simply illustrates the vacuum in expertise about learning in
the mechanistic disciplines. Unfortunately, all of this ideology in predictive analytics, big
data, technique and The Love of Zero; stands in opposition to three fundamental realities:
• The world is random.
• Humans are fallible.
• The future is unknown.
Any denial of these basic realities of human living can only be described as ‘religious faith’.
The discourse of predictive analytics has more in common with soothsayers, crystal balls,
alchemy and speaks the language of voodoo more than anything that makes sense as ‘human’
or of this world. We need to stop focussing on the cognition of content and start focussing
on personhood-as-learning, if we want to know anything about learning-about-learning and
tackling risk.

Chapter 1: Learning, the Flip Side of Risk 27

Workshop Questions
1. Can you search through your organisation and find examples of the misuse of the word
‘learning’?
2. Are your inductions a mode of ‘banking’? How might they be improved to be learning
events?
3. What are some of the ‘hidden’ messages and learnings carried as trade-offs and
by-products in the risk industry?
4. Do some research on the power of the unconscious in learning? How is tacit (implicit)
knowledge (Polanyi) a critical part of education and learning?
5. What is your preferred climate for learning?

Transition
In this chapter we have introduced some foundational concepts in education as a precursor
to understanding risk. If risk creates learning and learning needs risk, what might be some of
the essential conditions, strategies and techniques that best enable learning? Can we create
climates that encourage learning better than others? Are some environments better than
others for accelerating the maturity and development of others? Are some environments
(settings) miseducative? What underlying methodologies best serve the creation of the
educated person?
The next chapter dives more deeply into methodologies and learning and explores critical
issues in driving education. Some of the issues are relevant to the initiation of learning in
institutions when size and resourcing constrains the optimisation of learning opportunities.
A range of orthodox learning strategies, educational theorists and challenges are tackled
as a way of drawing this knowledge into the rather sparse educative knowledge of risk
in the wider community and in all industry sectors. The discussion explores challenges
of indoctrination, miseducation strategies and propaganda that pose a threat to the
development of maturity in understanding and tackling risk.

28 Tackling Risk
CHAPTER 2
Learning About Learning

We Know More than We can Say - Michael Polanyi

Everything has significance - C. G. Jung

2
The Good Olde Schooling Days
Thinking back to my schooling days the thing I remember most is being hit. Corporal
punishment seemed to be the solution to everything. There was little sophistication
in approaches to discipline; it was always the case of ‘what you need is a darn good
thrashing’.
I can remember vividly the teachers I hated and the few I liked and it often has to do
with their view of education, how much they respected children and personhood and
their approach to life and cultural norms of the day.
My first encounter with ‘brutalism’ was at nine years of age. I had a teacher called
Miss H and she would thrash our legs for any misdemeanour, especially talking in
class. That meant, all extroversion was ‘thrashed’. Her favourite thrashing was in front
of the class and to lift trousers and thrash the upper part of the leg with her hand or a
ruler/stick. She would rage and hit until she was exhausted and I copped this on many
occasions until I could take no more. I finally told my parents and my father went to
the school to speak with her but the punishment did not stop. My father used to hit
us with a leather-shaving belt and punch us with his fists. In those days the solution
to everything seemed to be violence. I lost count of the number of times I was caned
and hit with any host of objects.
At the age of ten I was ‘scrawny’ and lightweight and remember crying for hours after
each punishment. We now know that the abuse of children in those days was endemic
(See https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/).

Chapter 2: Learning About Learning 29

 In High School the caning and hitting continued. As I write fifty years later I still
have vivid memories of Mr M my teacher who was also an amateur boxer, clapping
his hands on our chest and back deliberately to ‘wind’ us and administer ‘the applause’.
When one had finished the applause, the whole class had to clap in applause. Mr M
was a most sadistic fellow. Caning was systematic at Epping Boys’ High and I was
caned most weeks. Extroversion in particular was considered a cardinal sin.
The system of schooling I experienced was harsh, regimented and negative. I
remember being told by Mr W in Year 9 that I would never achieve anything or
amount to anything. He told me that I was ‘nothing’ and should seek to leave school
early and ‘dig the roads’. What a marvelous bit of counselling from the Careers
Advisor.
When it comes to learning, what does one learn from corporal punishment? What we really
learn from this story is that there are two curricula at work. The overt subject curriculum
says ‘don’t talk in class’ with the hidden curriculum of ‘violence is a successful strategy for
behaviour change’. Rather than helping with any behaviour change, all I learnt (The Hidden
Curriculum) from Mr M and Mr W was that: adults can not be trusted, schools favour
introverts and schools are not about learning. Schools are more about social reproduction
than sites of learning.

Schooling is not Education

Most of us have some experience of schooling and formal education. Schooling is most
associated with institutionalisation more than learning. The process of schooling has been
challenged by many educationalists. For example:
Gardner (1991, p. 127) defines school as:
... belonging to the same social group, assemble on a regular basis in the company of
a competent older individual, for the explicit purpose of acquiring one or more skills
valued by the wider community.
The problem is fundamental. Put twenty or more children of roughly the same age in
a little room, confine them to desks, make them wait in line, make them behave. It is
as if a secret committee, now lost to history, had made a study of children and, having
figured out what the greatest number were least disposed to do, declared that all of
them should do it. (Kidder in Gardner, 1991, p. 138)
Neville (1989, p. 4) states:
It is the myth of logic, rationality, detached observation, scientific enquiry, spiritual
enlightenment, obviousness, understanding exactly what is what. Durand suggests
that this myth took hold of European culture in the seventeenth century and has
maintained a grip ever since.

30 Tackling Risk
 It is intellect which dominates schooling. Even body gets a recognition not allowed
to soul. The specifically soul-making subjects - literature, drama, music, the visual arts
and tactile arts - are progressively ‘de-souled’ as the child proceeds through school.
The primary teacher may read a poem or story or show a picture because it may
nurture or enrich the children or ‘stimulate their imagination’. Moving up through
secondary school, there is less and less time for such luxuries. When it comes to the
public examinations which dominate secondary schooling, there can be no marks for
being grabbed by a poem or painting or sonata, unless this translates into a motivation
to analyse the artifact thoroughly and competently.
Chanan & Gilchrist, (1974, p. 1) say:
. . . that they stifle curiosity, penalise initiative, destroy the will to learn, that they
discriminate against the working class child, that they inculcate middle class values,
that they foster competitiveness and discourage cooperativeness, that they perpetuate
useless knowledge, that they erode critical awareness and reward mindless conformity.
Freire (1972, p. 45,46) describes schooling as ‘banking’:
Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the
depositories and the teacher is the depositor. Instead of communicating, the teacher
issues communiques and ‘makes deposits’ which the students patiently receive,
memorise and repeat.
Illich (1970, p. 9) states:
Many students, especially those who are poor, intuitively know what the schools do
for them. They school them to confuse process and substance. Once these become
blurred, a new logic is assumed: the more treatment there is, the better are the results;
or, escalation leads to success. The pupil is thereby ‘schooled’ to confuse teaching
and learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence, and
fluency with the ability to say something new. His imagination is ‘schooled’ to accept
service in place of value. Medical treatment is mistaken for health care, social work
for the improvement of community life, police protection for safety, military poise
for national security, the rat race for productive work. Health, learning, dignity,
independence and creative endeavour are defined as little more than the performance
of the institutions which claim to serve these ends.
Finally Bertrand and Dora Russell (cited in Kilpatrick 1954, p. 393):
What is considered in education is hardly ever the boy or the girl, the young man or
the young woman, but almost always in some form, the maintenance of the existing
order. When the individual is considered, it is almost exclusively with a view to
worldly success - making money or achieving a good position. To be ordinary and
to acquire the art of getting on, is the ideal which is set before the youthful mind,
except by the few rare teachers who have enough energy of belief to break through the
system within which they are expected to work. Almost all education has a political
motive: it aims at strengthening some group, national or religious, or even social, in

Chapter 2: Learning About Learning 31

 the competitions with other groups. It is this motive in the main which determines
the subjects taught, the knowledge offered, and the knowledge withheld, and also
decides what mental habits the pupils are expected to acquire.
So, let’s not confuse the notion of schooling with theories of education and learning. Unless
the process of relationships is humanising and upbuilding, the activity of data transfer is
more likely to be training than education.

Critical Issues in Learning and Tackling Risk

The purpose of this section is to introduce readers to many of the fundamental concepts and
methodologies of education and learning, particularly for those who don’t have an education
and learning background. The following discussion is not intended to be exhaustive but
introductory, the wealth of literature on each one of the highlighted (in bold) topics is
extensive.
Each of the following are intended to raise awareness of the many interconnected aspects of
education and learning. Any of these topics can be explored more deeply as required.
It is important to understand that many issues and concepts in education and learning are
both contingent and interrelated. An understanding of one concept often depends on an
understanding and dependence on many other educational concepts. With this in mind this
interrelatedness and relationship between issues in education and learning must be sustained
whilst progressing through the following discussion.

Archetypes
We all accept an understanding our world is controlled by ‘the market’ or ‘market forces’. We
use anthropomorphic ‘systems’ so that through ‘systems thinking’ we understand that the
systems control a situation and not the humans in those systems. This is the language of risk
and in this discourse affirms the idea of archetypes. Jung understood archetypes as semiotic
patterns and ‘forces’ that guide and give meaning. See: http://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/pubs/gtr/
gtr_ne160/gtr_ne160_025.pdf
Jung understood symbols and signs to have a transcendent dynamic that operated on
the unconscious. This is why the nature of semiotics in the study of mythology, cults and
religious dynamism was so important to Jung. Archetypes operate in the symbolic realm and
have unconscious power as Jung contextualises (Hull, 1959, p. 48):
If thirty years ago anyone had dared to predict that our psychological development
was tending towards a revival of the medieval persecution of the Jews, that Europe
would again tremble before the Roman fasces and the tramp of legions, that people
would once more give the Roman salute, as two thousand years ago, and that instead
of the Christian Cross an archaic swastika would lure onward millions of warriors
ready for death – why, that man would have been hooted at as a mystical fool.
Jung, like many social psychological contemporaries: Zimbardo, Milgram, Adorno, Levinson,
Brunswick, Allport, Lewin, Darley, Ellul et. al. ‘cut their teeth’ on the Nazi problem.

32 Tackling Risk
How could a population full of highly rational, logical, sophisticated people commit such
atrocities? How can one explain how Propaganda works? How could the country with more
Nobel Prizes than any other so systematically commit such a programme? Why do people
do what they do? The study of the Nazis stimulated the growth of the discipline of Social
Psychology.
The reason why Jung is so relevant to thinking about risk and safety is because risk and
safety has become so profoundly religious. This has been recognised by Dekker and others
as a characteristic of risk and Safety (http://www.safetydifferently.com/zero-vision-and-
thewestern- salvation-narrative/) and is something I have discussed before: (https://
safetyrisk. net/safety-for-true-believers/, https://safetyrisk.net/safety-as-faith-healing-2/,
https://safetyrisk.net/supernatural-safety/).
The semiotics of Risk and Safety is infused with religious narrative, imagery of salvation
and perfectionism (https://safetyrisk.net/is-risk-and-safety-perfectionism-a-disorder/). The
discourse of ‘saving lives’ lends itself to such symbols and signs as is common in any religion.
The path to perfection is the narrative of zero. The popular Bradley Curve is a profound
religious metaphor for Safety.
Those who have read previous books in this series understand that Safety has been written
about in different ways, but mostly it has been to personify Safety. When a capital letter ‘S’
is used for the word Safety, it is personified so that in this way we understand Safety as an
archetype. Jung proposed that Safety and Innocence were the same ‘archetype’. An archetype
is something that has a life of its own. It has its own energy, dynamic and momentum over
and above the people who are engaged in its practice. The power of the archetype is that
people act according to its influence, not by their own critical thinking. Indeed, for the
archetype of Safety, critical thinking is the enemy.
The moment one allows Safety to enter the room everything changes. Whatever you
were doing before now becomes qualified by fear, control, risk aversion, regulation,
dehumanisation, don’t, surveillance, numerics, distrust, mechanics and fear. Did ‘fear’ just get
repeated? Just watch what happens in sectors of industry when Safety turns up or when the
‘S’ word is mentioned.
When we personify Safety we don’t ask ‘What is Safety?’ we ask ‘Who is Safety?’
Personification is a marvellous metaphorical semiotic for characterising something that
overpowers and dehumanises. It enables us to understand that something acts in its own
dynamic that is much more powerful than the people in it. When one critiques Safety one
critiques an archetype not the people in it; most of whom are not aware that the archetype
controls them. Most do what they do unconsciously without thinking Safety makes it so. So
let us introduce you to the archetype of Safety:
Safety is the bastard son of Regulation and Engineering, the brother of Zero and
Control, the cousin of Dumb Down and Risk Aversion. (The females in the Safety
family don’t rate a mention). Safety was born in Australia about 35 years ago and has
been hard at work infusing himself into every corner of business and work. Safety
organizes by fear, alienation and the pre-occupation of objects. Safety always talks
about ‘things’ not people. Its narcissistic preoccupation with himself imagines that

Chapter 2: Learning About Learning 33

 all of life is commanded by himself. Safety’s discourse is one of power over others –
other’s must not have choice, other’s can’t think, others are stupid, risk is wrong and
only Safety knows best. Safety does not believe he is like this but others identify him
as this, yet he denies it. Safety has only relationships with bedfellow power-brokers
like Force, Compliance, Propaganda, Indoctrination and Bullying but has Listening,
Conversation, Trust and Faith.

Assessment, Accreditation and Reporting

The goals of assessment, accreditation and reporting are not necessarily about learning as
measurement is often confused for knowledge and learning. When one gets involved in
assessment of learning and evaluation, the first step to maturity is understanding one’s self.
What is important to the learner is not necessarily in sync with what is important to the
teacher. The first step in effective evaluation is understanding purpose. Evaluation cannot be
separated from many other issues in education and learning, which will be discussed in this
chapter.
There are many ethical considerations when thinking about the evaluation of someone else
or one’s own learning. Assessment, accreditation, evaluation and reporting are never neutral
and should always consider the diversity of learning styles, intelligences and personality of
the learner. Assessment at a minimum should involve input from the learner.

When the Method Contradicts the Methodology

I attended training in the Myers Briggs Type Indicator in 2002 and as part of the
accreditation process there was an examination at the conclusion. After five days of
‘training’ where the focus was on difference, preference and type, competence was
decided by an exam that favoured only one or two of the sixteen different personality
types. What a strange contradiction. So, from a knowledge base of type and Jungian
typology, all participants were forced into the funnel of an ‘SJ’ temperament in order
to certify competence in understanding difference???
My ‘type’ does not perform well in exams indeed, my type is greatly disadvantaged
by the methodology that underpins examination testing. If the test was shifted to a
verbal or conceptual process without a parroting mode of testing I would have passed
the test. As it was, I failed the test as I had failed many before. My personality type
and learning intelligence is not favoured by the learning and examination style of this
training product.
I perform best in processes of continual assessment, which involve evaluation methods
that preference discussion, dialogue, creativity, innovation and qualitative writing.
However, I do recognise that such an evaluation method disadvantages technical,
mechanistic and rote learners.
Many who don’t understand the contingent and inter-connected nature of issues in learning
seem to believe that any form of testing and knowledge acquisition is somehow neutral.
Our school system at present is fixated on standardised testing (NAPLAN) that favours

34 Tackling Risk
certain intellects, learning styles, types and demographic factors. Generally, the poor
and disadvantaged are discriminated against by standardised testing and the wealthy are
advantaged by standardised testing. This is not to say the poor are of one personality type,
it is a complex web of causation that links social status to disadvantage and examination
methodology. Further see:
http://www.standardizedtesting.net/teaching.htm;
http://study.com/academy/lesson/standardized-tests-in-education-advantages-and-
disadvantages.html;
http://ideas.time.com/2012/10/11/why-its-time-to-get-rid-of-standardized-tests/;
http://fairtest.org/how-standardized-testing-damages-education-pdf;
https://books.google.com.au/books?id- =k0tisFxayGwC&pg=PA66&lpg=PA66&dq=how+s
tandardised+testing+disadvantages+the+poor&source=bl&ots=jO85WA0TA8&sig=GTlTId
cJEJClyDn6zZfXSOpZLm4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CEYQ6AEwBmoVChMI5Ne_3OzAx
wIV5OKmCh0TewR5 - v=onepage&q=how stanht
The works of Professor Ken Robinson are particularly instructive on the problem of
standardised testing as anti-educational. Any search in YouTube will find countless
presentations by Ken Robinson on the issue of compulsory mid-education through
standardised testing.
Unfortunately, in the wider community and in industry, many confuse measurement with
assessment. The old aphorism ‘What gets measured get’s managed’ is a plague on those
industries that confuses numerics with knowledge and learning. As long as some people
have a number, they can attribute meaning to it and think that the number justifies itself. In
reality, assessments, accreditation and reports are all forms of subjective measures that say
more about the reporter than any notion of an objective measure. Assessments are designed
according to what is important to the designer and what is not important to the designer.
Tests are not neutral.
The ethics of standardised testing is rarely questioned but it is profoundly unethical. All
evaluation of learning should:
a. respect human diversity;
b. demonstrate fairness and justice;
c. collect the best and most suitable evidence on which to base decisions;
d. understand bias and interpretation of evidence; and
e. respect privacy and individuality.
A very helpful read about the subjectivity of evaluation and knowledge is by Kuhn
(1962), The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. It was Kuhn, Laktos, Feyerbend and Polanyi,

Chapter 2: Learning About Learning 35

and later the post-modernists, that really ‘blew out of the water’ the myth of scientific
objectivity. Kuhn also introduced the idea of worldviews and paradigms as positional for the
construction of science and later as post-structuralists and post modernists demonstrated,
that all knowledge is biased and ‘constructed’ according to the subjective worldview of the
subject.

Behaviourism
I would like a dollar for every time we get asked if we do programmes on ‘behaviour’. People
who love control seem to love discussion of behaviour. The same people love behaviour
because they think behaviour can be measured and if measured, can be managed.
It is amazing how attractive Behaviourism is in the wider community and across most
sectors of industry for dealing with risk. They have whole departments set up under the
banner of Safety. ‘Forget this psychology stuff ’ they say, ‘We need measurable behaviour’.
Usually followed by some pithy saying like: ‘You can’t manage what you can’t measure’. How
strange, because the most important things in life that we value cannot be measured and
if we seek to measure them we ruin the quality of those values. Just imagine if you tried to
quantify the love for your partner or children? Just the suggestion of the question would ruin
the nature of the love one espouses.
When asked to join the quest for ‘behaviours’, we usually state, “That is not what we do” and
that ends the conversation. At this point there is usually a mutual separation because we are
not interested in the myopic focus on behaviours; it has a troubling trajectory. There is much
more to being human than behaviours, much more to understanding risk than behaviours
and much more to human judgement and decision making than behavioural outcomes.
Humans are not the sum of inputs and outputs. When I encounter people who claim they
are experts in Human Factors, it sounds like ‘spin’. Such a worldview simply understands
humans as ‘factors’ in systems and in the end falls back to behaviourism.
When catching a plane at a terminal there are often signs drawing your attention to focus
on and report ‘unusual’ behaviours. I wonder how these ‘behaviours’ are identified? What
criteria are these ‘behaviours’ identified? Look at the poster, see Picture 4 and the caption is:
‘if something does not look right’, What?
Several skits by the comedians, The Chasers War on Everything, demonstrate such hopeless
discourse. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wikiThe_Chaser’s_War_on_Everything).
By the simple addition of a turban or headscarf they were able to demonstrate the
pointlessness of such discourse. Behaviour is not observed neutrally, it is always interpreted
through a range of human biases and prejudices. There are countless Social Psychology
experiments showing that good looks and attraction or wearing a suit and tie are
foundational to misjudgement and incorrect analysis.

36 Tackling Risk
Picture 4. What Can You See?

How would anyone know what behaviour looks wrong? Maybe someone who looks like
Osama Bin Laden or wears a headscarf ? Maybe people with eyes close together? Maybe
people who fidget or avoid eye contact? Is it someone looking down? What about someone
walking fast? Is it someone who is nervous? Maybe people who hold on to their backpack
in an unusual way? What a crazy quest to throw at the public. Most experts themselves have
no idea what constitutes ‘unusual’ behaviours until after the event with hindsight and CCTV
footage. Perhaps that’s why they throw this irresponsibility ‘spin’ on to the public.
We can all be brilliant Behaviourists with 100% hindsight. We can all rebuke others for
a lack of ‘common sense’ when we see the CCTV footage. After the event we could all
say: ‘Why can they not see that?’ ‘They must be dumb’. ‘Even Blind Freddy, an imaginary
person with little to no perception can see that it is common sense’. Duncan Watts book
Everything is Obvious Once you Know the Answer, How Common Sense Fails Us will put an end
to the myth of common sense. How could ‘The Chasers’ walk in so easily on APEC (http://
youtu.beTdnAaQ0n5-8) with so many indicators that they were fake. Not one expert picked
up the clues regardless of spending $150 million on security. How easily the ‘Chasers’ fooled
security staff on the Sydney Harbour Bridge simply with their dress (http://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=McB9tsabPn0). If you know how to interpret behaviour as suspicious, good
luck to you, the rest of us don’t know.

Chapter 2: Learning About Learning 37

Behaviours and behavioural indicators are subjective. We could be observing an aberration
of behaviour. We do not often ‘feel’ quite ourselves as, we may be ill, stressed, distressed,
eustressed, de-stressed, anxious, depressed, distracted, preoccupied or upset. There are
hundreds of reasons why our behaviours are hard to read, understand and interpret. To make
hard and fast judgements on the interpretation of behaviours is fraught with problems.
The idea that all behaviours are both objective and measurable is nonsense. Without a
relationship with someone, deep understanding and familiarity, most judgement about
behaviours is likely to be wrong. Even after thirty years of marriage one learns to be wise in
discerning and interpreting behaviours.
Of course behaviours can be faked, the sociopath and psychopath are experts at this. We
may think we know someone only to be surprised much later when trust is decimated.
Behaviours are not a reliable measure. The quest for behaviours is a delusional fixation on
the measurable, especially in the world of risk. Behavioural Based Safety (BBS) is a mythical
preoccupation that imagines others can be controlled and thereby diminishes the importance
of ownership and learning. What a strange and delusional anthropology that imagines
humans are like machines and computers. Such a view does not explain human motivation
at all and certainly does not explain the diversity of human perception.
Observation without conversation is a guessing game. It is at best a speculation that says
more about the observer than the subject of observation. Observation without skilled
conversation, open questions, unconditional positive regard and listening, is meaningless.
So lets stop talking about ‘behaviours’ and start talking about relationships. Lets not ‘spy’
on people and parade the nonsense of speculative interpretations as truth. Lets stop talking
about behaviours and start talking about people.

Challenges of Learning and Risk

The purpose of this brief section is to outline the wickedity of learning and risk. Wickedity
has been discussed before and included in the glossary. Previous books describe the nature
of problems that are intractable, more than complex and unsolvable. The following list is
intended to demonstrate the naivety of current approaches to risk, the impossibility of zero
ideology and the scope of challenges when thinking about risk and learning. These ‘wicked’
challenges are:
The Challenge of Trade-Offs and By-Products: There is no decision or judgement that
does not have some form of trade-off, by-product or competing-value.
The Nature of Social Reproduction: For every action taken or decision made at an overt
level there is always a hidden social perspective. This is because all decisions in the world
have social implications.
The Challenge of the Unconscious: The reality is despite all advances in science and
technology there is so little understood about the human unconscious.

38 Tackling Risk
The Problem of Transcendence, Metaphysics and the Non-Material World: The
testimony of billions of people across all religions testifies to the fact that humans believe in
a transcendent realm as reality and that this realm is real and mysterious.
The Problem of Risk Elimination: The nature of human fallibility and randomness in
the world means that there is no such thing as risk elimination. Indeed, risk is essential to
learning. This means that even the quest to eliminate risk is the quest to not learn and not
live.
The Problem of Fallibility and Emergence: Humans are fallible so there can be no
absolute prediction of the future (omnipotence and omniscience), neither can there be any
omnipresence for humans. Everything cannot be known, therefore, humans must make
decisions by satisficing. This making the best decision in the face of all that is known and
what is not known.
The Problem of Suffering and Pain: As a result of fallibility and the need to risk and learn
there will always be suffering and pain for humans.
The Problem of Anti-Fragility: It is a considerable problem for humans that the more they
try to protect themselves from harm the more fragile they become in their environment. The
concept of Anti-Fragility shows that resilience, robustness and adaptability are ‘learnt’ from
risk and turbulence in living.
These challenges are not sufficient to stop real-living in the world but are rather the
essentials for real-living in the world. The quest for zero where humans are involved is
anti-living.

Creating a Climate for Learning

I developed the PLEASE Model of Learning (Psychosocial Learning Education and
Support Environment) in 1996 and have written about this in previous books. In a social
psychological approach to education and learning a greater emphasis is placed upon climate
and environment than content and curriculum. If the climate is right, people learn.

Cognitive, Affective, Psychomotor and Social Learning

The following discusses key concepts in the idea of learning development. These concepts are
highlighted in bold for attention and further exploration.
One of the first things teachers learn is about cognitive, affective, psychomotor and social
development. Generally educators are introduced to the work cognitivists Jean Piaget
(1896-1980) and Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934). Cognitivism emerged out of Gestalt
psychology. Both Piaget and Vygotsky have had a pronounced effect on educational theory
and the principle of developmentalism. This has been reinforced by others that followed like
Benjamin Bloom and his hierarchy of learning or Bloom’s Taxonomy. A model of Bloom’s
Taxonomy can be viewed here: http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2014/03/new-blooms-
taxonomyplanning-kit-for.html.

Chapter 2: Learning About Learning 39

The work of Jerome Bruner is also worth some study as his focus is on the development of
language and learning through semiotics. Bruner argued that we learn through language
in three forms of representation: Enactive, Iconic and Symbolic. A comparison of Bruner,
Piaget and Vygotsky can be found here: http://www.simplypsychology.org/bruner.html.
Like all hierarchies, Piaget and Vygotsky have constructed a model for understanding the
‘development’ of persons, particularly children. The idea that children develop through
Piaget’s stages is not congruent with the evidence, that shows development is neither linear
or progressive. Vygotsky’s theory is based on the concept of dialectic and is socially based
and saw development through semiotics. Several of Vygotsky’s ideas have been quite helpful
in understanding learning including the ideas of readiness, scaffolding and the Zone of
Proximal Development.
The principle of readiness states that people are not able to learn until they have the right
basis for learning and this includes a prepared knowledge base, opportunity and a will to
want to learn. For example, many children start school but are not ‘ready’ to learn numeracy
or literacy because they are under-developed cognitively.
The idea of scaffolding is that one has to build up to a state of readiness by building
foundations and strength, confidence and motivation in trust to enable learning. For
example, one can learn how to ride a bike in stages as this video shows (https://www.
youtube.com/ watch?v=p6SNCvIN4EI ). When learning is scaffolded people move in steps
building on trust in knowledge so that they are ready to move forward and learn more.
The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is an area of learning that occurs when a
person is assisted by a teacher or peer with a skill set higher than that of the subject. When
someone is in this space, between not-knowing and wanting to know, then motivation
and readiness comes together and learning occurs. This model of a zone was adapted in
Book Four in this series on Leadership. The ZPD works on the idea of mutuality, trust,
reciprocation and social maturity.
The work of Albert Bandura (1977) and Erik Erikson saw a shift in educational theory to
social learning. Bandura argued that children learn through imitation and social context
according to positive and negative reinforcement. His Bobo Doll Experiment is a classic
endorsement of his theory (https:// www.youtube.com/watchv=eqNaLerMNOE). Erik
Erikson’s theory is based on stages of social development and proposes that children, young
adults and adults go through eight stages of development in response to transition crisis
moments, as follows:

40 Tackling Risk
Table 1. Erikson’s Stages of Development
Stage Social-Psychological Crisis Virtue Age
1 Trust vs Mistrust Hope Infancy
2 Autonomy vs Shame Will Early Childhood
3 Initiative vs Guilt Purpose Play Age
4 Industry vs Inferiority Competency School Age
5 Ego Identity vs Role Confusion Fidelity Adolescence
6 Intimacy vs Isolation Love Young Adults
7 Generativity vs Stagnation Care Adulthood
8 Ego Integrity vs Despair Wisdom Maturity

The Constructivists believe that people construct their own understanding and knowledge
of the world through experiencing and reflecting on experiences. Prominent is this view of
education was John Dewey (1859 – 1952) and R. S. Peters (1919 – 2011). It was these two
constructivists that focused most on student-centred learning. Dewey’s best known works
on education are: Democracy and Education (1916) and s(1938). Peter’s work in education
primarily focused on educational philosophy and his best know works are: Ethics and
Education (1968), The Philosophy of Education (1973). Peters in particular concentrated on the
question, what is it to be an educated person?
My mentor and Master’s supervisor, Bill Andersen AM at Sydney University, was a student
of R. S. Peters. Bill is a leading Educational philosopher in his own right and has been
instrumental in establishing a Christian Theory of Education and a Christian notion of
the educated person. Bill can be heard here: http://sydney.edu.au/education_social_work/
alumni_friends/ interviews-centenary.shtml
Bill’s work and also as founder of the Journal of Christian Education and development of a
Biblical View of Education can be viewed here:
https://books.google.com.au/booksid=Kb2hdQ63_wEC&pg=PA36&lpg=PA36&dq=Bill+
Andersen+education+sydney&source=bl&ots=-o3-EP9pST&sig=1ikF358K72i-jIDF6vWd
2NXcUts&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CD8Q6AEwBmoVChMI4rrT5ZvDxwIVgxKUCh1iHQd
D#v=onepage&q=Bill%20Andersen%20education%20sydney&f=false
The idea of Moral Development was pioneered by Lawrence Kohlberg (1958) and was
based on similar logic to the developmentalism of Piaget and Erikson. Kohlberg argued
that people develop morally through stages somewhat like Erikson’s stages and assume a
fundamental dialectic or crisis that excites development.

Chapter 2: Learning About Learning 41

Dialectic
The concept of existential (not existentialist) dialectic is critical for a Social Psychology
of Risk (SPoR). This is so, not just because it is a natural flow in tradition inherited from
Marx and Hegel but because the dialectic referred in SPoR is a unique view that owes much
to the work of Jacques Ellul, Kierkegaard and Jung and a host of others in the existential
dialectic tradition. This dialectic is ‘existential’ meaning a life-centred subjectivity rather
than an object-centred or thought-centred mechanistic worldview. An existential dialectic is
not about the philosophy of existence (existentialism) but rather the reality of living life in
tackling risk.
The Ellulian version of dialectic, heavily influenced by Kierkegaard, is not about synthesis
from thesis and anti-thesis. Ellul and Kierkegaard see no synthesis but rather a continual
movement and tension between thesis and anti-thesis that is never solved. For the purpose
of this discussion we will refer to this ‘existential dialectic’ as just ‘dialectic’.
Whilst Hegel seeks to find a unity in synthesis, Ellul simply says that such a wish for unity
or the one true system is technique. We can see the difference between an Hegelian and
Ellulian understanding of dialectic in Figure 5. Hegel’s Dialectic and Figure 6. Existential
(Ellulian) Dialectic. An existential dialectic understands that the core elements of being are
not binary but triarchic and always in tension.

Figure 5. Hegel’s Dialectic

42 Tackling Risk
Figure 6. Existential (Ellulian) Dialectic

A triarchic understanding of human being, the mind and social relationships are essential
for a Social Psychology of Risk. Existential Dialectic is a profoundly social way of thinking
and practice. It is only from a triarchic foundation that we can understand the speeds
of the mind (One Brain Three Minds), metaphysics and transcendence and the nature of
community. The dialectic introduced by Ellul never ‘fixes’ and never ‘arrives’ but is always
held in tension. Greenman, Schuchardt and Toly (2012) Understanding Jacques Ellul,
p.156 states:
. . . dialectic is a procedure that does not exclude contraries, but includes them . . . the
same way as a negative pole and a positive pole interact and then sparks fly between
them.
For Ellul, dialectic is:
not just a way of reasoning by question and answer but by an intellectual mode of
grasping the real, which itself embraces both the positive and the negative, both black
and white . . . the real embraces . . . contradictory factors which do not cancel one
another but coexist.
This is why binary opposition is anathema to a Social Psychology of Risk. Wikipedia defines
binary opposition as:
… the system by which, in language and thought, two theoretical opposites are strictly
defined and set off against one another. It is the contrast between two mutually
exclusive terms, such as on and off, up and down, left and right. Binary opposition is
an important concept of structuralism, which sees such distinctions as fundamental
to all language and thought. In structuralism, a binary opposition is seen as a
fundamental organizer of human philosophy, culture, and language.

Chapter 2: Learning About Learning 43

Binary opposition says that if you deny an assertion, you must affirm its opposite. It seeks
to establish meaning by the exclusion of opposites. This is also known as the principle of
non-contradiction (black cannot be white). Binary thinking proposes that if one does not
believe in god, then you must believe in the devil. Binary thinking proposes that, if you do
not support ‘the war on terror’, you are a terrorist. Binary opposition thinking proposes that
if you don’t support gay marriage, you must be homophobic. Binary opposition thinking
proposes that if you do not support a price on carbon you must be an environmental
vandal. Binary opposition is an essential element in fundamentalist thinking and a critical
foundation of the non-sense of zero harm. Dialectic contests all binary constructs that quest
for totality, efficiency and utopias.
For Ellul, because of dialectic, there is always praxis (i.e. action oriented towards movement
and change) not just practice. Ellul says it is not a matter of community-in-practice but
communities-in-praxis that defines meaning and purpose. In the world of risk in industry
and the wider community where objects are given primacy, dialectic reaffirms ourselves as
subjects. This is done by ‘demythologising’ and ‘desacralising’ technique (the quest for total
efficiency). Wikipedia comments about praxis:
Praxis is used by educators to describe a recurring passage through a cyclical process
of experiential learning, such as the cycle described and popularised by David A. Kolb.
A discussion of Kolb eschews in the following chapter.
Paulo Freire defines praxis in Pedagogy of the Oppressed as ‘reflection and action
directed at the structures to be transformed.’ Through praxis, oppressed people can
acquire a critical awareness of their own condition and with their allies, struggle for
liberation.
So, why is this notion of dialectic crucial for education and learning? The following may be
helpful for an existential dialectic:
1. Serves as a model that counters the delusion of absolutes, totalism and ‘one true system’
thinking.
2. Accepts the constancy of tension in epistemology and maintains a position of openness.
3. Mitigates against fundamentalist and binary constructs that seek to assert black and
white answers and ‘fixes’ to complex and wicked problems.
4. Desacralises the focus on the ‘object’ and reasserts primacy on the ‘subject’. It makes
movement (the dance) the reality, not fixity (bifurcation).
5. Emphasises learning and education through dialogue, listening, mutuality, reciprocation
and praxis.
6. Endorses the mystery of faith and the uncertainty of risk. Ellul notes that this helps one
pay attention to ‘otherness’.
7. Maintains the fundamental reality that all things are social, there is only i-thou.

44 Tackling Risk
8. Gives significance to semiotics, signs and symbols in all human discourse. Ellul notes the
importance of music as a stage for melody, harmony or cacophony.
9. Acknowledges the reality of ‘emergence’ whilst still recognising a sense of a coherent
‘whole’. That is, whilst all cannot be knowable, there can be a sufficient sense of coherence in
a dialectic worldview that enables learning to be meaningful.
10. Supports a social sense of purpose and meaning through social and communal
connection and modelling.
The best way to denote the constant tension in dialectic in text is with the hyphen.

Hyphen
In the Social Psychology of Risk there is no more important tool of grammar (in social
organising) than the hyphen. The hyphen is what joins in common meaning yet also holds
in tension as not-either-or. The hyphen was used in s to show that there can be no talk
of ‘leading’ without following nor talk of ‘following’ without leading. The hyphen also
represents the tension between two activities or two ideas where there is ‘meeting’, activity
and movement.
The hyphen represents an existential dialectic tool that joins and holds in tension two
opposing forces, concepts and activities with the hyphen forming the third and triarchic
element in composition.
The hyphen as a dialectical tool in Social Psychology of Risk works against linear and
reductionist constructs in thinking. Dialectic does not think in terms of either-or nor
excludes the other but rather thinks in coexistence.
The hyphen in dialectic is the third and tension place holder in dialogue and in the Social
Psychology of Risk there is: i-thou, as-if, now-not yet, subject-object, the one-the many,
order-disorder, fragility-anti-fragility, faith-reason, time-eternity, freedom-necessity and
if-then. The hyphen is the triarchic place holder in dialectic tension between two things,
holding back the seduction of the binary utopia. The quest for Utopias was discussed in the
first book in this series, Risk Makes Sense). For Ellul, the hyphen denotes what is active / not
inactive. It represents a conversation between two coexisting opposites. Jung captures this
in his discussion of the Mandala (see Jung, C.G., (1959) Mandala Symbolism. The Mandala
represents the inter weaving of opposing forces in tension. See Figure 7. Semiotic Mandala.

Chapter 2: Learning About Learning 45

Figure 7. Semiotic Mandala.

The Semiotic Mandala shows all the key elements in understanding semiotics in a mandala
symbol shaped as a flower, with each opposing element held in tension with its opposite
through the centre of paradox, grammar, the unconscious and anchoring. In this way one
does not eliminate contradiction but rather finds a way to live with it. In the same way
an existential dialectic sustains the coexistence of the negative with the positive. The idea
the negative is ‘wrong’ totally misunderstands how the negative gives voice to the positive
and shapes the positive. The positive psychology movement and that of ‘appreciation’ fails
to recognise the positive contained in the counterforce. The one force without the tension
of its opposite only leads to sclerosis, paralysis and self-reproduction. This is the goal of
totalitarianism and the one true way or technique.
There is no innovation or learning in any one true way, where there can only be agreement.
Similarly, the quest for perfection, absolute efficiency and the total elimination of risk is a
quest for no life. There is no resilience without dialectic.

Hidden Curriculum
The first thing a teacher learns in an Education degree is ‘The Hidden Curriculum’ (https://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_curriculum). The Hidden Curriculum is what is learnt
invisibly and unconsciously in the process of something else. Most often the method

46 Tackling Risk
(the how) of something, hides the methodology (the why) of something and it is the
methodology that is most learnt, not the method. We learn more through the way someone
does something than the content of what they do. For example, a comprehension approach
to an induction tells the participant that content is the most important thing to the
organisation, not dynamic relationships, engagement or learning.
Education is an activity of Social / Cultural Reproduction. This is the view of the school
of Critical Pedagogy established by Paulo Friere in Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1972). The
school of Critical Pedagogy has continued through such scholars as Henry Giroux, Michael
Apple and Peter McLaren. Critical Pedagogy is an offshoot of Critical Theory and is
linked to the same sources as Social Psychology, Cultural Theory ( Jurgen Habermas), The
Frankfurt School, Annales, History of Mentalities and Semiotics.
It is from this school of thought that emerged the Freeschoolers, Deschoolers and
Unschoolers like: Jerome Bruner, The Relevance of Education (1972), Ivan Illich, Deschooling
Society (1971), John Holt, How Children Learn (1967) and How Children Fail (1964),
Michael Macklin, When Schools Are Gone (1976), Paul Goodman, Compulsory Miseducation
(1962), Everett Reimer, School is Dead (1971), Postman and Weingartner, Teaching as
a Subversive Activity (1969) and Robin Barrow; Radical Education (1978). Many of the
principles of the Freeschoolers and Deschoolers were used when I setup the PLEASE
program of learning at Galilee.
Critical Pedagogy is concerned with Social Justice and the centrality of power and discourse
in learning. Critical pedagogy sees what is hidden and ‘underneath’ various philosophies
of education. It is this school of thought that understands the nature of the Hidden
Curriculum. The Hidden Curriculum is not just about a response to what is overtly ‘taught’
or displayed as surface instruction but looks at what is happening covertly through messages
and information which are learnt indirectly. Indirect or covert messages are not openly
displayed and are often contained in what is not said or by inadvertent messages conveyed in
strategy, actions, subliminal and unconscious messages.

Modified Cursive
From Grade Two to Grade Five, during the late 1950s and early 1960s, I was a
student subject of a massive school-based experiment. At that time education systems
were experimenting with new handwriting styles to transform from copperplate to
a modified cursive style. I had moved with my parents and went to three different
schools in those three years and experienced every style of handwriting that was
introduced. This was amidst the greatest reform in the history of New South Wales
(NSW) Education, known as The Wyndam Scheme. Although this radical reform
was mostly in Secondary schooling, the flow on effects of reform extended into the
Primary education system.
When starting school I first learnt by printing and then was introduced to Copper
Plate using ink, ink wells, blotting paper and ink nibs. I remember how awkward it
was to write using ink but was delighted when it was my turn to be the ‘Ink Monitor’
and to mix and distribute the ink to the desks. It was so much fun using ink but there

Chapter 2: Learning About Learning 47

 was no way of rubbing out or preventing a mess. Such a clumsy way to learn how
to write and because I had moved from school to school and had not had enough
stability in my schooling to get used to one system, school or teacher.
No sooner had I learnt how to write in ‘Cursive’ when we were subject to a short
experimental blast of ‘Italics’. This was the new trend yet in Grade Four the system
finally settled down to the Modified Cursive style until Grade Six. When entering
High School it became a ‘free-for-all’ and unrestricted. By then I was so mixed up and
put together a combination of ‘liquorice allsorts’. Since then I have always written in
a ‘linked script’, a mongrel-mix and joining together of print with Modified Cursive
and self invented ‘backtracking’ to help me pick up speed in handwriting.
In the end I had learnt how not to handwrite with the intended style, space, slope size
and shape. By the time I entered University we had typewriters but no computers at
that time. I did my first Master’s Degree thesis in handwriting and later gave it to a
typist. By the time I did my PhD I had a computer.
Similarly, I remember the experiment with Open Classrooms in the 1970s and the
dropping of the teaching of Grammar, all with mixed outcomes. Similar experiments
are happening in schools today with the National Assessment Programme - Literacy
and Numeracy (NAPLAN). It is a wonder our kids survive schooling so well.
Whilst much is learnt by experimentation, there are always by-products and trade-offs. In
my case I did not learn how to write but more, to dislike writing. The Hidden Curriculum
had come into play and my later schooling was greatly disadvantaged by it. Many teachers
stated they could not read my handwriting. Much of this was a result of trending in
education. It is amazing how we seem so prepared to experiment with our children’s
education but become so risk averse in other areas of living. Perhaps trending and fads do
nothing more than demonstrate the power of propaganda, spin and blind following.

Instruction, Induction and Training

The purpose of an induction is to get through the induction. This is the most common belief
we have found and experienced across industry. I am often asked to evaluate and design
inductions, as so many are not designed well, are a data dump, framed in indoctrination
and confuse recall as learning. There is a common belief a Certificate IV Workplace Health
and Safety or a Certificate IV in Training and Assessment makes a person competent in
curriculum and learning. It is a shame all of those teachers are wasting their time doing a
four year degree and countless days of field experience in education!
To ‘induct’ infers that someone is being ‘admitted’ or ‘enrolled’ into some thing or into
an organisation. The Induction is therefore an introduction, usually the first engagement
someone has with an organisation. How government and non-government institutions and
industry organisations chose to create value in the induction and the design of the induction
is highly subjective. It is one thing to provide an induction to cover regulation and policy and
entirely another, to provide a meaningful induction. Some organisations think inductions
should go for several days, while others for thirty minutes and others just get people to

48 Tackling Risk
watch a video or generate a ‘ticket’ over the internet as an induction online. Inductions
generally vary by the intensity of the knowledge (not learning) required by the organisation
of the participant.
For many organisations inductions are a costly and an onerous task. If delivered in person, an
induction can be a lottery or smorgasbord of well intentioned people who have no expertise
in teaching, education or learning. Generally, people are corralled into a room and presented
with a manual, a PowerPoint show and a routine, which is regurgitated time after time. There
is little thought for learning styles, multiple intelligences or ‘learning’ to take place in the
inductions (http://www.ldpride.net/learningstyles.mi.htm). In some sectors of industry, sub-
contractors working at several locations may experience three or four of these ‘data dumps’
a week. This is despite the fact the contractors are already required to have a general ‘White
Card’ ticket obtained through a registered training organisation (RTO); but these are next
to meaningless and have been desensitised to learning through repetition and experience of
countless boring ‘sleeping bag’ and time to ‘doze-off ’ inductions.
The excess of poorly designed inductions achieves the very opposite to what they are
intended, through the Hidden Curriculum, of learning. The ‘boring’ induction process
‘inoculates’ the participant against learning. Then the organisation assumes learning has
occurred, usually because a comprehension list of ticks and crosses or single word answers
has been filled out by Inductor prompts until the participant ‘gets it right’. We have direct
experience of attending inductions across the nation and at international locations. It is
all the same. Now we return back to the opening line of this article: The purpose of an
induction is to get through the induction. Is there any escape from this systemic malaise?
Does the shifting of a bad induction onto an iPad make a bad induction better? No. Is an
online induction effective? No. Think about it, a first introduction to your organisation is via
a computer. Is that how you want to welcome people into your organisation? Watching a
video of the CEO spruiking a ‘welcome to the family’ spin followed by screens of regulation,
pictures of objects to memorise, followed by a comprehension test which has little to do with
learning or welcome.
Susan Pinker (The Village Effect) demonstrates the importance of face-to-face contact in
order to help us be ‘healthier, happier and smarter’ people. Pinker’s work resonates with that
of Andrew Keen (The Cult of the Amateur), Nicholas Carr (The Shallows) and Sherry Turkle
(Alone Together) showing the limitations of online content. Pinker demonstrates in many
ways why so called ‘online learning’ is not very effective nor focused on learning. ‘Parrot
learning’ is not actually learning. Regurgitating data and mimicking mantra does not require
‘thinking’, ownership, adaptation, change or intelligence, all essential qualities for ‘learning’
to occur. We believe this is why NAPLAN is a failed ‘method’ of education.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/naplan-fails-
test-as-study-shows-negative-impact/storye6frg6n6-
1226523786094nk=8704dd5f456f243b77024639719fe071-1439603248,http://m.
dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/just-admit-it-naplan-is-a-complete-failure/
story-fni0cwl5-1227312371965nk=8704dd5f456f243b77024639719fe071-1439603272

Chapter 2: Learning About Learning 49

http://sydney.edu.au/education_social_work/news_events/resources/No_NAPLAN.pdf
The methodology of NAPLAN confuses regurgitation with knowledge and learning, when
recall is not learning. NAPLAN is the ‘baby’ of two lawyers Gillard and Garrett, who tied
the acceptance of NAPLAN to funding.
Similarly, it makes me cringe when I think of how the legal fraternity engages with
risk. Perhaps, have a look at the following on the effectiveness of standardised testing
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY; http://www.ascd.org publications/
educational-leadership/mar99/vol56/num06/Why-Standardized-Tests-Don%27t-Measure-
EducationalQuality.aspx; http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/07/09/36jouriles.h33.
html)
NAPLAN runs on the same reductionist methodology that supposes lost-time-injuries
(LTI) or a total recordable injury frequency rate (TRIFR) measurement is an indication
of managing risk and how safe an organisation operates. Safety or such tracking data via
pyramids and curves and presented on PowerPoint presentations and in reports somehow
has something to do with culture and risk.
(http://sydney.edu.au/education_ social_work/news_eventsresources/No_NAPLAN.pdf )
In many ways, online ‘content’ is the least effective way to help people learn than most other
methods. After many years in learning and teaching we only view online content as a ‘last
resort’, but it certainly is the lowest on any hierarchy of learning methodologies. Often
project methods, safety methods, risk methods and educational methods fail because the
presenter of those methods does not know or understand and therefore cannot apply their
own foundational philosophy (methodology).
In light of what we know about learning and double loop learning (http://infed.org/mobi/
chris-argyris-theories-of-action-double-loop-learning-and-organiza-tional-learning/ ) and
triple loop learning (http://debategraph.org/Details.aspx?nid=250157, https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=Nn3NqvStekY, http://www.kollnergroup.com/wp- content/uploads/2009/11/
Modes-of-Organizational-Learning.pdf ), here are a few questions rather than ‘fixes’ to
consider:
1. Why would an organisation leave judgment of learning and competence to a
machine if risk and safety is that important?
2. Why would an organisation want to desensitise new employees to risk?
3. Why would an organisation want to ‘go cheap’ and ‘ineffective’ when welcoming new
people into their organisation?
4. Why would an organisation want a meaningless ‘data dump’ rather than building
relationships and happiness through the initial engagement process?
5. Why would an organisation choose an untrained person to present safety when that
person has so little learning and skill in education, curriculum, teaching and learning?
6. Is an induction about the ‘spirit’ of risk or the content of Safety?

50 Tackling Risk
7. Why would an organisation not consult an educationalist or a curriculum designer
to prepare an induction?
8. How can one understand others, their idiosyncrasies and worldview, without
‘meeting’ them (Buber)?
9. How does content recall ‘demonstrate’ ownership, adaptation to context and change?
10. What does a ‘cover your arse’ induction really say (hidden curriculum) about an
organisation? (When it works directly against the principles of due diligence).

Indoctrination
One of the things the world witnessed during World War Two was the perfecting of
indoctrination and propaganda through the organising of Hitler Youth. The world was
stunned by what emerged and later became known as ‘The Holocaust’. Indoctrination
is an attempt to inculcate beliefs in a situation through unethical manipulation of
the environment, climate and mechanism of propaganda. Indoctrination is about the
supplanting of ‘doctrine’ by devious means associated with power, control, fear and deception.
Many people are not ‘attuned’ to indoctrination because our society has confused the
definition of learning.
The fundamental dynamics of Indoctrination are suppression, manipulation and exclusion.
Indoctrination has no respect for the integrity or personhood of ‘the other’. For Buber,
education (i-thou) was the ‘upbuilding of character’ for the purpose of meaningful
community. Indoctrination is about the miseducation of character and the importation of
values by rote in order to suit a political, economic or cultural agenda. The key to avoiding
indoctrination is an understanding of learning, education, human fallibility, understanding
self and motive, openness’ in teaching, ‘openness’ in respecting persons and social formation;
with a proper understanding of mutuality and reciprocation in learning.
An effective way of understanding the tyranny of indoctrination and propaganda is through
the following discussion of a recent visit to Mauthausen, Austria. The techniques highlighted
in ‘bold’ in the following account demonstrate the dynamics of indoctrination.

Mathausen
It is a very sobering experience to stand in a gas chamber and reflect on what
happened in Mauthausen as I did in 2015. Standing in the facility of Mauthausen-
Gusen I was overcome with the question, how could this happen? Mauthausen was
one of the largest concentration camps in the Third Reich. Towards the end of war as
the Allied forces closed in, all rail and roads led to Mauthausen. See Picture 5 (http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauthausen-Gusen_concentration_camp).

Chapter 2: Learning About Learning 51

Picture 5. All Rail Leads to Mathausen

Similarly, last year standing in the ‘killing fields’ in Cambodia and S21, I considered
how one can be so easily conditioned to human detachment and dehumanisation. For
the purpose of this section key dynamics of dehumanisation have been highlighted in
bold text. (http://www. killingfieldsmuseum.com/s21-victims.html).
An awareness of the dynamics of dehumanisation helps us to understand not only
how people can commit atrocities but also what the dynamics and indicators are of
dehumanisation and how dehumanisation is ‘learnt’. It is not a big jump from dehumanising
others through prejudice, racism, narcissism and bullying in general, to herding people into
camps, incinerators and gas chambers (see Picture 6). The dynamics of dehumanisation are
simply amplified by context and social arrangements.

Picture 6. Gas Chambers in Mathausen.

52 Tackling Risk
Those first to seek answers to the horrors of Mauthausen-Gusen, Auschwitz, Dachau and
many other places were the social psychologists Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswick, Levinson,
Sanford, Zimbardo, Milgram et al who wanted to find out if the Nazis were monsters
and how the Nazis could commit such acts. Adorno et. al., famous work The Authoritarian
Personality, is an essential read. While I stood in the Teeth Sorting Room in Mauthausen
(see Picture 7.) I contemplated Adorno’s research and also the research of Foucault.

Picture 7. Teeth Sorting Table

Some of what was ‘learnt’ by the Nazis can be explained by a study of The Authoritarian
Personality which can be freely downloaded here: (http://www.ajcarchives.org/main.
php?GroupingId=6490). Foucaults’ work on The Clinic can be freely downloaded here: http://
monoskop.org/images9/92Foucault_Michel_The_Birth_of_the_Clinic_1976.pdf.
Foucault noted that separation of body from personhood is critical to the process of
dehumanisation. That is the naming, discourse and language of people as ‘objects’, is
essential to dehumanisation. This can be achieved by several means, even in how one
‘looks’ at another and what Foucault called the ‘medical gaze’. Zimbardo also used a range
of techniques in the Stanford Prison Experiments such as reflective sunglasses so that
eye contact could not made between Guards and Prisoners (https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=L_LKzEqlPto).
De-personalisation is critical in the process of dehumanisation. Understanding Hofstede’s
Power-Distance factor in enculturation is important in this regard. Many of these
fundamentalist dynamics are present in many community organisations and sectors of
industry as zero harm mantra, practice and ideology.
Physical and language differentiation is critical to the process of dehumanisation, as is the
de-naming of people. In Mauthausen this was done by taking away peoples names, giving
them a badge, uniform and assigning them a number. A code used to dehumanise people

Chapter 2: Learning About Learning 53

at Mauthausen is at Picture 8. In Auschwitz and other places the Nazis also tattooed their
identification number on their tongue. Once one is made a number people can be objectified,
people are made an object. The objectification of people is fundamental to the mechanistic
worldview and to the preoccupation with metrics and numerics so common in workplaces
under the guise of looking after a person’s Safety or is it about a person being controlled?

Picture 8. Codes for Incarceration

The priority in Mauthausen was to make everything calculative. Excessive bureaucracy was
made an art form and this preoccupation enabled efficiency to be a technique as a dynamic
for distancing people as objects. Calculative thinking is a methodology for distancing and
objectifying others. The documentation and records in Mauthausen are an astounding
testimony to calculative thinking.
Detachment of groups and collectives made through semiotics and symbols of
detachment is critical in the dehumanisation process e.g. ‘rag heads’, ‘cue jumpers’ or ‘blacks’.
One thing the Nazis knew more than anything else was that words and symbols matter.
The Nazis were the first in modern times to really understand and harness the power
of semiotics in culture change (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WrJMko344w).
Individually, this can be done, by calling people a ‘trouble maker’, ‘patient’ or ‘rule breaker’.
One thing we get from a study of social psychology is that words matter, semiotics matter.
Words, language and signs have a profound ‘framing’, ‘priming’ and ‘anchoring’ effect and
this is why we speak about goals, such as Zero, which carries its own psychology. The Nazis
knew about the psychology of goals and the necessity of consistency between the language
and practice of goal setting.

54 Tackling Risk
In some companies the use of a person’s name is not allowed when dealing with risk or
for reporting injury and in documenting the mission and purpose of risk and safety in
the organisation. It is well documented how the occupation, rehabilitation and insurance
industries dehumanise people in this way. What is your claimant number please?
Military language and processes also enable the dehumanisation of others. This enables the
speaking of others as ‘the enemy’ and those we can ‘attack’. The use of militaristic language
is common in private contractor organisations, governing authorities and in diverse sectors
of industry for dealing with risk. We can then speak of defending something at the expense
of others and as ‘others’ as the enemy of an idea. Military metaphors and language enable
the speaking of evil practised in the name of good. We can only wonder who the enemies
of absolutes like Zero are? When we speak of safety as ‘lean green safety machines’ (http://
www.safetydifferently.com/lean-green-safety-machine-part-1/) how do wse determine who
and what is the enemy? Why do we need military metaphors and semiotics in dealing in risk
and in the name of safety? Who are we fighting?
Another dynamic in the process of dehumanisation is the use of symbols of power and
discipline, in Mauthausen this was the use of the cap (see Picture 9 and 10). Misuse of the
cap enabled the utmost cruelty and became a visible symbol of psychological disobedience.
Pedantic attention to dress and superficial signification is also critical in the process of
dehumanisation. The regimentation of specific dress and uniforms with badges related to
operations also enables extensive dehumanisation, in the name of good and protection.

Picture 9. The Camp Hat.

Chapter 2: Learning About Learning 55

Picture 10. Hat Wearing Instructions.

Another dynamic of dehumanisation is the power of scrutiny, particularly surveillance

checking all are under the gaze of the panopticon. The power of the panopticon is
undertaken through assembly and behavioural observation, usually through some form of
parade and enactment of power such as in the Mauthausen assembly area. See Picture 11.

Picture 11. Mathausen Assembly Area.

56 Tackling Risk
The panopticon is used to determine the nature of in-group and out-groupness and on
this basis discrimination and prejudice. Once people are differentiated as objects then the
demand for absolutes (zero) can be applied and discipline metered out accordingly. This
authority is only administered in one direction and there is no reciprocal determination.
One of the many books we study intensely at the Centre for Leadership and Learning
in Risk (cllr.com.au) in the Social Psychology of Risk is Abelson, Frey and Gregg’s three
volume series Experiments With People (see Picture 12). Abelson’s book documents social
psychology research over the past fifty years with much of the foundational work being
undertaken in response to the dehumanisation by the Nazis.

Picture 12. Experiments With People

When we understand the dynamics of dehumanisation through the lens of social psychology
we should then be more responsive and sensitive to such dynamics wherever they are
exhibited, including dehumanisation in the name and for the good of risk and safety.

Methodology and Learning

Methodology is not method. Methodology is the philosophy of method and it is the ‘why’ of
method; while method is ‘how’ that methodology is exercised.

Chapter 2: Learning About Learning 57

There are many methodologies, theories and philosophies of education. Most educational
theories differ depending on their focus of interest in curriculum, institution, mind, brain,
cognition, behaviour, social, psychology, development, ethics, intelligence, personality,
knowledge, aesthetics, morality, religion, well being, experience, democracy, ideology; or
variation in anthropomorphic focus on human value and belief. The history and philosophy
of education has been a keen interest for us for a long time.
For Socrates, education was about having a companion in the pursuit of truth, while for
Plato education was training for leisure, not livelihood. The world for Plato comprised
the real and the ideal. Education was the means for moral improvement and was taught
through inductive reasoning. Aristotle believed that knowledge is built up by extracting
the form or essence of an object by experiencing particular instances of it. Aristotle’s work
has been highly influential in the development of western thought on education. Aristotle
also favoured the inductive method of reasoning. However, because we cannot experience
all things we must make an intuitive ‘jump’ to reach conclusion. The task of the teacher
therefore is to assist and to provide concrete experiences in order to facilitate a final intuitive
and reflective judgement.
Aristotle believed humans possessed a soul, which gave form to matter. It is important to
mention that this should not be confused with the Christian idea of the soul. A favoured
book on Anthropology is by Robert Jewett (1971) Paul’s Anthropological Terms, A Study
of Their Use in Conflict Settings. In order to properly understand the idea of Matter, Body,
Conscience, Spirit, Mind, Soul, Heart, Inner and Outer Personhood such a study is
necessary. Needless to say, one’s anthropology, methodology and view of personhood, guides
one’s sense of education and learning. For Aristotle there was no supernatural connection
but was more associated with desires and instincts. Aristotle had a binary view of the human
as either rational or irrational and that understanding was regulated by the power of reason.
Aristotle argued that happiness can only be achieved through virtue. The Form of the Good
is the essence of all virtue. Virtue for Aristotle was about inner excellence rather than just a
moral code. Alienation from being is therefore a disconnectedness from virtue. In the end
education is an end in itself for the fulfilment of being.
There are as many theories of education in the history of western education as there have
been philosophers. Some notable philosophers of education who have had a profound effect
of education are: Quintillian, Aquinas, Loyola, Locke, Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Montessori,
Skinner, Piaget, Bandura, Buber, Dewey, Makarenko, Vygotsky, Bloom, Erikson, Maslow,
Neil, Peters, Friere, Illich, Gardner and a number of the Postmodernists. A brief overview
can be found here: http://www.learning-theories.com/.

Power, The Key to Critcal Thinking

An understanding of power is critical to understanding Indoctrination, Motivation,
Propaganda and the Zone of Proximal Development. The following table illustrates
the various forms of power that are exorcised from others. It is through a meaningful
understanding of power that critical thinking is based. Some propose that critical thinking is
about asking questions such as why?

58 Tackling Risk
Table 2. Ten Forms of Power
Type of Power Definition
Semiotic The power of signs, symbols, signifyer, signified and significance
Reward Positive reinforcement
Coercive Negative reinforcement
Legitimate Social position, authority endorsed by position
Referent Relational and common purpose
Expert Special knowledge
Relational Power through intimacy and reciprocation
Charismatic Passion, confidence and presence
Irrational Craziness and tantrums
Indifference Total disinterest

Pedagogy
Pedagogy is simply the academic word for the theory and practice of education. The word
is helpful because it is comprehensive and moves away from the value laden discourse of
‘teaching’, ‘schooling’ and ‘training’. The pedagogue was originally not the teacher but the
slave who escorted the children to school. We like this idea because the emphasis is on
the environment of learning rather than the institution. It elevates the power of informal
learning and the relationship of learner to community. The pedagogue was certainly the one
who focused more on holistic moral development than just cognition.
An educational theorist, Donald N. Michael wrote, Learning to Plan and Planning to Learn
(1997). Michael writes about ‘deep social-psychological resistances to learning in social
context’, these are: fear, distrust, denial and fundamentalism. Like R. S. Peters he sees the
goal of education is to create educated people to live in a civil society. He states (p. 29):
The learning task is learning how to design boundaries so they reduce the
disorganising consequences of feedback that amplifies uncertainty and
meaninglessness. Absent such reductions, anger, fear, efforts to dominate and the
consequent behaviour of violence, denial, rigidity, withdrawal and cynicism will
continue to undermine civil and open society.
Michael understands education, social planning and maturity in risk as all connected. He
understands planning as a learning strategy. Michael also echoes Weick in that he views
organising as the ‘consensually validated grammar for reducing equivocality by means of
sensible interlocking behaviours’ as a pedagogical strategy. Michael comments:
In situations where turbulence is high, and its suppression would be
counterproductive, people in organisations will have to learn anew how to

Chapter 2: Learning About Learning 59

 demonstrate competence and those in the environment will have to learn how to
assess it. Conventional reactions include avoiding feedback, tightening-up, firing
the bearer of bad news, obfuscation, repression, and ‘fire-fighting’, which is usually
a consequence of actions previously taken to protect an organisation . . . from
turbulence-generating feedback. Fire-fighting aims at getting things under control
as fast as possible with little or no attention to the impact on any plans, much less
long-range plans.
Does this sound like your organisation? In the face of risk; is the focus learning or reacting?
‘Fire-fighting’ may remove a sense of uncertainty but it is a disaster for long-term planning,
which is the critical strategy for long-term learning. Essentially long-range planning and
strategic thinking are philosophy, the methodology for learning. Long-range planning
teaches organisations and leaders the meaning of uncertainty and then one is better at
recognising and acclimatising to it. The repression of uncertainty acknowledgement is anti-
learning and decreases risk intelligence.

Philosophy and The Development of Wisdom

Philosophy is about the study of existence, beliefs and ideas. The word ‘philosophy’ actually
means the ‘love of wisdom’ and has been ascribed to the work of Pythagoras. The word
‘wisdom’ is not a word we hear very much in the risk, safety and security sectors of industry,
which are far more consumed by absolutes, indoctrination and authoritarianism. The
educator, Sternberg, also author of The Triarchic Mind, wrote a great work on Wisdom, which
is something that should be foundational for any person in a position dealing with risk
and safety. To develop a philosophy of risk one should develop a ‘love’ for wisdom in risk.
The intent of the development of wisdom is the humanisation and education of people, the
opposite the preoccupation of self, the foundation of narcissism. For the philosopher, the
first step to wisdom is knowing the reality of paradox. In this regard, it is important to read
the work of Raynor, The Strategy Paradox, Why Committing to Success Leads to Failure.
The challenge of paradox arises from the commitment to risk in the face of uncertainty,
fallibility, change, randomness, mortality and will. Despite the nonsense rhetoric of ‘all
accidents are preventable’ and perfectionism in zero, a philosophy of risk and learning
must acknowledge the reality of randomness in human living. A wise person knows they
must ‘commit’ and lock in a trajectory to a collision with uncertainty, the unknown. A
commitment to something lessens the possibilities for adaptability, because if a commitment
can be changed easily it was not much of a commitment. Commitments rarely adapt until
predictions prove incorrect and predictions are rarely verifiable. So here is the conundrum or
paradox, commitment tends to anchor people to securities in the face of what is unknown.
In the light of this paradox, a learning person would do well to understand the nature of
cognitive dissonance.
In many organisations a philosophy of risk is declared in value statements. These are
often little more than a wish list of populist statements that have no real connection to a
foundational ethic or anthropomorphic understanding of personhood. There is generally
no understanding that the illogical language, ‘all accidents are preventable’, must lead to
blaming and perfectionism. The anthropology of such language denies fallibility and the

60 Tackling Risk
natural logic of learning. If such organisations really believe all accidents are preventable, will
they bet on their predictions? What do they do when an accident occurs? Can they define
the word ‘accident’?
People in industry concerned about learning, need to talk much more about wisdom
than knowledge. The neglect of wisdom is also the neglect of adaptability. This is why the
rigidity of binary opposition is so dangerous. There is no wisdom in the mantra of zero, no
wisdom in intolerance, no wisdom in no compromise and no learning in absolutes, yet this
is the language of so many companies about safety philosophy. Some industry sectors have
organisations bragging about being ‘beyond zero’ and yet sprout words about no compromise
and caring for people.
The well know story of ‘splitting the baby’, from the Book of Solomon, has become an
archetype of wisdom. The full account of the story can be read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/judgment_of_Solomon.
The story shows that judgement is neither simple nor easy, something the organisations
immersed in ‘cardinal rules’, ‘golden rules’, ‘life saving rules’ could consider. It shows that
leadership and wisdom are flip sides of the same coin and that binary thinking is indeed
a mark of immaturity and a lack of leadership. The story also shows the importance of
adaptability to the exercise of wise leadership and that leaders need to understand paradox.
Sternberg (Wisdom, It’s Nature, Origins and Development), a leading educator in
understanding human personhood through The Triarchic Mind, describes five attributes of
the wise person. These are:
Superior cognitive intelligence. In other words, being able to think. This means critical
thinking ability to deconstruct issues and problems, understanding what is underneath and
behind problems rather than being satisfied with surface learning.
Being virtuous. This means understanding that all actions have trade-offs, by-products and
a trajectory. Being virtuous means having enough insight to know the consequences of an
action, particularly with respect to others and communities. The virtuous leader is guided to
action by reciprocation and mutuality.
Personal good. The wise person knows that it is good to be wise, that is, it is intrinsically
rewarding. Research (Pinker) shows we benefit in good health and holistic self-care by being
good to others. We are not only happier when we serve others but wisdom directs more of a
sophisticated sense of choice
Insight into Human ‘Being’. The wise person is of high emotional intelligence and
understands what makes people ‘tick’. Some call this ‘procedural knowledge’. Perhaps just
being humanly ‘savvy’ is a more apt term as this is about much more than the delusion of
‘commonsense’ but rather a superior sense of ‘sensemaking’
Understanding Fallibility. This means knowing the indeterminacy and unpredictability
of life. Wisdom is more about what one does not know rather than being the repository of
encyclopedic knowledge.

Chapter 2: Learning About Learning 61

To develop a philosophy of learning, it must first be person-centred. Second, it must have a
culturally focused mindfulness on the development of maturity rather than the semiotics of
absolutes. Third, a philosophy of risk must be committed to the wisdom of adaptability (and
resilience) and finally, understand that an understanding of the paradox of risk and learning
is the beginning of wisdom.

Planning and Curriculum Design

Curriculum is about the structure of experiences proposed to transfer or excite student
knowledge. The etymology of the word ‘curriculum’ means ‘a race’ or ‘course’ and has come to
be known as a course of study. A curriculum is usually understood as a sequence of planned
instruction or events. When educators talk about ‘extra-curricular’ activities, they often mean
things that emerge rather than things that are planned. Often extra-curricular learning is
understood as ‘incidental learning’ rather than ‘accidental’ learning. If one creates a learning
environment or community, the community or environment itself provides much human
learning that is not ‘planned’. Sometimes incidental learning is more powerful than the
planned curriculum.
Teaching is an art rather than an engineering process. This is the key to understanding
curriculum and pedagogy. When one thinks of ‘art’, one thinks of creativity, innovation,
expression, form and invention. Teaching is better thought of in these terms than
engineering. Unfortunately, the education sector is consumed with curriculum and the
mechanics and content of curriculum. Like inductions and training in risk and safety, the
obsession is with objects not subjects.
Nonetheless, it is important to know how to structure and plan learning experiences.
However, it is more important to know the ‘why’ of curriculum (methodology / philosophy)
and the ‘how’ of curriculum (pedagogy) than the ‘what’ of curriculum (content).
The key to understanding the planning of curriculum is to understand the sequence,
‘scaffolding’ and ‘chunking’. It is rare that people learn much content in a short period of
time. Learning tends to be more cumulative and ‘builds’ according to ‘readiness’ with learning
founded in trust and in the relationship between learning and teacher / teaching.
Teachers are trained in how to prepare a programme or ‘lesson’. Generally this includes
a rationale, objectives, measurable outcomes, content, learning activities and experiences,
practical application and evaluation. These can be pursued in any book on curriculum and
education practice. Within the scope of this book it is best to point the reader in the right
direction rather than explore the process of effective curriculum construction. One of the
best books on teaching is by Barry and King, Beginning Teaching. Another text for educators
(but may be out of print) is by Colin Marsh, Becoming A Teacher.
It is a shame that key aspects of curriculum construction and pedagogy are not more
accessible to people in the risk and safety industries. Inductions, training and formal learning
would be very different.

62 Tackling Risk
Propaganda and ‘Fake News’
Propaganda is not about lies but rather about the distortion of truth. Propaganda cannot
work without communication and knowledge transference. The delusion is that education
is the best remedy for propaganda, even Goebbels, the father of propaganda, insisted that
all communications from the Wehrmacht were to be as accurate as possible. One of the
greatest assets in detecting and tackling propaganda is an understanding of semiotics and
social psychology. Understanding how social arrangements affect decision-making is critical
in understanding propaganda and its close cousin, indoctrination. A valued publication on
Propaganda (1973) was by Jacques Ellul, the famous Christian Marxist Sociologist. A free
copy is available here: (http://monoskop.org/images/4/44Ellul_Jacques_Propaganda_The_
Formation_of_Mens_Attitudes.pdf )
Propaganda according to Ellul is a technique. It is difficult to understand any of Ellul’s work
unless one understands this important concept of ‘technique’. Ellul first explored this in The
Technological Society (1964). For Ellul, technique is about absolute efficiency. It refers to ‘any
complex of standardised means for attaining a pre-determined result’. Ellul (p. 61) states:
Propaganda is a set of methods employed by an organised group that wants to
bring about the active or passive participation in its actions of a mass of individuals,
psychologically unified through psychological manipulations and incorporated in an
organisation.
The technical person is fascinated with ‘results’. Technique transforms ends into means and
makes subjects into objects. The ultimate purpose of technique is ‘dehumanisation’. Ellul
believed technique is a transcendent power as it dynamically corrupts what it is to be human.
For Ellul, the rationality of technique enforces logical and mechanical organisation through
division of labour and the setting of production standards. It creates an artificial system
which ‘eliminates or subordinates the natural world’.
Whilst there is nothing intrinsically wrong with efficiency, when we ‘technicise’ something
or someone, we prioritise efficiency over human value. In this way ‘process’ becomes deified
and is made objective by those who love technology. Technology is not about engineering
but rather about design, and design is all about methodology. Embedded in all design is an
anthropology or understanding of what it means to be human. In the quest for efficiency,
‘the ends justify the means’. This is the common characteristic of the risk and safety
industries.
Propaganda is a technique. It uses naivety, obedience, compliance and lack of critical
thinking to delude and convince others of a new truth or to doubt and confuse knowledge.
The naivety of risk and safety is to believe that ‘facts’ are the ultimate reality rather than
understand that ‘facts’ are constructed.

Gott Mit Uns

One of my favourite books in Australian Historiography is by Rob Pascoe The
Manufacture of Australian History (1979). In this book Pascoe demonstrates how
history is ‘constructed’. That is, the way we explain our perception of events is both

Chapter 2: Learning About Learning 63

 biased and ‘constructed’. In studying historiography at University in the 1970s it
was fascinating to read some historians who glorified war and others who tore the
construction of war stories apart, John Laffin, British Butchers and Bunglers of World
War One is worth a read. I remember doing research on the bias of C. W. Bean and
Manning Clark as if this was a revelation. It was hard to tell the difference between
reality and constructed reality regardless of how the historian ‘used’ evidence.
I have an artefact of World War One on my shelf, a German belt buckle with the
words ‘Gott Mit Uns’ (God with Us) see Picture 13.

Picture 13. German World War One Belt Buckle

64 Tackling Risk
What we learn from the construction of history (historiography) is that information comes
to us as interpreted and attributed. How important it is then, in education and learning to
help people become critical thinkers.

The English also used propaganda invoking the presence of God to justify war. (See
Picture 14).

Picture 14. English Poster From World War One.

Ellul argues that those who stand behind ‘facts’ also seem to legitimate power and control.
This is the powerful contribution of Kuhn and his deconstruction of the myth of scientific
method. Ellul (1964, p. 58) states that:
Propaganda by its very nature is an enterprise for perverting the significance of events
and of insinuating false intentions.
One of the most insidious forms of propaganda is ‘spin’. Spin is not about lies but rather
the absence of truth or full disclosure but it sounds true. Propaganda thrives in the absence
of critical thinking, wisdom and discernment. Words like these are spoken of very rarely in
community service organisations and the risk sectors of industry.

Chapter 2: Learning About Learning 65

Fake News
The craft of misinformation has been about for millennia but more recently with the
problems of social media has become much more pronounced. The Cult of the Amateur (Keen,
2008) and the world of The Shallows (Carr, 2011) not only describes the feeble nature of
social media but describes the ‘hotbed’ as a foundation for what became popularised through
Donald Trump in 2016-17 as ‘fake news’. Fake news is propaganda.
This was highlighted when a guy took a gun to a pizza shop to investigate a porn ring:
(http://www.newsweek.com/pizza-gate-sex-trafficking-children-john-podesta-fake-news-
comet-ping-pong-528207). Fake news is information that endeavours to look like news
using social media but is fabricated: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_news_website).
This surely is a time when society requires discernment (critical thinking) more than ever.
The propagandists (Ellul free download: https://www.ratical.org/ratville/AoS/Propaganda.
pdf ) know that misinformation, known as spin, serves many purposes. One does not have
to tell a real story to destabilise and disrupt the non-discerning. Indeed, those who lack the
ability and skills to discern and think critically simply have to be put into doubt. What is
most important in misinformation is to write stories that are already attractive to popular
myths and biases in a culture and then amplify them. This is what feeds conspiracy theories
and false belief. There are many examples of the success of misinformation and the lack of
discernment. The documentary Merchants of Doubt is a good start (https://www.youtube.
com/ watch?v=HD2zixRoBP8). This is how the tobacco industry, anti-vexers and climate
skeptics have been working for years. There is nothing so effective as fake news and fake
safety.
There are several cumulative rules for creating propaganda, misinformation and ‘fake news’.
1. The first rule for misinformation is to turn everything into ‘opinion’. It does not matter
whether one has forty years of research or specialist knowledge, all this must be made equal
to the amateur on the street. There is nothing more demoralising as the viciousness, toxicity
and ignorance of social media groups. A key to this process is to privilege the regulations of
safety-as-knowledge above all else. In this way Safety can bully others, because they are only
trying to keep people safe.
2. The second rule for misinformation is to blur sources. One of the most effective sets of
questions to use in discerning misinformation is to ask:
• In whose interest is this story?
• Where is the power in this information? For whom?
• Whose politics are being served by this ‘news’?
Have a good look behind who is spreading the fear (CEOs, regulators, safety bureaucrats,
unions) and see if the scaremongering has a political or financial benefit and for whom?
3. The third rule of misinformation is to take the study of critical thinking out of the
education system so that people don’t learn about evidence and critical thinking. The key

66 Tackling Risk
to discernment and wisdom are best located in the skills of historiography. The last thing a
propagandist wants is some one with skills in historiography.
4. The fourth rule of misinformation is to dumb down a population. Risk and Safety
has turned this into an art form over the last 30 years. Make sure there is nothing in the
curriculum that resembles critical thinking or transdisciplinary thinking (https://safetyrisk.
net/isnt-it-time-we-reformed-the-whs-curriculum/). To obtain a $300 Certificate IV in
compliance and checklisting is just what is needed. Better still, create a simulacra for critical
thinking and call it ‘asking why matters’ (e.g. see the populist information from Simon
Sinek) and form a substitute for critical thinking without any critical thinking.
5. The fifth rule is to create a cohort of zombies (https://safetyrisk.net/trifr-safety- zombies/)
that venerate compliance thinking. Let us all follow the ideology of ‘zero harm’ because
everyone else is doing it, even if it is meaningless.
6. The sixth rule of misinformation is to maintain the mythology of ‘common sense’. The
idea that one does not need specialist knowledge or education to be efficient or proficient in
anything is a specialist construct of the ‘dumb down’ approach. We all know the only reason
for injury is that people are ‘stupid and lack common sense’. This is why Risk and Safety has
to ‘tell’ people what to do. We can’t trust grown adults with a sharp object or leads not taped
down. Apparently, without a ‘crusader’ about, people cannot keep themselves from risk or not
being safe.
7. The seventh rule of misinformation is to suppress open and interrogative questioning.
Questions and interrogation for evidence and truth claims are the last thing one will find in
risk and safety curricula. Checklists and conformity to templates is what is needed, not free
open thinkers. Unfortunately, the bias and subjectivity of the templates and check-lists are
never questioned. No one asks, ‘What is the assumption of this checklist?’
8. The eighth rule of misinformation is the attribution of value to numerics and
measurement. The last thing people need is the idea that all numerics are attributed/
interpreted and that higher level goals cannot be measured. Measuring injury statistics and
collecting data then become the measure of all meaning in the mechanistic worldview.
9. The ninth rule of misinformation is to add fuel to myths e.g. ‘Paperwork will cover your
arse in court’. Apparently, the last thing ‘dumb down’ needs is less paperwork (https://vimeo.
com/162034157).
10. The tenth (but not the last) rule of misinformation is to perpetuate fear on fear. How
strange that we make good politics by putting more police on the street (http://www.
premier.vic.gov.au/more-police-on-the-beat-keeping-victorians-safe/). Apparently, there is
a ‘crime tsunami (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-29/victorian-crime-rate-spikes-as-
opposition-warns-of-crime-tsunami/7890832 ) when the crime rate is decreasing! (http://
www.smartjustice.org.au/cb_pages/ les/SMART_CrimeStat%20FINAL%20revised%20
2014.pdf ). Misinformation just loves fear (https://vimeo.com/166935963) and seeks to
amplify existing prejudices with unquestioned generalisations built on stereotypes.

Chapter 2: Learning About Learning 67

Technique
Understanding the notion of ‘technique’ is foundational to discerning the difference between
education/learning and data/training. The expert on technology and technique is Jacques
Ellul (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Ellul). Wikipedia comments:
January 6, 1912 – May 19, 1994) was a French philosopher, sociologist, lay theologian
and professor who was a noted Christian anarchist. Ellul was a longtime Professor
of History and the Sociology of Institutions on the Faculty of Law and Economic
Sciences at the University of Bordeaux. A prolific writer, he authored 58 books and
more than a thousand articles over his lifetime, many of which discussed propaganda,
the impact of technology on society and the interaction between religion and politics.
The dominant theme of his work proved to be the threat to human freedom and
religion created by modern technology. Among his most influential books are The
Technological Society and Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes.
It is to Ellul that we should look for dialogue on learning, community, meaning, purpose and
risk in learning through dialectic and the challenges of technique to learning and education.
Technique does not mean machines or technology but rather the methodology and ideology
for the totalisation of efficiency. Technique is a form of consciousness that operates on the
‘collective unconscious’ (for more ssee Jung, C.G. es and The Collective Unconscious).
Ellul (The Technological Society p. vi) comments:
Technique refers to any complex standardised means for attaining a predetermined
result ... Thus, it converts spontaneous and unreflective behaviour into behaviour that
is deliberate and rationalised ... The technical person is committed to the never ending
search for the ‘one best way’.
and more:
Indeed, technique transforms ends into means. What was once prized in its own right
now becomes worthwhile only if it helps achieve something else. And, conversely,
technique turns means into ends. ‘Know-how’ takes on an ultimate value.
Ellul understands technique as a ‘mentalitie’ that is socially embodied. (A ‘mentalitie’ is a
special approach to social history that understands the nature of history as ‘cultural capital’).
This mentalitie is an essentially reductionist intentionality and form of symbol construction
that reduces everything to political value as its first phase of dominance. This is Technique’s
rationality. Technique makes all things into a system as a way of life. An interesting
development in the Arts associated with Steampunk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Steampunk) highlights where technique has taken us in the short period since 1750. Based
on the work of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, Steampunk romanticises the introduction of
technique through the steam era and merges it with post-modern punk fantasy and sadism.
As an archetype, technique has a life of its own that shapes the collective unconscious
towards totalising, absolutes and complete efficiency so that, everything human is drawn into
‘meaning by objectification’. It is present in the obsession with numerics, measurement and

68 Tackling Risk
the mechanistic worldview. It replaces the real with a ‘false infinity’ and an example of this is
the ideology of zero.
Ellul identifies seven characteristics of technique, these are:
Rationality: the belief that rationality is paramount and that arationality is irrationality.
Ellul describes this as ‘bringing mechanics to bear on all that is spontaneous and irrational ...
this is best exemplified in systemisation, division of labour, creation of standards, production
of norms and the like’. Ellul calls this the ‘rationalising impulse’.
Artificiality: the making ‘good’ of objects over the affirmation of ‘subjects’. This is present
in the ‘discourse’ of operations, that is, in the power transferred in language. This is most
evident in subordinating the natural world to a secondary role or enemy of the unnatural
world (technology, machines).
Automatism: this means that technique decides for itself, independently of human
judgements. In other words it acts like an archetype so that people follow under its seduction
because of the values and beliefs held in the collective unconscious. The dynamic is the quest
for the ‘one best way’. Automatism is aided by the mythology of ‘you can’t manage what you
can’t measure’ mentalitie. It is amazing the belief that all problems will be fixed if only we
had the right technique.
Self-Augmentation: that is, the capacity to self-generate and that such self-generation is
irreversible.
Monism: means that technique is indivisible and presents as ‘a whole’. So, technique cannot
be turned for good or evil by humans who presume they have some control or direction over
it. Technique presents everywhere with essentially the same characteristics. Technique is not
neutral so that all by-products and trade-offs come with the ideology of technique. Ellul
states ‘they are ontologically tied together’. This means that the atomic bomb comes with
nuclear technology, it is unavoidable.
Technical Universalism: what happens is that ‘the one best way’ shows up in Uganda just as
it does in the United States of America. Ellul comments: ‘today everything aligns itself on
technical principles’. In this way technique strikes at the heart of diversity and integrity of
the individual.
The Autonomy of Technique: Technique works independently of all other considerations. It
stands apart from economics and politics and is present as a philosophy and primary driver
of creating false meaning (false infinity). In The Technological Society, efficiency rather than
goodness, truth, faith, beauty or justice becomes the norm for social relations.
Ellul’s work on Technology can be downloaded here:
https://monoskop.org/images/5/55/Ellul_Jacques_ e_Technological_Society.pdf
https://www.ratical.org/ratville/AoS/Propaganda.pdf

Thinkers in Education

Chapter 2: Learning About Learning 69

The following contemporary educationalists are listed as favourites and as essential reading
in education and learning:
Michael Apple: Education and Power (1982)
Guy Claxton: Live and Learn (1984), Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind (1997), Wise-Up, The
Challenge of Lifelong Learning (1999), Be Creative (2004), The Wayward Mind (2005), The
Creative Thinking Plan (2008),
Howard Gardner: Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences (1983), Multiple
Intelligences: The Theory in Practice (1993), Changing Minds (2006).
Peter McLaren: Schooling as a Ritual Performance (1999), Pedagogy and Praxis (2007).
Donald N. Michael: Learning to Plan and Planning to Learn (1997), In Search of the Missing
Elephant (2010).
Joseph Novak: Learning How to Learn (1984).
Parker J. Palmer: To Know as We Are Known (1993).
Ken Robinson: The Element (2009) Out of Our Minds (2011).
Julia Sloan: Learning to Think Strategically (2006).

Triarchic not Binary

Learning is an activity and dynamic, it is never passive or fixed but is generated by all
existential dialectics. Learning cannot exist in a polar paradigm of opposites as is the
fundamentalist proposition. The fixity of binary thinking puts one at either pole and such
fixity neither tackles the wickedity of risk nor the movements of learning. All risk aversion is
anti-life and anti-learning.
In the first book in this series, Risk Makes Sense, we put forward the idea that humans have
One Brain and Three Minds (1B3M). The One Brain and Three Minds video: https://vimeo.
com/106770292 and the supplementary video: https://vimeo.com/156926212 are the most
heavily watched and downloaded videos on the Human Dymensions video site: https://
vimeo.com/humandymensions.
The 1B3M concept is a helpful way of understanding the way the mind works regarding the
development of heuristics and automaticity. The Workspace, Headspace and Groupspace
model also aligns with the triarchic nature of humans, organising and culture.
A binary philosophy that proposes human thinking is fasst and slow (Kahneman) is not
a helpful way to think about learning, heuristics, development, experience or education.
The idea of sitting at either end of polar opposites is a fundamentalist worldview. It cannot
accommodate movement, the dynamic of dialectic or ‘flow’ in learning over time.
The best way to think about learning is in the tension point between the chasm, between
if-then, as-if, i-thou and now-not-yet. This is why this series of books on risk anchor to

70 Tackling Risk
the image of a ‘leap of faith’ across a chasm. See Figure 9. The Risk Chasm, Figure 10. The
Following-Leading Dynamic, Figure 11. The Triarchic i-thou and Figure 12. The Triarchic as-if.

Figure 9. The Risk Chasm

Chapter 2: Learning About Learning 71

Figure 10. The Following-Leading Dynamic

Figure 11. The Triarchic i-thou

72 Tackling Risk
Figure 12. The Triarchic as-if.

We can see in the semiotic figures represented here that triarchic thinking has been
embedded in every book in the series on risk from the beginning of Risk Makes Sense.
Triarchic thinking (and existential dialectic) is essential for a Social Psychology of Risk.
These symbols capture the nature of uncertainty, the social co-dependence and reciprocity of
living with ‘others’ and the leap of faith required to tackle risk.
The triarchic model also captures the nature of ‘the dance’ in learning, strategy paradox
and the ‘emergence’ in organisational learning in risk. Triarchic thinking works against the
dynamic of technique that proposes the absolute and efficiency is the ‘god’ of everything.
Efficiency (technique) proposes that doubt, negativity and uncertainty are bad, that
inefficiency is bad and that infinity and zero are possible.
Letiche et.al Coherence in the Midst of Complexity. (p. 3) comments:
Efficiency has no room to consider context, history, and situation. Efficiency’s
coherence is limited and all too often faulty. Miracles happen when context, history
and situation combine in a furious way, and nasty surprises occur when context,
history and situation combine in an unfortunate way.
The following propositions need to be remembered
• All humans are fallible.
• The world is goverened by randomness.
• The future is unknown.

Chapter 2: Learning About Learning 73

We do not need to be at either end of the binary poles to have coherence. We can have the
confidence of feeling ‘grounded’ so that we can act (in faith) and step forward into the future.
Letiche et.al (Coherence in the Midst of Complexity. p. 5) comment again:
Faith is a powerful force. Once we accept beliefs as faith, we need to not question
them. It would be sacrilege and deeply unsettling to attempt to examine and
re-examine the basis for our faith. Faith is accepted as a background condition. It just
is. We incorporate the laments of faith into the fabrics of our lives. We understand the
world through the lens of our faith. We go about our daily lives secure in the strength
of our beliefs, founded upon faith. Our modern world has found great efficiencies in
converting faith into rules and algorithms. When our expectations fail us, our faith is
shattered.
In dialectic we juggle the unseen, we dance about the uncertain and risk. We learn through
our failed plans and predictions, in face of the world’s randomness, how to go on living. And
even though we know we are fragile and fallible we don’t give up, we tackle life head on, we
tackle risk. Raynor (2007) The Strategy Paradox (p.7) comments:
It is tempting to believe that we can overcome this problem by simply expanding the
boundaries of our analysis. Unfortunately, once we begin expanding the scope of our
model, we do not know when to stop. Before long we find ourselves compelled to
build a ‘theory of everything’ in order to predict anything.
The challenge of collecting more data and information to tackle the unknown is that the
more information the greater the complexity and wickedity. We don’t gain clarity with more
information but most often greater confusion and less certainty. We don’t gain by expanding
systems but rather increased openness to randomness and less understandability of the
system itself. In the end the system develops a life of its own and puts humans back into the
dance, the dialectical movement and flow of the triarchic in-between.

Types and Styles of Learners

Whilst it is good to know about learning it is also important to know the way we learn is
not common. The foundational work of Howard Gardner showed that we all learn according
to a range of ‘learning intelligences’. These intelligences shape not only the way we learn
but also explain why certain ‘frames of learning’ and interests appeal to us more than other
modes of learning. Gardner’s eight learning intelligences are:
Linear learners are steady, cautious learners who like to learn a step at a time. They do not
like to jump steps or move on until a step is completed. They like clear and logical thinking.
They tend to get upset at suspended work and movement to new work without tidying up
old work. They get frustrated and upset with fragmentation.
Lateral learners are good at imaginative and conceptual leaps and differ greatly from their
linear learner friends. They see possibilities from different angles and enjoy gathering ideas,
seeing links and relationships. They don’t mind starting at the beginning, middle or end.

74 Tackling Risk
Visual learners look and learn. They enjoy icons, diagrams, word pictures and scenes in the
mind. They tend to need to see things written down and can learn it once they see it.
Verbal learners like words and talk. They love conversation and learn best when they hear
their own words reflecting off others. They give labels to concepts and tend to not think
unless it has been heard.
Holistic learners understand the parts in terms of the whole. They appreciate overviews and
getting hold of a complete picture. They are instinctive learners who feel most comfortable
when things seem to hold together as a whole and feel right.
Multi-sense learners like to anchor their learning in a combination of senses. They enjoy
feel, touch and sound to draw things together. They tend to be practical in learning and learn
best by doing, experiencing, touching and manipulating their sense experiences.
Symbolic learners are good at understanding abstract representations of things and enjoy
symbols and numbers. They have a head for maths, computing, science and musical theory.
Head learners learn cognitively, intellectually. They enjoy knowledge and recalling facts.
They are great at Trivial Pursuit and enjoy study. They tend to be legalistic when combined
with linear learning and will hold others to the facts as they know them.
Individual learners like learning on their own. They enjoy isolation and “self talk”. They
enjoy reading, sorting things out and getting them into perspective. They are self-motivators.
Social learners gain their knowledge and define it through interaction, sharing and
discussion. When combined with verbal learning these learners appear to be dominant and
poor at listening. They find learning alone unprofitable and enjoy workshops and discussion
groups.
One of the first things we need to know about learning is that it is different for everyone.
People do not all learn in the same style or at the same rate. We are all attracted to various
modes and methods of learning. We each have varying learning intelligences. The idea of
‘learning intelligences’ was first put forward by Howard Gardner in Frames of Mind, which
proposes eight learning intelligences. These are represented diagrammatically in Figure 11.
Once we know about our own and others’ learning styles we then realise one size does not
fit all. This is often why pesople and organisations do not learn, because whatever came
their way did not connect with how they needed to hear and learn the message. It was not
‘framed’ for the receiver but was convenient for the sender. This says a lot about the way the
many sectors of industry, the community and government attempt to change cultures and
paradigms of thinking in managing risk. Simply throwing a mass of content and data at
people does not invoke learning or change. It is, unfortunately, information saturation and
many marketing campaigns and training inductions that are just content dumps. This model
of training is much more about indoctrination than it is about learning.
These are Gardner’s Learning and Multiple Intelligences:
• Logical-Mathematical Learning: learns best by: categorizing, classifying.

Chapter 2: Learning About Learning 75

• Linguistic-Verbal Learning: learns best by: saying, hearing and seeing words.
• Visual-Spatial Learning: learns best by: visualizing, dreaming, using the mind’s eye.
• Musical Learning: learns best by: rhythm, melody and music.
• Naturalistic Learning: learns best by: studying natural phenomenon.
• Bodily-Kinesthetic Learning: learns best by: touching, moving, interacting with space.
• Interpersonal Learning: learns best by: sharing, comparing, relating, interviewing.
• Intrapersonal Learning: learns best by: working alone, on individualized projects.
If we wish to help others make better sense of risk and learn about risk, then a consideration
of styles of learning needs to be in our thinking DNA. For example, the effectiveness
of this book is most likely to only be effective for book learners - Linguistic Learners.
Apprenticeship learning is best for Bodily / Kinesthetic Learning. This is why designers,
workers, engineers, computer geeks and support staff have some difficulty in talking to each
other on projects. To help others learn we need to design learning, it does not happen by
accident. Leaders who want to promote learning need to translate across learning styles.

Workshop Questions
1. What is your educational anthropology? What do you think makes an educated person?
2. Of what value is knowledge if it doesn’t generate action?
3. How much does your teaching and facilitated learning of others engage the eight
learning intelligences and styles? Examine a presentation or training program you have
to deliver in light of this concept.
4. Can you think of any more Ds to add to the strategic approach to managing others and
difficult situations?
5. Study a typical process in your organisation and interrogate the hidden curriculum.
What is being espoused overtly? What is being learned unconsciously?

Transition
Once we have a good understanding of the fundamentals of learning we should also have
a better management of the fundamentals of risk. If learning makes sense, then risk makes
sense because ‘there is no learning without risk’.
We now need to consider what is next before exploring (in section three) models and
methods of facilitation, curriculum, presentation, education and learning. So, the next
section (three) is all about strategic thinking and planning, in itself its own pedagogy or
way of learning. As we plan we learn by enactment and the outcome from our thinking,
methodology, by-products, beliefs (by doing) and meta-learning.

76 Tackling Risk
Chapter 2: Learning About Learning 77
78 Tackling Risk
CHAPTER 3
Experiential Learning,
Immersion and Play
3
Dialogue-Play requires that we be willing to do the work of interpretation -
the work of active listening, of asking questions, and of trying, risking and
reviving our prejudices until we finally comprehend what each other is trying
to say. - Vilhauer

All human play involves real existential struggle - Wall

Oh My God, Playing With Sticks - Rob’s Story

My grandkids love playing in our large back yard often making their own fun with
sticks. ‘Oh my god, sticks! Often, the parents and visitors are well out of sight, an
essential for the success of play and sit at the front yard BBQ area, enjoying the
summer daylight saving weather and relaxing. ‘What are the kids doing?’ someone
asked. Their mother said, ‘I don’t know but probably some sort of fun in the backyard’.
My daughter is training to be a schoolteacher and is becoming an expert on play.
As I went inside to get some drinks for our guests, I could see the kids had assembled
sticks against a tree and made a cave for a nativity scene. They had climbed the tree
to secure some of the sticks to the side and grabbed some rope to tie bits together. I
could see they had taken some tinsel the Christmas tree inside to decorate the cave
and had used some of their dolls as characters to set up the cave. They also found some
sticks shaped like boomerangs and so threw them about having fun, a strange mix
of indigenous culture and western Christian symbolism. They were so happy in play;
imaging, creating, discovering and learning.
Unstructured, in-situ, non-formal and free-open activity is essential for self-discovery,
intuitive learning and innovation. Experiential learning has its focus on ‘taking in’ knowledge
through our senses. It proposes that people learn indirectly and incidentally by doing and

Chapter 3: Experiential Learning, Immersion and Play 79

experiencing. Sometimes the experiences are undertaken through modelling; we watch,
listen, copy and make something our own. When one thinks of how much and how fast
learning occurs for a two or three year old, for example learning language, meaning, presence,
kinesthetic skills, motor skills and social skills, it is a wonder we downgrade learning through
experience and play in our formal education and training system.
Play is an essential part of learning and play recognises the uncertainty in learning and
does not stress about not knowing the outcome. Play teaches us that ‘autotelic’ activity,
with meaning and purpose in itself, is critical for growth, development and education of
personhood. It is through play that we learn a special form of tacit (implicit) knowledge
about others and about play in itself. The fun and joy in play is discovered in the
participation of playing itself, not for some serious or ulterior outcome but for the learning
in its own sake. In this way we just know the ‘other’ is at play. The pleasure of play is being in
play, it is experiential. It is why adults call play ‘experiential learning’. In areas related to risk
and safety adults learn this way through drills, simulations, ‘ice-breakers’, role play, games,
field work, apprenticeships, excursions, work experience and trial and error experiences.
We also know that play is not serious so to attach the word ‘serious’ to play wrecks the very
meaning of play. The application of excessive structure and control to an experiential learning
activity tends to limit opportunities for discovery, creativity, self-directed learning and risk.
It is critical for maturity to learn when we and others are ‘at play’. In order to be human we
need to know when improvisation, discovery, messiness, spontaneity, uncertainty, freedom,
ambiguity, risk, creativity, paradox, fun and purpose in purposelessness are at work. We know
it was a ‘play-fight’. We made a ‘play’ on words. We went outside to ‘play’. It wasn’t serious, it
was just play. All of these expressions make (tacit) sense to us. We also need to discern when
others are serious or at play because any confusion can lead to violence, taking others the
wrong way or misunderstandings.
A climate of risk aversion stifles the possibility of learning experientially. Certain personality
and learning types learn best through experiences rather than ‘schooling’ approaches
to learning. It is amazing that the kinds of people who are attracted to building and
construction for example, who enjoy learning with their ‘hands’ are then subjected to
classroom inductions and ‘chalk and talk’ approaches to training.

The Nature of Learning Climates

Argyris and Schon (1996) argue that theories of action exist on two levels: by espoused
theories and theories-in-use. Theories are vehicles for explanation, prediction or control
depending on whose viewpoint is taken. When someone is asked how they would behave
under certain circumstances, the answer they usually give is their espoused theory of action
for that situation. The theory that actually governs their actions is their theory-in-use, which
may or may not be compatible or congruent with their espoused theory. The individual
may or may not be aware of the incompatibility or incongruity of the two theories. We
cannot learn what someone’s theory-in-use is just by asking them. We must construct their
theory-in-use from observations of their behaviour. The work of Argyris and Schon (1996)
has established that people’s behaviour is often incompatible with the theories of action

80 Tackling Risk
they espouse. Researchers and evaluators of programmes need to be aware of these levels of
individual and organisational learning in the process of assessment and reporting.
Congruence, as explained by Argyris and Schon is the matching of espoused theory and
theory-in-use, that is, one’s behaviour matches one’s espoused theory of action. Another
meaning of congruence is allowing inner feelings to be expressed through actions: when one
feels happy, one acts happy. These two meanings indicate an integration of one’s internal
and external state. A lack of congruence between espoused theory and theory-in-use may
precipitate a search for a modification of either theory since we tend to value both espoused
theory (image of self ) and congruence (integration of doing and believing).
Argyris and Schon express the opinion that there is no particular virtue in congruence,
alone; however, in the field of educational programme delivery congruence between one’s
beliefs about educating youth (espoused theory) and one’s actual delivery of programmes
under constraints (theory-in-use) is foundational. Therefore, a discussion of incongruence in
education for youth may expose a situation that is internally problematic requiring change.
It is in an understanding of this modification and incongruence that one can grasp a
definition of learning. Learning is doing something differently as a result of either a
change in experience and / or knowledge. A discussion of the difference between learning,
development, teaching and knowledge is not the subject of this book. However, it is
important to make a distinction between two modes of learning. There is a ‘pedagogical’
sense in which the correctness of what is learned is implied and a ‘discovery’ sense in which
the correctness of what is learned is implied. This difference is important because what is
learned is not always apparent and what is apparent is not necessarily true.
A theory-in-use is what happens in practice and what happens in practice is not always
what is espoused. For the purpose of this discussion the idea of the ‘hidden curriculum’
is important. The concept of a hidden curriculum was first put forward by Ivan Illich
(1970) and describes learning and content knowledge that is subliminal. It conveys the
idea of inserting knowledge into young people that is not necessarily disclosed in the overt
curriculum but which is present in one’s theory-in-use.
Apple (1985) argues powerfully that the purpose of the hidden curriculum is ‘social
reproduction’. That is, the ‘reproduction of inequality while at the same time serving to
legitimises both the institutions that recreate it and our own actions within them’. Research
by Preston and Symes (1992) illustrates how inequality is institutionalised through
mainstream models of education by the processes of socialisation, curriculum development,
meritocracy, time management, architecture and examinations. The same is true of
competency-based training. An understanding of the use of space, the structure of the
organisation, the order of events and the status of stakeholders is foundational in discovering
what is learned in a hidden curriculum.
Following Argyris and Schon, Robinson (1993) explains that a theory of action has
explanatory and predictive power because it tells us why the actors behave as they do and
how they are likely to behave in the future. Theories-in-use are derived from evidence of how
people actually behave through observation and recording.

Chapter 3: Experiential Learning, Immersion and Play 81

Argyris and Schon make it clear that organisations and individuals learn from inquiry.
‘Inquiry’ is not used here in the colloquial sense of scientific or juridical investigation but
in a more elementary sense of the enmeshment of thought and action that comes from
doubt and the resolution of doubt. Inquiry in this sense is made more difficult in any
setting because of structures for the denial of doubt. There will be little opportunity for
learning if doubts are not brought into the open. Unless there is some congruence between
an organisation’s espoused-theory and theory-in-use then the likelihood of change and
organisational learning is low.
Argyris and Schon (1996, p. 17) list the kinds of changes that are mediated by lessons drawn
from inquiry. These are:

a. interpretations of past experiences of success or failure;

b. inferences of causal connections between actions and outcomes and their implications for future
action;
c. descriptions of the shifting organisational environment and its likely demands on future
performance;
d. analysis of the potentials and limits of alternative organisational strategies, structures, techniques,
information systems, or incentive systems;
e. descriptions of conflicting views and interests that arise within the organisation under conditions
of complexity and uncertainty;
f. images of desirable futures and invention of the means by which they may be achieved;
g. critical reflections on organisational theories-in-use and proposals for their restructuring; and
h. description and analysis of the experiences of other organisations.

Single And Double Loop Learning

Argyris and Schon, relying on Ashby’s work (1952), describe two ways of learning; single-
loop training and double-loop learning, which are applicable to all organisations. Single-loop
training is instrumental learning that changes strategies of action or assumptions underlying
strategies in ways that leave the values of a theory of action unchanged. Changes do occur
but the values and norms of the individual and organisation itself remain unchanged.
Single-loop training (Figure 13.) is primarily concerned with instrumental effectiveness;
how best to achieve existing goals and outcomes whilst keeping changes within the range
specified by existing values and norms. Double-loop learning refers to learning that results
in a change in the values of the theory-in-use as well as in its strategies. The double-loop
refers to the feedback loops that connect the observed effects of an action with strategies
and values served by strategies. In single-loop learning, the field of constancy is maintained
by learning to design actions that satisfy existing governing variables. In double-loop
learning the field of constancy is changed. Double-loop learning does not supersede
single-loop learning.

82 Tackling Risk
The distinction between double-loop learning outcomes for organisational theory-in-use and
double-loop learning in processes of organisational inquiry is correlated with the distinction
Argyris and Schon make between first-order and second-order errors. First-order errors in
organisational theory-in-use is illustrated by dysfunctional processes and products. Second-
order errors that arise in the processes of organisational inquiry, such as the failure to
question existing practices, allow first-order errors to arise and persist. Double-loop learning
in organisational inquiry comprises the questioning, information gathering and reflection
that get at second-order errors. Single-loop training is often not really learning at all but
more about memorisation, recollection and parrot repetition. Single-loop training is most
associated with repeating rather than understanding. It is often the kind of instruction that
is connected to ‘telling’. When someone is ‘told’ something and they repeat it in training, it is
generally assumed that a concept is ‘known’, whereas repetition does not indicate ownership
or change.
Following Argyris and Schon, Robinson (1993) explains that a theory of action has
explanatory and predictive power because it tells us why the actors behave as they do and
how they are likely to behave in the future. It is when change is generated through reflective
praxis on the double-loop that real learning takes place.

Figure 13. Single, Double and Triple Loop Learning

Chapter 3: Experiential Learning, Immersion and Play 83

Triple Loop Learning

Triple loop learning is about meta-learning or learning how to learn and is the methodology
(philosophy) and gets to the ‘why’ of learning. In single-loop learning ideas can be repeated
but until this generates new ideas and new ways of being and doing, the knowledge remains
superficial and instrumental. In the second-loop new ideas and trajectories are developed but
a change in philosophy is not made until one enters the triple-loop. This is where worldviews
and adaptation occurs beyond repetition and just change in trajectories. In summary:
• Single-Loop Training - Information is absorbed and repeated.
• Double-Loop Learning - Information is learned and generated.
• Triple-Loop Learning - Information is lived and owned.

Situated Learning
Informal learning is also an important part of situated learning. The notion of situated
learning takes us beyond the understanding of learning as being internal or ‘within the
skin’ of individuals and is toward an understanding that takes in the social, contextual and
‘distributive’ world.
Much of the experimentation and theorizing concerning cognitive processes and
development has treated cognition as being possessed and residing in the heads of
individuals. Those interested in distributed cognition have looked to the tools and social
relations ‘outside’ people’s heads. They are not only sources of stimulation and guidance
but are actually vehicles of thought. In this way one can speak of not only living in
community and experiencing community but ‘learning through community’. It is not just
the individual who learns cognitively, but the community can also learn as a whole meta-
system of interrelated factors. People think in relationships with others and use various
learning tools in context, which stimulate learning. Different cognitions therefore emerge in
different situations.
So it is that we can talk of ‘situated learning’. It can be seen as involving participation in
communities of practice. Situated learning involves the whole person; it implies not only
a relation to specific activities, but a relation to social communities. It implies becoming
a full participant, a member, a particular kind of person in context. In this view, learning
only partly and often incidentally implies becoming able to be involved in new activities,
to perform new tasks and functions and to master new understandings. Activities, tasks,
functions, and understandings do not exist in isolation; they are part of broader systems of
relations in which they have meaning.
New people in a social context enter at the edge - their participation is on the periphery.
Gradually their engagement deepens and becomes more complex. They become full
participants and will often take on organising or facilitative roles. Knowledge is, thus, located
in the community of practice. Furthermore, in this view it makes little sense to talk of
knowledge that is decontextualised, abstract or general as in the way people often refer to the
notion of ‘common sense’.

84 Tackling Risk
Four propositions are common to the range of perspectives that now come together under
the banner of situated learning:

• High-level or expert knowledge and skill can be gained from everyday experiences at work and in
community or family.
• Domain-specific knowledge as necessary for the development of expertise (i.e. much of expertise
relies on detailed local knowledge of a workplace, locality or industry).
• Learning as a social process.
• Knowledge is embedded in practice and transformed through goal-directed behaviour.

Learning Through Immersion

The educational philosophy of play is prominent in early childhood education and builds
upon pre-school modes of learning. Claxton’s (1999) research demonstrates the importance
of maintaining this approach in education beyond the early school years. It is through
play that incidental learning is best attained. This is summed up in the saying that some
things are best ‘caught rather than taught’. For example, lessons of dysfunctionality and
functionality are often learned in the home through social engagement and patterns of
modelling over many years. The idea that things which have been learned psychosocially
can be unlearned cognitive behaviourally is simply not logical. It is curious that politicians
and educators who see the need to reform the plight of young people who ‘drop out’ of
school to give them a dose of more schooling? The cognitive behavioural approach to
learning associates mistakes, punishment and shame with failure. Play on the other hand
associates mistakes with learning and opens up possibilities of innovation, resilience and
ingenuity. Claxton makes it clear that for some learners didactic teaching is regressive and
inhibits learning.
In the immersion and play approach learning extends to everyday actions and behaviours. In
this approach the educative power of everyday activities and events is validated. The power
of the psychosocial model of learning is that it reaches every avenue and context in learning.
It does not matter if the person is playing a game, cooking, reading, shopping or resting, the
learning through engagement and relationship is of utmost importance.
Think back on learning to ride a bicycle, use a computer, dance, or sing. We took an
action, saw the consequences of that action, and chose to either continue or to take a new
and different action. What allowed us to master a new skill is our active participation in
the event, capacity for resilience and our reflection on what we attained. Experience and
reflection often teach us much more than any manual or lecture ever can.
Kolb describes learning as a four-step process. He identifies the steps as (1) watching and
(2) thinking (mind), (3) feeling (emotion), and (4) doing (muscle). He draws primarily on
the works of Dewey, who emphasised the need for learning to be grounded in experience.
Lewin, who stressed the importance of people being active in learning and Jean Piaget, who
described intelligence as the result of the interaction of the person and the environment.
Kolb wrote that learners have immediate concrete experiences that allow us to reflect on

Chapter 3: Experiential Learning, Immersion and Play 85

new experience from different perspectives. From these reflective observations, we engage
in abstract conceptualisation, creating generalisations or principles that integrate our
observations into sound theories. We use these generalisations or theories as guides to
further action. Active experimentation allows us to test what we learn in new and more
complex situations. The result is another concrete experience, but this time at a more
complex level.

Figure 14. Kolb’s Model of Learning

Learning Through Community

The dynamic of community is its own learning force. Community has it’s own ethic,
methdology and pedagogy. Humans organise in many ways, there is always an i-thou, we are
social beings. Here are just a just few ways we organise as a:

• Couple;
• Family;
• Household;
• Community;
• Group;
• Guild;
• Gathering;

86 Tackling Risk
• Fellowship;
• Club;
• Organisation;
• Company;
• Industry;
• Society.
Each one of these methods of arranging and organising has their own methodology
(philosophy) and size, which is a critical factor in the quality of relationships. Various models
of organising struggle, in a world of dehumanising forces, to remain humane. To strive for
smallness, even smallness as a subset in a large organisation, means to bring organisation and
‘the mentality of production’ back to a human scale.
Leadership and management preoccupation with efficiency (technique) has simply assisted
in making the person as client more of a product. Somehow ‘more’ has come to mean ‘better’.
The concept of efficiency in itself has been narrowly defined, relating only to the material
side of things, usually economic. The language of efficiency is rarely used with relationship to
people and learning.
Organising that becomes anti-learning and dehumanising needs to be re-set for the
prioritisation of the following ideas:
1. Community mindedness.
2. Mutuality/participation/solidarity.
3. Love/trust/maturity.
4. Humility/openness.
5. Authority not authoritarianism.
6. Non-hierarchical pluralism/functioning on gifts in the framework of a team.
7. Education not indoctrination.
8. Leadership from the base.
9. Freedom/enabling others to be free.
10. Respect/vulnerability.
Unless we question the leadership assumptions that are dictated by size we will not
experience the deep possibilities that are latent in being small. Many organisations and
companies use the word ‘community’ in their marketing and language of self understanding
but the quality of relationships most associated with a sense of community are missing; it
is just spin. People sometimes refer to on-line relationships as an ‘on-line community’ but

Chapter 3: Experiential Learning, Immersion and Play 87

the work of Keen (2012) Digital Vertigo, Turkle (2011) Alone Together and Carr (2011) The
Shallows, shows that going online and claiming some sense of ‘community’ is not the reality.
The idea of community triggers a longing in us all for a sense of belonging that is lost in
‘mega’ organisations. It is a symbol and aspiration that creates a sense of knowing and
engagement that gets lost in impersonal organising and loses real contact with others in
conversation and presence. Pinker in The Village Effect demonstrates that without ‘real’
contact and engagement with others, humans are less happy and healthy.
For much of its early history, sociology was concerned with the community concept with
the beginning publication of Tönnie’s essay, Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (Community and
Society) in 1887. The debate in sociology was often about the differences between village
and urban life. Following Durkheim, a number of sociologists, Meton, Goffman and
Wilson developed a more disaggregated approach naming six qualities of gemeinschaft-like
community relations.
1. Dense and demanding social ties.
2. Social attachments to and involvement in institutions.
3. Ritual occasions.
4. Small group size with cultural variables.
5. Perceptions of similarity, expressive style, way of life and historical experience.
6. Common beliefs in an idea system, moral order, in an institution of group.
Debate over the meaning of community has been extensive with nearly one hundred
different definitions in the literature.
Community has now become a generic concept in modern discourse to represent a
mythical quality of relationships. Brint (2001) suggests there are two typologies helpful in
understanding community and represents these graphically as geographic and choice-based
communities:

88 Tackling Risk
Figure 15. Two Typologies of Community

What is important to note is that different structures and ways of organising in communities
evoke different outcomes. For the purpose of this discussion, the outcome of education and
learning are most relevant.
When it comes to a social theory of learning and community, one cannot go past the
extensive work of Wenger (1998) of Communities-of-Practice. Wenger understands
community as a form of discourse about social configurations. In this sense we all belong
to a community of practice, at home, work, school or hobbies and clubs. All communities
of practice develop their own culture complete with routines, rituals, artefacts, symbols,
conventions, stories, history and systems. Communities of practice emphasise the doing
(practice) of being in community and the meaning and purpose of a common good. Wenger
describes certain qualities for ‘being’ (learning) in a Community of Practice, these are:
• Mutuality;
• Engagement;
• Upbuilding (enabling);
• Diversity;
• Partiality;

Chapter 3: Experiential Learning, Immersion and Play 89

• Relationship;
• Participation;
• Reification;
• Boundary Objects (artefacts, discourse, semiotics);
• Brokering and Advocacy;
• Belonging and Identity in ‘Practice’.
It is through these qualities that one learns through ‘being’ in a Community of Practice.
In this way one learns ‘in-situ’ incidentally, because the assembling of the community has
its own ‘dynamic’ and ‘hidden curriculum’. In this model of learning one learns as much by
gathering, identity and togetherness as much as one learns by the facilitation of information
and teaching.

Learning Practice
To be effective learners we must (1) perceive information, (2) reflect on how it will impact
some aspect of our life, (3) compare how it fits into our own experiences and (4) think about
how this information offers new ways for us to act. Learning requires more than seeing,
hearing, moving or touching. We integrate what we sense and think with what we feel and
how we behave.
Without that integration, we’re just passive participants and passive learning alone does not
engage our higher brain functions or stimulate our senses to the point where we integrate
our lessons into our existing schemes. We must do something with our knowledge, change
must occur at some level in order for something to be learned.

Practical Essentials in Learning

Trust and Relationships
There can be no change, development or transition without the establishment of trusting
relationships. To establish trust, takes significant time and skill. The emphasis here is on
relationships, what Martin Buber called the I-Thou in meeting. In the social-psychological
approach the development of a learning and dynamic community is central to the
establishment of trust.

Climate (Ethos, Place and Space)

The rate and embracing of change will be limited unless people come into an atmosphere
(climate), which generates trust, engagement, motivation, recognition, resilience and
learning. A climate of acceptance and respect is foundational to establishing a positive
climate where people can make mistakes, bounce back (resilience) and learn.

90 Tackling Risk
Structure
Change relies upon a structure (providing a degree of certainty, security and meaning)
which demonstrates through the methodology of organisation that people are valued
and supported. A structure, which disempowers people and limits freedoms and choice is
essentially de-motivating.

A Change Culture
The essence of all change requires the inclination to change, the ‘want’ or ‘will’ to change.
Recognition and reward in a measurable form are critical to this process, as is methodology
and how people are engaged.

Engagement
The key to engagement is acceptance of ‘the other’ and valuing people’s contribution despite
circumstance and history.

Meaning and Purpose

People will not change unless they see ‘sense’ in the change and some positive outcome for
themselves. The change management process needs to be a ‘sensemaking’ process which is
intertwined with other key change elements such as trust, motivation and engagement. It is
meaning and purpose, which drives the development of resilience.

Ability and Capability

Change will not be effective unless the change agent has the ability to drive and direct
change (without overpowering others) and unless the employee has the capability/capacity
to change.

Service Learning
Service-learning can mean a method:
• under which people learn and develop through active participation in . . . thoughtfully
organised service experiences that meet actual community needs;
• that is integrated into the policy and organisational structure or provides structured time
for a people to think, talk, or write about what they did and saw during the service activity;
• that provides people with opportunities to use newly acquired skills and knowledge in
real-life situations in their own communities; and
• that enhances what is taught in praxis by extending a student beyond the classroom and
into the community and helps to foster the development of a sense of caring for others.

Chapter 3: Experiential Learning, Immersion and Play 91

Service learning has much in common with volunteering and is often associated with not-
for-profit organisations for example: LIONs, State Emergency Service, Men’s Shed, Life
Line, Churches, CWA and Community Groups. There are 54,000 registered not-for-profit
organisations in Australia.
Service-learning also refers to an approach to learning which is experiential and expressed
in the value of ‘service to others’. It is both a programme type, philosophy of education and
a pedagogical dynamic. At its most fundamental expression service-learning is a form of
learning that employs service as its learning dynamic.
Service-learning is typically distinguished from both community service and traditional
approaches to civics education. Whilst service-learning pedagogy has its goal to develop
citizenship, it is the context and organisational dynamic, which separates it from learning in
mainstream education contexts. The emphasis on experiential learning, incidental learning
and learning through play distinguish service-learning from the mainstream education
system that tends to be didactic and cognitive-behavioural in orientation and style.
Carpini (2000. p.2) states:
The central objective of service learning is the development of lifelong habits of
engagement in democratic citizenship. Indeed, service learning is often held up as an
alternative to the dry, objectified, often context-free memorization of facts associated
with traditional classroom civics.
Further, with reflection on earlier discussion on theory-in-use, espoused-theory, single-loop
learning and double-loop learning, Carpini (2000, p.2) states:
Being informed increases the likelihood that a citizen will have opinions about the
issues of the day and that those opinions will be stable over time and consistent with
each other. It produces opinions that are arguably more closely connected to one’s
values, beliefs and objective conditions. It facilitates participation in public life that
effectively connects one’s opinions with one’s actions.
Service-learning is focused around multi-faceted, real-world problems and issues. There is a
depth of meaning which is encountered in service-learning which is missing in a cognitive
behavioural approach or ‘head knowledge’ approach to learning. Service-learning has its own
unique dynamic. Service itself teaches at a Social-psychological level where one ‘feels’ and
experiences the ‘good’ of doing well for others.
Experiential education is intensely personal and active and engenders reflection through
the pressure of commitment and involvement. Service-learning comes from a different
level of engagement than more mainstream approaches to learning. Participation in service
has its own dynamic which integrates feeling with knowledge which is developed from
participation.
However, there are some constraints to service-learning which must also be considered.
These constraints are the same constraints which were discussed earlier in relation to main-
stream education. These are:

92 Tackling Risk
1. An understanding of the issues of hidden curriculum and social reconstruction which are
vital to maintaining the integrity of service-learning.
2. Voluntarism can be easily confused with exploitation and cheap labour.
3. Developing leadership can be easily distorted into an avocation for authoritarianism.
4. Activity can easily become non-reflective busyness.
5. Hierarchical structure can be substituted by militarism.
6. A balance of collaboration and competition can be lost in a quest for attainment and
excellence;
Indoctrination can masquerade as ‘values education’ at the expense of developing critical
analytical thinking.
These are the tensions and constraints that must be addressed if Y organisations are going to
double-loop learn and if learning congruence between espoused-theory and theory-in-use is
to be enhanced.

Experiential Learning Strategies in Training

One of the best ways for people to learn about learning, leadership and risk is through
simulations and games. I have been constructing and developing simulations and games for
over forty years as a learning strategy in workplaces, educational institutions and in coaching.
This next section outlines the fundamentals of design and strategy in designing learning
experiences. A number of products that have been most successful in Human Dymensions
(http://www.humandymensions.com/services-and-programs/research-and-evaluation/
experiential-learning-exercises/) and at the Centre for Leadership and Learning in Risk
(http://cllr.com.au/) will be discussed. A photographic gallery of these experiential activities
in action can be viewed here: http://www.humandymensions.com/gallery/
An overview video on experiential learning can be viewed here: shttps://vimeo.
com/118213160
Resources: If interested in simulations and games, the Internet is overloaded with ideas
and some of these may be helpful. A search under ‘simulation games pdf ’ will bring up the
following:

• http://studenttheses.cbs.dk/bitstream/handle/10417/2966/michael_soerensen. pdf ?sequence=1

• https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eli3004.pdf
• http://www.med.wisc.edu/ les/smph/docs/clinical_simulation_program/kritz-facilita- tion__
debrie ng_of_simulations__games_2010.pdf
• http://www.coulthard.com/library/Files/balasubramanianwilson_2005-gamesandsimula-tions.pdf
• https://www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk/handbook/printable/games_v5.pdf

Chapter 3: Experiential Learning, Immersion and Play 93

• http://jite.org/documents/Vol2/v2p001-013-59.pdf
• https://www.doria. /bitstream/handle/10024/76840/Annales%20B%20347%20 Siewiorek%20
DISS.pdf ?sequence=1

You can also try old book shops for books with games, simulations, ice-breakers, novelty and
party games, craft-type books. The older the book the better, the best simulations and games
were developed before there was television. Books about strategies and methods in school
teaching and church youth groups are also helpful.
For the rest of this section some examples of simple experiential activities are outlined.

Tangram Tussle
Purpose: To highlight the importance and skills in listening, conversation, dialogue,
patience, leadership, group dynamics and teaming skills.
Resources: Tangram cards cut up into pieces and collated in envelopes (see Figure 16.
Tangram Template).

Figure 16. Tangram Template

Procedure:
Participants are provided with an envelope (see Picture 15) with tangram pieces in it. The
tangram template at Figure 15 is an example of how the shapes are cut up.

94 Tackling Risk
1. Each person in the team is given a piece or two pieces of the seven tangram shapes,
depending on team size.
2. On the cover of the envelope is a pattern to be solved (see Picture 15. Example of
Patterns to Solve).
3. Participants have to solve (make the shape with their pieces) the puzzle under the
following conditions:
• They cannot talk, gesture or hand signal.
• They can only touch their piece (by pushing it into the centre of the table or extract only
their piece).
• Any touching of another persons piece is penalised.
• Any talking is penalised.
Hold back the solutions till the very end.

Picture 15. Example of Patterns to Solve

Chapter 3: Experiential Learning, Immersion and Play 95

Solutions: All solutions to the shapes (and much more) are easy to find in a search on the
Internet. (e.g. See Figure 17. Tangram Solutions)

Figure 17. Tangram Solutions

Variations: There are seven pieces in each tangram set. See what happens when you make up
one envelope with only six pieces. In other words, the puzzle cannot be solved. See how this
drives frustration.
Debriefing: All the emotions come out in this activity. Many get impatient and frustrated
with others because they can see a solution but cannot control another person in the group.
There will be groups who will not be able to solve their puzzle, some will give up. You will
also find that some puzzles are much more difficult to solve as a team than others. There
is plenty to debrief on the challenges and desire to control others, the skills of teaming,
communication and patience.

Spaghetti Towers
Purpose: To work as a team to build a tower using skills of observation, design, teaming,
communication, adaptation, creativity and innovation. The team who wins has the highest
tower AND the most money (See Picture 16. Spaghetti Towers).
Resources: One packet of spaghetti, lollies, marshmallows, jubes, cardboard platform
(50mm x 50mm) and measuring tape.

96 Tackling Risk
Procedure: The construction of a spaghetti tower should be conducted in ‘rounds’. Round
timing to be managed by Facilitator (suggested 3 minutes). Explain the purpose of the
activity.
Round 1: Create teams (best picked) based on personality indicator or intuitively for
diversity of ‘types’ in teams. Team to select Captain, team name, team motto, team icon (to
be discussed in debrief as part of semiotic analysis). The best team is to be awarded $10 for
best icon, motto and name. Towers must be built on the cardboard base, or presented on the
cardboard base to be judged and cannot be attached to any other object.
Distribute limited number of materials (10 sticks of spaghetti, 10 marshmallows and 5 jubes)
and limited amounts of (fake) money ($100). Set a price for extra resources to purchase (e.g.
spaghetti stick $5, jube $1).
Round 2: Commence design. Each team to write up a ‘building plan’ including descriptor of
tower and rational for design (e.g. strength, aesthetics). The best team to be awarded $10 for
best plan.
Round 3: Commence building but no talking or gesturing. Penalty for gesturing or talking
is $10.
Round 4: Continue building but only gestures allowed, no talking. Penalty is $10.
Round 5: Continue building and talking is allowed.
Round 6: Return to a non-talking round. Penalty is $10 for talking or gesturing. (Extend
rounds and carry on as required).
Round 7: Finish and judge for prizes.
Solutions: There is no solution to this experiential activity but there are better ways to design
than others, particularly in how one ‘breaks’ up the spaghetti and makes the structure strong.

Chapter 3: Experiential Learning, Immersion and Play 97

Picture 16. Spaghetti Towers

Variations: Have a round where one’s best hand is tied behind the back. Change the
pricing arbitrarily during the course of the activity. Give out money randomly for creativity,
innovation and adaptation ideas. Penalise for minor misdemeanors.
Debriefing: Discuss the nature of teams, communication and how constraints in the game
created frustrations. Discuss key issues of: design, penalties, communication and creativity.

People Tic Tac Toe (Noughts and Crosses) Challenge

Purpose: To play Tic-Tac-Toe with people. The game tests strategy, communication, teaming
and tests competitiveness.
First team to win best of eleven series wins the game. People need to be advised that this is a
vigorous activity and to sit out if there are any issues associated with this.
Resources: Open area, chairs assembled 3 x 3 in 9 square configuration. People should
either have soft shoes or wear socks or bare feet. Facilitator to keep a record of numbers
called. Headbands or sashes can be used to identify teams. See Figure 18. Tic Tac Toe Layout.
Procedure: Choose two teams. The game should be conducted in 11 ‘rounds’. Once teams
are chosen they are lined up either side of the chair configuration and numbered. (See Figure
18. Tic-Tac-Toe Layout). Teams to appoint a Captain.
At no time is anyone on any team allowed to gesture or tell anyone else, where to sit. If so, a
point is awarded to the opposing team.

98 Tackling Risk
Figure 18. Tic Tac Toe Layout.

Round 1. Call out a number (record on tally board) and then the next number until one
group has three in a row.
Round 2-11. Players return to standing in position and restart the game.
Stop at the end of Round 2 for team strategic thinking and at ends of rounds 5 and 7 for
similar strategic thinking.
Solutions: There are no solutions for this game but there are strategies that are more
effective than others.
Variations: Make tally board visible (whiteboard). Run some rounds where points are taken
off for any noise or talking.
Debriefing: To discuss: competitiveness, teaming, strategic thinking and control.

More on Experiential Activities and Games

These three experiential learning activities serve as examples of what is possible in
undertaking learning simulation in-class activities. There is insufficient space in this book
to demonstrate many more complex simulations written by Human Dymensions including:
Babelworks, Casino Royale, Polis Town and many more. These can be viewed here: http://
www.humandymensions.com/gallery/.

Chapter 3: Experiential Learning, Immersion and Play 99

The more complex experiential learning activities designed by Dr Long can take up to three
or four hours of intense experience to complete and debrief. Such experiential activities are
perfect for team building, risk and safety days and leadership development.

Micro-Training (Teaching)
The use of video (and digital photographs) for learning and playback is called micro-training.
The history of micro-teaching goes back to the early and mid 1960s, when Dwight Allen
and his colleagues from the Stanford University developed a training programme aimed
to improve verbal and nonverbal aspects of teachers’ speech and general performance. The
Stanford model consisted of a three-step (teach, review and reflect, re-teach) approach using
actual students as an authentic audience. The model was first applied to teaching science, but
later it was introduced to language teaching. A very similar model called Instructional Skills
Workshop (ISW) was developed in Canada during the early 1970s as a training support
programme for college and institute faculty. Both models were designed to enhance teaching
and promote open collegial discussion about teaching performance.
I first encountered micro-training (teaching) in my own teacher education in 1971
and much later with very good friend and college Professor Ron Traill at University of
Canberra (Canberra CAE) (http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03112137
40010302?need Access=true&journalCode=capj19).
Ron completed his PhD in the USA and brought the innovation of micro-teaching
back with him to Canberra CAE. Ron also worked with Professor Cliff Turney at
Sydney University with whom I also studied.
Since 1973, micro-teaching became increasingly a part of many other professional studies
(e.g. medical and nursing education). Some reading may assist a deeper understanding:
• http://www.erc.ie/documents/vol06chp6.pdf https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/
articles/PMC3724377/
• http://euroasiapub.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/5IMAug-3940-2-2.pdf
The use of video for skill development is invaluable. This can be most effective in coaching or
in small groups. The micro-teaching process enables feedback to be undertaken so that the
learner can self-adjust their own performance, presentation or presence in-situ.
I have brought into the areas of risk, safety and security the use of micro-teaching
effectiveness in many industry sectors. This has helped many supervisors, managers and
workers better observe, engage and undertake conversations in risk on site. Unfortunately,
micro-teaching is much more than a matter of recording actions using a video camera. An
example is provided as Picture 17. Micro-Training. There is a complete methodology and
pedagogy required if one is to do it successfully.
Further see here:
• http:// les.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED103428.pdf and; https://www.ncbi. nlm.nih.gov/pmc/
articles/PMC3724377/

100 Tackling Risk

Picture 17. Micro-Training

Semiotic Walks
People in most sectors of industry and in community services who deal with risk are not
really taught much about the social psychology of perception and observation. Neither do
they learn much at all about the power of semiotics, semiology and the unconscious. Many
speak about ‘awareness’ and ‘being careful’ but do not actually know or define what this
means. This is why semiotic walks are a critical aspect of learning in the Social Psychology of
Risk. A semiotic walk is a walking conversation about what is observed and perceived with
an experienced semiotic observer. You can view examples of semiotic walks here:
• https://vimeo.com/221858545
• https://vimeo.com/135437986
A semiotic walk is an experiential learning exercise that challenges people to understand the
semiosphere, which is the semiotic world around them. Semiotics and semiology include an
awareness of how signs, symbols, text and semiotics influence the unconscious. These walks
are usually part of a study of semiotics conducted by Dr Long or one of his Associates.
Whilst there are a few resources that can help people learn how to observe, many confuse
looking with observing. Unless observation is undertaken through a critical Social
Psychology lens, much is missed of significance. As a beginning this may be helpful: Jon
Boyd, (2007) Connecting Into Observation and Awareness. In order to help with semiotic
walks we also use a tool that helps to interrogate visual and spacial literacy. See Figures 19
and 20 Visual and Spacial Literacy.

Chapter 3: Experiential Learning, Immersion and Play 101

Figure 19. Visual Literacy Tool

Figure 20. Spacial Literacy Tool

102 Tackling Risk

Again, whilst these tools may be helpful to assist visual and spacial literacy, one really has to
experience a semiotic walk with a coach or undertake a course in semiotics to really develop
skills in this area. The tools above help mostly in cue recognition.
Two of the critical skills required for this approach is understanding Discourse Analysis
and Learning how to Think Critically in the tradition of Social Psychology of Risk. Critical
thinking is much more than asking ‘why’. Critical thinking and discourse analysis emerged
out of the Frankfurt School and particularly interrogate the nature of power, mentalitie and
ethics in the world.

Workshop Questions
1. What is a favourite game and why?
2. What is your best suited learning climate that matches your learning style?
3. Give some examples of single, double and triple loop learning.
4. What strategies does your organisation take to help people learn?
5. How does your organisation rate on the essentials to facilitate learning in the
organisation?

Transition
We conclude this Chapter on the importance of visual literacy and spacial literacy for
learning. This is premised on a thorough knowledge of semiology and semiotics. In the next
Chapter we will move specifically to the nature of visual learning and in particular, specific
methodologies associated with semiotic, visual and spacial learning.
If you wish to pre-read on semiotics before engaging in the next chapter then perhaps the
following text may prove helpful:
Chandler, D., Semiotics The Basics.
http://www.wayanswardhani.lecture.ub.ac.id/files/2013/09/Semiotics-the-Basics.pdf

Chapter 3: Experiential Learning, Immersion and Play 103

104 Tackling Risk
SECTION
TWO
Meta-Learning
106 Tackling Risk
CHAPTER 4
Meta-Learning and
Semiotics
4
What makes the biological machinery of man so powerful is that it modifies
his actions through his imagination. It makes him able to symbolise, to
project himself into the consequences of his acts, to conceptualise his
plans, and to weigh them, one against another, as a system of values. -
Bronowski

The semiosphere, that synchronic semiotic space which fills the borders of
culture, without which separate semiotic systems cannot function or come
into being. - Lotman.

Man’s achievements rest upon the use of symbols . . . and those who rule
the symbols, rule us. - Korzybski

The Social Psychology of Risk Body of Knowledge

A Social Psychology of Risk is very difficult to represent in text. Writing a book on
a Body of Knowledge for the Social Psychology of Risk is simply incongruent with
the fundamental nature of the discipline. For this reason the best way to convey an
understanding of the Body of Knowledge (BoK) for the Social Psychology of Risk (SPoR) is
Semiotically. For those who like acronyms that’s BoKSPoR but even using acronyms only
favours one form of knowing, so we resist this throughout the text.
If one looks at the evolution of the Social Psychology of Risk (see Figure 21. Evolution of the
Social Psychology of Risk) then one will see the importance of the study of semiotics in that
development. The study of symbols and signs tells us a great deal about people and culture.

Chapter 4: Meta-Learning and Semiotics 107

Baptism
The concept of baptism, sprinkling and immersion, is used often with reference to war
and as a sign. Like many religious metaphors, we see a merging with many secular
life and death situations, for example, high risk and safety contexts, bushfires, floods,
earthquakes and many natural disasters. We all accept the idea of a ‘baptism of fire’
that originated in the words of John the Baptist (Matthew 3:11).
Whilst the church debates the volume of water required for a baptism or whether
there should be water at all is nothing short of hermeneutical gymnastics and church
politics. Then there are those who proclaim ‘baptism by the Holy Spirit’ and a host of
‘signs’ of that baptism.
I was baptised as a young person and only remember it as an act of identity but it
certainly was a sign. The semiotics of washing, burying, rising and cleansing are all
critical to the process of conversion and redemption. Baptism then becomes a symbol
of faith, identity and trust. Baptism is a sign of belonging.
It seems that when words run out in explaining something or the tacit knowing of
something; we seemingly turn to the use of metaphors and semiotics to seek meaning
and explanation. Polanyi says: ‘we know more than we can say’.
One of the fascinating things about a visit to St Paul’s Anglican Church in Melbourne
can be observed on the right hand side as one enters the church (see https://cathedral.
org.au/). Baptism represents how one enters the church and so in Catholic and
Anglican churches there is usually a font near the entrance. Churches that baptise
by immersion usually have a baptistry at the head of the church or use a local river
/ waterway. At St Paul’s they have both a font and a baptistry at the entrance (see
Pictures 18 and 19 St Paul’s Baptistry). It is most unusual to see the co-existence of
both forms of baptism in the one location. Historically, the belief in an either-or
version of baptism has resulted in wars such as the German Peasants’ War in 1525 and
the continued persecution of those who profess adult baptism by immersion. Perhaps
St Paul’s are content to live with this dialectic in theology.

108 Tackling Risk

Pictures 18. St Paul’s Baptistry

Chapter 4: Meta-Learning and Semiotics 109

Picture 19. St Paul’s Baptistry and Font

Both forms of sign are considered valid for baptism in this setting but in the Christian
world this is most unusual. The social consequence of this sign is of utmost importance to
the study of the Social Psychology of Risk; in particular the Social Psychology of History
of Mentalities. How did both signs and theologies come to coexist? How can Anglican
theology by sprinkling also accommodate baptism by immersion? All images on St Paul’s
website are of the sprinkling of infants, so what is the social history of this anachronism?
The evolution of a Social Psychology of Risk is represented graphically at Figure 21. The
Evolution of the Social Psychology of Risk. This graphic maps the territory for the development
of the Social Psychology of Risk from its roots in The Frankfurt School and the birth of
cultural theory. The representative map provides links showing an evolution from post-
Marxist thinking through to semiotics, critical theory, cultural theory, ethnography and
social psychology. In this way the tradition and discipline of social psychology can be
explained in relation to its roots and in contradistinction to associated human sciences. This
semiotic map also shows related disciplines and associated important theorists. Jacques
Ellul, Soren Kierkegaard and Carl Jung are not included on the map but have roots through
existential thinking, theology and sociology.

110 Tackling Risk

Figure 21. Evolution of the Social Psychology of Risk

This is quite a heavy description of the roots of SPoR but what this essentially means is
that SPoR understands risk and human decision making through the lens of social and
psychological influences. Rather than avoiding the questions of human fallibility, mortality

Chapter 4: Meta-Learning and Semiotics 111

and subjectivity, SPoR embraces these tough questions and seeks to make sense of how
people really tackle risk. SPoR rejects the absolutist assumptions of determinist and
mechanistic understandings of life and living and rather proposes that all of living is socially
constructed. SPoR is not very much interested in objects and is much more interested in
subjects.
In SPoR we need to see and experience how knowledge is relationally interdependent and
socially-psychologically dependent. Our decision making is best described as a rhizome
(matter set of roots) of inter connected influences. Many things like: context, history,
organising, heuristics, time, place, people, personality and culture all influence the nature of
decision making.
The SPoR Body of Knowledge is comprised of strands of inter-connected ‘bubbles’. The
reason for the bubbles metaphor is to capture the nature of aspiration (air / spirit) and
floating movement. Unfortunately, the model is in only two dimensions but were it in three
dimensions one could imagine all these bubbles held by a thin web of strands, all floating
in the ‘semiosphere’. Each bubble is centred on a ‘concept’ and around the circumference
is an example of critical authors and researchers whose work needs to be read to assist
understanding of the central concept. The concept of a ‘semiosphere’ captures the notion that
all meaning is conveyed through symbols, signs and text as metaphor.
The model is anchored from the centre of the I-THOU, Martin Buber’s critical concept
in understanding the nature of human identity. There is really no such thing as an
individual, no-one is an island. The interconnection between the i-thou is made by a
hyphen emphasising the dialectical social relationship between an individual identified
by connection to another. From the moment of birth we explain our existence socially
through relationships such as mother, family, child, person. This is where we must start in
understanding the SPoR BoK.
The important distinction about representing a body of knowledge relationally (via a concept
map) is that it demonstrates the social nature of the knowledge itself. Rather than write a
book with forty to fifty or more chapters it is a much better proposition to show what kinds
of subjects, disciplines and researchers comprise knowledge in the Social Psychology of Risk.
It is also much more instructive to show inter and intra-relationships between sources of
knowledge as knowledge is aquired socially and is sutained socially. This is demonstrated in
Figure 22. The Social Psychology of Risk Body of Knowledge.

112 Tackling Risk

Figure 22. The Social Psychology of Risk Body of Knowledge.

Chapter 4: Meta-Learning and Semiotics 113

Understanding the Social Psychology of Risk Body of Knowledge Strands
The Social Psychology of Risk Body of Knowledge semiotic lays out a ‘map’ for
understanding the interrelatedness, interconnectedness and interpenetration of knowledge
from a social-psychological perspective. Each ‘bubble’ or ‘balloon’ represents an element of
‘aspiration’ (aspire - to breathe) and is collected in a strand in a common theme. Each bubble
includes the name/s of key authors or researchers in the specific area of knowledge.
There are eight strands that connect to the i-thou foundation and each will be explained
in the following discussion. The colours of each bubble are critical too and indicate
psychological significance. All strands connect and combine to understand how SPoR
knowledge creates a trajectory in knowing, understanding and tackling risk.
Each strand is connected through the social understanding of the world through Martin
Buber’s i-thou. The Body of Knowledge indicates what comprises the i-thou and therefore
how persons in relationships can tackle risk. The psychology of colour for each theme also
has semiotic significance. The eight themes that make up the Social Psychology of Risk
Body of Knowledge are counterclockwise.

Strand 1. The Collective Unconscious and i-thou (grey)

The most effective way to understand the nature of organising and culture is through the
Jungian concept of the ‘Collective Unconscious’. Culture is about what we believe, do and
signify in the creation of collective and social meaning. It was Professor Karl E. Weick
who said ‘How do I know what I believe until I hear what I say’ and ‘how do I know what
I believe until I see what I do’. These statements capture the challenges of being a fallible
person in a physical random world under the influences of all that is unconscious in
decision making. The idea that culture is comprised of systems, leadership and behaviours
simply distorts the complexity of understanding culture. Such an understanding anchors
an understanding of culture to a materialist, behaviourist and reductionist ideology. A
definition of culture is better served if understood semiotically as a cloud (https://vimeo.
com/118458068), one can be in it, see it and experience its turbulence yet feel helpless to
influence it. The Culture Cloud was introduced and fully explained in book four in the series
on risk, Following-Leading in Risk, A Humanising Dynamic.
The i-thou is a triarchic text that shows that humans in social identity are always in
existential dialectic between the individual and the social world. This is where the collective
unconscious is most present, in that existential dialectic. This is why the i-thou is circled in
blue on the model to highlight the dialectic tension of the i-thou as a whole.

Strand 2. Body, Brain, Gut, Heart and Mind (amber)

The first set of bubbles, moving in an anti-clockwise direction, is the physical-mind
dimensions. Understanding the head, brain, heart, gut and mind in the making of
personhood is a starting point for understanding the i in the i-thou. One of the best to
read about the integration of all these factors in personhood is Norretranders. The User
IIlusion. On the meaning of Personhood also Martin, Sugarman and Hickinbottom Persons,

114 Tackling Risk

Understanding Psychological Selfhood and Agency. The idea of The Educated Person is
anchored to the work of R. S. Peters The Concept of Education. This serves as a neat segue to
the next set of bubbles on Education, Learning and Ontology.
It is important here to understand that even illness, sickness and suffering are socially
and psychologically constructed. Not that these are ‘made up’ but rather the meaning we
give to illness, sickness and suffering are ‘understood’ through a social understanding of
embodiment and culture (further see Radley, A., (1991) The Body and Social Psychology
Springer. New York also, Radley, A., (1994) Making Sense of Illness, The Social Psychology of
Health and Disease Sage, London). All bodily activity such as dance, drama, exercise, sport,
play and even lovemaking are given meaning socially.

Strand 3. The Educated Person (orange)

Once we have a good understanding of personhood and its ontology (a discipline of
metaphysics) we are then able to tackle the big question of what makes and educated person.
In this strand we understand its connection through the work of Polanyi and the idea of
Tacit Knowledge. It was Polanyi in The Tacit Dimension who said: ‘We know more than
we can say’. This changes the way we should think about knowing and being beyond the
cognitive-behaviourist paradigm that is so much associated with modernity. Authors and
researchers such as: Julia Sloan Learning to Think Strategically, Donald Michael Learning to
Plan and Planning to Learn, Gregory Bateson Mind and Nature, Guy Claxton The Wayward
Mind, Howard Gardiner Frames of Mind, Parker J Palmer To Know as We Are Known and
Ken Robinson Out of our Minds are essential reading for an holistic understanding of
education, learning and being.
Here we see the purpose of human being (ontology) in the learning person. Personhood can
only be understood socially. We can only be defined as a person in relation to others. When
we de-personalise we reduce humanity to the nature of an object and can do whatever we
want to an object. This is how the Nazis were able to commit attrocities to other humans
because they were renamed as ‘vermin’ and given a number. The educated person lives to
upbuild and humanise others.

Strand 4. Visual and Spacial Literacy (red)

The way that place and space influence social psychological context is most important. A
consciousness of visual and spacial literacy connects to the idea that we live in a semiosphere:
a world of signs, symbols and metaphorical significance. This is what Soja in Postmodern
Geographies called ‘social geography’, understanding that knowing why is vitally connected
to who, where, what and how. Visual and spacial literacy is essential to understanding the
unconscious power of semiotics.
It is through an awareness of space and place that we understand social influence. Our lived
spaces can dehumanise or humanise us. Being visually and spacially literate enables us to see
how our lived environment either values or devalues us.

Chapter 4: Meta-Learning and Semiotics 115

Strand 5. Poetics and Aesthetics (maroon)
Poetics (fine arts) and aesthetics are a strong part of visual and spacial literacy and
understanding how semiotics influence unconscious decision making. One needs to
understand the influence on the unconscious by: music, art, dance, drama, tragedy, gesture,
signs, graphics, iconography, food, hospitality and poetry. Works by Paul Ricoeur The Rule
of Metaphor, Julia Kristeva Desire in Language, A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art,
Winfried Noth Handbook of Semiotics, Yuri Lotman Universe of the Mind, A Semiotic Theory
of Culture and Colin Ware Information Visualization are essential for understanding how
semiosis (the making of meaning through signs and symbols) are essential in understanding
just how much unconscious decision making is driven by Poetics and Aesthetics.
All those activities which affect us unconsciously and our tacit knowing are part of the
aesthetic world. Poetics, music, art, drama, play, food / diet, dance, gesture and sound all
affect us and our unconscious in profound ways. For example, ‘musak’ in shops, colour of
products, diet and the weather all affect us unconsciously. We can even feel depressed or
anxious just by the temperature.

Strand 6. Politics, Discourse and Power (mauve)

This strand is anchored directly to the Critical and Cultural Theory schools of thinking
that emerged out of the Frankfurt School (Adorno and Habermas) and the work of the
postmodernists (Foucault) and deconstructionists (Derrida). The idea that all language
carries social and political power (discourse) is essential for understanding this dimensions
of this strand. Most critical of all philosophers in this strand is Jacques Ellul The Ethics of
Freedom, The Technological Society, Propaganda and The Political Illusion. Ellul’s existential
dialectic forms a central role in the Social Psychology of Risk Body of Knowledge. It is
Ellul’s work that anchors SPoR thinking to a triarchic understanding of engagement. This is
evident in the i-thou metaphor and the dialectic between the one and the many. The hyphen
and the activity it represents are critical for understanding decision making and personhood
as being non-binary. The dialectic of Ellul is nothing like the dialectic of Hegel, there is
no synthesis is Ellul’s existentialist dialectic. It is in the struggle, the tackling of wicked
problems and ontological questions that people develop wisdom and discernment.
This theme is about the organising and ‘grammar’ of organising through semiosis. Semiosis
is about the creation of meaning through language, text and discourse (power in language).
It is in this theme that cultural and critical theory play a major part. The work of Ellul in
particular should be highlighted in relation to social politics. It is important in this theme
to highlight the importance of the word and language in listening. Language and text ought
not to play a subservient role to visuals but rather exist in tension and dialectic with the
seduction of only symbolic representations.

Strand 7. The Semiosphere and Transcendence (purple)

Essential to understanding personhood is the nature of transcendence. This is where Jungian
thinking and non-materialist understandings of social arrangements are important. In
this strand we need to tackle the nature of the non-conscious and unconscious nature of

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humans directly. Whilst understanding that dreams, meditation, prayer, reflection, ethics,
morality and hypnosis are influential we need not accumulate a reductionist understanding
of such phenomena. This is again where authors like Ellul, Palmer, Jung, Cameron and
Klein are most helpful. Whilst not claiming to understand the full nature of this strand
we need to acknowledge the place of spirituality and transcendence as an influence on
decision making. This strand also makes direct connection to the power of semiotics and
understanding the semiosphere as vital to how non-material activities affect humans socially
and psychologically.
This theme incorporates all the transcendent activities of the unconscious in relation to
semiotics, particularly the idea that the world is a semiosphere, that is, we understand
our world through signs, symbols, significance and semiology. The importance of dreams,
meditation, mindfulness and spirituality are critical to this theme.

Strand 8. Cultural, Social and Belief (green)

This theme captures all of the cultural complexities of community, social experience
(existential), cultural history, wickedity and belief. This theme is linked to the duality of the
i-thou, holding the i-thou in tension to each other in a dialectic ‘dance’.

Conclusion - Trajectory and Risk (red-grey)

Finally, one needs to address the challenges of risk and engagement by reading Kierkegaard
Fear and Trembling, De Botton The Architecture of Happiness, Giddens The Consequences of
Modernity and Weick The Social Psychology of Organizing. With this knowledge in mind one
is more able to tackle the challenges of human decision making and risk from a holistic
perspective. Kierkegaard in particular is most helpful for understanding risk as a leap of
faith; and with this Body of Knowledge one better understands how social psychological
factors influence the trajectory of people in the project of tackling risk.
Once all of this knowledge is considered then one can think about risk and the trajectory
of risk. These are coloured in red-grey in connection to the environment and the collective
unconscious. The notion of trajectory is about the continuous future and all it might hold for
the fallible i-thou.

Why a ‘Map’ for Body of Knowledge?

The semiotic understanding of knowledge understands that all knowledge (implicit and
explicit) creates meaning. The Social Psychology of Risk Body of Knowledge (SPoRBoK)
seeks to show a map of meaning. It is when we bring together these critical elements of
knowing that Risk Makes Sense. It is when we bring together this map of meaning that we
know that the ideology of infallibility and zero for humans are a nonsense. When we bring
together this ‘map’ of meaning we know that other bodies of knowledge that focus on objects
create systems that dehumanise persons. It is when we bring together this map of meaning
that we know how to best understand and navigate our way through a life of risk.

Chapter 4: Meta-Learning and Semiotics 117

This multi-layered collection of inter-connected bubbles in the SPoRBoK floats in the
semiosphere anchored to the i-thou of social meaning and it is this meaning that enables
one to ‘leap in faith’ to risk and the unknowable future.
A function of a map is to help navigate a way forward. This map shows what kind of
knowledge comprises a social psychology of risk and how that inter-connected knowledge
enables risk taking. Other bodies of knowledge (e.g. a Safety Body of Knowledge or Risk
Management Body of Knowledge) disable learning and risk-taking because they are based
on binary, mechanistic and non-social platforms and are similarly embodied in text. The
OHS Body of Knowledge and the SRMBoK include none of the critical elements of the
Social Psychology of Risk Body of Knowledge in their work. Indeed, the majority of the
OHSBoK and SRMBoK are consumed with: objects, systems, regulations, controls, hazards,
assets, data, mechanics, technique and operations. The semiotics of the OHSBoK and
SRMBoK focus on: objects, pyramids, bow-ties, matrices, barriers, curves and systems.
The idea of inter-penetration of relationships, social personhood, the unconscious,
ethics, aesthetics, culture as the collective unconscious, learning, discourse, semiotics and
humanising are totally absent from both. Rather, the OHSBoK and SRMBoK have an
engineering focus with a primacy on knowledge related to objects not subjects. Both
OHSBoK and SRMBoK are not represented iconically or semiotically and are not ‘mapped’
but adopt a traditional academic model of excessive text in self explanation. It is only
through a semiotic understanding of knowledge that one can develop a Social Psychology
of Risk.

A History of Semiotics
The importance of signs and symbols has been of interest well before the formal study of
semiosis was founded in the 1900s. As early as Aristotle in Poetics philosophers have been
consumed with the origins of language. The word semiotics has its origin from Greek with
a root meaning for an interpreter of signs. Daniel and Joseph in the Bible are well known as
interpreters of signs, symbols and dreams. In Old and New Testament times people sought a
sign (celestial phenomena, miracles, prophecies and other) for authentication. The following
are representative such sign:
Luke 2:11-13
Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the
Lord.
This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a
manger.
Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God
and saying . . .
Romans 4:11

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 And he received circumcision as a sign, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith
while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have
not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them.
The study of Semiotics emerged out of Linguistic Theory and a Structuralist Theory of
knowledge. Structuralism is a methodology (philosophy) that has its focus on human culture
in terms of the relationship to a larger, overarching system or structure. Structuralism
developed in the early 1900s in the structural linguistics of the Swiss, Ferdinand de Saussure,
who is identified with the Prague, Moscow and Copenhagen schools of linguistics. The most
prominent thinkers in this school of linguistics were Claude Levi-Strauss, Roman Jakobson
and Jacques Lacan. By the 1960s the basic tenets of thought in Structuralism came under
attack from Michael Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Louis Althusser and Roland Bathes. This
school of thought was known as the Post-Structuralists.
Saussure held to a dyadic model of sign systems consisting of separate elements, wth a focus
on the signifier and the signified. If we take the word ‘dog’, then what is engendered to the
hearer is not a real dog but the mental concept of ‘dogness’. Saussure described the verbal
sound signifier as a ‘sound image’. For Saussure the bond between the signified and signifier
was the arbitrary nature of the sign. Arbitrary signs for Saussure were based on no direct
link between a shape and a concept, which made up a code that unlocked the content of the
brains of two communicators to the meaning and purpose of the sign in social life. Saussure
called this ‘semiology’, the study of the meaning and purpose of sign systems. For the
Structuralists, language (langue as an idealised abstraction) is a sign system.
For the American philosopher Charles Pierce (pronounced ‘purse’), his focus on the ‘formal
doctrine of signs’ which he closely related to logic and called ‘Semiotics’. Pierce focused on
the representation of signs; id est, the sign itself and its relation to the interpretant. The focus
was on triadic linking of the object, the sign representation and the dynamic object as the
real object to which the sign refers. Pierce emphasised the thought of the sign as the sign of
the object itself. In this sense Pierce’s model was one that cascades in meaning from the sign
to the signified.
Since the times of Saussure and Pierce many fields of semiotics have sprouted and formed
in sub- fields and ‘schools’. Each tends to have a specific focus and agenda. e.g. Cognitive
semiotics, Pictorial semiotics or Edusemiotics. The International Association for Semiotics
was founded in 1969 and numerous universities now specialise in the study of semiotics
e.g. University of Tartu. For the purposes of this book we will focus on a general approach
to Semiotics with a particular interest in the nature of how the unconscious in learning
is affected by semiotics. What is important here is not the study of signs, symbols and
signification in itself but rather its relationships to learning, culture and risk. The concepts
that a Social Psychology of Risk is interested in are listed in the following table: Table 3. Key
Concepts in Semiotics.

Chapter 4: Meta-Learning and Semiotics 119

Table 3. Key Concepts in Semiotics
Signs Metaphor Pitching, Framing, Priming and
Anchoring
Symbols Consensually Validated Hidden Curriculum
Grammar (Weick)
Signifier Syntactics Messaging
Signified Cultural Semiotics Archetypes
Significance Language Transference
Sign Systems Discourse, Power Transcendence
The Semiosphere The Semantic Environment The Collective Uncosncious
(Postman)
Iconography Meaning, Purpose and Edusemiotics
Codes
Information Graphics Hermeneutics Culture

Our sign systems play a major part in how we construct social reality and our reality cannot
be separated from the sign-systems in which they are experienced. Semiotics should not
be confused with just the study of semantics and language, although words do matter as
do signs, but with all sign-systems and symbols in the semiosphere. Semiotics understands
that all messaging and all communication are intertwined (coded) with the values, attitudes
and beliefs in organising and arranging so that humans can construct meaning and purpose
(semiosis) in living.
The purpose of this chapter is to raise awareness of how all sign systems affect the
unconscious and create meaning in learning. The study of Semiotics seeks to understand the
many ways people come to belief, faith and meaning through unconscious ‘codes’ and rules
embedded in many of the communicating ‘devices’. Semiotics is interested in how meaning
and purpose is ‘absorbed’ covertly, constructed and unconsciously experienced rather than
what is contained in an overt communications policy.

Learning Visually as Meta-Learning

This section of the Chapter has a focus on learning visually as meta-learning with the
general-reader in mind. The term general-reader is used here in the context that the reader
may be a specialist in their own field, with an enriched set of personal experiences; and a
diverse range of informal and formal loops of learning for dealing with risk. I suggest here
that presenting information using a visual medium is more about technique and not about
‘learning visually’. As Ellul says, ‘technique transforms ends into means . . . and conversely,
technique turns means into ends’. I suggest for understanding that all processes and
procedures (method) need to be linked to a higher level philosophy (methodology). The
general-reader may be new to learning visually discussed in this Chapter. A methodology

120 Tackling Risk

suggests the framework and the direction which we need to represent so that we have
validity to what, how and why we tackle risk through learning visually.
As any specialist with experience knows, there are technical ways of doing things, technical
terms, technical equipment and technical know-how. In consideration I will stay away from
the technicalities and avoid providing descriptions of technique, but will explain where
necessary the important links to the philosophy of visual-learning. When discussing learning
visually, through a discourse for tackling risk, we really need to go ‘meta’. We need to go
beyond and above and even turn some things upside down to see the critical pedagogy of
meta-learning and what is hidden and underneath. I will also take opportunities to reflect
and ask questions and to identify what it is that will assist the reader to ‘trigger’ ideas. We
will need to change the thinking that learning visually is only based on displaying images
and presenting information.
I will discuss a relationship to learning visually and how we use the ‘voice’ and the ‘ear’ and
the ‘eye’ and extend beyond these basic considerations. It is through the sense of vision
and the visual process of receiving neuro-physiological (Bateson, 1972) messages, that
we connect with and we interpret our world using visual-images. I will also discuss the
relationship between the visual perceptions we each have as mental constructs, which is
the basis for the formulation of ideas. We transform ideas through the deep structure of
language, which we learn from birth and through childhood. This becomes the basis of
language we use. It is when we couple our visual-imagery with dialogue that we can use our
hands to create physical maps and models to share with others for learning visually.
Adults who learn a new language must use a learning-process with set rules, but children
learn from birth about the structure and context, grammar and other aspects in language
without knowing the rules. Umberto Eco describes the learning of language in the
Introduction pages of Lotman’s (1990) Universe of the Mind:
A child, when first learning to speak, is trained through exposure to a continuous
textual performance of pre-fixed strings of language and s/he is expected to absorb
competence even though not completely conscious of the underlying rules.

Meta, Paradigm and Learning Visually

It will be of some benefit at this point to clarify two terms in context to their use in this
Chapter and related to learning visually. The first term is ‘meta’, described earlier in the
context of meta-learning as: ‘learning-about-learning and to go beyond single and double
loop learning’. Before we proceed to use ‘meta’ in other contexts for learning visually, let
us now apply this description so that we provide an example of ‘meta-learning’ and link it
to our own meta-learning experience. It was previously mentioned that meta-learning can
occur without a learner realising it. Let us check that here before we proceed.
An example of meta-learning can be explained by using this book. Leave the book open
at this page. Turn it around so that the text is upside-down and continue to read the text;
not just the single words, but the structured sentences. Word recognition may be slow
to start with but if you can read the text in the structured sentences, upside down with

Chapter 4: Meta-Learning and Semiotics 121

understanding and meaning, this is evidence of meta-learning. Meta-learning, in this
example, demonstrates an ability to extend learning beyond and above to higher loops of
learning, when compared to the way you first learnt to read as a child. The patterns and
formations of the letters forming words, when one first learns to read, does not include the
‘meta-symbolisation’ and inverse learning for the twenty-six letters of the English alphabet.
The term ‘meta’ applied by Stafford Beer (1981 p.57) in Brain of the Firm, relates to using
‘meta’ as a prefix to another word, e.g. language, which assists understanding of its meaning:
The Greek prefix meta means ‘over and above’, so a metalanguage is a language
of higher order in which propositions written in a lower order language may be
discussed.
The second term to clarify in relation to learning visually is ‘paradigm’; as a cognitive pattern
or framework containing assumptions, ways of thinking, doing something and accepted by
members of a discipline or group. Barry Jones (1988 p.44) in Ockham’s Razor 2, uses the term
‘paradigm’ and cites the work of Kuhn, (1962): who describes and reinforces movement,
change and shift.
. . . revolutions occur when there is a radical shift from one paradigm to another,
using the Greek word for ‘pattern’ or ‘framework’. The paradigm was a comprehensive,
coherent set of explanations for some phenomena . . . Within each paradigm was a
‘disciplinary matrix’, that is, a set of shared symbolic generalisations and values, and
‘exemplars’, particular instances of solved problems . . .
. . . typically, the old paradigm breaks down - too many exceptions and anomalies
appear and the old explanations no longer work. A crisis follows and a new paradigm
evolves to replace the old, sometimes because of a ‘conversion experience’ where people
adopt new beliefs.
More explanation of the term paradigm, in relation to Kuhn, (1962) The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions, will be discussed further in Chapter 5. The use of imagery is linked to leaning
visually and by its very nature there are neuro-physiological messages and pre-paradigmatic
perceptions and range of cognitive ‘triggers’ to learning.

There is a ‘Trigger’ to Learning

I have used the metaphor of a ‘trigger’ here to describe something that initiates a change,
some form of movement or a shift. This assists with understanding when people are
triggered and have a need to make an utterance, to ask a question, to be part of a discussion,
to solve a problem or to make a decision. The use of triggers and a relationship to learning
visually will be discussed in detail in this Chapter. A trigger initiated a change for me: On
personal reflection of my own interest in learning and education; there was something
embedded in my mind prior to commencing studies to become a teacher in the early 1970s.
I finished senior-high-school and was employed for a couple of years in a range of
positions; and being uncertain of what the future held, I took on available work in
factories, construction sites and retail stores. I learnt during these experiences how

122 Tackling Risk

 important signs and symbols became to my own learning, especially in the semiotics
used in the retail sales industry. I am not sure what ‘triggered’ and initiated my
apperceptive thoughts to take action, but I made some enquiries about studying to
be a teacher. I completed an application, an interview and accepted an offer to attend
Graylands Teachers’ College, in Western Australia.
The trigger, what ever it was, put me on a different trajectory as a full-time student
for three years. I worked at night, studied by day and graduated, ready to teach; but
quickly realised that learning-to-teach only really commences when one has a large
class of students on a daily basis. It was during my college studies I learnt about
the different aspects and importance of curriculum; the preparation, programming
and daily planning required for learning and education. However, as teachers with
school experience will attest, it is only after a first appointment to a school that a
teacher, through accelerated experiential learning, realises just how much the ‘hidden
curriculum’ assists learning; both within and outside the classroom.
Bandler & Grinder (1976 p. 4) The Structure of Magic II - A Book About Communication and
Change, describe some of the input channels we have for learning. Here they provide three
sensory based channels for receiving ongoing streams of information which are triggers to
contribute to learning:
There are three major input channels by which we, as human beings, receive
information about the world around us - vision, audition, and kinesthetics (body
sensations). Each of these three sensory input channels provides us with an ongoing
stream of information which we use to organize our experience.
Bateson (1972) in Steps to an Ecology of Mind, refers to neuro-physiological messages as a
link between what we hear, feel, see and think and the meta-physical working of our mind.
These neuro-physiological messages become the mental triggers which are important for the
discourse in tackling risk though learning visually. It is through the sense of vision our mind
perceives visual images, an initiator of ‘imagination’ or the trigger for another idea, which
may trigger another idea or stimulate an idea about-an-idea. If a person can make sense of
and assimilate that idea to the body of ideas they already possess, we have apperception.
This is the perceiving of a new experience from a prior experience. The use of this conscious
awareness of our ‘ecology’ assists with dialogue and when we provide opportunities to write
down an idea or to create a physical model as a representation of our ideas; we have the basis
for the primary use of visualisation during discussions for learning visually.
When we learn from an experience and assimilate that experience to others with a
movement, change or shift then we have apperceptive learning. The mental process of
making sense of an idea and assimilating it to other ideas is called apperception. A key
is in the use of visual tools to discuss and display ideas for further dialogue. The use
of ‘visualisation’ can assist visual-imagery in our mind and the trigger stimulates our
imagination. The use of imagination is an essential element for creating models for tackling
risk. A model we form in our mind is a model we use to interact with our world. All we need
is a framework and the tools to combine with our ideas to assist in learning visually.

Chapter 4: Meta-Learning and Semiotics 123

Finding a meta-model
During my studies at College and the early years of teaching, a consultant to the
Education Department, Roger Daventry, was using a form of ‘optical aesthetics’ to
enhance dialogue and improve discussion outcomes with groups. The methodology
was supported with visual and tactile tools, using different colours and shapes that
contrasted, blended and matched.
The methodology was unknown to me at the time, but as a teacher I already knew
about the use of colour and display; especially back then when we used chalkboards.
Visual displays for a teacher, using ‘chalk-and-talk’ was a tactile experience; we
were well practised in using ‘hands-on’ tools to assist visual learning. Despite most
experiential learning being designed to be an inductive process (student focus) there
were some that were by nature deductive (content / teacher focus). I was in search of a
better model.
When I was invited to be a curriculum advisor in the central office of the Western
Australian Education Department; my role was to assist school principals and staff
members with curriculum diversity in selected ‘priority schools’. I was a member
of a small team, discussing alternative ways to conduct planning meetings using a
model based on collaborative problem solving. I was looking for a model, a higher
order model, a meta-model to use with teachers and community members. The
methodology needed to be visual, able to be used with multi-lingual and multi-
cultural groups with whom we interacted in the schools and local communities. We
needed a new methodology, not just another technique.
I was introduced to a visual, ‘optical aesthetics’ approach, with tactile based tools to
moderate collaborative discussions. This was a personal and significant paradigm-shift
in my experiential learning. The methodology was aligned to a discourse in learning
and change, which by its very nature was also about risk. The stakes were high with
‘at-risk’ children attending disadvantaged schools. A meta-model that was above
and beyond the planned curriculum and using tools suited for optical-dialogue put
me onto another trajectory to moderate forum discussions with principals, teachers,
ancillary staff and community members.
Learning visually is the basis of the ‘group-forum’ methodology we conduct. The term forum
is used intentionally to describe a place for dialogue, problem solving and collaborative
discussion. The concept of a forum includes a place to have dialogue within a suitable
‘working ecology’ which can be indoors or outdoors. The Romans in ancient history used
the term forum while the Greeks referred to such places as the Agora. The philosophy of the
forums we conduct for tackling risk are based on learning visually using a suitable space for
the use of visualisation, group questioning, problem solving and reflection.

Methodology for Learning Visually as Meta-Learning

To have a methodology for learning visually is about the higher order strategies rather than
lower level tactics of method and technique. The methodology for learning visually provides

124 Tackling Risk

the guidelines for systems and processes stemming from the theories related to the forming
of a model or a framework. The principles within a framework for learning visually are based
on a pedagogy (curriculum) as an acknowledged practice for learning and education. In this
section we will cover:
Visualisation: visual-images, proxemics, symbols, signs and the use of colour and shapes.
Group Questioning: preparing, posing, displaying and discussing questions.
Problem Solving: discussing and visual-modelling of propositions, suppositions and
pre-suppositions.
Reflection: analysing and considering models represented and re-represented; and
Information Market: conducting multi-faceted visual-learning forums.
The sharing of ideas through dialogue is embodied in the principles and framework of
learning visually. Polanyi (1966 p. 82) The Tacit Dimension provides an insight into the
sharing of ideas and suggests any tradition fostering the progress of thought must have this
intention:
. . . to teach current ideas as stages leading on to unknown truths which, when
discovered, might dissent from the very teachings which engendered them. Such a
tradition assures the independence of its followers by transmitting the conviction that
thought has intrinsic powers, to be evoked in men’s minds by intimations of hidden
truths. It respects the individual for being capable of such response; for being able to
see a problem not visible to others, and to explore it on his own responsibility.

Human Universal Processes

There are three ‘universal human processes’ which should be considered for learning visually
when tackling risk. These processes are part of the way we use language to form models of
our world. Bandler & Grinder (1975) identified three major processes of human modelling.
These are Distortions, Deletions and Generalizations and are three ways the model we create
through language will differ from the thing it represents or models.
Distortion: the process by which the relationships which hold among the parts of the
model are represented differently from the relationships which they are supposed to
represent.
Deletion: the process by which selected portions of the world are excluded from the
representation created by the person modeling.
Generalization: the process by which a specific experience comes to represent the
entire category of which it is a member.
If we consider the universal processes as described by Bandler & Grinder (1975) and
have dialogue, we will encounter some problems when tackling risk, for example: the
identification of unknown truths, challenges to independence of thought, known and

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unknown suffering of people and groups, being able to see problems not visible to others,
intimations of hidden truths and a lack of opportunity to explore new ideas and innovation.
Dealing with issues and having dialogue related to tackling risk is embedded in the universal
representations people have of the world, which is embodied into the collective unconscious
and language of a culture. This is reinforced by Higgins (2014 p.106) Beyond Pleasure and
Pain, How Motivation Works suggesting from early study on distinguishing imagination and
perception that:
People not only treat something as being real that is actually not real, but they also
treat something as not being real that is actually real.
This infers that when we have dialogue to deal with risk, the process of communication
through the spoken word is full of generalisations and deletions (I prefer the term omissions)
and then we also have to consider the distortions. For example, in a meeting where we rely
on the voice-ear relationship, the speaker’s message has generalised content, information
missing and is twisted and distorted through interpretation of the speaker’s worldview. These
processes affect language and are taking place with the speaker even before the spoken word
reaches the ear of the listener. The same processes occur with the listener before a reply is
given. We live in a world where communication is distorted, generalised and deletions occur
through language.
During dialogue the speakers and listeners interpret messages based on their own model of
the world and interpret the spoken word; generalising the information, leaving out details
that are not relevant to their model of the world and distorting the meaning related to
their own experiences. These universal processes create a dilemma for tackling risk and a
common assumption can be made about dialogue; the visual-imagery we create in our minds
is different when represented by each person.To make sense of our surroundings and to
tackle risk we need to be clear and to understand one important thing. As Korzybski (1933)
suggested in Science and Sanity:
the map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the
territory, which accounts for its usefulness.
Bandler & Grinder (1975) support this as they also indicate that no two humans are
exactly the same or have the same experiences. The representational models and maps of
the territory we create tends to guide us in the world; and all of this is based in part upon
our unique experiences. Each of us may then create a different model of the world and have
our own models within models that we share and thus come to live in a somewhat different
reality. It is from a strategy for learning visually that we can better show and impart some
meaning, using physical visual models and learn from the experience.

Chinese Whispers
An activity used by schoolteachers to assist with learning more about language is through
a game commonly referred to as ‘Chinese Whispers’; where a message is distorted by being
passed around a group in a whisper. The purpose of ‘Chinese Whispers’ is to demonstrate
through experience that the spoken word cannot always be relied upon, as messages are

126 Tackling Risk

affected by the universal human processes and variations do occur. Watzlawick (2011) in
Change, Principles of Problem Formulation and Problem Resolution identified these types
of change as a first and second order change. If we are to tackle risk through dialogue we
cannot rely only on the ‘voice-ear’ relationship for the transfer of information. We require
some movement or some change or some shift through an experience for learning to take
place. This is one of the reasons we have a written language and we need a methodology to
set a framework to combine the voice, ear, eye and hand in learning visually.
To paraphrase Mlodinow, (2012); if there is an opportunity for ambiguity to create a space
for our ‘inner-advocate’; if there is an opportunity to listen to our ‘inner-voice’; if there is
an opportunity for us to use ‘motivated reasoning’; and if there are opportunities in our
unconscious to refocus on something else, we will avoid, what Mlodinow suggests are
‘inarguable truths’. This has implications for learning visually in any organisation where the
facilitator holding the pen writes down on a ‘white-board’ or a ‘flip-chart’, comments made
during discussions. The spoken comments are multi-processed through generalisations,
omissions (deletions) and distortions; ending up with a different message recorded than was
intended or spoken.
If dialogue related to dealing in risk leads to more meetings, more rules and more
techniques, the emerging strategies can only apply more rules and techniques; without any
realisation that the strategies to tackle risk cannot evolve. Unless a pedagogy (curriculum)
includes learning visually into an established methodology to tackle risk; nobody will be able
to ‘see’ what is ‘unseen’. The visual-learning methodology is based on a framework that has
been designed to not only ‘see’ but to tackle risk related to the physical and meta-physical
world of an organisation’s semiosphere.
This creates a need for a ‘working ecology’ where it is even more important to link the ear,
voice and eye when discussing dilemmas, concerns, criticisms, questions and statements. The
visual learning process can be enhanced when we introduce a shift or a change or movement
with visual-learning tools for all to have available and ready at ‘hand’; so that we now have
a voice-ear-eye-hand relationship to the learning experience. A learning methodology
becomes multi-dimensional and multi-faceted once we introduce a visual-tactile relationship
to a visual-learning process. We have discussion, we have listening, we have writing, we have
models prepared, presented and visualised as images; we have imagination, thoughts and
ideas contributed by all participants in a visual-learning forum; and not only just having a
single pen writing down interpretations and / or misinterpretations, which is a mis-educative
process.

A Working Ecology for Learning Visually

The term ecology is used here in relation to a working ecology for the interaction of living
things to one another and to the immediate and wider physical surroundings.
As a child I ventured into the local bushland area with my father and investigated
the ecology of the swamp. Later, as a student I studied biology and immersed myself
in learning about different parts of an ecology. I investigated trees, the ground, below
the ground, on top of and under water. As a teacher, I took classes of children on

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 experiential learning excursions into the local ecology at the beach, local swamp and
bushland. When in location we worked in small groups. It was very convenient for
learning visually and to have tactile experiences with a swamp and bushland right next
to the school.
We used tape-recorders to capture the sounds of the surrounding environment. We
took photographs (before digital cameras) and had them processed for discussions
based on the theme of study from the curriculum. We made sketches on large sheets
of paper and wrote notes in exercise books about what we had seen and heard. We
gathered items to take back to the classroom to create pressings, collage and prepared
information for visual displays. We then took the different contributions from the
small groups and as part of a larger class sized plenary group. Each group presented
their part of the ‘theme’ we were studying and placed the first and final results of the
work for display on the large pin-boards in the classroom.
On reflection back to my teaching days, organising and arranging a room or a larger space
seemed very straight-forward for learning visually and with tactile experiences. We used
a working ecology (See Picture 20. Visual Learning Ecology) with small desks closely
positioned in relation to the number of people in the room. Teachers always consider the
amount of personal and open space set between participants for learning

Picture 20. Visual Learning Ecology

128 Tackling Risk

Proxemics and Learning Visually
The methodology for visual-learning forums has its own pedagogy and considers the
important meta-system / technicalities for setup in small groups and within a larger forum
setting. The proxemics or what space is available and how we use that space for learning
visually is planned. Space has an effect on how people interact and communicate. Seating has
no set format to consider unless the type of ‘theme’ and forum being prepared are known.
Hidden curriculum benefits are in the patterns planned for layout and through the range of
styles suited for learning visually. A methodology identifies spacial learning needs, to allow
dialogue through sociopetal interaction and the arranging of seating for other activities in
a forum with sociofugal considerations. Each participant and small group can maintain
some distance from others and work together or alone. The intentional use of small tables
to gain closer interaction and to allow more room for visual display becomes an identifiable
characteristic for learning visually.
The proxemics is part of the ‘hidden curriculum’ in the way learning visually is improved
through the way we go about organising and arranging for planning and problem solving
sessions. Proxemics also takes into account distances we need to consider. As a ‘rule-of-
thumb’ we always check participants in forums are no more than six metres from a display
screens. For further reading related to proxemics it is suggested the reading of Edward T.
Hall, such as The Silent Language (1959), The Hidden Curriculum (1966) and Beyond Culture
(1976). Also see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_T._Hall.
We use small tables for groups of no more than three and depending on the venue a small
group is usually no more than four. I have found that interaction reduces once a group
increases above four, to the point a discussion would be better managed with two-groups of
three rather than a larger single-group of six. This may seemingly be about ‘technique’, but
the size of groups for experiential learning and especially when related to discussions for
designing and preparing material for visualisation is methodology for learning visually.
Michael Argyle (1967) in The Psychology of Interpersonal Behaviour describes the importance
of small groups and this relates to the working ecology and how we conduct discussions and
solve problems for learning visually. He suggests;
Groups of three also have certain unique features. The addition of a third member
to a dyad even merely as an observer, changes the situation entirely . . . As group size
increases from four to ten or more the character of interaction changes.

What Do We Need to Know That Teachers Know?

What do teachers know about learning and especially learning visually when they set
up small groups of three to four that are no more than six metres away from displays or
presentations?
What do teachers know about proxemics, when small groups sit very close to each other and
are almost touching shoulders during visual and tactile learning sessions?

Chapter 4: Meta-Learning and Semiotics 129

What do teachers know about transforming the spoken word into another dimension and
visually displaying material on pin-boards or similar type of display screens?
What do teachers know about the written language and requesting students to review their
text and to go deeper into the structure of language to reveal the subtext?
What do teachers know about language and the use of words for ‘things’ and the use of
words for ‘doing things’?
What do teachers know about integrated themes and having planned programmes for
learning?
These are some of the questions that should form part of a framework for learning and
for learning visually. Yet, many organisations conduct presentations using the same media
regardless of the discourse, theme and required outcomes. What can be expected for learning
to take place without any prior thought, no established methodology and no curriculum
(pedagogy). It is no wonder that learning and a discourse for tackling risk is limited.

We All Know About Learning Visually (That’s How We Learnt to Read)

Sir Fred J.Schonell, with his life-long friend and wife, Eleanor, contributed much to how
learning to read was / is conducted in schools today. Their methodology and foundational
work, on how children learn to read, influenced education throughout Australia and
internationally. Schonell (1961) in The Psychology and Teaching of Reading (p.69) shows how
learning language and how to read is through interpretation of pictures (images), visual
discrimination, association of ideas and auditory perception for sounds and words. The
process of teaching and learning to read is directly related to learning visually described in
this Chapter. See Figure 23. The Psychology of Reading.

Figure 23. The Psychology of Reading.

130 Tackling Risk

Visualisation
We learn to use spoken language so efficiently and speak so quickly that some of the
meaning can be lost during dialogue. Different tools can be used to assist with learning
visually, such as coloured paper shapes, pins, glue and felt-tip pens to display recorded
comments. For the discourse of tackling risk we have used visualisation tools for learning
visually in many countries and on many continents. In these locations the language and
dialects are very different, however, the use of visualisation tools overcomes differences and
assists with visual learning.
Chao (1968) suggests that:
The advantage of the written word is that when working with people with strong
accents. There is less risk of misinterpretation of the phoneme (sounds) and semantics
(meaning) in language, both logical and lexical, is concerned with making sense
through reference, presuppositions and implications as well as the meaning of words,
phrases or text.
The use of visualisation tools is to support the spoken word and to reinforce language for
learning visually. Bandler & Grinder (1975 p. 22) highlight this point:
When humans communicate - when we talk, discuss, write - we usually are not
conscious of the process of selecting words to represent our experience. We are
almost never conscious of the way in which we order and structure the words we
select. Language so fills our world that we move through it as a fish swims through
water. Although we have little to no consciousness of the way in which we form our
communication, our activity - the process of using language is highly structured.
If there is an opportunity to record comments to be used for learning visually, then using
visualisation introduces a tactile aspect to the discussion and allows for language to be
understood with meaning. This is very important for the use of semantics in organisations
where words may have different meanings or can be used in a different context. The use of
written language and the recording of comments allows for the creation of a visual display
which increases the representation of an idea. The development of written comments as
ideas, suggestions, statements, questions or initial solutions to a problem can be progressed
through the use of visualisation for learning.
The recorded comments, questions, concerns, criticisms, suggestions, ideas, statements and
dilemmas related to tackling risk can then be placed into a series of different visual displays;
depending on the outcomes intended. Once displayed the written material can be used for
further discussion and we have a working ecology suited for learning visually. The written
representations on the display screens are left in close proximity to individuals and groups
until no longer required. For example, comments can be gathered in a discussion and placed
into a cluster of ideas, a list of statements, a table of questions, a network of relationships,
a hierarchy of importance or other formats such as a map, model or collage to assist with
understanding and meaning as part of the visual-learning process. Display screens can be
easily moved to suit the space where a group is located. The display material is available and
easy to access.

Chapter 4: Meta-Learning and Semiotics 131

Kurzweil (2016 p.63) in How To Create A Mind - The Secret of Human Thought Revealed
Learning is critical to human intelligence. Learning and recognition take place
simultaneously. We start learning immediately, and as soon as we have learned a
pattern
When multiple discussion groups are working on the same or different themes, we can
then have many different learning activities being conducted simultaneously. This is what
we call polychronicity: where many activities are being conducted for a planned session.
It is important to utilise the time available for intended outcomes where there are many
participants with numerous questions, ideas and personalised comments being contributed.
This is most important for learning where outcomes may determine the next steps to be
taken.

Group Questions
Learning visually and tackling risk can involve having many questions posed for the
participants of a forum. The questions posed to a group are deemed to be Group Questions.
The participants of visual-learning forums can respond to questions as an individual or take
part in smaller group discussions to respond to a group-question. The responses to questions
should be displayed for the plenary, with all participants, to review and consider further.
Participants at a learning visually forum are best suited to record questions in relation to
tackling risk for their own learning. The discourse of tackling risk addresses issues, dilemmas
and concerns as part of the methodology for learning visually. The group forums are ideal for
preparing and responding to questions. See Picture 21. Preparing Questions.
The use of a dialectic model, a map or some representation of the problematic subject can
be displayed as a cluster of ideas or a list of statements to assist and trigger the formulation
of questions requiring some investigation. Group discussions can create some initial first
solutions to any dilemma, concern or paradox but it is addressing the question, which
becomes important. When creating questions the solution should not be in mind and there
may be a need to record a question-of-a-question and go beyond and above to think further
into the question itself or to pose a meta-question.

132 Tackling Risk

See Picture 21. Preparing Questions.

Metalogue and Learning Visually

Bateson (1972) describes a metalogue as a conversation about some problematic subject. The
conversations in group-forums should be approached in such a manner that not only do the
participants discuss the paradox, dilemma or concern but the structure of the conversation
as a whole; and should maintain relevancy to the problematic subject. This allows for the
use of dialogue and the recording of comments for visual display. As participants prepare
statements or ideas related to a problematic subject there can be movement, change and a
shift to create questions for further analysis as part of the learning process.
Metalogue is dialogue which in form, structure or manner conveys explanation of
a problem and goes beyond the initial question and answer (i.e. dialogue-about-
dialogue). The term ‘metalogue’ was first referred to by W.H. Auden (1956) in the
poem, Metalogue to the Magic Flute. (See http://www.dailymotion.com/video/
xqqc1e_w-h-auden-metalogue-to-the-magic- flute_creation).
Gregory Bateson (1972) in Steps to an Ecology of Mind, elaborates with examples of a
metalogue. (See http://nomadicartsfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Gregory-
Bateson-Ecology-of-Mind.pdf ). He also suggests that:
Sometimes if both people are willing to listen carefully, it is possible to do more than
exchange greetings and good wishes. Even to do more than exchange information.
The two people may find out something which neither of them knew before.

Chapter 4: Meta-Learning and Semiotics 133

Bateson uses a metaphor of a printing-press and a Printer who would compose text and
use preset combinations and groups of lead-metal typeset for letters and words (clichés) for
often used statements. He suggests that when discussing questions and creating new ideas
one should avoid using such stereotype responses:
We all have lots of ready-made phrases and ideas, and the printer has ready-made
sticks of letters, all sorted out into phrases. But if the printer wants to print something
new - say something in a new language he will have to break up that old sorting of the
letters. In the same way, in order to think new thoughts or to say new things, we have
to break up all our ready-made ideas and shuffle the pieces.
Bronowski (1960 p. 62 ) in The Commonsense of Science also stated problems with posing and
finding solutions to problems.
. . . the difficulty is to state the question rightly; once that is done, it may almost
answer itself. This is at least as true of philosophical problems. It is true above all of
problems of method which trouble us now.

Problem Solving
Visual learning is most suited to dealing with complex problems for dealing with risk in the
wider community and within most sectors of industry. If a discourse for tackling risk in an
organisation is to get serious about addressing issues of concern, including wicked problems,
there will need to be a methodology using visualised dialogue to assist various functions with
organising and arranging people in their area of operations.
Metaphors and literal aspects of language are important to consider in the use of dialogue.
There will always be different trajectories of dialogue based on the language used. Visual
tools assist with considerations for paralanguage, metalanguage, vocabulary and semantics,
which affect learning visually.
A visual learning methodology allows for small and very large groups of people to
participate at any one time in problem solving learning visually forums-of-change. Not
many methodologies allow for cross-representational groups to participate in collaborative
problem solving forums, especially from down through the centrality and across the laterality
of different departments and divisions. Further see Picture 22. Problem Solving.
Problem solving can only really be addressed when function experts meet with those who
implement policies, plans and systems; and link with the creative ability that see problems
for what they are. A cross section of people may be best suited to meet in a forum and
visually learn more about an issue. In a forum a group can pose the essential questions
requiring solutions and prepare the models and representational maps that define and clarify
what, how and why things should be considered further.
Poole (2016) in Rethink, The Surprising History of New Ideas indicated that Henry Ford got
the notion for his car-manufacturing assembly lines from the cow carcasses hung on moving
lines at Chicago Meat Packers and suggests:

134 Tackling Risk

 If you want to improve your own idea, there might just be an existing idea lying
around that can help . . . (and cites Oliver Wendell Holmes); many ideas grow better
when transplanted into another mind that in the one where they sprang up.
Trained ‘Discussion-Butlers’ can be of much value to conduct visualised forums to assist
with the experiences and moments in our lives, which are always moving and different, but
we are not that different as Hofstadter (1981 p.171) Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden
Braid; says
Human brains are so constructed that one brain responds in much the same way
to a given trigger as does another brain, all other things being equal. This is why a
baby can learn any language; it responds to triggers in the same way as any other
baby. This uniformity . . . establishes a uniform ‘language’ in which messages can be
communicated.
We should be prepared for tackling risk and enmesh with problems to get the ‘feel’ and
approach needed, through the use of questions and dialogue, by using language that is
understood and has meaning. Visualising discussions can clarify the benefits to address
problems with a uniform language. It is also the paralanguage and the metalanguage
(see Watzlawick) in an organisation that we need to be engaged with to tackle risk; ideally
through a discourse of learning visually.

Picture 22. Problem Solving.

Chapter 4: Meta-Learning and Semiotics 135

Review and Reflection for Learning Visually
Bronowski (1978) in The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination, cites William Wordsworth’s
description of imagination as the use of our ‘inward eye’. The inward eye is a metaphor for
review and reflection. Bronowski describes how the sense of vision and the visual process
connects and interprets our world using visual-images and links:
. . . to our visual perception and our visionary capabilities to convert images as visual-
imagery into our mind. This is the basis of our ability to imagine and to have an
imagination.
To review progress or results achieved, an individual, small group or the plenary reflect on
the visualisation of the forum discussions. The display of clusters, lists, tables, models and
other visuals can be rearranged or recreated as new models. Representational maps of the
territory (theme) can have detail added, changed or removed. On agreement by the group a
composite collage that best represents the visual learning for this session can be fixed into
position and glued onto the large charts provided. Others in the forum may reflect on their
progress and create a set of activities as part of an action-list and prepare a plan to follow up
after the learning session.
A review of the visualised charts, prepared during the visual learning forum, can be
undertaken with the lists of questions, dilemmas, concerns or other statements reset into
an order of relevance, importance or to add more emphasis. Networks, tables and rows of
information can be realigned. Clusters of cards can be rearranged or recorded as statements
and reset as a new representation.
Kurzweil (2016) in How To Create A Mind - The Secret of Human Thought Revealed
Many observers consider consciousness to be a form of performance - for example, the
capacity for self-reflection, that is, the ability to understand one’s own thoughts and to
explain them. I would describe that as the ability to think about ones own thinking.
Bandler & Grinder, refer to the entire linguistic representation that humans have as the
‘deep structure’, from which, native speakers of a language speak and write. This is derived
from the ‘surface structures’ of our language as dialogue. The sum total of all experiences
in a person’s life allows for their fullest representation from which other representations
are derived. These are meta-representations, created from meta-ideas and meta-intuition.
Learning visually has the freedom to focus on the learner (inductive process) rather than
content and presenter (deductive process).
Taleb (2010) in The Black Swan, The Impact of the Highly Improbable suggests a change in
thinking about what has been done and for alternative sets of action to change. He states for
problem solving and review and reflection that we:
project a straight line only because we have a linear model in our head . . . With a
linear model, that is, using a ruler, you can run only a straight line, a single straight
line from the past to the future . . . The linear model is unique. There is one and
only one straight line that can project from a series of points . . . If you do not limit

136 Tackling Risk

 yourself to a straight line, you find that there is a huge family of curves that can do the
job of connecting the dots . . .
When tackling risk a need exists to consider, plan and prepare to deal with a wide range of
scenarios. Review and reflection sessions form an integral part of problem solving through
questions and visualisation of ideas and first-pass ideas to address issues.

Elements of Visualisation
The following explain and visualise the tools and visual techniques of visualisation design
and strategic thinking.

Card Clusters
A collection of responses from members of a group can be gathered and used as a visual-
image in a clustered or cellular type of arrangement. The cluster of comments are displayed
and grouped based on similar responses. Card clusters allows for all participants’ comments
to be presented to a group. A single card may be placed and pinned alone on a board or it
can be matched to a similar type of comment. Each comment is uniquely different despite
similarities in theme or topic within a theme.
Cards should have the text in a printed format and visible with the comment / statement
able to be read. This is the sharing of ideas and needs to be legible to assist further
discussion. When a cluster of ‘idea’ cards are completed and pinned onto a display screen; a
thick cell-like border line can be applied to distinguish between other groupings of cards or
areas on the chart. The weight and colour of the boundary line should be considered. Usually
the colours for such border lines are red or black.
This type of visual display allows all of the participants to comment rather than a slower
process of a facilitator recording or paraphrasing and usually (mis)interpreting the meaning
of a participant’s comment. The use of alphabet letters identify a cluster of cards assists
when referring to a single or group of comments. Alphabetic indicator cards to reduce
any inference of quantitative value, ordinal importance or what may create an unnecessary
impression of hierarchy.
The single cards are the personal recorded comments of each participant on the display
chart. The single comments are not identified to belong to any participant but are gathered
and displayed so that the theme is identified as being those of the group. However, some
participants may wish to explain their own idea or point of view. These short statements,
opinion or ‘idea’ cards are usually of an oval shape and based on a Group Question as part of
a theme.

Chapter 4: Meta-Learning and Semiotics 137

Figure 24. Card Clusters.

Making Lists
Lists are mainly applied for a visualised record of comments or when there is a need for the
collection and display of any type of statement. Lists can also be used to gather a set of facts,
ideas, problems, dilemmas, questions, concerns and activities. The visualisation and layout
of a list should not be restricted to a vertical column and can be displayed in a horizontal,
angular or even circular array. Lists can be set with different colours, size or shaped cards.
The use of colour or shape can be used to differentiate different lists or change the emphasis
or rhythm of a list.

138 Tackling Risk

Figure 25. Making Lists

Using Scales
A scale allows the gathering of quick responses to some questions. Scales can also be used
as a checkpoint, to determine the progress of discussion, a need to change direction or to
progress further with dialogue. An individual or a plenary group can use a scale to determine
a position. A scale is a model used to place a comment with a marker or ‘dots’ provided.
Scales allow a representational comment to be made and for a very quick view that shows
the concentration, range or variety of opinions and ratings. Each member of a forum has
an opportunity to make a ‘silent’ comment onto a chart, through their contribution to the
discussion, before further dialogue is needed to progress a discussion theme.
The polarity profile of a scale and the spread of a scale can be determined by the discourse
and trajectory of group questions and problem solving in a forum. The extremes of the scales
can be marked with qualitative terms using adjectives for description with absolutes being
avoided.
The scales are designed to assist as a guide for the dialogue and not to be quantified as a
definite result. The scales can be revisited during the forum or at the completion to show

Chapter 4: Meta-Learning and Semiotics 139

comparative results. Sample scales only are shown and there are many more types of scales
that can be used. The charts used for this purpose have an infinite number of variations to
suit the need. Group ‘visual’ assessments can be used to determine a distribution, trend or
mean. The preparing of a scale can be determined to suit the size of a group as with the size
of the ‘dots’ issued and used.

Figure 26. Using Scales

Nets or Networks
Nets or networks depict an arrangement able to be presented using different colours and
sizes for the nodes. the inter-relationship of models can be created, displayed and then
discussed. Using diagrams on pin-boards allows for quick alterations when a group agrees
to the structure. Networks are designed to provide a clear representation of the relationship
between different connecting points and at times can be complex. Guidelines for presenting
information in a network:
• Points of a network do not need to be connected with each other.
• Connecting lines may be weighted by the thickness of lines.
• Emphasis to highlight importance of a relationship between two points.

140 Tackling Risk

• Arrows used to show directional relationship between points.
• Points of gravity / key points emphasis through colour and size (e.g. dots / cards).
• Connecting lines on a network should not cross other lines.
• The network must be adaptable to change.
• Participants are able to reposition and reorder various points (pinned up cards).
• Review discussion points and new knowledge can be applied to a network model.
Networks provide an effective visual representation of the multiplicity of connections. The
absence of relationships becomes visible and various influences throughout the network
become clear. The missing relationships and various influences can then be explored further
through group-work and discussion.

Figure 27. Nets and Networks

Trees and Branching Diagrams

Trees can be used for visualisation to display relationships as a simple structure with
different levels. These levels can depict the vertical (centrality) and the horizontal (laterality)
showing different types of order as super-ordination or sub-ordination on either plane. The

Chapter 4: Meta-Learning and Semiotics 141

type of Trees used can have different shapes and coloured cards. The use of different types of
inter-relationships lines can be used for connections. Open graphs, sentence diagrams and
cladograms or branching diagrams are other names for this style of visual representation. The
use of emphasis can be created through shape and card colour.
Tree models are used in the visualisation process to show order, structure or to represent
data, objects and ideas. The presentation of information or photograph representations can
also be used to show relationships. Shapes and colour can be used to clarify position on a
diagram. Tree diagrams show branches and can be placed under or over main information
with a visual path showing division or path of concentration. Trees can converge or diverge
to allow the eye to follow a path through a central or a lateral plane.

Figure 28. Trees and Branching

Building a Dynamic
Dynamic elements for visualisation demonstrate a regard for size, growth and boldness with
also a sense of creativity blended with a represented movement, change or shift. Card shapes
are adjusted to suit the style needed and the use of predominate colours such as black and
red accentuate attention focus points. A Dynamic can be used to disrupt the visualisation,
which is a first step for breaking away from the regular use (or misuse) of the usual patterns

142 Tackling Risk

and often simple use of visual-tools. The use of colour, emphasis and rhythm supports a
dynamic display.
The charts are reinforced and supported with shape, size, space, slope, silhouette and
other elements when contrast is stark. There is a need to provide an opportunity for
the participant’s use of imagination or a need to break from the usual style or overused
regularity. Dynamic charts drive a sense of creativity using multiplicity and openness of
space with some elements able to be employed on other charts.

Figure 29. Building a Dynamic

Create Rhythm
The use of visualisation and tactile tools in learning activities assists with achieving a higher
plane of reasoning. We can make a change to the regular arrangement of different elements
with rhythm as a criterion. Repetitive patterns and groupings create a rhythm and this can
be achieved by using shape, colour, size, space, slope and through the thickness and weight
lines. Dots can also assist display of rhythm. A change in the layout, shape, colour or form
can be used to disrupt rhythm for visual effect (see Emphasis).
Rhythm is a pattern created by a sequence of repeating elements. By ‘Rhythm’ we understand
the change of elements or the arrangement of a group of elements in multiple, regular,
flowing, or alternating repetition. Rhythm denotes a sense of movement in the way that the
pattern directs our attention and focus when we visually scan a message for understanding

Chapter 4: Meta-Learning and Semiotics 143

or information. For example, rhythm makes long rows more legible; they can be scanned
more easily. In tables, the lines can be written in alternating colours to give a table rhythm.
The term sequence is used to refer to the viewing order of the elements and to determine the
flow of multiple charts or pages of information.

Figure 30. Create Rhythm

Using Rows
Visualisation of information can be applied using an ordered sequence as a row on a vertical,
horizontal, diagonal, semi-circle or circular arrangement. Rows assist with the display of
information needed to be linked. Cards can have separate information or be used with a
common theme; however a row is used to link like elements (as in a row of knitting). Rows
are different and should therefore be used differently to a list.
Also see emphasis and rhythm in relation to using rows for a visual display. Equal space
assists with a pattern to attract attention by the eye. A same or different colour can be
used for an entire row or a separate colour used on parts of a rows. Rows should have at a
minimum three to four (3-4) elements with a suggested maximum of eight to ten (8-10)
elements to maintain interest. A row may be supported with lines for visual structure as rows
are the basis for building a block list, matrix, taxonomy or table.

144 Tackling Risk

Figure 31. Using Rows

Applying Emphasis
Imagination assists with creating different uses and the means for applying emphasis.
Emphasis can be as simple as underlining with a same or different colour or using multiple,
parallel and dual-lines, dash-lines, dots, text, larger letters and the use of ellipsis . . .
which all assist with consciously indicating a code of semiotics for the understanding of a
message. Emphasis can support text or text can support the emphasis created by the use of
visualisation elements.
Emphasis is not necessarily based on the use of text but this element assists with
highlighting and the projection of text. Boldness with the strength of colour using black and
red and different shapes should also be considered. Emphasis is an accentuation of a visual
element and can be used to focus on a polar or central or lateral space. Size, shape, slope
and space can also be used with different colours to create emphasis. Silhouette and shadow
lines on cards can be used for emphasis but care needs to be taken not to overuse this style,
otherwise the principle of emphasis is lost.
Applying emphasis depends on colour and for this reason these is no figure illustration of
this element of visualisation.

Chapter 4: Meta-Learning and Semiotics 145

Making Tables
A table can be used when different sets of criteria need to be viewed together. When there is
a need to establish a relationship between different criteria that do not normally go together,
a table is a suggested format. The creation of a table, matrix or taxonomy can quickly show
if there is any relationship with the different criteria based on some form of value index on
each axis. These are referred to as a matrix in many organisations. The structure and size of
table cells should be considered in relation to the size and shape of the visual tools so that
the use of similar elements apply.

Figure 32. Making Tables

The Use of Dots

Th use of of stick-on dots allows participates in a visualised forum to indicate a choice, a
selection, an opinion or to nominate their position on a topic. The dots take on a value-index
if used to determine a selection from a limited number of choices. The use of dots is an ideal
use of ‘visualisation’ for large groups to indicate a preference or a direction for discussion.
Dots can be used on other charts (see Clusters, Lists, Networks and Tables) to make a
selection or to add some weight to a comment, even if based on a choice between statements
related to ‘agree’ or or to comments that may ‘require more information’ or ‘disagree’. Dots
can be applied onto co-ordinates, tables and other charts. Dots also show where an emphasis
and therefore making a choice easily discernable.

146 Tackling Risk

Figure 33. The Use of Dots

The use of dots can also assist to identify a choice from a set of comments, questions, group
selection and many other uses. Dots assist to highlight any group contradictions prior to
further discussions. Dots can be positioned onto a chart by a plenary group or individually in
a situation setup to have participants place dots onto a ranking scale behind an area set aside
for placement.

Workshop Questions
1.What dilemmas exist within your organisation that may increase risk but you have yet to
discover?
2.What evidence do you have that confirms your organisation is a learning organisation for
tackling risk?
3.What aspects of social psychology have you embedded into your learning and development
programmes to tackle risk?s
4.What methodologies do you employ to discuss risk across the ‘people-spectrum’ of your
organisation ?

Transition
The knowing and understanding required to tackle risk goes far beyond an induction and
providing basic procedures. Control becomes a frequently used tool in the chase to ‘prevent’

Chapter 4: Meta-Learning and Semiotics 147

incidents. A ‘field-guide’ with tools specifically selected and suited to an organisation
initiates a risk-discourse with a trajectory based on people and not things.
Only when the leaders in a group have a an insight to learning and education about risk will
there be any real change to the collective activities. When people within an organisation
have the capability to design a curriculum to tackle risk, then there will be trade-offs with
benefits. Chapter 5, Learning-in-Practice assists with an understanding of what needs to be
done to commence the journey to tackle risk and not to just continue to react and deal with
incidents when they occur.

148 Tackling Risk

CHAPTER 5
Learning-in-Practice 5
Essentially, long range planning is a philosophy, with operating
consequences, for going about learning how to act in the present. - Donald
Michael

Strategy often has this character. It begins with a choice, is followed by

commitment, and the outome is decided for good or ill in large part through
luck. - Michael Raynor

A Field Guide to Praxis

I (Rob) remember my first encounter with a ‘field guide’ and it was to do with identifying
birds. When I was young we all belonged to the Gould League of Bird Lovers, but I was
never really an active member (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki Gould_League). It was only
later at the age of nineteen that I was first introduced to an ornithology guide, nature and the
environment through meeting my father-in-law to be, Dud Foweraker.

Dud Foweraker Naturalist

My father-in-law Dudely (Dud) Foweraker was one of the first Naturalists in
South Australia. Dud lived in Renmark in the Riverland and was one of the
early conservationists with an amazing passion for Nature, wildlife, conservation,
sustainability and the environment. Dud and his wife Audrey had established and
run the Renmark tree nursery for forty years. He was well known in the region for his
passion for the town and for the River Murray. He was a principal architect for the
establishment of the Riverland Biosphere, formerly the Bookmark Biosphere.

Chapter 5: Learning-in-Practice 149

 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverland_Biosphere_Reserve). The reserve is
registered with UNESCO (http:// www.unesco.org/new/en/natural-sciences/
environment/ecological-sciences/). See Pictures 23 and 24, Plaque to Dud Foweraker,
by the River at Renmark Foreshore.
When I first met my wife and travelled from Adelaide to meet her family in Renmark,
I learned very quickly that every weekend after the Nursery closed at 12pm, it was
time to ‘go out bush’ to Calperum. Every time we went outback there was a new place
to go and see as the biosphere covers nine thousand square kilometres, comprising of
eleven reserves and Calperum Station, which is controlled by the Australian, not the
South Australian Government (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calperum_Station_
(reserve) and itself is one thousand square kilometres.
Up until 1971 my past was all city experience, mainly Sydney and Adelaide. For a ‘city
boy’, meeting my wife-to-be and her family was the start of a whole new education
and learning journey. My passion at the time was history and education as I had just
entered Teachers’ College and there were some lovely synergies between Dud’s passion
for Nature and the history of the Biosphere.
Dud knew every creek, waterhole, nook and cranny of the biosphere including the
great stories about early pioneers. The area was first discovered by Sturt in the 1830s
along with many other amazing places like Nampoo Station and Cal Lal. This is
where international bike races were held from 1900-1920 and an old ghost town
remains, Lightning Bridge, where I first saw the remote grave of the sole bushranger
in the area. The old Customs House, border cliffs, Willabalangaloo and much more.
The Indigenous people first in the area were the Erawirung people.
Very few people in the area knew any of this, even the local historian, George
Woolmer, did not know of the bushranger and the grave. George reminded me of the
classic Henry Lawson type: poetic, eccentric and totally absorbed in his project. The
legacy of his history never received the honour it deserved. I have both of his books
and admired his attention to the craft of historiography.

George Woolmer
I rememeber having dinner one night with George and as the resident historian
was interested in what he knew. I was collecting data for my first musical The
Riverlanders. The musical was a hit with the locals and won a ‘come out arts award’
which sponsored taking the Musical on tour throughout the region. George had just
written his second book, The Barmera Story, A History of Barmera and District, he was a
local school teacher and had undertaken extensive research with the local Indigenous
people too. It was under the influence of George Woolmer and Dudley Foweraker
that I was motivated to write the musical.

Grandad and Adaminaby

150 Tackling Risk

 Following that success I was to write three more musicals: The Meeting Place, Time
Demons and The Snowy, which we took on tour (two coaches and support truck)
with ninety High School students throughout the Snowy region. I was inspired to
write The Snowy because my Grandfather, Robert Macbeth Fraser and Sons, was the
removalist for Adaminaby 1949-1956.
As part of the tour we performed The Snowy in the Adaminaby Town Hall where
numerous records on the walls document the work of my Grandfather in moving the
town, house by house running ahead by just a few days of the flood to come from the
damming and formation of Lake Eucumbene. You can see a brief documentary of
Grandad’s work in Operation Adaminaby: https://aso.gov.au/titles/sponsored-films/
snowy-hydro-adaminaby/clip2/

Possum
One of the most interesting memories from Dud is about ‘Possum’. Possum was the
mystery man of the Biosphere. Dud had never seen him directly but on plenty of
occasions came across his warm camp site and quickly abandoned swag. I was with
Dud once when this was experienced. Possum was known to Max Jones, the local
policeman who penned the History of Possum in 1984. Jones, M., (1984) A Man
Called Possum, The Mystery Man Who Became a Legend, Hyde Park Press, Renmark. See
Picture 25. The Possum and Picture 26. The Possum’s Death.
Max first sighted Possum in 1954 at the old Chowilla Station Customs House area
(on the border of NSW and South Australia). The story goes that Possum was a
shearer from New Zealand who came to the area in the 1920s and lived as a recluse
until his death in 1982. Possum ‘lived off the land’ in the outback and never came to
any civilised towns or places. He was called ‘Possum’ because he was sometimes seen
accidentally in a tree getting honey or chasing an animal. No one knew why Possum
was a recluse, not even Max, but legend has it that he was escaping something.
Possum remains a mystery to this day.
One thing is for sure, Dud was the ‘go to’ Field Guide for the Riverland Biosphere
until his death in 2010. I learned a great deal from Dud.

Chapter 5: Learning-in-Practice 151

Picture 23. Plaque to Dud Foweraker

Picture 24. Plaque to Dud Foweraker

152 Tackling Risk

Picture 25. The Possum.

Picture 26. The Possum’s Death

Chapter 5: Learning-in-Practice 153

So much was learned through my relationship with Dud, his passion for Nature was infectious.
Driving out on that dusty Wentworth Road from Renmark across the NSW border to Cal Lal
and further was no small excursion. Camping by Lake Mereti became my new induction into
the dry desert and the mallee of the biosphere. This was not an education in a classroom but
learning through experience, relationships, stories and excursions / field work.

Framing Challenges in Education, Learning and Risk

In this final section of the book we tackle some of the practical issues involved in the education
and learning process. This final section will cover four key areas:
1. Curriculum.
2. Behaviour Management.
3. Critical Thinking.
4. Social Psychology of Conversion.

The Current Challenges for Risk and Curriculum

Since 2013 a movement has started from within the wider service community and most
industry sectors for risk and safety with a vision for safety to be done ‘differently’ (http://
www.safetydifferently.com/). The ‘safety differently’ movement is a clear declaration that
people within these sectors no longer identify with what Safety has become nor how it is
being practised. Whilst at this stage it appears that the safety differently movement based at
Griffith University is yet to find an identity which is uniquely different, other than its three
catch phrases.
It simply does not make sense to call for Safety to be done ‘differently’ (http://www.safety-
differently.com/) without also calling for reform in the WHS (Work, Health and Safety)
curriculum. One can despair as much as one likes about the state of Safety, indeed one
can declare it ‘broken’ (http://www.shponline.co.uk/safety-is-broken-says-john-green-at-
safety- differently-forum/) or ‘bankrupt’ but without reform of the safety curriculum, we will
continue to go through a process of training people in nonsensical myths that frame the way
they approach the work of safety. Similarly, in the risk and security industries the same focus
(as safety) is on a mechanistic and reductionist worldview (https://www.rmia.org.au/). The
Risk Management Body of Knowledge (RMBoK - https://www.rmia.org.au/professional-
development/certification/certified-practising-risk-manager-cprm/) like the Safety BoK
(http://www.ohsbok.org.au/), has no mention or focus on:
• The Social Psychology of Risk.
• Semiotics and Semiosis.
• The Nature of Learning.
• Edusemiotics.

154 Tackling Risk

• The Unconscious and Decision Making.
• Transdisciplinarity.
• Pastoral Psychology
• Wicked problems and Wickedity.
• Historiography.
• Critical Theory / Thinking.
• A Comprehensive Understanding of Culture.
• The Nature of Emergence.
• The Psychology of Conversion and Cognitive Dissonance.
• The Social Psychology of Goals and Motivation.
• Fundamentalism and Binary Ideology.
• Wisdom and Discernment (Balancing By-Products and Trade-Offs).
• Futures Education.
All of these are essential if the risk industry is to mature and move forward into a mature
future.
If the very formation of those who come into the risk, safety and security industries is not a
formation with a more sophisticated sense of risk, it will always be ‘catch up’ and ‘unlearning’
their curriculum legacy when they get out into the workplace. Until risk is done differently
perhaps we could call the current risk education system one of ‘compulsory mis-education’.
Without some vision for reform of curriculum, the vision for ‘safety differently’ can only ever
remain dim. Where is the promise and hope for safety differently if a framework for action in
risk and safety omits such a vision? (https://sia.org.au/downloads/strategic_planning_2016/
SIA_draft_Strategic_Plan_Consulation.pdf ).
The risk curriculum problem is an ontological problem, a problem of being and orientation,
not content. This aligns with what Dekker and Nyce (2013) call a problem of ‘ontological
alchemy’:
This is what we mean by ontological alchemy: As if by alchemy, mental events or
figments of an event - empirically accessed through individual acts of introspection
or retrospection - become transmuted into both numbers and placeholders in
a numbered set. The result is an invention, a creation, a fabrication, indeed a
construct-like workload. Alchemy, a forerunner of chemistry, was concerned with
the transformation of matter: turning the worthless into the useful and the valuable.
Ontological alchemy is the transformation of a judgement about a mental experience
into a number: turning it into something useful (and valuable) too. Once workload
has become a figure, our analytic machinery stops. It has done its job. We do not

Chapter 5: Learning-in-Practice 155

 need to concern ourselves further with whatever high order claims, like those about
epistemology or ontology, our informants, our subjects, our participants, might want
to put before us. Whatever ‘reality testing’ is necessary has already occurred. It has
been taken care of by the measurement, the tool, the index.
There can be no change unless there is methodological and ontological change. Unless there is
a change in the collective unconscious ( Jung), a change in method will simply be a change in
content (curriculum), not a change in worldview.

What is Curriculum?
Before venturing too deep into the nature and design of curriculum it might suffice to discuss
some general ideas and principles.
Bertrand and Dora Russell described the nature of education as (cited in Kilpatrick 1934, p.
393):
What is considered in education is hardly ever the boy or the girl, the young man or
the young woman, but almost always in some form, the maintenance of the existing
order. When the individual is considered, it is almost exclusively with a view to
worldly success - making money or achieving a good position. To be ordinary and
to acquire the art of getting on, is the ideal which is set before the youthful mind,
except by the few rare teachers who have enough energy of belief to break through the
system within which they are expected to work. Almost all education has a political
motive: it aims at strengthening some group, national or religious, or even social, in
the competitions with other groups. It is this motive in the main which determines
the subjects taught, the knowledge offered and the knowledge withheld and also
decides what mental habits the pupils are expected to acquire.
What Russell defined in 1934 we now know as ‘cultural reproduction’ (Apple, p.12), that is,
the process and content that serve to legitimise ‘both the institutions that recreate it and our
own actions within them’.
In many ways a curriculum is a teleological schema, it plots the future of the industry and
foretells its trajectory (telos). One thing is sure, a curriculum is not a neutral map, nor
without an embedded ethic nor devoid of methodology (ideology). Feyerabend (1975, p. 25)
captures the problem nicely:
Just as a well-trained pet will obey his master no matter how great the confusion in
which he finds himself, and no matter how urgent the need to adopt new patterns of
behavior, so in the very same way a well-trained rationalist will obey the mental image
of his master, he will conform to the standards of argumentation he has learned,
he will adhere to these standards no matter how great the confusion in which he
finds himself, and he will be quite incapable of realizing that what he regards as the
‘voice of reason’ is but a causal after-effect of the training he has received. He will be
quite unable to discover that the appeal to reason to which he succumbs so readily is
nothing but a political manoeuvre.

156 Tackling Risk

What Feyerabend describes suits the profile of the safety sector so aptly. Here is an industry
after thirty years, preoccupied with injury statistics, thus defining itself as the absence of
harm, therefore normalising the binary logic of zero, focused on the potential of objects to
cause harm and validating the action of risk aversion as sensible. Having created a climate of
conformism (to regulation), resulting in a psychic uniformity and compliance mentalitie, parts
of the industry now look for diversity and reform in the name of ‘safety differently’. A further
comment from Feyerabend is instructive:
This, I think is the most decisive argument against any method that encourages
uniformity, be it empirical or not. Any such method is, in the last resort, a method of
deception. It enforces an unenlightened conformism, and speaks of truth; it leads to
a deterioration of intellectual capabilities, of the power of imagination and speaks of
deep insight; it destroys the most precious gift of the young – their tremendous power
of imagination, and speaks of education.
The maintenance and reproduction of current risk industry culture is sustained by the political
economy of educational symbols, as semiotics enshrined in the various risk curriculum. Whilst
the overt curriculum is important it is not nearly as influential as the ‘Hidden Curriculum’(Smith,
Trautman and Schlvan, 2004). The ‘Hidden Curriculum’ includes all of the unrecognised and
sometimes unintended knowledge, values, by-products, trade-offs and beliefs that are part of
the learning process and are not overt. The ‘Hidden Curriculum’ is most often ‘caught’ through
the structure of the curriculum as much as the organisation of it. This means that the way the
curriculum is taught has a profound effect on learning, just as much as the content of what is
taught. For example, Frieire (1972, p.45) described the idea of training education as ‘banking’,
the making of deposits of information and withdrawals. The problem for Frieire was not just
the content of the curriculum but the by-product of how it was structured and taught. When
people are viewed as little more than receptacles for data, there is not much real learning. A
parrot can regurgitate data, uttering sounds without any response.
Curriculum is about the structure of experiences proposed to transfer or excite a student or
people’s knowledge. The etymology of the word ‘curriculum’ means ‘a race’ or ‘course’ and has
come to be known as ‘a course of study’. A curriculum is usually understood as a sequence of
planned instruction or events. This is the overt curriculum. When educators talk about ‘extra-
curricular’ activities, they often mean things that emerge from the ‘hidden curriculum’, rather
than learnings and activities that are planned. Often extra-curricular learning is understood as
‘incidental learning’ rather than ‘accidental’ learning. If one creates a learning environment or
community, the community or environment itself provides much human learning that is not
‘planned’.
The key to understanding the planning of curriculum is to understand sequence, ‘scaffolding’
and ‘chunking’. It is rare that people learn much content in a short period of time, learning
tends to be more cumulative, experiential and ‘builds’ according to ‘readiness’ to learn (founded
in trust) and relationship between learning and teacher / teaching.
Whilst it is important to know how to structure and plan learning experiences, it is more
important to know the ‘who’ (ontology) and ‘why’ of curriculum (methodology / philosophy)
and the ‘how’ of curriculum (pedagogy) than the ‘what’ of curriculum (content).

Chapter 5: Learning-in-Practice 157

Most often curriculum is simply a strategy for ‘cultural reproduction’ more so, the hidden
curriculum and incidental learning that are more powerful than the overt planned curriculum.
The by-products and trade-offs in curriculum construction are critical in understanding the
effectiveness of curriculum on learning. It is time the risk industry had a good look at itself,
through curriculum and what it has created, through the hidden curriculum and ask if it wants
a similar future.
If risk is a ‘wicked problem’ then tackling this wicked problem will require a trans-disciplinary
/ intra-theoretical approach. The work of Klein (2009, 2015) demonstrates that as the world
increases in complexities of systems and ‘wickedity’, only trans-disciplinary approaches can
comprehend and better tackle the fragmentation and intractability of many modern problems,
including risk, safety and security. Just one example of a ‘wicked problem’ related to risk, safety
and security is explained by Taleb in Anti-Fragility (2012, p.71).
When you are fragile, you depend on things following the exact planned course, with
as little deviation as possible – for deviations are more harmful than helpful. This
is why the fragile needs to be predictive in its approach, and, conversely, predictive
systems cause fragility. When you want deviations and you don’t care about the
possible dispersion of outcomes that the future brings, since most will be helpful, you
are anti-fragile.
A curriculum is a strategic thinking process (read Michael and Raynor), a learning process
not a content matrix, although a matrix of content is helpful. Even back in the 1950s Bloom
et. al. avoided the term ‘matrix’ and used the term taxonomy rather than to be misunderstood
and caught up in the metaphor of a matrix. Lesson plans are also helpful but the goal should
be learning and inductive learning and not deductive content directing learning.

How to Construct a Curriculum

The best place to go regarding curriculum design is the education and teaching sector as
this is their bread and butter. Too often it is people in the wider community and industry
sectors, with such limited training and even less knowing about curriculum, education and
learning that are left to design and implement training programmes. Could this be why most
Inductions in industry are nothing more than boring ‘content dumps’, slide-shows of copious
data or videos to watch and ‘learn’. Many now place their ‘content dumps’ on-line which may
be cheap per head coverage but has nothing to do with education or learning. Moreover,
on-line content dumps were demonstrated in the last book Risky Conversations, The Law,
Social Psychology and Risk, to be a legal liability.
The foundation book on curriculum development is by Taba, H., (1962) Curriculum
Development, Theory and Practice. Although quite dated, Taba’s work still remains the
benchmark for those wishing to have an understanding of curriculum design. Taba’s work,
rather starting with ‘technique’ and design situates curriculum in a study of society, culture,
education, development, theory of learning and ontology. It is not until page 382 of Taba’s
482 page book, that you get to the issue of curriculum design. Compare this to a safety
curriculum that commits two thirds of the curriculum to regulation and the remainder to
systems. Other helpful works are:

158 Tackling Risk

• Barry, K., and King, L., (1998) Beginning Teaching and Beyond. Cengage Learning.
South Melbourne.
• Brady, L., (1985) Models and Methods of Teaching. Prentice-Hall. Parramatta.
• Marsh, C., (2008) Becoming a Teacher, Knowledge, Skills and Issues. Pearson. Frenches
Forest.
• O’’Neill, G., (2015) Curriculum Design in Higher Education: Theory to Practice.
• http://www.ucd.ie/t4cms/UCDTLP0068.pdf
There are also countless online education groups that share curriculum templates, ideas,
resources, play ideas and designs, for example:
• http://www.australiancurriculumlessons.com.au/
• https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/
• http://www.playdoughtoplato.com/
• http://babbledabbledo.com/
• http://www.whatdowedoallday.com/
A great resource is the Australian Curriculum Association (http://www.acsa.edu.au/pages/
index.asp). It is important to note that this discussion is not an expectation that people
dealing in risk, safety and security should be teacher educated, but at least these sources
should be consulted if one is required by an organisation to undertake training. Similarly,
consulting someone with expertise in Instructional Design is also beneficial.
The essentials of curriculum strategy are as a minimum to check that elements are linked,
‘chunked down’ and flow. Often those who know little about curriculum and pedagogy do
not have any understanding of how to ‘scaffold’ learning, help others transition in learning
and create a structure to do so. There are some helpful templates for lesson / session design
here: http://www.class-templates.com/ printable-lesson-plan-template.html.
At a higher level there needs to be a ‘Curriculum Map’. This should inform the nature of
individual sessions delivered as part of an overall curriculum. You can view the Human
Dymensions Culture Program curriculum as an example here: http://www.humandymen-
sions.com/services-and-programs/culture-program/. At an even higher level, you can view
The Prospectus for the Centre for Leadership and Learning in Risk here: http://cllr.com.au/.
Once one has an overall Map of the Territory (see Korzybski and Bateson) to be covered
with clearly aligned component units, modules or ‘parts’, one can then move on to the design
of individual delivery sessions (a teacher might call these ‘lessons’ and even individual lesson
plans). One model for session design is provided in the ‘Bones’ Model’ at Figure 34. The
Bones Model.

Chapter 5: Learning-in-Practice 159

Figure 34, The Bones Model

Advising, Counselling and Educating With no Skills Set

The problem of curriculum associated with curricula in the areas of risk, safety and security
in community based organisations and industry is most evident in its practical outcomes and
preparation for the world of work. It is amazing that so much of the work of risk and mostly
referred to as Safety is about ‘advising’ which is really a form of counselling, yet there is so little
in the training of risk and safety people that focuses on counselling and people helping. What
a strange conundrum this has created.

Behaviour Management
One of the big concerns with anyone involved in teaching and learning is behaviour
management. The big concern is often expressed in the question, “How can I control
others?” It is also critical in this very issue to also understand many other inter-dependent
factors including: motivation, self-regulation, ownership, climate, culture, relationships,
planning, curriculum development, personality, learning styles, teaching strategies, group
dynamics, the psychology of development, communication skills, preventive, corrective and
supportive environments, discipline methodologies, resourcing, hidden curriculum, semiotics
and mental health issues. When one looks at the interrelationship of all of these factors,
behaviour management is really a very complex and specialist challenge. Most people who

160 Tackling Risk

teach, train and mentor groups in risk, security and safety lack the most basic fundamentals
in behaviour management.
Each theory of behaviour management and behaviour modification is evidence of a
fundamental methodology and anthropology of education. The Behaviourist assumes
that people are the sum of inputs and outputs, behaviour will therefore be modified and
controlled by reward and punishment. A Cognitivist theory of education understands
difficult behaviour as the result of poor thinking. Cognitive behavioural theory combines
both theories and understands difficult behaviour as the result of poor inputs / bad thinking
and a lack of any suitable or effective punishments and rewards.
Other theorists understand difficult behaviour in the context of emotional development
and others as a result of social psychological factors. The social psychological view
argues that behaviour is best managed by creating a learning environment rather than
focus on individualistic or behaviouristic factors. This is the foundation of the PLEASE
(Psychological Learning Education and Support Environment) programme established by
the author in a number of contexts (Galilee and Quamby for high-risk young people) with
great success. A full discussion of the PLEASE programme has been presented in Chapter
Three. An understanding of power is fundamental in understanding the nature of influence
on others.
Some of the most common theories of discipline include Reality Therapy (William Glasser),
Teacher Effectiveness Training or TET (Thomas Gordon), Decisive Discipline (William
Rogers), Social Discipline (Rudolph Dreikers), Positive Discipline (Fredric Jones), Christian
‘Tough Love’ Punishment ( James Dobson) and Assertive Discipline (Lee and Marlene
Canter).
In the framework proposed in this book it is assumed that behaviour is socially situated and
that a Social Psychological approach to discipline is most effective. It is from understanding
of how social arrangements affect our decision making that this book is about tackling risk,
learning and including difficult behaviours. It is in the context of complex inter-related
factors listed at the opening of this section that the following discussion of strategically
influencing others should be understood.

The Ten D’s of Strategic Behaviour Management

The following tips are associated with various strategies in communication and influencing
others. The social psychologist also understands that the language, discourse and semiotics
of discipline are critical in a social context. More can be understood in this matter in the
discussion of the PLEASE Model discussed in previous books in the series.
The purpose of the following list is to help with practical skills in influencing others,
particularly with difficult behaviours but must not be understood as techniques in and
of themselves. Influencing behaviour in social context is critical and the importance of
semiotics ought not be underestimated. The language of zero, absolutes, intolerance,
coercion, compliance and violence is rejected in the social psychological approach. Generally

Chapter 5: Learning-in-Practice 161

the absolutes of zero and punitive approaches to behaviour are most associated with a
Behaviourist methodology of discipline.

Figure 35. Disregard

This can be referred to as ‘tactical ignoring’
as a way of not giving value to a behaviour
we are trying to discourage. e.g. A person
may be throwing a tantrum, someone may
be talking while you are talking, someone
may be speaking negatively. In each case
one behaves as if the behaviour or message
has not been seen as a consequence, is
something you do not reward, give or place
value on. It is important in this strategy to
know that this can also be used as a form of
passive aggression (PA) when someone is
intentionally aggressive to another by being
Disregard passive or non-responsive. An example is
when some body is not cooperating, doing
a minimalist job or obstructing progress
through legitimate means

Figure 36. Delay

When not ready or it is not the right time
to confront or speak to someone, then there
may be a need to collect your thoughts
or a need for someone to calm down. In
these situations one holds off or postpones
until later. This is done by making a later
appointment or by being too busy to attend
to the issue at hand. It is important in this
tactic that you communicate your interest and
willingness to solve an issue but that it will be
addressed later. It is important to set a time
Delay so as to reduce feelings of indifference and to
identify some guarantee that the issue will be
taken seriously.

162 Tackling Risk

Figure 37. Deflect, Derail and Divert

This is when someone channels interest and

attention into another area or on to another
person. Usually this is done by explaining the
complexity of an issue and how a related issue,
sphere of interest or another person / people
need to be consulted or engaged as well to
find a proper solution or more complete
response.

Deflect

Figure 38. Distract

This is a skill in drawing someone’s attention

away from one thing and using a segue
(transition maker) to draw their interest
into another area. This requires skills of
transition and association. In this strategy
one uses the topic of interest to associate it
with something similar and of attraction to
the other person. Children often learn to do
this with teachers to get them off the topic
and on to the teacher’s favourite topic in
order to delay or waste time. e.g. Distraction
from one topic to the dynamics of car racing,
to prestige cars, to why the other person,
Distract instructor / teacher owns a Mercedes.

Chapter 5: Learning-in-Practice 163

Figure 39. Dampen
This is a strategy one uses to ‘water down’
the force of someone’s communications or
views. This approach suggests to the other
that there are other views, that one needs
to ‘hold the door open’ and consider other
options. The typical strategy here is to pose
a challenging question which gets the other
person to think about something more than
they are proposing. e.g. “If that is the case,
then how will that affect this other area?”

Dampen

Figure 40. Diffuse and Disarm

Also known as De-escalate, a strategy of
bringing someone down off of a view or
position of anger and heat to a calmer state
of more controlled discussion. De-escalating
someone else takes patience, reflective
listening, avoiding criticism, acknowledging
views carefully, agreeing, apologising (for
others and self ), inviting criticism, as well as
skills in observing behaviour and looking for
opportunities to De-escalate.

Diffuse

164 Tackling Risk

Figure 41. Debate

This is when one diffuses a situation by

inviting debate as a healthy thing and to
remove the Discussion from the personal
dimension to a more academic dimension.
e.g. ‘I think this is something we need to
debate and raise all the issues about.’

Debate

Figure 42. Depersonalise

One of the most important skills in
attending and listening to others is to
depersonalise. This is an approach that
tries to objectify discussion and limit
opportunity for people to take personal
offence. Situations often escalate when
personal values, beliefs and characteristics
are attacked.

Depersonalise

Chapter 5: Learning-in-Practice 165

Figure 43. Differentiate
This is where one listens and helps to Distill
what is of concern and at the same time
helping another to work out exactly what
they are concerned about.

Differentiate

Figure 44. Document

By asking a person to put concerns down in
writing it can help to diffuse and de-escalate
a situation. In this way the other person has
a chance to process concerns and it ‘raises
the stakes’ so that the issue is considered
including what will happen if things are ‘put
in writing’.

Document
Just as these skills and strategies are important for managing others, the following deficit
strategies are important to exclude in any model of seeking to influence, help and support
others: Discount, Discourage, Discredit, Dismiss, Dispute, Dumbdown or Denial.

166 Tackling Risk

Critical Thinking
What is critcal thinking?
It seems absurd to suggest that people need to learn to think because we can all think but
to think critically is not something one learns automatically. Certain traditions, disciplines
and personalities do not naturally develop skills in critical thinking. This is why I have
developed a thinking tool called the iThink Clock (Figure 45 and 46). Thinking critically is
best developed in the deconstructionist paradigm of critical theory, a tradition within the
discipline of Social Psychology.

Figure 45. iThink Clock

The Rational Sweep does the following:

Task 1 - Step Back and Know Your Self:
The first step in any critical thinking process is to know oneself. A range of diagnostic and
psychometric tools are helpful in this regard with the most popular being Jungian type
indicators of DiSC.
Task 2 - Understand and Evaluate Your Purpose:

Chapter 5: Learning-in-Practice 167

This is best done with a range of tools in short and long term goal setting and in Human
Dymensions we have a range of tools that create various layers in such an exercise.
Particularly using the Workspace, Headspace, Groupspace tool.
Task 3 - Interrogate the Information Source:
This is a process of interrogating the source whether it be primary, secondary or tertiary. The
source also needs to be investigated for hidden assumptions, purpose, agenda, motives and
philosophical perspectives.
Task 4 - Looking Above the Line:
Looking ‘above the line’ is about a quick surface look, what is obvious?
Task 5 - Looking Below the Line:
Looking ‘below the line’ is about what is not so obvious.
Task 6 - Deconstruction and Socratic Questioning:
Deconstructing a topic, idea, event or activity is about breaking it into parts (chunking) and
examining and thinking about each chunk of the issue or topic.
Task 7 - Review the Nature of the Evidence:
At this stage it is important to have a second look at the nature of the evidence. How is
the evidence presented? Is the evidence reliable? Is the evidence layered, complex, primary,
secondary, have vested interests, power centred (to whom)?
Task 8 - Imagination of Winners and Losers - Socio Political Power:
Who is to gain socially and politically from this event, topic, idea, activity or concept?
Task 9 - Imagination of Trajectories, Consequences and Implications:
Where is this idea going? If the idea is taken to its logical end, where will it take you? What
are the consequences for people, groups, society, communities and the environment?
Task 10 - Deconstruction by Other Disciplines:
This is about viewing the topic from the angle of different disciplines - sociology, psychology,
anthropology, education, theology, spirituality, economics, ethics, politics, media, history,
geography, engineering, construction, emotions, legal, visual and spacial literacy.
Task 11 - Step Back Into the Subject, Know ‘the Other’:
At this stage one turns into ‘the other’, that is, that which is other than self. In considering
‘the other’ one needs to consider how ‘the other’ is not (or is) like me. This will be critical for
effective communication and for establishing understanding.

168 Tackling Risk

Task 12 - Shaping Articulation, Response Strategies:
Now that all aspects of rational ideas and reflection have been mentioned it is now time to
consider some of the less rational aspects of engaging and ‘tackling’ a subject. It might also
be good to show the reverse of the iThink tool, and that displays a concept map of the same
deconstruction activity.

Figure 46. A Thinking Concept Map

One of the reasons why there are so many models of thinking in this series of books is
because adaptability is itself a critical skill in thinking. One of the problems with most
sectors of industry and the wider community service organisations, which deal with the risk
and safety aspects is the absence of discussion about imagination, creativity, adaption and
innovation. These industries have been so seduced by ‘checklist thinking’, audits, engineer-
ing, rigidity, fear and fixity, that the very skills required to tackle risk and wicked problems
has been pushed out of the worldview. As Richard Paul (1993) Critical Thinking, How to
Prepare Students for a Rapidly Changing World comments:
Critical thinking is not exactly a species of thinking but rather a species of living. It
is living, in Socrates phrase, an examined life, a deeply examined life. To become a
critical thinker is not, in the end, to be the same person you are now, only with better
abilities; it is in an important sense, to become a different person.
In the words of Peters, a more moral and educated person.
Now let’s explore how a consideration of the unconscious might help surface new thinking.

Chapter 5: Learning-in-Practice 169

The aRational Sweep does the following:
Task 1 - Step Back and Know Your Self:
The first step in any critical thinking process is to know oneself. A range of diagnostic and
psychometric tools are helpful in this regard with the most popular being Jungian type
indicators of DiSC.
Task 2 - Understand and Evaluate Your Purpose:
Use a wide range of tools for short and long term goal setting and in Human Dymensions
we have a range of tools that create various layers in such an exercise. Particularly using the
tool for Workspace, Headspace, Groupspace.
Task 3 - Interrogate the Information Source:
Apply a process of interrogating the source whether it be primary, secondary or tertiary. The
source also needs to be investigated for hidden assumptions, purpose, agenda, motives and
philosophical perspectives.
Task 4 - Looking Above the Line:
Look ‘above the line’ for what is ‘obvious’, what is the tip of the iceberg. In the aRational
search for meaning one should observe emotions and behaviours associated with the subject.
Task 5 - Looking Below the Line:
Look ‘below the line’ is about exploring ‘hidden’ aspects of a subject. This disposition asks,
“What can I not see?” In this case often political, religious, ethical and values are hidden.
Task 6 - Deconstruction and Socratic Questioning:
Deconstruct aRational aspects of the subject and this demands an awareness of the
unconscious, heuristics, biases and beliefs that are common in human interactions. e.g. What
part does superstition play in decisions made about this subject? The Socratic questioning
does not seek answers but seeks discourse, dialogue and understanding. The disposition to
‘solve’ and ‘tame’ subjects often disables the imagination, creativity and engagement with
others.
Task 7 - Review the Nature of the Evidence:
Seek aRational evidence through research, in social psychology and neuropsychology. The
following questions may be helpful. What are common beliefs and attitudes regarding this
subject? How do people often make judgments and decisions about this subject?
Task 8 - Imagination of Effect in Socio-Political Power:
Consider at this level of thinking about the trajectory of ideas and imagine an end point;
where does this idea take us? The distribution and shifting of power is a critical aspect for
consideration of non-rational impacts. What happens unconsciously and subconsciously to
people when power is distributed?

170 Tackling Risk

Task 9 - Imagination of Trajectories, Consequences and Implications:
Think about the subconscious and unconscious direction as this is all about observation.
Whilst one cannot observe trajectories of ideas and thinking, nor predict consequences
or implications, one can detect trends and speculate and question the nature of human
judgements and decision making from research and observation. e.g. Importance of
imagination in learning should not be underestimated. It is often too late when the horse-
has-bolted with some ideas and many people are left psychologically and socially injured
because of shortsightedness.
Task 10 - Deconstruction by Other Disciplines:
View the topic from the angle of different disciplines: sociology, psychology, anthropology,
education, theology, spirituality, economics, ethics, politics, media, history, geography,
engineering, construction, emotions, legal, visual and spacial literacy. This is considered from
a non-rational focus, targeting subconscious and unconscious beliefs and patterns in such
disciplines.
Task 11 - Step Back Into the Subject, Know ‘the Other’:
Tune into the unconscious by knowing the ‘other’. We sometimes need another in order to
do this. The view of a trusted friend about one’s self often assists with the reflection process.
Task 12 - Shaping Articulation, Response Strategies:
Reflect and be aware of the unconscious in articulation and communication, knowing that
your unconscious is working much harder than you can rationally and consciously think.
This conscious reflection only works in hindsight but it ‘teaches’ you much about yourself. As
Weick states, ‘How do I know what I believe until I see what I do?’

A Deeper Understanding of Cognitve Dissonance

From observations and from what we hear many people in risk and safety use the concept
of ‘cognitive dissonance’ interchangeably with the notion of contradiction, ambiguity,
paradox or ambivalence but nothing could be more misleading. This is also reinforced by
the Wikipedia explanation, that cognitive dissonance is some kind of cognitive discomfort
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance). However, this is not a helpful
explanation of the concept, neither does it reflect the work of Festinger, the originator of the
concept.
The theory of ‘cognitive dissonance’ was first put forward by: Festinger, Riecken and
Schachter (1955) in When Prophecy Fails. Within the context of what Festinger et.al.
explained, there is much more to cognitive dissonance than cognitive discomfort. Festinger’s
book can be obtained here: https://archive.org/details/pdfy-eDNpDzTy_dR1b0iB

Chapter 5: Learning-in-Practice 171

The opening line and idea of the book is as follows:
A man with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns
away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he
fails to see your point . . .
. . . We have all experienced the futility of trying to change a strong conviction,
especially if the convinced person has some investment in his belief. We are familiar
with the variety of ingenious defences with which people protect their convictions,
managing to keep them unscathed through the most devastating attacks. But man’s
resourcefulness goes beyond simply protecting a belief. Suppose an individual believes
something with his whole heart; suppose further that he has a commitment to this
belief, that he has taken irrevocable actions because of it; finally, suppose that he
is presented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable evidence, that his belief is
wrong: what will happen? The individual will frequently emerge, not only unshaken,
but even more convinced of the truth of his beliefs than ever before. Indeed, he may
even show a new fervour about convincing and converting other people to his view.
How and why does such a response to contradictory evidence come about? This is the
question on which this book focuses.
The context for Festinger’s study is critical to an understanding of cognitive dissonance.
Festinger and colleagues entered into a fundamentalist cult, and researched the phenomena
as insiders. The context is essentially religious in nature and this is critical in understanding
the force and power of the concept. In particular, Festinger cites ‘messianic and millennial’
movements as the best examples of context for cognitive dissonance (p.4). Interestingly,
both messianic and millennial movements are religiously situated and involve cultic belief /
faith. I have also given examples of cults in the book Real Risk, Human Discerning and Risk
(pp.10-22). For example, The Order of The Star of The East Cult in Sydney in the 1920s and
also discussed the Branch Davidian Cult and the characteristics of Fundamentalism in For
The Love of Zero (pp. 63-83).
Without a solid understanding of theology and cults, it is not likely that one would really
understand the social-psychological nuances in Festinger’s concept of cognitive dissonance.
The study of the force and power of cults as a window into the nature of culture is critical for
an understanding of the nature and force of cognitive dissonance itself. Indeed, for a proper
understanding of conversion, and the distress of conversion, one needs to understand the
(religious) power of faith / belief.
Living with contradiction, ambiguity, ambivalence and paradox is not an ontological
stress or struggle, in the sense and philosophy of being. Thomas Kuhn popularised the
expression ‘paradigm-shift’ in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,’ A paradigm
shift is tantamount to a major religious conversion, denouncing past faith and belief and
acknowledging a total and new transformation in the opposite direction. Kuhn tells us that a
paradigm shift has very little to do with logic and evidence. Such a cataclysmic breakthrough
has much more in common with Kierkegaard’s ‘leap of faith’ than some slow rational shift
from one idea to another.

172 Tackling Risk

Often when people who work in the areas of risk, safety and security and speak of ‘cognitive
dissonance’ they just mean some cognitive tension in living, with contradiction, paradox,
ambiguity, inconsistency and / or some state of ambivalence. We all live with such tensions.
For example, all learning involves some risk / movement / change, but rarely does this take
on the distress of cognitive dissonance. It is only when a belief in risk aversion takes on
a religious fervour, as in zero harm, that change could be associated with distress. This is
because the ideology of zero harm requires a binary philosophy and any challenge to zero
harm is invested in ontological identity. Even the many who argue they have moved ‘beyond’
zero still anchor identity to zero. Any rejection of zero harm also requires a rejection of
binary thinking and the very ‘religious’ investment one has made in zero harm as an act of
faith. To go beyond zero may require an even higher plane of rejection due to the embedded
dissonance. Cognitive dissonance brings into play the demand for an ‘identity transplant’
and ‘paradigm shift’. This is the very thing that Festinger discovered in his studies of cults.
There are a range of critical factors in coming to grips with an understanding of cognitive
dissonance.
Factors which are necessary to experiencing cognitive dissonance are:
1. Religious cultic-like adherence.
2. Ontological investment.
3. Binary philosophy / ideology.
4. Deep conviction anchored in action.
5. Related ‘sunk cost’.
6. Length of commitment.
7. Power of attachment and belonging.
8. Threat of loss in social support.
9. Powerful emotions of fear, distrust and oppositionalism.
Festinger’s discussion and historical analysis in the book When Prophecy Fails is instructive.
All of the examples provided and regarding cognitive dissonance are religious and cultic.
Having personally experienced the power of ‘Millerite’ theology I can attest to Festinger’s
discoveries.
What then are the implications for understanding the nature of change and conversion?
The idea that belief / faith in an ideology that is ‘anchored’ in religious / cultic commitment
can be shifted by rational argument is just naïve. This is simply because most people in
cults are not aware that they are in a cult, just as Joseph Heller describes, it is a ‘Catch 22’.
Such awareness or lack of awareness, that is the ‘catch’, only becomes available to the faith-
adherent in cognitive dissonance. It is only then the believer wrestles with the distress of
conversion and associated grief of loss and a makes a new ‘leap of faith’ into a paradigm
shift. This discussion is captured, partly, in the video presentation of a model of a ‘cognitive

Chapter 5: Learning-in-Practice 173

dissonance cycle’ https://vimeo.com/202589604. A model of the cycle is represented at the
header of this article. This discussion also brings into focus the nature of Conversion.
Here are a few questions:
• By what method is it best to ‘help’ people into cognitive dissonance?
• What are the ethical concerns associated with such ‘helping’?
• What methodology underpins the challenge to help people experience release and
freedom from dogma and fear?
• How can such helping resist superiority and arrogance?
• What of dialogue?
• How is dialogue maintained with a contra-ideology in order to find the point of
connection and doubt?
• Why does this matter? What can we do about it?
The pathway to learning requires doubt, unlearning, dialectic, questioning, seeking and
uncertainty.
Unless these are present in conversation and dialogue it is doubtful that either person in
such dialogue, discussion or conversation will move. Movement and dialectic ‘inbetweeness’
are essential to learning.
Tannen in Conversational Style (1984); Framing in Discourse (1997) and; The Argument
Culture (1999) shows how not to be frustrated by the idea that evidence and logic shapes
belief-faith. It is not likely that a reader would venture thus far in this book if one did not
already have some thirst to question and learn. The binary mindset resists any such dialectic
and seeks the constructed certainty of monologue. Unfortunately, there are so many who
make comment in the public domain and within their organisations; and are engaged in
industry and community sectors in areas of area of risk, safety and security who are fixated
on ‘telling’ and ‘monologue’; not listening and learning.
If you are sense-able with your time and battling someone in a binary state of faith-belief,
the way forward is only through doubt, questioning and cognitive dissonance. Without such
it is almost certain that one is wasting time. Be careful of questioners that only seek to ask
rhetorical questions or only question for entrapment and confirmation of belief. Often such
are ‘firelighters’ or sociopathic.
The key to learning is an environment of enquiry, where such an environment needs to create
a climate of safety as well as comfort with discovery, exploration and shared vulnerability; so
that cognitive dissonance is less painful and a new identity with support and belonging can
be visualised. This is the way forward to a new ethic of freedom for those trapped in binary
discourse. Our task in the social psychology of risk is to help create such environments. It is
such places that we find conversion.

174 Tackling Risk

The Social Psychology of Conversion
It was a rainy Thursday evening 25 April 1968 ANZAC Day, and my Dad took me
(Rob) along to the Billy Graham Youth Night, I was fourteen years of age. There was
plenty on my mind that night and I was not really that interested in ‘tagging along’,
but I went along, it was better than doing homework.
The Beatles were at their peak with the release of the Sergeant Peppers album in
June 1967. The population of Australia was 12 million and the Seekers were named
Australians of the Year. John Farnham was in the charts with ‘Sadie’ released in
November 1967. The Prime Minister Harold Holt had disappeared while swimming,
which was rumoured taken by the KGB, and the New Prime Minister was John
Gorton. Richmond defeated Geelong 16.18 (114) to 15.15 (105) in front of 109,396
people to win the 1967 Victorian Football League Grand Final and Graham Kennedy
won his third Gold Logie. NASA Tracking Station was opened at Honeysuckle
Creek near Canberra in the National Park and it was the sixth year of Australia’s
involvement in the Vietnam War.
I thought because of the inclement weather there would not be much of a crowd,
I was wrong. The night of the Youth Crusade was packed with no room to move
amongst the 75,000 attending. All of the Crusade meetings exceeded 60,000 people
with Billy Graham still holding the record crowd size for the Sydney Cricket Ground
and Show Ground of 151,000 (Daily Telegraph Monday, April 22, 1968, p.3.)
Being only fourteen years of age, I was pretty interested in the girls who came from
the church youth group and did not really listen to much that was going on; my
current girlfriend was there. So, when it came to the end of Billy Graham’s sermon I
was amazed to see thousands of kids walking to the front to the podium to ‘make their
commitment to Christ’. It seemed like there were more kids at the front than were in
the crowd about me. It was phenomenal and I watched in amazement. This was my
first real experience of mass conversion. People were crying as they walked forward
for the ‘Altar Call’, which is that unique technique instituted by Charles Finney in
the 1830s and Billy Graham was the expert of the Altar Call. Friends of mine ‘walked
forward’, also at the age of fourteen and that took ‘some guts’ to do so in front of
friends. Walking to the front for counselling support in conversion was the nature of
the Altar Call.
At the time the whole experience was rather mysterious, in many ways it did not
make sense and it became a fascination even at my own conversion some years later,
even against all the resistance built up against fundamentalism.
You will notice at Figure 47, Crusade News 1968 that my father (Harold) was on the
podium with Billy Graham and closed off the Crusade meeting the following night of
26 April 1968. I come from a home of a conversion specialist, you could say I have been
researching conversion for fifty-eight years. I had been with my Dad plenty of times when
similar conversions were experienced but only in small numbers up to twelve or so. My Dad
conducted his own Crusades across NSW in the 1950s and 1960s.

Chapter 5: Learning-in-Practice 175

From an historical view, the influence of the Billy Graham Crusades
in Australia should not be underestimated. I undertook a major study
of this in my PhD thesis in 1994. (See: http:// www.crossover.org.au/
revitalised-in-witness-the-lessons-from-the-billy-graham-crusades- of-1959-pt-3/).
For further study of mass conversion perhaps start at: Hoffer, E., (1951) The True Believer,
Thoughts on The Nature of Mass Movements. HarperPerrenial, New York. You can view
the power and emotion of a Billy Graham sermon here: https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=Vb_9rW5WLmI

Figure 47, Crusade News 1968

176 Tackling Risk

Learning is only learning if it involves significant change (not like changing a brand of
toothbrush) but about worldview change. One of the myths often repeated in the wider
community service organisations and in the industry sectors dealing with risk, safety and
security is that one can only change situations and conditions; people cannot change. How
weird is that and in what situation are there no people? The fixation on things, objects
but not subjects. Here we go again, it is though risk would be much easier if there were
no people in the world? It is a bit like the BBC Television series Fawlty Towers (1975-
1979). The proprietor of the hotel Basil Fawlty was clear in his mind that the hotel would
run much better without Guests. No wonder most industry and the community service
organisations with their safety, security and risk people love objects. Objects do not make
decisions and do what they are told. What an easy task to note all the hazards (objects) on
site. What an easy task to observe situations and ignore the people in those situations? This
is the strange discourse of engineering and regulatory thinking.
The reality is that people in positions dealing with risk and safety in their organisations are
really in the conversion business. To use secular language, a ‘sea change’. The reason for the
use of the word ‘conversion’ in this discussion is because so much of risk concerns ‘life and
death’ decision making and in relation to this, so much of the discourse in risk is religious,
even fundamentalist as discussed in the first book in this series, Risk makes Sense.
Conversion is never a neutral act. Conversion is about monumental change and even
its discussion provokes controversy, confusion, curiosity, fascination, skepticism, and
enthusiasm. Everyone has a theory about why people change. For many people conversion
is a transcendent experience; while for others, it comes at the cost of being shunned by
the families and religious communities that once nurtured them. There is one thing that
seems to be present in all conversion: Cognitive Dissonance. Many underrate the nature of
cognitive dissonance and label it as just a moment of discomfort. This does not even come
close to its real meaning as discovered by Festinger in 1956. Cognitive Dissonance and any
related conversion is about a total upheaval in worldview. It is not just about changing ideas
or mind but the pain and suffering associated with conversion in worldview as an ideology.
People can change, people do reframe beliefs, people do learn, there is conversion. If people
cannot change why do so many people go to counselling? The reason this discourse is
avoided by those in industry dealing with safety, risk and security is because they are not
educated about conversion, learning and the social psychology of risk. Their training is all
about objects, regulations and binary logic, not subjects; no wonder the risk industry avoids
learning-about-learning (leta-learning) and the conversion of subjects.
Conversion is a revolution in thinking, being, doing, feeling, purpose and mentalitie. It is a
change in personhood. Perhaps the first psychological studies of conversion were undertaken
by William James (1902) The Varieties of Religious Experience and Nock (1933) Conversion,
The Old and New in Religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo. The most recent
study is the brilliant: Rambo, L., and Farhadian, C., (eds.) (2014) Oxford Handbook of
Religious Conversion, Oxford, London. James can be downloaded here: https://csrs.nd.edu/
assets/59930/williams_1902.pdf and Nock here: https://ia802608.us.archive.org/14/items/
Nock1933Conversion/Nock%201933%20Conversion.pdf.

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I have a copy of Ferm (1959) The Psychology of Christian Conversion, who undertakes a neat
historical account of progress in the study of conversion. Until the publication by Rambo
and Farhadian there was not much information on the psychology of conversion. One thing
that must be remembered is that we are discussing a complex subject involving humans,
there is no simple formula for learning and conversion. Rambo and Farhadian provide some
wonderful examples, world changing examples, of the power of conversion.

The History of Conversion

Religious conversion has inspired some of the greatest changes to the human
condition. During what Karl Jaspers called the Axial Age (c. 800‒200 B.C.E.), a
period when some of the world’s most significant intellectual shifts occurred, “the
spiritual foundations of humanity were laid simultaneously and independently in
China, India, Persia, Judea and Greece. And these are the foundations upon which
humanity still subsists today.”
The unparalleled transformations that occurred during the Axial Age profoundly
altered the world through the influence of Platonism, Mahavira, Buddha, King
Ashoka, Confucius, Laozi Lao-tzu, Homer, Socrates, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the
recording of the Upanishads as new ideas reshaped the world. Conversion marked the
life (p. 3) of each major figure in this period. Mahavira left his Kshatriya Hindu family
to start the Jain tradition; Shakyamuni Siddhartha Gautama, also raised in a Kshatriya
Hindu family, became the Enlightened One the Buddha and promoted the “Middle
Way” while sending missionaries to teach the path to enlightenment. Confucius and
Lao-tzu, according to tradition, gained full insight and departed from their ordinary
lives to promote their philosophies. King Ashoka, originally a Hindu, was known for
his cruelty until his conversion to Buddhism, after which he promoted nonviolence
and the expansion of Buddhist virtues throughout his kingdom and beyond the
Indian subcontinent into other regions of Asia.
Centuries later, Saul, a Pharisaic Jew of the first-century Roman Empire, converted
to become a servant of Jesus Christ after experiencing a vision of the resurrected
Jesus. Following his conversion, Saul was renamed Paul and then became the most
influential early Christian missionary and the author of major portions of the New
Testament. Sixth-century western Arabia was home to Prophet Muhammad, whom
God called to leave polytheistic Meccan religions and submit to the One God, Allah,
the Merciful, the Compassionate. In the fifteenth century, tradition notes that Guru
Nanak, born into a Hindu family, was enlightened by God and realised that ‘there
is no Hindu, no Muslim’, compelling him to start the Sikh tradition. In nineteenth-
century upstate New York, another prophet appeared, Joseph Smith, whose revelation
declared the restoration of the Christian church and led to the founding of the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
So we see that some of the major upheavals in the world are as a result of conversion.

178 Tackling Risk

What do we know from Social Psychology of Conversion? What are the ‘psychic forces’ that
lead to conversion? What conditions, factors and context contribute to learning, change and
conversion? Why do people give up addictions? Why do people start being responsible?
Why do people reform after years of self-harm and abuse? These are all questions that need
to be tackled in our thirst to understand the Psychology of Conversion.
We can learn a great deal from our fundamentalist friends and people with addictions,
after all, these are the experts in conversion. If one works in the areas of risk, security and
safety, one must wonder why it is so hard to convert people to become risk believers. I have
a friend who is a Safety Manager who describes safety walks and audits as ‘changing a
dummy (pacifier) from one mouth to another’. A friend, another Safety Manager describes
safety walks as ‘a walk in the discovery of wrongness’. Pretty negative stuff. It would be an
interesting study to see what the dropout rate from the safety profession is and what are the
contributing factors. I’m sure it is a thankless job among people who believe that safety is
an ‘embuggerance’. How frustrating to spend so much time playing the same broken record
or finding out after playing the big stick, people just do not report or ‘spin’ the truth. This
is where our fundamentalist and evangelical friends teach us something about attraction,
motivation, learning and conversion.
Many people in managing risk act as ‘policeman’ and ‘evangelists’ in what they do. Rather
than get people into heaven, people managing risk in organisations want to keep people
intact by the end of the day. However, the methods often chosen for policing and conversion
are sporadic and often unsuccessful. Whilst some behaviourist instruments have limited
success, the blunt instrument of behaviourism does not have an understanding of the
sophistication of human complexity nor the psychology of motivation, goals, strategy,
attraction or conversion.
In all my research into conversion for over forty years I have found a number of common
elements. Billy Graham was a subject mentioned in For the Love of Zero. Here are some of
the core elements in the psychology of conversion:
1. Developing a positive organizational climate.
2. Understanding and creating cognitive dissonance.
3. Knowing and recognizing ‘tipping points’.
4. Developing leaders who know how to manage mavens and mavericks.
5. Creating workplace climates for admission and confession.
6. Cultivating a culture of reporting, forgiveness, understanding and acceptance.
7. Understanding the dynamics of belonging and ethos change.
8. Recognising and influencing cultural discourse and groupthink.
9. Developing skills in pitching, framing, priming and understanding about speaking to the
unconscious.

Chapter 5: Learning-in-Practice 179

10. Understanding defensiveness, complacency and automaticity.
11. Understanding the dynamics of motivation, inspiration, psychology of goals, psychology
of strategy and social psychology of learning / risk.
12. Developing a culture which understands and welcomes error.
13. Cultivating a culture where doubt is interpreted as a positive.
14. Checking that ‘punishment fits the crime’.
15. Encouraging exposure to counterfactual belief and counterintuitive thinking.
16. Balancing lag and lead indicators (iCues).
17. Rejecting zero ideology and and absolutes in human discourse instead promoting,
minimisation, toelrance and continuous improvement.
18. Developing an understanding of complexity systems theory, wicked problems and
abductive reasoning.
19. Understanding heuristics particularly ‘sunk cost effect’, confirmation bias, anchoring,
affect bias and concurrence seeking behaviour (CBS).
20. Creating contagious behaviour and understanding ‘stickiness’ and the psychology of
attraction.
It is quite a list (but far from comprehensive) and it isn’t difficult to understand but difficult
to develop skills and environments in such matters, particularly in organisations anchored to
an ideology of absolutes. I have written about many of these topics in my previous books and
in blogs. The important thing is to make a start on these, to ‘tackle’ them.

Conclusions and Close

We have attempted to make this field guide a book to help ‘identify’ and ‘guide’ understanding
in the Social Psychology of Risk. The purpose of the book has been to help tackle risk and to
help people better identify the nature of education and learning with respect to risk. It is a
book of ‘meta-learning’ i.e. learning about learning and its application to risk.
The book has not shied away from some heavy ideas and philosophy. Key concepts such as
dialectic, technique and semiotics cannot be left to educators and academic disciplines alone;
we need much more than a checklist to tackle risk.
Education and learning are mostly foreign territory for those who attend to risk, safety and
security within industries. Hence, the perceived need for this book.

180 Tackling Risk

Learning is Yearning for Living

Who welcomes suffering and tension,

the pain of uncertainty and struggle?
What a question, goes to the core
But who am i, who are we?
... Fallible travellers in a world of randomness and risk.

What do you say to Leviathan who makes terror technique?

Do you welcome the learning of Blake’s Los?
Yet we know there is no profit prophet,
for, what answers will satisfy in the face of this question?

What being is there, when Time calls your name?

What do you speak to all you have learned?
... Legions legacy who exorcises a presence
and what of your gaze is on presents.

So, we are schooled to aversion

but really learn in conversion.
and, for those who desire learning,
where the risk wheel runs turning.
And, is the fear of the flight
how we wake up in fright?
or is all that comes ahead
our life that is lead?

Chapter 5: Learning-in-Practice 181

182 Tackling Risk
CHAPTER 6
Glossary

Introduction
6
The foundational assumptions of this series of books comes from the tradition of Social
Psychology, particularly with an emphasis on ‘mentalities’, semiotics and wicked problems.
The tradition of Social Psychology is concerned with how social arrangements affect
judgment and decision making. In the context of this book, the following themes are
foundational for tackling risk.

Alienation
Relevant research on alienation and engagement is provided by the eminent French
sociologist, Jacques Ellul. Ellul’s work The Ethics of Freedom (1976) seeks to define the
anthropological nature of educative discourse and discusses the nature of alienation as a part
of the total human condition.
Ellul’s concept of alienation extends the materialist perspective of alienation by adding an
ethical aspect (1976, p. 25).
Man is alienated because, once launched on the venture of exploitation in which he
no longer acts justly, he is obliged to view everything with a corrupt conscience and
to create an ideology which will conceal the true situation. His religion is the most
complete and misleading ideology. It is here that he is most completely divested of
himself. This is partly because, as in Feuerbach, he dreams up an illusory supreme
being out of all that is best in himself, out of his own worth and righteousness and
goodness. He transfers these to the Absolute. He thus robs himself by the projection.
Partly, however, it is also because man expects liberation from someone else instead
of himself. Religion is the ‘opium of the people’ because it impedes action by causing
man to transfer his own possibilities to another being.
Alienation according to Ellul is caused by a frustration in the human search for meaning.
This frustration is generated by exploitation and a created ideology that masks real meanings
of existence. The assumption underpinning Ellul’s perspective is that humans cannot escape

Chapter 6: Glossary 183

alienation in their own capabilities. He argues that alienation is a material and spiritual
disorientation. This spiritual dimension is clearly out of step with a Marxist-materialist
perspective. Whilst the materialist argues that alienation is the:
. . . separation of humans from those things that they need in order to lead fulfilling
lives (Cormack, 1996, p. 7)
Ellul argues that alienation means:
. . . being possessed externally by another and belonging to him. It also means being
self-alienated, other than oneself, transformed into another. (Ellul, 1976, p. 24)
In a curious twist this implies that alienation is developed through the handing over of
oneself, ones meaning in life and ones purpose to another (person, power or ideology).
This means that alienation is really self alienation or alienation from what it is to be truly
human. Ellul therefore argues that the more humans try to control their lives in self
preoccupation the less they become masters of it. Such efforts are apparent in the process of
institutionalisation. He argues (Ellul, 1976, p. 29) that there are four aspects of the alienation
experience. These are:
1. the experience of the powerlessness of each of us in face of the world, of the society in
which we are but which we can neither modify nor escape
2. the experience of the absurd, of seeing that the events we have to live through have no
meaning or value, so that we cannot find our way in them
3. the experience of abandonment, of knowing that no help is to be expected, that neither
others nor society will grant any support, the idea of dereliction which is so dear to
existentialism; and finally
4.the culminating experience of indifference to one-self, in which man is so outside himself
that his destiny is no longer of interest to him and he has neither desire nor zest for life.
Ellul argues that alienation is essentially discovered in processes of dehumanisation.
Dehumanisation according to Ellul is the debasing of human meaning founding mutual
respect, love, relationship, ethical conduct, responsibility, trust, personhood and community.
One is therefore alienated when one dehumanises oneself and hands over oneself to
principles, powers and people who assist in making oneself less human, when one is
alienated from these values and qualities of living. Ellul argues that ones alienation is
essentially a spiritual dilemma manifest in material ways which indicate that humans have
lost place with themselves, their meaning and their spirituality. Ellul argues from a Christian
perspective that humans are essentially relational and spiritual and that any attempt to deny
this necessity is a flight from humanness.
Parker J. Palmer (1993, p. xvi) discusses this state of alienation in the context of an
increasingly individualised society. In emphasising the need to establish relationships as the
foundation for learning he states:

184 Tackling Risk

 There is a simple reason why some students resist thinking: they live in a world where
relationships are often quite fragile. They are desperate for more community, not less,
so when thinking is presented to them as a way of disconnecting themselves from
each other and from the world, they want nothing of it. If we could represent knowing
for what it is – a way of creating community, not destroying it – we would draw more
young people into the great adventure of learning.
Palmer continues (1993, p. xvi) :
But what scholars now say – and what good teachers have always known – is that
real learning does not happen until students are brought into relationship with the
teacher, with each other, and with the subject. We cannot learn deeply and well until a
community of learning is created in the classroom.
At the very heart of knowing is communal experience, a community of interaction
between knowers and the known. The myth of objectivity which tends to influence the
so-called ‘scientific’ basis for a cognitive behavioural approach to education depends on a
radical separation of the knower from the known. The reality is that we can’t really know
something or someone until we have a relationship with them or it. We are influenced by the
relationship which initiates change. Palmer elaborates (1993, p. 35):
The aim of objectivism is to eliminate all elements of subjectivity, all biases and
preconceptions, so that our knowledge can become purely empirical. For the sake of
objectivity, our inner realities are factored out of the knowledge equation.
This explains why the teacher is active and the students are passive in the conventional
classroom.

Critical Theory
Critical theory has its roots in marxist, post-marxist and poststructuralist traditions.
Developing from the Frankfurt School and semiotics, the tradition of critical theory seeks to
deconstruct grand narratives that foster ideologies of power and oppression.

Cultural Studies
Seeks to understand the formation, sustaining and development of cultural particularly with
an emphasis on cultural reproduction and semiotics. The tradition shares similar roots as
critical theory but with a direct emphasis on cultural transmission.

Dialectic
The idea of dialectic denotes the interaction between opposing forces and concepts, the
thesis and anti-thesis. The idea of dialectic in the Social Psychology of Risk is not in
the traditional understanding (originating in Hegel) of a synthesis between a thesis and
antithesis but rather the coexistence and non-resolution of opposites and acceptance of the
tension of opposites. This approach comes from Kierkegaard, Ellul and Jung and can be

Chapter 6: Glossary 185

called an ‘existential dialectic’. An existential dialectic accepts dialectic as a wicked problem
and understands that a flow (movement) in dialectic is essential for learning, relationships
and living.

Discourse
Developed by Michael Foucault. The transmission of power in systems of thoughts
composed of ideas, attitudes, courses of action, beliefs and practices that systematically
construct the subjects and the worlds of which they speak.

Freeschoolers and Deschoolers

The work of the deschoolers, freeschoolers and unschoolers (Bruner, Holt, Freire, Goodman,
Illich, McLaren, Reimer etc) help in understanding the nature of learning, particularly at
this semiotic level. Illich (1970. p. 9) comments:
The pupil is thereby ‘schooled’ to confuse teaching with learning, grade advancement
with education, a diploma with competence, and fluency with the ability to say
something new. His imagination is ‘schooled’ to accept service in place of value.
Medical treatment is mistaken for health care, social work for the improvement of
community life, police protection for safety, military poise for national security, the
rat race for productive work. Health, learning, dignity, independence and creative
endeavour are defined as little more than the performance of the institutions which
claim to serve these ends, and their improvement is made to depend on allocating
more resources to the management of hospitals, schools and other agencies in
question.
In many ways, the risk, safety and security sectors could do with a dose of de-schooling
and ‘unlearning’. In many ways these sectors have been indoctrinated into a technicist,
mechanistic and reductionist ideology that can now no longer think outside the box.

Hegemony
A hegemony is the rule of a dominant idea or group. it denotes the control of one state of
being over all others. In Social Psychology, particularly with roots in post-Marxist ideas
hegemony most often refers to ‘cultural hegemony’ as developed by Antonio Gramsci.
Gramsci uses the word ‘hegemony’ to mean the ways in which governing powers win
consent and dominance over whom they subjugate.

Hermeneutics
Hermeneutics denotes theories of interpretation and is most associated with its roots in
understanding biblical texts. The modern hermeneutics (emerging from the school of Social
Psychology) is more about general interpretation and communication influenced by social
and psychological arrangements. The work of Jacques Derrida in particular needs mention
and the development of deconstruction.

186 Tackling Risk

Heuristics
Refers to experience-based techniques for problem solving, learning, and discovery.
Heuristics are like mental short cuts used to speed up the process of finding a satisfactory
solution, where an exhaustive search is impractical. Heuristics tend to become internal
micro-rules that enable rapid decision making. In time many heuristics become ‘automatic’
and operate unconsciously in human decision making.

Hidden Curriculum
Refers to the real and underlying learnings in any activity. The concept of the Hidden
Curriculum is closely associated with the idea of by-products and trade-offs. This means that
one may commit to an action and yet hidden in the method people learn something entirely
different from what is espoused. In education circles this is thought of as a ‘side effect’ for
example, children may be made to line up to get into class to create order but at the same
time this process reinforces other forms of social reproduction associated with authority,
submission, obedience, gender bias etc.

Meme
A meme is an unconscious dynamic for transmitting cultural ideas, symbols, or practices
that can be transmitted from one mind to another through semiotics. A meme is a cultural
analogue to a gene in that they help culturally reproduce, mutate and respond to selective
pressures. Akin to the transcendent nature of technique, a meme generates and propagates
cultural ‘anchors’ and ‘primes’.

Mentalities
The idea of a History of Mentalities comes from the French Annales School of History and
refers to the history of attitudes, mindsets and dispositions. It denotes the social psychology
and cultural nature of history.

Paradox
Paradox is a close associate of wicked problems, dialectic and Hidden Curriculum. The
acceptance of contradictions coexisting is essential to accepting a state of paradox. A paradox
opposes the idea of a theory of non-contradiction as a ‘proof ’ of truth. The acceptance of
paradox and dialectic is essential to the thinking of Kierkegaard, Ellul and Jung. W.V.

Semiotics
Is the study of sign systems and significance. The study of semiotics originates in the social
psychological tradition through the work of Pierce (focus on signs/symbols) and Saussure
(focus on semiology and the creation of meaning). An understanding of semiotics is critical
for understanding how the unconscious is influenced by all that is in the semiosphere
(world).

Chapter 6: Glossary 187

Social Psychology
Is concerned with how social arrangements affect decision making. Many see the founder
of social psychology in the work of Kurt Lewin and Gestalt psychology. Most notably social
psychology emerged out of issues following WW2 associated with the Holocaust. The
discipline is concerned with social influence on the psychology of people. It is also famous
for experiments like those conducted by Milgram, Zimbardo, Ashe and Bandura in the
1960s and 70s.

Tacit Knowledge
First introduced by Michael Polanyi , tacit denotes a way of ‘knowing that we cannot tell’.
This is the kind of knowledge that cannot be put into words but is known by ‘indwelling’.
Tacit knowing is ‘emergent’ and in ‘dialectic’ thus enabling a ‘kinship’ between the learner
and the unknown.

Technique
Is about the ideology of efficiency embedded in all methodologies of technology. It is in
some ways a transcendent idea that has a life of its own like money and power. The work of
Jacques Ellul (the radical Christian Sociologist) best explains technique as ‘sacred DNA’. It is
a way of thinking and design that ‘organises’ a discourse of being that prioritises efficiency in
a totalising effect over people.

Wicked Problems
Wicked problems have no stopping rule. Solutions to wicked problems are not true-or-false,
but better or worse. There is no immediate and no ultimate test of a solution to a wicked
problem. Every solution to a wicked problem is a ‘one-shot operation’; because there is no
opportunity to learn by trial and error, every attempt counts significantly.

‘Wickedness’ and ‘Wickedity’

The notion of ‘wickedness’ comes from Rittel and Webber (1973) who formulated ten
characteristics of unsolvable problems. These ten characteristics of ‘wickedness’ were
outlined in book three in this series Real Risk, Human Discerning and Risk (pp. 127ff ). It
is important from the outset of this book to be reminded of the nature of ‘wickedness’, these
are:
1. There is no definitive formulation of a wicked problem (defining wicked problems is itself
a wicked problem).
2. Wicked problems have no stopping rule.
3. Solutions to wicked problems are not true-or-false, but better or worse.
4. There is no immediate and no ultimate test of a solution to a wicked problem.

188 Tackling Risk

5. Every solution to a wicked problem is a ‘one-shot operation’; because there is no
opportunity to learn by trial and error, every attempt counts significantly.
6. Wicked problems do not have an enumerable (or an exhaustively describable) set of
potential solutions, nor is there a well-described set of permissible operations that may be
incorporated into the plan.
7. Every wicked problem is essentially unique.
8. The existence of a discrepancy representing a wicked problem can be explained in
numerous ways. The choice of explanation determines the nature of the problem’s resolution.
9. The planner has no right to be wrong (planners are liable for the consequences of the
actions they generate).
10. Every wicked problem can be considered to be a symptom of another problem.
The notion of ‘wickedness’ extends beyond the idea of complexity and suggests that things
that are ‘wicked’ can only be ‘tackled’ and can never be ‘tamed’.

Unconscious
Processes of the mind which are not immediately known or made aware to the conscious
mind. The term subconscious is also used interchangeably and denotes a state ‘below’ the
conscious state. The subconscious is more associated with psycho-analytics and a negative
understanding of the unconscious.

Upbuilding
The notion of upbuilding is essentially about the enactment of education and learning. This
means much more than ‘building others up’. It invokes the use of the word used by St Paul
that has also been translated as ‘edification’. The goal of upbuilding is the personhood of self
and others in community.

Chapter 6: Glossary 189

190 Tackling Risk
CHAPTER 7
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Chapter 7: References 199
The Authors

Dr Robert Long
PhD., BEd., BTh., MEd., MOH, Dip T., Dip Min.,

Rob is global founder of the Social Psychology of Risk and, Executive Director of Human
Dymensions, The Centre for Leadership and Learning in Risk and Social Psychology of
Risk Pty Ltd.

Rob has a creative career in teaching, education, community services, government and
management. Rob works across all sectors and has a range of clients Internationally in oil,
gas, petro chemicals and security.

Rob has lectured at various universities since 1990 including University of Canberra, Charles
Sturt University and ACU. He has also held distinguished positions outside of academic life
including Manager Evacuation Centre during the Canberra Bushfires in 2003, Emergency
Coordination Operations Group Beaconsfield 2006, Community Recovery Beaconsfield
2006 and Risk Management Coordinator World Youth Day (Canberra Goulburn) 2008.

Rob is the founding Principal of the Galilee School which he established in 1996 to educate
the most high-risk young people in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). He was
Director of Youth, Community and Family Support services in the ACT Government and
has served on numerous Australian inter-governmental task forces, committees, ministerial
councils and working groups in areas such as gambling, crime, homelessness, indigenous
disadvantage, social infrastructure, child protection, youth-at-risk, drug addiction, prisons
and social justice.

Rob founded the social psychological perspective in risk, safety and security in 2003
and is engaged by organisations because of his expertise in culture, learning, risk and
social psychology. He is a skilled presenter and designer of learning events, training and
curriculum.

Contact
rob@humandymensions.com

+61 (0) 424547115

200 Tackling Risk

Roy Fitzgerald
Grad Dip SPoR, Grad Dip Phys Ed, THC, BEd, Dip T, Cert IV TAE.
Roy is a global expert in Semiotic Learning with unique qualifications in visual
methodologies. Roy is an exceptional moderator, facilitator and designer of ‘activities-for-
change’ learning strategies. His engaging interactive methods are sought after Internationally
across all sectors particularly in leadership, strategy, risk and critical thinking.
Roy is a trained educator and has extensive experience in facilitating learning across all
industries. He holds a Grad Diploma in Social Psychology of Risk and Post-Graduate
qualifications in Education.
Roy is the Principal Moderator and Director of Prism Consulting. Roy has more than
30 years of direct hands-on experience of work in-the-field at remote worksites. Roy’s
experience includes direct engagement in the resources sector and has a portfolio of work
experience across Australia and with International clients on four continents.
The main area of Roy’s work has been in the construction, mining, logistics and the oil
and gas industry. Roy conducts interactive project-group-forums to assist with planning
and change for improvement from the executive to worker level. He has a background of
teaching experience in skill development and gained other experience with a Commission in
the Australian Defence Force.

Contact
roy@metadymensions.com
+61 (0) 419912248

Chapter 7: References 201

Further Research and Study
The Social Psychology of Risk can be formally studied at The Centre for Leadership and
Learning in Risk (http://cllr.com.au/). The Centre for Leadership and Learning in Risk
accredits studies at Certifcate (4 units), Diploma (4 more units) and Master Class Levels (4
units or thesis). A prospectus can be downloaded from the CLLR home page.
Once participants have completed at least two units of study face-to-face, they can then
complete up to 5 more units online. A study calendar can be viewed here: http://cllr.com.au/
events/. Introductory are only offerred at the commencement of each year.
Videos on CLLR activities and ideas can be viewed here: https://vimeo.com/cllr

Programs and Resources

Human Dymensions offers training programs in The Social Psychology of Risk (http://www.
humandymensions.com/). The many programs, tools and services of Human Dymensions
can be vieqwed here: http://www.humandymensions.com/services-and-programs/.
Videos on Human Dymensions activities and ideas can be viewed here: https://vimeo.com/
humandymensions.
Rob and Roy offer a range of programs on:
• Executive Learning and Change
• Program Reviews and Development
• Strategic Integration of Services, Employees and Contractors
• Problem Solving with Visualisation
• Strategic Influence using Visualisation and Semiotics
• Master Class Workshops in Visualisation, Semiotics and Influence
• Understanding Pedagogy, Curriculum, Presentation and Motivating Learning
• Master Class Moderation
• Innovations in Inductions for Learning
• Tackling Risk for Maturity and Wisdom
• Risk Intelligence and Visualisation for Changes

202 Tackling Risk