Practical wisdom and meta matters

Previous blog contained telling phrase “might have a moment to upload documents needed for my PhD application”.  Long story short, my first year review is imminent and explains the gap between the previous post and this one.   My PhD subject is metacognition, in adult learning, so it means me too.  As it concerns thinking about thinking, I’m obliged to consider my thinking: how meta is it, and does it help anything? Does meta matter?  Will it connect with wise(r) ways?  And what about my new identity, or occupation, or station, craft or label or. . .

I spotted Pat Thomson’s Patter debate about whether somebody doing a doctorate is a student, candidate, researcher, dr (not yet Dr) or “dottorando” (Italian), a word that contains its process nature - wave rather than particle.  My business card says I am a student; I have a student ID; I am administered as a student by institutions various.  I stopped being a director of my company, and my business partner has plenty to do other than continue it in my scholarly absence (find out what here).  My former existences, and the skills that came with them, are no longer always visible even to me.  And my children want to know why I am being so selfish as to inflict poverty of time and funds on them. Good questions.

So far, so tricky. And is any of it remotely of consequence?  I write as people's homes, livelihoods and, in some cases, lives have sunk.  Flooded away.  My quip about walking the dog having become a doggy paddle is only funny if you haven't seen the news.  Clutching at the straw that my new occupation of research is meaningful, some recent research has, unhelpfully it seems to me, indicated that choosing a meaningful life isn't going to make you happy.  Must remember to ask the vicar about that one.  And colleagues working with climate change.  And those folk trying to achieve something constructive with/about education:  encouragingly, Child1's head of music seemed overwhelmingly chipper even before his shortlisting as world’s most fortissimo teacher ever.

So, I've recently completed 15,000 words on the topic, 'What is metacognition?'  You may think it isn’t a question on everyone's lips, but it is. It sounds like:  Do you think that’s wise. . . ? What were they thinking. . . ? How could we. . . ?  What if we take a step back and think differently? 

Perhaps I can get a new chant going in the playground – “2, 4, 6, 8, Let's all metacogitate. . .”

Practical wisdom may seem elusive, but it isn’t so far away, when we find the right questions.  My superstar colleague Sarah is launching her book Bolder and Wiser, containing the voices of 20 women whose everyday living gives some clues.  From the open space sessions that colleagues from Bath Consultancy Group and the Association for Management Education and Development generously joined me for, came: "what is the ‘it’ you get when you ‘get it’?” And, “why don’t we subjugate theory in favour of noticing what we are doing to one another?" And if you haven't discovered Triarchy Press yet, have a look.

You know how sometimes you start with a particular intention and then you realise you have arrived somewhere unexpected? Best to stop there and listen.