Navigating the human in leadership
Applying the both/and to art and science in dialogue...
It’s been a bit since I’ve blogged here. I have a tempestuous relationship with writing—to say the least. I know I can be pretty good at it and have a lot of practice, but I also tend to think that I’m very bad at it. Yet, lately, developments with artificial intelligence help me see perhaps a proficiency with abstract ideas and oblique connections, which can be especially difficult to translate into understandable prose.
Maybe that’s why (or because) I spent a lot of time with poetry and creative writing—moreso maybe fifteen years ago, but I still make some haiku and otherwise from time to time. I came across this amazing piece the other day entitled “Meaning beyond definition” by James Camien McGuiggan. I just used AI to summarize and distill a bit of it as follows—the “both approaches” refers to scientific and artistic sensibilities:
Both approaches to knowledge, as discussed earlier, refer to the precise definitions used in science and the fluid, interconnected concepts found in poetry.
In science, clear definitions and distinct concepts are crucial for understanding separate ideas and fostering an organized structure of knowledge. This approach is useful when aiming for accuracy, predictability, and classification of phenomena.
On the other hand, poetry focuses on the interconnectedness and overlapping nature of concepts, allowing for a richer exploration of ideas and emotions. Poetic language is free and flexible, encouraging a deeper understanding of the complex relationships between experiences and feelings.
Both approaches to knowledge are valuable and complement each other. The precise definitions used in science provide clarity and organization, while the fluidity of concepts in poetry offers insights into the intricate connections between ideas. By acknowledging the significance of both approaches, we can develop a more comprehensive understanding of the world and our experiences within it.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about my experiences prior to coming to high school teaching in 2011. When I got my bachelor’s I went straight into a wacky bohemian life, reading almost exclusively first art history, then philosophy, then religion and spirituality, whilst also generating a ton of (mostly bad) poetry and guiding a few rock and roll bands. The reason I mention this is the more I reflect on my work with students in classrooms as well as my work with adults in educational leadership, the more I recognize the pivotal quality of those formative artistic experiences to my navigation of the human-quality in schooling.
We used to jam on every type of song under the sun in this old, busted garage down here on the Mississippi river. Maybe it was our favorite Wu-Tang tune, lots of times it was Clapton and the Bluesbreakers, or Lightning Hopkins, or some other Mississippi mud. Creating music is almost a hyper-accelerator of active listening (Carl Rogers’ term) skill; especially covering someone else’s tune. You’ve gotta keep the original in mind, you’ve gotta manage key and scale, you’ve gotta hear the other instrumentation, and respond in the moment to somewhat subtle things like tuning, intonation, rhythm, harmony, etc.
This was a years’ long project with little to no fruit (visible at the time) for the labor. But even writing about it here demarcates the benefits. When we were in to one of our more far-out periods—the one where we were listening to a ton of Coltrane, love supreme, crescent, and playing a lot of chess—I came to better understand the relationships between notes and voices (intervals), and the almost governance of key signatures and chord progressions. As my wife likes to remind me—you gotta know the rules to break them. This informed my musicians’ practice insofar as I became attuned to the integrative and almost receptive quality of improvised, collaborative music. In other words—a skilled improvisational musician can accept (almost?) any note, any voicing, any permutation, any (seeming) disruption, and harmonize it with the greater arrangement of music at hand.
Look, besides this noodle brain stuff, the experience of being in a band lent a lot to my developing skill with classroom teaching and school leadership. I’m used to a crowd of folks who don’t wanna hear us and could be belligerent or walk out. I’m used to the (somewhat thankless, oftentimes unseen) preparatory and concluding work of leadership—the hours of training and prep, the setup of equipment before the event, the teardown after everybody left, etc. I’m used to being the scapegoat when the gig doesn’t work—regardless of whose “fault” it might have been.
I say all this to say (in really clunky language, no less) it’s given me a deep appreciation for the dynamic and dignified humanity of different people and different voices, and the necessary magnanamity of leadership. Look how Tagore puts it:
"Every person is worthy of an infinite wealth of love - the beauty of his soul knows no limit." (The Religion of Man, 1930)
In Bakhtin recently I found this phrase “colloquial liveliness.” That was in the context of investigating spontaneity in dialogue, but the term sticks, and it makes me think of a trope or example I’ve used in this blog before. Or maybe two—the idea that there’s a margin around a protocol, a human reality within which it’s enacted, which can result in the same protocol managed by different people having different outcomes; or the other idea that leadership is about navigating challenges that aren’t able to be codified in technocratic policies and procedures.
We cannot escape this “liveliness”—and why would we want to? That’s the magic of a live recording that’s absent from the produced version. That’s the magic of teaching the third section of your Language arts course and having a student interpret the text or task so delightfully differently. That’s the magic of changing minds, opinions, etc. That’s the artistry of consciousness—with another.
So why have I taken time to jab this all out on this MacBook keyboard? So many of us are humanly drawn into an almost rigidity of rhetoric. Because we care deeply we’re at the mercy of very human invitations to debate, antagonize, “win” the conversation—all types of things rather than actively listening. I’m circling around another Carl Rogers idea here—"unconditional positive regard.” There's so many times when we’re ready to marshall the evidence, the studies, the preponderances, the technocracy, etc. to rightfully inspire if not enact change in our schools. Yet, we’re so ready to “win” the viewpoint squabble, we lose track of the potential of questions that transcend; rather, we descend our organizations and communities into dichotomous factions, breed and brood antagonisms, and watch our reform efforts stumble and fail.
Let’s keep in mind the unfinished quality of the self—something Bakthin so apltly reminds us of:
"In the process of his own life, a person is an active participant in the lives of others, and in the process of their lives, they are active participants in his life. Moreover, others are not passive material for the life of the self; they actively respond to the self and its deeds." (Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics, 1984).
Let us keep in mind that the technologies of guitars, drums, microphones, horns, woodwinds, etc. are absolutely essential to the work of musicianship, as protocols, evidence, technique, etc. are pivotal to the work of teaching and learning. Yet, this responsive and dynamic humanity—that of artistry, ambiguity, mystery, personality—is ubiquitous in our schooling work, and must be considered whether we’re conscious of it or not.