{"id":3,"date":"2008-11-10T09:31:03","date_gmt":"2008-11-10T17:31:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sabusense.com\/?page_id=3"},"modified":"2009-02-20T08:18:12","modified_gmt":"2009-02-20T16:18:12","slug":"sabus-way","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.sabusense.com\/?page_id=3","title":{"rendered":"Making Sense through Metaphors"},"content":{"rendered":"

We know we\u2019re not the first to address how the nature of what we see directly influences how we think about it.\u00a0\u00a0 Others have sought to solve this same thinking and perceiving problem\u2026 in two ways:
\n\u2022\u00a0 Through new lenses \u2013<\/p>\n

\u201cThe real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new\u00a0\u00a0 landscapes, but in having new eyes.\u201d<\/em> – Marcel Proust<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

and
\n\u2022. through metaphors:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to change the world, change the metaphors\u2026<\/em>\u201d Joseph Campbell<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We will do both.
\nMoreover, because the nature of this website\u2019s content may appear to challenge prevailing assumptions and beliefs (see Warning<\/span><\/a>), we\u2019ve gone beyond the use of metaphors and analogies to address that constraint on thinking.\u00a0\u00a0 We will apply the principle of \u201csimplicity on the other side of complexity.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2022 Metaphors and analogies<\/strong> – I\u2019ve learned from experience how hard it is to mount a frontal attack on deeply embedded assumptions, and even stronger beliefs about what is true, right, or good, that permit people to make sense of schools and classrooms.\u00a0 It can raise walls of defensiveness that close down people\u2019s capacity to listen and see other possibilities for accomplishing their own objectives.<\/p>\n

At the same time, metaphors can shortcut the process of changing beliefs and assumptions \u2014 still needed as sense-making structures \u2014 by surfacing another body of knowledge that is more accessible but, in the case of schools, also hidden from view.\u00a0 We might think of this knowledge as \u201cthe common sense we know\u2026that we don\u2019t know we know.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Analogies and metaphors can be helpful bridges to that knowledge.\u00a0 They hook into \u201cold\u201d stored information \u2014 information most people already \u201cknow\u201d and accept, but in different contexts. They are particularly relevant to the nature of the issues we address because as Daniel Pink has noted:<\/p>\n

\u201cA picture is worth a thousand words, but a metaphor is worth a thousand pictures because it explains what\u2019s going on in complex circumstances.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2022 The \u201csimplicity on the other side of complexity<\/strong>.\u201d \u2014 The thinking, and subsequent learnings, informing this journey\u2018s story have been products of a lens that offered a different way-of-seeing — and then understanding — the experiences of schools that are documented here.\u00a0 Because our minds tend to \u201csee what we believe\u201d and then \u201cbelieve what we see,\u201d it has shaped the beliefs that frame our thinking.\u00a0 Consequently, part of the story is devoted to the history and nature of that lens.<\/p>\n

In the past, when I\u2019ve written about or presented the results of what it revealed I\u2019ve seldom described it out of a fear that it would seem too conceptual and impractical, that it would be perceived as \u201ctoo simple\u201d by some, and at the same time, \u201ctoo complex\u201d by others. \u00a0\u00a0 (Actually I had described it in a US Dept. of Education report \u2013 The Communication of Experience: A Guidebook for the Management of Information<\/span> in the 1980\u2019s and used it as part of training for the Teacher Corps.)<\/p>\n

Ironically, what I\u2019ve discovered since then is that its value is in the way it uses simplicity to address complexity.\u00a0 It took me a while, but I finally grasped the wisdom of Oliver Wendell Holmes\u2019 understanding of \u201csimplicity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What could be \u201cseen\u201d through the lens captured the difference between the seeming commonsense of \u201cFor every complex situation there is a solution that is simple, direct\u2026and wrong!<\/em>\u201d and the simplicity of solutions that are based on the simple principles or \u201csimple rules\u201d generating the seeming complexity \u2014 a basic principle of Chaos theory.\u00a0\u00a0 And it was at this level where we found the roots of natural \u201cdot-connecting\u201d answers to the complex problems that schools face.<\/p>\n

And while this may seem to be a helpful way to address a perceptual condition, its scientific base can be found in the biology of cognition as articulated by Humberto Maturana.\u00a0\u00a0 (To better understand its value, see: \u201cAn Introduction to Maturana\u2019s Biology\u201d by Lloyd Fell and David Russell and \u201cMaturana\u2019s Biology and Some Possible Implications for Education\u201d by Joy Murray. Both in Seized by Agreement, Swamped by Understanding, Lloyd Fell, David Russell & Alan Stewar)<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. \u2026 Out of clutter, find simplicity\u2026. From discord, find harmony.. \u2026 In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.\u201d<\/em> Einstein<\/p><\/blockquote>\n


\nWHY ARE SABU<\/em> AND THE ELEPHANT<\/em> THE METAPHORICAL GUIDES?<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026and so these men of Indostan
\ndisputed loud and long.
\nEach in his own opinion
\nexceeding stiff and strong.
\nThough each was partly in the right,
\nThey all were in the wrong!”<\/em>
\nThe Parable of the Blind Men & The Elephant<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

Who was SABU?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sabu<\/em> was a fictional character with a unique way of making sense of whole “elephants.”<\/p>\n

Best known as the “Elephant Boy” in a series of 1930\u2019s films, he was a “leader” of elephants who had a simple way to make sense of the elephants he led that gave him a distinct advantage over the six individuals we know about from the centuries-old “Blind Men and The Elephant” <\/em>parable.<\/p>\n

Specifically, his assumptions about those elephants were based on what he had learned from his direct experiences<\/em> with elephants.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. He never questioned that he was always dealing with a whole elephant, because he had no choice. It was always a single bounded entity we might describe today as a coherent “system,” whose parts and processes were connected (even if he couldn’t see how.) To him Everything’s-connected-to-everything-else was not an expression of frustration (as it seems to many of us today), but a fact.<\/li>\n
  2. The “elephant” was not only the fundamental unit-of-management he could affect, but also the only one within which sustainable growth and development could take place.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The Blind Men\u2019s<\/em> assumptions about the shape and nature of the same elephant, however, were obviously limited by their blindness.\u00a0 They had no way to step away, as Sabu<\/em> could do, to see the “whole elephant” as their “system’s” containing boundary.<\/p>\n

    The focus for their personal understanding had to be on the “part” for which their assigned work made them hands-on<\/em> accountable.\u00a0 The smart ones may have intuited (usually from their largely negative experiences) that there was a “system” out there that seemed to constrain their effectiveness, but the focused blinders of their daily job<\/strong> requirements didn’t allow much time to understand it or to deal with the role<\/strong> their part played in the whole elephant’s healthy growth, development and survival.\u00a0 And, anyway, their experiences had taught them that they lacked the authority and resources to fix it anyway.<\/p>\n

    Sabu’s<\/em> advantages: <\/strong><\/p>\n

      \n
    • Always starting his planning and practice with the “system” as a given<\/em>, not a future state.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
        \n
      • Recognizing (having learned it from experience) that the elephant had a mind of its own<\/em> —\u00a0 already naturally “programmed” to do whatever was needed to help it survive.<\/li>\n
      • And figuring out (again from experience) that his leadership involved linking the naturally-driven will of the elephant to the work he needed the elephant to do.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

        But\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

        \u2026 like their other fictional peers \u2013 the Tin Man<\/em>, Lion<\/em>, and Scarecrow<\/em> \u2013 both Sabu<\/em> and the Blindmen<\/em> were missing something important. They lacked an MRI or CTScan of an elephant that could have helped them understand its functional internal connectedness.<\/p>\n

        Intuiting the everything\u2019s-connected-to-everything-else<\/em> connectedness of an organism or organization is not the same as understanding the nature<\/em> of that connectedness and how it enables the “whole” to survive. Neither Sabu<\/em> nor the Blindmen<\/em> had a way to understand that the elephant already was a natural<\/em> system — regardless of people trying to make each of the elephant\u2019s parts perform separately<\/em> — and, because of that embedded nature — perform unnaturally<\/em>.<\/p>\n

        WHY AN ELEPHANT?<\/strong><\/p>\n

        Two “Elephants” have become commonly accepted metaphors today. First, the “whole elephant” the Blind Men couldn’t see with the result that each was \u201cpartly in the right\u201d but in the end “all were in the wrong.” And second, the \u201celephant-on-the-table\u201d that we continually try to find ways to walk around.<\/p>\n

        In both cases it’s an already-present system<\/em> we can’t see, but blame for the limits it places on our effectiveness. For many, “the system” has become synonymous with an enemy that we feel powerless to control, and therefore devote some of our limited store of time and resources to working around it, shutting our doors and ignoring it, or trying to kill it or make it go away.<\/p>\n

        But what if it’s already on the table\u2026 everyone knows it is dysfunctionally “sick”\u2026 and ignoring it hasn’t cured it yet?<\/p>\n

        And while some still hope that research will find a “systemic” cure for this sick elephant, many others no longer believe they can be fixed — elephants are what they are, and don’t suddenly slip out of their skin and morph into a horse, or disconnect their internal and external parts so they can work independently.<\/p>\n

        Thus many of these advocates of “systemic” school system change have given up on it, and down shifted to fixing the disconnected parts. Others still valiantly strive to fix it through two forms of “fixing”<\/p>\n

          \n
        1. Curing<\/strong> it through the prescriptions of usually external “specialists.”<\/li>\n
        2. Helping it heal<\/strong> itself.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          But in either case, to do this, one first has to understand it as<\/strong> an elephant \u2013 a bounded, internally interconnected “system.” And one whose health and viability is dependent on the nature and quality of the interactions that contribute to the capacity of the healing and\/or curing processes.<\/p>\n

          The material on this site can contribute to that essential understanding in two ways:<\/p>\n

          1. It offers a dual-purpose thinking tool which first can serve as an organizational MRI making the scope and nature of that natural interconnected system evident. Then, much like the surface of a radar scope, it offers a vision of reality that one can begin to use it as a plot board for planning and navigation.<\/p>\n

          2. It offers a case study of a large school system\u2014 faced with all the social and economic conditions impacting schooling today \u2014 as viewed over nine years through this different lens. What can be seen includes:<\/p>\n

            \n
          • the thinking that enabled them to understand their \u201celephant,\u201d<\/li>\n
          • the processes they developed to \u201cheal themselves,\u201d and<\/li>\n
          • the processes they then had to develop to integrate them into the sustainable life of the \u201celephant.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

            We know we\u2019re not the first to address how the nature of what we see directly influences how we think about it.\u00a0\u00a0 Others have sought to solve this same thinking and perceiving problem\u2026 in two ways: \u2022\u00a0 Through new lenses \u2013 \u201cThe real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new\u00a0\u00a0 landscapes, but in having […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":43,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sabusense.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sabusense.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sabusense.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sabusense.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sabusense.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"http:\/\/www.sabusense.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24,"href":"http:\/\/www.sabusense.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3\/revisions\/24"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sabusense.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/43"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sabusense.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}