> Dr. Deming had a saying on this subject that I love: In God we trust, all
> others must bring data.
Dear organlearners,
Frank, thank you for quoting this wonderful saying. It almost summarises
what I wish to write about, namely the role of trust in learning. I began
this reply soon after your contribution, but it took me a long time to
complete it. The reason is that this topic elicit intense feelings and
thus chaos. The ensueing bifurcations often lead to immergences rather
than emergences.
Trust is one of the topics which the bible treats very well and
extensively. The message of the bible is absolutely clear: we should trust
only God and nothing else. This message, for the non-believer, is probably
incomprehensible - how on earth can a human being live without trusting
anything? But this message also causes a serious problem for the believer
- how should a person live whithout having to trust anything?
When it comes to learning, this message is almost mind boggling. How can
we learn without trusting those who teach us? Is it possible? Yes. Allow
me to explain how and why.
What does the word 'trust' mean? The following 5 meanings have
been taken from various dictionaries:
1 It is confidence in the integrity, veracity or justice of
any person.
2 It is an assumption on the reliability of any person or
thing without careful investigation whether it is true.
3 It the main ingrediant of faith, together with hope.
4 It is to commit a person or a thing with the safekeeping and
caring of any other persons or things.
5 It is the expectation of a certain outcome when there appears
to be no certainty.
Most of the words above such as integrity, veracity, justice, reliance,
hope, faith, caring and expectation have a positive connotation. Thus,
should we not trust anything in all creation, it seems that we will have
to live a much less positive life.
Antonyms of trust are: despair, disbelieve, discredit, mistrust, suspect,
etc. Most of these antonyms have a negative connotation. Thus, should we
not trust anything in all creation, it appears that we will have to live a
very negative life.
In other words:
If the Bible says that we should not trust anything
in Creation, but should trust only the Creator, it
appears as if the Bible wants to quench our lifes
into insignificance or wants us to view Creation in
a very negative light.
This is why the message elicite such intense feelings. How could so many
writers of the Bible through so many centuries elaborated so incredibly on
such a SHOCKING MESSAGE? When I stumbled on this message 25 years ago, it
certainly shocked me. I do not think you will react much different to the
message. What then should we do in the light of this message?
Let us consider the relationship between the Bible and the
Creator. Allow me to formulate the above indented sentence
differently by substitting ONLY the word Bible by the word
Creator. It then reads as follows:
If the Creator says that we should not trust anything
in Creation, but should trust only the Creator, it
appears as if the Creator wants to quench our lifes
into insignificance or wants us to view Creation in
a very negative light.
What a strange sentence we have now! What does it mean? It could mean that
the Creator made one big mess of Creation. It now seems as if Creation is
doing a much better job of managing itself. Thus it is not a bad idea to
declare the Creator of it as dead. It is even a better idea to deny the
existence of a Creator completely.
It could also mean that, if the Creator does exist, the bible writers have
made an incomprehensible mess of the topic trust. Thus it is not a bad
idea to declare the bible as the archetype of irrelevant fiction rather
than the word of the Creator.
However, there is also another possibility. These indented sentences are
inferences. The first part of each sentence concerns statements in the
bible, but the second part comes from us. The second part also contains
the word "appears". Now, of all human activities, there is one specific
activity which changes our perceptions, namely learning! Let us then
consider trust directly in terms of learning rather than jumping to
conlusions.
Let us relate learning to the 5 meanings of trust above, one by
one.
1 Should we have confidence in the integrity, veracity
or justice of any person, or should each of us not learn
how to become a person of integrity, veracity or justice?
2 Should we assume the reliability of any person or thing, or
should we learn how to carefully investigate such a
realiability?
3 Should we accept faith based on trust and hope, or should we
learn how to believe that which is worthy of trust and hope?
4 Should we commit the safekeeping and caring of any other
persons or things to a person or thing, or should we learn
how to keep and care for other people or things?
5 Should our life be based on expecting uncertain outcomes,
or should we learn how to create the outcome which we are
in need of?
By learning all these things, we certainly become very trustworthy
persons. However, we should resist the temptation in becoming trustees,
i.e., the objects of other people's trust. We should rather encourage
other people to become trustworthy themselves through their own learning.
Thus we now begin to understand the complex ralationship between
trust and learning. But this complex relationship also includes
creativity! By learning more and more about the facets of
trustworthyness, we reflect the Creator more and more through
our lives. The most remarkable way we can mirror the Creator is
through our own creativity.
1 A person of integrity, veracity and justice has to be
creative to acquire and maintain these qualities.
2 A person must be creative to be able to carefully
investigate any reliability.
3 A person needs to be creative to blend trust and hope into
faith.
4 The safekeeping and caring for other people or things
require creativity.
5 It is not possible to create desired outcomes whithout
desiring a high degree of creativity.
Think again why trust elicit such intense feelings. Is it not that if we
we fear to give up our trust in other people or things, then it signals
our own inferior creativity? The more we mature in our own creativity, the
more we are able not to trust anything in this creation. In other words,
learning is the answer to avoid blind trust.
Probably the worst enemy of each of us with regard to trust is ourselves.
This is understandable in terms of trust, learning and creativity. If
anyone of us is beginning to trust himself/ herself, then this person is
not learning about himself/herself anymore. If each of us is beginning to
trust his/her own creativity, then this person has lost the spirit of
creativity. This spirit is openness, in others words, that creativity
cannot be manifested in equilibrated systems.
Best wishes
--At de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre for Education University of Pretoria Pretoria, South Africa email: amdelange@gold.up.ac.za
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>