Increasing number of Black Swans...
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I am in the process of reading Taleb's (2007) book titled "The Black Swan. The impact of the highly improbable" - and I think he has a point that the number of improbable events, the so-called unknown unknowns will increase in future as the complexity of the world we live in increase exponentially.
It would seem as if we don't prepare our students for the uncertainties and the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns that await all of us.
A term I picked up from Taleb (2007) is our "epistemic arrogance" - the fact that we are so certain of what we know and how we describe the world, and we are eager for our students to also have this certainty... Meanwhile back at the ranch, a "epistemic humility" may take us further. Taleb (2007:192) suggests that it may help if society (and universities?) is governed by what we don't know, our ignorance, rather than developing curricula on what we do know. Taleb (2007:190) writes of "epistemic humility" as follows - "He (sic) lacks the courage of the idiot, yet has the rare guts to say 'I don't know.' He does not mind looking like a fool or, worse, an ignoramus. He hesitates, he will not commit, and he agonizes over the consequences of being wrong... This does not necessarily mean that he lacks confidence, only that he holds his own knowledge to be suspect..." I like.
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exactly and how do institutions go on to help everyone be prepared for the unpredictable? At what point do our surrounding contexts get in the way of what students need to learn?
E. Alana James
Future(s) of Education Project
www.futureofeducationproject.net