18. Practice Wisdom of Expert Inquirers

PHILLIP DYBICZ

18. PRACTICE WISDOM OF EXPERT INQUIRERS

Primum non nocerum (First do no harm). (Hippocrates the physician) As opposed to academic disciplines (e.g. biology, history, philosophy) which simply represent fields of specialised knowledge in academia, the very essence of defining a profession (e.g. social work, nursing, law) is not the body of specialised knowledge itself, but rather, the application of this knowledge in society in the form of an occupation (e.g. social worker). Thus for professionals, practical experience in applying the specialised knowledge of one’s field represents a form of learning in and of itself; professionals seek to hone their craft via continuous self-reflection on their performance. This knowledge gained from practical experience is valued to such a degree among service professions that most if not all professional schools – such as elementary and secondary education (e.g. Goldhaber, Krieg, & Theobald, 2017), law (e.g. Marchbanks, 2015), nursing (e.g. Mollica & Hyman, 2016) and social work (e.g. Petrila et al., 2015) – include an extended internship as part of their educational training and value it as an important education tool. For the case of social work, this field education is commonly recognised as the signature pedagogy of social work education (Council on Social Work Education [CSWE], 2008). Interestingly, while the various professional fields all highlight the importance of practice experience to hone their craft, there are only two main service professions – social work and nursing – which use the term practice wisdom in their professional literature to capture an additional component contributing to good practice. Approximately fifteen years ago, I pursued an inquiry into the nature of practice wisdom (Dybicz, 2004). This work will serve as the starting point to revisit the topic of practice wisdom and begin a new inquiry that seeks to delineate various nuances to further explore pedagogical approaches for nurturing students’ practice wisdom. In my previous inquiry, a distinction was made between intelligence and wisdom. Intelligence was linked to learning – both in terms of the acquisition of knowledge and the competent application of this knowledge. As such, intelligence was the quality linked to practice experience that promotes knowledge acquisition and application during field experience. Concerning wisdom, Socrates was turned to as a model for defining its features and was famously declared the wisest man in Ancient Greece by the oracle at Delphi. This was based upon Socrates’ position that what made him wise was his recognition that “I know that I don’t know.” As such, wisdom is seen as the adoption of wilful ignorance set in opposition to one’s acquired knowledge (defined philosophically as an aporia), as the following quote by McAvoy (1999) so adequately captured in his book on Socrates:

[t]his condition of aporia is one Socrates regularly creates and exists in, referring to it as a situation where he cannot agree with himself. He can divide himself up into two Socrates who are continually at loggerheads, one a violent questioner who seems to know and not know, the other a gentler creature who seems to be forever in perplexity, but who is prepared to endure it and the attendant abuse, in the reasonable belief that he might be benefited by it. (p. 21) This adoption of ignorance is a concerted attempt to hold one’s biases in check while seeking to apply one’s professional knowledge to a helping situation. Consequently, while intelligence is drawn upon in the application of professional knowledge, wisdom is drawn upon in the application of values and integrity to the knowledge gathering and application process comprising the helping situation. Thus, wisdom in this sense represents much more than simply ethical decision making to solve ethical dilemmas. It undergirds a broad value-infused practice that seeks to honour the client’s contribution to the collaborative effort at truth-seeking when sincerely attempting to confront the client’s life struggles. Arising from the above premises, the following contrasts can thus be drawn. Practice experience promotes competence, whereas practice wisdom attacks hubris. Thus, practice experience engenders expert knowing, whereas practice wisdom engenders expert inquiring. As the means to aid in advancing the helping process, expert knowers seek the continuous refinement of their knowledge, whereas expert inquirers seek to maintain a condition of aporia – a heightened awareness of the abuse of power in the creation and application of knowledge guiding practice.

PRACTICE EXPERIENCE AND EXPERT KNOWERS In the early part of the 20th century, social work began the process of transitioning from its status as charity work to a status of being recognised as a profession. Toward this end, in the United States a well-known American educator, Abraham Flexner, was invited to speak upon the topic of professionalisation in 1915 at the National Conference of Charities and Correction. To the dismay of many present, Flexner (1915) concluded that social work fell short in meeting the criteria determining status as a profession. While social work met some criteria defining a profession (that it is “essentially intellectual in character”; and, that it involved the practical application of knowledge), he noted that the field of social work fell short in that it did not possess its own distinct body of knowledge, and thus did not possess its own unique area of competence in the application of this knowledge. This led to a key social work project during the 20th century to develop such a distinct body of knowledge grounded in the social sciences and a defined area of applied competence. The intellectual nature of social work remains a prominent feature today. And as noted earlier with field education being recognised as the signature pedagogy, the ability to practically apply social work knowledge holds prominence as well. Thus Flexner’s (1915) understanding of the role of intelligence within a profession aligns with the definition I am offering here: that intelligence is responsible for the

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