Dwelling at work: a place where vocation and identity could grow?

Abstract

This paper explores how vocational, occupational, practical or indeed experiential education can assist in the development of phronesis or practical wisdom within the responsible learner. It proposes that formalized, institutionalized education might inhibit the development of phronesis in the quest for knowledge. We propose that should we desire a society which flourishes as a community based on relatedness not transaction and on transcendence not immanence, then we will need to restore the centrality of the workplace as a site for democratic learning rather than instrumentality. We explore this proposal through the lens of Heidegger's development of the notion of techne from the being of a craftsman to technical skills.

Notes

1. Arnal and Burwod (2003) pointed to the potentially undemocratic notion of tacit knowledge due to its exclusiveness to communities of practice. Whilst recognizing this, we are in agreement with them that explicitness of standards and rules that are not negotiable themselves fail to guarantee inclusiveness and democracy, and having acknowledged this point we take it no further in this paper.

2. We agree with Gamble (2001, pp. 198–199) that theories of ‘transmission have a far stronger impact than has been acknowledged in debates around skill formation and lifelong learning in recent years. We ignore them at our peril’.

3. It is interesting for instance to note that in the White Paper the word value is more often than not linked with the word added rather than in the sense of personal worthiness and that the words democratic (and its derivatives), ethics and morality do not appear at all in this nor do they appear in the part three of Skills: getting on in business, getting on at work (DfES, 2005b).

4. The importance of this point and its absence from discussion in the government skills plans to increase apprenticeship (DfSE, 2005b, p. 8) is, we feel, telling in the sense of commercial accreditation being the favoured mode of revelation.

5. She is clear to point out that her notion of democracy is not a singularity.

6. We recognize, as reported in the 14–19 White Paper, that concerns have been raised about the teaching of such skills in schools and colleges and by work‐based providers at all ages by OfSTED and the QCA.