4 ways of knowing
On our journey towards wholeness, we have identified four ways of knowing. The first two - thinking (cognition) and feeling (emotion) have been recognised since ancient Greek times as crucial aspects of our personhood.
The second two - sensing and intuition are forms of embodied knowing. Highly present in everyday speech, they are not overtly recognised in most educational policy, nor developed in our educational institutions. They rarely make it onto the 'generally acceptable list' as they are more to do with subtle energies - sometimes even the spiritual dimensions of our lives. Yet without them, we become dramatically 'less than ourselves'. The resultant shallowness directly impacts on our ability to learn and create. Ironically, by learning to decrease the incessant chatter of our thoughts these other ways of knowing seem to naturally burst forth. With practice and skill they open up to us a deep reservoir of collective wisdom.
Together the four ways of knowing give us wider and deep resources to call upon as we walk through life, help our children develop and enhance their love of learning. They are also essential skills if we want to learn to work with the four hidden orders, break free of our limiting thought patterns and behaviours and break through into more creative, meaningful and sustainable futures.
Thinking
Cognitive development is the cornerstone of contemporary education; where success is often measured by intellectual achievement. It is a way of knowing that serves us well. It also fosters a view of knowledge and intelligence dominated by deductive and reductionist reasoning. Whilst remaining a vital aspect of our children's education, it is often focused on at the expense of other natural and fundamental capabilities.
There is no doubt our cognitive abilities are central to survival and prosperity. They form the foundation of a rich source of knowledge - in the form of concepts, facts, and formulae - we can use to solve problems and plan for action. Unfortunately, however, much learning in schools is about covering the basic 'conceptual geography of a topic' by listening to teachers, reading books, remembering and writing it down. It tends to be 'knowledge about' a subject.
Our challenge in ecl has been to augment cognitive ways of knowing by encouraging 'knowledge by acquaintance': experiencing, reacting, reflecting, concluding and acting, and with particular emphasis on the use of visual language.
Try it
Give yourself a few minutes to identify the key elements or aspects of your family life - the people, places, events and objects. Write them down on a piece of paper in no particular order.
Now take a moment to reflect. What sense are you making of the words on the list? What story is beginning to emerge for you? Any surprises? And importantly for the purpose of this exercise, where in your body is the thinking activity going on?
Feeling
How we think is directly related to how we feel and vice versa, yet conventional educational practices tend to suppress and narrow our emotional base. The development of a child's ability to recognise and manage emotion helps them to become fully functioning members of their families and communities. Sensitivity to their own and to others' feelings also contributes to a wellspring of expression and creativity.
Recent initiatives in UK schools to introduce 'emotional literacy' schemes, have begun to open up this important aspect of children's lives, allowing them to explore both the fulfillment and frustration of their personal and social needs and interests in the form of joy, sadness, surprise and boredom...
ecl values this way of knowing as a register of what is happening around us which is vitally important to our social sensitivity and well-being. Emotional literacy also provides a foundation for a more participatory way of living and enables us to work with emotional tension, a central ingredient of the creative process.
Try it
Look carefully at a painting that you particularly enjoy. Take in its colours, shapes and patterns. The picture might include some people - look at their facial expressions and body postures. What feelings are evoked for you? Does the picture make you feel tranquil or excited; happy or anxious? Try to identify where in your body the emotion most strongly resides.
Sensing
By sharpening our senses and becoming aware to what is actually happening in the moment, we can develop the capacity to use our bodies as a source of information. Recently this capacity has been referred to as 'presence' or 'presencing'. It is the faculty that enables us to have direct contact with experience and phenomena. Importantly, with practice sensing also authorizes intuition.
There is skill involved in being present, in registering phenomena, and in making meaning of it. This skill involves the capacity to sense, to notice small changes, to tolerate ambiguity, to describe experience without interpreting it. From a systemic perspective, these somatic (bodily) responses guide us in a different way from 'out there' knowledge, reconnecting us to our bodies and our sensations - hot or cold, pain or pleasure, longing or contraction.
Being present forms the basis of this 'seeing anew'. With skill it can provide people with a source of insight and intuition - central and essential for personal learning and creativity.
Try it
Focus on your body as you look at something in the room that has meaning for you - it could be the clock, or a photograph, the weather from the window, a task waiting for you on the desk. Notice what occurs in your body as your gaze shifts. Can you describe these sensations? Put on the radio, or imagine writing to someone important and notice what changes again.
Intuiting
Intuition is often associated with the creative process, whereby we somehow have a direct sense of knowing an answer or solving a problem. And yet education has no clear sense of how to develop this capability. Part of the ecl quest is to explore what it is and what it means for learning and creativity. Our experiential starting point is achieving a state of stillness so as to provide a space for insight to arise. It is not an intellectual or deductive process, yet it is often sense-making, alerting us to what could be.
Intuition is often referred to as the sixth sense. A dictionary definition of intuition offers the phrase 'immediate knowledge' which points to it being experiential rather than conceptual, and not the result of any deliberate thought process. Being mentally still and present allows us to become receptive to different forms of information, some of which we will already be conscious of but most we will not. It brings fresh perspective and insight.
Learning to trust our intuition is an art and takes time and practice. It brings with it a feeling of confidence and certainty, and inspires us to become creative and open to imaginative alternatives.
Try it
Think of a question that matters and imagine that it sits in your belly, quiet and yet powerful. Then let your attention widen to all that may live around the question. Whatever comes up as you contemplate this, give it space. Let what arises have space in you. Now return to the question. Does it seem the same now?