Triarchy Theory in Education

We recently received this response to the Triarchy Press website from Felicity Wren about triarchy theory in education. I've reproduced it, almost in full, with her permission. We're planning a new book on Hierarchy in Education for publication this autumn and I would really value your thoughts on Felicity's letter or any other aspect of the role of hierarchy in the educational system. (Felicity's letter obviously refers to the UK - contributions from readers in other countries would be very welcome.)

I have just finished listening in astonishment, amazement and awe to Radio 4's "In Business", during which Gerard Fairtlough was interviewed about his approach to, and extraordinary beliefs about, the 20th and 21st centuries' commitment to the hierarchical structures in place in our businesses, schools, governments, etc.

I found it a wonderful and inspiring 30 minutes and immediately came to my computer to look up the book "The Three Ways of Getting Things Done". Thank you so much for explaining so clearly and lucidly ideas and feelings that have been flowing through my mind, both excitedly and, more worryingly, frustratedly, and more and more frequently over the past years.

I teach in a secondary school, and while I am honest enough to admit I would much rather be the artist I trained to be than a teacher, I really value the time I spend in the classroom, engaging with, discussing with, encouraging and enabling, asking my students what they want to do, letting them develop their own ideas, being constantly astonished and excited by the breadth and wonder of their imaginations and skills, not to mention their extraordinary intellect, sensitive understanding of the world, people, the environment - oh I could go on..... and this, by the way, is through their Art lessons.

Sadly, most emphasis these days, in fact for the past 4 or 5 years, has increasingly been on "fulfilling criteria", invariably somebody else's, and being expected to jump through "statistical hoops". Our department was criticised at the last Ofsted inspection for "not using data to inform practice".

As I pointed out to my deputy, "I fail to see the point of attempting to predict a grade for Art at GCSE by using results derived from students sitting, two years earlier, what comprises a vague 'intelligence' test. Two students last year gained A*, but were predicted Bs - I knew when they were 11 that if they did GCSE Art, they would get the highest grades.

Also, at a Heads of Dept. meeting I refused to "analyse" this data, on the grounds that I am an artist, an Art teacher and an expert in both fields. However, I know nothing about data, am worse at analysing it, and failed to understand why she was asking me to do something I would do badly. I asked why the data analyst, who is employed to run the data entry system in school, and who incidentally is brilliant at it, was not being asked to do this. After about 30 seconds - dare I say, uncomfortable seconds - at least 5 or 6 of my colleagues spoke up in agreement with me. All this the result of some official in a Whitehall office sending out bits of paper to justify his or her position! Cynical? Probably, just a tad.

But seriously, I have realised that these examples are indicative of the problem, and solution, that Gerard Fairtlough spoke of this evening, and I just wanted to write to say, thank you so much for opening my eyes, I am determined to read our book and do whatever I can to try to make a difference!

Imposing Heterarchy

I was talking recently to the owner/MD of a small (11 staff) design consultancy, who had read The Three Ways of Getting Things Done. He was looking at ways of getting his business to run on more heterarchical lines and aware that his staff might be reluctant to go for this approach. After all, they were used to the present regime; it was comfortable; and why would they want to take responsibility for decisions that he had previously had to make? Why would they want to expose themselves in that way?

The way we were talking, it became clear that one possibility was to "impose" heterarchy as the dying act of the hierarchical regime. But surely that can’t work? The problem reminded me of points raised in an article we recently posted at the Triarchy website on sense/non-sense; hierarchy/heterarchy. Here’s an extract:

…believers of extreme heterarchy, who categorically reject any sort of actual ranking or judgements whatsoever. With very good and often noble reasons... they point out that value ranking is a hierarchical judgement that all too often translates into social oppression and inequality, and that in today’s world the more compassionate and just response is a radically egalitarian or pluralistic system - a heterarchy of equal values. And while some of these critics are, as I said, quite nobly inspired, some of them have become quite rancorous, even vicious, in their vocal condemnation of any sort of value hierarchies. "Higher" has become their all purpose dirty word.

What they don’t seem to realise is that their valued embrace of heterarchy is itself a hierarchical judgement. They value heterarchy; they feel it embodies more justice, and compassion, and decency; they contrast it with hierarchical views, which they feel are dominating and denigrating. In other words, they rank these two views, and they feel one is definitely better than the other. That is, they have their own hierarchy, their own value ranking.

But since they consciously deny hierarchy altogether, they must obscure and hide their own. They must pretend their hierarchy is not a hierarchy. Their ranking becomes unacknowledged, hidden, covert. Further, not only is their hierarchy hidden, it is self-contradictory: it is a hierarchy that denies hierarchy. They are presupposing that which they deny; they are consciously disavowing what their actual stance assumes. By refusing even to look at hierarchy, even while making massive hierarchical judgements anyway, they are saddled with a very crude and very poorly-thought-out hierarchy of values. This all too often, and unfortunately, lends an unmistakable air of hypocrisy to their stance. With much righteous indignation, they hierarchically denounce hierarchy. With their left hand they are doing what their right hand despises in everybody else. By hating judgements, and by hiding their own, they convert self-loathing into righteous condemnation of others.

Find the full article here.
I’d be interested to hear any thoughts or experiences that any of you have had around this issue. Have a level day.

Plutherosaurs

Sally Bibb, co-author of our autumn 2006 title Management F-Laws, sent me this nice quote from Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric and currently a little troubled by his divorce settlement: "'Hierarchy is an organisation with its face towards the CEO and its backside towards the customer".

She also had a really interesting piece in The Guardian recently (click here to read it) about the management style of men like John Pluthero - at Cable & Wireless - and Alan Sugar. While she, like many, finds the style of these Plutherosaurs "unbearable", it’s apparently also true that many don’t find it unbearable. Indeed, it seems that they respond well to it. Which suggests that an autocratic style either lends itself particularly well to certain individuals, groups or organizations, or that, before long, exposure to it will induce an easy acceptance of it. (Of course, this is no new idea – witness the plethora of "ised" words like brutalised and sexualised that we have to describe the way that the human (mind?, body?) can become accustomed to almost anything.

My favourite poem describes this call back to unconsciousness or slavery as follows:

As if bladderwrack
lay
declining over shingle,
waiting for the
surf’s
sobbed bite to take it back.
Salt and tyranny, smear and
tangle,
inextricably en-nerved: the slaving
call
that knits sheared
lovers
with purple laver.
Befellow the manumit’s hanker
after
the
comfort of chains, after
the wide Sargasso anchor’s
tug back to the
sea-grass
mangle.

An article on Spiral Dynamics at the Triarchy website also describes a systematised way of looking at individuals’ work preferences. Take a look at it here.