Connectedness in
Knowing and Leading: Are We Ready for
the Effort?
Lorilee R. Sandmann
Professor,
University of Georgia
Connected knowing rejects isolated, competitive modes of
learning. In an era when the population
is more diversified and social issues no long stop at the door of the
educational institutions, the world is calling for connectedness for solutions. Harold Garfinkel (1967) once stated that what
we know always depends on where, when, and with whom we know. That is situated, subjective, and
collaborated knowing. It is not just
playing “the doubting game” (Elbow, 1973, 148) – knowledge generation takes far
more than polemics.
As John Saltmarsh has posted in his blog, the next generation of
engaged scholars is more diverse, more tied to the communities, more tuned to
social justice, and more collaborative. Such
scholars are connected knowers. Rather
than researching about communities and teaching to students, we want
research with and through communities and teach with and through our
students, as allies and advocates as we seek answers through diverse ways of
knowing for the betterment of society. On
the other hand, we are tempted by the comfy idea that “great minds think
alike,” a culture that elevates individuals over the collective, and a
discourse that obscures unification with uniformity. In the mist, we lose sight that “knowledge is
made by people together…. to specific places with histories and cultures, and
to different perspectives” (O’Meara’s blog).
True connected knowing does not come naturally or easily. Spelman (1988) noted that knowing others, even
those who are much like us, is strenuous.
Connected knowing is “a rigorous, deliberate, and demanding procedure, a
way of knowing that requires work” (Clinchy, 1996, p. 208).
As a firm believer that leadership matters, I can’t help thinking
about connected leading, an idea intrigued by the notion of connected knowing. Rustled with many notions such as leadership
for social justice, transformational leadership, shared leadership, and
collective leadership, the field of educational leadership is definedly unsettled. How can leadership ensure and promote
connected knowing within campuses and with communities? My study of the Carnegie Foundation’s community
engagement classified institutions reveal that leadership for community
engagement is a multi-layered, connected function running along the contour of
essential expertise, rather than fixated with positions and pinned to individual
leaders.
Excited as I am, I believe the 2012 conference is a live example of
connected knowing. Differences are not
something that should separate a common cause if we acknowledge and appreciate
them. The real danger is a blindness and
unwillingness to dismantle the wall that divide us and block the connections. Are we ready and committed to the effort that
such connected knowing and leading will take?
Clinchy, B. M.
(1996). Connected and separate knowing: Toward a marriage of two minds. In
Goldberger, N. R., Clinchy, B. M., Tarule, J. M., & Belenky, M. F. (Eds.),
Knowledge, difference, and power: Essays inspired by women’s ways of knowing
(pp. 205-331). New York, NY: Basic Books.
Elbow, P. (1973).
Writing without teachers. New York,
NY: Oxford University Press.
Garfinkel, H.
(1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Spelman, E.
(1988). Inessential woman: Problems of exclusion in feminist thought. Boston,
MA: Beacon Press.
