What does it mean to be a ‘competent’ person in the 21st century? Helen Haste Harvard Graduate School of Education University of Bath, UK

Competence Adaptation Adaptive and flexible reflection Not skills, though it may involve skills Adaptation to change which may include maintenance of continuity

‘Being competent’ means: Being able to resource appropriate tools, critically Being able to manage conflict productively Being able to adapt to new situations reflectively Being able to be an agent, responsibly.

Problem-solver Tool-user

Knowledge based Praxis based

Interaction WITH THE ENVIRONMENT - IN DIALOGUE Interaction WITH OTHER PEOPLE IN DIALOGUE.

How change happens More of the same Quantity into quality The knight’s move

5 Competences Managing ambiguity and uncertainty Agency and responsibility Finding and maintaining community Managing emotion Technological change

Managing ambiguity and uncertainty

Perspective taking Managing ‘multiple selves’ Multi-tasking on moral issues Managing ambiguity and conflict Appraising cultural variation

Agency and responsibility

Efficacy and agency Being able to take responsibility Recognising the personal obligation to take responsibility Drawing on appropriate cultural narratives defining one’s responsibility

Finding and maintaining community

Perspective-taking within the community Perspective-taking outside the community, vis a vis community interests Taking responsibility for connecting and coordinating Defining, and resisting, boundaries of community [In Putnam’s terms] bonding and bridging

Managing emotion

In Western thought, reflected in much psychological research, there are four main ‘theories’ of emotion. Each ‘explains’ the relationship between reason and emotion in different ways Only one is a really ‘competent’ way of dealing with emotion

* Emotion DISORGANISES reason; it distorts or corrupts pure logic * Emotion is ORGANISING in the sense that it provides the energy, or motive, for decisions reached through reason to be acted upon. But reason and emotion are still separate and reason is more trustworthy than emotion

Emotion and reason are separate, but emotion is more trustworthy especially about human relationships: “You should listen to your heart rather than your head” “The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.” Blaise Pascal

* The neuroscientist Antonio Damasio has shown that brain- damaged people who have lost their emotional function, and therefore are pure ‘reasoners’ (like Mr Spock), are incapable of making life decisions. Therefore, BOTH reason AND emotion are essential to problem- solving and decision-making; they are NOT SEPARATE

Finding ways to reflect productively on one’s own emotions and those of others Self-aware integration of emotion and reason without denying either Recognising a ‘moral’ emotion as distinct from a self-defending emotion Distinguishing immediate responses - eg disgust - from culturally conditioned responses [example of homosexuality]

Managing technological change and changing social practices

Adapting to new social practices New forms of communication and their implications: Opportunities for expanding social networks Democratising agency and responsibility, including in the civic domain

Evidence of new social practices Civic engagement; Obama campaign, WTO, Iraq War and other demonstrations High levels of skills, especially organisational and leadership, in complex gaming

Implications for traditional models of education Bottom-up rather than top-down Knowledge accessed and modified by the agent Praxis is virtual as well as real and the two may combine Individual assessment and the losing battle with plagiarism

What is needed to capitalise on this for education? Rethinking the role of the teacher Enhancing critical reflection and selection in the context of bottom-up access to information Encouragement of responsible use of innovative resources

Capitalising on….. Collaborative and interactive working, and finding ways to evaluate it Opportunities for agency, leadership and organising skills within gaming and collaboration Opportunities for identity and perspective-taking beyond the ingroup

Caveats….. -Still an access gap, though narrowing -Consumer culture, including consumerist identity and consumer politics -Separation of ‘school’ and ‘leisure’ culture -‘Managing’ of grassroots power -Blogging only to the converted -Illusion of power and free choice