More thoughts on Schon and the question of autonomy!

Following on from my last post and echoing some of the thoughts of my fellow class bloggers. Clearly access to the internet for one has attributed to a large scale debunking of professional knowledge and the media contributes greatly to the loss of trust in professions per se and professional knowledge, varoius professionals being exposed on a regular basis for either misconduct, wrong doing and generally holding their own rather than the public interests paramount. Unfortunately this type of media exposure does as we know end up giving us a warped view of how things really are for the most part, we only have to look at how stories of sex offenders and child abductions like the Madeline McCann case attributing to the mindset that there's a pedofile on every corner waiting to snatch your child away and that the world is not as safe a place as it used to be, but statistical evidence relating to this does not bear this out .

The issue of trust and how this effects professional autonomy is a big one. We are living in a culture where we are lacking in trust don't feel that professions are accountable and as a result the autonomy once enjoyed is gradually being eroded. Case in point the example Grant gave us of not being able to set his own essay questions any more without having first passed by a board. Autonomy is important in the workplace, doesn't everyone want to be trusted to get on with their role, to know that people trust in their judgement, abilities and experience, afterall isn't it on this basis that we are employed in the first place but with that autonomy shouldn't there be responsibilities such as accepting accountability, transparency in your work and an openess to being challenged .

Schon - The Crisis in Confidence ....

A few thoughts on Schon's article (better late than never).

Schon says in his article that we are wholly dependent on professionals to define and provide solutions to our problems, but is this really the case ? Was it ever the case ? Since the rise in professionals in the labour market hasn't there at the same time at least in the West, been a massive rise in the knowledge base of the general population with greater access to education and with this a huge growth in literacy rates since the turn of the century and hence greater access to the written word (knowledge). With the internet revolution so much information is available at the touch of a button, never have we had the opportunity to be so well informed on all matters trivial to those of great global importance.
If we so wish and are motivated and diligent enough so much of this so called "specialist knowledge is ours for the taking . Specialised knowledge isn't specialised anymore. Case in point, in my previous job I was supporting families who had children with chronic and in some cases life threatening illnesses . Amongst the families I supported there was one very tenacious and inspiring mother who was in such a position, her daughter had been diagnosed with such an illness, after beginning to research the condition her self at length and on a global scale the mother began to question whether the correct diagnosis had been given, over a period of first months and years she has been equiping her self with truely staggering level of knowlege about her daughter's condition to the point where she became more than a match for child's consultant and raised doubts about the original diagnosis.
For some professionals, your judgement being called into question must be a bitter pill to swallow so to speak but it's a good thing and more power to the people for it.

Miss Understood on Tuesday 3rd Feb

Hi Everyone,

This is my very first blog, so far so good for someone not very IT literate.