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 .