Rushiella Songca, University of South Africa
The Big Idea
Consistent with our effort to review worldly research publications for our PDP coaches, this paper on transdisciplinarity training was published in the International Journal of African Renaissance Studies. Professor Songca isn’t writing explicitly for our PDP readers, but there is a way of seeing the paper as though he were.
Remarkably, the kind of transdisciplinarity training described in this appeal is consistent with a line of thinking in coaching education and development that values collaboration, dialogue, and interaction over control, mastery, and expertise. In many ways, these value differences are at the core of the contemporary changes in thinking about the values of coaching and the coaching of values.
Takeaways
- This paper begins with the view that from an academic stance, no matter the depth of our knowledge, the largest of our social problems remain unsolved.
- In part, this predicament persists because the typical approach to study is to cleave the problem into so many parts that we are unable to see the whole problem ever more.
- Transdisciplinarity is presented as a way to put together what has been taken apart.
- It proceeds by looking laterally, not directly, thereby being open to solutions that present themselves, that appear in the crevasses between academic disciplines.
- In coaching, for example, once we accept the inevitability of our world to be unpredictable, we begin to find new ways of seeing that open up if we are alert to their ever-possible appearance.
- And as coaches, once we get by the need to control and measure and contrive and predict, we begin to see emerging opportunities as we follow not what we know but rather what we do not know.
- If what we know is what we call knowledge, then what we do not know is called understanding.
- Learning to understand is playing in this chaotic world which demands: learning to communicate, learning to be open, and learning the courage to abandon as necessary what is unquestioned in our coaching philosophy and practice.
The Research
So, let’s begin unpacking this discussion to see what we can see that might help coaches coach.
Let’s start at the larger level of social problems as such. When it comes to social problems such as oppression, violence, exploitation, and poverty, such problems are still obviously persistent. Whatever approaches we have used in the past to solve these problems have come up short—and obviously.
The newest way many academicians are problem-solving is from a starting point of accepting that these problems are incredibly complex, and characterized by uncertainty. And given that scientists have always valued the pursuit of certainty, we find ourselves in something of a paradox. The way out of this paradox is for us to reconsider our primary values. In the face of persistent social problems, scientists world-wide are reconsidering their own values. The upshot of this re-valuing is to accept that our human condition is fraught with chaos, contradiction, and unpredictability. And this requires a different way of learning.
What is transdisciplinarity?
In academic-speak, transdisciplinarity is other than traditional disciplinary fields of study. It in no way erases these disciplines. But it is, as Songca says, “across the disciplines, between the disciplines, and beyond and outside the disciplines.” It, as a way of seeing, traverses all the disciplines—there are several thousand academic disciplines and uncountable sub-disciplines—and it zigs and zags, crisscrosses, and moves laterally. In its coherent randomness, it covers the distances between disciplines in its attempt to understand the larger world that typical disciplines have divided up into ever-smaller units of study.
In the world of coaching, we suppose many coaches are instinctively already working at the level of transdisciplinarity. That is, when coaches let go of the linear, quantifiable, controlling, and direct way of approaching their responsibilities they are on the way to discovering creative solutions, innovation, and ideation. They are not so much coaching their sport as they are being coached by it. That is, they are invited to zig-and-zag, move laterally, anticipate nothing all the while preparing for everything.
Rethinking what we know and what we don’t know
Problems emerge. Whether social problems writ large or dealing with complications in coaching a sport, solutions demand learning. In the history of academic institutions, ordinary learning is confined to ever-increasing-sub-disciplinary specializations. The virtue of transdisciplinarity is its role of integrating what we do know by way of forging bridges between disciplines. What is particularly special about such mutual learning is that it derives not from what we know, but from what we do not know.
What we know, even collectively, is traditionally what we call knowledge. But what we don’t know is what sets us on the road to understanding. Songca uses this distinction between knowledge and understanding to derive the role of transdisciplinarity both in the academic world and the larger world of life experience. Knowing in the traditional sense is fragmented. But in learning to understand, “one can only understand that of which one becomes a part,” Songca writes. Understanding bridges the traditional gap between subject and object. The searching subject becomes inseparably integrated with the object searched for and discovered. The example Songca uses comes from the scholar Max-Neef: “So, you might know everything that can be known about Love; but you will only understand Love, once you fall in love.”
The practice of learning to understand
Songca suggests several factors involved in learning to understand—which is a clearer shorthand for transdisciplinarity. These factors can be briefly discussed as they adhere to the skill of coaching sports.
- Communication. This first factor may seem obvious. Even so, what Songca advocates is using communication to foster understanding. That knack means we engage in dialogue. In coaching, such dialogue means we seek to embrace the views of our players, our coaching team, and even the views of those who came before us.
By way of dialogue we gradually let go of our prejudices. We are less likely to adhere to “my way or the highway.” We are learning to listen and learn, thereby transcending our conditioning. We are announcing our commitment to help ourselves help others “reach their potential and discover their hidden possibilities.”
- Openness. This idea of growing into our sport doesn’t mean we abandon what we already believe to be true about where we stand—whether coaching principles, philosophy, or practice. It just means we consistently send the signal to others that we are open to new ideas; that we accept the unpredictability of our environment; that we recognize the complexity of our sport; and that we recognize our need to be open to learning opportunities that present themselves in planning, practice, and play.
- Commitment and courage-to-abandon. And yet, there are times when we are forced to recognize that our commitment to learning for understanding will mean abandoning our favorite approaches to being a coach. This takes courage. Breaking our traditional routines and decision processes isn’t easy. Because we ourselves are part and parcel of our coaching style or practice, submerged questions of “Who am I?” or “Where am I?” can emerge. The courage to abandon our taken-for-granted coaching approaches requires us to question our values, our convictions, and most importantly ourselves. We learn thereby that giving up power over others empowers us to realize the empowerment of others. In giving ourselves to others we, in the end, find ourselves.
