From Problems to Paradoxes

Dear friends,

Have you ever stopped to think about why we have so many methods and practices to reduce human suffering in the education space, but the harm persists? In the past 20 years alone, we have started organizations, schools, and collectives to solve problems that we have defined as the achievement gap, the reading crisis, the school-to-prison pipeline, and most recently, learning loss. We have led small tests, design challenges, and start-up weekends to ignite the entrepreneurial spirit. We have gotten proximate, closer to the margins, and reflected on our privilege and power. While these efforts are sincere, the return on the investment could be described as a loss—the most marginalized and excluded live sicker and die younger. What if this is not because of our allocation of money or heartfelt sentiment, but because we have mistyped the phenomena we collectively experience??

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What if the problems we see are not really problems at all??What if they are better characterized as paradoxes that require not linear thinking, but dialectical thinking as a tool and community as a technology to unlock deeper understandings? Treating one as the other only dances at the edges of the problem without the technologies, preparation, and endurance to descend. We run in circles of confusion with mad libs and other technical tools that fail to challenge and reveal the hidden knowledge systems that undergird our thought processes. But how do we see how we are thinking as designers? How do we see how we are moving as designers???

We have come to understand that the need for healing and the experience of harm in human relationships is better characterized as a paradox—absurd beliefs that are self-contradictory in nature. These paradoxes can only be dissolved by the person holding them. Facts do not always change behavior or beliefs. Calling someone a racist, sexist, or an oppressor only creates more space without changing the behaviors that cause harm.?How can we design thoughtful learning experiences that help humans see the paradoxes they hold and give them space and time to dissolve them themselves??This is a new edge of our work. We do not have all of the answers, but we think that community and dialogue are some of the technologies that can help us on our journey.?