Let me turn to my brother G. Thomas Fox’s book linking uncertainty and “becoming edGe-ucated.” It strikes me as being very, very timely. I began my book called The A.W.E. Project on reinventing education with an observation from the Dalai Lama that “education is in crisis the world over.” I think both Tom and I intuited the same thing years ago.
Tom Fox steps out of the usual posing of the educational problem in his book and, in a typically creative way, proposes that the key to education is uncertainty, not certainty. That the systems we have set up are about passing on what we know (or think we know) about reality and this ultimately renders learning boring.
For Tom, it is what we don’t know that gets us excited and motivated to learn and he invokes science to prove his case. He cites neuroscientist Daeyeol Lee, “we only learn when there is uncertainty, and that is a good thing.” When things are stable, we learn less. “Activity in the frontal cortex becomes dramatically reduced where there is little uncertainty about an event occurring or not occurring.”
I wonder if this is one reason why art as meditation is so effective—when you are birthing a picture or dance or clay or poem you are uncertain what it is until it comes into being and tells you what it is.
The brain is always on edge in our acts of creativity therefore.
An article in The Guardian called “Why we’re hardwired to hate uncertainty” demonstrates why the human brain over the eons has regarded uncertainty as dangerous. Alas! Most educational institutions follow the undangerous path and ignore the unknown, which is really where we learn the most.
From a spiritual and mystical point of view, Tom Fox is talking about the via negativa and what Meister Eckhart called “unknowing knowledge” and what we might call the power of mystery to allure us. Exploring mystery and the unknown.
Psychotherapist and Hasidic mystic Estelle Frankel writes about the via negativa stunningly in her important book, The Wisdom of Not Knowing: Discovering a Life of Wonder by Embracing Uncertainty. I think she would love my brother’s book—and vice versa.
Tom Fox also takes up the subject of wonder and education and cites Nobel Prize winner physicist, Professor Frank Wilzek in his book Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality. He, like so many scientists, communicates to a reading public the unsolved questions of their times. In the process, Tom says, all [scientists] express their extraordinary wonder in what they have found and are finding. The other message is their increased appreciation—and sometimes surprise—for how capable our human minds have been in building useful and increasingly more accurate understanding of natural wonders….*
To be continued.
* G. Thomas Fox, on becoming edGe-ucated: how uncertainty can link the frontiers of expert inquiry to the education of all. Reykjavik: Bósala Stúdenta, 2024, pp. 257, 253, 252, 225.
See Matthew Fox, The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human.
And Fox, Confessions: The Making of a Postdenominational Priest, pp. 116f., 126-165, 327-362.
And Fox, The Reinvention of Work, pp. 169-189.
And Fox, Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet.
Banner Image: “Creative Process+Sharon.” Photo by Julie Jordan Scott on on Flickr.
Queries for Contemplation
“We only learn when there is uncertainty and that is a good thing.” Do you agree with that observation from a neuroscientist? What follows from that?
Recommended Reading
The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human
The A.W.E. Project reminds us that awe is the appropriate response to the unfathomable wonder that is creation… A.W.E. is also the acronym for Fox’s proposed style of learning – an approach to balance the three R’s. This approach to learning, eldering, and mentoring is intelligent enough to honor the teachings of the Ancestors, to nurture Wisdom in addition to imparting knowledge, and to Educate through Fox’s 10 C’s. The 10 C’s are the core of the A.W.E. philosophy and process of education, and include: compassion, contemplation, and creativity. The A.W.E. Project does for the vast subject of “learning” what Fox’s Reinvention of Work did for vocation and Original Blessing did for theology. Included in the book is a dvd of the 10 C’s put to 10 video raps created and performed by Professor Pitt.
“An awe-based vision of educational renewal.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.
Confessions: The Making of a Post-Denominational Priest (Revised/Updated Edition)
Matthew Fox’s stirring autobiography, Confessions, reveals his personal, intellectual, and spiritual journey from altar boy, to Dominican priest, to his eventual break with the Vatican. Five new chapters in this revised and updated edition bring added perspective in light of the author’s continued journey, and his reflections on the current changes taking place in church, society and the environment.
“The unfolding story of this irrepressible spiritual revolutionary enlivens the mind and emboldens the heart — must reading for anyone interested in courage, creativity, and the future of religion.”
—Joanna Macy, author of World as Lover, World as Self
The Reinvention of Work: A New Vision of Livelihood For Our Time
Thomas Aquinas said, “To live well is to work well,” and in this bold call for the revitalization of daily work, Fox shares his vision of a world where our personal and professional lives are celebrated in harmony–a world where the self is not sacrificed for a job but is sanctified by authentic “soul work.”
“Fox approaches the level of poetry in describing the reciprocity that must be present between one’s inner and outer work…[A]n important road map to social change.” ~~ National Catholic Reporter
Creativity: Where the Divine and Human Meet
Because creativity is the key to both our genius and beauty as a species but also to our capacity for evil, we need to teach creativity and to teach ways of steering this God-like power in directions that promote love of life (biophilia) and not love of death (necrophilia). Pushing well beyond the bounds of conventional Christian doctrine, Fox’s focus on creativity attempts nothing less than to shape a new ethic.
“Matt Fox is a pilgrim who seeks a path into the church of tomorrow. Countless numbers will be happy to follow his lead.” –Bishop John Shelby Spong, author, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, Living in Sin
5 thoughts on “G. Thomas Fox on edGe-ucation”
“Let’s Learn to Learn”
Learning is learning whether it be a certainty or uncertainty. Let us not ‘put the cart before the horse’. After we learn anything new, we become free to discern and analyse its attributes. This should become the ‘scientist’ within us all, else all knowledge ‘learned’ is passed on as certainty until reality ‘blows it up’ out of the water, or in our faces.
To be engaging, learning has to be ‘experiential’ and draw us in with wonder and fill us out with expectation of more, more to learn, more to feed our innate curiosity. Sometimes this is in the form of problem solving and the creation of the best possible solution given limited information and lots of grey areas. In the business world, the changing nature of controllable and uncontrollable market forces, requires constant and creative problem solving. It is rare that a true problem is solved with a ‘concrete solution’ unless the problem was already solved somewhere else with some degree of effectiveness. That would be called ‘passed on’ learning. Let’s learn to learn. – BB.
Yes! Spiritually, for me/us, learning through uncertainty means being open in our hearts, bodies, minds, and spiritually to the Divine LOVING Healing Creative Flow of the Sacred Process of the Eternal Present Moment with-in Our LOVING Diverse Wholeness~ONENESS Evolving Earth~COSMOS… Being~Becoming Our COSMIC CHRIST CONSCIOUSNESS….
I agree with Bill Barlett above. Why create a dualism with respect to learning? Or why restrict what learning can be? Learning languages is largely learning what is already there although the uncertainty of the beginner can make it a courageous undertaking that eventually may lead lead to something creative and new. With science a lot has to be learned that can be less than exciting before the ability to explore the unknown may be reached.
Humans transmitted knowledge from generation to generation, sharing their knowledge-resources in order to survive.
Elders passed along knowledge from the ancients in mythic wisdom-sagas that were meant to teach ancient Truths while challenging simplistic understanding. They invited discussion while demanding to be deeply pondered, both intuitively and intellectually.
Mysticism –i.e., Biblical (Neoplatonic) Mysticism, my graced mysticism — is an ancient, sacred Wisdom-Knowledge, successfully transmitted for at least 2,500 years (but less so, these last few centuries, apparently). It is not, and was never meant to be, a dualistic, intellectual philosophical analysis of the world.
Instead, it’s an experiential, mystical, non-dualistic soul-lesson and soul-healing, culminating with a direct, transformational intuitive WISDOM-Revelation from God-Spirit to human soul, unveiling the deepest sacred core Intuitions, always precisely the same — recognizable across cultures, languages, and even religions. It is a Path of discovering, exploring, and integrating that sacred Revelation, its meaning and implications, embodying it to the fullest extent.
“Made in God’s image”, this seed of Sacred Divine Truth is built into every human soul. That’s a Wisdom-lesson passed down from ancient mystics.
Well said. Thank you,