Why is finding middle ground difficult? There are reasons. The first is that the generalizations that accompany positions on either side of the middle are easier to articulate and to empassion. The second is that from the middle you must counter both sides of the issue at the same time.
Hilda Taba (1902-67) was a renowned curriculum reformer and teacher educator whose groundbreaking work with inductive reasoning gives us insight into a chronic organizational malady – the We/They Conundrum. Taba helped educators understand the development of and need for data-based concepts and generalizations. The concepts and generalizations we create based upon “antecedent data” sculpts the way in which we perceive future experiences. And, there lies the We/They rub. Our past conceptualizations shape our future thinking.
A key step for Taba’s inductive reasoning is the organization of data. She asks students to analyze presented data by identifying their characteristics and grouping the data by “these are alike or similar” and “these are different or dissimilar.” Studying grouped data allows students to develop concepts and then generalizations. It is these generalizations students, and adults, use everyday as a basis for understanding their life experiences.
As social beings, we all are Taba-esque. We analyze our world and make conscious and unconscious analysis of what we see and experience. We innately group things that “are like me” and things that “are different than me.” The things that are like me tend to support and reinforce who we think we are in the world. Naturally, we prefer to be with and be associated with “things like me”, because they nurture our comfort zone. Comfort easily morphs into conformity and we begin to assume the characteristics of “things like me” as our characteristics.
Conversely, we disassociate from things that are “not like me.” Regardless that our disassociation is conscious or unconscious, we physically and emotionally move away from people and situations that are not like us. Discomfort defines our reality and our reaction to what is not like us and we conform to groups who share that discomfort.
We do this association and disassociation all the time. We find comfort in associations with our personal family and personal friends. Associations with workmates provide us with professional or vocational titles – we work in education, the financial world, the trades, human services industries, and in telecommunications. We are teachers, bankers, personal assistants, electricians, and programmers. We see ourselves in the world we occupy through the lens of these titles and associations and the world sees us as belonging to these titles and associations.
To apply Taba-esque generalizing, our affinity for people like us and avoidance of people not like us leads us to unconscious and then conscious “we/they” thinking. The world of stuff, time and place is divided into ours and theirs with all the fences and protection devices that accompany possession. Our thinking becomes parochial. Hence, the problem – within our self-imposed associations we find it difficult to accept the point of view, wants and needs, or values of those in differing groups. We perceive them to be “stuck” within their self-imposed association-based thinking that prevents them from accepting the “righteousness” of our perspective and point of view. They, in turn, fully believe that we are the ones who are stuck in narrowed thinking.
We/they propositions meet at the battle lines where “us” must be found.
There is a remedy to oppositional points of view. It lies in the application of another educational/mathematics device: Venn diagrams. One of the purposes of using for Venn diagrams is to identify and understand difference and convergence. We draw a circle to represent one set of similar data. We draw another circle to represent a different set of data. Then we attempt to overlay one circle over the other to identify any “shared” data. Most often, the overlaying turns into two side-by-side circles that overlap just a little. The majority of each circle represents the defining data of each group that is significantly different than the other data set. Shared data lies in the overlap. When more than two data sets are analyzed, the Venn diagram begins to look like leaves of a flower that slightly overlap each other in the middle.
For example, in the field of education there are teachers and administrators. Using Taba, there are similarities and differences in each of these associative groups that are professionally trained, work to educate others, and often are school-based. But, in our world of competing interested, each sees the other as a “they”. There are differences in professional compensation, scope of professional work, and professional responsibility and authority. These differences too often overpower the similarities.
It is easy for members of “we” groups to remain in the comfort of their circle. We look outward from our circle of comfort at issues and problems and define solutions and our future using only the set of data, concepts and generalizations of our association. When this happens, walls of defense rise.
A different approach is to define ourselves by the commonalities that we have with other associative groups – to look at our overlapping data, concepts and generalizations. If two associative groups can do this, accept and work with their commonalities, they begin to identify the “us” that is the shared interests of “we” and “they.” An “us” exists in the overlap whenever any two or more groups let down enough of their defining/defensive walls to look for common ground. Finding the “us” does not diminish their group’s commonality; in fact, it can strengthen those defining characteristics because necessitates a re-examination of the group’s underlying data set. Re-examination that also can strengthen the identification of commonality with other groups.
Taba thinking returns when a new “us” is found. The identified shared characteristics create new generalizations that describe “us” and “us” can use these generalizations to define their future experiences.
When disparate groups identify common ground with others and begin to work for the benefit of “us”, everyone benefits.