Praxis : the essence of systems for being

![CDATA[I used to hold that the greatest impediment to education reform was the constraining dimensions of the argument generated between the theorists on the one hand and practitioners on the other. It seemed to me that no more energy was spent, nor confusion created, nor conflict generated, nor friendships lost than in the field of passion presented by this dichotomy. Its enervating effects seemed to be felt at every level; from national policy deliberations about the balance between academic education and vocational training, down to discussions of individual subject curricula in primary school, about thinking and doing, or worse, about knowledge and skills! At every level of involvement, progress seemed measured by the extent to which consensus could be achieved between the poles of conflict around the relative importance of knowing versus doing. It had indeed become an issue of competitive exclusion - knowing had become divorced from doing and vice versa, and indeed had been placed in opposition to it!]]