Incompetence

dingdong887180022

Apr 24

The following thoughts came from one of those ad hoc conversations that occur from time to time in bell towers between touches, when individuals get into conversations that have the rest of the band willing them to stop wasting time and to get on with ringing. I am sharing them in the hope that someone, particularly teachers and tower leaders, may find them useful.

In psychology and amongst certain pedagogues, it is recognised that there are 4 stages of competence. These relate to the psychological states involved in progressing from incompetence to competence when acquiring a skill.

At first learners do not know how little they know. They are unconscious of their incompetence. I reckon if I had known all that I would need to know to become even a very average bell ringer, I would not have made the effort to try. However, as I struggle to acquire this new skill, I begin to recognise my incompetence and the need for hard work to learn and then to consciously use the painstakenly acquired skill. I am working towards unconscious competence, when things will be second nature and not require the degree of effort and concentration that is required to accomplish even the very basic of things.

Briefly, the 4 stages are

Unconscious incompetence – you know diddly squat, but you don't even realise that you know diddly squat. You may even deny the usefulness of the skill being proposed (I know some apologies are in order for this particular stage – sorry, all you patient teachers who tried to keep me on the straight path, as I rejected all your hard-earned experience)
Conscious incompetence – you don't know how to do something but you recognise the deficit and are ready to start active learning. This is my present position and it is not a comfortable one. Rather like sitting on a very pointy spike, scared to move in case it pokes you in a vulnerable place.
Conscious competence – you know the theory of how to do something, but you can only do it if you concentrate very hard. There is much conscious involvement in executing your new skill.
Unconscious competence – the nirvana of competence. You have practised and worried at something so often that it can be performed without a second thought. In a bell ringing context, you can ring your own bell, point out where everyone else should be and throw in a few calls for good measure. You may even be able to scratch your nose and tie up your shoe laces at the same time

But it is about more than technical learning. When learning something new, a range of emotions come into play, especially at the very beginning. Frustration, perseverance, elation, exhilaration, judgement, failure are all felt to a varying degree. At the start, the excitement and passion for this fascinating new activity of bell ringing seemed to carry me through the uncomfortable feelings, but the enforced interruption did me no favours. My new skill was not yet so firmly embedded to allow me to pick up where I had left off, yet my grasp of theory and understanding of methods had made tremendous leaps forward. I fell into a vicious circle of disappointment because I had to take huge steps backwards. Unfortunately, I lacked the emotional skills to handle the disappointment. I have sailed through life without experiencing many set-backs. I had a natural aptitude for academic learning that served me well at school because I always received positive feedback without too much effort. If ever I came up against anything that I was not particularly gifted at – playing the cello, using power tools, skiing – I did not bother to continue because there was not enough incentive to push through the awkward first clumsy stages. Learning to drive a car is probably the only challenging thing that I have ever done, and that took years to enjoy. I am altogether ill-suited to struggle and failure because I have little experience of struggle and failure.

Bell ringing felt different and I stuck with it because it was sufficiently fascinating to make the effort worthwhile and from the very start I felt that in some curious way I "belonged". Because I am not used to failure, I cast around for short cuts to help me through the maze of incompetence, rather than just accepting that it would be a long old haul, many would over-take me and at times it would feel pointless. Coming to terms with not being very good is especially hard for people who have a lifetime's experience of being quite good at the things that they attempt. We have the self-awareness to "know what we don't know" but lack the character to follow the route that many others follow. We try to find ways around the obstacles, rather than slog on with the donkey work. Hence my ropesight woes. Rather than patiently watch and wait for the fog to clear and accept all the advice so often given, I attempt to circumnavigate the problem by trying to find complicated solutions that "work for me" whilst rejecting the more obvious solutions that have worked for generations of bell ringers. Furthermore, I am impatient to implement all the theory that I know before I have the basic skills required to do so. It is clearly frustrating for more experienced ringers to watch, but nowhere near as frustrating as it is for me to endure because the emotional tools of resilience, acceptance, patience are not my strengths.

Learning to cope with failure and setbacks at a mature age is challenging. At times it would be much easier to admit defeat and retreat to my comfortable and safe life where challenges are rare, but on the other hand it is exciting to be pushed out of one's comfort zone, even if I had to wait until I was a pensioner to experience such levels of discomfort.

Luckily I do have more support than any one person can reasonably expect so will push on through, and as I become increasingly aware of just how unresilient I am, I can work on this life skill alongside the skills required to successfully ring church bells.

At the end of the day, the resilience and emotional strength gained will probably benefit me more than any amount of excellent striking or complicated methods mastered. A new selling point for recruiting perhaps:

Do you lack emotional resilience and perseverance? Learn to ring and be guaranteed ample practice in these valuable life skills….

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