The Collective Wisdom of Practice: Leading Our Professional Learning from Success

any professional learning endeavors are grounded in the idea of learning from our failures and problems -- in particular, the idea that thinking about problems as a source of reflection and discovery opens a space for new knowledge, as relevant information comes to light and as new questions arise. However, there is equally strong research support for a counter-narrative -- that reviewing problems can also be associated with responses of denial and avoidance. Practitioners involved in reviewing failures may potentially experience a sense of threat, which tends to perpetuate the same defensive dynamics that may have contributed to the failure in the first place, hence restricting authentic inquiry and possible change"