ABSTRACT
I am a curious scholar keen to explore engaging ways of tertiary teaching and learning in order to make a positive difference in the world. I have been a teacher for most of my professional life and have always attempted to integrate practical ways of being in my academic teaching. I am a social worker by my basic qualification and in my view, practical wisdom is a prerequisite of being an effective one. The mission of social work is to create social change, but very often social workers are perceived and act as agents of social control. It is a profession which grapples with numerous paradoxes, and managers and leaders in social work need to develop creative leadership styles to be able to stand up for the ‘under dog’ and get funded by the ‘top dog’ (the ‘top dog’ in this context being government departments, corporations or philanthropists without whose funding social service agencies cannot exist). Bourdieu observes:
Social workers must fight unceasingly on two fronts: on the one hand, against those they want to help and who are often too demoralised to take in hand their own interest, let alone the interest of the collective: on the other hand, against the administrations and bureaucrats divided and enclosed in separate universes.
