Do the values and living logics I express in my educational relationships carry the hope of Ubuntu for the future of humanity?

Jack Whitehead, University of Bath

FINAL DRAFT 14TH SEPTEMBER 2004

A contribution to the Symposium on How are we contributing to a new scholarship of educational enquiry through our pedagogisation of postcolonial living educational theories in the Academy? held at BERA 04 in Manchester, 16-18 September, 2004 with:

Paulus Murray - Royal Agricultural College, UK (see paper at http://www.actionresearch.net//bera04/pmbera1.htm)

Sarah Fletcher - University of Bath, UK (Withdrawn 11 September 2004)

Je Kan Adler-Collins - Fukuoka University, Japan

Jack Whitehead - University of Bath, UK

In the proposal for this Symposium we said that:

In our practitioner-research in higher education we have been influenced by Schon’s (1995) call for the development of a new epistemology for the new scholarship. In contributing to this epistemology we will focus on the communicability of our living standards of judgement, our units of appraisal and our living logics of educational enquiry. While we recognise our uniqueness in who we are and what we are doing as individuals influenced by Islamic, Christian, Buddhist and Humanistic values and beliefs we also recognise and experience an inclusional (Rayner, 2002) flow of life-affirming energy from each other. We each experience this energy differently in the expression of our embodied, spiritual and other values and recognise a desire in each other to work with each other's inclusional ways of being.

Researching our educational practices in Japan, and the UK we will show how we have transformed the embodied educational values in our educational relationships, into the living, epistemological standards of judgement we use in explaining both our own learning and in explaining our educational influence with those we teach.  We will also explain how, in our pedagogisation (Bernstein, 2000) of living educational theories (Whitehead, 1989) within our Academies, we have contributed to the education of these social formations. The explanations will show the significance of a determination to persist in transcending some of the pressures that can push individuals to submit to the reproduction of anexisting social formation when living educational values more fully requires a social transformation.

Evidence from research into our own educational practices shows that we each are working with the post-colonial intention of not imposing our own values and beliefs on those of others, but of working with the intention of bringing those values that carry hope for humanity more fully into the world and stemming the flow of those values that do not carry such hope.

With evidence of our use of ICT in our pedagogy we will examine to what extent we are acting locally and influencing globally in the development of a new scholarship of educational enquiry (Adler-Collins, 2000) through the pedagogisation of postcolonial living educational theories (Murray, 2004) in the Academy.

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The above statements affirm my commitment to inclusional ways of being and relating. They explicitly recognise each others’ uniqueness and, while being open to question, provide a ‘frame’ for this self-study contribution to the Symposium. In addition to this frame I also want to provide a postcolonial axiological statement that has emerged from correspondence with Paulus Murray as I felt and sought to express the influence of the ‘we-i’ living inclusional values of Ubuntu.

The European white colonial project was a holocaust against black and brown and other indigenous peoples across the globe. We understand as educators that we are living with the legacy in contemporary European and Western nation statesof those white supremacist beliefs and attitudes that fuelled this crime against humanity. As living educational theorists we appreciate that postcolonialism offers the theoretical space to develop postcolonial practices necesary for addressing this colonial aftermath.

I also want to add some insights from Viljoen’s (1996) criticism of Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin’s (1989) ideas in The Empire Writes Back, where postcolonialism is defined as that which undermines colonialism rather than that which follows after colonialism and the use of the term postcolonial is extended to cover "all the culture affected by the imperial process from the moment of colonization until the present day".  In answering my question, Do the values and living logics I express in my educational relationships carry the hope of Ubuntu for the future of humanity? my postcolonial intent is embodied in my assumption that colonialism is undermined through the education of social formations and the commitment of individuals to live and research their lives of enquiry in which they are seeking to live more fully the values that carry hope for the future of humanity.

Viljoen’s points out that any totalising view of postcolonial literature as a homogeneous category disregards the differences between highly diverse geographic, historical, and cultural contexts like those of the African countries, the Caribbean islands, and former settler colonies like Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. I agree with Viljoen and in particular I recognise that I am open to the criticism of expressing an exclusivist embeddedness of my postcolonial theorising in English. As Viljoen says this is an important oversight in the South African situation, in which the Afrikaans and English literatures were institutionally privileged because these languages had official status in predemocratic South Africa while black languages were not afforded the same status and means of literary production (Viljoen, 1996, p. 63). In this matter of language I still have much to resolve in my existence as a living contradiction where I value English as a language of international communication while at the same time recognising its colonising potential.

In making this point about the colonising potential of my use of English in writing about the pedagogisation of living educational theories I am mindful of Spivak (1993) point about ideology in her writings about ‘Intellectuals and power: a conversation between Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze’:

I have chosen this friendly exchange between two activist philosophers of history because it undoes the opposition between authoritative theoretical production and the unguarded practice of conversation, enabling one to glimpse the track of ideology. The participants in this conversation emphasize the most important contributions of French poststructuralist theory: first, that the networks of power/desire/interest are so heterogeneous, that their reduction to a coherent narrative is counterproductive – a persistent critique is needed; and second, that intellectuals must attempt to disclose and know the discourse of society’s other. Yet the two systematically ignore the question of ideology and their own implication in intellectual and economic history. (Spivak, 1993, p.66)

I will keep as close as I can to the above commitments and understandings as well as to the theme of this Symposium on, How are we contributing to a new scholarship of educational enquiry through our pedagogisation of postcolonial living educational theories in the Academy? as I seek to answer my question: Do the values and living logics I express in my educational relationships carry the hope of Ubuntu for the future of humanity?

After I provide some contextual background into my educational research from 1967 to this 30th Anniversary of the founding of BERA in 2004, I will consider the following claims to knowledge:

 i) In my self-study research into my educational practices I:

a) can demonstrate my learning through a growing understanding of the values of Ubuntu;

b) show how I relate these values to the meanings of the embodied ontological values in my educational relationships;

c) explain how I transform these embodied ontological values into  living, epistemological standards of judgement that can be used to test the validity of my explanations of both my learning and my educational influence with those I teach. 

ii) I explain how, through my educational influence in the pedagogisation (Bernstein, 2000) of living educational theories (Whitehead, 1989) within the University of Bath and elsewhere, I am contributing to the education of these social formations.

iii) The explanation of my educational influence shows the significance of persistence of courage to be (Fletcher, 2003) in transcending some of the pressures that can push individuals to submit to the reproduction of an existing social formation, when living educational values more fully requires a social transformation.

iv) Using evidence from my use of ICT in my pedagogy I explain my educational influence in terms of making the possible, probable (Whitehead, 2003) as I pedagogise my postcolonial living educational theories (Murray, 2004). In my use of the terms pedagogy and pedagogise I am drawing on Bernstein’s meanings (2000) where he says:

Pedagogy is a sustained process whereby somebody(s) acquires new forms or develops existing forms of conduct, knowledge, practice and criteria from somebody(s) or something deemed to be an appropriate provider and evaluator - appropriate either from the point of view of the acquirer or by some other body(s) or both (Bernstein, 2000, p.78).

When I write about pedagogising living educational theories I am thinking of the sustained process of over more than 30 years of influencing the learning of practitioner-researchers through my tutoring and supervision so that they can bring into the Academy, as legitimate knowledge, their own living educational theories. In this pedagogisation of living educational theories I also stress the importance of drawing insights from the living educational theories of others as well as traditional propositional theories. This present text is part of this process of pedagogisation as I share my developing understandings ofthe nature of postcolonial living educational theories in this explanation of my own learning.

This explanation includes the evidence on how I am acting locally and communicating globally in contributing to the development of a new scholarship of educational enquiry (Adler-Collins, 2000) while seeking to carry the postcolonial hopes of Ubuntu for the future of humanity. Because this explanation also includes the living logics involved in the transformation of embodied ontological values into living epistemological standards of judgement and this complex idea may itself need clarification I will begin with  some contextual background to my educational research over the life-time of BERA.

During 1971, while teaching full-time at Erkenwald Comprehensive School in Barking, London, and studying part time for my Masters degree in the psychology of education of the London Institute, my view of educational theory began to change.During my initial teacher education at Newcastle University (1966-67) and in the Academic Diploma Course in the philosophy and psychology of education at the London Institute (1968-1970), I had come to understand educational theory as being constituted by the disciplines of the philosophy, psychology, sociology and history of education. As I engaged in a self-study of my own educational influences with my pupils, between 1967-71 I came to reject this approach as it denied one of my fundamental assumptions in my own educational theory and that was that any valid educational theory which claimed to be explaining my educational influence should relate to my explanation for this influence. Paul Hirst one of the main proponents of the old ‘disciplines’ approach to educational theory acknowledged a similar mistake in 1983 when he said that much understanding of educational theory will be developed:

"…in the context of immediate practical experience and will be co-terminous with everyday understanding. In particular, many of its operational principles, both explicit and implicit, will be of their nature generalisations from practical experience and have as their justification the results of individual activities and practices.

In many characterisations of educational theory, my own included, principles justified in this way have until recently been regarded as at best pragmatic maxims having a first crude and superficial justification in practice that in any rationally developed theory would be replaced by principles with more fundamental, theoretical justification. That now seems to me to be a mistake. Rationally defensible practical principles, I suggest, must of their nature stand up to such practical tests and without that are necessarily inadequate."

(Hirst, 1983, p. 18)

I look back on much of my learning on this programme, with a most impressive group of professional educators in the philosophy of education, as a great educational experience. However, in 1971 I did experience as ‘colonising’ the desire to replace the principles I used, to make sense of my educational practices, by principles drawn from disciplines other than educational enquiry and practice. I am using the word ‘colonising’ in the sense that I experienced a policy and practice of power as seeking to extend control over my thinking about educational theory. I connect this meaning of colonising to the more general meaning of colonialism as the policy and practice of a power in extending control over weaker peoples or areas. Because of a desire to contribute to the process of enhancing professional in education by contributing to its knowledge-base I came to a decision in 1972 to move from teaching in a comprehensive school to becoming an educational researcher in higher education to see if I could contribute to the reconstruction of educational theory with a postcolonial intent and I was fortunate to have the opportunity to do this through my move to the University of Bath in 1973. Hence, over the life-time of BERA I have sustained what I see as a commitment to contribute to the regeneration and testing of educational theories in a way that includes the embodied values of educational practitioners as practical principles that are necessary inclusions in the explanatory dynamic of an educational theory. As a benchmark of this commitment you may wish to read an early research report (Whitehead, 1976) on working with teacher-researchers to improve pupils’ learning in mixed ability groups and to create a network of teacher-researchers using a process of democratic evaluation (McDonald, 1976)

To distinguish such educational theories, which are generated from disciplines of educational practice and enquiry, from theories constituted solely by the meanings between propositions in ‘disciplines of education’ such as the philosophy, sociology, psychology and history of education, I have called them living educational theories. This idea of living theories connects with a question asked by the Soviet Logician, Ilyenkov (1977) in his book on dialectical logic when he asked, if an object exists as a living contradiction what must the thought be (statement about the object) that expresses it? The significance of Ilyenkov’s question, about the nature of the thought that can express living contradictions in language, can be appreciated in the light of Karl Popper’s rejection of theories that contain contradictions between statements (Popper 1963, p. 317). Using two laws of inference Popper demonstrates that theories containing contradictions between statements are entirely useless as theories.  One the characteristics of living theories is that they contain ‘I’ as a living contradiction. Ilyenkov did not answer his question before he died and in my view his intention to produce a ‘written’ logic rather than a ‘living logic’ was an obstacle to answering his question. He became trapped within the logical form he needed to transcend in order to answer his question.  Hence my interest in living logics in educational theories (Whitehead, 1999). I use Marcuse’s idea that logic is the form that reason takes in understanding the real as rational. My intention is to show you the meanings of the living logics that enable me to comprehend my living epistemological standards of judgement from their grounding in my embodied ontological values and scholarship of educational enquiry.

When I write about a new scholarship of educational enquiry I have in mind the growing movement of practitioner-researchers who are researching their own learning and educational influence. I have characterized this new scholarship in answers to the five questions below from a chapter in an International Handbook on Self-Study:

The Chapter is organised in terms of the five questions that have emerged from my desire to contribute to educational knowledge through educational research. They are questions about evidence in relation to the nature of knowledge and theory, of values-based standards of judgement, of educational research methodology, of a logic of educational enquiry and of educational influence:

á      Is there evidence of the generation and testing of educational theories from the embodied knowledge of s-step researchers?

á      Is there evidence of the transformation of the embodied values of the s-step researcher into the standards of judgement that can be used to test the validity of s-step accounts?

á      Is there evidence of the emergence of educational research methodologies as distinct from a social science methodology in s-step enquiries?

á      Is there evidence of a logic of educational enquiry?

á      Is there evidence of educational influence in educating oneself, in the learning of others and in the education of social formations.  (Whitehead, 2004, p. 872)

In my educational research I attach great importance to those values that appear to me to carry hope for the future of humanity. This is because I see an educational theory as an explanation of the educational influence of individuals and social formations that includes learning to live values more fully. Paulus Murray has been most influential in extending my understanding of colonialism and postcolonial theorising to include critical race studies and other postcolonial theories and his question to me continues to motivate my enquiries:

Where is the evidence of the critical engagement with the ideas of critical race theorists, critical non-racial theorists and post-colonial theorists in the formation of the identities and practices of individuals you are working with? Where is the evidence of your influence in respect of alerting them to enhancing the quality of their work by making themselves familiar with these epistemologies? (Why should you/they when they can get their PhDs/do their AR writing without making reference to their critical knowledge?) (Murray, 2003 e-mail correspondence)

As I continue to extend my understandings of how to live postcolonial values more fully and to share my learning I am affirming Erasmus’ point about the importance of an affiliation with Africa:

“ with the construction of whiteness having been a colonial project, discriminatory and racist, the ethical imperative - necessary participation in a liberatory project - is that of affiliation with Africa. Coming to terms with these facts is one of the most important and difficult challenges for coloured people. Coloured, black and African ways of being do not have to be mutually exclusive. There are ways of being coloured that allow participation in a liberatory and anti-racist project. The key task is to develop these. (Erasmus, 2001, p.16).

In particular I am associating the values of Ubuntu from an African cosmology with postcolonial values as expressed by Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela in the Truth and Reconciliation process in South Africa.

Extending the influence of these values and insights into my educational enquiries and practices includes my claim to be developing my understandings of how to enhance the flow of the ontological values of Ubuntu (Murithi, 2001), in the education of social formations. These understandings include insights from Rayner’s (2002) work on inclusional ways of being which have been influenced by his experiences in Kenya in the 1950s. They include expressions of ‘we-i’ relationships with my co-enquirers in the question of this Symposium together with responses to their violations in living contradictions. The claims to knowledge below also include insights from Joan Whitehead’s (2003) work on making the possible, probable, in my learning how to test the validity of my belief that enhancing the flow of the values of Ubuntu carries hope for the future of humanity. When you look at Joan and Jack Whitehead there is no mistaking them! In a text where both can appear as Whitehead (2004) it is confusing. On reading the BERA 04 programme you will see that we have become one, J. Whitehead! Hence I will refer to Joan as Joan Whitehead and myself as Whitehead! 

I will now address my claims to educational knowledge.

1) In my self-study research into my educational practices I can demonstrate a growing understanding of the valuesof Ubuntu and show how I relate these values to the transformation of the embodied ontological values in my educational relationships, into  living, epistemological standards of judgement that can be used to test the validity of my explanations of both my learning and my educational influence with those I teach. 

On the front of Paulus Murray’s homepage is the welcome:

By visiting, I hope to share with you some of my passion and spirit in Ubuntu - "Umuntu ngumuntu nagabantu" ~ 'A person is a person because of other people' (Murray, 2004

http://www.royagcol.ac.uk/~paul_murray/Sub_Pages/FurtherInformation.htm)

In his analysis of Ubuntu: an African Assessment of the Religious Other, Louw writes:

The decolonization of Africa, of which the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa is the most recent example, has led to a greater recognition of the wide variety of religions practising on its soil. When confronted with this plurality, and the corresponding plurality of claims to truth or credibility, believers often resort to absolutism. The absolutist evaluates the religious other in view of criteria which violate the self-understanding of the latter. The religious other is thus being colonized by a hegemony (i.e., an enforced homogeneity) of norms and values. This paper deals with an assessment of the faith of others which transcends absolutism without resorting to relativism. More specifically, it aims to show that an African philosophy and way of life called ‘Ubuntu’ (humanness) significantly overlaps with such a ‘decolonized’ assessment of the religious other, and that this assessment can therefore also be explained, motivated or underscored with reference to the concept of Ubuntu. (Louw, 1998)

In seeking to enhance the flow of the ontological values of Ubuntu, be embraced by them and to transform them into living epistemological standards of educational judgement I want to justify my claim that the spiritual ground of my educational relationships can be understood in the terms of Louw’s notes when he says:

The South African Governmental White Paper on Welfare officially recognises Ubuntu as: "The principle of caring for each other's well-being...and a spirit of mutual support...Each individual's humanity is ideally expressed through his or her relationship with others and theirs in turn through a recognition of the individual's humanity. Ubuntu means that people are people through other people. It also acknowledges both the rights and the responsibilities of every citizen in promoting individual and societal well-being" (Government Gazette, 02/02/1996, No.16943, p.18, paragraph 18 - quoted by Broodryk, 1997a:1). (Louw, 1998)

Murithi (2001) added to my understanding of the values of Ubuntu in his analysis of practical peacemaking in Africa and his reflections on Ubuntu:

The wisdom of this process lies in the recognition that it is not be possible to build a healthy community at peace with itself unless past wrongs are acknowledged and brought out into the open so that the truth of what happened can be determined and social trust renewed through a process of forgiveness and reconciliation. A community in which there is no trust is ultimately not viable and gradually begins to tear itself apart. With reference to the notion of I am because we are and that of a person being a person through other people, the above process emphasises drawing upon these ubuntu values when faced with the difficult challenge of acknowledging responsibility and showing remorse, or of granting forgiveness (Murithi, 2001)

Can I justify my claim that self-study research into my educational practices shows that I am learning from the values of Ubuntu? I am thinking here of ‘we-i’ relationships that are consistent with the values of Ubuntu as I transform the expression of the embodied ontological values in my educational relationships, into living, epistemological standards of judgement that can be used to test the validity of my explanations of both my learning and my educational influence with those I teach?

The educational relationships and influences I have in mind are those in which I demonstrate a sustained commitment in my supervision of the doctoral research programmes of practitioner-researchers who are engaged in educational enquiries of the form, ‘How do I improve what I am doing?’ In particular I am focusing on the values of Ubuntu in which:

...Each individual's humanity is ideally expressed through his or her relationship with others and theirs in turn through a recognition of the individual's humanity.

A successful doctoral submission at the University of Bath must satisfy the examiners on the grounds of originality of mind and critical judgement, the extent and merit of the work and matter worthy of publication. My desire to live a productive life in education has been focused on supporting practitioner-researchers in accounting for their lives and learning in terms of the values that they believe carry hope for the future of humanity. In each living theory thesis at http://www.actionresearch.net individuals have expressed their originalities of mind in their transformation of such ontological values into epistemological standards of critical judgement as they clarify their meanings in the course of their emergence in their practices of educational enquiry.

In my educational enquiries I am seeking to support the enhancement of the flow of the values of Ubuntu from the ground of living my postcolonial spiritual values in my educational relationships. However, I do understand Paulus Murray’s point about my ‘I’ feeling very Western and European while to get closer to the values of Ubuntu I will need to understand a sense of self that is closer to African and Arab cultural expressions of ‘i in we’.

‘I live within an extended Arab/Omani/British family where 'we' is used only when 'I' see's the other in Ubuntu, in extended family connection, in a solidary space where we feel at one in terms of identity and integrity. This feels so very different to your formulary above.  For this 'we' to happen there has to be an eastern/southern "solidary logic" at work which is fundamentally communicative, rather than a Western/northern "atomistic logic" at work that is fundamentally ex-communicative.’ (Murray, 23/08/04, e-mail).

For Murray the practical spirit of Ubuntu flows from a sense of ethno-community where 'we' comes into existence when my 'I' alongside lots of other 'I''s is subordinated to 'we-i'. The moment 'we' happens is when my 'i' fully understands (and values, appreciates and accepts) the responsibilities for how my identity and integrity is embraced within the 'we' of the extended family, and this is the first step in an ethno-community held in Ubuntu or similar cosmology. Murray believes that the 'i' in eastern and southern cultures is an 'i' that is 'we-i'. He says that the Western and European 'I' has to learn how to let go of 'I' as a procedure to be satisfied before making the move to 'we', which usually entails agonising over one's space, one's autonomy, one's sense of identity. In eastern/southern indigenous cultures the movement in 'we-i' space is seamless.

For the evidence in the living theory section of actionresearch.net to show that such values have been legitimated in the knowledge-base of the Academy in the form of living epistemological standards of judgement, I am sure that I will have to address the problem that the values in a Western ‘I’ do not migrate easily across cultural borders, east and south, and that the values of Ubuntu or similar cosmologies that hold the values of ‘i in we’ do not migrate easily across cultural borders, north and west.  My belief in the educational possibility of the generativity of bringing these  values alongside (Pound, 2003) each other in speaking 'cross-culturally'  is grounded in the evidence provided in the doctoral thesis of Ram Punia (2004) and in Marian Naidoo’s (2004) writings from her doctoral enquiry ‘I am because we are. How can I improve my practice? The emergence of a living theory of responsive practice’. My belief in the generativity of bringing these values alongside each other is also grounded in the scholarship of educational enquiry of Peggy Leong, the Manager of the Academy of Best Learning in Education (ABLE) in Singapore. Leong’s dissertation on The Art of an Educational Enquirer (Leong, 1991) remains one of the most inspiring texts I have read from a practitioner-researcher who understands and can live values of inclusionality while engaging with tensions and conflicts between different cultural contexts.

In meeting Murray’s criticism above, I recognise that I will need to offer for public criticism and validation the evidence-based belief that I am moving towards the full realisation of my postcolonial intentions in my pedagogisation of living educational theories.  Part of this realisation includes using Bernstein’s insights on the pedagogisation of knowledge in seeing the importance of recontextualising living theory texts from their place in a university library into the curriculum of organisations (Farren, 2004; Leong, 2004; Laidlaw, 2004; Murray, 2004, Adler-Collins 2004; Hartog, 2004). Another part of this realisation includes the integration of insights from postcolonial theorists (Loomba, 1998; Spivak, 1999) into my own living educational theory and practice. Although, in doing this I will bear Loomba’s point in mind:

A third result of the boom in postcolonial studies has been that essays by a handful of name-brand critics have become more important than the field itself ñ students feel the pressure to ‘do’ Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak or Homi Bhabha or to read only the very latest article. What Barbara Christian (1990) has called ‘the race for theory’ is detrimental to thinking about the area itself. It is the star system of the Western and particularly the United States academy that is partly responsible for this, and partly the nature of theoretical work itself, which can be intimidating and often self-referential. Thus although most students feel obliged to take some note of postcolonial theory, not all of them are inspired to be creative with it perhaps because they often lack expertise in colonial and postcolonial histories and cultures. (Loomba, 1998, pp. xv-xvi).

In particular I am thinking of the insight that the colonial aftermath calls for an ameliorative and therapeutic theory which is responsive to the task of remembering and recalling the colonial past. I associate this theory with the influence in educating social formations of Adler-Collins’ enquiry into the pedagogisation of a curriculum for the healing nurse. I see that the work of this theory may be compared with what Lyotard describes as the psychoanalytic procedure of anamnesis 'to elaborate their current problems by freely associating apparently inconsequential details† with past situations - allowing them to uncover hidden meanings in their lives and their behaviour' (1998: 8) (Murray e-mail, 21/08/04). I also see that Fletcher’s contributions to BERA 2004 (Fletcher, 2004; Fletcher & Adler-Collins, 2004; Fletcher & Bognor, 2004) mark her moving on from the University of Bath with her passionate commitment to educational values restored from these cathartic and therapeutic accounts of her experiences and learning, in the creation and testing of her own living educational theory. As Gandhi (1998) says:

I also see that, postcolonial theory inevitably commits itself to a complex project of historical and psychological 'recovery'. If its scholarly task inheres in the carefully researched retrieval of historical detail, it has an equally compelling political obligation to assist the subjects of postcoloniality to live with the gaps and fissures of their condition, and thereby learn to proceed with self-understanding. (Gandhi 1998: 8) (Murray e-mail, 21/08/04)

It may help you to evaluate the validity of my claim about moving towards the full realisation of my postcolonial intentions by comparing the Appendix to my BERA Presidential Address, where no practitioner-researcher had yet to receive a doctorate for a self-study of their own educational practices, with the Appendix to this paper which gives the web-based locations for accessing some 17 living theory doctoral theses of practitioner-researchers who have graduated since 1995. These include the thesis of Punia (2004) in which he shows how his spiritual sense of a cosmological unity can embrace together ‘I-You’ relations with ‘we-i’ relationships in his work as an international educator in Mauritius, Fiji, Western Somoa, Hong Kong, Singapore and the UK.  I am also hoping before too long to include within the living theory section ofactionresearch.net a successfully completed doctoral thesis from Marian Naidoo (2004) whose ontological value and living epistemological standard of judgement of ‘passion for compassion’ also holds together in a most creative and productive tension, ‘we-i’ relationships with ‘I-You’ relationships. The addition of a thesis by Paulus Murray (2004) with a standard of judgement of postcolonial critical pedagogy and an analysis of the pedagogisation of postcolonial living educational theories would also do much to enhance the educational knowledge base in the Academy.

2) I explain how, in my pedagogisation (Bernstein, 2000) of living educational theories (Whitehead, 1989, 1993, 2004) within the University of Bath and elsewhere, I am contributing to the education of social formations.

Given what I have said about the educational process of transforming ontological values into the living epistemological standards of judgement one can use in the living educational theory accounts of one’s life of learning and enquiry, I hope it is clear why I am stressing the importance of influencing the education of social formations through living educational theories. I am identifying the processes of enhancing the flow of the values of we-i’ relationships of Ubuntu in a particular social context with a postcolonial project for the education of the social formation of that context. I am increasingly drawn to the use-value of Bernstein’s ideas on pedagogy, symbolic control and identity, in highlighting the importance for the education of social formations of pedagogising living theory accounts. What I can do in the limited space of this presentation is to point to the evidence from particular contexts in which the pedagogisation of living educational theories is influencing the education of a social formation and connect this evidence to an explanation of my educational influence. (Whitehead, 2004; Leong, 2004; Laidlaw, 2004; Williams, 2004; Hartog, 2004; McNiff & Whitehead, 2004; Delong, 2002)

To avoid misunderstandings about what I might mean by the education of a social formation I will explain the kind of changes that I am associating with this education. Before 1991, many universities in the UK had a regulation that protected examiners’ judgments of research degrees against being questioned. In my own University the phrase used by the University Registrar in interpreting the regulations was that once examiners have been appointed by the Senate examiners’ judgments cannot be questioned under any circumstances. By 1991 the university regulations had changed to permit questions to be raised on the grounds of bias, prejudice and/or inadequate assessment on the part of the examiners.  I am identifying such changes to the principles that regulate a social formation with the education of the social formation in the sense that learning is taking place which enhances the flow of values that carry hope for the future of humanity.

A further change took place in 2004 in the regulations governing the submission of research degrees to the University of Bath. The change permitted research degrees to include the submission of e-media such as DVD/CD-Rom. Mary Hartog (2004) was the first student to be examined for a doctorate after the regulations came into force. She included video-clips onCD-Roms as part of a video-narrative to communicate the meanings of her embodied values in her educational relationships as a professional educator as she engaged in the education of the social formation of Middlesex University where she is a senior lecturer. The significance of this change in regulations is highly significant for the pedagogisation of living educational theory texts as visual narratives can help to communicate, through ostensive definitions that connect images to words, the meanings of embodied ontological values and their transformation into living epistemological standards of judgement.

I now want to explain how, in my pedagogisation (Bernstein, 2000) of living educational theories (Whitehead, 1989, 1993, 2004) within the University of Bath and elsewhere, I am contributing to the education of social formations.

For those who are not aware of the academic legitimation of living educational theories that has taken place at the University of Bath and other Universities over the past twenty years I do urge you to access the living theory section of http://www.actionresearch.net and Jean McNiff’s website at http://www.actionresearch.net.

In creating my own living educational theory and submitting it for legitimation in the Academy (Whitehead, 1993) I was aware of how challenging it could be for those holding to the Aristotelean Law of Contradiction to be faced with a claim that my living educational theory contained ‘I’ as a living contradiction. To make my case for the validity and academic legitimacy of a living educational theory, I demonstrated (Whitehead, 1999) how an explanation for one’s own learning could be constructed from the experience of ‘I’ as a living contradiction in educational enquiries of the kind, ‘How do I improve what I am doing?’  The explanation included my embodied ontological values as explanatory principles in the sense of the reasons why I was doing something. The educational action research methodology I used involved action-reflection cycles in which my enquiry about improving my practice led to the expression of a concern because my values were not being lived fully in my practice. This tension stimulated my imagination to think of ways of improving what I was doing and I would construct an action plan. As I implemented my plan, I gathered data from which to make a judgment on my effectiveness in living my values more fully. I evaluated my actions in relation to my effectiveness and modified my concerns, ideas and actions in the light of my evaluations (Whitehead, 1976). To assist me in both taking my enquiries forward and in enhancing the validity of my understandings about what I was doing, I produced a description and explanation for my own learning (my living educational theory) that I submitted to a validation group for their criticism.

In this process of producing an explanation for my own learning in my educational enquiries, in terms of my values and understandings, I transformed my embodied ontological values into living epistemological standards of judgment. This transformation occurred in the process of clarifying the meanings of my values through their emergence in practice. The clarification of their meanings from their lived experiential ground in what I was doing, involved the use of language to produce living and communicable epistemological standards of judgment. 

The theses and dissertations in the living theory section of action research.net provide the evidence that shows how I have pedagogised living educational theories in the Academy. This evidence does not show that I have educated anyone other than myself. It shows that whatever I do in my educational relationships must be mediated by the originality of mind and critical judgement of the other, as they create their own living educational theories, for me to recognize the relationship as an educational relationship. One of the most inspiring mediations was that of James Finnegan (2000) in his question, ‘How can love enable justice to see rightly?’  because of his commitment to bring love into his enquiry and his willingness to hold himself accountable to living love in his educational relationships. I am associating such values as the values that carry hope for the future of humanity. My claim to be contributing to the education of social formations is grounded in the evidence that shows my educational influence in the processes of validating and legitimating in the Academy the living and communicable epistemological standards of judgement that are grounded in ontological values that carry this hope.

I am also hopeful that I have provided sufficient evidence for you to accept my claim that I have explained how, in my pedagogisation (Bernstein, 2000) of living educational theories (Whitehead, 1989, 1993, 2004) within the University of Bath and elsewhere, I am contributing to the education of social formations. But what of the point of the symposium in relation to the pedagogisation of postcolonial living educational theories?

My pedagogisation of living educational theories includes sharing my learning in my enquiry, ‘how do I improve what I am doing?’ In preparing for this Symposium in the spirit of the co-enquiry, How are we contributing to a new scholarship of educational enquiry through our pedagogisation of postcolonial living educational theories in the Academy?, I have learnt something about both my postcolonial living educational theory and its pedagogisation in my educational relationships with my co-enquirers and presenters. I think my ability to live the values of Ubuntu in ‘we-i’ relationships is still embryonic but can be distinguished in my acknowledged influence of Paulus Murray’s insights into the qualities that characterize these relationships. I am identifying my postcolonial values with the ‘we-i’ relationships of Ubuntu. Through Paulus Murray sharing his own insights on the quality of ‘we-i’ relationships I now have a language that I am finding helpful in communicating the meanings of this ontological value of relationship. Murray also provided, in the following accident, my language for understanding violations of the ‘we-i’ relationships that I am assuming in the ‘we’ of our Symposium title.  The accident happened like this.

At the end of one his e-mails Paulus used the words clarification and scarification. Not having heard of scarification I looked it up in the dictionary and saw that one of its meanings was ‘to wound with harsh criticism’. I have always wanted a word that would describe a particular kind of criticism that violated the principle of respect for persons identified by Pring (2000) in his philosophy of educational research.

Paulus explained that I was mistaken in my belief that he was using scarification to mean wounding with harsh criticism. He was using it in the horticultural sense of scratching the surface of the soil to enable water retention and hasten germination! So, by accident, Paulus added scarification to my vocabulary to describe the wounding of another through harsh criticism. In saying this I am meaning the laceration of the emotions of another through harsh, brutal or cruel criticism that violates scholarly criticism because of the lack of respect for persons that is demonstrated in the use of abusive language. I am taking such criticism to be contradictory to the spirit of Ubuntu in ‘we-i’ relationships, yet included in the capacity of Ubuntu to embrace truth and reconciliation. So, as well as introducing me to the language of ‘we-i’ relationships in the spirit of Ubuntu that I am identifying as one of my postcolonial values and that I am pedagogising through this communication, Paulus has also been involved in the accident that provided a language for helping me to understand the violation of ‘we-i’ relationships through scarification. In the processes of education that can enhance the flow of values that carry hope for the future of humanity, I am also aware of the importance of stemming the flow of values that do not carry this hope.

To place the difference in these values starkly in contrast I can draw on a video-clip made on the 4th September 2004 at my daughter’s wedding where I can be seen giving a speech which acknowledges how I am drawing inspiration from the life-affirming and inclusional energy of all those present. I look at the clip and feel that I am embodying the flow of ‘we-i’ relationships in the spirit of Ubuntu. At the same time I was feeling such hope in the expressions of love and live-affirming energy in this gathering, I know hundreds of parents were grieving in Breslan following the murder of their children in a crime against humanity that is intimately connected to colonisation. I am convinced that in learning to live the values that carry hope for the future of humanity, we need to engage in a process of educating social formations to stem the flow of values that do not carry this hope. In the context of the British Educational Research Association, we can seek to communicate our understandings of how to enhance the flow of values that carry this hope in the creation and testing of living educational theories. We can also seek to communicate how we might sustain and strengthen our ‘we-i’ relationships in scholarly criticisms that can hold scarification at bay in stemming the flow of values that do not carry this hope.

3) The explanation of my educational influence shows the significance of persistence in the courage to be and the support of others in transcending some of the pressures that can push individuals to submit to the reproduction of an existing social formation, when living educational values more fully, requires a social transformation.

In the Growth of Educational Knowledge (Whitehead, 1993) I provided the evidence which showed that the conclusion of a Senate Working Party on a Matter of Academic Freedom was justified in the claim that I had persisted in the face of pressure to publish my ideas and that a less determined individual might have felt constrained. My colleague Alan Rayner (2004) continues to provide inspiration from his courage to be in sustaining his enquiries into inclusionality and in holding open a curriculum on life, the environment and people for some undergraduate students in the University of Bath. I am thinking of the courage to be that Tillich describes in relation to the power of being itself. Not, I hasten to add with the theistic or gendered language of Tillich but with the life-affirming energy and passion for the values of education that can embrace the state of being grasped by the power of being itself:

‘Faith is not a theoretical affirmation of something uncertain, it is the existential acceptance of something transcending ordinary experience. Faith is not an opinion but a state. It is the state of being grasped by the power of being which transcends everything that is and in which everything that is participates. He who is grasped by this power is able to affirm himself because he knows that he is affirmed by the power of being-itself. In this point mystical experience and personal encounter are identical. In both of them faith is the basis of the courage to be.’ (Tillich, 1962, p,168)

Sustaining one’s courage to be and the values of Ubuntu in the face of power relations that could stem the flow of values that carry hope for the future of humanity is closely linked, in my experience, to the significance of making the possible, probable (Joan Whitehead, 2003). In seeing the creation and testing of living educational theories as a postcolonial project I think that the evidence I have presented and drawn your attention to in the living theory section of actionresearch.net demonstrates that individuals working within particular contexts have accounted for their learning in their educational enquiries in terms of values that carry hope for the future of humanity. A postcolonial project with global intent must address the issue of making such possibilities probable. It is one thing to demonstrate in a particular context that something is possible. It is something different to understand how to spread the influence of such possibilities in a process of social transformation of making the possible, probable.

In my experience action researchers who are studying their own attempts to live their values more fully in what they are doing, rarely tell smooth stories of the self. At some point painful difficulties are encountered, faced and learnt from as the enquiry moves on. I have faced one such sustained encounter with a colleague as she moves on from the University of Bath into a variety of creative opportunities that are opening up for her in a range of local, national and international contexts. I am looking forward to continuing our productive lives together. However, the last two years have not been productive together although we have continued with our individual contributions. I would characterize the relationship over these two years as pathologically damaged due to the scarification my colleague experienced in our workplace. Our offices were next door to each other and from the time of that my colleague was unable to continue her planned research programme into mentoring with best practice research studentships our productive conversations were replaced by responses to her experiences in the workplace. The increasing intensity and frequency of these responses led me to do most of my work from home with the help of a broadband connection to the internet.

The relief I know we both felt, with her decision to leave the University with early retirement on health grounds, in my case is based on the delight of knowing that our productive work together will now continue in a range of professional contexts outside the University and that I can return to the creative space that is my office with the regret of missing our earlier, most enjoyable and very productive relationship. I did not explain to my colleague why I felt so compelled to work from home while she vented her anger. I did not consider that in moving away I was increasing her isolation and vulnerability to attack.  As we reflect on the colonialism that temporarily marred our relationship, I see that isolating the colonised, as we seek to protect ourselves from the expression of their suffering, increases it.

While continuing to support the transformation of local contexts as necessary to the education of social formations through the creation and testing of living educational theories, my own enquiries into making the possible probable, are focusing on the educational influence of the interconnecting and branching networks of communication provided by the internet in support of both postcolonial projects and living educational theories. The evidence of this work on the internet moves me into my fourth contribution to educational knowledge.

4) Using evidence from my use of ICT in my pedagogy I explain my educational influence in terms of making the possible, probable (Whitehead, 2003) as I pedagogise postcolonial living educational theories (Murray, 2004). The explanation includes the living logics involved in the transformation of embodied ontological values into living epistemological standards of judgement. The explanation includes the evidence on how I am acting locally and communicating globally in contributing to the development of a new scholarship of educational enquiry (Adler-Collins, 2000; Whitehead, 1999) while seeking to carry the postcolonial hopes of Ubuntu for the future of humanity.

My postcolonial project is grounded in a scholarship of educational enquiry that is focused on understanding how to enhance the flow of values that carry hope for the future of humanity and with stemming the flow of values that do not carry this hope. I am making the assumption, which is open to criticism, that the future of humanity is related to the creation and testing of the shared accounts of learning (living educational theories) in educational enquiries of the kind, ‘How do I improve what I am doing?’ and ‘How do we improve what we are doing?’ This is consistent with Kilpatrick’s (1951) view that educational theory is a form of dialogue that has profound implications for the future of humanity. The first step, in the pedagogisation of living educational theories, was to place them on the web in the domain name actionresearch.net . This resource provides the evidence that such theories can be created from a scholarship of educational enquiry that is grounded in questions of the kind, ‘How do I improve my practice?’ It also provides the evidence of their legitimation in the Academy as original contributions to educational knowledge. Each narrative of learning in each thesis is formed from the unique constellation of values of  each individual. Each thesis clarifies the meanings of the practitioner-researchers ontological values in the process of their emergence in practice. This process of clarification transforms the experience of embodied values into living and publicly communicable epistemological standards of judgement that can be used in evaluating the validity of the claims to educational knowledge.

The living logics in the explanations of learning emerging from living contradictions provide the dialectical form of reason necessary for the meanings of the values and standards to be comprehended by others. Within these explanations insights from propositional theories are evaluated and used in terms of their value to the individual in moving the educational enquiries forward in the sense of learning how to enhance the flow of values that carry hope for the future of humanity. Jean McNiff is a researcher who in my mind is pre-eminent in enhancing the global flow of these values. She does this through her contributions to a generative and transformatory approach to action research in her research, her teaching, her writings and her presentations at international conferences. Do access her web-site http://www.jeanmcniff.com to see the range of her contributions which include those in Israel, |South Africa, America,  (McNiff, 2003a, 2003b, 2004a, 2004b, McNiff, Lomax & Whitehead, 2004, McNiff, McNamara and Leonard, 2000). In relation to the development of living educational theories within China, from action research with Chinese characteristics, I draw your attention to the work on the internet from China’s Experimental Centre for Educational Action Research in Foreign Language Teaching, located at Guyuan Teachers College (Laidlaw, 2004). 

The explanations I refer to above include the evidence on how we living educational theorists are acting locally and communicating globally in contributing to the development of a new scholarship of educational enquiry (Adler-Collins, 2000) while, in my case, seeking to enhance the flow of the postcolonial values of Ubuntu for the future of humanity. In scholarly work there is often a tension between the need to deconstruct influential propositional theories using canons of scholarly discourse and the expression of originality of mind that can help to move forward a field of enquiry and form of knowledge through the creative construction of a contribution to knowledge, as well as a contribution that is grounded in deconstruction. For illustration I draw on Ifekwunigwe’s (2004, p. 19) points about her editing of a text on Mixed Race Studies. She says that it should encourage readers to think critically about the origins of the concept of ‘mixed race’, its re-invention in more recent times and ongoing debates concerning its conceptual limitations and political potential. She points out the texts highlight but do not resolve tensions, continuities and problematics associated with both the old ‘biological discourses’ of ‘hybrid degeneracy’ and the ‘psychosociological’ discourses of ‘mixed race’ individuals as ‘maladjusted social types’ as well as newer social, cultural and political applications of ‘mixed race’ and later ‘multiraciality’ as shifting, contingent, complex and multi-layered identity markers. She says that all three interwoven and historically located perspectives rupture allegedly stable racialized faultlines and at the same time (paradoxically in the case of the latter two approaches) reinscribe ‘race’ - a term she points out is predicated on scientifically dubious criteria.

Living in a society with its colonial history of institutionalised racialism raises profound questions for those who wish to account for themselves and their learning in terms of enhancing the flow of the values of Ubuntu. We can deconstruct the colonial history of institutionalised racism with the help of scholars such as Ifekwunigwe and Murray so that we can better understand how to live our contradictions in a postcolonial project that makes the possible, probable, in living more fully the values of Ubuntu and similar cosmologies that carry hope for the future of humanity. What such scholars show is just how foolish it is, for the effectiveness of a postcolonial project, not to take into the accounts of learning to improve practice, the most insightful postcolonial theories of the day on the nature of the power relations that are sustaining and reproducing institutionalized racism. I am thinking of improvements in practice that are related  to living educational theories in which it bears repeating that:

Each individual's humanity is ideally expressed through his or her relationship with others and theirs in turn through a recognition of the individual's humanity. Ubuntu means that people are people through other people. It also acknowledges both the rights and the responsibilities of every citizen in promoting individual and societal well-being (Louw, 1998).

In valuing a postcolonial critical pedagogy I am indebted to Murray’s insights into postcolonial theory and I hold most highly Naidoo’s living and inclusional standard of ‘passion for compassion’ in her presentation ‘I am because we are. How can I improve my practice? The emergence of a living theory of responsive practice.’ (Naidoo, 2004).

Through the interconnecting and branching networks of communication made possible by ICT I want to leave you with an image, provided by Jean McNiff, that helps me to visualize the communicative power of the internet. By making available our presentations to this Symposium at http://www.actionresearch.net//values/bera2all.htm  I also want to acknowledge that the motivation for initiating this Symposium was to enhance the flow of Paulus Murray’s insights into the educational significance of postcolonial values, practices and theories and I do urge you to visit his website at:

http://www.royagcol.ac.uk/~paul_murray/Sub_Pages/FurtherInformation.htm

You could, if you wish contribute your own account of your learning to the flow of living educational theories that are enhancing our understandings of how to live more fully values that carry hope for the future of humanity.

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APPENDIX

Eames, K. (1995) How do I, as a teacher and educational action-researcher, describe and explain the nature of my professional knowledge? Ph.D. Thesis, University of Bath. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/kevin.shtml

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Hughes, J. (1996) Action planning and assessment in guidance contexts: how can I understand and support these processes while working with colleagues in further education colleges and career service provision in Avon. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Bath. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/jacqui.shtml

Laidlaw, M. (1996) How can I create my own living educational theory as I offer you an account of my educational development? Ph.D. thesis, University of Bath. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/moira2.shmtl

Holley, E. (1997) How do I as a teacher-researcher contribute to the development of a living educational theory through an exploration of my values in my professional practice? M.Phil., University of Bath. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/erica.shtml

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http://www.actionresearch.net/jack.shtml

Cunningham, B. (1999) How do I come to know my spirituality as I create my own living educational theory? Ph.D. Thesis, University of Bath. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/ben.shtml

Adler-Collins, J. (2000) A Scholarship of Enquiry, M.A. dissertation, University of Bath. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/jekan.shtml

Finnegan, (2000) How do I create my own educational theory in my educative relations as an action researcher and as a teacher? Ph.D. submission, University of Bath. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/fin.shtml

Austin, T. (2001) Treasures in the Snow: What do I know and how do I know it through my educational inquiry into my practice of community? Ph.D. Thesis, University of Bath. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/austin.shtml

Mead, G. (2001) Unlatching the Gate: Realising the Scholarship of my Living Inquiry. Ph.D. University of Bath. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/mead.shtml

Bosher, M. (2001) How can I as an educator and Professional Development Manager working with teachers, support and enhance the learning and achievement of pupils in a whole school improvement process? Ph.D. University of Bath. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/bosher.shtml

Delong, J. (2002) How Can I Improve My Practice As A Superintendent of Schools and Create My Own Living Educational Theory? Ph.D. University of Bath. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/delong.shtml

Scholes-Rhodes, J. (2002) From the Inside Out: Learning to presence my aesthetic and spiritual being through the emergent form of a creative art of inquiry. Ph.D. University of Bath. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from

http://www.actionresearch.net/rhodes.shtml

Roberts, P. (2003) Emerging Selves in Practice: How do I and others create my practice and how does my practice shape me and influence others? Ph.D. University of Bath. Retrieved 19 August 2004 from

http://www.actionresearch.net/roberts.shtml

Punia, R. (2004) My CV is My Curriculum: The Making of an International Educator with Spiritual Values. Ed.D. University of Bath. Retrieved 19 August 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/punia.shtml

Hartog, M. (2004) A Self Study Of A Higher Education Tutor: How Can I Improve My Practice? Ph.D. University of Bath. Retrieved 19 August 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/hartog.shtml