Living critical standards of judgment in educational
theorising
Jack Whitehead, University of Bath
Paper presented in the Symposium on Creating
Inclusional and Postcolonial Living Educational Theories at BERA 2005,
University of Glamorgan.
Abstract
This presentation focuses on the
communication of the meanings of living critical standards of judgment in
educational theorising. The living critical standards emerge from an analysis
of the educational influence of practitioner-researchers in their own
learning, in the learning of others and in the education of the social
formations in which we live, work and research. The evidential bases of the
analysis include 18 doctoral theses awarded between1996 and 2005 for which I
was sole or joint supervisor. These can be accessed at http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/living.shtml
The analysis will show how each
practitioner-researcher clarifies, in the course of their emergence, in the
practice of educational enquiry, the embodied ontological values to which they
hold themselves accountable in their lives and professional practice.
The analysis will also show how,
through the process of clarifying meanings, the embodied values are transformed
into the living epistemological standards (Laidlaw, 1996) of critical judgment
that are used to test the validity of the claims to educational knowledge.
These standards of judgment include the traditional standards of originality of
mind, critical judgment, original contribution to knowledge which are used to
legitimate doctoral theses in the Academy.
The scholarly significance of the
analysis is that it shows an inclusional (Rayner, 2005) form of educational
theorising. This, as such is different from propositional and dialectical
theories of education.
A distinction will be drawn
between education theories and educational theories. This distinction will be
used to show how living educational theories can draw insights from the
traditional disciplines of education while being resistant to categorisation
within any existing discipline of education. A new discipline of educational enquiry, to explain the
educational influence of individuals in their own learning, in the learning of
others and in the evolution of postcolonial (Murray, 2005) social formations,
will be proposed.
Introduction
Today's mission statement of the
University of Bath states that it has a distinct academic approach that
emphasises the education of professional practitioners. This paper focuses on
the living critical standards of judgment that can characterise such a distinct
approach. It is an approach that assumes that each individual can create and
test their own living educational theory in their continuing development and
life-long learning as professional practitioners.
Some 35 years ago the Institute of Education of the University of London was a world leader in terms of the originality, significance and rigour of an approach to educational theory known as the 'disciplines' approach. It was constituted by the disciplines of philosophy, psychology, sociology and history of education. Having studied at this Institute between 1968-70, the philosophy, psychology, sociology and history of education, I initially accepted the approach. I then rejected it in 1971 on discovering that none of these disciplines either singly or in any combination could produce an adequate explanation for my educational influence in my own learning or in the learning of my students. When I say I rejected the approach, I do not mean that I rejected the valuable insights in my own learning from these disciplines. I rejected the idea that educational theory was constituted by these disciplines. My reason for rejecting the approach was expressed better than I could myself by Paul Hirst, one of the originators of the 'disciplines' approach. In 1983 Hirst acknowledged the following mistake in his understanding that 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)
My rejection of the old
'disciplines' approach was based on my commitment to personal knowledge in the
sense that I could recognise the validity of my explanations of my educational
influences in my own learning and in the learning of my pupils. The validity of
the practical explanatory principles, in these explanations, was denied in the
'disciplines' approach in the sense that there were seen as being at best
pragmatic maxims that would be replaced
(my emphasis) by principles with more fundamental, theoretical justification in
a rationally developed educational theory. It was this desire and commitment by
the adherents to the 'disciplines' approach, to replace the practical
principles in my explanations of my educational influence in learning, that I
experienced as violating and colonising. The desire to replace my principles,
with those from theories of education from the disciplines, felt colonising in
the sense of a take over of my personal theories by the theories of others.
My response to the recognition of
this mistake was life changing. I changed my sense of vocation in education
from a focus on teaching to a focus on educational research and the
construction of educational theory. This prompted my move in 1973 to the
University of Bath. What I had in mind was the reconstruction of educational
theory in the form and content of the explanations that teacher-researchers
produced for their own educational influence in their own learning and in the
learning of their students. My interest in educational theories that could
explain educational influences in the learning of social formations and in
particular the evolution of postcolonial social formations, developed later. In
the Appendix of my Presidential Address to BERA in 1988 (Whitehead, 1989) you
will see a list of accounts by practitioner-researchers that mark my own
progress as a supervisor of practitioner-research and originator of the idea of
living educational theory. There are no completed doctoral programmes listed.
The first completion followed the Address in 1988/89.
In the Appendix of this
presentation there is a list of some successfully completed 18 doctoral
research programmes I have either singly or jointly supervised over the past
ten years (1995-2005). I have also
included two Masters dissertations because of their original contributions to
such educational theory. If you are accessing this in your browser the live
urls will take you directly to the Abstract and content of each thesis and
dissertation. Each is a narrative of the learning of the
practitioner-researcher as they enquire into improving their own practice. I
believe that the University of Bath is similar to other Universities in
requiring that doctoral degrees fulfil such criteria as original and
significant contributions to knowledge, originality of mind and critical
judgment, extent and merit and matter worthy of publication. The significance of critical standards
of judgment in these criteria is that they are used to test the validity of a
claim to knowledge. Hence the focus of this paper and its originality is in the
critical standards of judgment in educational theorising. It is organised into seven parts that
answer the following questions:
i)
Why distinguish living
educational theories from theories of education?
ii)
Why focus on living
critical standards of judgment in educational theorising?
iii)
Can the experience,
expression and communication of a living critical standard of judgment in
educational theorising be understood as a loving flow-form of life-affirming
energy?
iv)
Can embodied
ontological values be used as explanatory principles in explanations of
educational influence in learning?
v)
How can embodied
ontological values be transformed into living epistemological standards of
critical judgment?
vi)
What educational
influences in learning can evolve into an inclusional, responsive and
postcolonial form of educational theorising?
vii)
Can a scholarship of
educational enquiry produce a collective~individual standard of judgment of
living a productive life in educational theorising?
1) Why distinguish living
educational theories from theories of education?
I think it bears repeating that my
rejection of the old disciplines approach to educational theory was based on
its mistaken assumption that the practical principles in my explanations for my
educational influence would be replaced,
in a rational developed educational theory, by principles with more theoretical
justification from the disciplines of education. I use the idea of living
educational theory to mean the explanations that individuals produce for their
own educational influences in their own learning, in the learning of others and
in the learning of social formations. These explanations can include insights
from the theories of education of traditional disciplines of education, without
being subsumed within any of their conceptual frameworks or methods of
validation.
I value and use many insights from
the disciplines of education in the creation and testing of my living
educational theory. What I want to be clear about are the distinguishing
characteristics of living educational theories, and their living critical
standards of judgment, that make them distinct from the traditional disciplines
and theories of education. I will address these distinguishing characteristics
as I answer the following questions:
2) Why focus on living critical
standards of judgment in educational theorising?
I have three reasons for focusing
on living critical standards of judgment.
The first reason is focused on the
future of humanity. It is because, like Kilpatrick (1951) in the first issue of
Educational Theory, I believe that educational theory is a form of dialogue
that has profound implications for the future of humanity. In creating and
evaluating one's own living educational theory I see individuals explaining
their educational influences in learning as they realise their own humanity. I
am thinking here of explanations of educational influence in their own
learning, in the learning of others and in the learning of social formations. I
am thinking of explanations that are given in terms of values understandings
and skills that constitute the meanings and purpose they give to their lives. I
want to be careful at this point about my own taken-for-granted assumptions.
It may be because I was born in
the UK in 1944 that I take for granted the significance for the future of
humanity of learning from the Holocaust carried out in Nazi Germany. I know
that I identity with the creators of Critical Theory, particularly the work of
Erich Fromm, and later with Jurgen Habermas in the sense that:
" Critical theory is the
extraordinary intellectual product of despair and disappointment –
despair over the frightening ascendancy of European fascism and Nazism; and
disappointment with the excesses of Stalinist socialism and the cultural
emptiness of prosperous high-consumption societies like the United States." (Prasad,
2005, p. 136)
But, I had to recognise my own
failure to see that the significance of this Holocaust for education could not
be taken for granted. I was surprised when I was asked by a student in the
early 1980s 'What's the Holocaust got to do with Education?'
Learning from the Holocaust seemed
crucial to me in development of values and understandings that carry hope for
the future of humanity and those that do not. Critical Theorists emphasise the
importance of understanding the economic, political and cultural influences on
social formations. They believe, rightly in my view, that it is important to
understand the constraints on living loving and productive lives. Critical
Theorists focus on the theories that can help to understand why social
formations continue to reproduce themselves in ways that are anti-democratic
and unjust in relation to race, class and gender. I believe that similar
lessons need to be learnt from present day experiences of terrorism. There is a
distinction I want to be clear about in my use of the word 'critical' in
Critical Theory and in Living Critical Standards of Judgement. In Critical Theory, 'critical' is being
used to denote that the theories are critical of existing social formations and
offer ways of understanding how inequalities and other injustices are being
reproduced. In Living Critical Standards of judgement, critical is being used
to denote embodied values that have been clarified in the course of their
emergence in the individual's life and form the epistemological standards of
judgement they use to account to themselves for living a life with meaning and
purpose - a loving and productive life.
Each individual's living
educational theory can be understood as having significance for the future of
humanity in relation to the fact that
as I write Londoners are responding to a number of 'terror' bombings. Israeli and Palestinians, Afghans,
Iraqis and other citizens around the world are doing the same - responding to
'terror' bombings.
In many cases individual 'suicide'
bombers have died, having intentionally detonated explosives with the intention
of killing others and themselves. The passions, understandings and community
identities that can motivate someone to kill themselves and others involve
embodied values. Their intention to kill others in this way is motivated by
ontological values that give meaning and purpose to their lives. I have called
the meanings of such values as they have been clarified in the course of their
emergence in practice, living critical standards of judgment.
Some suicide bombers have
explained before they die how their will to live this life can be transcended
by a willingness to die and kill others. Their explanations are offered in
terms of living embodied values through which they give meaning and purpose to
their lives. They have their own living educational theories that conflict with
my own in terms of the values and understandings we believe carry hope for the
future of humanity. Such conflicts seem to rest on the colonising desire for
domination. Like many, I tend to resist the experience of colonisation through
democratic means. However, I am open to the idea that I am mistaken in placing
my hope for the future on sharing living educational theories within forums of
democratic evaluation (Macdonald, 1975) that hold to Habermas' (1976) criteria
of social validity. I have also been influenced by Macdonald's idea (1987) of
creative compliance as a strategic response to encounters with the disciplinary
power of organisations:
Perhaps, in the present circumstances, defeated for the time being by force majeure, we need to construct a theory of educational resistance, perhaps a black economy of inadmissable enterprise and undeclared outcomes. We need to culture the arts of creative compliance, as subject peoples have learned to do. Certainly we need to repair the damage done by divide and rule strategies, to rebuild old alliances and forge new ones, to reconstruct the checks and balances of a severely disabled infrastructure. And just as certainly we must not concede to simplified definitions of the teaching/learning task or to forms of control that cannot take its complexity into account. (MacDonald, 1987, p.5)
Because of the importance of these
assumption in my life and work I would appreciate hearing your understandings
of what you believe offers more hope in living a loving and productive life.
So, my first reason for focusing
on living critical standards of judgment has its roots in the same impulses
that created Critical Theory. That is as a form of understanding that carries
hope for the future of humanity. I am suggesting that each individual creates,
tests and shares their own living educational theory in a way that enhances the
flow of those values that carry such hope.
My second reason is that critical
standards of judgment are necessary in the validation and legitimation of what
counts as knowledge in the Academy. Having said that these standards are
necessary for validation, I agree with Foucault's (1980) analysis of regimes of
truth where he focuses on the power relations that determine what counts as
truth in a particular context. He says that his analysis is not a battle on
behalf of truth, but that he seeks to understand the power relations that
constitute what counts as truth in a particular context. I am seeking to do
both. I am seeking to understand the nature of living critical standards of
judgment with an awareness of the influence of regimes of truth in my own
understandings.
I believe that the living
standards of critical judgment in the creation and testing of living
educational theories are embodied ontological values and understandings that
give meaning and purpose to life. These values and understandings are clarified
in the course of their emergence in practice. This clarification transforms the
embodied values into communicable and living critical standards. When I explain
below how embodied ontological values can be formed into living critical
standards of judgment, I am referring to flows of energy that are necessary in
explaining any action. We cannot do anything without energy. In my experience
and awareness of my will to live there is a flow of life-affirming energy that
I associate with Bataille's (1987, p. 11) idea of assenting to life up to the
point of death and to Tillich's (1962, p,168) idea
of being grasped by the power of being itself. When I say I 'associate' my
meanings with theirs, I do not mean that I am giving the same meaning to their
words. Their words help me to understand and communicate my own unique
meanings. For example, I do not have any theistic beliefs, while for Tillich
there is a theistic meaning in his being grasped by the power of being itself.
So, my second reason is focused on
transforming the hegemonic power relations that sustain the dominant standards
of judgment. I am thinking of a transformation in what counts as educational
knowledge in the Academy. I am seeing this transformation in terms of the
systemic influence of living critical standards of judgment.
My third reason is connected to my
other reasons concerning humanity and power. It is related to the significance
I attach to the growth of understanding in the learning of individuals and
social formations. Like Peters
(1966) I think that one of the defining characteristics of education is the
extension of cognitive range and concern. I am thinking here of the evidence
of my learning in the growth of
understanding that demonstrates a critical engagement with the ideas of others.
Some of the evidence of this learning is in Appendix Two. In this Appendix I explain the significance in my learning
of ideas from Bakhtin, Ramachandran, Seve, Boudrillard, Said, Habermas,
Bernstein, Bourdieu, Fromm, Rikowski,
Murray and Kristeva.
I am also thinking of the evidence
from the learning of others of my educational influence as a supervisor of research
degrees. This learning is acknowledged in the living theory theses in Appendix
One.
Having given three reasons for
focusing on living critical standards of judgment in terms of the future of
humanity, power /the growth of educational knowledge, and the growth of
personal understandings in learning, I now want to focus on the communication
of meanings of living critical standards of judgment.
My choice of living standard has
been influenced by Fromm's focus on the art of loving (Gillilan, 2000) and my
recognition of the significance of loving relations in the lives of those whose
research programmes I have supervised. Hence my initial selection of a loving
flow-form of life-affirming energy as a living critical standard of judgment.
3) Can the experience,
expression and communication of a living critical standard of judgment in
educational theorising be understood as a loving flow-form of life-affirming
energy?
In each living theory thesis now
flowing through web-space the individual practitioner-researcher has considered
the ontological values that give meaning and purpose to their life. Through
clarifying these meanings in the course of their emergence in their
professional practice each researcher has produced, usually through the use of
a clearly articulated methodology of action research, living critical standards
of judgment that can be used to evaluate the validity of the knowledge claims.
For example, Madeline Church (2004) and Marian Naidoo (2005), the most recent
doctoral graduates for their living theory theses, focus on love, fairness and
compassion.
The purpose of this paper is to
communicate my experience and meanings of such living critical standards of
judgment in my and others' educational theorisings. The public sharing of the
ideas in this BERA forum allows the significance and validity of the ideas to
be assessed through the mutual rational controls of our critical discussion.
Perhaps the most significant idea in this presentation is that values can be
understood as flows of energy through our bodies and the space that connects
us.
I imagine that you are all
familiar with the experience of the flows of energy of the kind that Tillich
(1962) describes as being grasped by the power of being itself. I will have to
check with you the validity of my belief that you will be familiar with the
experience of the flows of energy in living critical standards of judgment. I
mean this in the sense that in asking questions about the meaning and purpose
of your lives you are aware of the flows of energy in making judgments of value
in what you do, about what you have done, and about what you intend to do.
For example, as you reflect on
your experiences of schooling, I imagine that everyone here has experienced the
flow of energy of living values in critical standards of judgment. I believe
that everyone here, has reflected on their experience of what was worthwhile,
or not, in the learning and pedagogies we experienced at home at school and for
many here, at university. I could of course be mistaken in this belief that you
are all familiar with the flows of energy in living values. The validity of my
belief is open to question from the ground of your experience. I will consider
in more detail later the epistemological significance of this openness to
questioning the validity of one's beliefs.
When I mention here about experiences of loving and meanings
of critical standards, I am talking about flows of energy that I experience as
life-affirming, of experiences of loving what I do and the meanings of my own
critical standards. I believe that if we can share what we each mean by such
experiences, we might come to some ways of synthesising these into living
critical standards of judgment in educational theorising.
As a bedrock of my hope in human
existence I bear witness to a flow of energy that carries hope for the future
of humanity and my own. I experience love in such a flow of energy in what I do
in education. My students tell me that they feel the expression of love for
what I do as a life-affirming energy that flows into our relationship and
influences their enquiries. I recognise this love in Cho's terms when he says
that with love, education becomes an open space for thought from which emerges
knowledge. For Cho, as for me, it is important to make clear that in explaining
the educational influence of love in learning, between two or more people in an
educational relationship, it is not a matter of 'merely caring for one
another, nor do they pass knowledge between each other' (Cho, 2005, p. 95). It is a matter of seeing that love opens
a space for those in educational relationships to preserve the
distinctiveness of their positions by turning away from one another and toward
the world in order to produce knowledge through inquiry and thought (Cho, 2005. p. 95).
Is it possible to reach an
intersubjective agreement on the meaning of such a living standard of
educational judgment? Some evidence that it is possible is provided by the
agreement between Moira Laidlaw and I about the relational flows of meaning
shown in the video clip below and from which the following still image was
taken. We are agreed that what we are seeing in the video-clip can be described
as a loving flow-form of life-affirming energy in educational relationships.
The following 9 MB video clip will
take several minutes to download using Broadband (10 minutes on my system) and
opens in Quicktime.
http://www.jackwhitehead.com/mlendSorenson.mov
More still images from the
classroom with Moira Laidlaw at Guyuan Teachers College in China on the 15
October 2004 can be seen at:
http://www.jackwhitehead.com/moira151004/moira151004.html
To re-inforce our meanings of a
loving flow-form of life-affirming energy, Moira also provided this photograph
she took of a Mother and son, with the Mother's permission, in Xi an:
The use in my research of such
multi-media representations of living critical standards of
judgment emerged from the recognition that many significant meanings in
educational discourse were communicated non-verbally, through multi-sensory
perceptions. To appreciate and communicate my meanings of flows of energy,
whose form was being constituted by my values, I needed to show these meanings
in the course of their emergence in the practice of living enquiry.
I am fascinated by the question of
whether it is possible and desirable to extend this agreement, between Moira
and I, with your agreement. I am thinking of the agreement that as we watch the
video-clip we~i are experiencing a loving flow-form of life-affirming
energy in the channels of space and dynamic boundaries of the educational
relationships. Such intersubjective agreement will be necessary for the
development and legitimation of educational theorising with such living
critical standards of judgment. I
believe that such intersubjective agreement rests on our meanings resonating
with your own. First through the uniqueness of our intuitive responses and then
into the explicit cognitions of our shared language.
Here are two further
demonstrations of intersubjective agreement with Madeline Church and Peter
Mellett, about loving flow-forms of life-affirming energy.
Having worked with Madeline Church
over the six years of her doctoral research programme I was delighted to see
her graduate on the 19th July 2005 from the University of Bath. My
delight may be appreciated with the help of this photograph I took just after
Madeline's graduation.
My experience of delight had a history in
working with Madeline and understanding something of the influence of bullying
by her peers when a young girl at school and the defenses that were needed to
retain a faith in her own creativity and intelligence. I think the whole of the
Abstract to her thesis (Church, 2005) clearly communicates her persistence in
remaining open to the flow of compassion, love and understanding in not
permitting bullying to force a 'retreat into disconnection':
CREATING AN
UNCOMPROMISED PLACE TO BELONG: WHY DO I FIND MYSELF IN NETWORKS?
Abstract
My
inquiry sits within the reflective paradigm. I start from an understanding that
knowing myself better will enhance my capacity for good action in the world.
Through questioning myself and writing myself on to the page, I trace how I
resist community formations, while simultaneously wanting to be in community
with others. This paradox has its roots in my multiple experiences of being
bullied, and finds transformation in my stubborn refusal to retreat into
disconnection.
I notice
the way bullying is part of my fabric. I trace my resistance to these
experiences in my embodied experience of connecting to others, through a form
of shape-changing. I see how question-forming is both an expression of my own
bullying tendencies, and an intention to overcome them. Through my connection
to others and my curiosity, I form a networked community in which I can work in
the world as a network coordinator, action-researcher, activist and evaluator.
I show
how my approach to this work is rooted in the values of compassion, love, and
fairness, and inspired by art. I hold myself to account in relation to these
values, as living standards by which I judge myself and my action in the world.
This finds expression in research that helps us to design more appropriate
criteria for the evaluation of international social change networks. Through
this process I inquire with others into the nature of networks, and their
potential for supporting us in lightly-held communities which liberate us to be
dynamic, diverse and creative individuals working together for common purpose.
I tentatively conclude that networks have the potential to increase my and our
capacity for love.
Through
this research I am developing new ways of knowing about what we are doing as
reflective practitioners, and by what standards we can invite others to judge
our work. I am, through my practice, making space for us to flourish, as
individuals and communities. In this way I use the energy released by my
response to bullying in the service of transformation.
On her graduation day I
experienced a confident loving flow-form of life-affirming energy with Madeline
and knew that she had increased her capacity for love through the relational
dynamic networks described in her thesis. In a reflection on the influence of
my supervision soon after her graduation, Madeline writes:
Jack
was my supervisor for five years. What he knows about, and unhesitatingly
touches when he sees it, is authenticity. Jack can read a piece of work and see
the truth in it. He can spot the core phrase in any piece I write, and say,
this is where the truth of this story lies, this is the important claim you are
making, now where is your evidence? It took me years and much questioning
really to understand the discipline he was demanding, and we spent many an hour
with me saying, Jack, I don't understand, and he would say it again, and I
would reply, you need to say it another way, say it differently to me, so that
I get it, and we would swing back and forth, and I would take it away and
ponder upon it, and re-search for my evidence, and bring it back. And again he
would spot the authentic moment and the new hole in the story. As such I think
we undertook a process of co-investigating my account, and reconciling his
demand for clarity and authenticity as a 'reader' and my determinedly opaque
and subtle aesthetic as writer. (e-mail to Jean McNiff, 5 August, 2005)
On her graduation day, I did not
'spot... the new hole in the story'. I felt a shared, authentic affirmation in a
loving flow of life-affirming energy.
My next communication of a loving
flow-form of life-affirming energy is through the following image with Peter
Mellett. What is particularly significant is that this picture was
taken as we talked about our shared values of love and understanding at a time
when Peter was undergoing treatment for cancer.
The context of our conversation
was the ending of the BERA Practitioner-Researcher SIG e-seminar of 2005 that I
had been convening. We were talking about the final posting Peter was intending
to make on the process of reviewing the quality of practitioner-researcher
accounts in relation to the theme of the seminar on The Nature of
Educational Theories: What counts as evidence of educational influences in
learning.
Jack Whitehead on the left, Peter
Mellett on the right.
My purpose in convening the BERA
Practitioner-researcher SIG e-seminar was to see if I could contribute to the
gathering of a data archive of the explanations of educational influence in
learning of practitioner-researchers and to develop a better understanding of
the criteria of quality of practice-based research. Peter initiated the review
phase of this process to focus on the criteria of quality. You can access the
archives by joining at:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=bera-practitioner-researcher&A=1
You can
also access a more detailed paper on 'Developing the dynamic boundaries of
living standards of judgment in educational enquiries of the kind, 'How do I
improve what I am doing?' from http://www.jackwhitehead.com/jwartl141015web.htm.
Having introduced the idea of
living critical standards of judgment in educational theorising I now want to
analyse the adequacy of their ontological values as explanatory principles of
educational influence.
4) Can embodied ontological
values be used as explanatory principles in accounting for educational
influences in learning?
In 1994, The Third World Congress
on Action Learning, Action Research and Process Management, was held at the
University of Bath and co-ordinated by Moira Laidlaw. In the first meeting of
the organising committee we focused on deciding a theme for the Congress and
Erica Holley proposed the theme that we accepted, 'Accounting for Ourselves'.
What we had in mind was a World Congress where practitioner-researchers would
share their accounts of their learning in terms of the values and
understandings that they use to give meaning and purpose to their lives.
I agree with Walsh (1972) that
values determine our standpoint:
"When data are organised in
terms of abstract general laws, we have the natural sciences. When they are
organized in terms of understanding concrete individual cases that are suffused
with meaning, the cultural sciences are the results.
But such meanings cannot be
understood except in terms of values. The cultural sciences must, therefore,
deal with values. But they can deal with them adequately only in terms of an
objective science of values. This in turn can only be supplied by a philosophy
of history. Values are not real, they merely have validity (Geltung). In a
sense, value may be regarded as the polar opposite of actuality. It is in terms
of value that we approach actuality and organize it. Our values determine our
standpoint." (Walsh, p. xvi, 1972),
However, values in living
educational theories can be distinguished from an 'objective science of values'
that is supplied by a philosophy of history. In living educational theories, values are to be understood
as embodied and ontological, in the sense that they are living energies of
action that give meaning and purpose to life and whose meanings are clarified
in the course of their emergence in educational enquiry.
My claim that ontological values
can be used in accounting for ourselves and our learning is supported by the
living theory doctorate theses at http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/living.shtml
. Each living theory is an account of learning in relation to the values used
by the individual to give meaning and purpose to their lives. The fact that
these theses have been legitimated in the Academy is of course no guarantee of
their validity. However, each thesis addresses the issue of validity from the
ground of both personal knowledge and social validity, with the explicit living
critical standards of judgment that are used to evaluate the validity of the
living theory in the course of its emergence. Marian Naidoo, the most recent
graduate with a living theory thesis (Naidoo, 2005) expresses this in the
Abstract to her Doctorate:
Abstract
I am Because We Are. (My
never-ending story) The emergence of a living theory of inclusional and
responsive practice
I believe that this original
account of my emerging practice demonstrates how I have been able to turn my
ontological commitment to a passion for compassion into a living
epistemological standard of judgment by which my inclusional and responsive
practice may be held accountable.
I am a story teller and the
focus of this narrative is on my learning and the development of my living
educational theory as I have engaged with others in a creative and
critical practice over a sustained period of time. This narrative self-study
demonstrates how I have encouraged people to work creatively and
critically in order to improve the way we relate and communicate in a
multi-professional and multi-agency healthcare setting in order to improve both
the quality of care provided and the well being of the system.
In telling the story of the
unique development of my inclusional and responsive practice I will show how I
have been influenced by the work of theatre practitioners such as Augusto Boal,
educational theorists such as Paulo Freire and drawn on, incorporated and
developed ideas from complexity theory and living theory action research.
I will also describe how my engagement with the thinking of others has enabled
my own practice to develop and from that to develop a living, inclusional and
responsive theory of my practice. Through this research and the writing of this
thesis, I now also understand that my ontological commitment to a passion for
compassion has its roots in significant events in my past. (Naidoo, 2005, Retrieved 6 August 2005 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/naidoo.shtml
)
Naidoo's creation of her living
theory of inclusional and response practice, is perhaps the most convincing
demonstration that embodied ontological values can be used as explanatory
principles in accounting for educational influences in learning.
Several assumptions ground my
belief that what I have been doing in living such ontological values
constitutes a worthwhile and productive life. One assumption is that an
individual's educational theory explains their educational influence in their
own learning in a way that carries hope for the future of humanity. Another
assumption is that living educational theories are contributing to the
knowledge-base of education. Another assumption is that pedagogisations of
living educational theories are contributing to the evolution of postcolonial
social formations. Each assumption is open to question and I hope that I have
still some time left to improve my practice and the assumptions that guide what
I do!
My question, about the adequacy of
ontological values as explanatory principles, is related to MacIntyre's point
that:
The rival claims to truth of contending traditions of enquiry depend for their vindication upon the adequacy and explanatory power of the histories which the resources of each of those traditions in conflict enable their adherents to write. (MacIntyre, 1988, p. 403)
It is also related to Schutz's
notion of adequacy when he says that a researcher should show how 'the actor
could himself have subjectively intended a certain meaning.' (Schutz, 1972, p. 234)
The significance of the question
is in its relationship to living critical standards of judgment. There are
several disciplines of education, each with its own distinctive conceptual
framework and critical standards of judgment in its methods of validation, that
are used to generate explanations about education. I don't feel any conflict
between the explanations of education that can be generated from these
disciplines of education and the explanations generated by
practitioner-researchers to explain their educational influence in learning.
This is because I see that explanations of education generated from enquiries into
the philosophy, psychology, sociology, history, management, economics, theology
and politics of education can be helpful to an individual in generating their
explanation of their own educational influence in their own learning, in the
learning of others and in the learning of social formations.
However, I do feel a conflict when
I recognise that accredited programmes of professional development in education
are adopting a curriculum and pedagogy of transmission of the conceptual
frameworks and methods of validation of disciplines of education without a
recognition of the significance of an educators' ontological values as
explanatory principles in the generation and testing of their own living
educational theories. This goes back to my experience of the old disciplines
approach to educational theory seeking to replace the ontological values I used
as my explanatory principles by other principles from the theories of education
of the disciplines. Given my belief that ontological values can be used as explanatory
principles of educational influence how can the values be transformed into
critical standards of judgment?
5) How can embodied ontological
values be transformed into living epistemological standards of critical
judgment?
I experience my values as
expressions of energy that can explain why I do what I do. I connect the value
words I use to express my expression of values to this motivating energy. For
example I refer to the life-affirming energy I express in my educational
relationships and which I recognise in the educational practices of others as
the state of being grasped by the power of being itself. In my book on the growth of educational
knowledge (Whitehead, 1993) I focused on the motivating power of freedom and
justice in the experience of holding together living contradictions of values
and understandings and their negation.
What I mean by my ontological
values are those flows of energy that carry the meaning and purpose of my life.
In accounting for myself, in the spirit of The Third World Congress, I explain
my educational influence in learning as I explore my question, 'How do I
improve what I am doing?' in terms of living a productive life, a life that
feels worthwhile. A good part of
this life has been spent in supporting the creation, dissemination and
pedagogisation of living educational theories. One of my reasons for offering
my ideas for public discussion and criticism at BERA and AERA stems from an
anxiety. This is the anxiety of being open to the possibility that I might be mistaken.
I remember experiencing this anxiety when I heard David Clark make the
following statement in 1997 in an invited presentation to Division A of AERA
not long before he died. Division A is focused on Organization, Administration
and Leadership:
The honest
fact is that the total contribution of Division A of AERA to the development of
the empirical and theoretical knowledge base of administration and policy
development is so miniscule that if all of us had devoted our professional
careers to teaching and service, we would hardly have been missed. (Clark,
p.5, 1997)
One of the
reasons I value so highly the responses of critical friends is that they can
point to my lack of awareness of significant ideas and to contradictions in my
ideas, practices and beliefs. They can help me not to persist in error. This is
a great service in the knowledge that my beliefs have been subjected to
rigorous criticism. So far, the following idea on how to transform embodied
ontological values into living epistemological standards of critical judgment,
continues to have both personal and social validity.
In each of
the living theory theses, individuals feel a tension, concern or contradiction
when their ontological values are not being lived as fully as they believe that
they could be. This stimulates the imagination with ideas on how to improve
matters that form into an action plan. If the conditions permit, actions are
taken with the intention of living values more fully. Data are gathered with
which to make a judgment on the effectiveness of the actions. Actions and
understandings are evaluated in terms of their effectiveness in enabling values
to be lived more fully. Explanations of learning are subjected to the responses
of critical friends and concerns, ideas and actions are modified in the light
of the evaluations and explanations.
In the course
of this enquiry, the meanings of the ontological values are clarified in the
course of their emergence in practice. The clarification can now include, with
the change in the University of Bath regulations of 2004, visual narratives
with the submission of e-media, for those seeking academic legitimation of
their contributions to knowledge. In this clarification the living experiences
of ontological values are transformed, in a visual narrative, into living
epistemological standards of judgment that can be used to evaluate the validity
of the knowledge claims. Each thesis must meet standards of originality of mind
and critical judgment. The living standards of critical judgment, in each
thesis, have been formed through the above process of clarifying the meanings
of ontological values in the course of their emergence through the practice of
enquiry.
In my own thesis (Whitehead, 1999) I explain my educational
influences in my own learning in terms of my ontological values and
understandings. The latest transformation in the growth of my educational
knowledge has emerged through my understanding of inclusional forms of
educational theorising and my thinking about the evolution of postcolonial
social formations. I now turn to some influences in my learning of these
understandings.
6) What educational influences
in learning can evolve into an inclusional, responsive and postcolonial form of
living educational theorising?
My educational theorising has
evolved over the past 37 years in three phases from the disciplines approach to
propositional educational theory then into a dialectical approach to living
educational theory and finally into an inclusional approach to living
educational theory. Each of these transformations were motivated by feelings of
contradiction.
My initiation into the disciplines
approach to propositional educational theory was carried out with great passion
and commitment by a group of philosophers led by Richard Peters at the
Institute of Education between 1968-70.
My studies of educational theory were motivated by my desire to extend
my cognitive range and understanding from an awareness in which I felt a lack
of knowledge about education.
The evolution in my understandings
of educational theory was moved forward by the experience I described earlier.
I experienced the contradiction of believing in the value of educational
theory, yet not holding an educational theory I could believe to be valid. The
clearest expression of my formulation of a dialectical approach to living
educational theory is in the paper, Creating a Living Educational Theory from
Questions of the Kind, 'How do I improve my practice?'
(http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/writings/livtheory.html
)
A further evolution moved me from
dialectical theorising into an inclusional approach to living educational
theories. The inclusional approach retains insights from both propositional and
dialectical theorising. This evolution was motivated by an appreciation of Alan
Rayner's (2005) understandings of inclusionality. In particular, it was
motivated by the educational influence in my own learning of his understanding
of inclusionality as a relationally dynamic awareness of space and boundaries
that is connective, reflexive and co-creative. In this view of inclusionality a
complex self is expressed as a contextualised understanding of self-identity
that is formed through the reciprocal coupling of inner and outer spatial
domains through an intermediary self-boundary. My recognition of inclusionality took me back to my 1971
reading of Michael Polanyi's
(1958) post-critical philosophy in his Personal Knowledge, with his
logic of affirmation and his valuing of conviviality.
My recognition of a life-affirming
flow of loving energy in the video-clips and images above, is grounded in such
a logic of affirmation and valuing of conviviality. I tend to resist violations
of this affirmation and conviviality, particularly in my postcolonial responses
to colonising tendencies. Like Church's resistance of bullying through her
sustained commitment to fairness, love and compassion, my own passion for
freedom has helped me to resist colonising pressure. In doing this I continue
to understand my practice as dialectical responses to the experience of living
contradictions. I also continue to use insights from propositional theories
that might help me to live my values more fully and enhance my understandings.
In this way I can hold together both dialectical and propositional processes
within my living logics and awareness of inclusionality.
In answering the question, 'What
educational influences in learning can evolve an inclusional, responsive and
postcolonial form of living educational theorising?' I turn to a network of
interconnecting and branching networks of relationship and channels of
communications. I turn to the educational influences in my learning of working
and researching with others. In acknowledging these influences I have given the
name of the researcher with the date of significant publication then the focus
of the idea that has influenced my learning and then the live url from which
you can access work related to their influence in my learning.
From:
Mary Gurney (1988) - personal,
social and health education http://www.southcerney1.fsnet.co.uk/home.htm
Jean McNiff (1989) - the generative and transformatory
potential of action research http://www.jeanmcniff.com
Eames, K. (1995) - a knowledge-base for educators http://www.actionresearch.net/kevin.shtml
Moyra Evans (1995) - a woman's dialogical leadership in a school http://www.actionresearch.net/moyra.shtml
Hughes, J. (1996) - action planning in vocational education - http://www.actionresearch.net/jacqui.shtml
Laidlaw, M. (1996) - living standards of judgment http://www.actionresearch.net/moira2.shtml and with Li Peidong and Dean Tian Fengjun (Fengjun and Laidlaw, 2005) on collective~individual standards of judgment.
Holley, E. (1997) - accounting
for ourselves http://www.actionresearch.net/erica.shtml
D'Arcy, P. (1998) - making
aesthetically engaged and appreciative responses http://www.actionresearch.net/pat.shtml
Loftus, J. (1999) - retaining integrity in the face of market
forces and Ofsted http://www.actionresearch.net/loftus.shmtl
Whitehead, J. (1999) - living educational theory and a scholarship of educational enquiry http://www.actionresearch.net/jack.shtml
Cunningham, B. (1999) - living and questioning spiritual values in education http://www.actionresearch.net/ben.shtml
Adler-Collins, J. (2000) - a living theory curriculum of a healing nurse http://www.actionresearch.net/jekan.shtml
Finnegan, (2000) - How can love enable justice to see rightly? http://www.actionresearch.net/fin.shtml
Austin, T. (2001) - the practice of community. Living values-based, critical standards of judgement http://www.actionresearch.net/austin.shtml
Mead, G. (2001) - relating
personal experience to professional practice http://www.actionresearch.net/mead.shtml
Bosher, M. (2001) - the knowledge-creation of a professional educator http://www.actionresearch.net/bosher.shtml
Delong, J. (2002) - creating a culture of inquiry, passion
in professional practice. http://www.actionresearch.net/delong.shtml
Scholes-Rhodes, J. (2002) - retaining an exquisite connectivity with embodied spiritual and aesthetic presence http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/rhodes.shtml
Robyn Pound (2003) - alongsideness
in life, health visiting and education http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/pound.shtml
Roberts, P. (2003) - dialectics of self and other http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/roberts.shtml
Punia, R. (2004) - living a spiritual participation with the Cosmos http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/punia.shtml
Hartog, M. (2004) - a woman's way
of knowing in educational relationships, persisting with integrity in the face
of pressure http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/hartog.shtml
Church, M. (2004) - increasing our capacity to love through networks,
resisting bullying and refusing to retreat into disconnection http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/church.shtml
Lohr, E. (2004) - love at work http://www.jackwhitehead.com/elFront%202.htm
Charles, Eden (2004) - women of
Sierra Leone expressing love for their children produced in the face of rape in
civil war http://www.jackwhitehead.com/edenslsor.mov
Naidoo, M. (2005) - passion for compassion, a commitment to
enhance the physical health of users of mental health services http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/arsup/mnabsok.htm
Farren, M. (2005) - a pedagogy of
the unique, a web of betweenness, pedagogising living educational theories in
the Academy http://webpages.dcu.ie/~farrenm/research.html
Murray, Y. P. (2005) -
postcolonial theorising, postcolonial critical pedagogy http://www.royagcol.ac.uk/~paul_murray/default.htm
Serper, A. (2005) - a heuristics
of human existence http://www.bath.ac.uk/~pspas/
and http://www.jackwhitehead.com/monday/Serperthesis.htm
Riding, K. (2005) - pupils as
researchers http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/module/kcee3.pdf
Riding, S. (2005) - living myself
through others http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/module/srmadis.pdf
Adler-Collins, P. (2005) –
creating a safe space for healing in life and in pedagogising a living theory
curriculum for a healing nurse http://www.living-action-research.net/
Branko Bognar (2005) - an
international educator mentoring teachers and pupils as action researchers.
http://www.jackwhitehead.com/branko/bbarincroatia.htm
I recognise the uniqueness of each
individual with our different biographies and narratives of educational
influence in our learning. I also
experience forms of communication in which I recognise shared meanings with
others. In explaining the significance of the following influences in my own
education I understand that you may have come to similar understandings through
different routes. What I can bear witness to is that the originalities of mind,
critical judgments, values and understandings of the following individuals have
influenced the development of my inclusional, responsive and postcolonial
living educational theorising. As I equate this theorising in the next section
with my living a productive life in education I ask you to bear in mind the
energy and powerful commitment each individual has shown and shared with me in
the creation of their own accounts of their learning.
As I work to extend the influence
of what I know to be possible , through the lives and work of these educators
and educational researchers, I appreciate the significance of what Joan Whitehead
(2003) has referred to as 'Making the Possible, Probable'.
I am thinking of making the
possible, probable, in the sense of enhancing the systemic influence of what is
shown to be possible in the creation of an individual's living educational
theory. It is clear to me that spreading the systemic influence (Marshall 2004)
of such theories into the education of social formations will require many
practitioner-researchers to explore together and share their theories. In the
light of Boyer's (1990) advocacy of the need to develop new forms of
scholarship, I am wondering if the systemic influence of living educational
theories will be enhanced through the development a scholarship of educational
enquiry and new living collective~individual (Fengjun & Laidlaw, 2005)
standards of judgment.
Before I consider this I want to
make a point about the influence of humour, laughter and pleasure in learning.
After circulating a previous draft of this paper, I could recognise the truth
in Marie Huxtable's response when she pointed out that the expression of my
pleasure through humour, and laughter had a significant influence in learning.
Here is an image that often evokes the laughter, humour and pleasure I
recognise I express in my educational relationships:
7) Can a scholarship of
educational enquiry produce a collective~individual standard of judgment in
educational theorising of living a productive life?
Given the title of my doctoral
research programme:
How do I improve my practice?
Creating a discipline of education through educational enquiry.
http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/jack.shtml
my answer is a resounding yes!
Here is the Abstract to the thesis
(Whitehead, 1999) which sets out my justification for believing that we should
explore together the implications of a new disciplines approach to educational
theory through educational enquiry:
This thesis shows how living
educational standards of originality of mind and critical judgment in
educational enquiries has created a discipline of education.
The meanings of these standards
emerged from an analysis of my research published between 1977-1999. The
analysis proceeds from the base of my experience of myself, my I, as a living
contradiction in the question, How do I improve this process of education here?
An educational methodology,
which includes I as a living contradiction, emerges from the application of a
four-fold classification of methodologies of the social sciences. Then the idea
of living educational theories emerges in terms of the descriptions and
explanations which individual learners produce for their own educational
development.
A logic of the question, How do
I improve my practice? emerges from my engagement with the ideas of others and
from an exploration of the question in the practical contradictions between the
power of truth and the truth of power in my workplace.
A discipline of education, with
its standards of originality of mind and critical judgment, is defined and
extended into my educative influences as a professional educator in the
enquiry, 'How do I help you to improve your learning?'
My living educational theory
continues to develop in the enquiry , How do I live my values more fully in my
practice?. I explain my present practice in terms of an evaluation of my past
learning, in terms of my present experiences of spiritual, aesthetic and
ethical contradictions in my educative relations and in terms of my proposals
for living my values more fully in the future. (Whitehead, 1999. Retrieved 5 August 2005 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/jack.shtml
)
When I write about researching
together I am meaning that we exist together in our interconnectedness with
space and boundaries. Ideas from research, including the living theories in
Appendix One, are already flowing through the interconnecting and branching
channels of communication of web-space. We can share and access each others'
ideas. We can support the expression of each others' creativity. We can
critically engage with each others' accounts of learning. We can provide the
evidence of our use of each others' ideas and make suggestions that might help
each other to move their enquiries forward. This is what I am meaning by my
researching together with the following researchers. Each has influenced the
development of my inclusional, responsive and postcolonial living educational
theorising.
There is a difference between
reading the following text in a hard copy and reading it in an internet
browser. With an internet browser you can access the web-spaces that are
flowing with ideas, the living theories and video-clips. You can access the
moment from the 18th December 2002, some hours after Jackie Delong
had graduated from the University of Bath with her doctorate in an evening's
celebration led by Peter Mellett. There is suddenly a release of life-affirming
energy in the pleasure of laughter that I associate below with a
collective~individual living critical standard of judgment of living a
productive life.
http://www.jackwhitehead.com/pm181204colsor.mov
Peter is explaining the importance
of music in the communication of achievement between Stephane Grapelli and
Django Reinhardt in their improvisation 'Minor Swing'. We believe that Peter is
expressing a flow of love and understanding. The 'eruption' of humour towards
the end of the clip shows the flow of life-affirming energy through the
boundaries of the relationships into a community celebration that is focused on
Jackie Delong's achievement in her knowledge-creation and productive life. The
purpose of this clip is to emphasise the importance of expressing pleasure,
through laughter, in both our webs of betweenness and pedagogies of the unique
in our communities of practice.
You can access video-clips showing
ten year old pupils in Croatia using an action research approach to their own
learning with their teachers and mentor Branko Bognar (see Branko Bognar's
letter below with the live urls). With the click of a button you can move
between practitioner-researcher accounts from China, Croatia, Canada Ireland
and the UK. It is the influence of these flows of life-affirming energy and
understandings, through the interconnecting and branching networks of
communication, that I am seeking to extend and legitimate in the Academy. I am
thinking of an extension of influence that could come through captivating your
imaginations and passions for education. Hence I am encouraging you to
contribute your own living educational theories to the flow of such values and
understandings that, for me, carry hope for the future of humanity.
Having focused above on a loving
flow-form of life-affirming energy as a living critical standard of judgment I
now want to introduce the idea of living a productive life as a
collective~individual critical standard of judgment. What I have in mind is a productive life in which an
individual's living educational theory enhances the flow of values,
understandings and skills that carry hope for the future of humanity. In
thinking about a productive life as a collective~individual standard of
judgment I am bearing in mind Marx's idea of what it means to produce something
as human beings:
Suppose we had produced things as human beings: in his
production each of us would have twice affirmed himself and the other.
In my production I would have objectified my
individuality and its particularity, and in the course of the activity I would
have enjoyed an individual life, in viewing the object I would have experienced
the individual joy of knowing my personality as an objective, sensuously
perceptible, and indubitable power.
In your satisfaction and your use of my product I would
have had the direct and conscious satisfaction that my work satisfied a human
need, that it objectified human nature, and that it created an object
appropriate to the need of another human being.
I would have been the mediator between you and the
species and you would have experienced me as a redintegration of your own
nature and a necessary part of yourself; I would have been affirmed in your
thought as well as your love.
In my individual life I would have directly created your life, in my individual activity I would have immediately confirmed and realized my true human nature. (Bernstein, 1971, p. 48)
In working with the researchers listed in section vi I have felt this affirmation as my own ideas have been shared and found to be of value to others. My own life and understandings have been influenced not only by the ideas. The ideas have been expressed in living relationships that have enhanced the flow of my own life-affirming energy. Space doesn't permit me to acknowledge all the educational influences of those whose research programmes I have supervised and that are listed in Appendix One with more details in Appendix Three. Given that I have been seeking to show the need for multi-media forms of representation for the communication of the meanings of embodied values and living critical standards of judgment, I have visual images of the researchers listed in section vi and Appendix Three as I write. These help me to communicate the influence of each researcher in the development of my own collective~individual standard of judgment of living a productive life.
Because of the interconnecting and branching channels of communication opened up by the internet, the live-urls in section iv and Appendices One and Three can enable you to connect to, engage with and be influenced by their ideas, values and understandings. What I am seeking to communicate, by drawing attention to their living theories and other writings, is that living a productive life can be understood as a collective~individual critical standard of judgment. In highlighting the expression of the uniqueness or singularity of each individual's productive life within interconnecting and branching channels of communication that can work together, I am seeking to retain a sense of the integrity, uniqueness and singularity of each individual as they exist within social relations that understand the evolution of postcolonial social formations as a collective task.
In proposing the use of a
productive life as a collective~individual critical standard of judgment for
living educational theories I am bearing the ideas of Julia Kristeva in mind
about singularity, creativity and sharing for a good community:
".... All of the twentieth century and, in particular, the beginning of the twentieth century, in the light of the developments in biology, in new technology and in the knowledge of the psychic life of the individual, as well as the sexual revolution, tend in the direction of maximum singularization. And this is something that cannot be stopped, whatever religions might desire. It is the development of technics and the individual. How can we deal with this? I believe that we should try to draw on the benefits of these developments for the creativity of individuals. Each person has the right to become as singular as possible and to develop the maximum creativity for him or herself. And at the same time, without stopping this creativity, we should try to build bridges and interfaces - that is to say foster sharing. The religious heritage is going to lead us to rethink the idea of sharing, but without repressing singularity. This is the great challenge of the modern world. It is not a question of creating a community in the image of the past; it is a question of creating a new community on the basis of sharing singularity. This is the great challenge. But if we do not weigh up the difficulty of this challenge we are going to be enclosed in repressive communities which will not survive the need for singularity. Or else these will lead the world into a regression which will not be transient; we could live in a Middle Ages for several decades before the need for singularity – irremediably borne by the development of technology and biological and symbolic singularity – once again asserted itself. So, let's try to the understand the challenge in terms of singularity and sharing for good community." (Lechte & Margaroni, 2004, p. 162)
I agree with Kristeva that the challenge is to create a new community on the basis of sharing singularity. I believe that the sharing of singularity, originality of mind and critical judgment in living educational theories, as they flow through web-space, is a contribution to such a new community. I am identifying the creation and sharing of educational theories as part of living a productive life in the sense of producing and sharing as human beings.
I am suggesting that the legitimation and use of living a productive life, as a collective~individual standard of judgment in educational enquiry and educational knowledge-creation, will serve to enhance the flow of values, understandings and skills that carry hope for the future of humanity. I have experienced such productive lives with the educational enquirers listed in section vi. I have given more details of their influence in my own learning in Appendix Three.
Just looking at the accomplishment
of these educational researchers and educators (and their pupils and students),
with the values and understandings they embody, evokes and enhances the flow of
life-affirming energy that I associate with hope for the future of humanity. It
is such a pleasure to draw your attention to their work and it may be that our
future contributions to educational knowledge and influence will be
strengthened by working and researching together. I am thinking of working together
to spread the systemic influence of living critical standards of judgment. I
have offered my initial contribution to these standards in terms of loving
flow-forms of life affirming energy and the understandings of living theories
of our productive lives in education as we develop a scholarship of educational
enquiry.
Each researcher who has produced a
living theory thesis has demonstrated a scholarship of educational enquiry.
Each researcher has expressed their contribution to knowledge as unique and
distinctive. In clarifying their
ontological values in the course of their emergence in practice they have
produced living critical standards of judgment. In the flow of these theses
through web-space we are able to engage and appreciate the relational dynamic
awareness of complex selves who are being formed through the reciprocal
coupling of inner and outer spatial domains through an intermediary
self-boundary. It is in working together in this shared living space, through
our interconnecting boundaries, that offers the possibility for us to create
our living collective~individual standards of judgment in living our productive
lives. An image from Shaun Tan's 'The Lost Thing' serves as a metaphor for
living our productive lives in our shared living space. The story of the lost
thing feeling 'lost' has a resolution as a door opens and the lost thing is no
longer lost but exists in a harmonious living space with others.
Marie Huxtable brought the image
to me as a metaphor for her delight in her productive life in education. Her
delight resonates with my own.
One of the pleasures of looking
back on a productive life in education is in seeing others create their own
forms of life with values and understandings that resonate with love,
understanding and hope for the future of humanity. Another of my delights is in
the enhanced flow of energy that comes with the grateful recognition of what I
have learnt from those I am researching with. I am thinking particularly of the
life-affirming energy I feel as I recognise and learn from the originality of
mind of researchers who share their own critical standard of judgment of living
a productive life. I am thinking here of sharing our living educational
theories in the convivial living spaces of our lives of educational enquiry. I
am thinking of the ways in which we can help each other to live productive
lives through the quality of our responses to each others' enquiries into ways
of enhancing the flow of values that carry hope for the future of humanity. BERA
members are contributing to the present debates on the nature of the criteria
of quality for judging practice-based research in relation to originality,
significance and rigour. I can think of nothing more significant to the debate
than the clarification of the living critical standards of judgement we use in
our educational theorising as we seek to realise more fully, through our
educational enquiries, our capacities for loving relationships and living
productive lives. I'm curious to know if any of the above ideas resonate with
your own?
References
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 15 August 2005 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/austin.shtml
Bataille, G. (1987) Eroticism. London, New York; Marion Boyars
Bernstein, B. (2000) Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity: Theory, Research, Critique. Lanham, Boulder, NewYork, Oxford; Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Bernstein, R. (1971) Praxis and Action, London; Duckworth.
Boyer, E. L. (1990). Scholarship
reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate. Princeton, NJ: The Carnegie
Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
Church, M. (2004) Creating an uncompromised
place to belong. Why do I find myself in networks. Ph.D. University of Bath.
Retrieved 1st August 2005 from
http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/church.shtml
Clark, D. (1997) The Search for Authentic Educational
Leadership: In the Universities and in the Schools. Invited presentation to Division A at the Annual
Meeting of AERA, 1997, Chicago.
Cox. M. W. (1997) Time to
Dismantle Whiteness. Retrieved 18 May 2005 from http://www.majorcox.com/columns/whitenes.htm
D' Arcy, P. (1998) The Whole Story.... Ph.D. University of Bath. Retrieved 15 August 2005 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/pat.shtml
Farren, M. & Whitehead, J. (2005) educational influences
in learning with visual narratives A paper and video-conference
presentation at the Diverse Conference 2005 5 July, 2005. Retrieved on 25 July
2005 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/monday/mfjwwebped2.htm
Fengjun, T. (2005) How can I help my colleagues to become more collaborative and thus promote sustainable educational development. Paper presented at a seminar in the University of Bath, Department of Education, 11 July 2004. Retrieved 15 August 2005 from http://www.jackwhitehead.com/monday/tfarrep0605.pdf
Fengjun, T. & Laidlaw, M. (2005) How can we enhance
educational and English-Language provision at our Action Research Centre and
beyond? Action Research Expeditions, June 2005. Retrieved 23 July 2005 from http://www.arexpeditions.montana.edu/docs/articles.php
Fromm, E.
(1947) Man For Himself.Foucault, M. (1980), in Gordon, C. (Ed.) (1980) Power/Knowledge. London; Harvester.
Fromm, E.
(1960) The Fear of Freedom, p. 18, London; Routledge & Kegan Paul.Habermas,
J. (1975) Legitimation Crisis. London; Beacon.
Gillilan, H. (2000) Erich Fromm:
An Appreciation. Retrieved 15 August 2005 from http://www.humanistsofutah.org/2000/genmay00.html
Gurney, M. (1988) An action enquiry into ways of developing and improving personal and social education. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Bath.
Habermas, J. (1976) Communication and the evolution of society. London; Heinemann
Habermas, J. (1987) The Theory of Communicative Action
Volume Two: The Critique of Functionalist Reason. Oxford; Polity.
Hirst, P. (Ed.) (1983) Educational Theory and its Foundation Disciplines. London;RKP
Ignatiev, N. (1997) The Point Is Not To Interpret Whiteness But To Abolish It. Retrieved 17 May 2005 from http://racetraitor.org/abolishthepoint.html
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 8 August
2005 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/moira2.shtml
Lyotard, F. (1984) The Postmodern Condition: A report on Knowledge. Manchester; Manchester University Press.
Macdonald, B. (1976) Evaluation and the control of
education. In Tawney, D. (Ed.) Curriculum Evaluation Today. Trends and
Implications. London; Macmillan.
MacDonald, B. (1987) The State of Education Today, Record of the First C.A.R.E. Conference. Norwich; University of East Anglia.
MacIntyre, A. (1988) Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Duckworth; London.
Marshall,
J. (2004) Living systemic
thinking: Exploring quality in first-person action research. Action Research Vol. 2, No. 3, pp.
309-329.
McLaren, P. Hill, D. Cole, M. & Rikowski, G. (2002) Postmodernism Adieu: Towards a Politics of Human Resistance. In Hill, McLaren, Cole & Rikowski (2002) (Ed.) Marxism Against Postmodernism in Educational Theory. Lanham; Lexington Books.
Naidoo, M. (2005) I am because we are (A never
ending story). The emergence of a living theory of inclusional and responsive
practice. Ph.D. University of Bath.
Retrieved 1st August 2005 from
http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/naidoo.shtml
McNiff, J. (1988) Action Research:
Principles and Practice, First Edition, London, Routledge.
McNiff, J. (1989) An explanation
of an individual's educational development through the dialectic of action
research. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Bath.
McNiff, J. (1993) Teaching as
Learning: an action research approach (1993), London, Routledge.
McNiff, J., Lomax, P. &
Whitehead, J. (1996) You and Your Action Research Project. London, Routledge.
McNiff, J. & Collins, U. M.
(Ed.) (1999) Rethinking Pastoral Care, London, Routledge.
McNiff, J. with Jack Whitehead
(2000) Action Research in Organisations, London, Routledge.
McNiff, J., McNamara, G. &
Diarmuid, L. (Ed.) (2000) Action Research in Ireland, Dorset, September Books.
McNiff, J. with Jack Whitehead
(2002) Action Research: Principles and Practice, Second Edition London,
Routledge.
McNiff, J. & Whitehead, J.
(2005) Action Research for Teachers, London, David Fulton.
Murray, P. Y. (2005) Paulus Yaqub
Murray: My Writings. Retrieved 31 July 2005 from http://www.royagcol.ac.uk/~paul_murray/Sub_Pages/PaulusWritings.htm
Murray, P. (2004) Speaking in a Chain of Voices ~
crafting a story of how I am contributing to the creation of my postcolonial
living educational theory through a self study of my practice as a
scholar-educator. Retrieved 31 July 2005 from http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/00003811.htm
Murray, P. (2004) How do I, a mixed race educator, contribute to a postcolonial present and future through talking, writing and acting my postcoloniality? Performing my Mixed-Race Educative Practice in White Spaces. Retrieved 31 July 2005 from http://www.rac.ac.uk/~paul_murray/Documents/How%20do%20I.doc
Murray, P.
& Whitehead J. (2000) White and Black with White Identities in
self-studies of teacher-educator practices. Retrieved 25 July 2005 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/A2/aerapj.htm
Murray, P. & Whitehead, J. & Nceku, N. (2005a)
Responsibilities and Opportunities for Transforming our Living Practices of
Inclusion in British Higher Education. A presentation to the University of
Sussex Diversity Week on Translating Diversity Policy into Practice. Retrieved
31 July 2005 from http://www.sussex.ac.uk/equalities/1-5-5-3.html
Murray, Y & Whitehead, J. & Nceku, N. (2005b) Teacher self-study for exploring
effective practices of inclusion. Presentation to the HE Academy on Engaging with Student Cultural
Diversity in the Curriculum – What works? October 26, 2005, at http://www.jackwhitehead.com/monday/pmnnjwHEACADEMYFORUM5.pdf
O' Donahue, J. (2003) Divine Beauty: The Invisible Embrace. London; Transworld Publishers.
Pound, R. (2003) How can I improve
my health visiting support of parenting? The creation of an alongside
epistemology through action enquiry. Retrieved 15 August 2005 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/pound.shtml
Punia, R. (2004) My CV is My Curriculum: The Making of an International Educator with Spiritual Values. Ed.D. Thesis, University of Bath. Retrieved 15 August 2005 http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/punia.shtml
Rikowski, G. (2002) Education, Capital and the Transhuman, in Marxism Against Postmodernism in Educational Theory, pp.111-143, London, Lexington Books.
Rayner, A. (2005) Essays and Talks about Inclusionality. Retrieved 8 August 2005 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~bssadmr/inclusionality/
Said, E. W. (1997) Beginnings: Intention and Method. p. 15. London ; Granta.
Schutz, A. (1972) The Phenomenology of the Social World, London; Heinemann Educational Books Ltd
Sen,
A. (1999) Development as Freedom, Oxford; Oxford University Press.
Serper, A. (2005) Alon Serper's
Web Pages. Retrieved 15 August 2005 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~pspas/
Tan, S. (2000) The Lost Thing.
Victoria; Thomas C. Lothian Pty. Ltd.
Tian, F., & Laidlaw, M.
(2005a) How can we enhance educational and English-Language provision at our
Action Research Centre and beyond? Action Research Expeditions, June
2005. Retrieved 23 July 2005 from http://www.arexpeditions.montana.edu/docs/articles.php
Tian, F., & Laidlaw, M.,
(2005b), 'Action Research and the New Curriculum in China: case-studies and
reports in the teaching of English', Beijing: Beijing Foreign Languages
Research Press (In press).
Tillich, P. (1962) The Courage to be. London; Fontana.
Walsh, G. (1967) Introduction. In Schutz, A. (1972) The Phenomenology of the Social World, ppxi-xxv. London; Heinemann Educational Books Ltd.
Whitehead, J. (2003) Keynote
address to the Standing Committee for the Education and Training of Teachers
Annual Conference 3rd-4th October 2003, Dunchurch. The Future of Teaching and
Teaching in the Future: a vision of the future of the profession of teaching -
Making the Possible Probable. Retrieved on 12 August 2005 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/evol/joanw_files/joanw.htm
Whitehead, J. (2004) Do the
values and living logics I express in my educational relationships carry the
hope of Ubuntu for the future of humanity?
Retrieved 25 July from http://www.jackwhitehead.com/jwbera04d.pdf
Whitehead,
J. (2005a) 'Developing the dynamic boundaries of living standards of judgment
in educational enquiries of the kind, "How do I improve what I am doing?"'
Retrieved 17th January 2005 from http://www.jackwhitehead.com/jwartl141015web.htm.
Whitehead, J. (2005b) Living critical standards of judgment
in educational theorising. A presentation in the Symposium , Creating
Postcolonial and Inclusional Living Educational Theories
(see http://www.jackwhitehead.com/bera05all/bera05noar.htm ), BERA, 2005, University of Glamorgan. Paper retrieved from http://jackwhitehead.com/monday/jwbera05pap.htm
Appendix One
Accessing Living
Theory Theses and Dissertations
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
Evans, M. (1995) An action research enquiry into reflection in action as part of my role as a deputy headteacher. Ph.D. Thesis, Kingston University. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/moyra.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
D'Arcy, P. (1998) The Whole Story..... Ph.D. Thesis, University of Bath. Retrieved 19
February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/pat.shtml
Loftus, J. (1999) An
action enquiry into the marketing of an established first school in its
transition to full primary status. Ph.D.
thesis, Kingston University. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/loftus.shmtl
Whitehead, J. (1999) How do I improve my practice? Creating a discipline of education through educational enquiry. Ph.D. University of Bath. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from 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.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/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.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/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.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/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.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/hartog.shtml
Church, M. (2004) Creating an uncompromised place to
belong: Why do I find myself in networks? Ph.D.
University of Bath. Retrieved 24 May 2005 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/church.shtml
Naidoo, M. (2005) I am Because We
Are. (My never-ending story) The emergence of a living theory of inclusional
and responsive practice. Ph.D. University of Bath. See Abstract at:
http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/arsup/mnabsok.htm
Appendix Two
NOTES ON THE IDEAS OF OTHERS IN THE GROWTH OF MY
UNDERSTANDINGS
Here is how I relate my commitment
to the singular and responsible, in living critical standards of judgment, with
the social, collective and cultural, through the ideas from Bakhtin,
Ramachandran, Seve, Boudrillard, Said, Habermas, Bernstein, Bourdieu, Rikowski
and Murray.
With Bakhtin, I recognise that 'I' do not fit into
traditional theories and that there is a fundamental error in rationalist
philosophy:
"As Bakhtin explains 'I' do not fit into theory - neither in the psychology of consciousness, not the history of some science, nor in the chronological ordering of my day, not in my scholarly duties...... these problems derive from the fundamental error of "rationalist" philosophy... The fatal flaw is the denial of responsibility - which is to say, the crisis is at base an ethical one. It can be overcome only by an understanding of the act as a category into which cognition enters but which is radically singular and 'responsible'." (Morson & Emerson, 1989, p. 13.)
For me, the meaning of I in 'How do I improve?' is showing myself acting with cognition, radical singularity and responsibility, in educational theory creation. I am aware of understanding myself, in the way described by Ramachandran in terms of continuity, unity, embodiment and agency:
What exactly do people mean when they speak
of the self? Its defining characteristics are fourfold. First of all,
continuity. You've a sense of time, a sense of past, a sense of future. There
seems to be a thread running through your personality, through your mind.
Second, closely related is the idea of unity or coherence of self. In spite of
the diversity of sensory experiences, memories, beliefs and thoughts, you
experience yourself as one person, as a unity.
So
there's continuity, there's unity. And then there's the sense of embodiment or
ownership - yourself as anchored to your body. And fourth is a sense of agency,
what we call free will, your sense of being in charge of your own destiny. (Ramachandran,
V. S. 2003)
I relate Ramachandran's point about a thread running through
my personality to Seve's idea of personality as meaning:
"... the total system of activity of a given individual, a
system which forms and develops throughout his life and the evolution of which
constitutes the essential content of his biography. The personality is not at
all to be reduced to individuality, or to the ensemble of the particular formal
characteristics of an individual's psychism whether these particular
characteristics refer back to biological conditions in themselves independent
of personal activity and to the infantile structurations which preceded it, or
on the contrary, are only explained by the particular logic of this activity.
The personality is the scientific concept which corresponds to the fundamental
unity of these two simple formulae: what a man makes of his life, what his life
made of him." (Seve, 1978, p.461)
In my question , 'How do I improve.....?' I am working with Bakhtin's notion of being
'radically singular' and responsible and with Boudrillard's notion of
singularities being an appropriate response to globalisation. The importance of
working with a contextualised understanding of self-identity and Boudrillard's
notion of singularity was highlighted by a Sky News Report, of the 7th
July 2005. The report is of explosions, terrible injuries and fatalities in
London with confirmation from a European News Agency of a terrorist attack that
co-incided with the Leaders of the G8 countries meeting at Gleneagles in
Scotland and the day after the celebrations of the successful London bid to
host the Olympic Games in 2012:
Positive alternatives cannot
defeat the dominant system, but singularities that are neither positive nor
negative can. Singularities are not alternatives. They represent a different
symbolic order. They do not abide by value judgments or political realities.
They can be the best or the worst. They cannot be "regularized" by
means of a collective historical action.
They defeat any uniquely dominant thought. Yet they do not present
themselves as a unique counter-thought. Simply, they create their own game and
impose their own rules. Not all singularities are violent. Some linguistic,
artistic, corporeal, or cultural singularities are quite subtle. But others,
like terrorism, can be violent. The singularity of terrorism avenges the
singularities of those cultures that paid the price of the imposition of a
unique global power with their own extinction........ Only an analysis that emphasizes the logic of symbolic
obligation can make sense of this confrontation between the global and the
singular. To understand the hatred of the rest of the world against the West,
perspectives must be reversed. The hatred of non-Western people is not based on
the fact that the West stole everything from them and never gave anything back.
Rather, it is based on the fact that they received everything, but were never
allowed to give anything back. This hatred is not caused by dispossession or
exploitation, but rather by humiliation. And this is precisely the kind of
hatred that explains the September 11 terrorist attacks. These were acts of
humiliation responding to another humiliation. (Boudrillard,
2003)
So, when I extend below my understandings of 'I' in asking,
researching and answering the question, 'How do I improve....?, these understandings are informed by
the above ideas. I am thinking particularly of 'I' being radically singular, in
acts, actions and activities that are motivated by values such as freedom,
responsibility, compassion and life-affirming energy. 'I' is connected to
influences from the ideas of others and the socio-historical and socio-cultural
formations in which I live, work and learn.
I am connecting the singularity of my 'I' to the influences
of the social, historical, cultural and racial, through Said's understandings
of influence and originality:
"As a poet indebted to and friendly with Mallarme, Valery
was compelled to assess originality and derivation in a way that said something
about a relationship between two poets that could not be reduced to a simple formula. As the actual
circumstances were rich, so too had to be the attitude. Here is an example from the'Letter
About Mallarme'.
No word comes easier of oftener to the critic's pen
than the word influence, and no vaguer notion can be found among all the vague
notions that compose the phantom armory of aesthetics. Yet there is nothing in the critical
field that should be of greater philosophical interest or prove more rewarding
to analysis than the progressive modification of one mind by the work of
another.
It often happens that the work acquires a singular
value in the other mind, leading to active consequences that are impossible to
foresee and in many cases will never be possible to ascertain. What we do know
is that this derived activity is essential to intellectual production of all
types. Whether in science or in the arts, if we look for the source of an
achievement we can observe that what a man does either repeats or refutes what
someone else has done – repeats it in other tones, refines or amplifies
or simplifies it, loads or overloads it with meaning; or else rebuts,
overturns, destroys and denies it, but thereby assumes it and has invisibly
used it. Opposites are born from opposites.
We say that an author is original when we cannot trace
the hidden transformations that others underwent in his mind; we mean to say
that the dependence on what he does on what others have done is excessively
complex and irregular. There are works in the likeness of others, and works
that are the reverse of others, but there are also works of which the relation
with earlier productions is so intricate that we become confused and attribute
them to the direct intervention of the gods.
(Paul Valery, 'Letter about
Mallarme', in Leonardo, Poe, Mallarme, trans. Malcolm Cowley and James R.
Lawler (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), p. 241.
Valery converts 'influence' from a crude idea of the weight of one writer coming down in the work of another into a universal principle of what he calls 'derived achievement'. He then connects this concept with a complex process of repetition that illustrates it by multiplying instances; this has the effect of providing a sort of wide intellectual space, a type of discursiveness in which to examine influence. Repetition, refinement, amplification, loading, overloading, rebuttal, overturning, destruction, denial, invisible use – such concepts completely modify a linear (vulgar) idea of 'influence' into an open field of possibility. Valery is careful to admit that chance and ignorance play important roles in this field; what we cannot see or find, as well as what we cannot predict, he says, produce excessive irregularity and complexity. Thus the limits of the field of investigation are set by examples whose nonconforming, overflowing energy begins to carry them out of the field. This is an extremely important refinement in Valery's writing. For even as his writing holds in the wide system of variously dispersed relationships connecting writers with one another, he also shows how at its limits the field gives forth other relations that are hard to describe from within the field." (Said, 1997, p.15)
In relation to socio-historical influences I am thinking of
ideas from Habermas where he focuses on learning, communication and social
validation in the evolution of society.
In his monumental work on The Theory of Communicative Action, Habermas attempts to free historical materialism from what he calls its philosophical ballast. He uses two abstractions. The development of cognitive structures are abstracted from the historical dynamic of events. The evolution of society is abstracted from the historical concretion of forms of life. He says that both abstractions help in getting beyond the confusion of basic categories to which the philosophy of history owes its existence:
A theory developed in this way can no longer start by examining concrete ideals immanent in traditional forms of life. It must orient itself to the range of learning processes that is opened up at a given time by a historically attained level of learning. It must refrain from critically evaluating and normatively ordering totalities, forms of life and cultures, and life-contexts and epochs as a whole. And yet it can take up some of the intentions for which the interdisciplinary research program of earlier critical theory remains instructive. (Habermas, 1987, p. 383)
This focus on learning is sustained from his earlier work on
the 'Legitimation Crisis' in which he says:
'It is my conjecture that the
fundamental mechanism for social evolution in general is to be found in an
automatic inability not to learn. Not learning but not-learning is the
phenomenon that calls for explanation at the socio-cultural stage of
development. Therein lies, if you will, the rationality of man. Only against
this background does the over-powering irrationality of the history of the
species become visible.' (Habermas, 1975, p.15)
I share Habermas' understanding that communicative action raises the following validity claims:
I shall develop the thesis that anyone acting
communicatively must, in performing any speech action, raise universal validity
claims and suppose that they can be vindicated (or redeemed). Insofar as he
wants to participate in a process of reaching understanding, he cannot avoid
raising the following – and indeed precisely the following –
validity claims. He claims to be:
a)
Uttering something understandably;
b)
Giving (the hearer) something to understand;
c)
Making himself thereby understandable. And
d)
Coming to an understanding with another person.
The speaker must choose a comprehensible expression so that speaker and hearer can understand one another. The speaker must have the intention of communicating a true proposition (or a propositional content, the existential presuppositions of which are satisfied) so that the hearer can share the knowledge of the speaker. The speaker must want to express his intentions truthfully so that the hearer can believe (p.2) the utterance of the speaker (can trust him). Finally, the speaker must choose an utterance that is right so that the hearer can accept the utterance and speaker and hearer can agree with on another in the utterance with respect to a recognized normative background. Moreover, communicative action can continue undisturbed only as long as participants suppose that the validity claims they reciprocally raise are justified. (Habermas, 1976, p.3)
The significance of this idea of
social validity, in relation to living critical standards of judgment in living
educational theories, is that that the standards have not only been clarified
in the course of their emergence in practice. They have also been subjected to
the critical scrutiny of a peer validation group in relation to their use as
explanatory principles in the individuals' account of their educational
influence in learning.
With my present focus on living
critical standards of judgment, I do not want to lose sight of the role of
personal knowledge in the affirmation of the validity of living educational
theories. Michael Polanyi's (1958) Personal Knowledge sets out a post-critical
philosophy with a logic of affirmation and conviviality that is significant in
my understandings, presented below, of inclusional standards of judgment.
I now want to acknowledge the
influence of other social theorists in the development of my own insights. From
the work of Bernstein on Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity I have
integrated the following idea of pedagogy into my understanding of my
educational influence as I pedagogise living educational theories in my
educational practice. According to Bernstein:
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).
In the continuous development of my living educational theory and critical standards of judgment I am integrating Bernstein's notion of an explicit critical pedagogy. By an explicit pedagogy I follow Bernstein in referring to pedagogic relations that shape pedagogic communications and their relevant contexts. My pedagogy is explicit in his sense that it refers to a progressive in time pedagogic relation where there is a purposeful intention to initiative, modify, develop or change knowledge, conduct or practice by someone or something which already possesses, or has access to, the necessary resources and the means of evaluating the acquisition. In the case of explicit pedagogy the intention is highly visible (Bernstein, 2000, p.200).
One distinguishing feature between Bernstein's meanings and
my own meanings of pedagogy is where he says that Explicit refers to the
visibility of the transmitter's intention as to what is to be acquired from the
point of view of the acquirer (ibid).
In my understanding of the educational influence of my
critical pedagogy in my own learning I am engaged in a form of enquiry
learning, rather than working with a 'transmission' mode of explicit pedagogy.
Bernstein says that his approach is too limited to deal with large questions of culture and symbolic control. In the creation of living educational theory I do not want to lose sight of his insight that:
"....whereby symbolic control and its modalities are realised: how power relations are transformed into discourse and discourse into power relations. The process whereby this transformation takes place, formally and informally in families and education, is to my mind essentially a pedagogic process and, in more generalized and diffuse forms, by the public media within the context of the arenas of power of state-managed societies. Collectivism may have been weakened, the market may have greater autonomy, but the devices of symbolic control are increasingly state regulated and monitored through the new techniques of de-centred centralisation." (p.xxvi)
I say this because I do not wish to create the kind of 'mythological discourse' he draws attention to which can be created if the power relations described above are not taken into account:
"I would like to propose that the trick whereby the
school disconnects the hierarchy of success internal to the school from social
class hierarchies external to the school is by creating a mythological
discourse and that this mythological discourse incorporates some of the
political ideology and arrangement of the society.
First of all, it is clear that conflict, or potential
conflict, between social groups
may be reduced or contained by creating a discourse which emphasises what all
groups share, their communality, their apparent interdependence.
By creating a fundamental identity, a discourse is created which generates what I shall call horizontal solidarities among their staff and students, irrespective of the political ideology and social arrangement of the society. The discourse which produces horizontal solidarities or attempts to produce such solidarities from this point of view I call a mythological discourse. This mythological discourse consists of two pairs of elements which, although having different functions, combine to reinforce each other. One pair celebrates and attempts to produce a united, integrated, apparently common national consciousness; the other pair work together to disconnect hierarchies within the school from a causal relation with social hierarchies outside the school." (p. xxiii)
Bourdieu is another social theorist whose ideas are influencing the development of my living educational theory, especially in my understanding of the role of what he calls the 'habitus' in social reproduction:
"The
objective adjustment between dispositions and structures ensures a conformity
to objective demands and urgencies which has nothing to do with rules and
conscious compliance with rules, and gives an appearance of finality which in
no way implies conscious positing of the ends objectively attained. Thus,
paradoxically, social science makes greatest use of the language of rules
precisely in the cases where it is most totally inadequate, that is, in
analysing social formations in which, because of the constancy of the objective
conditions over time, rules have a particularly small part to play in the
determination of practices, which is largely entrusted to the automatisms of
the habitus."
(Bourdieu, p. 145, 1990)
My own research interests are focused on the use-value of social theories in helping me to develop my understanding of the educational influence of living educational theories in the learning and transformations of social formations, particularly in the evolution of postcolonial social formations. Bourdieu's point about the significance of the automatisms of the habitus, rather than the language of rules from social science in analysing social formations, continues to influence my understandings as I seek to enhance the educational influence of living educational theories in transforming social formations and supporting their evolution into postcolonial social formations.
As I hold together, in my singular and responsible 'I', the embodied values that give meaning and purpose to my life, with understandings of the influence of socio-cultural and socio-historical practices, I continue to be influenced by my readings of Marxist theorists. My introduction to Marxist theory was through the work of Erich Fromm in 1966. I was inspired by his distinction between the productive and marketing personalities in his work 'Man for Himself' (Fromm, 1947). I was also inspired the same year by his insight that if a person can face the truth without panic they will recognise that there is no purpose to life other than that they give to their own life through their own loving relationships and productive work. In his analysis of Fear of Freedom (Fromm, 1960, p. 18) he says that we are faced with the choice of uniting with the world in the spontaneity of love and productive work or of seeking a kind of security which destroys our integrity and freedom. Fromm's work holds together a sense of agency and responsibility with an understanding of the influence on the forms of life of individuals of the historical development of capitalist formations.
I hold this understanding from Fromm, together with my embrace of the postmodern insight from Lyotard that:
A postmodern artist or writer is in the position of a philosopher: the
text he writes, the work he produces are not in principle governed by
pre-established rules, and they cannot be judged according to a determining
judgment, by applying familiar categories to the text or to the work. Those
rules and categories are what the work of art itself is looking for. The artist
and the writer, then, are working without rules in order to formulate the rules
of what will have been done.
(Lyotard, p. 81, 1984),
with Rikowski's understanding that:
"The key point, however, is that the increasing and deepening colonization of the 'human' by capital is becoming more susceptible to analysis as its 'obviousness' is exposed by its own developing intensity. Hence, the less 'human' we become, then, paradoxically, the greater is the potential for starting to grasp our real predicament. Our capacity for awareness of our situation as capitalized life-form increases as our 'humanity' is left behind. The process of capitalization of humanity includes our 'consciousness' too; our sentient powers of thought, reflection, deliberation and capacity for 'reflexivity' (most beloved by some postmodern and liberal Left thinkers) are also incorporated within capital.' (Rikowski, 2002, p, 113)
In my own experience, practice and
understandings (Whitehead, 1993, 2004) I have worked through some of the
implications, for my educational influence in my own learning, of being
singular and responsible. I have explained influences in my learning of the
historical dynamic of events, culture and the habitus that serve the 'terror'
of being eliminated from language games which supports one's identity in the
work place and beyond:
"Countless scientists have seen their 'move' ignored or
repressed, sometimes for decades, because it too abruptly destabilized the
accepted positions, not only in the university and scientific hierarchy, but
also in the problematic. The stronger the 'move' the more likely it is to be
denied the minimum consensus, precisely because it changes the rules of the
game upon which the consensus has been based. But when the institution of
knowledge functions in this manner, it is acting like an ordinary power center
whose behaviour is governed by a principle of homeostasis.
Such behaviour is terrorist.... By terror I mean the efficiency gained by eliminating, or threatening to eliminate a player from the language game one shares with him. He is silenced or consents, not because he has been refuted, but because his ability to participate has been threatened (there are many ways to prevent someone from playing). The decision makers' arrogance, which in principle has no equivalent in the sciences, consists of the exercise of terror. It says: "Adapt your aspirations to our ends – or else". (Lyotard, p. 64. 1984)
I have also previously analysed
the role of the living critical standard of judgment of academic freedom as
counter to such 'terror' (Whitehead, 1993) that can support persistence in the
face of such pressure.
Freedom also forms a focus of
Sen's economic theory of human capability in which in points out some
limitations in economic theories of human capital:
"...
what, we may ask, is the connection between "human capital"
orientation and the emphasis on 'human capability' with which this study has
been much concerned? Both seem to place humanity at the center of attention,
but do they have differences as well as some congruence? At the risk of some oversimplification,
it can be said that the literature on human
capital tends to concentrate on the agency of human beings in augmenting
production possibilities. The perspective of human capability focuses, on the
other hand, on the ability‑the substantive freedom‑of people to
lead the lives they have reason to value and to enhance the real choices they
have. The two perspectives cannot but be related, since both are concerned with
the role of human beings, and in particular with the actual abilities that they
achieve and acquire. But the yardstick of assessment concentrates on different
achievements.
Given
her personal characteristics, social background, economic circumstances and so
on, a person has the ability to do (or be) certain things that she has reason
to value. The reason for valuation can be direct (the
functioning involved may directly enrich her life, such as being well‑nourished
or being healthy), or indirect (the functioning involved
may contribute to further production, or command a price in the market). The
human capital perspective can‑in principle‑be defined very broadly
to cover both types of valuation, but it is typically defined‑by
convention‑primarily in terms of indirect value: human qualities that can
be employed as 'capital' in production (in the way physical capital is). In
this sense, the narrower view of the human capital approach fits into the more
inclusive perspective of human capability, which can cover both direct and
indirect consequences of human abilities." (Sen, 1999, p 293)
In my understanding and use of
dialectical materialism developed by Marx from Hegel's dialectics (Whitehead,
1999) I find myself embracing the above insight from Lyotard's about the
postmodern writer in a way that freely acknowledges the continuous creative
possibilities in his insight. Hence I accept the idea that an engagement with
postmodernism can enrich Marxist theories while rejecting the following
conclusion of some Marxist Educational Theorists because I believe their
Marxism would benefit from bearing Lyotard's insight in mind :
"Critical educators need an
engagement with postmodernism since that can deepen the conceptual reservoirs
of Marxist theories by pointing out the limitations of such thought. If this
engagement is successful it must eventually banish postmodernist theory to the
dustbin of history." (McLaren, Hill, Cole
and Rikowski, 2002, p. 283)
In the development of my living critical standards of judgment, informed by Lyotard's insight and in relation to postcolonialism I have been influenced by Yaqub Murray's insights on the importance of race and postcolonial theory. I am thinking here particularly of the inclusion of an understanding of 'whiteness' in my postcolonial critical pedagogy. Through his writings on, 'How do I, a mixed race educator, contribute to a postcolonial present and future through talking, writing and acting my postcoloniality? Performing my Mixed-Race Educative Practice in White Spaces' Murray (2004) focused my attention on understanding 'whiteness' as a set of power relations that worked to uphold white supremacy and white privilege in the European slavery of black South Africans in particular and that continues in such organisations as the Ku Klux Klan in America, the British National Party and in personal and institutional racism in the UK and other counties.
One of the ideas that has emerged
for me in conversations and correspondence with Yaqub Murray is the importance
of learning how to contribute to the evolution of a postcolonial social
formation (these are my words) through loyalty to humanity. In the publication
Race Traitor, (Ignatiev, 1997, http://racetraitor.org/abolishthepoint.html), loyalty to humanity is equated with 'treason to whiteness'
. Ignatiev (1997) and Cox (1997) write that the point is not to interpret
whiteness but to dismantle and abolish it . Treason
to whiteness is understood as undermining, dismantling and abolishing those
networks of power relations that serve to sustain supremacies and privileges
based on race. In developing a living standard of a postcolonial critical
pedagogy I have been inspired by Murray's (2005) research into postcolonial
critical pedagogy. I hold myself accountable to providing evidence-based demonstrations
that some of my educational influences, in my own learning, in the learning of
others and in the learning of social formations, carry this pedagogical intent
(Whitehead, 2000, 2005a, 2004, 2005b, Murray, Whitehead and Nceku 2005, a &
b). This pedagogic intent, in relation to the education of a social formation
and the evolution of postcolonial social formations can be seen in the
advertisement for:
Teacher
self-study for exploring effective practices of inclusion – Nceku Nyathi
(Leicester Management School), Jack Whitehead (Bath University), and Yaqub
Murray (Royal Agricultural College) - will
be jointly facilitating an Interactive Session for
the HE Academy on Engaging with Student Cultural Diversity in the Curriculum
– What works? October 26, 2005, at http://www.jackwhitehead.com/monday/pmnnjwHEACADEMYFORUM5.pdf
APPENDIX THREE
Living a productive life as a critical standard of
judgment in educational theorising
Jean McNiff's productive life
resonates with my own through her sustained and sustaining passion to explore
the generative and transformatory potentials of action research (McNiff, 1988,
1993, 1999, 2000a &b, 2002, 2005). Without Jean practising what we advocate
about documenting learning through writing and action research we would not
have the evidence of the generative and transformatory learnings that have
meant so much in the growth of our educational knowledge. (See http://www.jeanmcniff.com for the image of Jean's welcoming
expression of pleasure and of our working together). The frontpage of http://www.actionresearch.net takes
you to the booklet on Action research for professional development: Concise
advice for new action researchers – a celebration of 21 years of
collaboration with Jack Whitehead. I am looking forward to hearing Jean's
responses to the papers in this seminar, and want to congratulate her on her
appointment as Professor of Educational Research at St. Mary's College.
In working with Jacqueline
Delong (2002) on her living theory thesis
(http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/delong.shtml),
I felt the expression of a relationally dynamic energy in her productive life
in the creation of a culture of inquiry for sustaining an action research
approach to the professional development of teachers. Evidence of some of the
influence of this productive life is in the four volumes of Passion in Professional Practice at:
http://schools.gedsb.net/ar/passion/index.html.
In working with Marian
Naidoo's in the creation of her living
theory of inclusional and responsive practice I felt a flow of life-affirming
energy accompanying the growth of my understanding of the significance of a
passion for compassion in sustaining a responsiveness to others. Through her
work with the National Institute of Mental Health in England, and as a leader
in co-ordinating the UK government's strategy for enhancing the physical health
of users of mental health services, Marian is also increasing my understanding
of the need to focus on enhancing the quality of well-being for all citizens.
When asked the question 'how do you theorise compassion?' in her doctoral
viva-voce examination, Marian's answer continues to inspire me. Marian
responded with an explanation that clarified for me the meaning of passion for
compassion as an embodied ontological value that could also be understood as an
explanatory principle in explaining why she was doing what she was doing. At
the time Marian expressed this answer, I felt a resonance with my own
understandings of a productive life being expressed in the creative energy of a
living theory. You can see what Marian is doing to enhance the physical health
of uses of mental health services at:
http://www.shift.org.uk/index.cfm?fuseaction=main.viewSection&intSectionID=531&intParentID=27
In working with Pat D'Arcy (1998) and Terri Austin (2001) I learnt much about the importance of dialogue and
relationship in responsive practice. Terri's determination to find a better
form of response than traditional argumentation in the development of
communities of learners is well expressed in her thesis. Together with the work
of Jaqueline Delong (2002) on the creation of cultures of inquiry, this did
much to focus my attention on the importance of seeing one's productive life in
terms of the development of cultures of inquiry and communities of enquirers.
In working with Yaqub Murray I have learnt much about the energy of will that is need
to resist colonisation and to contribute to the evolution of postcolonial
social formations. Yaqub initiated me into postcolonial and critical-race
theorising and focused my attention on the importance of 'whiteness' as a
concept to describe the power relations that continue to support racial
inequalities. The educational influences, in my learning, of Yaqub Murray, in
the generation and testing of my living educational theory can be appreciated
in the growing sophistication of my understandings. I am thinking of the growth
in our understandings of postcolonial values and practices between our
presentation to AERA in 2000 (Murray and Whitehead, 2000) and our presentations
to BERA in 2004 (Murray, 2004; Whitehead, 2004). The titles of the
presentations give a precise focus to the contents:
Murray, P.
& Whitehead J. (2000) White and Black with White Identities in
self-studies of teacher-educator practices. Retrieved 25 July 2005 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/A2/aerapj.htm
As I view the video-clip of part of the
presentation at AERA 2000 with Yaqub I am feeling the flow-form of the energy
in our productive lives as he addresses our audience and emphasises the
importance of a language of hybridity in our presentation.
Here is a still of Yaqub Murray from the
video-clip
http://www.jackwhitehead.com/pmaera5sor.mov (this is a 9 Mb clip taking some 15
minutes to download using a broadband connection – it plays in Quicktime)
Our presentations to BERA 2004
below show an increase in the extent and depth of our engagements with
postcolonial theories.
Whitehead, J. (2004) Do the
values and living logics I express in my educational relationships carry the
hope of Ubuntu for the future of humanity?
Retrieved 25 July from http://www.jackwhitehead.com/jwbera04d.pdf
Murray, P. (2004) Speaking in a
Chain of Voices ~ crafting a story of how I am contributing to the creation of
my postcolonial living educational theory through a self study of my practice
as a scholar-educator. Retrieved 25 July from http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/00003811.htm
In advocating that we explore
together the implications of creating a new disciplines approach to educational
theory through educational enquiry, I am also advocating an engagement with
postcolonial theorising and the development of Yaqub Murray's idea of a
postcolonial critical pedagogy as a living critical standard of judgment. One
of the ideas that has emerged for me in conversations and correspondence with
Yaqub Murray is the importance of learning how to contribute to the evolution
of a postcolonial social formation (these are my words) through loyalty to
humanity. Loyality to humanity is seen in some critical-race theory as being a
'traitor to whiteness'. Murray
introduced me to the idea of being a 'traitor to whiteness' and I have come to
understand 'whiteness' as power relations that sustain white supremacy and
white privilege. If you access
Noel Ignatiev's paper from the url below you will see on the top right hand
corner of the page RACE TRAITOR - treason to whiteness is loyalty to
humanity. One of my living critical
standards of judgment is loyalty to humanity in the sense of accounting to
myself and others with values that carry hope for the future of humanity and my
own.
Ignatiev, N. (1997) The Point Is
Not To Interpret Whiteness But To To Abolish It. Retrieved 17 May 2005 from http://racetraitor.org/abolishthepoint.html
I have also been influenced by
Major W Cox's contribution to the first conference on whiteness at Berkeley in
1997 where he presented his views on 'Time to Dismantle Whiteness'.
Cox. M. W. (1997) Time to
Dismantle Whiteness. Retrieved 18 May 2005 from http://www.majorcox.com/columns/whitenes.htm
Working with Je Kan
Adler-Collins on his masters dissertation
on the development of a scholarship of enquiry helped me to understand a
productive life in terms of the development of a curriculum for the healing
nurse. Adler-Collins is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Nursing at
Fukuoka University. He is researching his pedagogisation of a living theory
curriculum for the healing nurse. As I supervised his masters degree programme
(http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/jekan.shtml),
and understood his clarification of the meanings of a safe space for healing in
his practice of complementary medicine, I learnt much about the connections
between the energies of mind and body that support well-being. I also learnt
much about Buddhist ideas on the inevitability of pain and suffering and the
role of compassion and community in enhancing well-being. From visits to
Fukuoka University I have come to a better understanding of the importance of
interconnecting and branching networks of communication in the development
of collective~individual critical
standards of judgment (See Living Action Research at http://www.living-action-research.net/
). I am thinking particularly of an understanding of the importance of creating
a safe space which can serve to enhance the flow of life-affirming energy in a
productive life that is focused on the pedagogisation of a living theory
curriculum for the healing nurse.
In working with Margaret Farren on her research in e-learning at Dublin City University, I
have come to understand better the connections between a pedagogy of the unique
as a standard of judgment that recognises the importance of singularity and a
web of betweenness as a standard that recognises the relational dynamic of
human existence. The latter standard is connected with Celtic spirituality:
In the intuitive world-view of the Celtic Imagination, the web of belonging sill continued to hold a person, especially when times were bleak. In Catholic theology, there is a teaching reminiscent of this. It has to do with the validity and wholesomeness of the sacraments. In a case where the minister of the sacrament is unworthy, the sacrament still continues to be real and effective because the community of believes supplies the deficit. It is called the ex-opere-operato principle. From the adjacent abundance of grace, the Church fills out what is absent in the unworthiness of the celebrant. Within the embrace of folk culture, the web of belonging supplied similar secrete psychic and spiritual shelter to the individual. This is one of the deepest poverties in our times. That whole 'web of betweenness' seems to be unravelling. It is rarely acknowledged any more, but that does not mean that it has ceased to exist. The 'web of betweenness' is still there but in order to become a presence again, it needs to be invoked. As in the rainforest. A dazzling diversity of life-forms complement and sustain each other. There is secret oxygen with which we unknowingly sustain one another. True community is not produced;. It is invoked and awakened. True community is an ideal where the full identities of awakened and realized individuals challenge and complement each other. In this sense individuality and originality enrich self and others. (Donohue, 2003, pp. 132-133)
Through the use of her web-space,
Margaret Farren has pedagogised the living educational theories of her students
at http://webpages.dcu.ie/~farrenm/
. She has influenced my own understandings of the communicative power of the
interconnecting and branching channels and networks of communication offered by
the internet. These influences and understandings can be appreciated in our paper and video-conference
presentation at the Diverse Conference of 5 July 2005 on Educational
influences in learning with visual narratives at http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/monday/mfjwwebped2.htm
. This visual narrative shows that Margaret Farren combines the
collective~individual critical standards of a web of betweenness and a pedagogy
of the unique in her productive life with her students in their learning and in
the creation of her own living theory. Relating this to Kristeva's point about
the need to create new communities on the basis of sharing singularity, I
experience an enhanced flow of my own life-affirming energy through sharing
these insights and values in Farren's productive life.
In working with Tian Fengjun
and Moira Laidlaw (2005) I am exploring
the development of collective~individual educational standards of judgment in
the living educational theories being generated by practitioner-researchers in
China's Experimental Centre for Educational Action Research in Foreign
Languages Teaching (CECEARFLT). The publication in the June 2005 issue of
Action Research Expeditions of their paper, 'How can we enhance educational
and English-Language provision at our Action Research Centre and beyond?' has a
discussion forum connected to the paper. This offers a dialogical space for
sharing and continuing the educational enquiries (http://www.arexpeditions.montana.edu/articleviewer.php?AID=87).
The idea of collective~individual standards of judgment emerged
in a conversation between Moira Laidlaw and her colleague Li Peidong at Guyuan
Teachers College and was first articulated by Li Peidong. I have experienced,
in a visit to Guyuan Teachers College and CECEARFLT, the importance of working
together. I am thinking here not only of the importance of sharing educational
values and in improving practice as described by Dean Tian Fengjun:
The report is told as a story by the dean but more importantly it gives us hope that no matter how different our backgrounds are, each one of us can do something to benefit educational development as we share our educational values. The report shows how it is important for a dean to make good relationships with his colleagues so that together they can help teachers teach well and students learn efficiently. (Fengjun, 2005)
I am also thinking of the sharing
of our collective~individual standards of judgment as we work on the
co-creation of our living educational theories as part of our productive lives.
One reason for highlighting the
work at CECEARFLT in the development of living critical standards of judgment
is because of the global significance for the future of having some 270 million
children beginning the New Curriculum in China over the next few years. The
values and understandings in the curriculum documents that underpin this huge
curriculum and educational innovation and that seem to me to offer hope for the
future of humanity are being expressed in the practices of teacher-educators at
Guyuan Teachers College in China (Tian & Laidlaw, 2005) that hosts
CECEARFLT.
Because of the influence of Alan
Rayner in the evolution of my inclusional
approach to living educational theory I want to offer you the video-clip in
which Alan explains inclusionality. It was during this explanation that I
experienced a transformation in my understanding of the relationally dynamic
awareness of space and boundaries that can characterise a complex self who is
seeking to live a good and productive life through education (http://www.jackwhitehead.com/rayner1sor.mov
).
Working with Robyn Pound (2003) Alon Serper
(2005) and Ram Punia (2004) has also
been highly significant in my understanding of living critical standards of
judgment in a productive life. All three are highly motivated researchers.
Pound expresses a presence in relationship that she characterises as
alongsideness:
The thesis shows how I found
theory of human emotional need useful for understanding and raising awareness about
the needs of people in relationships and for problem-solving. It illuminates
the health-enhancing and educational possibilities of alongsideness for myself,
children, their families and the communities they form. It shows how I question
personal beliefs arising from my history, as I reflect on my values and attempt
to embody them for living as I practise. Self-study enabled me to grapple with
the dynamic, multi-dimensions of alongsideness in diverse situations, the
dilemmas arising for understanding myself and for clarifying my practice
values.
In the relational experience of
alongsideness with Pound, I feel a resonance with her life-affirming energy
that evokes my own. I understand from experience the meaning Pound gives to
living a productive life in realising more fully the values of alongsideness.
Serper has shown a unique passion
and commitment for researching his heuristics of human existence. His web-page
(Serper 2005) shows the extent and depth of his dedication to singularity and
to the production and sharing through web-space of his living theory.
Punia has spent a life-time in
education, working as an educational consultant in Fiji, Mauritius, Western
Samoa, Hong Kong and Singapore and he is continuing his research in India. His
research is focused on the making of an international educator with spiritual
values:
Taking
responsibility for my roles and contextualising problems and solutions to
problems to match the contexts were the essential dimensions of my lifelong
experiential learning. These dimensions originated from my spiritual belief in
cosmic unity of life and ethical aims of education.
The
originality of my contribution to the knowledge base in the living educational
theory approach to action research is how I integrated my spiritual and ethical
values with technical knowledge to enhance the quality of my professional
development and the development of technical and vocational education in the
international context. (Punia, 2004 http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/punia.shtml
)
From Punia I learnt that a living
critical standard of judgment of a productive life in education could be
understood in terms of the recognition and realisation of spiritual values.
I also want to draw your attention to the evidence that 10 year old pupil-researchers in Croatia are already developing an understanding of the living critical standards of judgment I have been writing about in this paper. Teachers and pupils working with Branko Bognar in Croatia have sent their video-evidence from their classrooms into the BERA 2005 Practitioner-Researcher e-seminar. Having worked for six years as a primary school teacher in the small Croatian town of Cazma, and then later as a pedagogue in the Primary School 'Vladimir Nazor' in Slavonski Brod, Branko has recently taken up a post in the Faculty of Philosophy at Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, where he has responsibility for the professional education of pedagogues and teachers.
I have Branko Bognar's permission
to share the letter that can take you, through your internet browser, into some
of the most inspiring evidence I have seen in the form of a visual narrative of
the understandings of 10 year pupil-researchers of their own living critical standards
of judgment.
So, I wish to conclude this paper
with the voice of an outstanding educator and hopefully, if you view the
video-clips with the voices of teachers and most importantly, the voices of the
pupils-researchers.
3rd July, 2005. Dear
Friends,
I worked hard for two days and
two nights to translate and title video recordings where you could see live
example of our effort to apply action research in our educational practice.
The First video (available at http://www.e-lar.net/videos/Creativity-en2.wmv
11 Mb[1])
was the starting point in Vesna Simic's and my action research. Our shared
value is creativity, so we try to find a way how to fulfil this value. We
realised that creativity is fulfilled in her teaching of arts. But she
confessed, and we find evidence for that when we analysed video recordings of
her teaching, that she realised the subject of society and nature[2]
in a traditional and uncreative way. So we decided to improve creativity in
that part of her educational practice.
On the second and third videos
(available at http://www.e-lar.net/videos/AI2_0002.wmv
30.5 Mb and at http://www.e-lar.net/videos/Validation.wmv
29 Mb) we find that children need not be treated only as participants in the
action research of adults (teachers) but also as co-researcher or standalone
researchers. Marica Zovko, class-teacher was mentor to her students and I was
mentor to her. Her students evidenced that they understand the process of
action research and know how to apply this to improve their living practice.
Warm regards,
Branko