Creating living standards of judgment for
practice-based research in the professions through our question, How do i~we
improve our educational practices?
Marie Huxtable, Bath & North East
Somerset, Local Education Authority
Jack Whitehead, University of Bath
Paper presented at the Annual Conference
of the British Educational Research Association 7 September 2006, Warwick
University
In
the 2005 BERA Presidential Address Whitty (2005) highlights the importance of
making a clear distinction between education and educational research. Furlong
and Oancea (2005) have highlighted the importance of developing a clear
understanding of appropriate standards of judgment for evaluating the quality
of practice and practice-based research. Using a living theory perspective this
paper makes a clear distinction between education research and educational
research. Education research is research grounded in the theories and methods
of such forms and fields of knowledge as the philosophy, sociology, psychology,
history, politics, economics, management and leadership of education.
Educational research, from a living educational theory perspective, is grounded
in the explanations produced by practitioner-researchers for their educational
influences in their own learning, in the learning of others and in the learning
of social formations. Drawing on the idea of inclusionality as a relationally
dynamic awareness of space and boundaries that is connective, reflective and
co-creative (Rayner, 2005), new living standards of judgement are proposed for
educational researchers who are concerned to generate educational theories that
can explain the educational influences of individuals in their own learning in
the learning of others and in the learning of social formations.
There are four ideas we would like to explore with you.
The first is inclusionality, by this we mean a relationally dynamic awareness of space and boundaries, that are connective, reflexive and co creative.
The second, is the i~we relationship. By this we are meaning a relationally dynamic responsive relationship within which the integrity of each individual is not violated. ÔWeÕ is used to communicate a sustained connectivity with the other.
The third is the idea that a new epistemology with its living standards of judgement can be generated from inclusional enquiries.
The fourth is the idea of representation. By this we mean that we need forms of expression and communication that adequately represent our explanations for our own learning in our inclusional enquiries.
In 1995 Donald Schon (1995) called for
the generation of a new epistemology for the new scholarship and explained why
he believed that this epistemology would emerge from action research. In her
2001 Presidential Address to AERA Catherine Snow emphasized the need to develop
agreed-upon procedures for
transforming knowledge based on personal experiences of practice into ÔpublicÕ
knowledge, analogous to the way a researcherÕs private knowledge is made public
through peer-review and publication. (Snow, 2001, p. 9). In 2005 Furlong and Oancea (2005) highlighted the importance of developing a
clear understanding of appropriate standards of judgment for evaluating the
quality of practice and practice-based research. Whitehead (1989a) produced an
evidence-based demonstration to show how individuals could generate their own
living educational theories in enquiries of the kind, ÔHow do I improve what I
am doing?Õ A living educational theory (Whitehead, 1989b, Whitehead and McNiff,
2006 and McNiff and Whitehead, 2005, 2006) is an individualÕs explanation for
their educational influences in their own learning, in the learning of others
and in the learning of social formations. Laidlaw (1996) demonstrated how the
standards of judgement used in the generation of living educational theories
were themselves living and could be clarified and communicated through the use
of an action research methodology.
Wallace (2003) has developed insights
from this methodology into an approach known as Thinking Actively in a Social
Context (TASC). We will include this approach into the integration of action
reflection cycles of: experiencing concerns when ontological values are not
lived as fully as possible in practice; imagining what to do and forming an
action plan; acting and gathering data on which to make a judgment on the
validity and effectiveness of values, skills and understandings; evaluating
effectiveness; modifying concerns, ideas and actions in the light of the
evaluations; responding to a validation group response to an explanation of
educational influence in learning, in a process of democratic evaluation and
creative compliance (Macdonald, 1976, 1987). We do not want to give the false impression that the systemic
form of our enquiries follow the systematic linear path of these Action
Reflection Cycles. However as we reflect on the form of enquiry that is
emerging through the exercise of our capacities for methodological
inventiveness (Dadds & Hart, 2001), we recognise that the systemic form of
our enquiries can be comprehended through this form of Action Reflection Cycle. As we submit our accounts for public
recognition and criticism we work with the idea of democratic evaluation that
it should be the power of the better argument that holds sway in the process of
accountability. We are also aware
that our practice and research takes place within a social context with a
hierarchy of power relations that can influence what accounts as legitimate knowledge.
We work with MacDonaldÕs idea of creative compliance in acknowledging that so
far, no matter how an existing set of power relations work against our
interests, we have found creative spaces within which we continue to work
towards a more fulfilling and productive existence.
The scholarly
context includes some 20 living theory doctoral and other research degrees
flowing through web-space from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/living.shtml. These explanations of professional and
workbased learning include accounts from the police, education and health
services. The multi-media methods, used in representing living standards of
judgement, in the presentation will draw on those used by Naidoo (2005) in her
doctoral research programme on the emergence of a living theory of inclusional
and responsive practice. They also draw on the living theory approaches used by
Hartog (2004) in her self-study as a higher education tutor. They draw on:
LohrÕs (2006) inclusional insights from her thesis on Love at Work; FarrenÕs
(2005) generation of a pedagogy of the unique through a web of betweenness (O
Donohue 2003); DelongÕs (2002) insights into the formation and sustaining of
cultures of inquiry; ChurchÕs (2004) ÔCreation of an uncompromised place to belong:
why do I find myself in networksÕ.
The methods for clarifying these living standards include the use of
DaddsÕ and HartÕs (2001) idea of methodological inventiveness and draw on
DaddsÕ (2006) idea of empathetic validity in practitioner researcher. At the
heart of the presentation is RaynerÕs (2006) idea of inclusionality as a
relationally dynamic awareness of space and boundaries that is connective,
reflexive and co-creative. Huxtable (2006a & b) has contextualized her
professional practice as a senior educational psychologist within this
inclusional awareness. Whitehead, (2006) has explained how
practitioner-researchers are generating a new epistemology in their living
theory explanations of educational influences in learning. We will now explain how we are
co-creating living standards of judgment for practice-based research in the professions as we retain the
integrity of our individual enquiries in relation to our shared question, How
do i~we improve our educational practices?
How do i~we improve our
educational practices? Creating living standards of judgment for practice-based
research in the professions.
What we are
meaning by improvements in our educational practices is focused on finding
appropriate forms of thought and representation that can communicate the nature
of the living standards of judgement that characterise our i~we relationship
within our inclusional educational enquiries.
We think that it
is important for us ontologically to express and sustain an inclusional way of
being in an impositional world. This way of being is beyond resilience and
empathy; we experience these qualities within us and they help us to engage
with a sense of respect for ourselves and the other. The inclusionality of our
i~we relationship is also not the same as the ÔIÕm OK, youÕre OKÕ, which has no
core of a mutually co-creative intent; there is an interest in the other only
as far as it is related to the ÔIÕ. The inclusionality of our i~we
relationships is expressed in our relational dynamic and responsive awareness
of space and boundaries that are connective, reflexive and co-creative (Rayner,
2004).
We now want to
see if we can communicate the meanings we are making as we search for
appropriate forms of thought and representation that can communicate the nature
of the living standards of judgement that characterise our i~we relationship.
The data we are
analyzing are two papers we produced for a presentation at the 7th
World Congress (WC) on Action Learning, Action Research and Process Management
in Groningen on the 24th August 2006. You can access the two
versions of our paper on How are we co-creating living standards of judgement
in action-researching our professional practice?:
The 4000 word,
8 page paper for the conference proceedings is at:
http://www.jackwhitehead.com/monday/mhjwvalues15.htm
For the full
multi-media account unrestricted by the 8 page restrictions see http://www.jackwhitehead.com/monday/mhjwvalues14.htm
When we wrote
the WC papers we started with a shared focus and conversations. This followed
its own flow as ideas emerged. The final representational form this took, which
we felt communicated our meanings, was in a multi media form. In response to
the requirements of the WC the multi-media document comprising 8,500 of words,
images and video was reduced to an academic text of 4,000 words on 8 sides of
A4. We realized afterwards that in the editing, some important embodied
meanings were lost – in the representational form lived the thought
– the representation and the thought are held together.
A text, with its
linear, neat precise form is needed as a vehicle to communicate, at times, but
may not communicate adequately the flow-form of meaning that more closely
resembles the way we think and learn. The very form of representation used
moulds, enhances, provokesÉ the thoughts that inform the communication. There
is no simple causal relationship but an interrelated flow.
Look at the two
forms of representation and without actually reading the words first ask with
us what your responses are; w Looking at the 8
pages of text reminds Marie when her son was in his first couple of years of
schooling went to a parents evening. Marie writes:
As
I waited to see his teacher I heard another child talking about him and what he
was reading, the child informed their parents that my lad could read really
well – he was reading grey pages. That has stuck with me. He could read
text in a way you would understand as competent – and what good readers
with his level of competence did was read grey pages. His father and I spent a
lot of enthusiastic and delightful time in bookshops searching for books that he would enjoy – books
that literally felt good, with
language that was delightful, the illustrations contributed to the aesthetic
pleasure of engaging with the book as a form of communicationÉ they were not
comprised of Ôgrey pagesÕ. That child I overheard understood better than most
of the adults that I know that what is communicated is within the how, not just
within the ÔtextÕ.
So
– my response to the form of communication demanded by the WC, consistent
with academically reputable journals, serious works that should be attended to
– is that it comprises Ôgrey pagesÕ, they are lifeless in appearance. I
am not saying text is not important. But if I am communicating about something
living surely the very appearance of what it is that I communicate through
carries an understanding.
Things
that should be taken seriously do not include pictures – I learnt that
from an early age. It persisted through my secondary education. I can remember
being told the delightful drawings of Maud Jepson were not appropriate for my A
level work – they included shading, an attempt to connect the
diagrammatic with the very living thing they were supposed to represent. It
persists now. How often do you see in ÔacademicÕ journals about education, let
alone educational practice – full colour pictures – and I have not
even got towards suggesting that to communicate something about humans should
actually include movement – and yet I was required to learn in my first
biology lessons in Grammer School that movement was one of the 7 characteristics
of living things. I was obliged to revisited this list, as far as my memory
serves, every year until I finished O levels and then met viruses at which
point I was expected to accept that the simplicity of scientific knowing that I
had been obliged to accept until that time was challenged by ÔrealÕ scientists.
So
let us return to the WC papers. Look again at the two forms – e
are claiming that the very ÔhumanÕ values, whose meanings we were seeking to
explore and reveal, are obliterated or masked within the traditional form of
representation of academic text. Which form of representation communicates to
you that warmth, that vibrancy, that life-affirming energy that we experience
as being at the core of what it means to be us to be human? We are also claiming that the
multi-media communication carries our meanings of the complexity of the
flow-form of the relational dynamic and responsiveness of our practice, while
the version restricted to words on paper loses these meanings.
Now let us
come to the i~we.
How do i~we improve our educational practices? Creating living standards of
judgment for practice-based research in the professions.
The ~ denotes an
inclusional space between the i and the we – a space that is relationally
dynamic, a space where there is a productive chaotic flow, a space in which
there is our relational dynamic and responsive practice. We can see this
practice being communicated in the movement of our multi-media presentation.
Can you sense this relational dynamic and responsive practice from the 8 A4
pages of text? We cannot.
It was
interesting to find in writing this present paper we became stuck. We found
that what we had produced was not enabling us to understand ourselves, let
alone communicate with anyone else, what we knew we were living in the growing
awareness of the i~we relationship of inclusionality. The process of creating
this paper to that point was of one of us writing the first part of the paper
and sending it to the other to add the next section to. You might recognize this form of
collaboration – these are the sections that need doing – you do
this bit, I will do this bit and then one of us will draw it together and make
sure it makes sense, a couple of redrafting versions exchanged and job done! That form of writing does not allow new
understandings to emerge. We want to communicate in a narrative flow while
understanding that the educational processes in an inclusional space are not so
neat and sequential.
The
use of i~we in our questions represents our inclusional enquiries. By this we
mean that we are working with our relationally dynamic awareness of space and
boundaries that are connective, reflexive and co-creative (Rayner, 2006).
Flowing with our boundaries is a flow of life-affirming energy we both express
in our work. We also seek to sustain boundaries that do not violate the
integrity and identity of the other while remaining permeable to each othersÕ
educational influences in our learning.
Is it within the i~we that the dance between different
focii occurs? Is it a change of relationship or the dancing within? We can hold
onto the idea for instance of i~we
between us irrespective of when Marie turns to Jack as supervisor or
colleague with superior understandings – in fact it is the ability to
feel confident to do that that seems to be part of it. There does not feel to
be a severing of the relationship. In seeking to improve our educational
practices we are both interested in enhancing the flow of our inclusional
values, skills and understandings. In the correspondence below we are sharing
ideas in a way that is helping us to understand how to benefit more fully from
JackÕs traditional scholarly analytic response to text, a response that he
feels severs his relationship in which he is communicating his holding a relationship
of valuing the other. We are sharing ideas about MarieÕs insistence that the
traditional form of supervisorÕs responsibility should be subordinate to a
inclusional value of relationship. Here is a dialogical form of communication
in which we are developing a shared understanding of the complexity of our
educational relationship while sustaining our commitment to inclusionality.
Jack is fascinated by MarieÕs last point in the dialogue below:
Anyhow
– there is a flow of energy I take from my professional life into my
personal even if I try to keep the negatives out of both. Why is it that it is
accepted for a celebration to be shared? It is just about OK to talk about a
birth but not a death.
JackÕs
fascination is focused on a question about sustaining a flow of life-affirming
energy in the face of experiences that can serve to diminish this energy and
push an individual towards an abyss of disablement. In responding to a lack of
recognition through the disciplinary power of an organisation, Jack is
continuing to enquire in a way that maintains or enhances a sustaining flow of
life-affirming energy with the inclusional recognition of mutuality between
family, friends, colleagues and other practitioner-researchers, while
developing a creative response to this lack of institutional recognition.
JackÕs work is concerned about
the representation of thought and how he can engage in an inclusional living
theory research with a question how can he respond inclusionally to a lack of
recognition of his contribution to knowledge.
We agreed a mutually of intent
to co-create a paper. We started with a traditional form of representation with
a beginning, middle and end where we each put forward our individual enquiries.
We got stuck in the third part where we tried to bring them together. In
working within our relationship of inclusionality we found ourselves developing
a different dialogical understanding from within discourses in which we share
and develop our ideas together. In such dialogues we are seeing ourselves
expressing our relationally dynamic and responsive values which, in the process
of clarifying their meanings in the course of their emergence in practice, we
are forming our living epistemological standards of judgement.
The
use of i~we in our questions represents our inclusional enquiries. By this we
mean that we are working with our relationally dynamic awareness of space and
boundaries that are connective, reflexive and co-creative (Rayner, 2006). Flowing
with our boundaries is a flow of life-affirming energy we both express in our
work. We also seek to sustain boundaries that do not violate the integrity and
identity of the other while remaining permeable to each othersÕ educational
influences in our learning. Huxtable is researching her professional life as a
senior educational psychologist with a local authority. She has a particular
interest in extending the educational opportunities of pupilsÕ in relation to
their special gifts and talents, through her influence in organizing
professional development opportunities for teachers and support staff.
Whitehead is reseaching his life in education with a focus on expressing and
communicating an educational epistemology of inclusionality that is appropriate
for the generation and evaluation of living educational theories.
In
researching our question, ÔHow are we creating living standards of judgment for
practice-based research in the professions?Õ we use insights from the following
three epistemologies in generating our living educational theories.
The
first epistemology is grounded in the logic of Aristotle with his Law of
Contradiction, which claims that two mutually exclusive statements cannot both
be true simulataneously, and his Law of Excluded Middle which claims that
everything is either A of Not-A. This logic characterises the propositional
theories the dominate what counts as legitimate knowledge in the Academy. All
my academic life I have drawn insights that I value from the grand narratives
of propositional theory of the kind offered by Erich Fromm through his
productive life. I continue to draw valued insights from these theories and
have acknowledged the influence of theorists such as Polanyi (1958) and
Habermas (1976, 1987) amongst many others.
The
second epistemology is grounded in the Marxist dialectic as set out by Ilyenkov
(1977) in his inspirational work on dialectical logic. Contradiction is the
nucleus of dialectics and change is explained in terms of the Law of Identity
of Opposites and the Law of the Negation of the Negation. I have drawn insights
from MarcuseÕs work in which logic is taken to be the form that reason takes in
understanding the real as rational. In asking, researching and answering
questions of the kind, ÔHow do I improve my practice?Õ I could see and feel
myself, with the help of video-tapes of my practice, a living contradiction as
I held together my values together with their negation in my practice. I have
explicated my dialectical epistemology in my doctoral thesis (Whitehead, 1999)
The
third epistemology is grounded in the living logic of inclusionality (Rayner
2006), Naidoo (2005) has developed the inclusional and responsive standard of
judgement of passion for compassion in the development of her emergent living
theory of inclusional and responsive practice. The living logic of
inclusionality can be understood with the help of multi-media explanations of
educational influences in learning that show our educational relationships as
interconnecting and branching channels and boundaries of communication.
The
explanations we generate for our learning together contain living standards of
judgement for practice-based research. These living standards are grounded in
our expressions of our ontological values as we clarify and co-create their
meanings in the course of our individual and shared practices. We will now include our individual enquiries about how we are improving
our educational practices to emphasise that these individual enquiries can be
understood as existing within the dynamic relational awarenesses of our
responsive practices that we are expressing through your i~we relationship.
Keeping an ÔiÕ focus in our individual enquiries is important to both of us in
connecting with our i~we relationship because we want to emphasise the
importance of retaining our individual sense of integrity and responsibility
while also recognizing the importance of our social relationships.
The
educational practice at the heart of my educational research concerns the
validation and legitimation of an epistemology of inclusionality for the
generating and testing of living educational theories. My current interests
focus on issues of representation and enquiry. The practices I am seeking to improve in relation to
representation and enquiry can be understood from my experience of holding
together a tension between the power of truth and the truth of power in my
workplace.
For
reasons described elsewhere (Whitehead, 2006) that are related to the support I
received from others in 1976 to counter an attempt to terminate my employment
and to obtain a tenured contract until 2009, I have not sought promotion until
earlier this year. Promotion means losing tenure and as my tenure represents
for me the political and moral integrity of those who countered the threat to
my employment, rather than economic security, I have held on to tenure. Then,
in 2005 I found myself thinking that the UniversityÕs recognition of my contribution
to educational knowledge could serve to enhance the educational influence of
the flow of living educational theories. With the support of colleagues who
believed that promotion was long over due I applied for a Readership this year.
My application was rejected on the grounds that I had yet to make a case for
the appropriate contribution to the advancement of knowledge and that in order
to develop this case it will be necessary for me to focus on producing articles
which can be disseminated via established and renowned international refereed
journals.
Now,
the practice I want to improve is my research capacity to represent my
experience of this rejection in a way that acknowledges an embodied struggle to
channel emotional responses of rage and disgust into an enhanced flow of the
life-affirming energy, values, skills and understandings of well-being and
productive work.
I
found myself in a similar situation in 1991 after a draft report from a Senate
Working Party on a matter of Academic Freedom had concluded that my academic
freedom had not been breached, following the Working PartyÕs analysis of issues
surrounding a letter I had received from the Secretary and Registrar claiming
that my activities and writings were a challenge to the present and proper organisation
of the University and not consistent with the duties the University wished me
to pursue in teaching or research. Following my response to this draft at a
meeting of the Working Party the report for Senate was amended to acknowledge
that while my academic freedom had not been breached this was because of my
persistence in the face of pressure while a less determined individual might
well have been discouraged and therefore constrained. Here is a video-clip
showing my re-enactment of my response to the working party. It comes at the
end of my meeting when feeling utterly defeated and dejected at the lack of
recognition in the report on the pressure I had been subjected to I moved to
leave the room. Then, as I was leaving I felt a surge of energy, not
uncontrolled rage, certainly passionate but disciplined and controlled. Here is
the video-clip of my re-enactment.
http://www.jackwhitehead.com/ajwacfr.mov
The
significance for my research of this Ôperformance textÕ and my enquiry into
improving my educational practice concerns both representation and enquiry. I
want to find appropriate ways of representing the realities of a lack or
recognition or even abuse within unequal power relations. I want to improve my
capacity for sustained enquiry in questioning the truth of power when faced
with such a lack of recognition.
The
final report to Senate in 1991 acknowledged that my academic freedom had not
been breached because of my persistence in the face of pressure that might have
discouraged and therefore constrained a less determined individual. My responses to the recent events I am
describing here are evoking the need for a similar kind of persistence in the
face of the pressures that link my promotion to the requirement that I focus on
producing articles which can be disseminated via established an renowned
international refereed journals.
The
research practice I want to improve is focused on the recognition of the
educational significance of responding to rejections of recognition and other
threats to my identity in a way that acknowledges the emotions associated with
the rejections while supporting enhancements in the flow of life-affirming
energy and productive life of well-being. I am thinking here of improving
representations in research accounts of the ways in which the emotional energy,
that is associated with rejections of recognition and that can push one into an
abyss of disability, can be channelled into enhancing the flow of the life-affirming
energy of well being. I am thinking of this flow of well-being in my
educational influence in my own learning in the learning of others and in the
learning of socio-cultural formations.
Here is something I wrote in my doctoral thesis in 1999 that may help
you to understand my meaning of the significance of recognition in relation to
my research programme at the University of Bath.
ÒHuman
beings seek recognition of their own worth, or of the people, things, or
principles that they invest with worth. The desire for recognition, and the
accompanying emotions of anger, shame and pride, are parts of the human
personality critical to political life. According to Hegel, they are what
drives the whole historical process.
(Fukuyama, 1992, p. xvii)
Let me see if I can communicate more
clearly the nature of the spiritual quality of recognition I am seeking to
represent in my research as I make my first return in thirty years to these
(gendered) words of Martin Buber:
The teacher who wants to help the
pupil to realize his best potentialities must intend him as this particular
person, both in his potentiality and in his actuality. More precisely, he must
know him not as a mere sum of qualities, aspirations, and inhibitions; he must
apprehend him, and affirm him as a whole. But this he can only do if he
encounters him as a partner in a bipolar situation. And to give his influence
unity and meaning, he must live through this situation in all its aspects not
only from his own point of view but also from that of his partner. He must
practice the kind of realization that I call embracing. It is essential that he
should awaken the I-You relationship in the pupil, too, who should intend and
affirm his educator as this particular person; and yet the educational
relationship could not endure if the pupil also practiced the art of embracing
by living through the shared situation from the educatorÕs point of view.
Whether the I-You relationship comes to an end or assumes the altogether
different character of a friendship, it becomes clear that the specifically
educational relationship is incompatible with complete mutuality. (Buber, p. 178, 1970)Ó
In seeking recognition
in the ÔI-YouÕ relationship and in the thymotic sense of ÔspiritnessÕ
(Fukuyama, 1992, p. xvi) I want to overcome a tendency to megalothymia in the
sense of a search to be recognised as superior to others. I am seeking
recognition by the Academy that my own contribution to knowledge of my subject
education, can be publicly acknowledged as worthy of being seen, alongside the
contributions of my research students, as showing originality of mind and
critical judgement.Ó (Whitehead, 1999).
In
another paper to this session at BERA, Marian Dadds will emphasise the
importance of Empathetic Validity
in Educational Research (Dadds & Whitehead, 2006). In what follows I think
that your understandings of the meanings I am seeking to communicate will
require the exercise of your capacity for empathy. Here is the tension, concern
and question that is now helping to move on my educational enquiry. To
communicate the meanings of emotion in my educational influences in my own
learning I need to find a form of representation that can carry these meanings.
The meanings are embodied in who I am, what I do and how I think. I am expressing some of these meanings
in the here and now of this presentation. As soon as I try to represent what I
am doing I am conscious of Patti LatherÕs point about ironic validity:
My
tension is focused on my responses to a group of people who can support both
the truth of power and the power of truth in a similar way to myself. Such a
group have decided not to recognise my contribution to knowledge as being
appropriate for promotion to a Readership. Their recognition is dependent upon
my contribution to knowledge being represented in articles which can be
dissemination via established and renowned international refereed journals. I
think most researchers in the audience or who are reading this paper will
recognise the desire and pressure to publish in these journals, not least
because money allocated from the Research Assessment Exercise has been closely
related to such publications. However, I see my contribution to knowledge as
being embodied in the Library of the University of Bath and other Universities
in the form of over 20 doctoral theses, most of which are now flowing through
web-space from http://people.bath.ac.uk/edsajw/living.shtml . It isnÕt that I havenÕt published in
these Journals. I have. However, for the last five years I have become
convinced that the language and logic of solely text-on-paper based journals
cannot carry the meanings I wish to communicate. It is a matter concerning the
three epistemologies above. I think the text-based journals are appropriate for
carrying the meanings in propositional forms of discourse. They are less suited
to dialectical forms of representation that contain contradications and
unsuitable for inclusional forms of representation of the kind I use in my
multi-media accounts of my educational influence. Hence my tension in being
required to focus on producing articles that can be disseminated via
established and renowned international refereed journals. It was as recent as 2004 that the
University of Bath changed its regulations to permit the submission of e-media
for research degrees. It is my
contention that multi-media journals have not yet had time to establish
themselves as having equivalent status to Ôestablished and renowned
international refereed journalsÕ.
My concern is that the kind of pressure I am being subjected to, to
focus attention on producing articles for the Ôestablished and renowned
international refereed journalsÕ feels similar to the pressure I felt in
relation to my academic freedom in 1987-1991. In the earlier video-clip I express the embodied responses
whose meanings I believe you can appreciate and comprehend through your
capacity for empathy. I am thinking of your expression of empathy as I respond
to the feeling of defeat and rejection, with a passionate expression of my
defence of and commitment to, justice, responsibility and freedom.
Hence,
from my tension and concern my enquiry is moving on with the question, ÔHow
can I improve my practice in enhancing recognition of the contributions to
knowledge and educational influences in learning of living educational
theories?Õ This is a
question open to the possibilities in your suggestions for taking this enquiry
forward.
In relation to
the question we are addressing, ÔHow do i~we improve our educational practices?
Creating living standards of judgment for practice-based research in the
professionsÕ, I wish to make the following point about the importance of i~we
relations. When I received the e-mail notifying me of the rejection of my
application for promotion I was in South Africa, on my way to a meeting to
discuss a research paper by a South African researcher who wanted some advice
about taking forward her action research. IÕd stopped off to look at my e-mail
before the meeting. In the video-tape of the meeting I show no emotional
response to the rejection. I do show attention to the other, pleasure in our
conversation and respond in a way that she believes to be helpful. I make this
point because there is something in the quality of i~we relations that is
included in the I-You relation described above, that has enabled me, so far, to
move with the flow of life-affirming energy of well-being, and to resist a move
into the abyss of disablement, that I associate with allowing rage, loathing or
despair to dominate my responses.
The
response I am now seeking to make is through exploring the question, ÔHow can I
respond inclusionally to the issues I am raising about representation and
enquiry?Õ
In offering this
joint paper in which Marie is exploring the genesis of her form of educational
psychology I feel easy about sharing the above enquiry. This ease has much to
do with MarieÕs insistence that she is recognized within a relationship of
mutually and equality, rather than from within a Ôsupervisor-studentÕ
relationship. Through MarieÕs influence I have changed my perception of my
educational relationships. Until this year, I have adhered to BuberÕs notion
that the educative relation is not one of full mutuality. According to Buber,
when the student can recognize the educator from his own point of view the
relationship of mutuality is no longer possible and the educational
relationship is either burst asunder or changes into friendship. All the
researchers I work with have superior knowledge to myself in their chosen
professional contexts. I think I acknowledge this knowledge as I communicate my
desire to help in bringing this embodied knowledge into the public domain. I am
now working with a sense of i~we relationships in which the relational dynamic
is characterized by the co-creation of living standards of judgement. What I
think we are offering as we each show the uniqueness of our contributions is
that these contributions are emerging from within the space, boundaries and
awareness of inclusionality of our educational relationships that are mutually
co-creative and also retain my professional responsibility as a supervisor of
MarieÕs research programme.
Over
the years of working as an educational psychologist I have experienced
increasing tensions between working with the knowledge emanating from my field
and practices which values systematic, rather than systemic ways of knowing,
decontextualises learning, imposes an understanding of a person on them, and
denies them as creators of valued knowledge and their own learning. Through
researching my present practice, coordinating the APEX (Able Pupils Extending
Opportunities) project my understanding of what educational psychology is and
how I can practice more meaningfully and productively as an educational
psychologist, has shifted.
I find quotes
like these:
ÔEveryone has
an aptitude for something. The trick is to recognize it, to honor it, to work
with it.Õ Shekerjian (1991)
ÔI have
learnt to never underestimate my skills of craft and learning, because nothing
is impossible to a child with imagination.Õ (Learning evaluation by R. aged 10)
ÔNo one can
persuade another to change. Each of us guards a gate of change that can only be
opened from the inside. We cannot open the gate of another, either by argument,
or by emotional appealÕ Marilyn Ferguson poet in 7 Habits of Successful People
– Covey
resonate with me. I hold to
the belief that all learners have the capacity for extraordinary achievement
and I have sought to develop my practice as an educational psychologist to
reflect my growing understanding of what I mean by extraordinary achievement
and how I can contribute to the educational environment in which it can
flourish.
I
am presently understanding and researching my practice as a senior educational
psychologist:
ÔÉ
working within the education system with the educational intent of engaging
with others to generate and research their own living educational psychological
theories, so we might each influence our own learning, the learning of others
and the social formations in which we live and workÕ
I
am currently understanding educational psychology as:-
Ôcomprising
a living body of knowledge, skills, understandings and values concerning how,
why, when, where and what humans learn, expressed and researched with an
educational intent through the generation of living educational theories and
practice.Õ
My
meaning of Ôeducational intentÕ is communicated through phrases such as:-
ÔI want to
enable children and young people to build an understanding of what they want to
commit time and effort to during their lifetimes that will enable them to live
satisfying and productive lives without imposing my own values and needs.Õ
ÔI want to extend the variety of educational contexts in which
children can learn about their own living values that they hold as their
standards of what is or is not a satisfying and productive life and enabling
them to increasingly understand their own embodied living educational theories
so they can take control over themselves and the destinies they want to create
in a world they want to live in.Õ
ÔI want them to learn skills, understandings and values which will
enable them to do this with increasing independence.Õ
I am therefore
exploring what I could most easily summarise as an inclusional pedagogy. I am
concerned that the focus of most educators is on how to get children to learn
what is preordained. It is made pleasant, enjoyable and fun. There are efforts
to try to make the pupil feel they are creating something but the success or
otherwise of educational practice is judged by how far and fast along a
predetermined path a child has progressed. Progress is marked inappropriately on
an ordinal ratio scale with evidence of skill and concept acquisition sampling
severed from the complexity of understanding and Ôdeep learningÕ. This
contrasts with the standards educators seem to hold as important when they say
things like ÔI think I have really done a good job Ôhe really enjoys booksÕ or
Ôshe is happier in how she is getting on with other childrenÕ or Ôhe was so
engrossed in what he was doing I didnÕt like to interruptÕ. This has been
vividly illustrated for me as I receive an email from Claire Formby, a very
creative and dedicated educator, where she writes in her draft living theory
research enquiry:
I had to ask for help because I felt that I was not coping and
the children were unhappy. Looking back, I think I had become a little stale in
my teaching, I was not a reflective practitioner and much of my teaching was
about me and how I liked to teach. The first change I had to make was to put
the children and their needs at the centre of my teaching.
I take courage from this teacher and the other
professional educators with whom I work to continue to challenge my own
theories and practices to create new knowledge, skills and understandings which
can enable me improve my practice as an educational psychologist. I am not
trying to deny the usefulness of psychological theories in education but I am
questioning how I use them as an educational psychologist; as distinct from a
psychologist in education.
*********
Returning to
the four ideas:
Inclusionality. Do you think that you understand our meaning of inclusionality as a relationally dynamic awareness of space and boundaries, that are connective, reflexive and co-creative?
i~we relationships. Is our idea of i~we relationships useful in communicating meanings of a relationally dynamic responsive relationship within which the integrity of each individual is not violated and within which ÔweÕ is used to communicate a sustained connectivity with the other?
A new epistemology. Have we demonstrated that living standards of judgement can be generated from inclusional enquiries?
Representation. Have we convinced you of the need for multi-media forms of expression and communication that adequately represent our explanations for our own learning in our inclusional enquiries?
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