On 1 Feb 2007, at 00:58, Susan Goff wrote:

"I look at the picture as a whole and feel that I 'know' from personal experience the material context"

Dear Jack and everyone...

I just want to pay attention to this line that you wrote.

I want to slow down, and explore what that "knowing" is. I don't think we "know" enough about it and I think it is a potentially whole source of human thought and ontology.

I like the idea of slowing down and exploring what that "knowing" is. I agree with Susie that in the exploration we could learn a lot about human thought and ontology.

In slowing down I want to focus on the nature of my knowing when I say that,

"I look at the picture as a whole and feel that I 'know' from personal experience the material context."

I'll begin by focusing on something that I don't know. I don't know in what sense the picture of the two young people covered in paint is authentic. I mean this in the sense that it could have been staged, or it could have been taken at the moment the two youngsters had actually taken an initiative to paint the carpet, television and room. I just don't know. So, for me to claim that I know anything about the actual scene in the photograph with the two youngsters I would need more contextual information. What the images do show me, in the material conditions of the room, with the toys, the clothes, the appearance of physically well-nourished youngsters and the wide-screen television, resonate with my own material conditions. These constrast starkly with the poverty I have experienced both in the UK and more markedly in visits to Africa, China and Indonesia. My knowing is connected to the economic and power relations that serve to reproduce and/or transform the political and economic conditions in particular contexts.

As I begin to think about my 'knowing' I'm aware of the following point made by Husserl in his book Ideas – a general introduction to pure phenomenology.

"In the transcendental sphere there is an infinitude of knowledge prior to all deduction, knowledge whose mediated connections of intentional implication have nothing to do with deduction and being entirely intuitive prove refractory to every methodological devised scheme of constructive symbolism".

I'll have to check this quote, it's from memory.

My purpose in focusing on this quote is to resist a move into pure phenomenology. It isn't that I don't value phenomenological insight. It is that I don't want to lose a connection with practical enquiries of the kind, 'how do I improve what I am doing?' This desire not to lose a connection with practical educational enquiries is related to a mistake made by some philosophers of education in what became know as the 'disciplines' approach to educational theory. The mistake was in thinking that the embodied explanatory principles that individuals use to give meaning and purpose to their lives can be replaced by principles with more fundamental theoretical justification from the conceptual frameworks of other theories, in the generation of educational theory. This was the error made in the 1960s and 1970s by proponents of the disciplines approach to educational theory. It was acknowledge by Paul Hirst in 1983 when he wrote that much understanding of educational theory will be developed:

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

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

(p. 18)

Hirst, P. (Ed.) (1983) Educational Theory and its Foundation Disciplines. London;RKP

So, in slowing down and focusing on the nature of my 'knowing' I want to focus on my 'educational knowing' because the 'framing' of this e-seminar is 'educational knowledge'.

I am aware that as I look at the picture of the youngsters I could move into the realm of pure phenomenology and explore the way I am making sense of my perceptions of the image. What I think is educational in my resistance to this is that I want to focus on nature of the educational knowledge that can explain and individual's educational influences in their own learning, in the learning of others and in the learning of social formations.

I am also aware of something I learnt in my philosophy of education course nearly 40 years ago that different forms of knowledge can be distinguished by their conceptual frameworks and methods of validation. So in slowing down my reflections on 'knowing' I would like to suggest that 'educational knowledge' requires a transformed understanding of the nature of concepts that dominate what counts as knowledge in the Western Academy, if we are to understand the nature of the living standards of judgment that are appropriate for assessing the quality and validity of educational knowledge from a living theory perspective.

Following Alan's expression of the relationally dynamic awareness of inclusionality, I am suggesting that relationally dynamic standards of judgment can be understood through the course of their emergence through enquiries of the kind, 'How do I improve what I am doing?' in our educational practices.

The standards of judgment are expressed in the flow of relationships. To be educational standards, there must be evidence of learning that is valued by the learner. To be educational standards that are acceptable to an educational research community the learning must be valued by this community. So, in my understanding of educational standards I include both personal and social criteria of validity.

I am aware of using three epistemologies in my ways of knowing that are distinguishable by their logics, units of appraisal and standards of judgment.

First there is the propositional epistemology, formed by Aristotle's logic of the Laws of Contradiction and Excluded Middle, where contradictions between statements are eliminated from correct thought and everything is either A or Not-A. I take the unit of appraisal to be a single hypothesis or theory whose validity is to be tested.

Second there is a dialectical epistemology in which the nucleus is contradiction. There has been a 2,500 argument between dialectical and formal logicians about the validity of the other's logic. I take the unit of appraisal to be an explanation of a social formation or transformation. In understanding the ideas of others I can use both logics.

Third there is an inclusional logic that is grounded in Alan's expression of inclusionality as a relational dynamic awareness of space and boundaries as connective, reflexive and co-creative. I take the unit of appraisal to be an individual's explanation of their educational influence in learning.

One of the reasons I like Marian Naidoo's thesis so much is that Marian shows embodied expressions of a passion for compassion as living standards of judgment. Marian does this in relation to an explanation of influences in learning of her inclusional and responsive practice.

So, in slowing down to explore what that knowing of mine is, I'd like to focus my exploration on the possibility that Marian's thesis is contributing to the generation of a world of educational quality through showing how world leading standards of judgment can be lived and publically communicated.

I'd also like to focus my exploration of my knowing on the accounts of a group of teacher-researchers I have been supervising for their masters units on understanding learners and learning. I am thinking of the accounts that show pupils and teachers as knowledge-creators in researching their own learning. In exploring my knowing of educational influences in learning, through these accounts, I think that I will improve my understanding of the world leading standards of judgment that are contributing to the creation of a world of educational quality.