For our MA sessions on |Tuesday 30 October and Thursday 1 November 2007, 5.15-7.15 in 1WN 3.8.

After we've had our check in to catch up with each other's news do let's share any writings from the last week, books or articles you are reading, quotes you like, questions you are working on and practices you would like to improve. I'd like us to spend a few minutes focusing on your present concerns/questions so that we can check that we've understood what each of us is working on and so that our responses can be as helpful as possible in moving on our educational enquiries, our research methods in education and our dissertations. (Amanda – hoping this reaches you. I've checked my e-list and the address you gave me last Thursday is on it).

I've a couple of admin items to cover. The first it to check that you've all managed to register. The second is to check that you can all access the electronic journals, easily, from outside the university. Any problems about registration, do please contact Jacqueline Stockley at js329@bath.ac.uk . I'm particularly keen that you can access the Journals, Educational Researcher, Educational Action Research, Action Research, Cambridge Journal of Education and the British Educational Research Journal. Just as a test to see if you can do it easily you could see if you can access the following paper by Kathy Carter:

Carter, K. (1993) The Place of Story in the Study of Teaching and Teacher Education Educational Researcher, Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 5-12, 18.

With Amy's work on Assessment, I thought that a doctorate I examined earlier this year from Margaret Follows, an infant headteacher in London, might be interesting to you. I asked Margaret if I could share her Chapter 7 on Creating Living Theory About Assessment In The Infant Years and she said that it was OK. You can access the pdf file from the live url in the reference:

Follows, M. (2007) Creating Living Educational Theory About Assessment In The Infant Years, in Follows, (2007), Chapter 7 in Looking For A Fairer Assessment Of Children's Learning Development And Attainment In The Infant Years: An Educational Action Resesarch Case Study. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Plymouth. Chapter 7 retrieved on 29 October 2007 from http://www.actionresearch.net/writings/followsphd/followsphd7livth.pdf .

Joelle and Mary – with your focus on research methods in education do share any further thoughts from the week. Joelle – I do think that the idea of an educational identity has a lot of creative potential in it. Mary – there is also a lot of original research to be done on life-long learning.

Kate is working on her educational enquiry as well as on a neurolinguistic programming course and asked if she could work out how to model what I do in supporting through my tutoring 'evaluating one's own practice'. I sent Kate the Student's Prayer by Umberto as it resonates with my intentions in my educational relationships (remember I do acknowledge my existence as a living contradiction!). I think the values will resonate with your own.

The Student's Prayer

'Don't impose on me what you know, I want to explore the unknown. And be the source of my own discoveries. Let the known be my liberation, not my slavery.

The world of your truth can be my limitation; Your wisdom my negation. Don't instruct me; let's walk together. Let my richness begin where yours ends.

Show me so that I can stand on your shoulders. Reveal yourself so that I can be something different.

You believe that every human being can love and create. I understand, then, your fear when I ask you to live according to your wisdom.

You will not come to know who I am by listening to yourself. Don't instruct me; let me be. Your failure is that I be identical to you'

Umberto Maturana 1/07/07,

http://www.school-survival.net/poetry/the_students_prayer.php

I also jotted down some thoughts for Kate on how I think I express and respond to flows of life-affirming energy with values in my educational relationships and include energy with values in my explanations of my educational influences. These explanations include my evidence-based evaluations of practice. The video-clips are short, some of them about a minute, and should stream directly into your browser. I've called the paper for Kate:

Communicating meanings of the expression of life-affirming energy with values in educational relationships and in explanations of educational influences in learning.

and you can access it at:

http://www.actionresearch.net/writings/jack/jwenergywithvalues.htm

Looking forward to continuing our conversations into how to bring your embodied knowledge as educators into the public domain in a way that shows your educational influence in your own learning and in the learning of others.

Love Jack.