5.15-7.00 1WN 3.8 19th Feb. 2008

 

After we've checked in with everyone's news of the week and got a feeling for what people have brought that they would like responses to I'll do what I can to respond to the Primary Review, with its questions What is primary education for?  What aims should it pursue? What values should underpin it?, in a way that connects with your enquiries.

 

Joelle – I'm hoping you'll see the relevance of what I'm saying in an HE context. Amy – hope you can make it. Louise – here's hoping that you are enjoying Joan Wink's book and that there may be some of Joan's ideas that can be integrated with your own and/or help to move on your own thinking. Joelle – if you do any more thinking about that relationship between writing and identity do please share it on Tuesday, or send me any writings and I'll circulate them.

 

Steve & Ros – hoping to continue to share your insights about the educational value/influence of the blogging with the pupils. Nina – sounds like you might be ready to begin drafting out something around the tension between the values and understandings you'd like to live more fully and the constraining contextual/social pressures in which we are  living. Sally – I liked the idea that you might be able to work with the group of Year 13 students in a  similar way to the way we work together on Tuesday evenings. I'll bring along the disc of Marie's transfer seminar to show the communicative power of video-data, with the cursor moved in seconds along a time-line of an hour, in developing energy-flowing explanations of educational influence.

 

Here's a possibility for taking forward our understandings of how to represent the flow of energy with values in our educational relationships and in our explanations of educational influences in learning. Vicky and Moira – I think you'll be able to help with finding an appropriate language for sharing our understandings of these flows of energy with values. (I've copied this to Moira Laidlaw in case Moira can help). Here's what's exciting me:

 

Claire has sent in her latest writings – a draft of her third educational enquiry and I'm hoping you'll have time to browse through it at http://www.jackwhitehead.com/tuesdayma/cfee3draft.htm . It's on : 

 

How am I integrating my educational theorizing firstly with the educational responsibility I express in my educational relationships with the children in my class, but also with the educational responsibility I feel towards those in the wider school community?

 

Do see if you share my belief that the first part of Claire's draft, as a visual narrative with the video-clip, marks a breakthrough in the recognition and representation of a dynamic loving energy that distinguishes Claire's practice as 'educational' .

 

I'm wondering if we could develop a shared language for recognizing and representing the life-affirming energy/ dynamic loving energy in our educational relationships?  This is the possibility I'd like to test on Tuesday.

 

What I noticed last Tuesday was that everyone seemed to arrive quite tired, but by 7.15 we were buzzing with energy and pleasurable communications. I want to check out the validity of my belief that this flow of pleasurable and life-affirming energy is something we evoke and co-create together in a cultural/educational space where the power relations are open to such possibilities. I'm seeing the first part of Claire's paper as a clear expression of an educational responsibility for opening up such possibilities with her pupils.  Through the visual narrative with the video-clip I'm seeing Claire expressing her dynamic loving energy in co-creating this educational space with her pupils.

 

I now want to focus with you on the following suggestion in relation to the section in Claire's draft that follows the heading:

 

My own values as living standards of judgement

 

I think we could share ideas on transforming the last part of Claire's draft so that it can be offered to the Primary Review as an explanation of what a good primary teacher does and can answer the three fundamental questions asked by the review:

 

What is primary education for?

 

What aims should it pursue?

 

What values should underpin it?

 

I've attached the four briefing papers from the Primary Review – they are only about 3 pages each – on Aims and Values. The reports on which the briefing papers are based have been produced by highly respected researchers in education, including one by three of our colleagues here in Bath, Hugh Lauder, John Lowe and Rita Chawla-Duggan. 

 

My anxiety about all these briefing papers and reports is that they show no understanding of the nature of energy-flowing values that distinguish what you are doing in your educational relationships. This is of course a claim that I'm making and is open for you to question its validity.

 

My anxiety is that the omission of any understanding of the significance of a dynamic loving energy in educational relationships is a very damaging omission because it fails to direct attention to the most significant qualities that distinguish the aims, purposes and values in what we are doing. In other words the traditional form of abstract rationality continues to dominant these briefing papers and reports. I'm claiming that this form of rationality cannot carry the meanings of energy-flowing values and purposes you live in your educational relationship with your pupils and I think we express on Tuesday evenings.

 

Transforming Claire's draft into an educational enquiry for submission and a response to the Primary Education Review.

 

In the first part of her paper I think that Claire has found a form of expression, that includes the visual data, that can communicate the significance of a dynamic loving energy. I also believe that this is the flow of life-affirming energy that distinguishes our spiritual resilience in living through the tiredness and dispiriting power relations that sustain inappropriate forms of assessment, as we continue to enjoy each other's company and conversation on Tuesday evenings. I think this enjoyment is also linked to our feeling of being productive in bringing our embodied knowledge as educators into the professional knowledge-base to be shared freely, as gifts, in the flow of communications of the web.  These are all claims I'd like to check out on Tuesday.

 

By focusing some of the second part of the draft on the significance of the first part for the Primary Education Review, I think that Claire would feel most satisfied with her EE3.

 

You can download the four Briefing Papers from:

 

http://www.policyhub.gov.uk/news_item/primary_review_jan08.asp

 

(The briefing papers are short – the actual reports are rather long!) It would be good if you had the time to browse through the briefing papers but don't worry if you don't have time I'll summarise them on Tuesday.

 

Here's an idea I'd like to work on with you.

 

Sue has already raised the possibility that using the words, 'dynamic loving energy' could turn people off! I'm suggesting that we try using this language to see if it gets close to the energy-flowing values that distinguish our educational relationships. I'd be happy to change the language if we could come up with the words that communicate the embodied expression of what we are feeling when seeing ourselves do a good job with our pupils and students.

 

I know that there is a cultural problem of focusing on the expression of a dynamic loving energy. British culture has a history of tension around the language of sexuality, gender and love.

 

Sue has been pointing out the importance of recognizing how to respond appropriately to individual pupils and adults with diverse needs and sexualities.

 

What I'm wondering is whether we can find a language through which we share our experience of feeling a flow of energy in our pleasure in seeing each other express our love for what  we are doing in education.

 

I'm wondering is whether we can find a language/forms of representation that transcends the language and experience of sexuality in our educational relationships and carries an influence in generating an educational space with each other and our students and pupils? I'm thinking of our contributions to generating educational spaces which encourage the expression of our values, creativity and learning.

 

In other words, like Bataille's point about assenting to life up to the point of death, I am wondering if, in our educational relationships, we are affirming an expression of the power of being itself, in loving what we are doing. I'm wondering if we can agree that in the first part of her paper Claire has found an appropriate way of communicating her recognition that the life-affirming energy in her educational relationships is being channeled through her research into an account of her knowledge-creation that provides answers to the questions:

 

What is primary education for?

 

What aims should it pursue?

 

What values should underpin it?

 

I'm wondering whether in working together on ideas for the second part of the paper, we can develop a shared language for communicating the significance of the flows of energy with values in our explanations of our educational influences?

 

Looking forward to seeing you on Tuesday evening.

 

Love Jack.