Introduction to Sarah Fletcher’s doctoral submission to the University of Bath on How do I, a professional educator, nurture courage to be? Sarah’s e-mail is s.j.fletcher@bath.ac.uk and she invites your comments.

0.1 Context

0.2 Purpose

0.3 Scope

0.4 The multiplicity of representing my knowledge

0.5 The originality of my representation

0.6 The communication of my educational knowledge

0.7 Drawing knowledge from the Other in a moral way

0.8 Communicating my nurturing of courage to be

0.9 Embodying my critical judgement

0.10 How can I assist you to access my knowledge within my thesis?

0.11 What is this knowledge?

0.12 Hard definitions and fuzzy boundaries

0.12.1 Courage as ‘wise endurance’

0.12.2 Being as ‘peak experiencing’

0.12.3 Nurturing as ‘wise nourishing and protecting’

0.13 Multiplicitous nurturing of courage to be

0.13.1 Nurturing Courage to be: a generic model

0.13.2 Nurturing Courage to be: teacher self

0.13.3 Nurturing Courage to be in action: mentor self

0.13.4 Nurturing Courage to be: Educator Self

0.14 Framing my thesis

0.15 Courage in Nurturing Courage to Be

0.16 Personal context

0.17 Professional context

0.18 Curriculum Vitae

0.19 My publications since 1978 used to explicate my thesis

0.20 Epilogue

0.1 Context

This thesis is offered for examination, by Staff Mode B, at the University of Bath.

Seeing my writings, published and unpublished, brought together in this form with a critical commentary and representing my life as an educator, is my plateau-experience …

‘very important today in a topical sense is the realisation that plateau-experiencing can be achieved, learned, earned by long hard work. It can be meaningfully aspired to. But I don’t know any way of by-passing the necessary maturing, living learning…’ Maslow, 1970, p. xv1

0.2 Purpose

My purpose in writing this thesis is to

· understand how I nurturing others’, and my own, courage to be.

· make public my embodied knowledge as a professional educator.

· explicate, in multiple forms of representation, my multiplicitous Self.

· analyse how I experience learning with others through co-enquiry.

· explicate my living dialectical action enquiry in my educational encounters.

· represent my being and becoming in different educational contexts.

· examine my emerging conceptualisation and visualisation of my learning.

· show how I embody responsibility for my own professional development.

0.3 Scope

In my writing, I research my journey of transition from schoolteacher to school-based mentor, from mentor to mentee, from mentee and university tutor to research mentor.

Though I see a linear progression in work-based location, my development is not linear. I live my professional life as a medley of experiences rooted in my multiplicity of Self. These experiences are analysed and reflected upon with an intention to improve my own and others’ learning. My thesis will become an educational resource, accessible on my website, for researchers to engage with creatively as they search for ways to live a productive life. I envisage using it in my own practice with teacher researchers. On a more global scale, I intend that my thesis will enable a recognition of the place of the practitioner’s voice in an educational development of social formations and their policies.

0.4 The multiplicity of representing my knowledge

Because I am seeking to communicate how I have represented by practice as an educator over thirty years, I have used a variety of styles in my writing. When, for example, I am writing about being a teacher in Chapter Four, I write my account as a teacher would. There is different vocabulary and literary convention from how I write about philosophy in my literature survey in Chapter One and it is different again from how I write here.

I have also chosen to represent my thoughts through a multiplicity of styles of writing; which includes poetry, stream of consciousness prose, academic prose and instructions. This is because no single literary style could adequately communicate my thinking and no one style can be appropriate to use as a linguistic form to address different audiences. Where I write a paper for public presentation, I may choose to use a colloquial style to speak with or formal academic prose, as I have in mind to offer my work for publication.

I tend to mix styles within my writings because I want to bring an aspect of my practice as a teacher, for example, into my account of my work as a research mentor. Sometimes I choose poetry when a particular poet has expressed how I feel in an articulate way.

0.5 The originality of my representation

My thesis is original, because it is an account of my multiplicity. It is original because it recounts my practice across different educational contexts and shows my multiplicity relating discretely to difference. It shows the growth that takes place in my learning through living connections with others’ learning and through the permeability of the boundaries that characterise my multiplicity. It is original as its form is fundamentally multiplicitous as well as its content. My representation of my living multiplicity is complex, but managed in a simple frame that provides a model for how educators might represent their ‘Different Selves’ of Teachers that Day refers to in his paper (1997). Furthermore, I am modelling a possible way for teacher researchers to represent their ‘Different Selves’ as they engage in collaborative enquiry with a research mentor/tutor.

I necessarily hold enormous complexity in the detail that communicates how I make sense of my experience. I sustain and contain this complexity with fuzzy boundaries.

Using a simple web metaphor, I reveal frame on frame the complexity of my own sense-making. My need to create such a form of textual representation points to a fundamental limitation in the form of representation demanded of doctoral theses in our University. How easy it would be for me to use web based technology to reveal my learning using hyperlinks to show the interactivity of my multiplicity in my learning relationships.

The sheer complexity of my knowledge as an educator is difficult to communicate just in words and, for this reason, I have included a CD of video clips which show me interacting with some of PGCE students as a tutor. I have no similar way of representing my work with my pupils as a classroom teacher but I have written from the stimulus of photographs that I took while teaching so that I can express the loving care that I felt.

In creating a model for representing multiplicity, in content and mode of expression, I am addressing the call by Hiebert (2002) for a knowledge base for the teaching profession:

‘knowledge for teaching is most useful when it is represented through theories with examples’

p. 7

Other living theories are represented at www.actionresearch.net and they rely on text to communicate their emerging meanings but I needed a unique constellation of text, image and photographic representation to show how I embody my own core living value. My framing as a web site, disclosing page by page, is a unique feature in my living theory and my thesis is original among the other living theories because it explicitly addresses the embodied value of nurturing courage to be as it shows how meanings of nurturing courage to be are clarified and developed in the course of the emergence of my value.

How can I communicate what I mean by embodying this value? Am I simply showing you the outcomes of my nurturing and my courage in my thesis? To some extent this is all I can do. Textual representation of my practice limits my capacity to reveal the intimacy of my work with pupils that formed the basis for my research mentoring. But the fact remains that I must show what I mean by nurturing courage to be. I cannot simply opt out by saying, 'This isn’t possible.' How can I explicate listening, seeing …

I nurture by listening intently to what is said, ‘seeing’ what I hear and ‘reading’ what is not said. As I do so, I form a visualisation of a possible self for the person with whom I am working. I check out this visualisation with the individual by asking questions or by a quizzical look. I seek feedback to give a better picture of what is happening in the mind of the person (child or adult) I am working with. I think I learnt to do this when working with children. They would tell me what they were thinking and allow me entry into their thoughts, so long as they knew that I would not harm them. The conditions of such shared learning are sustained trust and honesty and establishing these by verbal and non-verbal means (gestures) are a crucial part of how I engage with others. In nurturing, I must communicate caring and a reliability as well as a resilience – I try to communicate that I have absolute faith in myself and in the person I am working with.

I reinforce the impression I give of reliability and steadfastness, as well as exquisite sensitivity to the other’s needs, very largely through my eye contact and my smile. I engage my persona in seeking the well-being of the Other as if it is all that matters. In colloquial terms, ‘I am there for you, you matter to me, I have faith in your success.’ As I project my certainty into a relationship my delving into what is driving the Other becomes easier. I offer choices and by observing how a choice is made (or even if it is made) I can select how to proceed from a wide repertoire of experiences as a teacher mentor and researcher. I combine elements of these multiplicities as I form a new persona within a unique social interaction. I use a kind of fuzzy educational logic. I have broad ideas about how an interaction with a child or an adult is likely to run but my multiplicity enables me to use an almost infinite range of strategies in the moment. In my accounts of using my ‘nurturing eye’, I offer further evidence of my originality of mind.

My account of how I observe my own practice as a lecturer though a discourse analysis of my internalised dialogue with myself, which informs and is informed by my dialogue with my students, is unique. You can read about this interplay in ‘The Look of the Teacher’. My account of using digital video to enable me to analyse and learn from the work of master educator (Jack Whitehead) working with his students is also unique, as is my analysis of his expert practice as a model to improve my learning. Integrating my visualisation for internalised ‘seeing’ with digital video to externally ‘see’ assists my mentoring of novice teachers as well as enabling my research mentoring, with them and with more experienced colleagues as they undertake research into their own practice. But in my ‘seeing’ I do not idly watch, rather I absorb the ‘essence’ of my seeing. I bear the Other in my mind as I ‘see’ as I embody my value of nurturing to frame my observation.

I am not a mere recorder of events, but a ‘seer’ with a nurturing eye, in a spiritual sense. I ‘see’ future positive selves for the Other as I engage with the essence of my seeing and seeing thus, I experience spiritual enlivenment as I ‘see’ how to assist by mentoring.

0.6 The communication of my educational knowledge

How can I communicate this in my thesis? I can show you that I have survived multiple disablement that might have put me out of action. I can show you reports from my students that I enable them to learn but to some extent you will have to take on trust and on balance my claim that I can nurture others courage to be as well as nurturing my own.

I want to show you video footage of a session where I was recently research mentoring. From the beginning seconds you would see that F. is unwilling for me to use video. She asks me not to use it focused on her. I respect her view but I am hoping to use video as a way of showing her it will probably be a useful research tool for her to master. So I focus the video on me and wait. Not long afterwards I gently suggest that I wished I could show her exuberance on video, as I want her to see how it brings her face alive. I am sowing seeds. I predict that at some point in the next hour that she is likely to say she agrees to a video of us working together. I check out she is happy me to use video on myself as her permission is crucial to her later ownership of the research process. I have never yet been refused the opportunity to video myself in another’s presence. Sometimes I deliberately hand over the filming of myself to the Other because I sense that they are afraid of operating the camera and appearing on video footage. I admit that I have not found a better way to show what I do than modelling and this is important here – I ask the Other ‘Can you think of a better way?’ If he or she can, then I will try it in my practice.

I know that again I am seeding a strategy that I will be able to develop later. I am saying I trust you to tell me – we are both learners – I’ll share what I know, will you do that too? Trust is built up, the seeds grow and in the vignette I describe here it isn’t long before F agrees to my video recording us both. I use the strategy of saying how she could employ video with her students to show them undertaking good work but I don’t know how they will react. I ask How might you do this (and this is the sting ..) how have you seen me reassuring you – Look, you have agreed to us both being on video – just what did I do? I use our collaborative analysis of my practice and her reactions to my practice (It didn’t feel so bad did it?) as well as ample positive reinforcement ‘You’re doing amazing work! It reinforces my teaching and my nurturing. This will sound calculating and contrived. It is but I only work (hence my integrity) as a mentor where the Other is open to me and where I am not causing either them or me damage. If I am hurting either of us – I stop.

0.7 Drawing knowledge from the Other in a moral way

One of my strategies is to make suggestions and frame them as a choice. I offer tentatively ‘I know this may not work, and it is entirely up to you – you know your school, you are the expert there and I am not – but what would happen if you tried X or Z or …’ I suggest positive possible selves for the Other, in the safety of our working relationship. I won’t run away or be offended if a strategy is not adopted at my suggestion. I worked in this way with my children in learning languages. I find saying ‘It helps me – I wonder if it might help you? What do you think? Let’s have a go and then you tell me if it helps you’ a very useful strategy in nurturing courage to be because while supporting I am reinforcing positive pathways of behaviour but I am not invading.. Perhaps there are two other elements that I employ – I think I am only just beginning to catch myself using them and I am pretty sure they are central to understanding my work. I use humour and I use play. Why are they important? They take some of the pain and vulnerability out o learning. It’s OK to make mistakes – we are only playing here … I have to be very careful about my humour – I think that is the most difficult to express in text alone because much of it is non-verbal – a glance, a raised eyebrow, a smile. I think there I something else too – there is a shared spirituality – an intimate togetherness in my work – I genuinely care that you learn and reach self-actualisation – ‘You matter to me.’

0.8 Communicating my nurturing of courage to be

How have I communicated my nurturing of courage to be in my thesis? By anecdote, partly by narrative, through sharing visualisations in my mind and through inviting you to see things from my perspective, through my reflections on experiences that I sure you have at least partly encountered in your experience as a professional educator. How do I communicate my knowledge to you my reader? Partly, I do so by bearing you in my mind. I imagine how you look, from creating an amalgam of the others who have engaged with my ideas, I see you in my mind and as I do I seek to predict and then I respond to questions you will probably ask me. I am trying to put my knowledge into a palatable from for you. This parallels how I would put my private knowledge in knowing a foreign language into a palatable and accessible form for teaching children. I carefully plan each stage of my presentation from answering internalised questions. ‘What will the children need to know? What are they likely to do if I do X, what do they need to do after Y …’ I deliberately create opportunities for reflection and reinforce reflection with praise. I encourage creativity but, significantly I think, I leave space and trust my fuzzy flexibility to adapt and adopt my plan as I consider fit by reflection in action. I can’t know you personally but I can write for you as if I do, I can create a knowledge base in my thesis that I think you can engage with and question me about. I know you will be asking me about my title – what do I MEAN by nurturing, what do I MEAN by being and I can systematise my knowledge by answering the questions I ask myself and I predict you are likely to ask me. I can provide pathways for you to travel through my thesis with me – and that is why I have used the metaphor of a website.

I am sure (as far as I can be) that you will know how to access information through hyperlinks. I am sure that if I structure my thesis in this way – as if it were a very simple website I can enable you to access pathways through my knowledge that will enable you to ‘see’. I am of course assuming that you want to ‘see’ but in case you are reticent I use humour. The lithograph of the two chameleons is likely to hook into your interest - you won’t have seen it in a thesis before and the acknowledgements suggest that I am creating a living theory because I give thanks to Jack Whitehead. I seed ideas in this preface as I am offering to provide one substantive answer to Snow’s (2001) call for ‘procedures for transforming knowledge based on personal experience of practice into public knowledge’. (p.9) …

In my thesis I show a way, by using a website analogy that makes public my knowledge

The ultimate test will of course be when my thesis is on line at www.teacherresearch.net

and I hope it will join many other living educational theories at www.actionresearch.net

0.9 Embodying my critical judgement

My contribution to educational knowledge lies in the exercising of my critical judgement to select and refine a methodology to communicate in a simple accessible way, the complexity that underpins a thirty-year period of learning. I needed to define a pattern in my very different publications. I used critical judgement to identify my professional multiplicity emanating from three selves: teacher, mentor and researcher. I used critical judgement in creating a narrative account for each one, and using my papers; published and unpublished I have explicated their difference. I used critical judgement to engage with the ides of others (Chapter One) in enabling me to gain an overview of the field of writings on multiplicity and to represent my own thinking as a multiplicitous Self in the context of what I read. Each chapter of my multiplicity is discrete yet in my final chapter my account of my work in Japan reveals a porosity and osmotic flexibility in its borders.

There is an invitational accessibility through my metaphor of a website that extends to and illuminates each chapter. My choice of the web page frame is significant in its originality because it enables my thesis to be in a state that can readily be presented on the Internet. I cannot unfortunately replicate a dynamic, almost instantaneous movement between the sections and subsections of my work but I draw attention to this potential.

By posting my work on the Internet, I will be maximising its accessibility to further educational research by enabling teachers, mentors and researchers to develop my ideas so they can represent the complexity of others’ living self-study action enquiry accounts.

0.10 How can I assist you to access my knowledge within my thesis?

My original contribution to educational knowledge is the narrative of my multiplicity as a professional educator and its representation in this thesis through text, image and sound.

I have presented my thesis in two volumes. The second contains the explication of my life as a professional educator nurturing courage to be through published and unpublished

papers. The first is a concise explanation of how I am answering my research question.

It is the fine tracing of a linear representation of my thinking over the past 30 years. The second volume contains my multiplicitous tracery of thinking that embellishes the linear tracing in Volume One. Volume One is a directory for Volume Two, which contains my writings. Please imagine a website. The Home Page is simple and shows a series of headings. Each heading is a hyperlink to another directory. In order to retain the simple invitational aspect of the Home Page the website yields its information layer by layer …

How can I, a professional educator,

nurture courage to be?

Introduction

Chapter One: Literature Survey

Chapter Two: Methodology

Chapter Three: Being and Values

Chapter Four: Researcher self

Chapter Five: Mentor self

Chapter Six: Teacher self

Chapter Seven: Educator Self

References and Bibliography

Curriculum Vitae

Appendices

From the Home page, you can access parts of the website and in this case my thesis, which has reached you as a slab of dense text presented in two Volumes. Volume One looks accessible but I suspect that Volume Two seems daunting because it contains my writing over a twenty-five year period. It is necessarily complex as I detail evidence to support my thesis. Please allow me to guide you step by step through my submission.

The challenge that I face is this. How can I communicate how I have represented my learning as I answer my research question without letting the detail dominate the frame?

Let’s return to my website. Please access heading Chapter Seven which links, like this:

Chapter Seven: Educator Self

Volume One

7.1 Narrative

7.2 Research mentoring as my original contribution to educational knowledge

7.3 Guidelines for BPRS research mentor

7.4 An international socio-political context for research mentoring

7.5 My epistemology of research mentoring embodying courage to be

7.6 Research mentoring as a way of authenticating educational self-study

7.7 Research mentoring as a westernized perspective in self-study

7.8 Knowledge creation within research mentoring

7.9 How does my context nurture my courage to be as a research mentor?

7.10 Developing my work as a researcher-mentor in higher education

7.11 How am I accounting for my practice as a research mentor?

7.12 Representing my work as a research mentor in text and image

7.13 What influence do I have (if any) as an educator in students’ learning?

7.14 Relating my research mentoring to a scholarship of spirituality

7.15 What is the significance of my self-study as an educator?

7.16 Collaborative enquiry through research mentoring with teachers

7.17 Collaborative enquiry through research mentoring with LEAs

7.18 Research mentoring: The Missing Link in Educational Research

7.19 End note

7.20 Coda

There are twenty subsections in the directory for Chapter Seven in Volume One. Some of those subsections in the directory for Volume One are also hyperlinks to Volume Two. In the web page, underlined subheadings are hyperlinks to sections in Volume Two.

Chapter Seven: Educator Self

Volume Two

7.1

7.2

7.3

7.4

7.5

7.5.1 Reflections on my epistemology of research mentoring

7.10

7.6.1 How do I use ICT to enable research mentoring with teachers?

7.11

7.7.1 Reflections Action Research Workshop Programme, Tokyo

7.12

7.13

7.9.1 How do I nurture my courage to be in the face of social injustice?

7.10

7.11

7.12

7.12.1 Representations in text

7.12.2 Representations in image

7.12.3 Ethical considerations in my use of photography

7.12.4 Photography as value-laden practice

7.13

7.14

7.15

7.16

7.16.1 Listening to Learn

7.16.2 The Role of ICT in Teacher Research

7.17

7.17.1 A celebration of mentor research in Wiltshire

7.17.2 Wiltshire Research and Development Group

7.17.3 What’s Teacher Research Got to Do with Me?

7.18

7.18.1 What is happening in (my) education?

7.18.2 Defining Research Mentoring

7.18.3 Reflecting upon my vision for research mentoring

7.18.4 My narrative account of my practice as a research mentor

7.18.5 How is education different because of my work in qualitative inquiry?

7.18.6 What is my validated and valued research (not) doing for education?

7.18.7 Implications of research mentoring for professional practice

7.18.8 What are the outcomes of my educational research?

7.19

7.20

This is the list for Chapter Four (in its entirety) that you see in Contents, Volume Two

All chapters, in my thesis, work in a similar way. Some are largely represented in

Volume One by a list of subsections, as most content is represented in Volume Two.

Chapter Four: Researcher self

4.1 Narrative

4.1.2 Researching my Practice

4.2 The development of my thesis from January 1995 – August 2002

4.3 Living Educational Theory in creative engagement within multiplicity of Self

4.4 Dialogical Enquiry into my Multiplicity of Self

4.4.1 Questions and Answers in Understanding my Multiplicity of Self

4.5 Visions of Excellence a dialectical theory of action research?

4.5.1 My own Myth and Legend of Learning; a Self-study

4.6 How am I living my professional multiplicity of self?

4.6.1 Reflections on writing about my visit to Japan in December 2001

4.7 How am I living my researcher self in practice? Part One

4.7.1 Gender Motivation and Mentoring

4.8 How am I living my researcher self in practice? Part Two

4.8.1 Torfaen/Bath Collaborative Research Project

4.8.2 Addressing the Underachievement of Boys at KS 3

4.8.3 The nature of underachievement

4.8.4 What do we mean by underachievement?

4.8.5 Contributory factors in raising boys’ achievement

4.8.6 Overview of the project in Torfaen

4.8.7 The benefits of raising achievement in Torfaen

4.8.8 Intended outcomes for the Torfaen project

4.8.9 Torfaen and University of Bath Joint Publication

4.8.10 Underachievement among students of modern languages

4.9 Beyond Parochialism: Preparing Global Educators

4.9.1 Perspectives and Theoretical Framework

4.9.2 How do I improve my own mentoring?

4.9.3 How do I try to assist other mentors in improving their own practice?

4.9.4 How do I integrate mentoring and action research?

4.9.5 How do I try to help my trainee teachers to improve their practice?

4.9.6 Do I have any evidence that I have helped anyone to improve teaching?

4.9.7 What issues arise as I integrate action research and mentoring?

4.9.8 Methods, techniques and modes of enquiry

4.9.9 Data Sources and Evidence

4.9.10 Results conclusions and points of view

4.10 Reflections on my early experience of research mentoring

4.11 Epilogue

In Volume One, you see is 4.1 Narrative and 4.11 Epilogue. The rest is in Volume Two. Major subsections of the chapters are allocated a number like 4.1 and lesser sections, that explicate the subsection are allocated a number like 4.1.1 In some cases there is an *.

This indicates a further piece of evidence, a still photograph or a video clip on the CD.

0.11 What is this knowledge?

The seven parts of my thesis are presented in a way that communicates my originality of mind and, I believe, my critical judgement as a developing educator. Such development is never complete. Though I can claim to be an expert in some areas of my professional practice, I am constantly looking for ways that I can extend my expertise as I engage with existing and new challenges to enable me to develop potential as a professional educator.

This table gives some indication of the time span of my writings included in my thesis.

Date of creation	Title of Chapters in this thesis	Contents by Volume
2003	Preface	Volume One
2003	Introduction	Volumes One and Two
1994 - 2003	Literature Survey	Volumes One and Two
2003	Methodology	Volumes One and Two
1994 - 2003	Being and Values	Volumes One and Two
1994 - 2003	Researcher self	Volume Two
1992 - 2003	Mentor self	Volume Two
1972 - 2003	Teacher self	Volume Two
2002 - 2003	Educator Self	Volumes One and Two

Within each chapter, there are writings both published and unpublished. This format follows the recommendation for submitting a Mode B thesis from Professor Jamieson. I have included a copy of his memo setting out this model for Mode B in the Appendices.

The publications offered as evidence of my practice as a professional educator, nurturing courage to be, are listed in Volume Two. Where possible, published papers have been included in full in Volume Two with copied extracts from my books. Where relevant, I have also included papers offered in public presentations of my practice.

I have created a ‘living educational theory’ of my developing practice as an educator.

In Laboree’s (2003) terms, this thesis is a piece of ‘soft applied’ research. It is ‘very soft’ and ‘very applied’ (p.14) in parts and slightly harder and more objective in others. I do not decry the value of more traditional positivist research, but in coming to share my understanding of my work and my development as professional educator, self-study and participatory action research were the most suitable methodologies I could employ,because of their relative strengths and despite relative weaknesses. I cannot claim to be objective in a positivist sense as this is a self-study, but, where I have conceptualised my own practice, I am now intent on using these insights to see if others learn like I do. Using Straus (1996) to expand my understandings of objectivity and subjectivity, I have annotated an extract below to show why I cannot be objective in the positivist sense:

‘Objectivity requires that … (I)… renounce all personal interests …’ p.14 but to be objective in the positivist sense would not allow me to use my voice as teacher, mentor and researcher to explain the process and critical incidents (Tripp, 1993) that have shaped my practice.

I am studying my self as an educator in the ‘spirit of positivism’ expressed by Auguste Compte (1856) where he says (according to the translation by Bridges, 1957) that

‘ The Universe is to be studied not for its own sake but for the sake of Man or rather of Humanity. To study it in any other spirit would not only be immoral, but also highly irrational. For, as statements of pure objective truth, our scientific theories can never be really satisfactory. They can only satisfy us from the subjective point of view; that is, by limiting themselves to the treatment of such questions as have some direct or indirect influence over human life.’

I have used a living theory approach (Whitehead, 1989) because it enables me to account for my evolution in a way a traditional positivist approach (Brown, 1998), cannot permit.

The self cannot be directly observed…It is by definition mental and its measurement is inherently subjective. Subjectivity was anathema to the positivists. This excluded the Self; it also excluded the study of emotions, fantasies, dreams and other important psychological phenomena’

My self-study ‘living educational theory’, (Whitehead, 1989) which focuses on the living ‘I’ leads me to wonder what it means to ask, ‘How Can I Improve my Practice?’ There is an underlying assumption that an ‘I’ exists, that an ‘I’ is sufficiently constant that it can be consciously changed, and that there is something somewhere that can be termed ‘improvement’. I am assuming there is an ‘I’ and the selves I describe constitute ‘me’. I am a little uneasy about owning the process of developing a ‘living’ educational theory. My theory lives because I am living it. It does not have its own ‘life’. Through reflection, I look at ‘me’ with detachment as I consider interaction, achievement and disappointment that I recognise in my professional practice. I am not within the ‘dominant’ paradigm in the institution where I lecture, and ironically it may be, because I am in this sense an ‘outsider’, that I have been able to develop my own ways of ‘being’ with precision.

‘the more a newcomer is drawn towards the centre of such a community, that defines what counts as knowledge the less likely s/he is to develop a more variegated understanding of the epistemologies of educational research.’ (Pallas, 2001) p. 9.

I uphold the value of social sciences research as a way to understand my practice while I support self-study by practitioners as they discover and communicate their uniqueness. I cross paradigmatic boundaries to enable new insights to improve educational practice.

‘It means one lives fully and openly the complex process of being one of the most widely sensitive, responsive and creative creatures on this planet. Fully to be one’s own uniqueness as a human being … is a positive, constructive, realistic, trustworthy process,

Rogers, C. (1961) p.178.

I agree with Richard Pring (2000) where he points out that ‘The social sciences provide tools for the educational researcher: they offer generalised knowledge which such a researcher must take cognizance of’ p.189

I undertake action research with others rather than on others, as McNiff, (2002) advocates, and as I develop, I explore what it might mean to ‘be’ other than I ‘am’ now, or as I have ‘been’, by forming possible selves (Ingelhart, Markus and Brown, 1989)

‘Possible selves are a person’s images or conceptions or senses of what he or she might become, would like to become or is afraid of becoming at some time in the future, p.469

In my professional and personal life, I question how I can live more productively and humanely and how I can assist others by creating an environment in which they can ‘be’

0.12 Hard definitions and fuzzy boundaries

In the abstract to this thesis I point out that I will explicate my dialectical action research as living enquiry in my educational encounters. I define dialectical thus:

It is non-doctrinal – there is no item of propositional knowledge to identify, no ‘that’ but rather a process (a ‘how’) of moving nearer to knowledge through question and answer. In my thesis I am not just showing that I am multiplicitous, but how I am through living as a multiplicitous self where the boundaries between my multiplicities are porous and infinitely flexible. In my account of visiting Japan in 2001 (Chapter Seven) I am discovering myself as an emerging educator in a dialectical synthesis the interactions between my multiplicitous selves. In seeking to improve my work as an educator I am constantly challenging my practice by questioning. A glance at the detailed contents list at the beginning of Volume Two will show this. That it shows my questioning is itself a form of propositional knowledge, but how it shows the emergence of my learning through dialogue between my multiplicitous Self and my writing is a dialectical learning process.

When I ask How can I improve? I don’t know the answer, in fact there isn’t one! Through living life as enquiry I come closer to a synthesis of what works and what doesn’t work in improving my practice. This is what is represented in my thesis, this interacting,, this questioning and answering, this exploring peak experiencing and explicating how I enable others, and my Self, to experience them. My publications are created as answers to my question How can I improve? They provide some partial, time and spatially contextualised answers but they do not and cannot provide ‘the answer’ as my post-modern existence shifts and changes and new meanings gradually emerge.

0.12.1 Courage as ‘wise endurance’

For any definition of Courage to have meaning which is not limited to one situation, it must be a definable quality that is recognisable in all. I can be courageous in facing my death, but that is only one kind of courage. I can be courageous in NOT doing something just as much as I am courageous in DOING something in another situation. I think it was courageous of me to go into teaching my first lesson in a school and courageous when I persisted in honouring my agreement to visit Japan as an invited lecturer in 2001. I find satisfaction in the example of courage to and courage not to cited in Gonzales (1998).

‘Laches considers Socrates’ question “What is courage?” easy to answer. Courage, Laches replies, is to remain at one’s post and not run away. He recognises as courageous only those of his men who remain at their post in battle. Socrates admits that what Laches says is true: such a soldier would indeed be courageous. Yet Socrates objects that this true statement does not answer his question. There are many different kinds of courage, of which Laches has isolated only one. The courage of cavalrymen, for example, requires them to flee rather than remain at their post. Furthermore courage is not only found in war. One can exhibit courage in fighting disease and poverty, in pursuing politics, and even in resisting certain harmful and shameful desires. Socrates …points out that Laches himself does not recognise every case of endurance to be a case of courage. Laches considers .. courage … is a kind of endurance of the soul’ … endurance unaccompanied by knowledge is sheer foolishness and therefore a bad thing … the definition of courage is now revised to wise endurance.’ (pp. 29-30)

0.12.2 Being as ‘peak experiencing’

Being is more than living. Being in the sense I use it means engaging in more than the ordinary struggle for existence in a world fraught with difficulty, joys and challenges.

I draw my meanings of being from Abraham Maslow’s work entitled Religions, Values and Peak Experiences, (1970) where he describes peak experiences as

‘a self-validating, self-justifying moment which carries its own intrinsic value with it. It is felt to be a highly valuable – even uniquely valuable – experience, so great an experience sometimes that even to attempt to justify it takes away from its dignity and worth. Peak experiences can make life worthwhile by their occasional occurrence. They give meaning to life itself. They prove it to be worthwhile…. In peak-experience, there is a very characteristic disorientation in time and space, or even a lack of consciousness of time and space. Certainly, we have here, in a very operational sense, a real and scientific meaning of ‘under the aspect of eternity.’ (Pp. 62-64)

0.12.3 Nurturing as ‘wise nourishing and protecting’

What is nurturing in an educational context? I need a definition that has universality just as Socrates sought to know the universality of ‘courage’. In my thesis I show ‘how’, my process, my ‘doing’ of nurturing as a teacher, mentor , researcher and research mentor and through dialectical engagement between my multiplicitous selves I move closer to defining what nurturing is. I could cite an example of what nurturing is NOT in relation to my visit to Japan in 2001, but what IS nurturing? I see it as an exquisite synthesis of wise carings offered with the intention of bringing about educationally good learning. My definition is significant because this is my original definition of an educational value that is as a standard of judgement by which other educators can evaluate their practice.

My representation of my nurturing is significant, because I transcend the complexity of narrative and analysis of narrative that constitutes much of the bulk of my Volume Two of this thesis to offer a simple framing, a diagrammatic schema with a commentary that explicates that scheme through the expertise and experience of my educational practice.

0.13 Multiplicitous nurturing of courage to be

The explication that follows represents my learning, as I address my research question. Though it provides my definitive answer at this pint in time and in this context, it is not THE definitive answer for even as I write new definitions spring from my imagination.
0.13.1 Nurturing Courage to be: a generic model

This diagram, in its simple form, is how I will represent my nurturing of courage to be through educational relationships. The small circle at the centre is the individual learner, my Self or an Other. This individual learner feels frail and vulnerable and yet this individual potentially holds the key to unlocking understanding that can enable the human race to live with more humanity. This individual influences the systems and the individuals within those systems that surround it. I hold the Other as (and until) their own courage grows and holds with an enduring stability This individual needs caring for in a wise manner that promotes and protects its development. My nurturing is enfolding yet empowering, personalised yet universal, limited yet limitless.

0.13.2 Nurturing Courage to be: teacher self

The individual at the centre is a child in my class who is required, by the National Curriculum, to study a foreign language. His parents see know no point and he doesn’t expect to succeed. I help him to interact with the class in a safe way, as he learns to speak a few words and I reinforce his or her excitement by positive comments. I model how to learn and how to interact. By helping this child learn, I am enabling him or her to interact with the school as a whole. I helping this child to fulfil (and feel actualised in fulfilling) the requirements of the school development plan. By meeting the requirements of the school curriculum this child gets praise and positive reinforcement from other teachers and (hopefully) from parents and peers. Even if not, I am supportive and encouraging and the child grows through trusting my judgement. I evaluate my success as a languages teacher by how far the child can speak to others in the class, meet the requirements of the school development plan, interact successfully at a regional level through local language events and feel sufficiently courageous to go abroad or to engage in foreign conversation and develop a life-long openness for language learning.

0.13.3 Nurturing Courage to be in action: mentor self

The individual at the centre is a novice teacher who wants to learn to teach modern languages. Although this individual is a very skilled linguist he or she feels totally inadequate in managing a class and enabling him/her to learn (and feel fulfilled in learning) a foreign language. My task, as a mentor in initial teacher training, is to model how to teach languages effectively, to draw positive attention to effective learning in my mentee’s practice. I need to help my mentee develop a positive possible self as a teacher and that means reassuring and setting tasks that are within the students’ zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1986). My role is to encourage my mentee to meet the needs of the children in the classroom in a way that is empowering and satisfying for all concerned. It is to ensure my trainee is meeting the requirements of the school development plan and the National Curriculum and going beyond that, it is to nurture courage to be as a professional educator operating in a global environment. To do this, I must create opportunities for my mentee to engage in dialogue not just about what happens in a particular lesson but what is happening in education in the world beyond school.

0.13.4 Nurturing Courage to be: Educator Self

The individual at the centre is a child. I interact with the child and the teacher to encourage their co-enquiry into how they might improve their work together. I interact with the senior leadership team in the school to ensure the teacher and the students are supported. I need to summon my courage to do this – I am wary of seeming to be the outside expert and in this position I am vulnerable to attack that I am not providing quick fix answers to any problems. I need to reassure members of the senior management team (SMT) that co-enquiry through action research will enhance learning; it takes courage for a school to implement this approach. I nurture SMT’s courage to support this. At a regional level, I am working with LEA advisors in encouraging them to undertake co-enquiry with teachers. This is a new venture and some feel threatened by it. I keep in mind the child at the centre and its need and right to interact with the wider world. In school and with the funding and support of the LEA, I nurture teacher research initiatives. I encourage the school to make public its research process and outcomes within its community, within the local LEA and within the wider profession of educators constituted by teachers, mentors and researchers. I model my own research mentoring, as I encourage and support teachers to become research mentors for their colleagues. In this way, I am nurturing the courage of the profession to sustain and enable dissemination of its own knowledge base.

0.14 Framing my thesis

My thesis submission is complex because I do not recognise my Self as singular or linear but rather as being multiplicitous and interactive. Each professional self I explain (teacher, mentor and researcher) is subject to and subjected to the process of forming possible selves. Others have written widely about multiplicity, but my writing is original in showing my perspective of what it is to be a multiplicitous educator explicating my development over a thirty year period across a range of different educational interactions and contexts. I analyse the notion of a multiplicity of self in my thesis and explain what I mean by actualisation in terms of multiplicity. I set the development of my living educational theory in terms of this analysis and explanation. It has been a tortuous process coming to some understanding of my Self as an educator, and I have deconstructed my previous notion of the Self into multiplicitous selves, which develop independently, yet interconnect with one another. I have a notion of myself as a singularity (as an Educator) as my title defines but in order to understand my Self I have needed to recognise and explore ‘selves’, where each self has an ascendant constellation of values. I distinguish in writing this thesis between the Self (i.e. holistic) and its constituent selves, where my educational value that gives meaning to my life is Nurturing Courage to Be.

I believe that learning develops best in a climate of trust. I try to nurture trust as I work with individuals, drawing them into a group identity where they can be valued for their beliefs, feelings and values; by themselves, by one another and by me, their mentor-tutor.

By nurturing, I mean creating a culture of trust and valuing through listening, guiding by encouragement and at times strongly directing a group from the front as an overt leader.

I have to know intuitively and with confidence what it takes to bring a group together. I know how to listen to heartbeats in a conversation, I can feel others’ tears well up and can usually defuse inter group conflicts, and it has taken patience and mistakes to learn this.

I can predict with a fair amount of certainty how most individuals will react in my groups as learners – how they settle initially as a kind of provisional contact and how, as they feel their feet, they will challenge me and one another. I know how they need space to become and they need to check in with me, if not to seek my permission, to become….

0.15 Courage in Nurturing Courage to Be

My physical disablement was registered in 1985 after a period of some six years of mobility problems. Throughout my disablement my teaching career has sustained me.

My practice rests on a determination to overcome difficulty by maximising natural talents and developing expertise. One of the skills I have needed to develop is endurance, and

I think that my experience in overcoming difficulties enables me to work closely with students and teachers in professional relationships as we collaborate to solve problems.

I also believe that I have developed a capacity to support others through uncertainty in emotional as well as more practical ways. In overcoming my own fear, I can help others.

What is the positive energy, this determination to live beyond fear? Tillich describes it as the state of being, grasped by the power of life itself. This is how I feel as I engage in my work as a professional educator. It has become the motivating force within my work with beginning and experienced teachers and teacher researchers undertaking action enquiry.

I cite my growing understanding of my own multiplicity as evidence of living life as enquiry (Marshall, 1999). Creating a diagrammatic representation of my theory of my learning constitutes an action enquiry cycle that I revisit as I reflect and seek to improve. Reading Maslow (1971) I knew that I was not a singularity of self and I searched for a way to express my multiplicity. I have drawn diagrams, written text, created narratives and variously endeavoured to improve how I express my concept. I am still not satisfied, as I write in September 2003, as my model is not sufficiently relational. My model takes me out of context, but I offer the best explanation I can, over time and experience.

‘Our world does not consist of separate things but of relationships which we co-author … there is a kind of knowledge one has only from within a social situation, a group, or an institution, and thus takes into account … the others in the social situation.’ Reason, P. (2003) p. 206

It is action research that is embodied in my frequent returning to define and redefine what I experience and it is my own courage to be that empowers me to continue to return.

Reason (2003) identifies a Nurturing Phase in Randall and Southgate’s living labour cycle. In their diagrammatic representation (page 212) I recognise my nurturing ‘Self’ as a teacher, mentor and researcher and also my aspired value of ‘nurturing courage to be’.

By ‘nurturing’ I mean ‘wise nourishing and protecting’ to promote personal and professional development for my Self and individuals (including those in groups) with whom I come into contact. I create a climate of nurturing so individuals feel supported and I reassure each one that my educational relationship with them is important for my being. I focus on establishing trust that I can assist professional growth. My role in building a nurturing relationship is to listen and ask the kinds of questions that will enable me to understand the possible selves (embodying skills, values and knowledge) that the Other aspires to. Once I have some understanding, I mirror this back to draw out further details. Bonding the individuals into a group purpose and group identity by drawing attention to connections between possible selves is an important aspect of my practice. Working on an individual basis I use exemplification from my own development of skills, values and understandings to identify our mutual purpose.

Reason points out that the nurturing phase draws people together and helps them feel emotionally safe and bonded. At the same time, early preparatory aspects within the group task and the organisational issues, which allow the group to continue its life and work, are attended to. The nurturing phase means creating a safe and effective container for the work of the group and leadership is primarily focused on those concerns. Creating a nurturing culture is the purpose of my educational practice in my research mentoring. I believe that I am a nurturing leader for the groups and individuals that I work with.

JS: Yes - it's the feeling of community - we are not really in the university very often - it's things like regular e-mails. We are developing teachers. Also, Sarah herself is developing. We don't have an impression that ‘Right! I'm the seminar leader and I know all about teaching.’ Obviously with her experience Sarah is on a higher plane, but we are together - we are bouncing off ideas - you are Ph.D. and we are PGCE, but we are still going forward together, aren't we? (PGCE student, 2001)

There have been moments of exquisite actualisation, as a teacher, mentor and researcher and recently as research mentor where all these activities are relational and interactive. Through action research, I have revisited underlying principles in underachievement identified in my Master’s Dissertation in 1992, looking for more constructive ways of addressing underachievement and nurturing others’ courage to self-actualise as learners. This spiral revisiting, each time acquiring deeper and more significant insights into how one might improve learning, is reflected in the scope of my several writings here.

My thesis is no simple victory narrative. There is betrayal in Hargreaves’ (2002) sense ‘Betrayal is the intentional or unintentional breach of trust or the perception of such a breach’ p. 39 . Trust has sometimes been fractured between the organisation that employs me and myself. It has taken me personal and professional courage to deal with this. It still does.

My identity has changed in response to my social and professional context, but not in a passively reactive way. I have purposefully employed action research approaches to enable me to adjust to change, and my core value has been subject to change while retaining its integrity:

‘The values attributed to self-defining characteristics are subject to perpetual revision, according to social circumstance, which means that the overall value of one’s identity is in a state of flux.’ Breakwell, (1986) p. 19.

I realise that I consciously deny this value and the sub values in my practice, not necessarily by default, (in the sense of Whitehead’s living contradiction, 1989) but by design, in order to achieve a wider educational goal. Sometimes it is not appropriate for me to ‘be’ as an individual and I must restrain my individuation. Sometimes it takes enormous courage to do so. I have to deny the self I am, in order that others can be the selves they need to be for the greater good of humanity. When I was caring for my father in his final hours, my own needs to nurture myself had to be put on hold … I have learnt in the course of writing this thesis that I am sensitive to others’ needs and can be truly altruistic. I believe my awareness of this capacity underpins nurturing others’ courage. I now recognise the importance of extending my cognitive range and my own capacity for

‘self-consciousness, other-consciousness and metacognition – for the emergence of selfhood.’ Gonçalves, (2001) p. 377.

0.16 Personal context

I grew up in an environment where education was highly regarded. My parents had both been teachers, and their careers had spanned many different educational contexts. They were highly successful, gifted musicians and intellectually able individuals and my sister, who is six years older than I, was an accomplished scientist as well as artist. Growing up was a challenge to become other than the carer for my mother, who became seriously ill before I was born and remained more or less disabled throughout most of my childhood. In my teens I found myself increasingly cast in the role of parent to my mother, who was not then expected to live very long. I observed and emulated her courage to be. Both my parents tried to be loving and caring but the strain of my mother’s illness was profound. Because my father, a skilled artist, photographer and craftsman as well as a musician, my mother as an accomplished musician, gardener and needlewoman and my scientist sister, seemed to be able to succeed at a high level in so many varied occupations, I felt the need to make my mark as a linguist, though shyness and exam phobia all too frequently led to underachievement. I came to dread school, largely because I was frequently ill during my early childhood. That led to my commitment to ensuring that children enjoyed childhood with time for play and opportunities for learning, with appropriate support, to become independent. I have realised through my experiences how frightening and lonely childhood can be. I determined none of ‘my’ children would suffer that peculiar and poignant humiliation and exposure of feeling unintelligent in a gifted family of achievers.

0.16 Personal context

As I check my thesis in September 2003, prior to submission, I am seized by an insight.

This determination, to protect the wellbeing of others, has remained my aspired value…

This value engendered my motivation to encourage students to play, to make mistakes and to learn from them. As an educator, I want students of all ages to understand the value of their capacity to be knowledge creators who are valued for ‘being themselves’. They do not exist to be used by others for their own wellbeing but deserve the right to serve and be served as worthy members of society, living productive and happy lives.

0.17 Professional context

I am pleased to offer you the appointment of Lecturer on the University from 1st September 1994. You will be attached to the School of Education. The first three years of the appointment are probationary and during the period the progress of your research and teaching will be reviewed annually. It will be a condition of your appointment that you should work towards obtaining your Ph.D. Letter from Peter Hill, Head of Personnel Department, University of Bath, June 1994

My employment depended on three aspects of my work; teaching, research and working towards obtaining a PhD. I have combined these aspects by enquiring into my practice as educator. Until recently I encountered no opposition to this strategy, which mutually enriches my teaching and research activities, but recently, with the advent of the so-called Transparency Exercise, it has become increasingly necessary to account for my time in a more holistic, integrated way. The form filling does easily not allow my own teaching: research integration. My reasons for integrating teaching and research were pragmatic (shortage of time) I have discovered a plenitude of personal fulfilment through doing so.

My joy in being an educator and living the privilege of being involved in others’ and my own learning has never waned. I have changed locations for my work and I have worked alongside learners of all ages. What remains central to my vision as Educator Self is to create conditions in which I know through experience, through reasoning, reflection and intuition that learning might take place. I continue to seek out opportunities to learn how to learn how to Be, courageously. My thesis offers accounts of my practice which my curriculum vitae communicates in a neatly linear fashion glossing over the complexity.

In trying to understand my own motivation as a learner, I studied the work of Maslow (1974). I realised that the singular self he described did not correlate with my on-going experience of my own professional identity as a multiplicitous educator (teacher, mentor, researcher.) While I could detect several different ‘selves’ with slightly different values in my practice, these were not so pathologically diverse as to suggest Multiple Personality Disorder. Far from being a frail multiplicity, as Somekh (1995) suggests, I find I am evolving a robust plurality that enables me to operate across a range of social contexts with some ease. I encompass conceptualisations from Markus (1989), Whitehead (1989) and McGettrick (2000). From reading Markus I realised I embody the capacity to form positive possible selves; from Whitehead, the impetus to develop my cognitive range and practical expertise in responding to questions like ‘How can I improve my practice?’ From McGettrick, I draw the idea of a dynamic triangle of values, knowledge/understanding and skills. In my thesis, I reflect on my capacity to nurture. Its originality lies in how I embody my core educational values in my practice.

0.18 Curriculum Vitae

0.19 My publications since 1978 used to explicate my thesis

I chose the title for my thesis to represent my professional role and the values that underpin it. The title came recently, almost at the end of the writing process as I recognised that ‘nurturing courage to be’ has been, is, and presumably will continue to be my driving force. Nurturing is a concept that I take from my concept of education, since ‘education as rearing’ requires a protected and trusting space. I toyed with the idea of embodying Maslow’s concept of self-actualisation in title, but decided against it, as I was seeking to communicate that I am a nurturer, of not just my own, but of others’ selves. Looking at my publications and seeing how they naturally related to three main professional identities (teacher, mentor and researcher) I have sought to understand the nature of my involvement in each and concluded it is a nurturing of ‘being’ alive not just as a functioning organism but of an individual capable of choice in caring for others.

0.20 Epilogue

Louise Stoll (2003) highlights the centrality of being in education by saying,

As educators we must keep our eyes firmly on the purpose of schooling; learning – learning to know, to do, to live together and to be (her italics) p. 102

My thesis is my account of my learning to know, to do, to live with others and to BE and where there is a fear of being, to encourage, support and challenge so it grows.

· I am grounding my account of my life in a psychological frame. It is well recognised in the literature relating to identity that multiplicity of self exists.

· My account is a process and an end-product of my learning to be fully myself.

· My being is contradictory in that I hold values I sometimes deny in practice.

· I do not know of a more courageous act for me than submitting this thesis…

My main purpose in my creating this submission is to substantiate my claim that I am a professional educator and to explicate how I nurture my own and others’ courage to be.

I trace my development towards my current professional identity as a research mentor. What am I advocating in this thesis? Why have I written it and does it have any aims? In the next chapter, I will detail my aims and intentions in writing such a substantial thesis.

When I began writing it was to get a qualification, I just wanted to ‘have’ a doctorate. Some years ago this aim changed. I have wanted to create an aesthetically pleasing representation and celebration of my life that will bring alive how I live as a professional educator in a way that it might inspire other teachers to study their own multiplicity.