Hi everyone. It's good to read and write with so many ears and voices.
Barbara - can we know somehow who the 195 ears are? We could then tell
others about this list. Right now I don't know who doesn't know.
there was a debate in the UK a little while ago in hard copy - Horizons if
you know it - about academic and practitioner conversations. I like James'
point that academics have a job to do for the practitioners. It does
inspire. But during the debate in Horizons I, like some others, found myself
being careful about being labelled an academic. I am a practitioner. I am
exploring the academic world just now via a PhD to see what it can show me.
I hesitate to call myself an academic - yet. If anything I am in higher
education as a teacher not researcher. I interpret and critique my practice,
and the practice I observe and read about, in my teaching. This reaches lots
of ears, maybe more ears than a paper. (Some may even be listening!) Most of
us in HE are employed and inspired to teach and are in institutions not
geared up to do research. In this context I find James's list of outputs
more impressive! I'm not sure how much good I am to the field as a
researcher in fact. I'm still an advocate at heart.
I think I see in this theme a conversation around theories about theories
emerging. I am looking for a theory that allows me to be an advocate and
have a heartfelt research voice, one that is congruent with the idea that
each participant I research is on a personal ontological and epistemological
enquiry we call experiential learning. Robert is seeking a grand theory of
adventure. James is measuring the weight of our arguments as a defense
against an enemy. Steve is looking into the campfire with folk telling and
listening to, creating and retelling stories. Barbara takes the critical
slant of gender perspectives and tackles our deep assumptions.
Nor are we all theorising about the same things. I am interested in outdoor
learning places and how they are constructed and used. Robert is exploring
adventure which may or may not be outdoor. Steve is in camp in perhaps one
of the places I'd like to explore. Barbara is in a political world of social
construction.
I will have these points wrong and I apologise. My point is only that we are
looking differently at different things. We share the views we have in
different ways.
Perhaps the one thing we are talking about implicitly is whether there is a
best/better or simply varied ways to ask questions of experience. If we do
ask this question then at least our research will become more congruent with
the aspirations (but not necessarily the practice) of the field.
James pleads for writing about theories that are drawn from outdoor
experiences. Ed O'Sullivan reckons that transformation (in education in his
case) needs a new great myth and then many diverse expressions. Many of us I
think are wondering if it is not time for a new great myth to embrace an
actual or even desired practice that does not match the old myths too well.
James, Barbara and Steve all allude to this I think.
So what is the theory of myth making? Part of my own answer to that question
is that the word is potent when it lives round the fire and not when it sits
in a library. I stopped offering workshops in some places because I did not
make a difference that way. I still need some evidence that writing anything
makes a difference. For now writing helps me with the new words I want to
say round the fire.
Regards to readers and writers. At the moment this feels like a fireplace.
Chris
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