First, let me thank everybody for the private and public emails I've
received in response to my plea for more down to earth, classroom based
action research, conducted by teachers.
Yaqub: I'm grateful for the positive and detailed feedback about my
website. I'm very happy for you to post a link to my website on the Royal
Agricultural College Diversity web. You mentioned my case study of Heidi
(fictional, but based on a real person I taught years ago). I'm very much a
proponent of the case study approach - it suits special needs research very
well where 1:1 teaching often occurs - and gets round that bugbear of
research, is N a big enough number to make pronouncements about the general
school population. You're right that I don't go on to state my vision of
anti-racist education. I didn't do so because I want my research to be
extremely focused on individuals and the school curriculum, particularly
MFL. I'm in the twilight of my career, I was a blue skies visionary in my
younger days, but I get far more satisfaction these days by examining
little cameos of educational practice, ones that reflect the day to day
routine of SEN teachers. I want to speak to them, rather the educational
theorist trying constantly to view the big picture. Having said that, you
can be sure that my views of antiracist education are entirely in accord
with the diverse world in which we live. When I see physical or hear verbal
bullying or abuse directed at minorities, I will always intervene and put
things straight.
Sarah: Thank you for your comments too. I'm glad you agree about
applicability and relevance - my original message was in some way a
response to a degree of feel-good ivory-towerism and to the imposition of
unrealistic validity and rigour barriers on schooteacher-researchers I
perceived (I expect wrongly) in some of the forum contributions. I'm not a
fan of the "vision thing" and I'm still rather fond of Voltaire's "Candide"
where we read "Travaillons sans philosopher" - let's work without
philosophising. Thanks for your generous offer of web space for any
teacher-researchers needing somewhere to publish their findings. I've come
across Creative Partnerships and admire the opportunities they offer
schools to examine their own practice. It may well break down those
barriers between teaching and research at whole-school level. I'm not so
sure how it will affect the individual practitioner like myself, who more
often than not finances his own projects to make a quick start and to
divest himself of the pressures that outside agencies and external funding
can bring.
David Wilson
Harton Technology College, South Shields
http://www.specialeducationalneeds.com/
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