Hi Moira
Now THAT is what I call a good review - very interesting and scholarly AND it
communicates well. Thank you! I'd like to share it with teacher researchers
I'll be working with next semester. Too many academics just waffle or use a
critical review basically as a platform to promote their own work - you don't!
I think this may be because you are a teacher and you want us to understand.
All the best
Sarah
Quoting Moira Laidlaw <[log in to unmask]>:
> Hi Peter. I wanted to join in the discussion in the ways you are
> suggesting, so I read Kathryn's account this morning. To start with an
> engaged and appreciative response, I like the way it draws me in as a
> reader. The account starts by declaring the author's surprise that theory
> can be living and then, it seems to me, goes on to demonstrate in a living
> (developmental and dynamic) way what she understands by living theory. Her
> account reveals a dialectical educational process and subsequent
> theorising. I like the way she weaves her educational values in with her
> questioning and finding solutions. She interrogates her own findings, using
> the logic of question and answer. She says she believes in empowerment
> through dialogue and then I see her developing that with her pupils. The
> logic she uses, transparent and dialectical, makes me realise how useful
> this document would be as an example to offer my colleagues in China, who
> sometimes find it difficult to theorise from practice or indeed accept that
> as a way of conceiving and developing educational knowledge.
>
> In terms of her evidence-based claims. Her account expresses its parameters
> clearly in terms of what she's aiming to do and what she isn't attempting
> to do. I find her claims and justifications reasonable throughout. For
> example, she says she doesn't aim to generalise from her individual work,
> but wants to turn her ideas into truths for the educational benefit of
> herself and her pupils and the possible sharing of values with others. She
> shows where she changes her mind and actions when necessary, and takes
> steps to improve her practice in the light of her emerging understandings
> and those of her pupils. Her account also integrates her reading in such a
> way what it's a dialogical relationship with the texts rather than a
> display of theoretical knowledge. In other words, it's living as well.
>
> Standards of judgement. Her clarity of parameters strikes me as an
> important standard of judgement for this work because it emerges
> developmentally from it in the course of the educational processes. And has
> she found some educational truths, which have benefited the situation as a
> result of her growing clarity? I think the answer is yes. For me, her
> account also displays trustworthiness (Kincheloe, 1991) in ways which lend
> her account necessary validity and rigour (Winter, 1989). Although she
> doesn't desire generalisabiity in terms of replicability, she seems to me
> to achieve what Bassey later termed relatability (Bassey, 1997). She
> tallies her espoused values with her lived values and theorising in such a
> way that her readers can follow her logic and see if it applies to their
> own situation. Although I have no experience of infant classrooms, I find
> her account completely believable, interesting and stimulating. It makes me
> want to know what I might do to encourage clearer and more focused use of
> language in discussion with colleagues and students in China about their
> own learning processes.
>
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