Dear Jack
re. Steve's posting yesterday: Through the course of my study, I have found the
ideas relating to appreciative inquiry (Cooperrider) to be of immense help in
developing ideas and understanding.
I am grateful to Steve for his reference to appreciative inquiry - in fact I
have asked him for the exact ref. as I'd understood Pat was the originator -
re. your posting: I would have seen such a question as a wonderful opportunity
to engage with the evidential base of the examiners' understandings.
It was! My examiners evidently (and evidentially) knew your work very well!
re. your posting: But Jack doesn't believe that self-study action research IS
the only form of action research.
That's one of the reasons I say in my draft review that this particular book
does not do you justice, Jack - do re-read how you have phrased your page 1.
My opinion is that you could (and I think should) have engaged albeit briefly
with some of other main approaches to action research. I've said this before in
this seminar - you give the impression that action research IS self-study.
Where is your own engaged and appreciative response to the texts of others who
have suggested other forms of action research? I would value those references.
re. your posting: It would be helpful for me to know who asked the question so
that I could write to them to correct their mistake.
Which mistake Jack?
Kind regards,
Sarah
- -
Sarah Fletcher
http://www.TeacherResearch.net
Quoting Jack Whitehead <[log in to unmask]>:
> Like Steve I've been influenced by Pat D'Arcy's ideas on how to make
> appreciative
> and engaged responses to the texts of others and tend to use Pat's ideas from
> her
> thesis at:
> http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/pat.shtml when working to improve my reviews of
> the
> writings of others. If you click on this url, I think you will enjoy Pat's
> Abstract. I also
> like Pete's emphasis on respect for evidence. When Sarah says:
>
> "The stimulus to challenge Jack's writings came from my viva voce examination
> in
> November 2003 (wrong criteria used by examiners - appeal - thesis still
> unexamined
> in 2005!) The examiners asked why I was so accepting of what Jack said about
> that
> self study action research IS the only form of action research. I started
> thinking!"
>
> I would have seen such a question as a wonderful opportunity to engage with
> the
> evidential base of the examiners' understandings. Given my belief that the
> claim that
> sefl-study action research IS the only form of action research would be a
> very silly
> claim to make, (and I have never said or written it) my own response would
> be:
>
> But Jack doesn't believe that self-study action research IS the only form of
> action
> research. What he has done is to advocate the development of a living
> educational
> theory approach to action research (see http://www.actionresearch.net) in
> which
> individuals create and test the validity of their explanations for their own
> learning as
> they ask, research and answer questions of the kind, 'How do I improve what I
> am
> doing?'
>
> I'm hoping that nobody will attribute to me the belief that self-study
> action research
> IS the only form of action research. What I'm hoping is that
> practitioner-researchers
> find some of my ideas about the nature of educational theory helpful as they
> construct their own, just as I draw on the ideas of others. It would be
> helpful for me to
> know who asked the question so that I could write to them to correct their
> mistake.
>
> Love Jack.
>
>
>
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