Dear Moira
Thank you so much for your detailed and affirnative response to my snapshot.
Perhaps I need to point out again is that it IS a snapshot from my standpoint
and that I simply cannot extract you from what I depict. Without you I would
have had no involvement and your encouraging emails right up to the few days
before the visit have enabled me to feel engaged with Guyuan's AR activities. I
have no idea what the future holds in terms of any involvement with Guyuan and
so what I've tried to portray is my delight and excitement to this point.
I feel so excited about your comments about the role of photography - somehow
the 'stills' which I extracted from videos communicate more than the videos
themselves as they distill (in my opinion) the very 'essence' of experiences.
This isn't to say that video isn't a highly useful medium in teacher research
(I am in agreement with Jack and Jean here - in their latest book) but there is
something about stills that speaks even more poignantly, but then I cut my
teeth so to speak as a stills photographer and I enjoy that medium far more.
I particularly wanted to move away from I's so that is why I showed you in a
favourite photo, smiling your heart out, but also in an action research group
that Jack convenes. This is my tribute principally to 'us' of you in Guyuan.
As you put it I have 'carved my self a role' I haven't been aware of that - but
then my determination to promote quality teacher research internationally
sometimes takes over and I lose myself in the process! Perhaps we need other
snapshots linked to show the stages as they unfold in Guyuan's AR development.
I used all the materials I had to hand that spoke to me - videos of you, the
Monday group, the brief meeting with Dean Tian and Mr Gao and my feedback on
the AR reports which I asked you if it would be appropriate to send through. I
promised you a year ago when I took the videos of the Monday Group and of you
in my office that I would pay tribute - but until now I couldn't see how. The
Carnegie Foundation KEEP toolkit has at last enabled me to do just that.
I think I need to 'frame' what I have created so I explain why it is as it is -
a brief introduction in the title section that this is my tribute ab initio?
It isn't an official portrayal. It IS how I visualise the links round Guyuan.
Love,
Sarah
--
Sarah Fletcher
SL Mentoring and Induction, BSUC
http://www.TeacherResearch.net
Tel. 01225 875875
Quoting Moira Laidlaw <[log in to unmask]>:
> I am responding to Sarah's display at the url she cited. I knew Sarah
> wanted to express something of her delight in working with Dean Tian and
> colleagues through email in the last two years and in person with Dean Tian
> and Gao Qin over the last few weeks. She told me she'd be working on
> something and it would be a celebration of her contact with our Chinese
> colleagues. The photographs in particular of my two colleagues, are a joy.
> I love to see the happy openness of people enjoying their conversations
> together, when it seems to me the boundaries such as they can be perceived,
> dissolve in intercultural harmonies. That's what I liked most about the
> pictures. A sense of us being together as we, rather than lots of I's, if
> you know what I mean. How relaxed everyone looks. It's so important to see
> such images, rather than imagining or simply hearing about them. The smiles
> and facial expressions of my colleagues now adorn my desktop, 5000 miles
> away from 'home'!
>
> Sarah, you are helping me to see the value of photography as a profound
> expression and explanation of what we are doing in education, why we are
> doing it, and what it means to be doing it in today's world. I couldn’t
> have believed only a year ago, that my esteemed colleagues could be coming
> to England, that we could consolidate our learning in physical proximity. I
> kept having to pinch myself to recognise the fact they really were there
> with us.
>
> I am thinking as I write, of the further attacks in London yesterday, of a
> reality which denies those 'values of humanity' we (think I can say that)
> would all like to be held accountable to. I work with people from mixed
> religious backgrounds in a developing country. I don't quite know what it
> means to say that, but I know it means something very profound. I want to
> keep working with people together, to form 'we', so that we might do
> something to promote the values which give life, not take it away, the
> values that love and don't hate, the values that speak to our souls, if you
> like. That's what I want, and seeing Sarah's pictures bring that world just
> a little closer for me. The future is a different country: we do things
> better there. Thank you, Sarah.
>
> Now, if you'll forgive me, just a couple of small points. I was wondering
> about the context for this presentation. The pieces about me don't strike
> me as being necessary and may actually be unhelpful. I have two reasons for
> saying that:
>
> a) I want the work my colleagues and I have been doing over the past four
> years of sustained commitment, to have an increasing publicity according to
> their achievements, rather than any sense of past reliance on an
> international volunteer. My organisation (VSO) promotes sustainable
> development. I won't deny the part I've played in the initial impetus and
> subsequent development of this innovation: why would I? I'm proud of it.
> However, I'm not sure that the background material about my early
> impressions, for example, or the bit about Chinese characteristics, which
> Dean Tian writes about in our AR expeditions article, is now what is needed
> in terms of building a sense of a home-grown sustainable development. The
> past is an historical part of the AR Centre's growth of course, but I don't
> feel comfortable with its inclusion, because we've reached a new stage now.
> This isn't modesty on my part - I know the value of my work - but for the
> reasons given above, partly political, partly personal, I'm not at ease
> with this aspect of the presentation.
> b) Some of the comments aren't annotated, which I think detracts from the
> sense of overall context. I'd like to see an explanation (if you think this
> is appropriate - but the fact I sense something's needed, suggests I may
> not be the only one) of what part you are playing in the development of
> this work. I think the role you've carved out for yourself is implied, but
> I don't feel it may be clear enough for others to follow.
>
> Warm regards, and thanks Sarah,
>
> Moira xx
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