Dear All
Jack wrote on 19 September 2006 under the heading
'A BEGINNING FOR THE 2006-7 PRACTITIONER-RESEARCHER E-SEMINAR'
“… We have 123 subscribers on the list to begin the 2006-2007 Practitioner-
Researcher e-seminar on the standards of judgement we use in evaluating the
quality of the educational knowledge and educational theories we are
creating as practitioner-researchers.”
Looking back to last year, I remember Jack opening the e-seminar for 2005
with an invitation ". . . to a discussion on the contributions of our
living educational theories and our evidence of our educational influences
in our own learning and to the future of educational research . . ." with
a further invitation ". . . to let each other know where our educational
theories can be accessed and where we can see evidence of our educational
influences in our own learning, the learning of others and in the learning
and education of social formations."
I see a common theme between the 2005 and 2006 seminar briefings that
centres on standards of judgement.
In 2005, Jack asked me to take on the role of reviewer as the archive of
contributions filled. However, on 30 June at 'Re: Start of the Review
Process' I stated:
“. . . I have been perusing postings as they have been made over the past
few weeks and must admit to noting that the exchanges have created within
me a steadily growing sense of tension as I endeavour to hold on to the
original stated theme of the e-seminar i.e. 'The nature of educational
theories: what counts as evidence of educational influences in learning?'
In an attempt to respond to that tension and to see if the process of
review can be moved forward, I propose to go ‘back to basics’ and to
undertake an action enquiry under Jack's usual sequential headings:
1. What is my concern ?
2. Why am I concerned?
3. What do I think I can do about it?
4. What kind of 'evidence' can I collect to help me make some judgements
about what is happening?
5. How do I plan to collect such evidence?”
6. How shall I check that my judgement about what has happened is reasonably
fair and accurate? …”
In an attempt to ground this enquiry in a practice that could be shared
with seminar members, I decided to review a piece of work published on
Jack’s website that is regarded as being a good-quality action research
enquiry. I then asked the question “How can we review the work of Kathryn
Yeaman and thereby develop standards of judgement which help us to
understand the nature of educational theories and what counts as evidence
of our educational influences in learning”?
I received interest in this enquiry from Jack and Moira but, in the end,
there was no other on-going engagement. I wrote a final posting on 07
October 2005 at 'Making meanings from the archive' and concluded:
“… Are we to make something of this archive, or are we to press eagerly on
into the future, looking for the next opportunity to rehearse our familiar
arguments amongst ourselves, without actually convincing anyone outside our
immediate circle that we have made any sort of serious contribution to the
wider debate.”
To me, it seems that we are failing to build on the past, or even to draw
conclusions from the past.
Alon Serper wrote the following contribution to the 2006 seminar on 12
October under
'Re: What kind of lifeworld are we creating for each other here?'
“… I am growing increasingly tired so I have to speak in order to stop
being that exhausted as I read the entries … It is just further
highlighting and displaying the critique of academics and academia as
detached ivory tower (possibly made of much cheaper material than ivory) of
talkers/analysers, talking what Heidegger called 'idle talk' and what I
myself, in my usual not messing about and saying what I think, call yakking
of yakkers, rather than doers and deyakkers.
So my contribution is as follows:
Just produce an account, showing your living standards of judgement and
make it public for assessment and re-evaluation: We'll decide and tell you
if it is epistemological, clear and convincing, contributing (ethical) and
educational.”
I would claim that Alon has coming to a similar conclusion as mine of last
year: we need to share an enquiry that is grounded in practice. Otherwise,
we are doomed to produce yet another megabyte or two of ‘idle talk’. What
do you think we should do?
Peter Mellett
19 October 2006
Archive
20 June 2005
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind0506&L=bera-practitioner-
researcher&T=0&O=A&P=9355
21 June
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind0506&L=bera-practitioner-
researcher&T=0&O=A&P=10194
23 June
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind0506&L=bera-practitioner-
researcher&T=0&O=A&P=11674
24 June
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind0506&L=bera-practitioner-
researcher&T=0&O=A&P=12514
30 June ***
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind0506&L=bera-practitioner-
researcher&T=0&O=A&P=16122
4 July
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind0507&L=bera-practitioner-
researcher&T=0&O=A&P=3732
5 July
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind0507&L=bera-practitioner-
researcher&T=0&O=A&P=5427
15 July
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind0507&L=bera-practitioner-
researcher&T=0&O=A&P=15006
07 October ***
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind0510&L=bera-practitioner-
researcher&T=0&O=A&P=73
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