Hi all
What a brilliantly holistic contribution, Bernie! I loved your final
comments, as I do think Westernised education focuses too much on the
'provable' by the standards of positivist research. Am enjoying reading
Jean & Jack's latest book, "Action Research Living Theory", at the start of
which they protest the incursion of positivist values and standards into
practitioner research. It's an incursion that's hard to resist, often.
It is partly for that reason that I am also somewhat cautious about the
videotaping of practice, even though I can see (well, I could if I could get
the dratted videos to play - some kind of technical problem at my end!) that
the videos that are available from Jack's website to substantiate claims by
practitioners, can provide evidence that may be hard to rebut. New Zealand
has recently gone through a version of the Research Assessment Exercise
(ours is called the Performance-Based Research Fund, PBRF) which has
required researchers to 'prove' that they did certain kinds of research. At
the time of its first round, I was Research Manager of a nation-wide Wananga
(Maori University), Te Wananga o Aotearoa. There was considerable disquiet
expressed about the need to 'capture' - whether in writing, attestation or
video - one's practice and then 'boast' about it to achieve maximum grades.
For some cultures, capturing images on video can be problematic. For Maori,
this is less for 'spiritual' reasons, as I understand it can be for some
cultures, and more to do with whose interests are being served by the
videotape, as it was in the PBRF example.
One of the more interesting and unorthodox programmes run by the Wananga, Te
Arataki Manu Korero, involved the enrolment of numbers of old people who
came together under a facilitator to share knowledge of the histories,
knowledges, sacred places/practices etc. of their particular iwi (tribes and
tribal groups). The facilitator was not a teacher, but acted to structure
the learning the old people gained from each other. The entire classes have
been videotaped - hence my comment that Maori are not resistant to
videotapes per se. But the purpose of the videotapes is not to satisfy
anyone else's criteria, but to capture knowledge that may well be lost if
not recorded. There is therefore an intrinsic purpose in the videotaping
that makes sense to the participants, and does not serve anybody else's
validating or credentialing purposes. (Bernie, might the traveler
communities in Ireland be able to access government funding to capture and
maintain their own histories through a programme such as this? Perhaps one
exists already. I thought it was a brilliant example of Maori lateral
thinking - get government funding for cultural maintenance through setting
up such a programme.)
Personally, I think the best 'proof' that we are walking our talk comes from
the unsolicited attestations of our students, our colleagues and our
managers. It is good to seek ways to expose our own practice to external
scrutiny, but I think we need alongside that self-critique and critique by
others, to be careful of the forces that compel such scrutiny, if it is
externally imposed.
I'll finish with a snatch of poetry from Burns, with whom I share some
Scottish ancestry!
"Ah, wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion."
(To a Louse - yes, really!)
Cheers, all, and thanks for the sharing - most interesting!
Pip Bruce Ferguson
-----Original Message-----
From: BERA Practitioner-Researcher
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bernie
Sullivan
Sent: Thursday, 12 October 2006 10:32 a.m.
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: What are living standards of judgement?
Ive been following the interesting and stimulating discussion on standards
of judgement/discernment and related matters since Je Kan opened proceedings
on Friday last. I can identify with contributors who write of walking the
talk and who emphasise the value of living practice as opposed to just
using a form of words. In this context, Brendan Kennelly, one of Irelands
foremost poets, said, I didnt want an explanation. I wanted the
passionately real experience of it.
Like Je Kan, I established my own living standards of judgement, based on
the ontological values that underpin my life view, as the criteria for
evaluating my educational practice. I felt justified in adopting this stance
because I was engaging in a living theory form of action research, as
practised by Jack Whitehead and Jean McNiff. Among the values that give
meaning to my life are social justice, equality, inclusion and respect for
others. To discern whether I am living in the direction of these values, I
pose questions such as:
In my educational practice, do I ensure that all pupils are treated in a
just and fair manner?
Do I create the conditions necessary for equality of educational provision,
particularly for disadvantaged pupils?
Do I provide opportunities for inclusion of marginalised pupils, such as
children from the Traveller community?
In my research accounts, I have provided evidence of incidents that
demonstrate the fulfilment of these criteria in my educational practice. I
take Jacks point, though, that a visual representation of the evidence
would probably provide a more compelling and rigorous explanation of
practice and might be an approach towards answering Brians questions.
However, another quote from Brendan Kennelly sounds a note of caution in
this regard, This whole nature of having your mind and imagination bullied
by the provable and the visible is anathema to me. I realise, of course,
that poetry and educational research are two separate disciplines, but my
commitment to inclusion compels me to incorporate insights from other areas
into my field of education.
Regards,
Bernie Sullivan.
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