Hi all,
This is the first time I dare respond to your discussion. As a Dane my english is very restricted, and I am not able to understand all your words. Anyway I find your discussion very interesting and impotant. Here are some of my thoughts:
If I choose to show a video sequence to someone, I have implicit or explicit intentions. Why did I choose this sequence? What is it I want to share with you? I have often thought how much easier it would be in practice research to show the whole video. Let it speak for itself. But if I did so I would not get my message through to teachers or to my students - I have to write in some way what I see. I choose the sequences that I find interesting. I describe as close as I can to what I have seen and then I analyse the description, which often is a narrative. This is not a method without problems. From the video recordings to the narrative it takes a long way to go, but in that proces I come to understand better what I have seen and with what perspective. 
The writing about the video sequence is also a proces where I clarify thoughts and theories about the phenomenon, that I found interesting. I could look at the sequense with different views or theoretical perspectives. So what kind of meaning am I trying to illustrate for the teacher or my student? - I am working in the teacher physical education field. When looking at practice in this field it is possible to tell different narratives about the same video recording depending on what perspective I am looking with.
I have recieved so many interesting references from this seminar, so I will send you an article that might illustrate what I mean. The article is in print and not yet published, but will be soon.

Kind regards
Helle Rønholt


Helle Rønholt, 
Lektor / Associate Professor, Ph.D.
University of Copenhagen
Institute of Exercise and Sport Sciences
Department of Humanity and Social Science
Denmark
Tlf.: +45 3532 0852 (office)
E-mail: [log in to unmask]

 





-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: BERA Practitioner-Researcher [mailto:[log in to unmask]] På vegne af Pip/Bruce Ferguson
Sendt: 12. januar 2007 22:04
Til: [log in to unmask]
Emne: Re: insight to practice

Hi all

I'm about to leave town for a week, and see 16 BERA messages, which I won't have time to read.  So forgive me if this response has already been covered in the other responses, but here goes.

This story is one about a colleague of mine, who was taking my 'Reflective Practitioner' course.  On the final day of that course, participants are encouraged to present their overall reflections on their learning from the course, and about their ongoing development as educators, in ways that are meaningful to them.  Usually they talk, often with the aid of the whiteboard or Power Point.  Sometimes they use posters, or other artifacts to help with the presentation.  Debbie danced her reflection.  She's a dancer - currently doing her PhD in dance, combined with reflective practice.  I have two left feet, as I suspect some of the participants did.  Debbie therefore explained what her dance was about before she did it, and was prepared to answer questions on it at the end, but her intention was to present her reflections in the way that made best sense to HER.  But she also built a bridge
(verbally) to help those of us who are non-dancers to enter her world, even if just at the periphery.

I think this is what Jack may be inviting in his response to Je Kan's Goma visuals.  It is a pity that some of us (I include myself in this) need the bridges to be built to us, to help us to enter the visual or artistic worlds of others, but we do want to walk across those bridges and enter other worlds, even if the ultimate response is to decide that, while it's a great place 'over there', where we are works better for us.  The challenge then is to try to understand 'over there' without trying to force the 'over thereians' into our world!  It's the kind of response I met when attempting to show university educators how a Maori carving could be a piece of research, without the need for a written exegesis explaining its meaning!  

It will be a great world, I think, when we recognize the validity of 'over there's' standards of judgment alongside the more traditional standards, without REQUIRING traditional explanations before we acknowledge validity.
But it's a challenge all right, I'm not minimizing that at all...just looking for better worlds and more diverse and rich educational and research practices.

Hope this makes sense...won't be able to engage again for a week.
I feel the need for a 'Mohsen' type sign-off after this discussion, but can't think of one!  So, thanks for the sharing and looking forward to engaging again.
With love
Pip Bruce Ferguson

-----Original Message-----
From: BERA Practitioner-Researcher
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Rev Je Kan Adler-Collins
Sent: Friday, 12 January 2007 10:53 p.m.
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: insight to practice

Hello Alan, it is - 3 degrees here in Tagawa and the sky is like liquid crystal cobalt blue, just breath taking to look at. Oh well, sigh.... I only wish to clarify what may be my lack of clarification in that I am not suggesting that the imagery stands alone but is the starting point of the conversation.  I am reminded of Jack's story of knowing or checking your audience,. In this list for example I do not know who my audience is.  I choose not to make assumptions as they are usually wrong.  What I was intrigued about is the different starting points between Jack's and my position of how we like to engage. It is this difference that should be explored to encourage the other to be represented. Academics I feel tend to become lazy in their efforts to communicate and get used to or educated to a certain standard of presentation.  Hence my posting about level playing fields which Pip responded so eloquently too.  Pushing oneself out of a comfort zone is perhaps the challenge.  I am comfortable in chaos and complexity, I am very uncomfortable by orthodoxy and conformity, hence I live on a mountain top!  I want to see non narrated clips of practice as I am comfortable with the loudness of silence, my language of choice is subliminal, words are such cages..smile.  As my engagement with the non silent space of the excluded textual narrative, ( using your speak!!) progress.  I am free to heuristically immerse myself in the images and any learning; ideas that percolate to the surface are not tainted or influenced by what the other thinks I should see.  I am then free to engage my meanings and understanding with others.  At the same time I do understand Jack's position and I move back to my ideas of inclusional space that celebrates differences.
Now is that might be called an esoteric expectation or is it a form of communication that many outside of the western paradigm, find normal?

Love to all Je Kan