Dear Sarah,

Yes, indeed, but...

Your posting raises a very important issue regarding perceptions of 
'diversity', which is related to the paradox of the 'One' and 'Many'. There 
is a difference, in my mind, between simplistic (rationalistic) 'pluralism' 
or 'multiculturalism', whereby all views are, in effect, discretely bounded 
'alternatives', whereupon it seems like sacrilege to insist that there is 
One view that can encompass all others, and, dare I say it, the inclusional 
or indeed 'living theory' view of 'community in diversity', whereby the 
diversity can be understood as arising from a common spatial pool, in much 
the same ways that the diversity of complementary cells and tissues of a 
human organism (say) arises from an 'egg'.

Perhaps 'living theory' is an 'egg' - incomplete with permeable, breakable, 
shell. Could you see 'living theory as an egg encapsulating many diverse 
potentials that can relate with one another in dynamic natural 
neighbourhood?'

In a hurry - sorry about the long sentences....


Warmest

Alan


--On 27 February 2007 14:09 +0000 Sarah Fletcher <[log in to unmask]> 
wrote:

> Hi Susie and everyone,
>
> re. your posting in toto and especially this part;
>
> My desire is to find ways to open to the fluency of being in flow in such
> moments, without defaulting to old reflexes that just add to the problems.
>
> As always you express so clearly and succinctly the deepest, most moving
> thoughts in your email.  Reading your posting today I am reminded of A.N.
> Whitehead's vision of a 'university' and Boyer's  'new scholarship'.  To
> my mind the crux of the e-seminar that we are contributing to here should
> be a valuing of and contribution to diversity - rather than seeeeking to
> promote any one approach  to practitioner research.  I grow uneasy when I
> see living (educational) theory being promoted (or  so it seems) over
> other approaches to research. Most of the active contributors promote
> L(E)T?  I  value your idea of engaging with Academe for the furtherance
> of knoweldge creation, Susie, and  not being consumed by or hooked into
> it. Shouldn't a fertile meeting of minds and ideas engaging  with
> practitioner research be reaching out to bring in and engage with very
> different approaches?   isn't that in a sense what Academe is ideally
> about? An exploration and valuing of difference as a  basis for the
> growth of ideas? Surely challenges to emerging approaches to practitioner
> research if  couched in terms of support and a genuine and honest
> exploration of ideas are to be welcomed?
>
> Isn't 'world leading' when research approaches and their adherents look
> outward with excitement  to engage with otherness in humility (i.e. that
> there is much to learn from other as well as much to  offer from one's
> own perspective) and curiosity (in antithesis - it seems to me - of
> defensiveness)? What I detect in some academics' conversations is a kind
> of fear of challenge and silent rejection  of the very possibilities that
> would move knowing on.  It leads me to wonder why some educators  choose
> to become academics or at least to stay so long within the academy that
> they can become  so distant from a vision that brought them to the
> Academy in the first place ... Instead of the many  terrritorial
> skirmishes that occur, how inspiring it would be to see more academics
> seeking fresh  discourse around their ideas challenging their & others
> established ways of working in a heartfelt  endeavour to contribute to
> the pool of educational knowledge that truly promotes social justice.
>
> Warm regards,
>
> Sarah