Dear Je Kan,
Great to hear from you, after a while.
Yes, the irony of researchers providing quantitative data about feelings and
calling the results 'qualitative' is all part of the insensitizing influence
of objectifiction! But I would also question whether 'including the 'I'' per
se is any more qualitative... In a deep sense, quality isn't quantifiable
because it isn't definable, which is one of the reasons that the RAE
enterprise is up the shoot and holding real quality to ransom.
Which brings me to your interesting and complex question: How important is
it to me that others understand me?
About as important as it was to my father for me to understand the urgency
in his tone as he warned me not to 'step there'. Except perhaps more so,
because my compassionate concern is extending to all humanity and all
Nature. This isn't because I want everyone to have the exactly the same
understanding as me. I am happy to feel that my primary role is as a
catalyst, someone who can inspire creative and critical enquiry, not
necessarily someone omniscient or infallible (far from it!!). But I do want
people to see the objective snake in the grass that tempts them with the
power of definitive, quantitative Knowledge, which leads to
human alienation from Nature and denial of loving receptivity.
So, I do indeed find it difficult to deal with that power of denial as it
expresses itself in many oppressive guises amongst my peers (and in a very
few students). How I respond receptively with this power of denial on an
everyday basis is
indeed an everyday concern. I really would like the urgency in my tone to be
appreciated, not dissected and tested against objective criteria of
incomprehensibility.
Love and respect
Alan
----- Original Message -----
From: Rev Je Kan Adler-Collins <[log in to unmask]>
To: BERA Practitioner-Researcher
<[log in to unmask]>; A.D.M.Rayner
<[log in to unmask]>
Cc: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 13 July 2007 05:53
Subject: Re: Terra Incognita
Hi Alan, its been a while. I am in the tense no mans land of awaiting
the internal readers response to my thesis, an experience that seems to
go on forever. I understand your words and resonate with them. Living
action research is exactly that, it is lived on a daily basis in the
context of one's life grounded in actual practice. In the sharing of
our educational narratives, it matters not if all believe, understand
or follow. In the inclusional sense of the other, offering your
thoughts with a non attachment of power but with complete ownership of
the process of the thoughts actions would not violate any webs of
connectedness. I guess I have to ask the question:' "How important to
you is it that others understand you? I have the choice to engage
with your words, seek your meanings and if I so choose I will integrate
them as part of my wholeness. I recently presented at two different
conferences in Asia. I was so surprised to see different understanding
of the concept of qualitative was between the western view point of
reflection on the "I" as being central or singular to understanding
and the absence of the researchers "I" in presented papers. Every
paper presented by an Asian delegate was presented in the western model
of medical research reporting. There was not one single account from
the experience of the researcher as being part of the research process.
There were no nursing narratives, stories of practice, just tables of
data that was said to qualitative as it reported on feelings. My
experiences in Asia have brought home to me just how far ahead the BERA
practitioner postings are in terms of reflection and philosophy
grounded in western thinking are. They are light years away from my
world of practice and experience. I have said many times that your
thoughts are the closest I have heard to Buddhist teachings. My concern
is as ever, the lack of actual working accounts of teacher practice to
balance the articulate and informed scholarship of reflective
practitioner thinking. Therefore in true reflective mode I have to ask
myself: "Why is this so important to me?" If I answer with my heart
instead of my head, I have the need to listen and learn from my peers,
are they experiencing the same classroom, power, political games that I
am? How do others deal with the student from hell? Do others
experience horizontal violence from peers, how do they cope? The
unspoken connectedness of shared experience that could enrich so many
echoes in the ghostly presence of its absence.
Love and respect, Je Kan
Quoting "A.D.M.Rayner" <[log in to unmask]>:
> Dear Barra,
>
> I notice no-one else has replied to you as yet, so I will try to respond,
> because I think your message raises some key issues with regard to
> understanding what I understand as the evolutionary nature of living
theory
> and what gets in the way of such understanding.
>
> From where I am, as a relative outsider, the very nature of living theory
is
> that it is non-prescriptive and non-impositional, but holds open the
> possibility of learning co-creatively in receptive-responsive practice.
This
> is why it is impossible to state in advance what its standards for
> assessment of quality are, because these evolve in the process of enquiry
> due to learning. Fixed standards of judgement based on objective,
> numerically measurable outcomes, restrict this process when imposed as
the
> sole basis for evaluation
>
> Following from this, a key 'living' (evolutionary) standard of judgement
> (principle) may be lie in the ability to show evidence of learning, by way
> of deepening understanding, in the process of enquiry, and furthermore to
> show how this deepening understanding produces new ideas and concepts upon
> which to found further enquiry. This ability was very clear to me in, for
> example, Eden Charles' recent thesis, an accomplishment well worth
> celebrating (but not, by its very nature, 'triumphalizing'). Eden's record
> of his emerging practice, for me, clearly provided an example of
> evolutionary enquiry in practice from which others could learn and apply
to
> their own learning practice. Most fundamentally it is about influencing
the
> 'other as oneself' through love and care, NOT imposing one's authority,
> which is understood to be counter-productive. It illustrated the
> transformational 'exercise of humility' not the coercive 'exercise of
> authority'. And Jack's role in this was very clearly that of consultative
> 'Sherpa Guide', not vampiric 'cloner in his own image'. I accept that the
> latter caricature might well apply to many kinds of academic research
within
> the currently dominant, domineering paradigm (within the framework of
which
> we still have to find our way). But it does not and cannot apply to the
> INTENTION (I appreciate your concern that this intention may not always be
> followed, caught up as we all are in a world view that opposes it) of LET,
> whose very hope is to transform hegemonic power structures. So I feel your
> concern is better directed towards current orthodoxy, not LET, and I would
> also ask what the basis is for your 'second order' categorizations?
>
> Here a short story from my own learning experience as a child may be
> relevant. I was out walking in the countryside with my parents. In my
> obsessive-compulsive way I had in my mind pre-determined the exact
footsteps
> I was going to make. For some reason I felt especially attracted to a
patch
> of grass about 20 metres distant. To my consternation my father pointed to
> that very patch of grass and said 'Don't step there!' My blood boiled
> briefly at this authoritarian, paternalistic infringement of my right to
do
> as I pleased. Then I registered the loving concern in my father's voice. I
> veered from my predetermined course and avoided stepping on the viper. My
> father hugged me and thanked me for listening to him. What if I hadn't
> listened? What if my father hadn't noticed the viper? What if he had
noticed
> the viper but decided not to inform me about it, so I would be free to
'make
> my own choices'?
>
> I think that the illusory kind of freedom that you speak about below is
> actually the source of, not the remedy for oppressive theory and
practice -
> as was also borne out by the recent BBC TV series, 'The Trap - whatever
> happened to our dream of freedom?. It is the kind of freedom or
> 'independence' that dislocates the self from natural neighbourhood and
> blocks the possibility of loving receptivity. A receptivity that is
> impossible to impose, but which we can all appreciate and wish to help
> others develop (at the risk of appearing to impose authority to those who
> assume authority).
>
> So, which is primary and which is 'second order' - the water or the ice?
Or
> is that an inapt question?
>
> Meanwhile I have noticed a venomous 'snake in the grass', which our
present
> culture seems predominantly to accept without question. It's called 'IT',
> the singular object upon whose physically impossible independence
objective
> rationality depends. And I keep trying to point it out, and saying how it
> can be transformed into a more benevolent orientation. But does anybody
> listen or appreciate what I am saying and why I am saying it? Or do they
> think I am just out for my own advancement?
>
>
>
> Warmest
>
> Alan
>
>
> PS I am attaching an essay on this theme fypi. It can also be found at
> http://people.bath.ac.uk/bssadmr.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Barra Hallissey <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: 29 June 2007 16:32
> Subject: Terra Incognita
>
>
> As a follow on from my previous posting, I have no problem with the
> strengthening of the Living Educational Theory (LET) knowledge base once
it
> is strengthened on the basis of the free will and informed choices of
> researchers in the field. I think problems arise when researchers are
> coerced into adopting imposed research methodologies via relationships
where
> a power differential exists between the parties e.g. between a lecturer
and
> a student, a supervisor and a supervisee.
>
> The problem may be more apparent to practitioner researchers from below,
> than to academics from above. As the problem is somewhat insidious in
> nature it will manifest itself not in a blatant grab for power but perhaps
> in more subtle ways e.g. in blindness to potential conflicts of interest.
>
> I spoke in my previous posting about students being used as fodder,
> programmes of study churning out LET research 'sausage factory' like,
> research pyramid schemes, hidden will to power etc. Let me illustrate my
> concern by way of an example.
>
> Please indulge me as I take the example of a research opportunity that
> arises in the context of a post-graduate programme for practitioner
> researchers. Let's say the research project is a kind of 2nd order action
> research that involves facilitating first order practitioner research.
> Let's say this research proposal restricts practitioner researchers in
their
> choice of methodology by coercing / strongly encouraging them /
influencing
> them (take your pick) to adopt a LET methodology in line with the
> methodology of the overall 2nd order research project.
>
> In the scenario outlined we have a happy marriage of interests in the
> academy. The research project if successful will serve the interests of
the
> LET community by strengthening the LET knowledge base with some higher
> degrees. The well placed academic may even gain a PhD recognition for
their
> efforts. However one might reasonably question how the interests of
> practitioner-researchers are being served when the research interests of
the
> lecturer dominate their course of study. Are the gains in the academy
being
> achieved at the expense of practitioner researchers academic freedom of
> choice with respect to research methodology? The researchers 2nd order
> research project and the practitioner-researchers' course of study have
> effectively become one and the same thing. I believe potential conflicts
of
> interest should be taken seriously in terms of not so desirable values
> (authoritarianism leading to compliance / docility) embedded in such
> research scenarios.
>
> There are examples of 2nd order LET research (one currently active) that I
> consider vulnerable to this conflict of interest critique.
>
> Do any other contributors to this list think there might be a problem
here?
>
> If you love someone (pratitioner-researchers), set them
> (pratitioner-researchers) free.
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Tell Hotmail about an email that changed your life!
> http://www.emailbritain.co.uk/
>
>
Rev Je Kan Adler-Collins
Assistant Professor of Nursing
Fukuoka Prefectural University Faculty of Nursing
Tagawa City
Fukuoka Prefecture
Japan
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