Dear Jack,
It gives me a lot of pleasure that you feel the ideas we have been
expressing about inclusionality offer the possibility for creating a new
epistemology for educational research.
The big questions concern how to communicate and evolve this possibility,
and I'm sure subscribers to the list will have noted just how difficult I
personally have found this in terms of finding accessible language that is
true to the spirit of inclusional awareness and doesn't rationalize this
into 'discrete word-bytes'. This spirit is indeed beyond words, but this
doesn't mean that suitable forms of words can't help open a way inside its
meaning. And not just words, but mathematics.
For the last several weeks I have been working with my friend Lere Shakunle
on 'the mathematics and physics of the superchannel' (I'm attaching a brief
article about this), which takes us into deep reflections on the nature of
symmetry and what really appears before us when looking in a mirror, and how
this image appears. These reflections have led us explicitly to recognise
that there is something deeply unnnatural about the systems of logic,
mathematics and objective sceintific enquiry that we have all been brought
up with, and that continue to be inculcated everywhere in our competitive
schooling.
What is unnatural is simply this: the imposition of absolute closure upon
natural energy flow, which leads us to begin and/or end our enquiries and
arguments with a prescriptive definition that excludes the creative
potential inherent in the zero and infinity of 'No-thingness'. Where
'No-thingness' can be understood as 'Openness' or 'the presence of receptive
space'.
For the new inclusional epistemology, I think what is needed is simply, but
radically, to turn our 'whole enquiry around' from one predicated on
definitive closure, to one based on VARIABLE OPENNESS. I feel that the
latter expression may help to convey what is so distinctive about
inclusional enquiry. Here are three quotes from a paper that Lere and I have
just composed:
1. Here we can see the stark difference between a rationalistic whole system
of logic based prescriptively on a definitive premise of closed material
form, and a dynamic inclusional 'hole' understanding of 'variable openness',
which takes account of the continuous, receptive omnipresence of space as an
inductive influence for electromagnetic response.
2. Our point of departure is that in understanding things as dynamic
configurations of space, we are envisaging the cosmos as a collective system
of differentiating and integrating riverine channels flowing into and out
from one another in an ever-transforming circulation, not a spider's web
with knots in it that is stuck forever in gridlock
3. Instead of seeing a bird in motion as a flying whole, cutting a path
through excluded space, we envisage a dynamic relational hole, with energy
flowing into and out from the circulation of its wings, blood and
respiration as it reconfigures the space that includes and is included in
its complex self-identity. It is a flow-form. Flow-forms are made of folds.
A fold is the folding of space in the making of form. These figures
represent the so-called solid things in the universe, but they cannot be
solid. All include space, but cannot be pure space, purified from
informational lining. They are living space as an all in one and one in all
set of breathing points. The gaps appearing to separate the informational
linings are not absences but presences of space, which pools all together
through currents both seen and unseen.
My feeling is that these resonate strongly with the work of Joan, Jane and
Je Kan.
So, the inclusional enquiry being pursued in this thread (which of course is
not a thread, tsk tsk, but a channel of communication), could be phrased
"What does it mean to give primacy in our understanding of nature and human
nature to variable openness in place of prescriptive closure?"
And this could be extended to 'How does an enquiry into variable openness
influence the receptive, responsive and protective manner in which the
enquiry is conducted?'
Warmest
Alan
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jack Whitehead" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, August 23, 2008 10:56 AM
Subject: Re: AA Thread 2 07-08 How do i~we explain our educational
influences in learning to improve our educational influences as
practitioner-researchers within the social and other formations that
dynamically include us?
How do i~we explain our educational influences in learning to improve our
educational
influences as practitioner-researchers within the social and other
formations that
dynamically include us?
A few weeks ago I sent round the Abstract to Joan Walton's recently
completed doctoral
thesis on 'Ways of Knowing: Can I find a way of knowing that satisfies my
search for
meaning?' Yesterday Joan sent on the e-copy of her thesis an you can access
this at:
http://people.bath.ac.uk/edsajw/walton.shtml
What particularly excites me about Joan's thesis, in relation to the above
thread of the e-
seminar, is her original standard of judgment:
"Through telling my personal story, I offer an emergent methodology that
includes both
narrative inquiry and action research. I generate a living theory which
offers 'spiritual
resilience gained through connection with a loving dynamic energy' as an
original
standard of judgment."
The development of relational dynamic standards of judgment can also be seen
in Jane
Spiro's (2008) theses on:
How I Have Arrived At A Notion Of Knowledge Transformation, Through
Understanding
The Story Of Myself As Creative Writer, Creative Educator, Creative Manager,
And
Educational Researcher
at
http://people.bath.ac.uk/edsajw/janespirophd.shtml
and in Je Kan Adler-Collins' (2007) these on
Developing an inclusional pedagogy of the unique: How do I clarify, live and
explain my
educational influences in my learning as I pedagogise my healing nurse
curriculum in a
Japanese University?
at
http://people.bath.ac.uk/edsajw/jekan.shtml
At the beginning of the 2007-8 e-seminar Alan focused attention on the idea
that our
explanations of our educational influences are being generated within a
dynamic inclusion
of space and that our explanations need to show an awareness of this. Alan
and his friend
Ted Lumley have made the points about inclusionality:
"At the heart of inclusionality. is a simple shift in the way we frame
reality, from
absolutely fixed to relationally dynamic. This shift arises from perceiving
space and
boundaries as connective, reflective and co-creative, rather than severing,
in their vital
role of producing heterogeneous form and local identity." (Rayner, 2004)
"...an inspiring pooling-of-consciousness that seems to include and connect
all within all
in unifying dynamical communion.... The concreteness of 'local object
being'... allows us
to understand the dynamics of the common living-space in which we are all
ineluctably
included participants." (Lumley, 2008, p.3)
Lumley, T. (2008) A Fluid-Dynamical World View. Victoria, British Columbia;
Printorium
Bookworks, Inc.
Rayner, A. (2004) Inclusionality: The Science, Art and Spirituality of
Place, Space and
Evolution. Retrieved 6 July 2008 from 

http://people.bath.ac.uk/bssadmr/inclusionality/placespaceevolution.html
Pip began an open dialogue in the March 2008 issue of Research Intelligence
to focus on
inclusion in relation to indigenous knowledge. Pip highlighted the
epistemological
implications for educational research. I responded in the June 2008 issue
and Moira and
Je Kan have had responses accepted for the next issue of RI. Do watch out
for their
responses to see if you'd like to continue the conversation started by Pip.
I'm thinking particularly of a conversation on the epistemological
significance for
educational research of the explanations of educational influence of
practitioner-
researchers. The explanatory principles of Joan, Je Kan and Jane include
flows of energy
with values. They demonstrate an awareness of Alan's and Ted's point that
our
explanations of educational influence are generated within the social and
other formations
that dynamically include us:
Joan
I generate a living theory which offers 'spiritual resilience gained through
connection with
a loving dynamic energy' as an original standard of judgment.


Je Kan
An energy-flowing, living standard of inclusionality as a space creator for
engaged
listening and informed learning is offered as an original contribution to
knowledge.
Jane
It also explores how values can be clarified in the course of their
emergence and formed
into living standards of judgment.
My own feeling is that Alan's and Ted's ideas on inclusionality, as a
relationally dynamic
awareness of space and boundaries, have offered us a language to help in the
creation of
a new epistemology for educational research.
The recently completed doctoral research programmes of Jane, Je Kan and
Joan, as well
as those of Maggie, Eleanor, Swaroop, Eden and Barry and others whose living
theory
doctorates are at http://people.bath.ac.uk/edsajw/living.shtml and on
Jean's web-site at
http://www.jeanmcniff.com/reports.html have contributed to the generation of
a
knowledge-base of practitioner-researchers that has been legitimated in the
Academy and
has established a new epistemology for educational knowledge. I'm hoping
that you will
share your responses to this claim.
Looking forward very much to continuing our conversations at the BERA
Practitioner-
Researcher day at Heriot-Watt University on the 6th September.
Love Jack.
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