Good evening, all,
I would like to tell a story. I am not sure if it is relevant but it
means a lot to me, and may have something to say to someone else.
This episode happened about eighteen months ago, in South Africa, where
I have been working with a group of teachers who all work in
Khayelitsha, a township of a million people near Cape Town. They have
been studying for their masters degrees through action research, and
ten are about to complete, I am delighted to say.
We usually held our weekend study seminars in the Good Hope Campus in
Khayelitsha, made available to us by the False Bay College, who have
consistently supported the work. However, we once had a big security
scare, so I negotiated with the College managers to move our sessions
to their Muizenberg campus, about 25 miles away, and they willingly did
this. You may know that security is a big issue in South Africa, and
the College arranged for a security guard to give us entry to the
premises.
One Sunday morning we assembled for our session in Muizenberg, but the
security guard did not turn up, so we couldn't get in for our scheduled
start time of 10am (more or less). Our group stood around in the
underground car park debating what to do. We then moved to the pavement
outside, because it was a gloriously sunny day and people wanted to be
in the sun. I suggested we go up to a nearby grassy bank to talk about
our next module assignment - there was a lot of material to cover and
already a limited time to do it in. I was getting a plane back to the
UK that evening. There was a lot of discussion, and a decision was made
(I was over-ruled) to go back to the Good Hope campus, where it would
be easy to contact a local person to get the keys and let ourselves in.
I remonstrated, saying this would be a further loss of study time, but
no one paid any attention to me, so this is what we did.
By now it was about 11am, and I was getting seriously worried. We all
got back into our cars, and a convoy of about six cars set off back to
Khayelitsha.
That journey was one of the most beautiful journeys of my life. The
road between Muizenberg and Khayelitsha runs alongside the sea, so you
can see broad white beaches to your right and lovely flower-covered
dunes to your left. You can see the mountains in front, and each time I
have driven along that road the mountains are mauve and purple, rising
out of mist.
We got back to Khayelitsha, were let in to the Good Hope campus, and it
was now about 12. Still no study. People then decided that they needed
a break and probably lunch, so we all went over to the local shop to
buy lunch, brought it back to the college, and ate together. Still no
study. We talked about the day, the journey, the lunch, our lives
together, and we all had a really happy time, and shared food, stories
and laughter.
We began study at about 1pm and did the module in two hours. I felt a
sense of a serious abdication of responsibility in not insisting that
we cover the material in depth, but I was now having too good a time
myself and it would have spoiled the mood and the quality of our
relationship. I am not sure if it was a conscious decision simply to
enjoy being with my colleagues, enjoying the wonderfully sunny day and
the beauty of our surroundings, giving myself up to the experience of
not being in charge and allowing the group dynamic to take its course,
which it did, and everyone was happy. I am not sure how much people
learned about the module issues, but their assignments all passed, and
I learned more from the experience than I can say. I spend a lot of
time trying to make sense of my life with friends in Kayelitsha.
Yesterday I had a letter from one of those friends, who has recently
had a serious accident. She wrote words I would never have expected to
hear three years ago when I first met the people who were to become our
masters group. She wrote, 'Thank you, Jean, for always caring. I read
your correspondence and felt better. I really appreciate your love and
support. Truly it is in times of pain more than wellbeing that we gain
a more intense experience of the love of others and of God.' I never
thought, three years ago, that one of my colleagues would say that I
loved them; yet this is what has happened. I have grown to love them,
and I think, in their own way, they have grown to love me. Most
especially, I have learned that teaching is about finding and nurturing
and letting myself go into the right relationships, and this is far
more important than substantive issues, though these of course also
have a place. I think I understand better now the African concept of
Ubuntu, from an African, not a European, perspective. And the African
perspective is that Ubuntu is about sharing our humanity, regardless of
how we are normatively categorised, and resisting categorisation, which
is something I began to learn to do from being with people who do it
naturally.
I could analyse this story further, but prefer now to leave it as a
story, for you to make of it as you will. As I said earlier, it has had
profound meaning for me and my life, which I can say with certainty is
of a better quality from having met the teachers, my friends and
colleagues,
Very best wishes to all,
Jean
On 23 Aug 2008, at 21:17, Dianne Allen wrote:
> Alan, thank you for persisting with the difficulties of language and
> challenging not just out verbal literacy, but now our mathematical
> concepts.
>
> I have found this offering quite helpful, and at, and with the
> personal level, and especially with the challenge of closure and
> openness - part of one of the personality preference dimensions that
> Myers-Briggs adds to the Jungian trio of introvert-extravert attentive
> and processing preference; intuitive-sensing perceptive preference and
> thinking-feeling evaluative preference, to wit the decisive and
> processing preference between evaluative and perceptive dimensions.
>
> Dianne Allen
> Kiama
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alan Rayner (BU)"
> <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Saturday, August 23, 2008 10:13 PM
> 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?
>
>
>> 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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