Moira writes: 

“I am beginning to understand conceptually - something I was much quicker at 
emotionally and spiritually - the confluence between the work you're doing 
in Bath with living theorising and inclusionality. I think, whether 
consciously or not, your work has been developing towards confluence rather 
than divergence. I think you're a connecter, rather than an anatomist.
How can i~we improve our educational influences...

By relishing the joys and responsibilities of freedom, within communities 
for the benefit of communities and individuals. And it seems to me that 
you're doing that. You, refers to you, Jack; but it also refers to the Bath 
Action Research communities and to so many other communities in the world 
dedicated to those values.”

I think Moira is right about the development towards confluence with living
theorizing and inclusionality. This is Alan’s influence with his insight
into the importance of a relationally dynamic awareness of space and
boundaries. I’d also like to respond to Moira’s feeling that the phrase in
this thread,  'that dynamically include us' might be restrictive.

I like the way Ted Lumley writes about inclusionality as:

"...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)

I experience inclusionality with a similar feeling of liberation to my early
encounter with Erich Fromm’s Fear of Freedom (1960, p.18) where he says that
if individuals can face the truth without panic they will realize that there
is no purpose to life other than that they give to their lives through their
loving relationships and productive work. In my contributions to BERA 08
I’ll see if I can provide some evidence that supports Moira’s point about
the importance of ‘relishing the joys and responsibilities of freedom,
within communities for the benefit of communities and individuals’.

I’m also working with Alan’s idea of the significance of the variable
openness of inclusionality in my educational enquiries:

Alan writes:

“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.” 

I’m also working to integrate Jean’s insights about the African perspective
of Ubuntu into my own understandings. 

Jean writes:

“ 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’ve  gained much understanding of Ubuntu from Eden Charles and his
doctoral thesis on How Can I Bring Ubuntu As A Living Standard of Judgement
Into The Academy? Moving Beyond Decolonisation Through Societal
Reidentification And Guiltless Recognition, at
http://people.bath.ac.uk/edsajw/edenphd.shtml )

I’ll also work in my BERA 08 presentation with Marie on showing the
significance of a variable openness, a loving recognition and respectful
connectedness in the gift of an explanation of my educational influences in
my own learning and in the learning of others.  In doing this I’ll integrate
Marie’s insights:

“I struggle to create a narrative of my educational influence, a description
which contains my explanation, but as Alan said, ‘…this doesn't mean that
suitable forms of words can't help open a way inside its meaning.’ If I
might borrow some of Alan’s words again I might describe ‘educational
influences in learning’ as having a relationally dynamic flow form. I think
that my understanding of my explanation is therefore enhanced by using
video, pictures and words to paint a picture, as Jean has done, of what is
important; time and attention, a loving recognition of and respectful
connectedness with, the other, as gifts crafted and valued with the other in
mind and offered freely, without expectation of ‘exchange’, reciprocation or
even acknowledgement.”

Diane’s note about avoiding reification has served to refocus my attention
on something Gregory Bateson wrote about the importance of humour in social
evolution. Diane writes:

“Again, Alan, this helps me 'make connections', and this time with Gregory 
Bateson's point:

that many of the words we use and definitions associated with those words 
are, (as I understand Gregory Bateson, and perhaps misuse his terms) 
tautologies (self-sealing logic - closure in another way) and faulty, and on 
the assumption that the pattern seen so far is the pattern for ever, and 
that the next instance is likely to disprove the lot! and that as we 
'anatomise' as Moira helpful puts it, we raise a selection of sequence, both 
the point of the beginning of the selection and the point of the end of the 
selection, (Bateson's 'punctuation' p.298-301 of Steps to an ecology of 
mind) and arbitrarily chosen, to some sort of reification.”

Gregory Bateson (1980, p. 124) has related humour to evolution. He says that
the mere fact of humour in human relations indicates that multiple typing is
essential to human communication. In the absence of logical typing he says
that humour would be unnecessary and perhaps could not exist. The
educational significance of the expression and sharing of humour as a
standard of judgment in an educational relationship can, I believe, be seen
in the following video-clip where the humour erupts from the multiple typing
of white and mixed-race identities between Yaqub and me. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3TjLxEiyPk

I’ll also do my best to sustain the dialogue that Cynthia highlights:

“Therefore, our role is to continue dialogue as scholars to help not only 
ourselves, but all individuals acquire a deeper understanding of ourselves as 
living beings and our relationship to the universe…”

The Educational Journal of Living Theories (EJOLTS) could be one forum where
we can continue this dialogue. Je Kan is preparing an e-paper for BERA 08
that highlights the first issue of EJOLTS planned for the end of September
08. Moira is Chair of the Editorial Board and you can access our statements
of values, details of the open review process and the papers submitted for
the first issue at http://ejolts.net/drupal/index.php . I do hope you will
browse through the site and submit a contribution to the review process for
future issues.   Love Jack.

References
Bateson, G. (1980) Mind and Nature, New York; Bantam. 
Fromm, E. (1960) The Fear of Freedom. London; Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Lumley, T. (2008) A Fluid-Dynamical World View. Victoria, British Columbia;
Printorium Bookworks, Inc.