Hi Mari and Dianne and "others interested"
Thank you Mari and Dianne for the useful comments and further information.
Firstly the Beverly Derewianka reference is 1990, "Rocks in the Head: Children and the Language of Geology" in Carter, R.(editor) "Knowledge about Language in the Curriculum" The LINC Reader, London: Hodder and Stoughton pages 197-215. Beverly describes how a teacher in rural Australia, uses Halliday's ideas of Register (Field, Tenor and Mode) to teach a class of 7 year olds - "the following pages describe the ways in which Fran programmed to create certain contexts and how these contexts influenced the language of the classroom" (a 3 week unit of work). After 3 weeks these children produced "individual reports" and a "Big Book" - amazing evidence of "how to establish an environment ... "!
As far as the "literature on children and young children researching" I also find that it is mostly of "the traditional science mode" and very little on "living theory researchers" other than Joy Mounter which you refer to. May be we need a Workbook on, how children and young people can do "living theory research"!
A possible opportunity for "living theory" research in South Africa by school children could spring from Lesley Wood's action research with teachers in schools, "to address HIV through a gender lens", ("Masilingane" Project, 2009, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Faculty of Education). Lesley writes in the preface to the study (Page 5), "It is no longer unusual for children as young as 10 to be sexually active - early sexual onset is becoming the norm rather than the exception"! Mary Kellett (2005) writes, "Children are party to the subculture of childhood which gives them a unique 'insider' perspective that is critical to our understanding of children's worlds. Yet ther is a paucity of research by children ...". Indeed, there are many untold stories, and unrevealed living theories, "out there"!
Lawrence
________________________________________
From: Practitioner-Researcher [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Dianne Allen [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 13 February 2011 08:06 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: How to establish an environment that calls out the most and the best of everyone
Hi Marie and Lawrence, and others interested,
According to Howard Gardner (Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, 1983), who was drawing some of his material from 'Constraints' research, theorising, a key aspect of all research, starts earlier.
He writes, pp.xxii-xxiii, " 'Constraints' research has revealed that, by the end of early childhood, youngsters have developed powerful and already entrenched theories about their immediate world: the world of physical objects and forces; the world of living entities; the world of human beings, including their minds. Surprisingly, and in contradiction to the claims of the great developmentalist Jean Piaget (Mussen and Kessen 1983), these naive 'conceptions' and 'theories' prove difficult to alter, despite years of schooling. And it often happens that the 'mind of the five-year-old' ends up unaffected by the experiences of school. ...
...
"At first blush, this diagnosis would appear to sound a death knell for formal education. It is hard enough to teach to one intelligence; what if there are seven? [DLA: later Gardner added an eighth.] It is hard enough to teach even when anything can be taught; what to do if there are distinct limits and strong constraints on human cognition and learning?"
Part of those early theories will have been built from the infant's trial and error processes of experimentally investigating their environment, what Maria Montessori called 'tendencies toward certain behaviors that help them fulfil their needs': exploration, orientation, order, imagination, manipulation, repetition, precision, control error leading to perfection, and communication. Do not many of these tendencies map to many of the basic steps/processes of research?
Dianne
Access to Thesis:
http://ro.uow.edu.au/theses/288/
----- Original Message -----
From: Marie Huxtable<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2011 8:39 PM
Subject: Re: How to establish an environment that calls out the most and the best of everyone
Hi Lawrence
I was delighted to see your posting as I agree with you whole heartedly when you say
'Children as early as seven can do research (Kellett, Derewianka), if only they were taught and allowed to! We need to demystify the research process, it need not only be done in universities at post graduate levels - it can be done in all classrooms, in schools, in work places! The language used and produced is not being taught! Such is my living educational theory - my thesis, which I am currently exploring.'
I know Mary Kellett's work but not Derewianka's. Most of the work I can find in the literature of children and young people researching is that of the traditional science mode so I would appreciate any pointers to anything about children and young people as living theory researchers. Is any of your work accessible on the web?
Branko Bognar's work is inspiring, 'Pupils as action researchers: improving something important in our lives' ( <http://ejolts.net/node/82> <http://ejolts.net/node/82> Bognar & Marica Zovko, 2008) access from http://ejolts.net/node/7
<http://ejolts.net/node/7>
http://actionresearch.net/writings/tuesdayma/joymounterull.htm
There are also inspiring accounts by some of the teachers working with Jack Whitehead on their Masters, such as Joy Mounter's, 'Can children carry out action research about learning, creating their own learning theory?' and Sally Cartwright's, 'How Can I Enable The Gifts And Talents Of My Students To Be In The Driving Seat Of Their Learning?' Those accounts and others can be accessed from http://actionresearch.net/writings/mastermod.shtml. I think these give some clear pointers to the environment that calls out the most and the best of everyone, educators and learners, by teachers enabling themselves and their pupils to co-learn as living theory researchers.
http://www.livinglearning.org.uk is an example of a virtual environment developed with the intention of enabling people of all ages, abilities, cultures and nationalities to discover, share, create, develop and research interests and passions, which improve their own learning and life and that of other people.
Enjoy a smile and pass it on
Marie
________________________________
From: Lawrence Martin Olivier <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Sun, 13 February, 2011 7:01:06
Subject: Re: How to establish an environment that calls out the most and the best of everyone
Hi Sara et al
I too follow in my teaching (pedagogy), research / living educational theory - an approach that includes process and product; action research / reflection on action, act on reflection (Paulo Freire), experiential learning theory / induction (Kolb) i.e. generating knowledge from concrete experiences (CE), interaction / discussion / basic intercommunication skills BICS (Cummins) and then to developing Theory (living, Jack Whitehead, McNiff et al) / abstract conceptualising (cognitive academic language proficiency CALP, Cummins), making use also, of Halliday's notion of Register (Field, Tenor, Mode) / context / text.
A suggestion here that I view all learning at all levels from Foundation Phase Grade 1 with 7 year olds, as about "learning a language" / using and producing language, as about acquiring a literacy, as about text, context and discourse and fundamentally about teaching (pedagogic capacity).Children as early as seven can do research (Kellett, Derewianka), if only they were taught and allowed to! We need to demystify the research process, it need not only be done in universities at post graduate levels - it can be done in all classrooms, in schools, in work places!
The language used and produced is not being taught! Such is my living educational theory - my thesis, which I am currently exploring.
Lawrence
________________________________________
From: Practitioner-Researcher [[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>] On Behalf Of Salyers, Sara M [[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>]
Sent: 11 February 2011 07:43 PM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: How to establish an environment that calls out the most and the best of everyone
Hi Alana (and all),
"Different paradigms in AR? Perhaps not paradigms but typical of small groups working together we do spin our own versions of what we do a little - for instance I have taken the four steps and merged two into measurable action - my students learn that step more quickly and I end up with less that are merely reflective and more that have real action - something that soothes my pragmatic soul."
This seems, to my way of viewing it, exactly the way AR is supposed to be. Isn't the nature of AR, something constantly emerging out of the process itself (constantly giving birth to itself?), such that there must be many different expressions of AR evolving all the time?
AR, for me, fits with the learning as process approach that I take with my own students, (possibly because I began to immerse myself in AR at exactly the same time that I began college teaching two years ago.) I involve them in the metacognitive basis for what we do and why we do it, and am getting gradually better at basing classwork and assignments on their own observations of themselves in the context of their own learning. That means that I am constantly re-evaluating the objectives and, often unexpected, outcomes of each class and assignment. But I'm *supposed* to have a box that I tick to say that they have attained a set of predetermined standards, (as decided by the Board of Regents), although it is clear to me that the assertion of any 'objective standard' in writing, (beyond simple mechanics), is one of those comfortable myths that allow us to *believe*, and often to teach, as though we were dealing with discrete, independently valid blocks of knowledge instead of the emergent wisdom and individual articulation of living human beings. There *are* standards of attainment, certainly, and these can be described - but you really know them best when they are either absent or dazzling you with the new ways in which the student presents them! You also know a butterfly when you see one but no one can really say what a butterfly *is*. I'm a real 'newbie' to AR - as well as to teaching - but it is the impossibility of pinning it down definitively that I find most challenging and most inspiring.
There is a saying in the Tao Te ching: 'The Way (Tao) is not the Way that can be defined to death'. Of course, once you have actually defined something it is a dead thing - like a butterfly pinned to a card in a box - and that is what's wrong, I think, with so much of academic theory. Once 'the box' is in place, there's no way out of it - there's no way that can be *seen* out of it. For instance, I think of the time and effort it takes to move my own students from the school-ingrained paradigm of the single, right answer, as testament to the tyranny of that box, constructed around them by the practice of 'defining to death' that they, I and so many others have undergone in the name of education: right/wrong, correct/incorrect, acceptable/unacceptable, right-way/wrong-way, right narrative/wrong narrative, right methodology/wrong methodology, that which is to be taught (tick)/anything 'other' that might be learned (cross). Sadly for me, I was very successful at operating within the box. Maybe I kick so hard against it now because of how hard it has been - and is - for me to move out of it, to shift, instead, into the realm where the inquiry itself is the focus, rather than the outcome or definitive 'answer, to the realm, in fact, in which there are only always-about-to-be-challenged-and-to-have-to-change answers! (Product versus process perhaps?) But I am falling more and more deeply in love with those ever challenged, ever changing and ever deepening answers, finally, not as ends in themselves but as temporary and precious stepping stones to something that is always truer and deeper.
love
Sara
________________________________________
From: Practitioner-Researcher [[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>] On Behalf Of E. Alana James [[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>]
Sent: Thursday, February 10, 2011 5:04 PM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: How to establish an environment that calls out the most and the best of everyone
Hi everyone, Geisha asks some interesting questions.
Different paradigms in AR? Perhaps not paradigms but typical of small groups working together we do spin our own versions of what we do a little - for instance I have taken the four steps and merged two into measurable action - my students learn that step more quickly and I end up with less that are merely reflective and more that have real action - something that soothes my pragmatic soul.
I would not classify anything as sociocritical or not, but more because that is not the way I think, rather than that they might not be appropriate.
I think double loop learning goes back to the 1970s and the work of Schon in the "the reflective practictioner - basically we reflect and then we reflect on our culpability in the situation. Schon and Argyris first discussed it.
You see there are two slightly different sets of literature at work here - that of education and that of organizational development - both using AR first about the same time - I love that my world straddles lots of little divisions and I hope the new book is stronger because of it - you all will have to decide (big smile)
all the best,
Alana
On Tue, Feb 8, 2011 at 1:44 PM, geisha rebolledo <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>> wrote:
Alana,
thank you for the material on emotional inteligence and reflexion on AR. Would you say that there are different paradigms of AR together ? Would you classified those as sociocritical and not sociocritical ? Could it be called eclectic ? A pitty the double loop is not explained...
Greetings, g
________________________________
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2011 19:39:24 +0000
From: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Subject: Re: How to establish an environment that calls out the most and the best of everyone
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Thanks Dianne - yes I use open office (can't stand Microsoft) and I forgot to resave it - here is the one that should work - glad you were interested and sorry it too a few days to get to this email,
Alana
On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 3:57 PM, Dianne Allen <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>> wrote:
Alana,
I was unable to access your file. My email reported a .odt file, which I do not think I have the software to read ...
can you resend as either a pdf or rtf file please.
Dianne
----- Original Message -----
From: E. Alana James<mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Sent: Monday, January 24, 2011 2:20 AM
Subject: Re: How to establish an environment that calls out the most and the best of everyone
Great - then whomever is called to work with us will follow this thread with this heading - nice and easy idea Jack.
Bob suggested that we start with a conversation about principles within our work in AR that lead to an environment that calls out the most and the best in us (do I have that right Bob?)
I suggested that we play with how we allow for and move past naturally defensiveness
I also now want to add some discussion on reflection/reflexive thinking - which was the greatest new learning for me that came out of my new book. One of my reviewers hit me hard on not covering it well enough and I was embarrassed but delighted to learn of the development of reflexion from Schon (don't know how to make the umlauts over the o) and the Argyris with double loop reflection - etc.
Just in case I am not the only one who didn't follow these developments - because I think they are perhaps crucial to environments that bring out the best - Attached is a pull out from our chapter three on what AR is and how we do it - bear in mind that this book is for graduate students doing AR for the first time and is very pragmatic - touching lightly on theory but heavily on the "how to do" aspects that I find many students struggle with.
Anyway I am delighted for this conversation and I look forward to future installments.
Alana
On Sat, Jan 22, 2011 at 10:08 AM, Jack Whitehead <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>> wrote:
"On 21 Jan 2011, at 13:46, E. Alana James wrote:
how to establish an environment that calls out the most and the best of everyone......
Jack, can we look to you to organize a space for this or a way to cull this topic from the rest if on this list?
Alana"
Dear Alana (and all) I do like the idea of organizing a space to focus on this above Subject line - a great idea from Dianne and followed up by Bob.
We could see if the space of the existing forum with this topic works for us. If it needs something different we could create a dedicated e-forum on JISCmail for just this topic. It might be that others on the list could offer a dedicated e-space for this topic and we could use that.
Love Jack.
--
E. Alana James, Ed.D.
8 Castlepark
Kinsale, Co Cork, Ireland
www.futureofeducationproject.net<http://www.futureofeducationproject.net><http://www.futureofeducationproject.net/>
www.reinventinglife.org<http://www.reinventinglife.org><http://www.reinventinglife.org/>
James, Slater & Bucknam (2011 in press) Action Research for Business, Nonprofits, and Public Administration: A Tool for Complex Times. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage publishing
James, Milenkiewicz, & Bucknam, (2008). Participatory Action Research for Educational Leaders. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage publishing
--
E. Alana James, Ed.D.
8 Castlepark
Kinsale, Co Cork, Ireland
www.futureofeducationproject.net<http://www.futureofeducationproject.net><http://www.futureofeducationproject.net/>
www.reinventinglife.org<http://www.reinventinglife.org><http://www.reinventinglife.org/>
James, Slater & Bucknam (2011 in press) Action Research for Business, Nonprofits, and Public Administration: A Tool for Complex Times. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage publishing
James, Milenkiewicz, & Bucknam, (2008). Participatory Action Research for Educational Leaders. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage publishing
--
E. Alana James, Ed.D.
8 Castlepark
Kinsale, Co Cork, Ireland
www.futureofeducationproject.net<http://www.futureofeducationproject.net><http://www.futureofeducationproject.net>
www.reinventinglife.org<http://www.reinventinglife.org><http://www.reinventinglife.org>
James, Slater & Bucknam (2011 in press) Action Research for Business, Nonprofits, and Public Administration: A Tool for Complex Times. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage publishing
James, Milenkiewicz, & Bucknam, (2008). Participatory Action Research for Educational Leaders. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage publishing
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