OK - Jack,
In your LET homepage at http://actionresearch.net/, you say, or state,
"Action Research: What is a Living Educational Theory Approach to
Action Research and a Human Existence?"
Then, you explain that
"In a living educational theory approach to action research and a
human existence, individuals hold their lives to account by producing
explanations of their educational influences in their own learning in
enquiries of the kind, 'How am I improving what I am doing?' They do
this in contexts where they are seeking to live the values they use to
give life meaning and purpose as fully as they can. The living
educational theories of professional educators and other
practitioner-researchers usually explain their educational influences
in the learning of their students and can also explain their
educational influences in the learning of social formations. See
www.actionresearch.net/writings/livtheory.html."
Now, to my argument:
LET has one key idea that you argue is what gives it an originality
over AR, Freire and educational research:
Values can be used as epistemological standards of judgements of and in a 'how
do I fulfil my values in the course of my educational development and
improve my practice? enquiry and account.
The answer to this question is a LET account and doing it as a LET
enquiry and AR approach that differs from other [the] approaches to
educational, practitioner and action and practitioner research that
you argued to be positivist, you referred to a 1951 paper that stated
that an educational is not value-laden or propositional, like Schon's
work in the 1970s and 1980s and critical AR, the Australian school.
Producing an explanation is epistemological bounded. As opposed to an
analysis and re-evaluation of what ontological values mean to a
meaningful life and practice, using a phenomenological analysis of
the meanings and
implications of ontological experiences in the world that is
ontological, what does the values-laden explanation mean to the
explaining person, her life and her meaningful and fulfiling life for
her?!.
Now, what I am saying is that an ontological enquiry of what those
values mean for a person in an ontological account in the like of, how
do I lead a more meaningful, ontological secure, empowering and
fulfilling existence in, with and towards the world for myself?
re-evaluation/assessment should precede the how do I fulfil my values
in my educational development? explanation and epistemology.
I agree with the concretness of 'I' and with the dialectics of enquiry
and contradictions: The world and academia changed a lot since the
1970s and the shock of a concrete 'I' passed from the world.
I disagree with the oversimplfication of dialectics as dialectics has
a very long history and many versions, disciplines, values sand
interests.
I think that rather than oversimplifying dialectics, dismissing it and
going to the half-baked, one phrase, idea, proposition, of 'inclusionality',
dialectics should be studied very thoroughly and Freire and Gadamer
critiqued and applied.
I think that identifying and processing pain, angst, alienation,
exclusion, insecurity and exhaustion, saturation, dehumanisation and
lack of appreciation in a neo-liberal and capitalist world and working
out plans to reverse these experiences and situations to a more
fulfilling, meaningful and energising practice and life is where
dialectical AR should go in this capitalism and neo-liberalist world
of practitioners being dehumanised and treated like commodities
serving autocracy of few economic tycoons and capitalism. Accounts of
the above should be shared by practitioners as self-care and a means
of retaliating and doing something constructive and active about their
dehumanisation, frustration and exhaustion and lack of wellbeing.
Alon
And
your -"each individual expresses their own creativity in
>> generating an explanation of their educational influence in their
>> own learning, in the learning of others and in the learning of the
>> social formations in which they live and work" is also a
>> propositional abstraction.
And
critiquing me for referring to LET as an approach is critiquing me for
citing your key LET citation, the above and engaging and critiquing
you from within it.
Quoting Jack Whitehead <[log in to unmask]>:
> On 11 May 2011, at 17:15, Alon Serper wrote:
>
> My critique was that LET follows the very traditional and positivist
> research in education and the social sciences of epistemology
> preceding ontology. I argued that this is mistaken and that
> ontology should precede epistemology. I also argued against that
> bizarre turn to 'inclusionality' and youtube from Gadamer and
> Ilyenkov's dialectics and auto-ethnographic texts. My present work
> is trying my dialectical tool on other people and as a means to
> resolve conflict, propositional stereotyping, alienation, exclusion
> and abstraction of groups and individuals, racism and colonialism
> and to summon a true Freireian dialogue of equal, pluralism and
> mutual understanding.
>
> Alon
>
> Hi Alon - I've read your critique and understand and share your
> desire to avoid the abstraction of groups and individuals. My own
> response is that in referring to 'LET' and 'the LET approach' you
> seem to have reified the ideas in your own abstraction of 'LET' and
> 'the LET approach'. In my understanding of living educational
> theories each individual expresses their own creativity in
> generating an explanation of their educational influence in their
> own learning, in the learning of others and in the learning of the
> social formations in which they live and work. In my view there is
> no such thing as 'the LET approach' or 'LET' apart from the kind of
> reified abstraction you wish to avoid.
>
> Love Jack.
>
>
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