It is by no means brilliant.  It was a very rushed PhD that was  
written in two weeks from start to finish.  Luckily for me, the  
quality of PhDs and what is accepted nowadays as PhDs is seriously  
deteriorating.  Things are being accepted now that would not have gone  
through before.  Also, luckily for me, my two examiners really liked  
my thesis and enjoyed the way I defended it.

Capitalism lead to a capitalist academia that turns academics and  
their work into commodities.  We can no longer spend time really  
thinking, planning and reflecting on our thinking and about our ideas,  
analysis and what we are doing.  We have to publish raw work as much  
as possible: Or perish.  Publish or Perish.

It is Jack and Jean that developed the term living educational theory  
as a firsthand, living, epistemological explanation of a person's  
embodied knowledge of his/her educational development and a  
contribution to public knowledge on the part of individuals'  
researching their own values-laden educational development,  
transformation, future and research.  But without delving inside  the  
ontology and carrying out a self-care exercise of enabling the  
overworked, saturated and oppressed value-laden and dedicated  
practitioner to empower, fulfil, heal and energise, within a caring  
and supporting environment and dialogue, in a capitalist and  
propositional education and world that objectifies, mechanises and  
dehumanises him/her, the LET accounts are very limited and have no  
future.  They may provide some explanation of a practice but do  
nothing to empower the practitioner against the forces that oppress  
and dehumanise him/her and make him/her feel saturated, dehumamnised,  
exhausted and objectified into tools and commodities.
Alon

Quoting geisha rebolledo <[log in to unmask]>:

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> Thank you Alon for your thesis reference, I can see now you are   
> refering to Living Theory which I knew as LT in spanish. I will read  
>  it carefully. It looks brilliant !!! Greetings, g.
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>> Date: Thu, 12 May 2011 17:25:29 +0100
>> From: [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]
>>
>> Here is the URL for my thesis
>> http://actionresearch.net/living/serper.shtml
>>
>> The Introduction introduces my alternative and thesis. The first part
>> explains what LET is and relates it to the field/s. The second part
>> criticises it and offers an alternative that is based on ontology
>> preceding epistemology and b/logging. The third part concludes. The
>> thesis was written in haste in two weeks as what I wanted to do
>> originality as my PhD could not be drafted into a 90k PhD.
>>
>> I think the critique is very generous to Jack and Jean and others. It
>> is my retirement gift to Jack. It was timely and needed. There was
>> never a critical engagement with LET. It was mostly ridicule and
>> dismissal, that Jack's 1993 book and 1991 paper did not help. Or an
>> unconditional acceptance.
>>
>> I also think Freire is the future. I was very surprised that Jack
>> never properly engaged with Freire or Dewey. It is very hard to
>> discuss dialectics and values without those two giants in education.
>>
>> Alon
>> Quoting geisha rebolledo <[log in to unmask]>:
>>
>> >
>> > Hi!!!
>> >
>> > SORRY i AM LATE TO THIS INTEESTING DISCUSSION!!!
>> >
>> > I would like to know more about LET . Please send me information. On
>> > the other hand I find exciting Alon views. However, I would like to
>> > know more about why he puts forward Ontology instead of
>> > Epistemology?_. I always thought it was the opposite..... Somehow
>> > that view allowed me to understand peoples points of views if i find
>> > out their views of reality... This relates to how i have try to
>> > put in practice Freire's dialectical and emancipatory views in my
>> > classrooms * I teach at the Pedagogic University in Caracas ,
>> > Venezuela* Somehow it takes me time and effort to convince my
>> > students of using dialogs during Curriculum classes as they feel
>> > surprised of this methodology which "their teachers do'nt seem to
>> > use" The latest we started was an online forum to put forward our
>> > reflections. Somehow what they write about is concerned with their
>> > values and ways to see reality.
>> > For example a girl student that confessed this dialog on equal terms
>> > seem strange for her as she thinks she is authoritarian because
>> > that is the way she was educated by her grand ma..... So to try to
>> > put in practice Freir'es in the classroom make one's wonder many
>> > ideas like if it will lead to change and emancipation ??
>> > Many greetings, geisha
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>> >> Date: Thu, 12 May 2011 07:08:40 +0100
>> >> From: [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]
>> >>
>> >> 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.
>> >
>