Dear Jack,

Your concentration on the etymologically conceptual excavation and analysis of education, learning and their implications are remarkably interesting.

 I thank you for your emphasis on the shared language as language can be, in the words of Antoine de Saint-Exupery, the source of misunderstanding.

 I’d like to share the following to see how my understanding can be enhanced through establishing an attempt for our shared understanding.

 Richmond and Roach (1992) suggest that social influence is by definition inherent in the role of a teacher. According to them, in order to have a lasting impact on student learning, teachers must facilitate academic growth while, at the same time, creating an environment conducive to learning. That is, we must establish and maintain positive teacher-student relationships if we hope to have a positive influence on learning. In this sense, teachers are constantly influencing learners’ learning. Some may be aware of techniques, skills, knowledge, practices, strategies, classroom management, their use of power in the classroom, etc. while others may be oblivious of their influencing prism.

Latin root of education, educere, connotes the bringing forth or leading out of what is inside each child. Heidegger says teaching is to let the learners learn. I think this act of letting would be of great avail in that it can lead to learners’ independent thinking instead of forcing them, albeit artistically, to abide by the prescriptive and proscriptive modes of the teacher.

In the meantime, if we look at the educational influences in terms of learning as people like Peter Senge’s learning organization suggests, that requires a fundamental change in perspective. That change of perspective is what I call affecting the quality of life being the highest art. If we go with an ontological system that translates the learner’s meaning beyond his/her natural self, Do we as educators not have this mission at the apex of our agenda and in this sense are we not supposed to influence learning? ( Whether we have the tangible evidence (in the common sense) or not to prove this, we, having thought of this mission and being ontologically soaked into that mission, we are influencing the learning of the learners). This influence may unfold itself, in one level ,at the stage of intentionality where the educator's intention would embrace the action  and the action, itself, would penetrate those who seek out connectivity to the sublime self, albeit from numerous avenues of learning: the paths to influence learning would be as infinite as the number of the people or as extensive as the number of the breathing.

Again, I bring another published poem of mine  

(Published in English Quarterly 2001-2002)

The narrative of ‘we’ and ‘I’

(We and I took a shower of hermeneutics last night.)

By: Sayyed Mohsen Fatemi

One day in the finale of the melody, on the eve of composing, we drove into the golden lucubrating composition of trepidation, petrifaction and intimidation.

We lingered on the portico of explicitness to watch the ambiguity of elucidation.

We went through the purgatory of glamour.

Deep in the purples of the island of dormancy, we came across the illusive rhinoceros crooning with deer.

We heard a crocodile with the tears of a dragonfly, we crossed the bridge of absolutism, and we mingled with trinkets of rebellion, insurgency and objection. We saw the girls of arguments and demonstrations pluck us from leaves of syllogism. We slept in the jaconet of angels as far as the sunset of zephyr.

Isolation fell upon us and we were circumvented and surrounded by desolation and seclusion. The superannuated rhapsodies and ravishment began gaping, waters went up their knees, and amidst the dampness of allegory, the ocean of metaphor displayed its parlance.

In ourselves, we found the alley of proportion, symmetry and isometry; we witnessed the white cloud of liberty, the bantam, unpretentious, diminutive, mignon bird of happiness, beatitude and bliss.

We heard the turbulence of fire, the discipline of the plants. We milked our bamboozlement, consternation, and bafflement.

We castled the leopard of detachment in the gypsy like cage of hubris. We abstained from juxtaposing the sun and the candle.

We conceptualized spring even when the façade of countenance was brim with tears. We walked through the farm of ebullience when our heart was in dire need of a beacon light of hope. We saw the pulses of the rabbits’ heart relying on the palpitation of our walks. We extinguished the sunset to say no to loneliness, we awakened the sunrise to appear in the altar.

“We” changed into “I” and “I” changed into “We”. We went through monism. I embraced monotheism. We galloped in the galaxy of locution; I launched satellite to the solar system of diction. We examined the Milky Way of subjectivity. I played with the Lesser Bear and the Greater Bear. We had intercourse with Venus. I made love with the moon. We lied down on the tiles of sentiments; I gazed at the tintinnabulation of elation.

We habituated the brutality of sentiments to the urbanization of emotion. I imagined an oasis on the brink of estrangement.

We yelled in the avenues of denial, abjuration and abnegation. I scuffled with tycoons of submission, obedience and acquaisance.

We spread our hearts in the balcony of our expectation. I waited for the cascading curly hair of the lyrics in the veranda of blossoms.

We saw God taking shower in the tears of His beloved. We drove in to a celibate candle which never experienced marrying a butterfly.

I crashed in to the sheep gazing the footstep of the wolf. We yearned for chandeliers. I ached for fruits tasting like miniature.

We danced with apothegm. I larked with apotheosis.

Copy Right with the Author. 

---

From: Jack Whitehead <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: BERA Practitioner-Researcher <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Judging the educational influences
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 19:43:05 +0000

An important characteristic of a research community is the development of a shared language. I like the way Mohsen is using the words evidence, critical and influence. I think I understand Mohsen's meanings and feel that we have a shared meaning.

On 30 Nov 2006, at 07:07, sayyedmohsen fatemi wrote:

Evidence comes from the Latin word videre = see giving us the meaning of some thing that makes another thing evident as a sign can do this. Also, evidence can be known as data that can be verified as factual. In this sense, evidence includes statistics, testimony, personal experience, witnesses, and records-information whose accuracy can be examined independently.

Critical means to take something apart and analyze it on the basis of standards. The word critical comes from Skeri (Anglo-Saxon) = to cut, separate, sift, and criterion (Greek) = a standard for judging. Critical thinking, therefore, brings conscious awareness, skills and standards to the process of observing, analyzing, reasoning, evaluating, reading and communicating.

If influence is taken as an act (and not an automatic behavior which could be done unwittingly and involuntarily), it requires awareness, understanding, mindfulness, choice, option and mission. Thus, it, ipso facto, is generational as Sara has beautifully described that. And if thats generational, it would bring those who are moved by the educational dimension of the message. So a genuine act of educational influence is creational since it produces, generates and cultivates.

Here is something I wrote in 2000 that feels consistent with Mohsen's beliefs about educational influence:

In my view, I can claim to have educated myself. I cannot claim to have educated anyone else. I can however claim to have influenced the education of others. The crucial difference is that the creativity and value-base of the learner is essentially involved in their own learning of a kind which I can recognise as 'educational'.

What I'm wondering about is the possibility that we could develop a shared understanding of our meanings of educational influence. I'm checking my assumption that we would all agree that an educational influence involves learning and that we will need to share our understandings of what counts as 'educational' in order to check if we are sharing an understanding. Having looked at Mohsen's students' comments I'd like to use them to explore further our meanings of an educational influence in students' learning:

So, If I quote, present or cite my students comments, remarks, feedback, evaluation, etc. would that be considered evidence in terms of learning?

Mohsen - if you could go on to show how you respond to such comments from your students in a way that helps them to move on their learning, I'd think that your evidence was significant in relation to a claim you could make about your educational influences in your students' learning. As your students' comments stand they don't allow me to judge any evidence of the dynamics of learning in which you could be seen to be having an educational influence in their learning. I'd also like to understand your meanings of 'educational'. What in your view distinguishes learning as educational? I'd really like to understand how everyone on the list distinguishes learning as educational in explanations of educational influences in learning.

Does the exclusive search for evidence substantiate the veracity of the educational influence or any other influence?

I tend to think of evidence in relation to a knowledge-claim rather than the truth of an action. In my understanding of educational practitioner- research, researchers are seeking to generate educational knowledge and theory from studies grounded in their own practice. My own interest is in the generation of living educational theories, part of which involves a concern to evaluate the validity of explanations of educational influences in learning, rather than the exclusive search for evidence.

Let me, under these pulchritudinous ravishing white flowers of intention and meaning, take just one piece of your reaction to solidify my demonstration.

Ah Love, could thou and I

With fate conspire

To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire

Would not we shatter it to bits

And build it nearer to our heart's desire.

(Omar Khayyam)

Love Jack.