On 16 Apr 2008, at 12:09, Cathie Pearce wrote:

Thank you - by way of an experiment have drafted a short response attached here.... how have you managed to create a link direct to the page rather than a doc attached like this here? sorry, I'll get better at this one day! Cathie

I think most participants will need to do what Cathie has done and attach a .doc file to a posting in order to develop a point. I've access to a server at both home and work so I can just create web files from the Save as Webpage facility in the File menu of Word and put the files in my public_html folder on a server which allows anyone to access them with the url.

I ... can’t help thinking that despite our best intentions we (as in human beings) are arguably at our most delusional when we think we are doing the ‘right’ thing...

My 'shocked' recognition of this came in 1971 on watching video-tapes of myself teaching when I thought I'd got enquiry learning going with my pupils when in fact I could see myself giving the pupils 'their' questions and pre-structuring the learning resources to answer these questions!

Since then I've stressed the importance of processes of democratic evaluation for strengthening the validity of one's beliefs about oneself and one's influence. I find this process has deepened and extended my self-understanding. I use Habermas' four criteria of social validity to help me to avoid being 'delusional' when I think I'm doing the right thing - hence my questions to others in the democratic forum of this e-space, about the validity of believing that flows of life-affirming energy can distinguish educational research from social science research and believing in the importance of legitimating new living standards of judgment in the Academy, as active citizens who believe that we are doing the 'right' thing.

Where you say that you take Deleuze to be attempting to reposition our questions and understandings I'm wondering what significance you think Deleuze's respositioning might have for two of my questions.

The first is 'How do I improve what I am doing?' in my educational relationships with my students. I ask this question from a practical concern to enhance my educational influences in their learning.

The second is 'How do I improve what I am doing?' in my educational research as I seek to contribute to the legitimation of new living standards of judgment in the Academy. I am thinking of the standards of judgment that are used in the Academy to determine what counts as educational knowledge.