On 19 Jun 2009, at 21:40, David Loe wrote:

Hello everyone:

     I've been reading the the thread on life-affirming energy, etc., and I appreciate everyone's contributions. Karen, it's been said here already, but the metaphor you posted here is wonderful. I'm going to forward it to some colleagues with whom I worked in a collaborative AR project a few years back. Nautical metaphors were a big part of the organizing framework for our writing, and they'll love reading this!

    In my dissertation research, I believe I'm beginning to see that this life-affirming energy is very important to consider in a study of collabration that points toward an experience of transformative learning (as defined by J. Mezirow in the adult learning lit). Looking at my data from an inclusional perspective, and seeing where my participants may have been engaged in occlusional, rather than exclusional logic, is beginning to lend clarification. While Mezirow calls the "transformation of meaning persepctives" the "engine" of adult learning, I have to wonder if the flow of life-afffirming energy, rooted in love, might play a similar role in teachers' critical colleague relationships that are functioning in inclusional "neighborhood".

    This is one direction my research appears to be taking .I'd appreciate anyone's thoughts on this.

David Loe

Kent State University

Kent OH USA

Dear David (and all), I'm responding in the thread on explaining our educational influences in learning because I believe your thoughts on the flow of life-affirming energy, rooted in love, could be very significant in the development of explanatory principles and standards of judgment in transformative learning.

I think you will enjoy the following extract from Karen Riding's Abstract at http://www.actionresearch.net/karenridingphd.shtml as Karen asks, researches and answers her question, 'How do I come to understand my shared living educational standards of judgement in the life I lead with others? Creating the space for intergenerational student-led research.'

In this account I explain the shared life that I lead with my husband Simon transforms itself into a loving energy that emerges in our educational practice. This loving way of being emerges as the energy that drives me to transform the social formation of the school to work alongside student researchers in an intergenerational and sustainable way. 

These living and loving standards of judgment are shared between us, asking the other to be the best that s/he can be and valuing the contribution that s/he makes. I live out an inclusional way of being that extends across the professional and personal domain, asking me to be responsive to the others with whom I share this life. 

To share our understandings of flows of life-affirming energy, rooted in love, as explanatory principles, I wonder if we might need to communicate our unique expressions of a loving dynamic energy in a way that can be shared by others. I'm wondering if we could do this  by showing what we are doing in our professional practices and then using the words 'I', 'this' and 'here' to point to the practices in which we see/experience ourselves expressing our loving dynamic energy as an explanatory principle in what we are doing? 

 I'm drawn to the significance of 'I', 'this' and 'here' from Wittgenstein's insight that the words 'I', 'this' and 'here' are not names, but that names (like loving dynamic energy) are explained with these terms.  In other words I'm wondering if we can develop a shared language for practitioner-researchers. I'm wondering if the meanings of such a shared language could emerge from:

i) showing each other what we are doing, 

ii) explaining to each other our educational influences in learning in the unique social contexts in which we are working and living?  

One of the reasons I'm so impressed by Chris Jones' dissertation at http://www.jackwhitehead.com/cjmaok/cjma.htm is because I think that Chris has shown a way in which this can be done through a visual narrative. I'm looking forward  to sharing the evolution of your own thoughts as your enquiry continues. 

For anyone in the UK, or internationally, if you can be in Bath on the 10th July, and wish to focus on some of these issues, there is a day's conference in the Guildhall in Bath on the 10th July. This includes contributions from Karen and Simon Riding. You can see the details and get the booking form from the What's New section of http://www.actionresearch.net .

Love Jack.