So,
when I send my messenger
With
open invitation
Be
sure to know you’re welcome
If
only you can welcome
His
care within your heart
I've tried to make explicit this quality of care in my reflections on last week's Conference on Creativity in Teacher Education in Pozega, Croatia. You can access these brief reflections from the site of the Educational Journal of Living Theories at:
Thanks to Branko for adding the images and brief video-clip. I hope that the reflections communicate this quality of care in the relationships between the organisers of the conference through which they helped to sustain an open space for the expression of the creativity of teachers and students.
The Conference Proceedings, with contributions in English that include those of Marie (UK), Margaret and Yvonne (Ireland), Catherine Dean (Kenya), Zdzislawa Zaclona (Croatia), Hatic Zeynep Inan (Turkey) and myself (UK), can be accessed from the What's New section of
http://www.actionresearch.net (it is a 20Mb file and takes me 2 minutes to download through my broadband).
As I say in my reflections I think that the kind of accountability developed by the practitioner-researchers, includes the values they use to give meaning and purpose to their lives as well as well as their evidence-based explanations that show that they can also be seen to be 'delivering key outcomes'. The living theory accounts of the practitioner-researchers also show that they have gone much further that the 'advocacy' of the recent DEMOS report (see the reflections) for a form of accountability that combines both freedom and professional autonomy with public accountability.
It seems to me that the practitioner-researchers contributing to this list, can now show that their evidence-based explanations of their educational influences in learning are at the forefront of understanding how to enhance educational practice and knowledge-creation. It might be that the day's conference on collaborative enquiry at Liverpool Hope University on the 14th November could consider including this form of accountability into the development of our collaborations? I'm looking forward to the conversation on the 14th November with those of us who can make it and to sharing the ideas that emerge with the e-seminar after the 14th.
Love Jack.