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Dear All This is indeed an interesting discussion, and like Sara it has encouraged me to really think through and articulate my views and perceptions of living theory and other approaches to action research. Thank you very much for your excellent analysis of living theory Sara - I think you express its essence and value clearly and eloquently. I am somewhat sympathetic with your starting point Alon, as I too in my thesis was more concerned with questions of meaning than I was about how to improve my professional practice; mainly because I needed the first to decide what I wanted to do about the second. I am also very sympathetic to the view that the social and cultural conditions of our materialistic world present a real challenge to those working at a grassroots level, who can feel devalued and disempowered. However I really do not understand your critique of living theory. I am also puzzled about this notion of Jack being responsible for starting a 'cult' which I have heard stated in other contexts. I am not sure what it is about living theory that even indicates such a suggestion. There is no attempt to enforce people to join a 'sect', or to adhere to a particular way of doing things, or dire consequences threatened if they try to leave ..... There is a certain methodology suggested, which people are invited to engage with and to evaluate - and to share their accounts of doing so with others so that any claims to knowledge can be validated (or otherwise). You are also critiquing, if I understand accurately what you say, the claim that living theory can contribute to improving the world. My starting point is (similar to yourself I think) that we live in a crisis-ridden world. I think we stand at a real pivotal point for well rehearsed reasons - environmental, terrorism, extreme materialism etc. My view however, is that there is no global, one-size-fits-all solution - no one person who can provide 'the anwer'. As part of my thesis I report on a 3 year collaborative inquiry where the focus was 'transforming the world through transforming self' - based on the conclusion group members had reached after a long process of shared reflection that the only way the world would transform would be through the transformation of each person within that world. So all each person could do was take responsibility for their role in that; they could not take responsibility for others. It is in this respect that I think living theory has much to offer. For in its essence it enables people to engage in the process of transforming self. As Jack must get bored of repeating, it really is about each person identifying the educational influences that have brought them to the place they are in right here, right now; thinking through what their values are and how they would like to make a positive difference in the world (in other words how they would in their own way improve the world - even if that is 'just' improve the quality of their teaching in the classroom [but the potential ripple effects of that are tremendous if you think of the impact of each child leaving having been influenced by an inspirational teacher]); working out and accounting for their influence on others as they put their values into practice; and if possible what they are then able to do to influence the wider social/cultural contexts in which they live and work. What this means in practice is different for every single person. For you it may mean developing a 'tool' which can be used to help others in whatever way you identify. Your challenge then is to demonstrate how that can 'make a difference' and account for your influence in doing so, in ways that others validate. In your last email, you state: "the problem is......it is no longer possible to teach, practice and work with love. Teachers and practitioners are far too busy fighting for their own survival, values, well-being and self-care to love anyone else". I would absolutely and categorically want to refute this. I work with many people who 'love what they do'. Get frustrated and demoralised at times yes - but the love for their work and those they work with and for is not eradicated. I am often so impressed by how much the qualities of hope and love sustain, whatever the circumstances a person is working or living in. Like you, I am concerned about how we challenge power structures in the world. One of my main concerns is the kind of world we are creating for children, who are indeed the future of our planet. The common terminology used is the 'well-being' of children which is an overall term to include poverty, relationships within the family, emotional well-being etc.etc A UNICEF 2007 report identified that across a range of indicators, the UK came 21st out of 21 rich countries; the USA came 20th. I think this a huge indictment of the UK and the USA. Yet there are billions of pounds spent on research into child-well-being. However, when you look at what that research is, it is mainly to do with what indicators we can use to measure well-being, how we make those indicators the same across a number of countries so that we can make comparable analyses, what methods we then use to discover what children are actually feeling and experiencing so that we can make use of those indicators - etc. I suppose the hope is that this information will then be used to improve what actually happens with children. However it seems that most of the research stops prior to that point - it is more interested in describing and explaining, rather than improving. And the result is that the UK and USA stay bottom of the rankings. And yet through my own professional experience I know that there is much excellent practice, and yes, 'love and care for what they do' from people working at a grass roots levels with children - teachers, early years practitioners, foster carers, childminders, residential social workers, etc. My question is, why is their passion, embodied knowledge, experience, expertise, not being 'garnered' and disseminated outside of the contexts in which they are being generated; and why are they not being used to influence the worlds of research and policy making? it seems a vast amount of knowledge and experience is not being acknowledged or used in the way it could or should be. I wanted to bring together the idea of 'transforming the world through transforming self' with the notion that research needed to be grounded in the experience of those directly responsible for the wellbeing of children and young people. I have been doing this with a group of early years practitioners over the past year, using a combination of collaborative inquiry (based on the fundamental principles of John Heron's co-operative inquiry), and living educational theory. I have just written an article that writes up the experience of this collaborative inquiry, that I am willing to send to anyone who is interested. In essence, though, the main learning has been that the lack of value a society gives to these practioners is reflected by the lack of value and significance they see in their own role. Once they understand how important their role is on a day-to-day, moment-by-moment basis with the children in their care, then they begin to be motivated to articulate what this means for them, and how to present the signifcance of their knowledge and experience of the child to the outside world - including to the 'experts' who have the status, power and money, but not the knowledge of the child about whom key decisions are being made. These practitioners are presenting their learning at a conference on 23rd June (I sent round details of this to the group a week or two ago). A year ago, they would not have dreamed that they could possibly have done this. I remain convinced that we will only create real change in the well-being of children if we start to value and support the development of those having direct responsibility for children on a day to day basis (including partents of course - and they too are involved in the project). The are doing this by developing their own unique living theories, based on their own unique gifts, talents, values and experiences, and based on their own unique motivations and ideas for how they want to make a difference in the world. They build on their own ideas and experiences by sharing with others on a regular basis in a collaborative learning process. The integration of the individual and the collective is very powerful. I have been reading lately that the Labour party in the UK are looking for a 'big idea' and failing to find one. I would suggest that their 'big idea' should be how to support and liberate the energy of those working at a grass roots level. (You could say that this is reflected in David Cameron's idea of the 'big society' - except I would then go into a rant as to why the values and ideas Cameron reflects are not exactly what I am talking about here...) For anyone who has watched it, what I learn from the 'Secret Millionaire' which I have sometimes watched on UK Channel 4 TV is nothing to do with the millionaire, but to do with the fact that they go into the most deprived areas of Britain - and in every single area there are gifted and committed people devoting their lives to making a difference to people in that community. It is these people who should be supported to enable their influence to spread way beyond their immediate environment - for them to be able to reflect on their values and how they influence others, and to be encouraged to influence wider sociocultural contexts. So clearly I am a supporter of living theory as a means of providing people with a process that allows them to engage in a way of living that is transformative for themselves, and helps improve the world in some way. However ......there is a difficulty ....and I think this lies behind some of the emotional and critical responses that living theory receives. I will demonstrate what this is through two examples from the project in which I am currently involved. In developing a living theory, individuals are encouraged to reflect on their values and where those have come from. Sometimes those values derive from positive life experiences - but often they come from less positive ones, that people have shut away in their memory. Some practitioners in my project have written accounts of such childhood experiences - that have been powerful to read - and liberating both for them to write, and to gain the responses from other people. However, others are not able to handle this. For example I was working with a staff team of nursery nurses - one of them was reading one such powerful account, and after doing so, walked out of the room, not to return until near the end. She had been upset by what she read because it reminded her of experiences she had had as a child that she did not like to be reminded of. She worked in a supportive environment, and one way or the other, she would be helped, either to work through those memories, or to place them back into the hidden part of her memory. This was unsettling for her and to a certain extent for the team. In another setting, a very bright and energetic woman in her 40's has so much come to realise the significance of what she does, that she wanted to go out and influence all other child care workers in a wide range of settings. The problem is that although articulate and able, she is at the 'bottom of the heap', has never been encouraged to gain any qualifications, she has a young child, and has neither the money nor the means to start the process that she would like to engage with. So the process is almost counterproductive - and I feel quite bad about it. Yet I don't think the answer is to back away and not do this. Perhaps just the opposite. I am suggesting that this woman speaks 'her reality' at the conference (videod because she wouldn't have the confidence to go live) - and talks about the frustration. And who knows what opportunities may arise from somewhere - my experience of life is that if people remain true to themselves and open to possibilities, something unexpected occurs .... These people are very open and 'real' about these issues when they experience them. What I find more difficult are the responses to living theory at the university where I work (and I am sure would be the same at any university). Because we live in a culture which promotes separation of researcher from that which is researched - which says that we have our professional lives and our private lives, and never the twain shall meet - that is more concerned with image and status, than with really finding out what it means to be human - then when methods such as living theory are proposed, all kinds of defense mechanisms are put in place, because it wouldn't be very good to really start to explore and, heaven forbid, share how I come to be here, and who I really am. And the easiest way for people to deal with defenses they set up is to be critical - and to be sometimes offensively critical of those suggesting that it might be a good idea if they were rather more open about what they are about. Finally in this tome, for anyone who has got this far - Jack and I have challenging (as well as hugely rewarding and constructive) conversations. I have on several occasions presented a critique on aspects of his ideas on living theory. In terms of ontology, I think the only words we can find to agree on are that life is ultimately a mystery - and yet despite the inability to agree on language all the time, our way of working together is actually far more in harmony that I might find with someone whose ways of expressing themselves may be closer to mine. The important thing, though, is that in the group meetings with the early years practitioners, many of which Jack has attended, the main view they have of him is that he is a warm, caring, genuine human being. The would not see Jack, or anyone taking a lead role in developing living theory, as having anything to do with their understanding of cult. All they would say is that they have been provided with an opportunity to learn to develop confidence and belief in themselves, and to begin to assert themselves more with other professionals who traditionally are given greater status and power. If we are going to enable the next UNICEF study of child well-being to move the UK and USA up the ranking scales so that they are no longer at the bottom, then I think it is this kind of process we need to be encouraging and fostering. With love and best wishes, Joan On 18 May 2011 17:07, Salyers, Sara M <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Dear all, > I would like to thank Alon and Sarah for the opportunity to re-examine and > articulate my own position on Living Educational Theory, Reflective Practice > and Action Research as a transformative and generative process. In > reflecting on their posts, I have been forced to distinguish better the > ground of the debate and so distinguish and articulate what *I* think we are > doing here a little more deeply. > > The case being made against LET as I understand it (and the MAs and PhD's > being granted under its auspices), is that the concepts of, for example, > energy and flow, ubuntu (which says that we do not exist at all except in > relationship to one another), inclusionality etc. are not merely 1. vague, > 2. subjective and 3. unmeasurable, but 4. wrong because they destroy > academic rigor in the name of something imaginary and, (from Sarah's e-mail > to Geisha), hypocritical in practice. (Of course, hypocrisy is a common > human failing but it's expression in any human life has never, to my > knowledge, been an argument against the validity of the 'pretended' virtue > or truth in itself!) These charges are important because, in fact, they are > all true from a certain perspective!, (except the hypocrisy charge about > which I know nothing and wish to know less): > > 1. The phenomena *are* vague and ill defined by our noun based (English) > language, because: a, they are verb based and b, we have not yet created a > full and truly descriptive language for them. We are still distinguishing > these realities, or mechanisms of experience, and their operations. (As > though we were fish who had finally begun to describe the ocean in which we > swim.) I think this is something we can be aware of and, from my own > perspective, deeply excited and inspired by. We create the world when we > name it in this way. > > 2. They *are* subjective… and that's the whole point, of course. The > understanding of the continuum of observer and observation is almost a > century old, and yet the tyranny of the Victorian holy grail of clinical, > (spurious), detachment/objectivity still demands - and gets - our worship. > To assert the role of the observer as *predicating* the observation is still > so radical that it makes us subversives of the kind that have always been > universally detested in their time; smelly, wild eyed, long haired, > idealistic, dangerous, naive etc. etc. :) (See early Christian church, > abolitionists, pacifists, socialists, civil rights activists, hippies, and > so on.) In the powerful sense of the wrongness, actually the dangerous and > 'corrupting' influence of LET evident in the language, we too can recognize > a reactive, 'establishment' position which is by no means unique to Alon and > Sarah. > > 3. They *are* unmeasurable because they belong to the realm of love and > faith, self-awareness and courage, disillusionment, personal courage and > honesty and transformation. > > 4. And they are indeed 'wrong'… within the old paradigm by which it is > impossible that mere shadows of discreet, clearly defined things and ideas > should be treated as the ground or yardstick of intellectual endeavor. Sarah > calls LET a 'movimiento sombras', a movement of shadows. She is right about > the shadows. She means that LET is deceptive, destructive and dark and > there, I disagree. > > What all this can tell us is that we are in the process of creating a > living language and from language, as we know, reality itself is > constructed; that the reality we are exploring as we create the language > with which to distinguish it, is a reality that (physics tells) us, is much > more truthful than the objective model which our noun based language > presently constructs. (As much more truthful as the interpretation of a > spherical earth is more truthful than a flat one.) And we may also have a > 'mission' to explain for ourselves and others, the direct relationship > between what is immeasurable (life affirming energy, flow, intangible > presence and so on), and its results. > > I am baffled by one thing though - the accusation of woolly or fuzzy > results, which I also heard from a few voices at this year's SOLES > conference in San Diego. There is a dreadful muddle going on in that respect > which, I suspect, arises from our reflexive need to control and > define-to-death. (I think that this need keeps human beings in a state of > near blindness because we prefer not to see than to see how much of what we > are, and what we experience is not discreet but intangible and uncertain ; > we prefer not to see that control-by-definition is an illusion. The > uncertainty is supplied by a power we may explore, work through, with and > within but cannot 'define to death'; the illusion we cling to is control of > a world of discreet objects that we *can* define, dissect and dispose of.) > Investigating the conditions that *produce* transformation is as important > as investigating brain based learning; life affirming energy, (or any other > phrase or word you want to use to describe it), may be impossible to measure > - but its results in the classroom most certainly are not! In other words, > the transformative power *is* evidenced in its effects, as trees bending > testify to the wind. (N.B. LET is not a *creation*, but a distinction and > articulation of a real process in which a kind of personal confrontation > with inauthenticity, creates the opening for powerful transformation. This > process is also described in different terms in Christian, Sufi, Buddhist > and Hindu mysticism to my knowledge.) Thus I might describe the specific and > measurable results of my own work as analagous to matter emerging out of > light... These would have been impossible without that dynamic which LET > describes. It is true that we can measure only one side of the 'equation' > i.e. what materializes out of the 'light' (energy) as specific, observable > result. But we have to learn how to *live* in the energy/experience that > produces that result. When you cut away matter from energy, what remains is > a corpse. And I am naturally alarmed at the voices I have been hearing who > seem to be demanding nice, predictably safe corpses rather than a dread, > living and mysterious power. > > Everything I do and much of what happens in my classrooms, is based on that > 'who am I being? and who am I being with? and how can we connect > authentically?' type of questioning and 'living theory' that characterizes > this type of AR practice. And it is self perpetuating. A wonderful colleague > who wrote about my work as 'transformation' had no prior knowledge > whatsoever of AR, or LET; she wrote as she did because she saw something in > my classroom - something she had not experienced in a 'developmental' > classroom in thirty years of teaching. Last week, she came with me to the > SOLES Action Research conference in San Diego, where she co-presented a > workshop at my request. Afterwards, a group of young teachers from UCLA came > up to talk to us about the love they felt for their students - who were so > similar to those represented in our writing samples, that they said they > felt they knew those students personally. When they saw the transformation > in voice, ownership, power and ability, they were moved to tears - "it felt > as if we were seeing a miracle". As a group, they knew that the narrative > about these students was false but, now, they told us the hope and belief > that was in their hearts had been turned into something that they could see > and read. We shared love and joy, and healing and 'ba'!, and we are going > to work together, we and these wonderful teachers (who are all graduates of > the stunning Dr Amina Humphry's UCLA class). She had brought them to talk > about their teaching work based upon 'positionality' (an aspect of that same > inauthenticity to authenticity to power dynamic that characterizes LET). > They electrified the conference both in the clarity and courage of their > self-disclosures and the love and community that flowed between them and Dr > Humphrey. Pam and I bring that influence back with us to our own campus. > Next, we will see what happens when *they* begin taking the living language > approach in their classes in CA. So... Intangible, powerful, personal > encounter leading to specific, measurable, propositional outcomes - a > process that can *never* occur in reverse! > > Perhaps one day every phrase or term that we are using today will be > replaced by a better, more descriptive and useful description. But the power > of LET and of every one of the distinctions- leading-to-practice that we are > making in this arena lies in the fact that they are helping us as, finally, > we begin to move beyond the illusion of objectivity. It is as if we begin to > see not only the performance that is being played on the tiny stage of our > traditionally focussed human observation, but the theatre and the stage > sets, the scripts and plots, the interactions between the actors and the > audience, the town and the country and the climate in, through and on which > the performance is taking place. Now when we consider the play, we can begin > to consider all these things as interrelated, interdependent and continuous > whereas previously, we have considered merely the internal structure of the > play itself - as an independent and autonomous and self contained > phenomenon. And that is the real illusion. > > With love > Sara > > I have attached a long extract (in draft form) of my paper 'Formal English > Without Tears: Rewriting the narrative of Developmental Students'. I do this > in response to Jack's request and because I hope that it helps to describe > the relationship between the intangible, (the context of personal LET), and > measurable outcomes. > > ________________________________________ > From: Practitioner-Researcher [[log in to unmask]] On > Behalf Of geisha rebolledo [[log in to unmask]] > Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2011 11:15 PM > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Re: How to establish an environment that calls out the most and > the best of everyone > > > Sarah, thank you for trying to write in Spanish. The part I understood is > the point of view that also Alon mentioned : Your argument in relation to > the Ambiguity of Living Theories approach.Concerning this , I had the > experience of presenting those ideas to the Doctorate Students here at the > Pedagogic University and the same discussion evolved.Somehow here you need > to be supported by stablished theoryes in order to do research . So to end > the discussion an Old Professor, refered that he saw connections of living > Theoryes with Argyris and Schon and the Theory of Action.However, though > we said we will meet again for more discussions , because of the difficult > situation Universityes are facing in Venezuela , it never happened. > It is a pitty because through this type of discussions it is possible to > clarify ideas and take different points of view . > But one aspect I find difficult to overcome is confronting discussions > where both parts stay in very strong positions and there is no possibility > of consensus. This I have learn thanks to Bob Dick Action Researh Course > that I am taking at the moment. So I would like to find a point of > agreement somewhere in this living theory discussion. Because the Hystory > of Science is full with denying of good knowledge that the Academy of that > time denyed as Thomas Kuhn mentioned already a long time ago. > So again thanks for letting us take part , many greetings, g. > > > > -- Dr Joan Walton Director of the Centre for the Child and Family Faculty of Education Liverpool Hope University Hope Park Liverpool L16 9JD Phone: 0151 291 2115 Email: [log in to unmask]