Hi Jack and others. Happy New Year to you ALL!

What attracts me to the presentation of processes Jack has captured in the 
video-clips seems to lie in their generalising capacity. I am 
meaning ‘generalising’ in that Bassey (1997) sense of ‘relatability’. He 
is referring to a quality that enables us to identify with what is of 
value without subsuming one’s own personal relationship with what is 
happening. This quality of ‘relatability’ is one I find extremely helpful 
in recognising and clarifying for me what is of value in the world. My 
work in education over the last twenty-five or so years has been 
characterized by an increasing clarity of actions and theorizing through 
the development of negotiated standards of judgement of our educational 
goals and processes. The ‘our’ refers to those colleagues, leaders, 
students and participants who have been engaged with me in processes of 
educational development over time as we seek to improve the quality of 
what we are doing together. In seeking ways to represent our processes, I 
have increasingly begun to understand the value of visual forms of 
representation to capture those values, which underlie, inform and shape 
our educational development.

The question for me seems to be: 'Do these extracts of process resonate 
with me in meaningful ways?' By ‘meaningful’ I am searching for something, 
which informs, clarifies, inspires and integrates itself into my own 
framework in such a way that I can better do my job. ‘Doing my job’ refers 
to the attempts to promote my own and others’ capacities to work 
responsibly in education in that Polanyi (1958) sense of understanding the 
world from my own point of view and exercising judgement responsibly and 
with universal intent. The goal, as I see it, of this endeavour, is to 
increase our human capacities to lead meaningful and productive lives My 
understanding of inclusionality (Rayner 2005) further helps me to clarify 
the organic nature of the processes I undergo and initiate in the belief 
that, as the Talmud says, ‘he who saves a single life, saves the world 
entire.’ We are, I believe, synonymously both individuals and part of the 
flow of humanity: this is not a paradox but a complementarity. It may be 
that an understanding and living out of this reality enables the free-flow 
of ideas, feelings, purposes, goals and progress as well as giving a 
structure through which we can work together towards a ‘form of simplicity 
on the other side of complexity’ (Wendell-Holmes III). For me it is in 
the ‘ah ha!’ moments of recognition of relatability, that represent the 
value of the individual clips, as well as binding them together in a 
seamless whole. I see my own humanity in the clip, I recognize the unique 
humanity of the other(s), yet I also recognize that intimate connection 
between us in our indissoluble humanity. When I am working with others, 
when these moments happen, they make me cry. This ‘moment of recognition’ 
of shared, yet preciously unique humanity, is both a state and an 
inspiration. We are, at a fundamental level, one. We are the ‘building 
blocks’ of hope and human agency through which the future can be realised.

Scott Peck (1981) said, ‘each one of us carries humanity on our back’. He 
was specifically referring to the responsibilities incurred by being 
human; each human being makes choices. These choices are always made 
within a social context. Therefore, each act carries within it its own 
potential to influence oneself and others. Thus each decision we choose to 
take responsibility for is a moral act because influencing agency contains 
within it the potential to change something for better or worse. As we 
increasingly try to make greater moral choices in our lives in the 
direction of what can help in the spiritual development of ourselves and 
others, then we increase humanity’s potential to develop. Peck calls this 
the evolutionary process. I agree with this analysis. He goes further. He 
believes that this process of evolutionary development is fuelled by love 
and becoming conscious of this force in order to use it in constructive 
directions, enables its greater realization in the world. I agree with 
this too. Love, it seems to me, is the motivating as well as 
characterizing force of human evolution.

In the light of the fact I have chosen to regard my life as meaningful, 
that invokes a responsibility on my part to act in the direction of what 
can give my life its greatest possible meaning. This ‘meaningfulness’ 
necessarily involves engaging in the promotion of others’ sense of meaning 
and purpose within our particular social contexts in such ways that our 
lives are enhanced through the processes. I have chosen education as the 
means of realizing the greatest meaning in my life. To an extent the 
worthwhileness of my life in education is partly dependent on the clarity 
with which I can promote the meaningfulness of others’ lives, just as I 
see the quality of teaching being partly verifiable through improvements 
in the quality of learning for the students.

Additionally, what do I mean by ‘love’ as I am using it here? I believe 
love to be that quality of humanity that seeks out one’s own or others’ 
spiritual development as a priority. It is not always perceived as a 
feeling, but more as a sense of purpose and potential realized through 
relationships over time. I find it is gratified through the realization of 
a greater capacity to act in the direction of particular values that give 
hope and life to spiritual growth. It is both a goal and a process.

If, then, I can see evidence of the love that fuels the processes Jack has 
captured on video, then I will find them of personal and relatable value. 
I hope to see something that gives rise to my own and/or others’ spiritual 
growth and which affirms my own and others’ humanity.

What is, therefore, relatable to me in the clips Jack has chosen? Tsepo 
Majake’s statement: I see me in you! is, I think, very close to what I am 
meaning. Jack writes: As you look at the clips I am wondering if you 
recognise the expression of embodied values, skills and understandings you 
are also working to bring more fully into the world?  
 
I wish I could, as Jack has, go through each clip and give it the kind of 
attention it deserves. However, as I am now trying to wrap up my VSO 
volunteering time in Beijing over the next couple of weeks, I am 
inundated, and can’t offer the kind of detail I’d like to. I hope each 
contributor, however, feels the respect I am feeling for their openness in 
being filmed during their educational processes and willingness to engage 
in this form of open debate about world-leading standards of judgement.
 
What follows is my opinion only. I am not presuming to declare anything. I 
just want to give an overview of how these clips, and their juxtaposition, 
have affected me. Each one of the clips is characterized, as I see it, by 
a willingness to listen where appropriate as well as talk. Watching the 
clips gives me a sense of making spaces for something worthwhile. Smiling, 
laughing, looking carefully and with enquiring interest at others, these 
qualities make for what seems to be a uniformly relaxed atmosphere in each 
of the clips. I am particularly struck, for example, how closely Yaakub 
and Jack are working together, heads bent in mutual interest, boundaries 
respected, finding what is of relatable worth in the text, the laughter of 
colleagues and friends, who don’t have to share the same beliefs to value 
each others’ beliefs. That’s a key. There is no sense in these clips of 
enforced standardization (you should believe this because I believe it), 
and yet there are standards of behaviour, it seems to me, operating in 
each one. There is mutual respect. Look, for example, at the way in which 
Pete offers his comments to the group as a gift, as an offering, not as a 
presentation of any absolutes. It’s invitational, not instructive. Look at 
how Eden invites Alan to speak, offering his own ‘sense of vulnerability’ 
as ways to secure an invitation into the conversation. My sense is that 
what holds open these spaces is the love I was writing about earlier. I 
see it in JeKan’s open and warm smile, and hear it in the tone of his 
voice a genuine commitment to learning and to valuing the opinions of 
others. This respect and valuing of the self and other seem to me at the 
core of what these clips are demonstrating. 
 
This seemed crystal clear to me in Margaret Farren’s round-table talk. It 
seemed to me that the group was almost like one person. People talking, 
interrupting, flowing with each other’s concerns, interpreting, 
articulating, but never, (at least that’s how it appeared to me) 
intrusively interrupting, or inappropriately speaking, controlling and 
giving ideas. Always a flow between people, through body-language, 
gestures etc, which made this space, as a viewer, so invitational, so 
comfortable, so smooth. I could almost see what Alan Rayner is talking 
about with inclusionality. Something distinct and amorphous, bounded and 
yet flexible. It seemed, for those moment, an ideal educational setting 
because it was so flowing and smooth. All engaged on moving forward and 
yet each person distinctly themselves. I’d like to have been in that 
space. I can see such potential for developing those kinds of spaces in 
education, in the name of education.
 
Summing up, it seems that these clips demonstrate:
 
The building of a place for mutual stability and respect for individual 
boundaries for individual and mutual benefit.
 
Those are certainly values I want to see realized more fully in the world, 
so yes, in answer to Jack’s question. I believe the motivating force for 
the creation of such spaces is love. I believe this love is manifesting 
itself anywhere, where people want to promote sustainable, constructive 
and mutually-beneficial processes in the pursuit of a more harmonious and 
worthwhile world.
 
So, in response to the above bolded statement, I wonder whether readers 
would be interested in judging whether in my own processes of educational 
influence, I live up to that aspiration. If you go to: 
http://people.bath.ac.uk/edsajw/moira.shtml you will find case-studies and 
reports dealing with how I and my colleagues have influenced the 
educational development of peers, students and leaders at Ningxia Teachers 
University and beyond. Our website contains the following as part of our 
mission-statement:
 
China's Experimental Centre for Educational Action Research in Foreign 
Languages Teaching was opened in December 2003, and has now become an 
active organisation from within the department of the Foreign Languages 
and Literature Department at Ningxia Teachers University. It is the only 
centre of its kind in the world, and its purpose is to improve the 
learning experience for all children in China! We're starting with Ningxia 
Province! Such an ambitious project has made a promising beginning as this 
website demonstrates. China has a New Curriculum and that has become the 
main focus for our AR work. In short, the New Curriculum advocates task-
based approaches to teaching and learning and turns the traditional modes 
of didactic teaching on their head, thus requiring greater flexibility and 
creativity from teachers and students. This enormous challenge gives the 
impetus to our work. However, it is broader than that too. We are also 
seeking to evolve a new form of action research, which we are 
calling 'Collaborative Living Educational Theory Action Research with 
Chinese Characteristics'. Our case-studies and reflective writing bear 
witness to these early attempts in developing a new epistemology.
 
The work on this site is the result of four years of collaboration between 
colleagues of the English Department in Guyuan and at the Hui Zhong 
(Moslem Middle School) in Haiyuan. It is also the result of collaborative 
work between the leader of the Centre, Dean Tian Fengjun, his assistant Li 
Peidong, and the Centre's advisor, Professor Moira Laidlaw (formerly a VSO 
volunteer there, and soon to be employed by the university full time). The 
work also represents international collaboration with Professor Jean 
McNiff at St Mary's University College (Surrey University, U.K) and Dr. 
Jack Whitehead from the University of Bath. 
 
If you scroll down the site, you will see work over the last four years by 
English teachers of varying experience in the profession, helping students 
majoring in English and in other subjects, to improve their learning. 
 
Additional evidence of the educational success of the work we are doing 
can be found at:  

http://www.arexpeditions.montana.edu/articleviewer.php?AID=87 

and also in the latest Action Research: An International Journal with Li 
Peidong's and my article about doing Action Research in rural China. The 
values of mutuality, respect for others, and love as a motivating and 
validating principle are outlined in the article clearly.

In watching the clips and considering their meanings, I am brought closer 
to a sense of our shared humanity, which is both revealing and inspiring, 
and which is likely to inform those qualities I aim to develop as success 
criteria (not as tablets of stone, but I mean as developmental tools) in 
the future. Any future evidence for this statement should be recoverable 
from insights in my future work at Ningxia Teachers University where I 
will return in March 2007 as a full-time member of staff.

Warmest wishes to you all for 2007. 
 
Moira xxx