I am so delighted that it makes sense Alan, and that I seem to be
understanding you too. I see such wonderful connections between your
manuscript and my thesis - we seem to "seeing" "the same" "thing"
synchronistically but approaching it in very different ways. When I have
received my examiners' comments and it is (hopefully) passed I would love to
send it to you - not with any expectation of being read, but just so that it
has good company on your shelves!
Love 
Susie


On 19/2/07 7:54 PM, "Alan Rayner" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Dear Susie,
> 
> I feel this is quite brilliant, and also that you have beautifully
> summarized what I have been trying to contribute.
> 
> 
> Warmest
> 
> Alan
> 
> 
> --On 19 February 2007 14:03 +1100 Susan Goff <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
>> Dear Sarah and everyone
>> I have read this attachment, thank you, and not having read your doctoral
>> thesis, it is hard for me to be certain of the problems or the context.
>> But on the face of it, it seems that there is confusion on the part of the
>> examiners about your choice of "place" for your inquiry. I am referring
>> here a little to Alan's (the Alan-place) ideas as I am coming to
>> understand them, that people are not egocentrically contained automatons
>> (please correct my interpretations Alan if needs be) - but that we are
>> each an emergence of deeper and timeless flows through our body and mind,
>> through our location in society and the dynamism of the "space" that we
>> manifest/tender/shift through our being. Looked at this way, both student
>> and examiner share an equity of being places that float into a
>> relationship with each other, for the duration of the examination and its
>> consequences. Things flow out of and into these places, and between them,
>> changing their form and dynamic - as seems to be happening here with
>> Sarah's story.
>> 
>> We can't expect examiners to be informed about the Alan place's ideas, but
>> as one who has entered into an LT ontology I understand that the student's
>> being is inalienable from the subject matter, and at least of equal
>> presence/dynamic to the unfolding of the LT as any "other" source of
>> theory or philosophy. Paradoxically the sense of being is also not only
>> that of the student. The LT "take" on the world I am trying to express
>> here is akin to experiences of creativity where the Muses are alive and
>> well: we feel utterly present and strangely absent from the action, as if
>> someone else is writing/drawing/speaking through us. LT holds this
>> wonderful paradox, and student and examiner need to attend to its needs.
>> The felt presence of the person is the terrain of LT - the origin and
>> point of return. The felt voices flowing through the student's mortal
>> frame are also demanding attention. This brings with it key matters of
>> freedom and responsibility on the part of both student and examiner (and
>> ultimately, the "academy")...
>> 
>> With Living Theory there seems to be an inescapable matter of human
>> freedom and care which deserves our thought. (I prefer to drop the
>> "educational" bit, which as I have mentioned before on this list, the E
>> seems to anchor this ontology into a  discipline and field which I don't
>> feel I can speak from).
>> 
>> If one of LT's distinguishing characteristics is that the theory we are
>> generating is located within our personal frame, narrative, cognition,
>> flow and contexts then the matter of the student's choice regarding the
>> elements with which they recognise and develop their theory, as well as
>> their understanding of "living", are surely only open to an examiner's
>> judgement in the student's LT terms.
>> 
>> This is more than simply finding an examiner whose ontology is appropriate
>> to the student's; and this argument should exceed solipsism on both parts,
>> if the student and examiner are doing their work. These choices that we
>> make in LT regarding our judgements as both student and examiner have a
>> spiritual intimacy, and a psychological biology, if you like, that the
>> student has sovereign rights to determine, given they are made of the
>> student and making of them, and more deeply, made of the cosmological
>> space that the student is spiritually/politically contracted to tender.
>> 
>> The student is not aiming to enter the academy in the traditional sense.
>> Both parties are looking to meet each other to enable a living flow
>> between the values of each for the well being of the student's LT world,
>> the academy's evolving embrace of LT, and much more significant than
>> either of these, the mutually unfolding world in the public domain that
>> arises from the meeting of both these "floating lands".
>> 
>> In pure AR terms, the person doing the learning has the final
>> responsibility and freedom in the arbitration of how that learning comes
>> about, even at the point of examination, which is what I am understanding
>> Sarah's stance to be about (I stand to be corrected, Sarah if I am
>> misrepresenting you).
>> 
>> So examination of LT is at a deeper level than other ontologies: it is
>> about the student's powers of such discernment, their felt sense of
>> freedom and responsibility in their LT world, which can defy academic
>> convention. A LT may not be able to meet up with external criteria
>> because there are none that helpfully exist outside the LT world. Other
>> pre-existent works may only be approximate matches - and the extent to
>> which a LT needs to do business with them, is a matter of the extent to
>> which the LT world that the student is authoring needs to recognise the
>> value of other, possibly, pre-existing worlds (such as pre-existing
>> epistemologies,  cases, explications etc). The student is the humble
>> expert of their own examination, and the examiner has to stretch the
>> student's self examination within their own terms, not apply the
>> examiner's preferred criteria. I am unable to deduce if this is what
>> Sarah's experience was about or not.  Sarah is suggesting that it was not
>> - that her choices for examination were not accepted and that externally
>> (possibly routinely) ones were preferred by the examiners. If I am
>> misunderstanding forgive me: within the limitations of an e-dialogue
>> Sarah's case has to be a departure point for this discussion for me
>> rather than a "case" in point.
>> 
>> So, the question of the mutually embracing LT world that comes into being
>> through the examiners' determinations shifts the nature of an examiner's
>> judgement.
>> 
>> If I have read the case that you present accurately, I do not believe that
>> it is appropriate for an examiner to suggest at such a late stage, that
>> the student shift their choices of reference material, frames of
>> discernment and the currencies of thought that they have used to manifest
>> their ontology. This seems a little too much like examiners' confusing
>> supervision with examination (I apologise if this hurts anyone, and
>> again, willingly stand to be corrected - but could this be so? It seems
>> an understandably fine line). Examiners should not believe that their
>> preferential theories need to be used to see and judge someone else's
>> world, reaching as they do from their own living theory to do so, and
>> mistaking it to be as relevant to the student as it was to them, and even
>> more seriously, assuming that this valuable experience for them should be
>> the only or same ticket that the student needs to address to get through.
>> This story seems a very common one this side of the globe. If the student
>> has not used some obvious or preferred reference then either their path
>> did not take them there, or they have made a decision not to use them. As
>> it would be impossible to refute all the significant thinkers associated
>> with the development of a LT; isn't the examinable issue more to do with
>> understanding their choices and how they have worked with them rather
>> than what they did not work with? The map of a LT world can be drawn 1000
>> ways, but those living it probably know best 9again, referencing AR
>> thinking).
>> 
>> To introduce whole new frames of philosophy at the point of examination
>> risks devaluing the discernment, intuition and living experiences that the
>> student has revealed themselves to. It risks a warring judgement about the
>> value of the living flow that the student is manifesting and custodian of.
>> It feels a little colonising to me, when a LT world needs to given the
>> space to evolve within its own terms. It is up to the student to conjure
>> the balance of theory and then show it to be vital to the manifestation
>> of their LT world, and the examiner should be prepared to let go of their
>> assumptions about this matter and look into the student's
>> rationalisations.
>> 
>> So how can an examiner approach such a work? It is difficult because the
>> examination process is still so anchored in Dead Theory. Ideally, LT
>> should be judged in living experiences. In an ideal world (can we dream a
>> little?) the examiner would be invited into the living world that the
>> student is creating (that is manifesting through the student) wherever
>> that world is. Even to presume that theory, when it is living, can be
>> written about, or has to be written about, can be understood as a
>> hangover from an old age ontology. Observing a classroom could be a step
>> in the right direction, except that observation as we have discussed,
>> brings with it its own objectifying problems. So participation in the
>> student's LT would seem to be the best way. In other words, the examiner
>> becomes the student's student and an ideal student... Offering the
>> highest qualities of learning practice.
>> 
>> Presuming that our examiners cannot spend their time visiting live sites,
>> and that the written form will hang around for some time to come, my
>> apprenticeship suggestions (imaginings) are as follows:
>> 
>> The first matter of competence for both examiner and student is to do with
>> stance. Both should hold some reverence towards the privilege of living
>> theory - that is, that they understand the depth of human freedom that
>> they either have, or create, in order "to be" this ontology. Such a
>> quality of freedom is rare, and if the student or examiner do not
>> appreciate this wondrous opportunity and make the most of it for
>> breeching those conventions that shut freedom down, then they should be
>> judged accordingly. Thus, courage, appreciation, and moral responsibility
>> for working honestly with what emerges in deepening human freedom are
>> crucial aspects of SoJ for both parties. If the examiner shuts the
>> student's freedom down with convention, they are not doing a good job. If
>> they recognise the quality of freedom and the depths of responsibilities
>> that a Lt world creates then they are. If the student is not recognising
>> this matter then they are not doing so well with their LT as I see it.
>> 
>> Second, and in the context of what comes about through such a stance, the
>> examiner should join with the student, in their journey to the student's
>> LT world. Thus, not judging in an adversarial or superior or bounded
>> territory fashion. But, sensing out the fine attunements of the new
>> ground, the new arcbitectures, media, sensitivities etc etc that become
>> the qualities and aspects of the new/unique land/place that the student's
>> authoring of living theory gives rise to. So the examiner should make a
>> judgement about the success or otherwise that the student has achieved in
>> communicating their sense of a new self world and its relationship with
>> the worlds that flows in/manifest/flow on around it. The examiner should
>> be highly
>> self-critically-reflexive in the way they "read" this. The more self
>> critically reflexive they become about themselves, chances are, the higher
>> the quality of the student's work. They must understand that their habits,
>> pet passions, experiences of meaning making and sense making in their own
>> LT worlds, are not appropriate SoJ. The examininable issue is the quality,
>> strength and depth of engagement that the student has carried out and
>> matured, with regard to their own choices of what is relevant to them in
>> their place. (Am I stating the obvious here -does this already happen?)
>> 
>> This raises tricky questions about context - whether an examiner has to
>> "know" the student's socio-political context - or whether LT is context
>> enough for any other form of context to be taken as read. This question
>> suggests a contradictory presumption that LT is either grounded or "meta"
>> in nature, when I think that the point of LT is that it is reflexively
>> both, and that it is the quality and understanding of the reflexivity as
>> it takes form that is the issue. But then again, reflexivity itself can
>> be grounded or meta - I know this sounds exhaustingly circular. But I
>> think its a knot that we need to understand - and again relates to the
>> Alan-place's (!) (et al's) ideas about inclusional and dynamical spaces.
>> If a grounded work is judged through meta forms of knowing then the human
>> freedom found in reflexivity is vulnerable to the orthodoxies than
>> dominate meta thinking (which are often State/corporate-driven given it
>> is large infrastructures that tend to use/develop them). If we truly want
>> to work with the delicate and volatile energies of reflexivity, which I
>> believe to be at the heart of LT, it is how they come about within us as
>> we encounter another's work that is the issue. So then the judgement that
>> the examiner needs to make, is if reflexivity on encountering the thesis
>> does not extend the experience of reflexivity then possibly the LT is
>> undeveloped in some way. The examiner needs to put themselves on the line
>> to honestly assess if it is their own learning that is lacking, or the
>> students'. A student should pass if the examiner feels stretched,
>> challenged, encountering a different world/self but which they can relate
>> to through their understanding and experience of LT. If the examiner
>> encounters their own subjectivity and/or ontology in a new way, when they
>> encounter the thesis, chances are the LT thesis is a good one -
>> particularly if the thesis deals with this matter to some extent.
>> 
>> Third, examinable is the quality of the world that comes into being in
>> relationship to certain other worlds, through the student's work. That is,
>> because LT manifests ontology and its related cultural, social,
>> environmental, political, intellectual etc etc manifestations, these
>> embodiments of LT need to be judged for their living value to the
>> student's choice of other worlds that may or may not recognise LT.
>> 
>> The student needs to be clear about the world they are creating (that is
>> creating them), what they wish to be judged for in such a place, and such
>> self chosen judgements need to be evidence of the students' appreciation
>> of their freedom and the value of such freedom to the world (point 1).
>> This is crucially important because the examiner's judgement has, to some
>> extent, the power to recognise the reality and validity of the student's
>> world, or to judge it as non-existent despite the student's experience to
>> the contrary. The examiner has a moral, as much as a conceptual, task to
>> judge the world the student reveals, through the student's insight into
>> their world's distinguishable aspects (via the students' criteria). If the
>> student's criteria are soft, avoiding paradox and un-crossable gaps, badly
>> thought through, dislocated from their own manifested "place", for
>> example, then they should be judged accordingly. If however, they are
>> aligned (coherent) with the world they are manifesting through LT,
>> considerate of the place of this world in relationship to other worlds,
>> even if the student is not "successful" in manifesting their LT world as
>> they would consider fulfilling of their criteria, as I see it, they have
>> gone some way to achieving their recognition if the criteria and the
>> student's use of them is honest and humble. This means that in a way the
>> examiner has to enter into the world the student is manifesting rather
>> than stand outside of it and say it does/doesn't exist because it has/has
>> not been created with or met up to the examiner's preferred architecture.
>> Hope this makes sense.
>> 
>> In conclusion, LT shifts the ground of relationship between student and
>> examiner from one of a student having to meet preset standards (even
>> preset LT standards) which the examiner is gatekeeper of, to one of both
>> people co-joining to manifest "a world" that merits recognition or
>> otherwise. The standard of judgement is the quality of the LT world that
>> is being created through the student's own discernments, and the quality
>> of thought and communication, that the student creates in the actual
>> thesis document (or exhibition, or whatever media they argue to be
>> essential to the integrity of their work) to bring the world into being.
>> In my experience the real test of living theory is not the examination -
>> which is secondary to the moral impulse of LT. Much more crucial to all
>> of us, is the quality of the world that comes into being within the
>> student, within the living
>> socio-political/ecological complex that the we are a part of making
>> reality however we discern it - and within which the academy is one part.
>> The examination is either up to speed with this and sees its moral part
>> in the much bigger question, or not.
>> 
>> So the examination for LT is much less to do with the student entering the
>> academy, and more to do with the student and examiner co-creating worlds
>> of powerful value to other LT and non LT worlds.  In such a way, both
>> parties are extended and tested and the roles reversed: the student
>> becomes their own examiner and is tested for this capability; and the
>> examiner becomes the student's learner, and is tested by the thesis for
>> their learning ability. We could have fun with this and push it further -
>> if the examiner fails the student's learning test as the LT requires,
>> then the student has probably passed! And if the student passes their own
>> test of excellence then they have probably failed!
>> 
>> 
>> Retracting a little from such an impossible situation, for me the test is
>> whether the examination procedure can give the LT worlds the strength that
>> they need to heal the other worlds that they contest or add to as the case
>> may be.
>> 
>> Apologies for the length... But hope that this contribution adds to this
>> vital question even if it doesn't resolve it.
>> 
>> Warmest
>> Susie
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 18/2/07 10:21 PM, "Sarah Fletcher" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> 
>>> Dear Everyone,
>>> 
>>> I attach a WORD document that I hope assists our understanding of
>>> standards of judgement in use
>>> in Academe to evaluate the quality of living educational theories
>>> submitted for (PhD) examination.
>>> I have copied in (below) Jack's responses to my questions on 16/02/07,
>>> which I refer to in my text.
>>> 
>>> Warm regards,
>>> 
>>> Sarah
>>> 
>>> "The primary distinguishing feature of a living educational theory is
>>> that it is an individual's
>>> explanation for their educational influence in their own learning and/or
>>> in the learning of others
>>> and/or in the learning of social formations.
>>> 
>>> This idea of living educational theory differs from traditional forms of
>>> education(al) theory in that
>>> traditional theory consists of sets of abstract conceptual
>>> relationships. The explanations of
>>> educational influences in learning of individuals  are derived from the
>>> general abstract
>>> propositional relations and applied to particular cases that are
>>> subsumed by the theory. In living
>>> theories each individual is a knowledge-creator who is generating their
>>> own explanations for their
>>> educational influences in learning. These explanations, for doctorates,
>>> always include insights
>>> from the traditional propositional theories.
>>> 
>>> In meeting criteria of originality of mind and critical judgement at
>>> doctoral standard, a living
>>> theory must communicate the explanation of educational influence in
>>> learning in terms of the
>>> unique constellation of ontological values that the individual uses to
>>> give meaning and purpose to
>>> their life. In using action reflection cycles, in the generation of
>>> living educational theories, the
>>> individual clarifies the meanings of their ontological values in the
>>> course of their emergence in
>>> practice. As these embodied values are expressed and clarified in the
>>> course of their emergence in
>>> practice they are formed, in the act of communication, into the living
>>> epistemological standards of
>>> judgment that provide the thesis with its critical standards of
>>> judgment."