Hi Jack,
 
Just a short note on behalf of our SIG members expressing appreciation for all your inspiration in running the e-seminar.
 
I know it's been demanding at times....
 
Thanks for all your life energy, wisdom and unobtrusive scholarship.
 
 
Blessings!
 
 
Brian
 

 


Brian E. Wakeman


Convenor BERA SIG Practitioner Research


Dunstable


Beds
01582524711


 


----- Original Message ----
From: Jack Whitehead <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thursday, 26 July, 2007 9:36:27 AM
Subject: Convenor's review of the 2006-7 e-seminar


In this last week of the 2006-7 BERA Practitioner-Researcher SIG e-seminar on the standards of 
judgment we use to evaluate the quality of the educational knowledge we are creating, I want to 
say a thank you for your contributions. In particular I want to thank those who have made 
available their practitioner-researcher accounts of the standards of judgment they use, as 
additions to the archive. You can access most of these at:
http://people.bath.ac.uk/edsajw/living.shtml
and
http://www.jeanmcniff.com/reports.html

There is still 5 days to go to add more contributions, so do please send in any urls that take us to 
practitioner-researcher accounts that show the standards of judgment used to evaluate the quality 
of the educational knowledge created.

I'm delighted with the latest addition from Swaroop Rawal. In 1999 I heard Tony Ghaye ask a most 
inspiring question, 'How do I support the most disadvantaged children in Bombay/Mumbai?'. 
Swaroop has asked, researched and answered this 'I' question in her own doctoral research with 
the University of Coventry in collaboration with Worcester University,  into: 

The Role Of Drama In Enhancing Life Skills In Children With Specific Learning Difficulties In A 
Mumbai School: My Reflective Account

you can see from the following extract from the Abstract that Swaroop's standards of judgment 
include loving, caring, empathy, compassion, justice, well-being and democracy; 

"...On one level it deals with the question 'How can drama be used to enhance life skills in children 
with specific learning disabilities studying in a school in Mumbai?' On the second level it is related 
to the question 'How can I improve my practice?' 
This research is concerned with a teacher's capacity to recognise and realise the opportunity of an 
alternate reality in teaching. The reality of loving and caring for the students. The reality of an 
empathetic, compassionate, just and democratic classroom. 
The foundation of this study was laid when I saw the children in need suffer due to insensitive 
teaching practices and uncooperative peers and family. I was concerned with the trauma faced by 
students in the prevalent educational setting in India. I believe that what I do in education should 
help make changes for the better in our society. Life skills enhancement, in my understanding, 
was a way to alleviate the stress the children experienced seeing that life skill education promotes 
mental well-being in young people and behavioural preparedness...."

You can access Swaroop's thesis at:

http://people.bath.ac.uk/edsajw/rawal.shtml 

and see some of the photographs from the contexts in which Swaroop is now carrying out her 
postdoctoral enquiries, in her posting yesterday.

Bernie and Caitriona- your living standards of social justice continue to inspire me. Barry, I am 
integrating your ideas on creating gifts and developing talents into my own research. Eden, I am 
doing all I can to spread the influence of ubuntu ways of being, enquiring and knowing with your 
ideas on guiltless recognition and societal reidentification. Mairin, your multi-media account 
shows what can be done with visual narratives to communicate the meanings of embodied values 
as these are clarified in the course of an enquiry into living standards of judgment. Swaroop, I'm 
hoping that we can develop and sustain a collaborative/participatory enquiry over 2007-8, and 
beyond, to extend the influence of the values and understandings you are living with children in 
Mumbai and with colleagues in India and the UK.

In this last week, I am hoping that everyone will continue to help to enhance the resources in our 
archive.

Love Jack.