Dear Moira,

Great to read this about Jack's presentation.

At the risk of sounding a slightly sour note, there is just one word in your 
review that I personally wouldn't use:

'wholeness'.

I'd prefer 'integrity'.

'Wholes' and 'parts' are a product of objective rationality, a 'whole way of 
thinking' that assumes completeness and definability and features both in 
reductionism and (W)Holism. This is what inclusionality as a 'dynamic 
relational hole way of thinking' is trying to release us from, through the 
inclusion of non-local space.


Warmest

Alan

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Moira Laidlaw" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, April 06, 2008 12:29 PM
Subject: Re: AA Thread 2 07-08 How do i~we explain our educational 
influences in learning to improve our educational influences as 
practitioner-researchers within the social and other formations that 
dynamically include us?


Yes, Pete, there was something awesome in that presentation because it
took the possibilities of holding the one and the many to a new high! I
felt as well that tremendous excitement at seeing six-year olds
effectively teaching the international educational research community
somethin about how learning works. Without the dove-tailed technology and
the skilful physical, as well as epistemological, use of it during the key-
note address, the points Jack was making would not have come through so
clearly. And it did have a wholeness about it, this presentation. It was
an educator in the full-flow of his values, showing by example (himself)
and by example (others)how glorious it is when people work together to
find solutions to problems. This indeed is Kilpatrick's 1951
suggestion: 'educational theory is a form of dialogue which has profound
implications for the future of humanity' coming to fruition.

This presentation worked on many levels for me as well as a viewer. I have
worked with Jack since 1988 when I saw him with a Masters group discussing
with them the educational value of bearing in mind the Holocaust as they
went about their educational practices! I was somewhat puzzled by this, as
I couldn't see the point of such a juxtaposition. This, thirteen years
later, led to me writing a paper entitled 'What's the Holocaust got to do
with education anyway?' a comment on the ignorance with which I didn't
understand then what Jack was getting at; but as I worked with action
research enquiries subsequently, I learned something of the importance of
understanding how to help our values to grow in directions that promoted
responsible freedoms, democratic practices, love, care for the other and
so on. In other words, values that sustain our hope in the face of any
dilemmas and problems.

This presentation in its choice of examples and focii show me what happens
when an educator (Jack) sets off to develop a new form of educational
theorising and along the way defend academic freedom in education in the
service of humanity, and who is still travelling 40 years later with not
only a wider understanding of the significance of that journey, but the
ability to present it in ways that, for me, answer some of Eisner's (1993)
calls for valid forms of representation to be made a priority in
educational research. Whoops, sorry about the length of that sentence. I
had the feeling when I was watching the video of not only the liberating
practices which individuals and communities are developing to enhance
individual and community situations, but of Jack himself as someone with
such a great deal to say and says it with such joy, such insight, such
love. Just look at the body-language as Jack jokes and plays with his
audience, and when he becomes serious, and listens carefully as the
children talk, for example. Look at his excitement at the technology and
his warmth and affirming of responses to the participants.

To me, this presentation reaches a Foucauldian sense of life as Art. I
feel a high degree of aesthetic wholeness in this presentation. It is a
celebration of all that is most optimistic in human experience. It cannot
simply be analysed or dissected for constituents, because, in my view, the
whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It is beyond criticism.

This is NOT an adulatory review or series of comments. I am not known for
being uncritical of Jack's presentations - 1995's AERA in New York which I
also attended did not elicit the same response, for example, but what I
see here is something profoundly meaningful in terms of integrity,
wholeness, ripeness and joy.

Thanks, Jack. This really was a treat waiting to happen!

Love from, Moira xxx