Dear Jack,
In a recent message about the relationship between 'inclusionality' and
'objective rationality', I wrote the following:
"If inclusionality is to offer any hope of helping to heal this damage
(arising from objective rationality), it has to be communicable and make
sense both in theory and in practice, based on living experience, NOT
abstract supposition. It has to have resilient foundations."
I think this also applies to what I see as the parallel relationship
between educational and education theories.
I feel in strong accord with Joan Walton in summarizing what I have been
searching for and trying to provide foundations for in inclusionality as:
"a ‘way of understanding/knowing’ that can be intellectually justified, and
feels experientially meaningful"
I hope you might find that this also states the aspirations of educational
theory very explicitly and succinctly.
Meanwhile, for 'newcomers' to 'inclusionality', we have been developing a
new website at www.inclusionality.org.
Warmest
Alan
--On 11 February 2009 12:17 +0000 Jack Whitehead <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I've been asked to lead the BERA Practitioner-researcher e-seminar on an
> epistemological transformation in educational knowledge, from the 16-22
> February on the new BERA web- site. Whilst this is only open to BERA
> members I'm hoping that because of our shared interest in
> practitioner-research you will help me to improve the clarity and
> invitational quality of the introductory comments below. I'll be sending
> in my introductory comments for posting, on the 13th February for
> posting on the new BERA web-site to begin the week long seminar. The
> topic is closely related to the focus of our year long 2008-9 seminar so
> do please let me have your suggestions for improving the introductory
> comments. Don't hesitate to be 'robustly critical'.
>
> (Brian - I've tried to simplify the language of the first draft and put
> some of the urls into the notes and references)
>
> "An Epistemological Transformation in Educational Knowledge
>
> A few words of introduction.
>
> The introductory ideas for this e-seminar are on pages 28-29 of Issue 105
> of Research Intelligence (November 2008) on an epistemological
> transformation in educational knowledge. You can access Issue 105 at:
> http://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/category/publications/ri/
>
> My focus on the standards of judgment used in the Academy to legitimate
> the educational knowledge in educational theories relates to a mistake
> made by some Academics about the nature educational theory. This mistake
> has had serious consequences for programmes of professional development.
> It led many academics to believe that the practical principles used by
> educators to explain their educational influences in learning were "at
> best pragmatic maxims having a first crude and superficial justification
> in practice that in any rationally developed theory would be replaced by
> principles with more fundamental, theoretical justification." (Hirst,
> 1983, p. 18).
>
> The mistake in ‘replacing’ the explanatory principles of educators by the
> principles from the disciplines of education, is still within the
> habitus of higher education. The mistake has a 2,500 year history and
> can be traced back to the language and logic of Aristotle. It is a
> mistake that is both difficult to recognise and to rectify. I hope that
> this e-seminar will help by making explicit the energy-flowing and
> values-laden practical principles that educators use to explain their
> educational influences in learning. I am thinking of explanations that
> draw insights from the theories of the disciplines of education, without
> being reduced to the conceptual frameworks of any individual theory or
> any combination of such theories.
>
> I use the term, living educational theories to distinguish these
> explanations from explanations derived from theories in the traditional
> disciplines of education.
>
> I am hoping that this seminar will serve to widen the influence of living
> educational theories in an epistemological transformation of educational
> knowledge. I believe that it will draw attention to the educational
> knowledge created by practitioner-researchers who see themselves as
> ‘creators of a body of professional knowledge’ (Saunders, 2009, p. 10).
> I also believe that it will highlight forms of educational enquiry that
> are owned by professionals in doing the job better and perhaps go beyond
> the provision of a tool-kit (Pollard, 2009, p.10) in asking,
> researching and answering questions of the kind, ‘How do I improve what
> I am doing?’
>
> References and Notes
>
> 1) Hirst, P. (Ed.) (1983) Educational Theory and its Foundation
> Disciplines. London;RKP 2) Pollard, A. (2009) in Hofkins, D. (2009) Eight
> letters starts with? P, Teaching: GTC Magazine, Spring 2009.
> 3) Saunders, L. (2009) in Hofkins, D. (2009) Eight letters starts with ?
> P, Teaching: GTC Magazine, Spring 2009.
> 4) I think Biesta’s insights about educational responsibility might help
> in the recognition of the mistake and support the need to go beyond a
> language of learning in the creation of a new epistemology for
> educational knowledge:
> “?education is not just about the transmission of knowledge, skills and
> values, but is concerned with the individuality, subjectivity, or
> personhood of the student, with their “coming into the world” as unique,
> singular beings.” (Beista, 2006, p. 27). Biesta, G. J. J. (2006) Beyond
> Learning; Democratic Education for a Human Future. Boulder; Paradigm
> Publishers.
> 5) My educational research programme at the University of Bath between
> 1973-2009 has focused on the nature of educational theory. You can
> access my 1988 Presidential Address to BERA on How do we Improve
> Research-based Professionalism in Education?-A question which includes
> action research, educational theory and the politics of educational
> knowledge. at
> http://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/category/publications/presidents/ and my
> paper on ‘Creating a living educational theory from questions of the
> kind, "How do I improve my practice?'. Cambridge Journal of Education,
> Vol. 19, No.1,1989, pp. 41-52, at:
> http://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/category/publications/presidents/ 6) My latest
> 2008 publication on A Living Theory Methodology In Improving Practice And
> Generating Educational Knowledge in Living Theories in the Educational
> Journal of Living Theories, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp 103-126 , can be accessed
> from http://ejolts.net/node/80 7) Some 26 ‘living theory’ doctoral
> theses, completed over the past 12 years will be used as evidence that
> new living standards of judgment for educational knowledge have been
> legitimated in the Academy. You can access the theses at:
> http://www.actionresearch.net/living.shtml "
>
> Love Jack.
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