Re: late lbe2

From: Diane Hodges (dhodges@ceo.cudenver.edu)
Date: Sun Apr 22 2001 - 21:33:08 PDT


bill the brain baroway writes
>I am considering individual/institutional co-development using lbe,
>because this reflects the political climate of the times in the U.S. We
>have individualized assessments that range from high stakes tests of
>students and teachers, to grades, to portfolios. And yet we are also
>faced with making systemic changes in institutions, because many people
>have realized that this may be the only way to reach mandated goals on
>individual learning. Yet with LBE as a theoretical lens, one can see
>these things put into a cultural and historical perspective. Context
>and systemic change becomes more than a buzz word.

as you know, i think, individual/institutional co-development is something
i obsess about - in terms of my own writing, i focus on the intolerable
presence of resistance,
the impossible existence of resistance or refusal in
individual-institutional relations...

but now, i have been understanding this from a social perspective - it is
all well and good to theorize the historical, cultural, the artifactual,

but in real-life, this relation is formed through intimacies and
identifications, relations shaped by the power that is enabled in
institutional relations/traditions,
and the Uber-rules that anyone who wants to succeed just comply with - it
has seemed to me, thus far,

that is it IMPOSSIBLE to be different and participate in an institution -
referring to the real people i've known, and myself, who dallies like an
idiot at the bridge 'cross that moat, and all -
how do you see these as reconcilable?

can a person actually assert their difference and still participate within
an institution, given the legacy and systematicity of institutional
traditions? goes gender/race/class/sex play a role politically?

and can anyone account for those differences, between what a black woman
might be able to do,
or a white lesbian? i mean, departmental needs are choreographed,
certainly, nothing is incidental or accidental in academic politics, or in
any institutional politic -

what am i asking, bill? do you know? how can a person maintain a
particular conscience
and still participate in an institution? and if compromises are expected,
what is the effect of compromising in these kinds of communities?

when you say "systemic" i understand this to mean "discursive" as in
everywhere and nowhere, embodied and interacting,
objective-subjective-interjective-transjective - transcending conscious
"will" and becoming "habits" of normal-institutional-activity... and so on.

did i ask a question? i'm sure i did. you're smart. say something. it'll
do.
hee hee.
>
>
>Perhaps one of the best ways to get insight into how much explanatory
>power LBE provides is to begin making alterations to the categories in
>the triangular model. So far, my efforts have mostly resulted in greater
>respect for the original work.

triangular models make a difference, (and i am not being facetious) -

i mean, these help to shift any analysis beyond the either-or feces that
so dominate
institutional activity -

but by the same token, triangulation has been dominant in statistical and
survey
analysis, in the science of social investigation, so
how is this triangulation different from traditional social science
triangulation?
>
>
>One of the most useful insights afforded by lbe is the collective and
>systemic nature of expansive activity -- exactly that faced by an
>investigator who wishes to make contributions to a field, i.e. education,
>that is not characterized by short term returns (of the kind needed for
>tenure for example) but which aims for the deeper transformations made
>possible by long term joint efforts. I conclude from this aspect of the
>theory, and from the many insights made possible to me by xmca'ers too
>numerous to mention, that this particular forum is worth spending one's
>time -- with a significant return on the investment.

ok - so you're busy arguing the value and here i am demanding proofs!!! ha
ha!!
*NOT*

i'm just unsure (as always!!!) about how research can produce change, when
it is so bound by traditions of performance and production,

how can research ever produce anything but more research? (don't make me
use examples because i will..)

and if research is reproductive by its design, whither difference?
alternatives? can we recognize difference or change if we seek the
repetition of research?

this is not to critique your words or ambitions or projects, but a genuine
question. you seem inspired and i'd like to know more. really.

difference: more on this separately perhaps.
>
>
> Bunny continues to do strange digging, and rolling about, when fresh sod
>is put in her pen.

i do expect updates on Bunny, too.

thanks bill-ster, guy-meister, baroway-o-rama-fella,
diane

"Amp it up...Action Man...
Action Man...Amp it up!"
Action Man
*********************************
diane celia hodges

Diane_Hodges@ceo.cudenver.edu
hodgesdiane@hotmail.com



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