How can
explanations of educational influences in learning flow with life-affirming
energy and values of humanity in relationships of affirmation and contexts of a
lack of recognition?
Jack Whitehead, Department of Education,
University of Bath
DRAFT 22 September 2006.
My reason for focusing
on educational influences is that I identity education with the lives of
individuals as we learn to live loving and productive lives. I identify
education with the evolution of social formations as we learn to enhance the
flow of life-affirming energy, values, skills and understandings that carry
hope for the future of humanity.
My focus on
explanation is because I believe that the better our explanations are, for
enhancing our educational influences from what we do, the more likely it is
that we will be able to work together to create a world of educational quality.
My reason for
focusing on our educational influences in learning is to emphasise the
importance of accepting responsibility for learning to live as fully as we can
the values we use to distinguish our learning as educational in a way that
carries hope for the future of humanity.
Loving what I do
in education flows with energy that is life-affirming. To experience this
energy flowing through me I think you will need to see me in action. If you
have access to the appropriate technology you can see me flowing with this
energy in a workshop on action research at the University of the Free State
where I am explaining the significance of Ubuntu as a way of being and
explaining the importance of showing the meanings of values through their
_expression_ in multi-media narratives.
The video-clip is 17.8 Mb and 3mins 29 seconds. It plays in Quicktime from:
http://www.jackwhitehead.com/jwubuntucd.mov
In focusing on
the significance of life-affirming energy in explanations of educational
influence I am agreeing with Vasilyuk's (1991, p.66) that the generation of
energy scarcely figures at all in descriptions of experiencing processes, yet
it deserves to be seen as having great theoretical significance. I also agree
with Vasilyuk that value consciousness is capable of integrating life relations
firmly into a single whole of individual life and that the value principle is
the supreme principle of the complex-and-easy lived world (p. 118).
Because of the
centrality of values in my explanations of educational influence I want to take
care at this point to communicate what I mean by a value and the motivating
role that a value plays as an explanatory principle. For clarification I draw
again on the ideas of Vasilyuk.
In my first
systematic analysis of values in education, with philosophers of education at
the Institute of Education of the University of London on an Academic Diploma
course between 1968-70, I learnt to talk about values. Following the work of
Richard Peters (1966) I learnt to talk with some clarity about the values of
freedom, justice, respect, consideration of interests and worthwhile activities
and the procedural principle of democracy. I learnt to connect such values with
motives to explain actions in my talk and written texts. However, as Vasilyuk
points out, experience shows that even when such consciousness of motives is
present, the fact that a person clearly recognises the superior value of one
motive to another does not mean that it will be preferred in reality and that
the individual will carry out the activity to realise that motive (119).
Vasilyuk asks, How are we to explain
this absurd (from the rational point of view) discrepancy, this lack of direct
dependence of choice upon evaluation?
He answers that in the first place, by the fact that values in
themselves have no stimulating energy and force, and therefore are incapable of
directly compelling motives and behaviour to obey them.
Because I use
values as explanatory principles in action I want to be clear that the values I
have in mind, and expressed in practice through the embodied knowledges of
practitioners, have the motivating force of directly influencing actions. In my
understanding of values they are both meaning-formative and operative in
reality, in Vasilyuk's sense of these terms.
Vasilyuk does
acknowledge that values can be both meaning-formative and operative in reality
through the power of a value to produce emotions. Hence value, for Vasilyuk, in
terms of his psychological theory of activity, is in the same category as
motive.
So values do
not, on the one hand possess stimulating power, and therefore cannot be held to
be motives, but on the other hand, they have to be recognised as motives since
they do possess emotionality. The explanation is that the activity theory
distinguishes different kinds of motives. It is possible to suppose that in the
course of personality development values undergo a definite evolution, changing
not only in content but in motivational status as well, in the place they
occupy and the role they play in the structure of life-activity. In the
earliest stages values exist only in the form of the emotional consequences
when behaviour has offended against them, or conversely, has asserted them
(first stirrings of guilt or of pride). The values take on the form of
'acknowledged' motives, then that of meaning-formative motives, and finally
that of motives both meaning-formative and operative in reality. At each stage
the value is enriched with a new motivational quality, without losing those
previously present. (p.119)
When I use
values as explanatory principles of educational influence I want to stress that
I am using them as both meaning-formative and operative in reality. I agree
with Vasilyuk that a value as a
content of consciousness does not initially possess any energy. However, his
crucial point is that as the inner development of the personality proceeds, the
value can borrow energy from motives operative in reality. The value develops
from a content of consciousness into a content of life, and itself acquires the
force of a real motive.
This
transformation of a value into a real, perceptible motivational force is
accompanied by an energy metamorphosis which Vasilyuk says he finds it hard to
explain. He says that having become a real motive, a value suddenly proves to
possess a mighty charge of energy, a potential, which cannot be accounted for
by all the borrowings it may have made in the course of its evolution. In a
crucial move that brings in socio-cultural influences in energising values
Vasilyuk offers an explanation for this flow of energy. He says that when a
value become truly part of life it is 'switched in' to the energies of the
supra-individual entity to which that values links the individual. This energy
enables value to light up the whole life of a human being from within, filling
it with simplicity and true freedom � freedom from hesitation and fear, freedom
to fulfil creative capabilities. (121).
I associate this energy, with the words of Paul Tillich (1962, p. 68),
but without his theistic connections when he writes about the state of being
grasped by the power of being itself. I also associate this energy with
Bataille's (1987, p. 11) _expression_ of assenting to life up to the point of
death.
In my
explanations of educational influence I use Vasilyuk's idea of creative
experiencing to clarify what I mean when I say that I cannot claim to have
educated anyone other than myself, but that I can claim to have been an
educational influence in the learning of others and in the learning of social
formations. I stress the importance of influence because no matter what I do
with whatever intentions, for me to understand my influence as educational,
what I do must have been mediated through the creative experiencing of the
other in their educational influence in their own learning.
When I use
insights from others in explaining educational influences in learning I do like
to make sure that I acknowledge the source of the ideas and the relationship
between the originator's meanings and the meanings I generate from my creative
engagement with the original meanings. In using Vasilyuk's ideas of hedonistic,
realistic, value and creative experiencing I want to share his meanings before
I use them in my explanations of educational influence.
"Creative Experiencing
The critical
situation specific to the internally complex and externally difficult lived
world is crisis. A crisis is a turning point in the individual's life road. The
life road itself, so far as it is completed and seen in retrospect, is the
history of the individual's life, and so far as it is as yet uncompleted and
seen in phenomenological prospect, it is the intent of life, for which value
provides inner unity and conceptual integrity. Intent as related to value is
perceived, or rather felt, as vocation, and as related to the temporal and
spatial conditions of existence, as the life-work. This work of life is translated
into material terms as actual projects, plans, tasks and goals, achievement or
which means giving embodiment to the life intent. When certain (p. 139) events
make realisation of the life intent subjectively impossible, a crisis situation
occurs.
The outcome
of experiencing a crisis can take two forms. One is restoration of the life
disrupted by the crisis, its rebirth; the other is its transformation into a
life essentially different. But in either case it is something life bringing
one's life to birth afresh, of building up a self, constructing a new self,
i.e., creation, for what is creation but 'bringing into existence' or building
up?
In the first
sub-type of creative experiencing, then, the result is restoration of life, but
this does not mean life returning to its previous state. It means that what is
preserved is only the most essential part of the life that was, its idea in
terms of value, like a regiment shattered in battle living on in the stand
saved from the field.
The
experiencing of events, even of those which have struck very heavy and
irreversible blows at the whole 'body' of life, so long as they have not
injured life's central, ideal values can develop along one of the two following
lines. The first involves the internal conquest of existing psychology
identifications between the life intent and the particular forms of realising
it which have now become impossible. In this process the life intent becomes as
it were 'less bodily', takes on a more generalised and at the same time more essential
form, more closely approach an ideal life value. The second line of progress in
experiencing, in some ways opposite to the foregoing, lies in seeking out,
among the life possibilities still open, other potential embodiments of the
life intent; the search is to some degree made easier by the life intent itself
becoming more generalised. If the search produces forms for realisation of
intent which receive positive sanction from the still-operative idea of value,
a new life intent is formed. Thereafter there is a gradual coming-together of
the intent with appropriate sensory-practical forms, or it might be better to
say that the intent 'takes root' and starts to grow in the material soil of
life.
All such
experiencing, where the thrust is towards producing a new life intent, still
does not destroy the old life intent (now impossible). Here the new does not
oust the old but continues its work; the old content of life is preserved by
the power of creative experiencing, and not as a dead, inert something past but
as the living history of the personality, still continuing in the new content.
(page 140)
The second
sub-type of creative experiencing occurs when the life intent proves to have
been founded on false values, and is discredited along with those values, by
what their actual realisation has produced. Here the task of creative
experiencing is, first, to discover a new value system, able to provide a
foundation for a new, meaningful life intent ( in this part of it, creative
experiencing coincides with value experiencing); second, to absorb the new
system and apply it to the individual self in such a way that it can impart
meaning to the past life-history and form an ideal notion of the self within
the system; and third, to eradicate, in real practice in the sphere of the
senses, all traces of the spiritual organism's infection by the now fading
false values (and their corresponding motives, attitudes, wishes, etc.), at the
same time affirming, again in terms of real practice and sensory embodiment, the
ideal to which the self has won through.
The third
sub-type of creative experiencing is connected with the highest stages of
personality development in terms of value. A life crisis is precipitated by the
destruction, or threatened destruction, of the value entity to which the
individual seems himself as belonging. The person sees this whole under attack
and being destroyed by the forces of a hostile reality. Since we are here
speaking of a person who is a fully competent inhabitant of the complex-and-difficult
lived world, it is clear that he does not simply see this destruction but
cannot fail to see it, being incapable of hedonistically ignoring reality. But
on the other hand, it is equally impossible for such a person to relinquish the
value entity in question, to betray it, to abandon one's convictions. A
rational assessment of the situation would admit it to be fundamentally
insoluble.
So what is
the 'strategy' of creative experiencing? Like value experiencing, it first of
all brings up the question of whether reality is to be trusted � should reason
be allowed to stand as the source of the sole, genuine truth about reality,
should the given factual reality of the moment be accepted as the fully valid
_expression_ of reality as a whole? For value experiencing it was a sufficient
accomplishment of its task � to enable the individual to stand by his value
system � to disallow the claims of reason and to recognise in ideal terms that
value reality was the higher reality. From creative experiencing something more
is required, for its task is to enable the individual to act on the basis of
his value system, to actualise and affirm it, to act upon it under conditions
which practically, materially operate against it.
Such action
is psychologically possible only when a special inner state has been attained.
We refer to the state of readiness to sacrifice any motive, of which we spoke
already when discussing value experiencing. But whereas under the conditions of
the 'easy' lived world such a mobilisation of inner resources was achieved by
increased introversion, here, in the situation where there is direct collision
with external difficulties and dangers, we find a movement taking the reverse
direction in a certain sense, a movement not into the self but away from the
self, a person concentrating all his spiritual and physical forces not upon
achievement of personal happiness, welfare of security, but upon service to a
higher value. The highest point of this movement is a state of unconditional
readiness for self-sacrifice, or rather a state of utter self-denial,
completely freed from all egoistic fixation. This state breaks through the
'impossibility' situation from within, for such a state give meaning to
'irrational actions', which are in fact the only actions that can have meaning
in such a situation; selfless action becomes a psychological possibility. (page
142)
*******
"The most
essential differences between the various types of experiencing come out in the
relationship the experiencing bears to the existential event that created the
critical situation, i.e., to reality, and to the life need affected by that
event.
Hedonistic
experiencing ignores reality, distorts and denies it, creating an illusion of
the need being actually satisfied, and more generally, of the damaged content
of life being still intact.
Realistic
experiencing eventually accepts reality as it is, making the dynamics and the
content of the individual's needs accommodate themselves to real conditions.
The former life content, now impossible, is cast aside by realistic
experiencing; here the individual has a past but has no history.
Value
experiencing recognises the reality which contradicts or threatens the
individual's values, but does not accept it; it rejects the claims of immediate
reality to define directly and unconditionally the inner content of life, and
it attempts to disarm reality by means of ideal, semantic procedures, employed
to deprive the existential event of its self-identity to make it into an object
for interpretation and assessment. The event that has occurred is an
irreversible reality beyond human power to alter, but by value experiencing it
is translated into another plane of being, transformed into a fact of
consciousness, and as such transfigured in the light of the value system
already evolved or in the process of being evolved. A word spoken and an act
done cannot be recalled or altered, but if their wrongfulness is recognised and
admission of fault and repentance follow, then they are both accepted as a
reality of one's life and at the same time rejected in terms of value. Thus
value experiencing can perform a sublation (in the sense of Hegel's Aufhebung
implying the negative-conservation dialectic) of the life-content which has
become impossible. Being completed aesthetically or ethically (or following the
line of other values) on the imaginary-symbolic plane it becomes transformed
into a moment of personal history.
If hedonistic
experiencing rejects reality, realistic experiencing accepts it
unconditionally, and value experiencing transforms it ideally, creative
experiencing generates (creates) a new life reality. An event that has taken
place, say, an offence committed by the individual, is only ideally transformed
or transmogrified by value experiencing through repentance, but creative
experiencing recreates the individual's relation to it through atonement. It is
this sensory-practical, bodily aspect which distinguishes creative from value
experiencing; creative experiencing is distinguished from realistic experiencing
by its value aspect.
Life's
unrealisable past content is not simply ideally 'removed' by creative
experiencing. Depending on the value judgments made by a person with respect to
a violated life relation, creative experiencing strives either towards (a)
rebirth of the particular life relation, even though using different material
or in a changed form (if it is fully approved); or (b) its regeneration into
something else ( if it is partially condemned and partially approved); or (c)
conception of a new life relation in its place (if it is completely condemned).
But in any case creative experiencing preserves the impossible life relation in
the history of the individual's life, whereby it is not preserved
unchanged as an inert museum
exhibit, but as a new, healthy and fruit-bearing tree borne from the seed of an
old one." (pages
142-143).
I will now apply
Vasilyuk's ideas in answering the question:
How do my explanations of educational influences in
learning flow with life-affirming energy and values of humanity?
In answering
this question I have three educational relationships in mind: those in which I
am educating myself in my own learning, those in which I am influencing the
education of others and those in which I am influencing the education of social
formations. Hence I will focus on:
i)
Explanations of my educational influences in my own learning.
ii)
Explanations of my educational influence in the learning of others.
iii)
Explanations of my educational influences in the learning of social formations.
i)
Explanations of educational influences in my own learning.
All my
explanations of educational influences in learning include a flow of life
affirming energy. They include values that I experience as carrying hope for
the future of humanity. They include experiences of living contradictions in
holding together the affirmation of these values together with my recognition
of their denial in practice. These experiences of contradiction simulate my
creativity in imagining possibilities for living my values more fully in my
practice. When conditions permit, my energising values move me to act in the
direction of a chosen possibility. As I act I gather data to enable me to make
a judgment on the effectiveness of my actions in terms of my values, skills and
understandings. I evaluate the influence of my actions in these terms and
modify my concerns, ideas and actions in the light of my evaluations. I produce
an explanation for my learning that I submit for social validation to my peers
and respond to their creative and critical feedback.
I have seen two
transformations in the nature of the explanations for my learning over the past
30 years. They involve three epistemologies. I value epistemology because it is the study of the logics,
units of appraisal and the standards of judgment that are used to judging the
validity of our claims to knowledge. The first transformation was a move from
propositional into dialectical explanations. The second was a move from
dialectical into inclusional explanations.
Evidence of the
first transformation is in the movement between two reports I produced in 1976
while working with 6 teachers in a project to improve learning for 11-14 year
olds in mixed ability science groups. I produced the reports to explain what we
had done and learnt (Whitehead, 1976). In the first report I used three
conceptual frameworks to explain the process of innovation, to explain changes
in the teaching and learning process and to explain the process of evaluation
used in the project. On checking the validity of my explanation with the
teachers I was surprised by their response that they could not see themselves
in the explanation!
They asked me to
return to the data of the video-tapes I had made, the audio tapes of our
conversations, the evidence from pupils' books and their responses to lessons.
They asked me construct an explanation in which they could see themselves,
their pupils and their learning. I quickly accepted the validity of their
response. I could see that I had imposed pre-existing conceptual frameworks on
narratives of their lives and learning in a way that denied their lived
experience and learning. The report I then constructed with the help of Paul
Hunt, one of the teachers, was accepted by the group as a valid explanation of what
we had done and learnt. It had a very different logical form, unit of appraisal
and standards of judgment to the original report. I characterise this transformation in my explanation and the
extension of my understandings of the nature of knowledge in terms of
propositional and dialectical logics. I am using logic in Marcuse's (1964, p.
105) sense that it is the mode of thought appropriate for comprehending the
real as rational.
The
first epistemology was grounded in the propositional logic of Aristotle with
his Law of Contradiction. This claims that two mutually exclusive statements
cannot both be true simultaneously. His Law of Excluded Middle claims that
everything is either A of Not-A. This logic characterises the propositional
theories that dominate what counts as legitimate knowledge in the Academy. All
my academic life I have drawn insights that I value from the grand narratives
of propositional theories. Theories of the kind offered by Erich Fromm
throughout his productive life. I continue to draw valued insights from such
propositional theories and have acknowledged the influence of theorists such as
Polanyi (1958) and Habermas (1976, 1987) amongst many others.
From
recognizing the validity of the teacher's rejection of my first explanation of
our learning that was constituted by frameworks drawn from such propositional
theories I constructed an explanation in the second report through the exercise
of my intuitive responses to the data and my understandings of the teachers I
had worked with. Through my
readings about dialectics I could appreciate that I had produced a dialectical
explanation for our learning with its own epistemology.
This
second epistemology was grounded in the Marxist dialectic as set out by
Ilyenkov (1977) in his inspirational work on dialectical logic. Contradiction
is the nucleus of dialectics and change is explained in terms of the Law of
Identity of Opposites and the Law of the Negation of the Negation. In asking,
researching and answering questions of the kind, 'How do I improve my
practice?' I could see and feel myself, with the help of video-tapes of my
practice, existing as a living contradiction as I held together my values
together with their negation in my practice. I have explicated my dialectical
epistemology in a creation of a discipline of educational enquiry in my
doctoral thesis (Whitehead, 1999). While I understand the arguments that have
raged over 2,500 years between propositional and dialectical logicians about
the validity of their logics, I have used insights from both kinds of theory in
my educational influences in my own learning. I understand Popper's (1963)
rejection of dialectical theorizing on the grounds that it is entirely useless
as theory because it contains contradictions. Using two Aristotelean Laws of
Logic Popper demonstrates that any theory that includes contradictions between
statements is entirely useless.
Using two laws of inference he demonstrates that any theory, that
accepts that two mutually exclusive statements as being true simultaneously,
can be used to show that any statement and its opposite can both be true. I also understand and accept Marcuse's
(1964) point that the nucleus of dialectics is contradiction and that
propositional theories mask the dialectical nature of reality.
The
second transformation in my understandings of epistemology occurred in 2002 in
a conversation with Alan Rayner on his ideas of inclusionality. In the
following video-clip Rayner repeats the demonstration that helped me to
experience and understand inclusionality as a relationally dynamic awareness of
space and boundaries that are connective, reflexive and co-creative.
http://www.jackwhitehead.com/rayner1sor.mov
The
transformation in my understandings focused on the standards of judgment I use
in validating my claims to knowledge. With my propositional epistemology I
clarify the meanings of the value-words I use in relation to other words in a
form of conceptual analysis. With my dialectical epistemology I clarify the
meanings of my value-words in the course of the _expression_ and emergence of the
meanings of my values through what I do as I explore the implications of
existing as a living contradiction. In my educational practices of inclusionality
I affirm a flow of life-affirming energy and values of humanity that are
expressed in a receptively responsive, relationally dynamic of a love of
learning and a love of knowledge-creation.
The
explanatory principles I use in my inclusional explanations of educational
influence in learning are values that flow with this life-affirming energy. The
explanations include insights drawn from my understandings of sociocultural,
sociohistorical, psychological and other forms of propositional theory. They
also include insights drawn from the narratives of the lives of others. For
example Marian Naidoo (2005) in her emergent living theory of inclusional and
responsive practice has influenced my understandings of the importance of
responsive standards of judgment in the _expression_ of a passion for compassion.
Eleanor Lohr (2006) has influenced my commitment to include love as a living
standard of judgment in my explanations of educational influence in the work I
do in education. Bernie Sullivan (2006) in her living theory of a practice of
social justice, has reinforced my commitment to exploring the implications of
living a value of social justice.
So,
my explanations of educational influences in my own learning have included
explanations in terms of these transformations in my epistemologies and in my
understandings of the values I use to give life meaning and purpose. The
extension and transformation of my understandings of the nature of explanations
and of the explanatory power of values in my own learning, is reflected in the
explanations I give for my educational influences in the learning of others.
ii)
Explanations of educational influences in the learning of others.
As a human being
I enjoy the daily flow of life-affirming energy that contributes to the motivating
feeling that life is worthwhile. I enjoy the feeling of anticipation that the
day holds opportunities to do something worth-while. I like to look back with
some satisfaction on past achievements, acknowledge mistakes and recognise what
I have learnt in responding to these errors. As I write I am smiling at the
recollection of one of my research students who is a Buddhist saying, 'Jack, we
Buddhists don't make mistakes, we just recognise opportunities for learning!'.
In my own case I often recognise my mistakes with a rueful smile and value my
understanding that I have used these mistakes as opportunities for
learning.
As an educator
and educational researcher with a vocation in education I focus my energy,
values and activities on enhancing the quality of my educational influences in
the learning of others and on the generation, testing and dissemination of
living educational theories that carry hope for the future of humanity.
For the purpose
of explaining my educational influences in the learning of others I want to
focus on some 20 doctoral theses flowing through web-space that I have either
singly or jointly supervised to successful completion, including my own,
between 1995-2006. As this is the
primary data source I use to understand and explain my educational influence in
the learning of others, I ask you to browse through the list of individuals and
the titles of the doctorates. If you have the time and inclination, do please
access the Abstracts by clicking on the live urls if you are viewing this in
your browser, before moving into some of the contents.
Eames,
K. (1995) How do I, as a teacher and educational action-researcher, describe
and explain the nature of my professional knowledge? Ph.D. Thesis, University of Bath.
Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/kevin.shtml
Evans,
M. (1995) An action research enquiry into reflection in action as part of my
role as a deputy headteacher.
Ph.D. Thesis, Kingston University. Jointly supervised with Pamela Lomas.
Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/moyra.shtml
Laidlaw,
M. (1996) How can I
create my own living educational theory as I offer you an account of my
educational development?
Ph.D. thesis, University of Bath. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/moira2.shmtl
D'Arcy, P. (1998) The Whole Story..... Ph.D. Thesis, University of Bath.
Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/pat.shtml
Loftus, J. (1999) An action enquiry into the
marketing of an established first school in its transition to full primary
status. Ph.D. thesis,
Kingston University. Jointly supervised with Pamela Lomax. Retrieved 19
February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/loftus.shmtl
Whitehead,
J. (1999) How do I improve my practice? Creating a
discipline of education through educational enquiry. Ph.D. University of Bath.
Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/jack.shtml
Cunningham,
B. (1999) How do I come to know my spirituality as I create my own living
educational theory?
Ph.D. Thesis, University of Bath. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/ben.shtml
Finnegan,
(2000) How do I create my own educational theory in my educative relations
as an action researcher and as a teacher? Ph.D. submission, University of Bath. Retrieved 19 February
2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/fin.shtml
Austin,
T. (2001) Treasures in the Snow: What do I know and how do I know it through
my educational inquiry into my practice of community? Ph.D. Thesis, University of Bath.
Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/austin.shtml
Mead,
G. (2001) Unlatching the Gate: Realising the Scholarship of my Living
Inquiry. Ph.D.
University of Bath. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/mead.shtml
Bosher,
M. (2001) How can I as an educator and Professional Development Manager
working with teachers, support and enhance the learning and achievement of
pupils in a whole school improvement process? Ph.D. University of Bath. Retrieved 19 February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/bosher.shtml
Delong, J.
(2002) How Can I Improve My Practice As
A Superintendent of Schools and Create My Own Living Educational Theory? Ph.D. University of Bath. Retrieved 19
February 2004 from http://www.actionresearch.net/delong.shtml
Scholes-Rhodes,
J. (2002) From the Inside Out: Learning to presence my aesthetic and spiritual
being through the emergent form of a creative art of inquiry. Ph.D. University of Bath. Retrieved 19
February 2004 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/rhodes.shtml
Roberts, P. (2003) Emerging Selves in Practice: How do I and others create my
practice and how does my practice shape me and influence others? Ph.D. University of Bath. Retrieved 19
August 2004 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/roberts.shtml
Punia,
R. (2004) My CV is My Curriculum: The Making of an
International Educator with Spiritual Values. Ed.D. University of Bath. Retrieved 19 August 2004 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/punia.shtml
Hartog,
M. (2004) A Self Study Of A Higher Education
Tutor: How Can I Improve My Practice? Ph.D.
University of Bath. Retrieved 19 August 2004 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/hartog.shtml
Church, M.
(2004) Creating an uncompromised place to belong: Why do I find myself in
networks? PH.D.
University of Bath. Retrieved 24 May 2005 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/church.shtml
Naidoo, M.
(2005) I am Because We Are. (My never-ending
story) The emergence of a living theory of inclusional and responsive practice. Ph.D. University of Bath. Retrieved 2 April 2006 from
http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/naidoo.shtml
Farren,
M. (2005) How can I create a pedagogy of the unique through a web of
betweenness? Ph.D. University of Bath. Retrieved 2 April 2006 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/farren.shtml
Lohr, E. (2006) Love at Work: What is my lived
experience of love and how might I become an instrument of love's purpose. Ph.D.
University of Bath. Retrieved 26 May 2006 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/living.shtml
Each doctoral thesis has been recognized by at least
one external and one internal examiner as sufficient evidence of the
originality of mind and critical judgment of the researcher, together with the
extent and merit of the work itself, to be awarded a doctoral degree. The
recommendations of the examiners have all been accepted by the University
Senates and the degrees have been awarded.
In my claims to have had some educational influence in
the learning of these researchers and in what they have produced I want you to
be clear that I am not claiming to have educated them. I do accept a
responsibility for my educational influences in my own learning in my claims to
have educated myself. However, for me to recognize my influence as educational
in their learning I must recognize that what I do has been mediated through the
creative experiencing of the learner in constructing their own educational
influences in their own learning.
In other words I see educational influences as being
expressed in intentional rather than causal relationships. In recognizing an
educational influence I need to appreciate the existence of the responsibility
of the learner in exercising their creative experiencing in mediating whatever
is done by others, in the educational influence in their own learning.
After I have explained what I think I do in my
supervision of doctoral research programmes I will make an evidence-based claim
to explain my educational influences in the learning of others.
What do I do in my educational relationships?
There are five expressions of energy, value, faith/belief , enquiry and sharing understandings that
characterize for me, what I do in my educational relationships. I think you can
see these expressions in the two video clips from supervision sessions with Jacqueline Delong.
First there is the _expression_ of pleasure in being
with the other in a flow of life-affirming energy. This is often expressed, at
some point, in a spontaneous eruption of laughter in the humour of a shared
experience.
I think you will experience this flow of energy as you
watch the clip at:
http://www.jackwhitehead.com/ajwjdwis.mov
Second, there is the _expression_ of recognition of the
value of the embodied knowledge of the other. I am expressing this recognition
through the video-clip.
Third, there is my faith/belief that making this
knowledge public in the form of their living educational theory is part of
living a purposeful and productive life. This faith/belief is expressed in my
passion for contributing to an educational relationship through which the
other's embodied knowledge is made public
in a way that can be used by others in the generation of their own
living educational theories. All my supervisions are moved by the desire to
bring into the public domain the living theories of practitioners that can
receive university accreditation for the quality of their contribution to
educational knowledge.
Fourth,
there is a commitment to enquiry in making public the living standards
of judgment and understandings used by the other in living a productive life.
This belief in the desirability of living a productive life includes a faith in
the creative and critical capacities of the other to generate and share their living educational theory.
Fifth, this commitment to enquiry includes sharing my
own understandings of the ideas of others as I see connections between these
ideas and the enquiries of the researcher. This commitment can be experienced
in the following clip:
http://www.jackwhitehead.com/ajdjwsystem.mov
In this clip I am working with Jacqueline Delong on making
public, as a living standard of
judgment in her thesis, her system's influence. Jacqueline's originality of mind and critical judgment in
her thesis (see http://people.bath.ac.uk/edsajw/delong.shtml ) is
focused on her explanation of the forming and sustaining of a culture of
inquiry within the Grand Erie District School Board in Ontario. In the process of the enquiry we both
recognized the importance of addressing the issue of 'system's influence'. This
was partly because of the desire not to be open to the criticism that the
generation of living educational theories was restricted to an inner process of
learning and had no systemic influence in the learning of social formations.
In fulfilling my commitment to enquiry I also share
the understandings that have emerged from my creative experiencing, using
Vasilyuk's insights:
If hedonistic
experiencing rejects reality, realistic experiencing accepts it
unconditionally, and value experiencing transforms it ideally, creative
experiencing generates (creates) a new life reality. An event that has taken
place, say, an offence committed by the individual, is only ideally transformed
or transmogrified by value experiencing through repentance, but creative
experiencing recreates the individual's relation to it through atonement. It is
this sensory-practical, bodily aspect which distinguishes creative from value
experiencing; creative experiencing is distinguished from realistic
experiencing by its value aspect. ((Vasilyuk, p. 142).
This sharing of accounts that distinguish my creative
from my value experiencing is taking place through the flow of my writings from
http://people.bath.ac.uk/edsajw/writing.shtml
. These include the accounts of my
creative experiencing in response to attempts to terminate my employment in
1976, to forbid me from questioning the judgments of examiners of my doctoral
submissions in 1980 and 1982 under any circumstances, pressure on my academic freedom in 1991, and refusal to
recognize in 2006 that I have made a sufficient contribution to the advancement
of knowledge to be promoted from a Lecturer to a Readership after 33 years of
productive life in the University of Bath. I do not usually make a point of
directing those I work with to these writings. The writings exist as cultural
artefacts flowing through web-space and those I work with access and read them
and they become part of our shared understandings. Adding my writings to the
flow of communications through web-space is part of what I do. Their influence
in the learning of others is connected to their own creative experiencing of my
undersanding. I look for evidence of this influence in constructing evidence-based
explanations.
Can I produce an evidence-based explanation of my
educational influence in the learning of others?
Having
characterized what I do in my educational relationships in terms of expressions
of energy, value, faith/belief , enquiry and
understanding can I produce an evidence-based explanation of my educational
influence in the learning of others?
I think what I
have said about my educational influence in the learning of others, bears
repeating. I see educational influence in terms of intentional relationships
that must be mediated by the creative response of others to what I do, in their
learning, for me to recognize the learning as educational.
To establish an
evidence-based explanation of educational influence in learning I shall share
the evidence of learning from others that I think shows originality,
significance and rigour and then use this to construct an evidence-based
explanation of my educational influence in this learning.
Evidence of
learning that shows originality, significance and rigour
Original,
significance and rigour are criteria used to judge the quality of research in
the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) in the UK. I am interested in
establishing where the flow of the above doctoral theses, flowing through web-space,
relates to the RAE as a peer review exercise to evaluate the quality of
research in UK higher education institutions. The 2008 RAE will selectively
allocate money to institutions of higher education on the following criteria:
4* Quality that is world-leading in terms of
originality, significance and rigour.
3* Quality that is internationally excellent in terms
of originality, significance but
which nontheless falls short of the highest standards
of excellence.
2* Quality that is recognised internationally in terms
of originality, significance and
rigour.
1* Quality that is recognised nationally in
terms of originality, significance and
rigour.
Each doctoral
thesis has been examined by examiners with at least national, if not
international reputations for their research. Each thesis has had to satisfy
such examiners in terms of its originality, significance and rigour. Hence, I
take it that each thesis is of a quality that has been recognised nationally in
terms of originality, significance and rigour. But what of the combined
knowledge-base of living educational theories flowing through web-space? How
can this be related to the above standards of quality through peer review? I am
not intending to answer this question here because the answer to a large extent
rests on your judgement as peer reviewers.
Each doctoral
thesis has taken a minimum of 5 years to successfully complete. The theses are
presented as narratives of the researchers' learning as they research the
implications of working to improve their practice. In the process of producing
their thesis each individual has included their own 'I' as a living
contradiction in their enquiry. They have clarified the meanings of the values
they use to give meaning and purpose to their lives in the course of their
emergence in practice. Through this process of clarification of meaning, the
experience of ontological values is included in the formation of the living
epistemological standards of judgement that are used to evaluate practice and
the validity of explanations of learning. Issues of rigour are addressed with
the help of Winter's (1989) six principles of dialectical critque, reflexive
critique, risk, plural structure, multiple resource and theory practice
transformation. Validity is strengthened through the use of validation groups
that include questions drawn from Habermas' (1976, pp2-3) four criteria of
social validity of comprehensibility, truth of propositional content, rightness
in relation to a recognised normative background and authenticity. For
Habermas, as in the living theory accounts, authenticity is established through
interaction over time.
For the above
reasons I think that I can establish that the evidence of learning in the
theses shows originality significance and rigour. But can I explain my
educational influence through this evidence?
Explaining my
educational influence through the evidence of learning that shows originality,
significance and rigour.
I explain my
educational influence in terms of what I do and in terms of the mediation of
the creativity of the other in including ideas from our conversations and my
writings within their living theories.
I have explained what I do in terms of expressions of
energy, value, faith/belief , enquiry and sharing
understandings. I am explaining my
educational influence in the learning of others both in terms of what I do and
the evidence of the learning of the other that shows originality, significance
and rigour. Having originated the idea
of living educational theory and contributed to the legitimation of living
theories in the Academy, I think
that I am well placed to judge the significance of contributions to this
knowledge-base. The growth of my
educational knowledge is influenced by and reflected in my supervision of
doctoral research programmes. So, in explaining my educational influences in
the learning of others, I can show the evidence of how the transformations and
extensions in my own understandings have contributed to the evolving
understandings in the research programmes I have supervised. This can be seen most markedly over the
past four years in the evolution of my understanding of inclusionality and the
way in which I have explicitly encouraged the inclusion and development of this
idea into the research programmes.
This can be seen in the Abstracts of the following theses:
Naidoo, M.
(2005) I am Because We Are. (My never-ending
story) The emergence of a living theory of inclusional and responsive practice. Ph.D. University of Bath. Retrieved 2 April 2006 from
http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/naidoo.shtml
Farren,
M. (2005) How can I create a pedagogy of the unique through a web of
betweenness? Ph.D. University of Bath. Retrieved 2 April 2006 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/farren.shtml
Lohr, E. (2006) Love at Work: What is my lived
experience of love and how might I become an instrument of love's purpose. Ph.D.
University of Bath. Retrieved 26 May 2006 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/living.shtml
In my
evidence-based claim to be explaining my educational influence in the learning
of others I want to be very clear that the originality of each researcher has
moved beyond any contribution of my ideas to their thesis. My explanation of
influence requires the originality in the voice of the researcher and the
acknowledgement that my ideas have helped in the formation of the thesis for me
to recognise my influence in their learning as educational.
Having explained
what I do in my educational relationships and provided an evidence-based claim
to have explained my educational influence in the learning of others I now want
to turn to explanations of educational influences in the learning of social
formations. This is because of the significant influence played by
sociohistorical factors and sociocultural artefacts in the evolution of our
social capital and in the conditions of possibility within which we live and
work. In explaining my educational influence in the learning of social
formations I shall again draw on Vasilyuk's understanding of creative
experiencing.
iii)
Explanations of educational influences in the learning of social formations.
In the evolution
of my explanations of educational influences in the learning of social
formations I draw insights from propositional theories, dialectical
understandings and educational practices of inclusionality.
In responding to
the call for proposals for consideration for presentation at the 2007 American
Educational Research Association Annual Conference in Chicago I identified with
the theme of 'The World of Educational Quality'. The Abstract of my proposal states:
Creating
a World of Educational Quality through Living Educational Theories
Abstract
The originality of this research lies in
the validation and legitimation of new living standards of judgement in the
generation and testing of living educational theories of self-study
researchers. The new standards of judgement are based on a relationally dynamic
awareness of space and boundaries that is connective, reflexive and
co-creative. The process of validation include digital multi-media explanations
of educational influences in learning by self-study researchers. The processes
of legitimation include the living standards of judgement in the cultural
artefacts of some 20 living theory doctorates flowing through web-space. The
significance of engaging with colonising power relations with a decolonising
response is addressed. (Whitehead, 2006)
In seeking to
contribute to the creation of a world of educational quality through living
educational theories I use particular ideas from social theorists including
Bourdieu (1990), Bernstein (2000), Sen (1999), Habermas (1987) and Said
(1993). Here are the ideas.
From Bourdieu I
take the idea of the importance of analysing social formations in a way that
recognises the reproductive power of the habitus in sustaining existing social
formations in a way that has nothing to do with rules and with conscious
compliance with rules. I bear in mind the paradox that social science makes
greatest use of the language of rules precisely in the cases where it is most
totally inadequate:
"The
objective adjustment between dispositions and structures ensures a conformity
to objective demands and urgencies which has nothing to do with rules and
conscious compliance with rules, and gives an appearance of finality which in
no way implies conscious positing of the ends objectively attained. Thus,
paradoxically, social science makes greatest use of the language of rules
precisely in the cases where it is most totally inadequate, that is, in
analysing social formations in which, because of the constancy of the objective
conditions over time, rules have a particularly small part to play in the
determination of practices, which is largely entrusted to the automatisms of
the habitus." (Bourdieu, p. 145, 1990)
In exploring the
educational influence of living educational theories in the learning of social
formations I am focusing on the evolution of a conscious understanding of the
living standards of practice and judgement that carry hope for the future of
humanity in the learning of social formations. Here is an example of what I
mean by an educational influence in the learning of a social formation.
In 1980 the
Regulations of the University of Bath did not permit candidates for research
degrees to question the judgements of examiners under any circumstances, once
the examiners had been appointed. By 1991 the Regulations had changed to allow
questions to be raised on the grounds of bias, prejudice and inadequate
assessment. I take it that it is self evident, to those who value academic
freedom and justice, that this change in the rules governing a social formation
is evidence of an educational influence in the learning of the social
formation.
In the ideas of
Habermas, in his monumental work on communicative action, I find support for my
focus on learning:
"..... I have
attempted to free historical materialism from its philosophical ballast. Two
abstractions are required for this: I) abstracting the development of the
cognitive structures from the historical dynamic of events, and ii) abstracting
the evolution of society from the historical concretion of forms of life. Both
help in getting beyond the confusion of basic categories to which the
philosophy of history owes its existence.
A theory
developed in this way can no longer start by examining concrete ideals immanent
in traditional forms of life. It must orient itself to the range of learning
processes that is opened up at a given time by a historically attained level of
learning. It must refrain from critically evaluating and normatively ordering
totalities, forms of life and cultures, and life-contexts and epochs as a
whole. And yet it can take up some of the intentions for which the
interdisciplinary research program of earlier critical theory remains
instructive.
Coming at the
end of a complicated study of the main features of a theory of communicative
action, this suggestion cannot count even as a "promissory note." It is less a
promise than a conjecture."
(Habermas, 1987, p. 383)
In my desire to
contribute to the creation of a world of educational quality I do focus on
learning. However, my primary interest is on educational influences in learning
because I believe that it is important to face the challenge of accepting
responsibility for ensuring the learning is educational. We can learn to do
many things that are not educational and that do not carry hope for the future
of humanity.
My interest, in
exploring the educational influence of living educational theories in the
learning of social formations, includes Vasilyuk's ideas on the connection
between energy, values and motive, in the explanations that constitute the
living theories.
My awareness
that wherever individuals are researching their own practices they are
influenced by economic, sociohistorical and sociocultural pressures, is
influenced by the ideas of Sen (1998) and Said (1993).
From Sen I learnt to distinguish between a 'human
capital' orientation and a 'human capability' orientation in my explanations of
social transformations and to see that his economic theory of human capability
included the narrower view of the human capital approach:
"....what, we may ask, is the connection between
"human capital" orientation and the emphasis on "human
capability" with which this study has been much concerned? Both seem to
place humanity at the center of attention, but do they have differences as well
as some congruence? At the risk of some oversimplification, it can be said that
the literature on human capital tends to concentrate on the
agency of human beings in augmenting production possibilities. The perspective
of human capability focuses, on the other hand, on the ability‑the substantive
freedom‑of people to lead the lives they have reason to
value and to enhance the real choices they have. The two perspectives cannot
but be related, since both are concerned with the role of human beings, and in
particular with the actual abilities that they achieve and acquire. But the
yardstick of assessment concentrates on different achievements.
Given her personal characteristics,
social background, economic circumstances and so on, a person has the ability
to do (or be) certain things that she has reason to value. The reason for
valuation can be direct (the functioning involved may directly enrich
her life, such as being well‑nourished
or being healthy), or indirect (the functioning involved may contribute
to further production, or command a price in the market). The human capital
perspective can‑in principle‑be
defined very broadly to cover both types of valuation, but it is typically defined‑by
convention‑primarily in terms of indirect value: human
qualities that can be employed as "capital" in production (in the
way physical capital is). In this sense, the narrower view of the human capital
approach fits into the more inclusive perspective of human capability, which can
cover both direct and indirect consequences
of human abilities." (Sen, 1998,
p.293)
From the ideas
of Bernstein, I could see the value of stating a commitment to two conditions
for an effective democracy and being willing to account for my own social practices
in relation to these two conditions:
First of all,
there are the conditions for an effective democracy. I am not going to derive
these from high-order principles, I am just going to announce them. They first
condition is that people must feel that they have a stake in society. Stake may
be a bad metaphor, because by stake I mean that not only are people concerned
to receive something but that they are also concerned to give something. This
notion of stake has two aspects to it, the receiving and the giving. People
must feel that they have a stake in both senses of the term.
Second,
people must have confidence that the political arrangements they create will
realise this stake, or give grounds if they do not. In a sense it does not
matter too much if this stake is not realised, or only partly realised,
providing there are good grounds for it not being realised or only partly
realised. (Bernstein, 2000, p. xx)
From Bernstein's
ideas I could also see the significance of using the concept of pedagogy in
relation to symbolic control and identity.
Pedagogy is a
sustained process whereby somebody(s) acquires new forms or develops existing
forms of conduct, knowledge, practice and criteria from somebody(s) or
something deemed to be an appropriate provider and evaluator - appropriate
either from the point of view of the acquirer or by some other body(s) or both (p.78).
I have seen the
idea of pedagogy being used more often in the educational literature over the
past ten years. When I use it I am using it in Bernstein's sense. Yet, I am not
prepared to relinquish the use of the term educational or to see it reduced to
pedagogy. This is because Bernstein was a social theorist contributing to
sociological explanations. I am retaining my use of educational, as it is
distinguished in the creation and testing of living educational theories. Such
theories, in the lives of individuals, cannot be validly reduced, in my view,
to any propositional explanation or linguistic concept.
From Said I
learnt the significance of including culture within explanations of educational
influence:
As I use the
word, 'culture' means two things in particular. First of all it means all those
practices, like the arts of description, communication, and representation,
that have relative autonomy from the economic, social, and political realms and
that often exist in aesthetic forms, one of whose principal aims is pleasure.
Included, of course, are both the popular stock of lore about distant parts of
the world and specialized knowledge available in such learned disciplines as
ethnography, historiography, philology, sociology, and literary history.....
Second, and
almost imperceptible, culture is a concept that includes a refining and
elevating element, each society's reservoir of the best that has been known and
thought. As Matthew Arnold put it in the 1860s.... In time, culture comes to be
associated, often aggressively, with the nation of the state; this
differentiates 'us' from 'them', almost always with some degree of xenophobia.
Culture in this sense is a source of identity, and a rather combative one at
that, as we see in recent 'returns' to culture and tradition. (Said, pp. xii-xiv, 1993)
I see the living
educational theories flowing through web-space as including a refining and
elevating element in the living standards of judgement that carry hope for the
future of humanity, I am taking them to be cultural artefacts that are freely
available to those with the technology to access them, to make use of in the
generation of their own living theories.
So in explaining
my educational influence in the learning of social formations I will be drawing
in ideas from the propositional theories of others. The above ideas are not
exhaustive but serve to show how ideas from such propositional theories are
included within my explanations of educational influence.
When I claim to be including dialectical understandings within these explanations of educational influence I have in mind the work of Ilyenkov (1977) in his work on dialectical logic. Ilyenkov posed the question if an object exists as a living contradiction what must the thought be that expresses it. The question had its genesis in the 2,500 debate between formal and dialectical logicians. Propositional theorists, because of their reliance on relationships between statements to communicate their meanings, cannot understanding how two mutually exclusive statements could be both true simultaneously. The problem faced by Ilyenkov was that as soon as he started to 'write logic' he was faced with the problem of contradiction. In the logics of inclusionality the problem of one logic excluding the other is avoided as both logics can co-exist within the practice and logic of inclusionality. I shall demonstrate this below in the explanation of educational influence in the learning of a social formation.
Moving into a dialectical understanding grounded in contradiction moves me once again into visual data. In the video-clip below I am re-enacting a meeting which took place in 1991 when I was invited to respond to a draft report from a Senate Working Party that had been established to enquire into a matter concerning my academic freedom. I had submitted a letter, from the University Secretary and Registrar to the Board of Studies for Education, that claimed that my activities and writings were a threat to the present and proper order of the university and not consistent with the duties the university wished me to pursue in teaching or research. The Board of Studies felt the letter constituted a prima facie evidence of a breach of academic freedom and referred the matter to Senate. Senate established a Working Party to look into the matter. The preliminary report of the Working Party concluded that my academic freedom had not been breached. Here is my re-enactment of my meeting with the Working Party.
http://www.jackwhitehead.com/ajwacfr.mov
At the end of my meeting with the working party I felt totally defeated. The working party appeared determined to keep to their conclusion that my academic freedom had not been breached, as indeed it hadn't. Yet, there was no acknowledgement of the pressure to which I had been subjected. Feeling totally defeated I got up and walked to the door. Just as I was about to leave I felt a surge of energy that I connect with my passion for academic freedom and justice. I don't think that this surge of energy was originated from my conscious 'I'. I think you will feel its power being expressed through my responses as I turned to make my final responses to the working party.
The final report to Senate concluded that my academic freedom had not been breached. However, The report now stated that this was because of my persistence in the face of pressure; a less determined individual might well have been discouraged and therefore constrained.
In acknowledging this pressure in their final report to Senate, I felt that my colleagues had exercised their responsibilities as scholars in recognizing and acknowledging the pressures to which individuals can be subjected to in the Academy and which can constrain their academic freedom. Using Lyotard's idea that the following behaviour can be understood as a form of terrorism has helped me to counter such power relations because I can understand them with Lyotard's terms when making a response � as I shall show below in the latest issue over 'recognition' of contributions to knowledge:
"Countless
scientists have seen their 'move' ignored or repressed, sometimes for decades,
because it too abruptly destabilized the accepted positions, not only in the
university and scientific hierarchy, but also in the problematic. The stronger
the 'move' the more likely it is to be denied the minimum consensus, precisely
because it changes the rules of the game upon which the consensus has been
based. But when the institution of knowledge functions in this manner, it is
acting like an ordinary power center whose behaviour is governed by a principle
of homeostasis.
Such
behaviour is terrorist.... By terror I mean the efficiency gained by eliminating,
or threatening to eliminate a player from the language game one shares with
him. He is silenced or consents, not because he has been refuted, but because
his ability to participate has been threatened (there are many ways to prevent
someone from playing). The decision makers' arrogance, which in principle has
no equivalent in the sciences, consistes of the exercise of terror. It says:
"Adapt your aspirations to our ends � or else". (Lyotard, 1986, p. 64)
Without placing
myself in the same league as the persecution suffered by Galileo, when he was
shown the instruments of torture as if they were to be used, in making him
recant what he knew to be true, I do find inspiration in recognising just how
the words of others, that have not been recognised or worse, have survived the
material conditions of their age. I identify with Mandelstam's and Vygotsky's
refusal to surrender the motive of their own thoughts and count myself
fortunate to have already experienced the affirmation of my ideas in the minds,
languages and living theories of others:
Despite the harshest efforts at authoritarian control, each of them refused to surrender the motive of his own thoughts. Grounded in history, both believed their words would survive the material conditions of their age. Like Egyptian funerary ships, their words were preserved against decades of official proscription and silence until the words could come alive again in the minds and language of others. Osip Mandelstam and Lev Vygotsky were both men of their times, and they surely stood on feet of brass, not clay. (Willis, p. 5).
This brings me
to my latest responses to a lack of institutional recognition of my
contributions to educational knowledge. The following extract is from a contribution
to a Symposium on How do we explain the significance of the validity
of our self-study enquiries for the future of educational research? At
the 2006 Annual Conference of the British Educational Research Association
(Whitehead, 2006b). The reference to the living theories in the data section of
the Appendix, refers to the living theories with their live urls, listed above:
"In 1976 there was an attempt by the University to
terminate my employment on the grounds of dissatisfaction with my teaching and
research and that I had disturbed the good order and morale of the whole School
of Education. The attempt did not succeed because the disciplinary power of the
University was met with a greater external power mobilised by students and
colleagues internal to the University and involving distinguished academics
whom I had not met, external to the University, and who were willing to comment
on the quality of my research. It also involved a Professor of Public Law from
the Campaign for Academic Freedom and Democracy freely taking up my case.
I still marvel at the willingness of others to come to my assistance and the
strength of their political integrity in engaging with the disciplinary power
of the University. I gained a tenured appointment in 1977 until August 2009
because of their efforts. In recognition of their altruistic responses and care
for the other in terms of truth and justice, I have not found it possible to
seek promotion that would remove the tenure. This isn't anything to do with job
security as some might think. It was connected with the pleasure I felt in the
moral commitment of others to express their values with political integrity in
their actions. In 2005, I felt a change in emphasis in my moral purpose. Having
spent a working life in researching educational theory, I felt that the
University's recognition of my contribution to educational knowledge would
serve to enhance the influence of the flow of living educational theories more
than sustaining my resistance to applying for promotion. I still feel this.
Hence I felt comfortable in putting my case for promotion to a Readership to
the Academic Staff Committee of the University. You can access this application
at http://www.jackwhitehead.com/jwreadership.pdf and
evaluate its legitimacy as a case for promotion from Lecturer to Reader at
Universities similar to the University of Bath.
Earlier this year the case was rejected without
interview on the grounds that I had yet to make the outstanding contribution to
knowledge required for a Readership by the University. In order to
develop my case I must publish further in internationally recognised and
reputable Journals. Now, this brings me to the two present strands in my
experience of living contradictions in my work and research. I feel the first
contradiction in holding my perception of myself as having made sufficient
contribution to knowledge for a Readership, together with the perception of the
Academic Staff Committee that I have not. The other strand of my
experience of living contradiction is in the pressure to publish in the very
journals that I have been critical of as being too limited in their forms of
representation to carry my meanings.
The crux of this contradiction is that I have been
seeking to research multi-media representations of embodied values in
explanations of educational influence. One of the only International Journals I
know in my field that is publishing multi-media accounts is Action Research
Expeditions and you can access my most ambitious publishing effort to date from
the live url above. Now, it was only in 2004 that the University of Bath
changed its regulations to allow the submission of e-media. I served on the
committee that made the recommendation for the change in regulation to Senate.
Five doctoral researchers have successfully submitted their living theory,
multi-media accounts to the University since the change in regulation in 2004.
You can access these from the Data section above. However, there is no
traditional text-based international and reputable refereed journal that I know
of that can publish the visual narrative of Marian Naidoo's emergent living
theory of inclusional and responsive practice. This is because of the
multi-media visual narrative on a DVD included in the Thesis. Yet, this thesis
is in the University Library accepted as a doctoral thesis that has
demonstrated her originality of mind and critical judgement and the extent and
merit of her work.
The point I am making is that the requirement to
publish further in international and reputable refereed journals flies in the
face of my multi-media publications in which I have been explaining that the
logic and language of these journals is too limited to carry the meanings I am
seeking to communicate in my contributions to educational knowledge. It is
going to take time for the new multi-media web-based journals to establish
their reputations as international and reputable referred journals that carry
equivalent status in the Academy with the text-based journals. I may of course
be mistaken in my belief that my contributions to educational knowledge do
warrant recognition by the University of Bath as sufficient for promotion to
Reader. However, what is fascinating me, as my enquiry continues, and given the
history of judgements on my work by the University over the thirty years of
1976-2006, is the relevance, in the face of the kind of intellectual terrorism
described by Lyotard, of MacIntyre's view that:
The rival claims to truth of contending traditions
of enquiry depend for their vindication upon the adequacy and explanatory power
of the histories which the resources of each of those traditions in conflict
enable their adherents to write. (MacIntyre, 1988, p. 403)
My purpose in coming to the University in 1973 was to
contribute to the reconstruction of educational theory so that educational
theory could produce valid explanations for the educational influences of
individuals in learning. I believe that the originality of mind and critical
judgements of those individuals who have produced their own living theories
have demonstrated their adequacy and explanatory power. Each individual has
acknowledged my educational influence in supporting the _expression_ of their
originality of mind and critical judgement. I can appreciate the outstanding
contribution to knowledge being expressed in the flow of these living theories
through web-space. I believe that the originality of mind and critical
judgement of my own research has contributed to this knowledge-base in a way
that is worthy of being recognised as appropriate for a Reader. My intention in
applying for a Readership after some 40 years professional engagement in
education, with 33 of these years at the University of Bath, was solely
motivated by the belief that such recognition would enhance the educational
influence of the flow of living educational theories. (The University
celebrates its 40th anniversary this year and this co-incides with
my 40 years of professional engagement in education!). Given the lack of
this recognition in relation to my desire to enhance the recognition of these
theories I would appreciate your suggestions on what might be the most
appropriate responses for me to make. I am thinking of responses that would
channel my life-affirming energy into its most creative and life-enhancing
forms.
You could for example look through my application and
explain that it is too limited to warrant promotion from a Lectureship to a
Readership. If you believe in the educational potential of living
educational theories for the future of educational research, you could suggest
how I might use the rest of my productive life in education in responding
creatively to this lack of recognition while avoiding disabling and destructive
responses and continuing to enhance the flow of living theories that carry hope
for our humanity in the future of educational research.
In asking for your responses I feel most receptive to
those that appreciate that the flow of my life-affirming energy and passion for
education is affirmed and enhanced by those who have already recognised and
acknowledged the value of my contributions to knowledge and to their own
learning. The lack of recognition of the quality of my contribution to
knowledge by the University is most damaging to the outside perceptions of how
my contributions to knowledge are judged by my University. I continue to exist
as a living contradiction. I hold the belief that the recognition by the
University of my contribution to educational knowledge would assist in
enhancing the flow of its influence, together with the experience and
understanding that the explicit lack of recognition could damage the flow of
its influence.
In the spirit of inclusionality I am seeking your
assistance in continuing to work in ways that serve to channel the flows of
energy motivated by anger, pain and distress and that could serve destructive
and disabling interests, into the flow of life affirming and creative energies
that bring more fully into the world those values, skills and understandings
that carry hope for the future of humanity, and our own. For example I am
thinking of the values explicated in the living theories in the Data section in
the Appendix and lived by the action researchers themselves. I am thinking of
the values explicated by the action researcher Bridget Somekh (2006), in her
book on Action Research: methodology for change and development. Somekh's
core values include respect for all participants, sensitivity to culture, support
for risk taking, honesty and openness, intellectual engagement in trying to
understand human and social processes, moral vigilance and resistance to the
temptation to exercise power thoughtlessly in order to get things done quickly.
Her text provides ample evidence of the life of learning of an action
researcher who is living these values as fully as she can with integrity and
authenticity. All the action researchers I have worked with have encountered
both constraining and liberating power relations. I continue to find ways of
channelling the energy that I could dissipate into fruitless acts of hate or
vengeance when I experience the intellectual terrorism described by Lyotard.
What I am seeking to do is to respond in a way that supports the power of truth
rather than the truth of power with an awareness of the need for openness to
reasonable argument that my judgments are mistaken. I am working on responses
that contribute to the flow of life-affirming energy in the creative responses
I have seen expressed in the lives of those I have had the privilege to work
with in the generation of their own living theories of their human existences.
I do hope that you will respond to my invitation to work on this with me."
(Whitehead, 2006b)
Exploring the implications of an educational practice of inclusionality in explanations of educational influence.
In concluding these present writings I shall now open
up some possibilities for the development of my inclusional explanations of
educational influence in the learning of social formations as I respond to the
above context and the lack of recognition. In seeking to live an educational
practice of inclusionality I am drawing on the ideas of the originator of the
idea of inclusionality (Rayner, 2006a) in what Rayner (2006b) calls 'wisdom
enquiry'.
"I think wisdom enquiry has the following fundamental
characteristics, from which many others can be derived.
1. It seeks understanding of nature and
human nature and does not attempt to set these apart.
2. It is unprejudiced and hence in a
sense un-objective, based on considering all available evidence from all
available perspectives.
3. It recognizes the restrictive nature of
any fixed, uniquely situated perspective in which an observer is distanced from
the observed.
4. It does not isolate reason from emotion or
give precedence to one over the other.
5. It corresponds with and is therefore not set in
opposition to natural dynamic processes and geometry, thereby
obviating conflict and paradox.
6. It does not, except as an analytical tool,
impose an artificial rectilinear frame upon nature or regard linearity as
precursive to non-linearity.
7. It does not, except as an analytical tool,
deliberately exclude or ignore some vital aspect of nature for the sake of
convenience.
8. It recognises that all form is a dynamic
inclusion of space - not an occupier of space - and so is not definable in
absolute terms.
9. It recognizes that all is included in and
influenced by all - content is inseparable from context at any scale.
10. It includes love. (Rayner � e-mail correspondence
21/09/06)
Before I can
explain my influence I need to influence! Here is the beginning of an
explanation for my educational influence in the learning of social formations
that do not recognise the quality of the contribution to educational knowledge
that is constituted by the living theories flowing already through
web-space. The explanation is
grounded in the assumption that this educational knowledge from the embodied
knowledge of practitioners has been made public, accredited by the Academy and
is flowing through web-space. It is grounded in the fact and concern that my
own contribution to educational knowledge has not been recognised by the
individuals who constitute the Academic Staff Committee of the University of
Bath in 2006 and that in order to gain this recognition I must focus my
writings on their dissemination in the international and renowned refereed
Journals whose language and logic I have been criticising for years as too
limited to carry the meanings of my contributions to educational
knowledge. In responding to the
lack of recognition in this particular context, in my action plan, I have
requested copies of the referees comments and I am in the process of producing
a case that questions the appropriateness of the judgements of the Academic
Staff committee
In explaining my
educational influence, assuming I have one, I intend to draw on Bernstein's
idea of recontextualising knowledge and on Vasilyuk's idea of creative
experiencing:
Life's unrealisable
past content is not simply ideally 'removed' by creative experiencing.
Depending on the value judgments made by a person with respect to a violated
life relation, creative experiencing strives either towards (a) rebirth of the
particular life relation, even though using different material or in a changed
form (if it is fully approved); or (b) its regeneration into something else (
if it is partially condemned and partially approved); or (c) conception of a
new life relation in its place (if it is completely condemned). But in any case
creative experiencing preserves the impossible life relation in the history of
the individual's life, whereby it is not preserved unchanged as an inert museum exhibit, but as a
new, healthy and fruit-bearing tree borne from the seed of an old one."
My responses to
the judgements of the Academic Staff Committee are dependent on the value
judgments I make with respect to a violated life relation. This is the violated
life relation of the lack of recognition of my contribution to educational
knowledge by the individuals who constitute the Academic Staff Committee. The
validity of my experience of violations is of course predicated upon the
legitimacy of my claim about the quality of my contribution to educational knowledge. In explaining my response in terms of
my creative experiencing I am striving towards the rebirth of the violated life
relation in the recognition of those that deny the quality of my contribution
to educational, that this contribution is now recognised. The creative
experiencing is preserving the impossible life relation in the history of my
life at the point of rejection, and rechannelling the emotional energy that I
could mobilise into destructive responses into the flow of life-affirming
energy as I seek to enhance the educational influence of living educational
theories in the learning of social formations. Evidence of my rechannelling
this emotional enquiry is in a video tape of a conversation with two South
African researchers in Pilanesburg that started minutes after opening an e-mail
informing me of the rejection of my application for a Readership on the 5th
March 2006. I can be seen responding to a colleague's research paper with the
advice she is seeking, with similar qualities of life affirming energy, value, faith/belief , enquiry and sharing understandings as in the earlier clip presented above.
As well an
explaining my educational influence in the learning of social formations in
terms of Vasilyuk's idea of creative experiencing I shall also use Bernstein's
(2000, p. 28) idea of recontextualising knowledge. I think that the embodied
knowledge of the practitioner-researchers listed above has been
recontextualised into the living theory theses in the Libraries of the
University of Bath and Kingston University and in the flow of communications of
web-space. In order for my own contributions to educational knowledge to be
recognised as appropriate for those of a Reader in the University of Bath, a
further recontextualising is required into the consciousness of those making
judgments about the quality of the contribution. I am under no illusion that
this is likely to happen. However, what I hope to achieve in this journey of
communication and enquiry is a growing global awareness of the importance for
the future of humanity of individuals being willing to explore the implications
for their own lives and learning of living values of humanity more fully in
their practice. I am thinking of
the global awareness of enhancing the flow of these values as individuals share
their living educational theories and learn to enhance their educational
influences with each other.
Returning to the world of Willis about the words coming alive again in
the minds and language of others, fills me with optimism:
Like Egyptian funerary ships, their
words were preserved against decades of official proscription and silence until
the words could come alive again in the minds and language of others.
What continues
to delight and energise me in my work at the University of Bath is being able
to work with individuals who are as committed as I am to contributing to a
world of educational quality. It
is in my relationships with these individuals that I experience the hope in knowing
that what we are doing is worth while and an important part of my productive
life. In our continuing collaboration as colleagues, following the successful
completion of their research programmes, I feel the pleasurable mutual
affirmations of recognition of value for who we are and what we are doing. I am
thinking of recognition in Fukuyama's sense:
Human
beings seek recognition of their own worth, or of the people, things, or
principles that they invest with worth. The desire for recognition, and the
accompanying emotions of anger, shame and pride, are parts of the human
personality critical to political life. According to Hegel, they are what
drives the whole historical process.
(Fukuyama, 1992, p. xvii)
"The existence of a moral dimension in
the human personality that constantly evaluates both the self and others does
not, however, mean that there will be any agreement on the substantive content
of morality. In a world of thymotic moral selves, they will be constantly
disagreeing and arguing and growing angry with one another over a host of questions,
large and small. Hence thymos is, even in its most humble manifestations, the
starting point for human conflict."
(ibid pp. 181-182).
One of the tasks I have set myself in the
University is to respond to the lack of recognition in a way that channels the
anger into a life-affirming energy of creative experiencing that will enhance
the educational influences of living educational theories. I am thinking of the
educational influences in the learning of individuals, in their educational
influence in the learning of others and in the learning of social formations.
In this way I continue to seek to contribute to the creation of a world of
educational quality. I am hopeful that we will meet and share ideas and good
conversations along the way.
References
Bataille, G. (1987) Eroticism. London, New York; Marion Boyars
Bernstein, B.
(2000) Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity: Theory, Research, Critique
Lanham, Boulder,
New York, Oxford; Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Bourdieu, P.
(1990) The Logic of Practice. Stanford CA; Stanford University Press.
Fukuyama, F. (1992) The End of History
and the Last Man, London; Penguin.
Habermas, J.
(1976) Communication and the evolution of society. London; Heinemann
Habermas, J.
(1987) The Theory of Communicative Action Volume Two: The Critique of
Functionalist Reason. Oxford; Polity.
Lyotard, F.
(1986) The Postmodern Condition: A report on Knowledge. Manchester; Manchester
University Press.
Marcuse, H.
(1964) One Dimensional Man, London; Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Rayner, A.
(2006a) Essays and Talks About Inclusionality by Alan Rayner. Retrieved 22
September 2006 from
Rayner, A.
(2006) Wisdom Enquiry. E-mail correspondence 21/09/06.
Said, E. (1993)
Culture and Imperialism, London; Vintage.
Sen, A. (1999) Development as Freedom, Oxford; Oxford
University Press.
Tillich, P. (1962) The Courage to be. London; Fontana.
Vasilyuk,
F. (1991) The Psychology of
Experiencing: the Resolution of Life's Critical Situations. Hemel Hempstead; Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Willis, M. A word is the search for it. Vygotsky,
Mandlestam and the renewal of motive. An essay by Mark Willis (1998-2001).
Retrieved 21/09/06 from http://www.wright.edu/~mark.willis/essays/slovo.html