1) someone recently apologized for having presumed that I came out of an
educational program, rather than a discipline program;
2) someone discussed interaction in classrooms and apologized several
times saying something along the lines of, 'well, I'm not a linguist so
some of you might want to jump in';
3) I get more technical & toss about a few choice discipline-related
words, and someone gets more interested in an educational topic like
writing instruction;
4) I keep reading articles in various ed venues that present and emphasise
the value of discipline inspired approaches and methods in educational
research.
The way that I interpret these episodes, education gets no respect except
as a space for colonization. This is a dynamic I struggle with. It's one
thing not to buy into the values made manifest through these episodes, and
through much more explicit collegial discussions where people make no bones
about the generally poor quality of work coming out of schools of education
(at least, here in the USA--generally speaking, the closer a discipline is
to a client, the less respect it gets, and the closer a person is to a
client, the less respect s/he gets, so nobody listens to teachers, but few
people seem to have much trouble hearing other "experts" sound off about
what's wrong with education). Dealing with the consequences of it is quite
another. I often think that if I say too much too bluntly, I'll join the
ranks of the dismissed rather sooner than I had anticipated. Recently,
however, I've started to think that my silence is collusion. Action
research is very clear about challenging the kind of infantilization built
into schools of ed receiving their directions from 'real' disciplines.
Now, I do not want to end up in a situation where everyone retreats into
silence. A critical stance is valuable and important.
Genevieve