Day 1.
I have studied religion in various forms most of my life - indeed it was my first specialism. Brought up in evangelical certainties, my father taught me to question and not be afraid of standing out against the crowd. The religious community, the Brethren, were repressive in the sense that I was hauled over the coals from time to time for asking the wrong questions - for example about women's role in worship, about literal inspiration. Looking back, I was nicely hounded, but learnt to cope with it. Believing or thinking something just because everyone else does is a form of intellectual idleness. I lost detailed dogmatic beliefs as soon as I started studying. My Professor at University, FF Bruce, was also from the Brethren, but I was relieved to find that his mind was very open. Other University teachers had a range of beliefs - Sam Brandon, about Jesus being an active Zealot, John Allegro about sacred mushrooms, James Barr about the wickedness of fundamentalism. I study religion as an outsider, interested in the power of metaphor, why people express themselves in such self-deceiving ways when taking metaphor literally, but also not blind to personality gains that this provides for them. Having a conscience, for whatever reason, is socially very helpful.
Having a conscience brings me to my interest in justice, good works, and being a helpful citizen. Being helpful to others is a bit of an obsession without which my life would be simpler. Intellectually, I ask questions about social justice, implicit corruption to achieve benefit, and the unfairness of life generally. Those that achieve wealth, fame and fortune seems to do so for the wrong reasons in a society in which something deep down is rotten, where self, greed, ambition and power are drivers esteemed by gatekeepers. My politics are therefore left of centre, although I do not feel or give loyalty to political parties.
As to what sort of person I am, I leave to others ultimately. I love my own company, but also treasure the company of people I care about. I try to empower rather than disempower, give credit where credit is due, and take blame if blame is due. This is what I think I do - others may see me differently. I write with others for practical purposes, and learn much from others - but I prefer to write by myself. I also enjoy physical exercise - I could have had a career in athletics and sport generally, and now, once gardening find it hard to stop. I find pointless exercise irritating - and would much rather fit exercise into my everyday life and tasks. Although I like music, it is not important to me and a silent desert island holds no fears. Wall to wall potted music in shops drives me to distraction. I probably don't move to music either - since it has never been tested, I don't know.
Equally I don't need conversation, though enjoy it when the time is right. I communicate in writing, which means utterances are considered rather than spontaneous. Friends will probably say that this is not true, and they may be right, I may understand myself wrongly. I am probably intolerably self confident, but this hides a certain self-consciousness. Probably no one gets crosser at me than myself, and I have no illusions about my faults and failings.
If I were to write my own obituary, what would I say? Someone who has dabbled in a lot but not become known for any one field of endeavour? But I don't see breadth as a disadvantage or a failing. Someone who constantly swims against the tide? Again, not in my book a failing. I hope I am remembered as someone who has touched many people's lives in positive ways and who has not hurt too many - I wonder.
Day 2.
"First-person research/practice skills and methods address the ability of the researcher to foster an inquiring approach to his or her own life, to act awarely and choicefully, and to assess effects on the outside world while acting."Reason PB and Torbert, W 'The action turn: a further look at the scientific merits of action research, Concepts and Transformations, 6(1):1-37, 2001:23
I am not really comfortable talking about myself. Do I think the thoughts I do as a reaction against upbringing, or do I have the freedom to think freely because I have escaped from the restrictions instilled through childhood? Is it common or rare for a person to break loose from nurture? It is sometimes said that loss of belief creates a hole that needs to be filled. In my case belief was never deep rooted, and through schooling was not something I could explain to others. Finding that it had no substance when examined was perhaps inevitable, though I note that others do not find it so, or at least take longer to find dogma wanting. So there never was a void to be filled; secular ethical standards and aspirations remained as a demythologised core reality. This is acting choicefully. The Buddhist notion of right view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, contemplation (the Noble Eightfold Path) is a powerful menu for personal development and integrity. Whatever we think and do, there are right choices and wrong choices. Wrong choices lead to bad faith, which has consequences (karma) and when accumulated globally adds up to dukkha, unsatisfactoriness. Buddha's vision was that unsatisfactoriness is the result of wrong thinking, so instead of complaining about life and the world, we simply get on with putting our heads right. I am not a Buddhist, but this speaks to me.
Much of my work is in educational research. I have said in the past (and not so past) that many schools are not fit for purpose. Their purpose should be education, which means learning, participation, motivation, and intellectual excitement. My own schooling did not offer me that; nor did the first two secondary schools of my teaching career in the 1970s. They were about control. In teacher training, my experience of primary schools was better, with better relationships and more freedom - sometimes. But often unchallenging. The excitement of learning from experience was well articulated by John Dewey and served primary education well until the National Curriculum replaced education with assessment, but that is another story. There is much to improve, especially in the relationship between teachers and pupils, who really should be partners learning together.
I am not a great fan of fiction, though I have read professionally a great deal of fiction for children, and write some occasionally. There seems to be a modern fetish for magic, ghosts, wizards, and horrific monsters in children's literature and anything other seems hopelessly old fashioned. Why this obsession for the supernatural, and what will this do to children's thinking? Children are confused about the nature of reality, and I am always surprised at how long belief in Father Christmas persists as one who rumbled the great man when I was 3. Should we be teaching them about battles in parallel worlds, or worlds through wardrobes, of a magic hidden world alongside our own? Or can the word 'pretend' help their development? Anything non-rational is pretend - magic, father Christmas, God, monsters, heaven, hell, paradise. That would reduce nightmares anyway. Perhaps I will write a children's book called Let's Pretend and throttle all these monsters (the myths, not the children).
Day 3.
I am a human. Am I not therefore self-centred, self-serving, and self-aggrandising? Is not self-esteem my ambition? and self-reward? Do we have any ways of handling self so that community takes over from greed, and altruism from power? Or are humans bound to be what humans are - an ultra-aggressive animal capable of killing without compassion or conscience? Aggressors create victims, so this too is a natural human state, visible in anxiety and depression. Rogers first defined 'person-centred counselling', though he didn't invent it. This has to allow for the dark as well as the light. The dark pulls more powerfully than the light. Anger, despair, hostility, prejudice can simply take over. But we are thinking beings and can challenge the dark, and find a way back to the light. With help.
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