The Sage Handbook of Action Research: Participative inquiry and practice. Peter Reason, & Hilary Bradbury, (Eds.). Second Edition, 2008. London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi, and Singapore: Sage.
This is a completely rewritten text from the first edition. 49 new chapters in all across 720 pages, a very full statement of where action research is at the moment. I note Kay Yang's helpful summary of key chapters, and other related reading about action research at http://researchthatmatters.blogspot.com/2010/11/sage-handbook-of-action-research.html. I focus on some thoughts for student researchers. Action research is, it declares, an orientation rather than a 'method'. The orientation is to creatively strive for improvement through rigorous use of any appropriate method. 1st person projects involve personal reflection-action-reflection cycles, 2nd person involves others, whilst 3rd person projects 'do it' to others. Ideally, aspects of all three are present: the word 'participatory' occurs frequently, that is, action research best describes a group working together. Terms like 'critical' and 'emancipatory' are often used: these show AR to be critical of power structures and status quo which keeps traditional unemancipated practice 'frozen' and unchangeable. Arrangements which benefit those in power are most difficult to change. I use this term 'frozen' to bring discussion back to Kurt Lewin, the originator of action research. Having escaped from Nazi hegemony, he was greatly interested in how people are designated 'other' and how research can assist them. He was especially interested in how organisations can improve themselves. He distinguished between task and process, focusing on the whole system to make fundamental changes. This required general participation, seeking to win hearts and minds. Lewin became interested in group dynamics, that is, how the individual is affected by the group. Self-reflection, examining our assumptions and presuppositions, is an essential ingredient. Reflective selves within a team.
AR in educational assignments is often caricatured as 'plan an intervention, carry it out, and evaluate it'. First, where is the vision of the whole organisation (be it the school or the whole education service)? What are the views of all involved, including the pupils? Where is the participation? Second, how will this intervention 'improve' things? What is mean by improve? Where is the critical slant and emancipation? Will it free the system from unfairness? How will it critique power and democratise the activity? Thirdly, does it encourage a broader vision about the community and global relationships? Fourthly, does it ask interesting questions of the change process that draws from interdisciplinary literature? One example is how 'the theatre of the oppressed' in Bangladesh drew on the work of Paulo Freire and Augusto Boal in engaging street cleaners with emancipating role playing.
It is clear from this collection of projects that AR is ethics in practice (chap. 13 explores this). It is described as activist research - research implying that wrongs are righted. It has elements of the spiritual - Peter Reason and others point to Buddhist parallels, and it is generally involved with generating better, more fulfilling knowledge. It is about transformation, vision and the transpersonal. Several writers comment that action research is the way you live your whole life, not just a methodological choice for a short-term project. In a sense then, understanding AR helps to understand research itself holistically: are multiple perspectives fairly drawn on? Does the research create a better world? Is it just? Is it liberating? Does it challenge readers to see the world differently?
Saturday, 11 December 2010
Wednesday, 8 December 2010
Elloitt W. Eisner - Reimagining Schools
I am re-reading a number of Eisner articles from the past 20 years in this 'selected works of' volume. Eisner is an art educationalist from Stanford University, USA. A 'reimagined school' is one where imagination and creativity is encouraged, so it is a place of excitement and wonder - and not dominated by tedious drill and exercises. I remember well his description of expertise in education as connoisseurship rather than mastery. Since education is about people and both complex and subtle, he felt it better described through the metaphor of the connoisseur of fine wine than mastery of a skill. The skillful teacher/educator has to look for small signs of success and quality and get know the good from the very good, as a matter of instinct. Connoisseurship is this an art rather than a science, a key to most of his writings. Evaluation of education, in his view, is not a matter of raw scores, results, performance indicators and such sort, but a matter of relationships between students and teachers. A successful school enthuses, motivates, excites, and causes learners to thirst for more. Moreover, he argued, learning is very broad. We praise ability in literacy and maths, privilege it, but are less likely to praise ability in art or music. A page of successful maths scores more than writing a symphony, or drawing a brilliant picture. This is wrong: we should recognize "multiple literacies". (This was before Gardner made 'multiple intelligences' popular). The arts are a way into human experience and consciousness. Art (including literature and music) images feeling, which otherwise are sidelined and education becomes only a matter of remembering stuff, not experiencing and feeling.
Throughout the period of these articles the English curriculum has become increasing stuck in the rut of assessment, testing and accountability, marginalising those aspects of the curriculum which emphasise experience, appreciation, joy and celebration. There is no longer much to celebrate. A chapter on 'the celebration of thinking' hints that education could more resemble celebration than the sort of drill that improves SATs results, but discourages children from finding education interesting.
Throughout the period of these articles the English curriculum has become increasing stuck in the rut of assessment, testing and accountability, marginalising those aspects of the curriculum which emphasise experience, appreciation, joy and celebration. There is no longer much to celebrate. A chapter on 'the celebration of thinking' hints that education could more resemble celebration than the sort of drill that improves SATs results, but discourages children from finding education interesting.
Sunday, 28 November 2010
Pierre Bourdieu
Pierre Bourdieu was a French sociologist often cited in educational research literature. His major interest was in class and its implications. His Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture (Theory, Culture and Society Series), Sage, 1977, with Jean-Claude Passeron (in French: La Reproduction. Éléments pour une théorie du système d'enseignement, Minuit, 1970) explores how class attitudes reproduce themselves, helpfully and unhelpfully, though he was also interested in social mobility (breaking away from one's birth class). He speaks of habitus, the habitual, unchallenged social assumptions; conatus, striving towards; field (social setting); capital (social, cultural - the metaphorical class wealth). Reproduction is repressive, restricting personal choices and aspirations. He calls this social violence. He argues that class has a stranglehold over social power. A work of the 1960s, which included the 1968 student protests in Paris, we wonder how times have changed over the last four decades. Class, wealth and power do not go hand in hand now, since celebrity and high bonus jobs like banking have emerged as a major source of wealth,
The poor however still exist, the unemployed, the unqualified, the weak and sick, carers. Some strive to move out of this, others do not have the confidence or determination to do so. Engaging this difficult group in education has long been a government aspiration, but few projects have been made much difference except at the margins. Class may or may not still be with us; poverty and low aspirations most certainly are.
What causes low aspirations? Feeling powerless comes from being told you are powerless. Confidence needs to be encouraged and nurtured. This is the meaning of reproduction. Low aspirations fuel low aspirations in one's children, high aspirations likewise fuel ambition. They 'reproduce'. A high aspirational family builds up 'capital' - the evidence of social and cultural achievement. Qualifications, property, possessions. They provide the 'right' educational opportunities for their children to succeed. Poorly educated parents are content with low achieving schools.
There are exceptions. Ethnic minority families in general value education, so that their children do better than their parents. They have high status careers in mind, in law and medicine. They might not of course find their ideal in education easy to achieve.
Bourdieu headed a group of researchers interviewing the have-nots. The Weight of the World is subtitled Social Suffering in Contemporary Society. His researchers interviewed many people who qualified in some way for the label 'social suffering'. He wanted the case studies to illustrate his theory, although this book is not theory dense. The transcriptions have many examples of people finding it hard to escape from the situation they find themselves in. He described the interview as a spiritual experience, an opening up of personal agendas in ways which help to construct meaning. The interview should be a relationship, a non-violent relationship. He refers to good sympathetic interview technique (based on relationship) which attempts to get into their shoes. He contrasts this with tired questions which stem from the sociologist's project rather than from real life. He uses the phrase "induced and accompanied self-analysis" (p.615). In this style of interviewing, the interviewee is not the 'object' of the research. He adds: "True submission to the data requires an act of construction based on practical mastery of the social logic by which these data are constructed" (p.617), which involves "the uncovering of immanent structures" which reveal ideosyncrasy and complexity. Conversation analysis should look for "the invisible structures that organise it", whether these be social, or academic, or other. Research constructs something new, by asking the right questions based on a deep understanding of social processes. He calls this "realist construction" (p.618). He regards transcription of interviews (p.622) as a rewriting, an interpretation based on only a selection of audio and visual events and set out to be readable by others. Sociologists look for patterns, structures and processes which make society predictable. Reproduction/replication of class or status is one, power is another. Understanding these allows us, and those who suffer from the consequences, to be more politically aware and in a better situation to find different routes forward.
The poor however still exist, the unemployed, the unqualified, the weak and sick, carers. Some strive to move out of this, others do not have the confidence or determination to do so. Engaging this difficult group in education has long been a government aspiration, but few projects have been made much difference except at the margins. Class may or may not still be with us; poverty and low aspirations most certainly are.
What causes low aspirations? Feeling powerless comes from being told you are powerless. Confidence needs to be encouraged and nurtured. This is the meaning of reproduction. Low aspirations fuel low aspirations in one's children, high aspirations likewise fuel ambition. They 'reproduce'. A high aspirational family builds up 'capital' - the evidence of social and cultural achievement. Qualifications, property, possessions. They provide the 'right' educational opportunities for their children to succeed. Poorly educated parents are content with low achieving schools.
There are exceptions. Ethnic minority families in general value education, so that their children do better than their parents. They have high status careers in mind, in law and medicine. They might not of course find their ideal in education easy to achieve.
Bourdieu headed a group of researchers interviewing the have-nots. The Weight of the World is subtitled Social Suffering in Contemporary Society. His researchers interviewed many people who qualified in some way for the label 'social suffering'. He wanted the case studies to illustrate his theory, although this book is not theory dense. The transcriptions have many examples of people finding it hard to escape from the situation they find themselves in. He described the interview as a spiritual experience, an opening up of personal agendas in ways which help to construct meaning. The interview should be a relationship, a non-violent relationship. He refers to good sympathetic interview technique (based on relationship) which attempts to get into their shoes. He contrasts this with tired questions which stem from the sociologist's project rather than from real life. He uses the phrase "induced and accompanied self-analysis" (p.615). In this style of interviewing, the interviewee is not the 'object' of the research. He adds: "True submission to the data requires an act of construction based on practical mastery of the social logic by which these data are constructed" (p.617), which involves "the uncovering of immanent structures" which reveal ideosyncrasy and complexity. Conversation analysis should look for "the invisible structures that organise it", whether these be social, or academic, or other. Research constructs something new, by asking the right questions based on a deep understanding of social processes. He calls this "realist construction" (p.618). He regards transcription of interviews (p.622) as a rewriting, an interpretation based on only a selection of audio and visual events and set out to be readable by others. Sociologists look for patterns, structures and processes which make society predictable. Reproduction/replication of class or status is one, power is another. Understanding these allows us, and those who suffer from the consequences, to be more politically aware and in a better situation to find different routes forward.
Wednesday, 17 November 2010
Paul Ricoeur
Paul Ricoeur was a French philosopher who sought to find positive integrations to opposites. This process of synthesis had been well-known since Hegel but binary opposites had become a base doctrine of structuralism within postmodernism, and Ricoeur found this too simplistic and wanted ways of resolving opposites. He also wanted a way out of scepticism, since if we believe nothing, life loses its point. A key word is dialectics, the discussion and debate between opposites or different points of view. He was interested in self understanding, memory and forgetting, use of language (his original job was as translator), and religion.
This is to follow up my review of Alison Scott-Baumann's Paul Ricoeur and the Hermeneutic of Suspicion with a link to an interview with her by Theory, Culture and Society at http://theoryculturesociety.blogspot.com/2010/10/interview-with-alison-scott-baumann-on.html. The site http://theoryculturesociety.blogspot.com is itself well worth visiting.
My review will soon be on http://eprints.worc.ac.uk/1071. An edited version is on http://learnlivethrive.blogspot.com/2010/03/paul-ricoeur-and-hermeneutics-of.html
This is to follow up my review of Alison Scott-Baumann's Paul Ricoeur and the Hermeneutic of Suspicion with a link to an interview with her by Theory, Culture and Society at http://theoryculturesociety.blogspot.com/2010/10/interview-with-alison-scott-baumann-on.html. The site http://theoryculturesociety.blogspot.com is itself well worth visiting.
My review will soon be on http://eprints.worc.ac.uk/1071. An edited version is on http://learnlivethrive.blogspot.com/2010/03/paul-ricoeur-and-hermeneutics-of.html
Saturday, 23 October 2010
What About God?
A comment (for which, thanks) on my last blog On Becoming a Person queries my views on religion and God.
I wondered there whether my teenage developing views were rational or a reaction against the fundamentalist regime of my upbringing. That certainly made me a critic of detail, since religious belief (across the religions) requires belief in miracles, magic, and the irrational generally. In the Old Testament, the sun stood still to give Joshua military victory, Lot's wife becomes a pillar of salt, the waters of the Red Sea pile up. The New Testament presents us with a virgin birth, a physical ascention to heaven, and numerous medical miracles. None of these is a problem if we can read them as folklore.
Today we have a vociferous evangelical atheist movement pursuing the demolition of myth and folklore, and denying the relevance of a concept of God. Religions need to respond by redefining themselves after such demythologising, so that belief in God does not ride on the irrational. Rudolph Bultmann applied demythologisation to the life of Jesus. Paul Tillich appealed to depth psychology to find God in (or as) the depth of personal being. This is not unlike philosophical Hinduism.The collection of articles by active Christians, called The Myth of God Incarnate was an unexpected but understandable best seller. That the New Testament, and especially the Gospels, are problematic historical documents is saying no more than that we should approach them as critically as we do Josephus, Tacitus or Suetonius. That the books were written to have an authoritative use should put us on our guard more, for that makes them socio-political propaganda, documents for contemporary people to accept without question and act on, and if required give up their lives for. All people in power try to write (and rewrite) history and it was no different in the early church. The Old Testament consists of foundation books for the origins of Judaism, written to promote the interests of a particular power group. Some off-text sections have survived which makes the archaeology of the text particularly interesting.
Religions mostly base themselves on stories of one or more deities. Theravada Buddhism alone presents their founder as human and not divine, which did not translate to Tibet, China and Japan, where deities abound in Mahayana Buddhism. People then as now varied from concrete/pictorial to philosophical. The common folk needed pictures, whether in words or icons; the more thoughtful could see beyond them to deeper principles. It is what God means in these deeper principles that concern us here.
God is pictured (described through a picture) even in the Hebrew Bible where creating images of God was forbidden. 'He' walked in the garden, was a shepherd and king, and so on. I describe this process in some detail in the chapter on symbolism in my Creating the Old Testament (1989). A picture can be demythologised. God is not really a shepherd but an aspect of care and protection is shepherd-like (the argument would go). Of course the same God who protects also destroys when in a different mood. The prophet Jeremiah focused on political disaster as a divine punishment for sin. Hindu deities are iconic (presented in the form of icons or images). Saraswati goddess of wisdom is a lady, dressed in white, crowned, with a Sitar, rosary and book. I asked children what wisdom is, and one said, "a wise person is someone who knows a lot about a lot of thiongs, but is humble and not proud and uses what they know to help others". So this is what Saraswati means. This deep inner wisdom is part of what we mean by God. This is one of many images of God that Hindus use and all can be deconstructed similarly. Ganesh, with elephant head, is the remover of obstacles: what better than an elephant to knock a wall down; but Ganesh has an untied bond (meaning to remove inhibition), a cake (meaning to maintain strength), a goad (meaning to make maximum effort) and a broken tusk (meaning to take risks). Obstacles are only overcome thus, with inner strength and conviction. Inside each of us is a reservoir of inner strength, which we need to learn to draw on. God therefore refers to these inner strengths. But again, what is created comes from the destruction of what went before. Siva is creator, but also destroyer, reminding people of the procdess of change and entropy.
Religion can make us either dependent or independent. Fatalism is to say that God has it all planned and we can do nothing. If we do nothing, disaster will happen and we will say it is God's will. Blaming God for disaster is as old as religion. Praying for help might unlock inner strengths that will succeed.
Prayer is another interesting topic. In a sense, we pray within ourselves to no external person; but the inner dialogue may be helpful. By externalising the vision (that is, thinking of an objective God) we might focus ourselves to succeed instead of fail. We all need an inner reflexive dialogue to clarify our thoughts and motivations. Contemplation is a monologue, but prayer is a dialogue. Artificial maybe, but effective. Prayer is an internal discipline which is more helpful than unhelpful.
If I think about ethics, I can visualise the apogy of ethics: perfect, positive communitarian behaviour. This is part of the conceptual cluster I call God. Similarly with justice, there is a core concept of perfect justice. And virtue, and goodness, and altruism, and fidelity, and empowerment. All these give God substance, and I cherish them, the highest of all positive values.
I wondered there whether my teenage developing views were rational or a reaction against the fundamentalist regime of my upbringing. That certainly made me a critic of detail, since religious belief (across the religions) requires belief in miracles, magic, and the irrational generally. In the Old Testament, the sun stood still to give Joshua military victory, Lot's wife becomes a pillar of salt, the waters of the Red Sea pile up. The New Testament presents us with a virgin birth, a physical ascention to heaven, and numerous medical miracles. None of these is a problem if we can read them as folklore.
Today we have a vociferous evangelical atheist movement pursuing the demolition of myth and folklore, and denying the relevance of a concept of God. Religions need to respond by redefining themselves after such demythologising, so that belief in God does not ride on the irrational. Rudolph Bultmann applied demythologisation to the life of Jesus. Paul Tillich appealed to depth psychology to find God in (or as) the depth of personal being. This is not unlike philosophical Hinduism.The collection of articles by active Christians, called The Myth of God Incarnate was an unexpected but understandable best seller. That the New Testament, and especially the Gospels, are problematic historical documents is saying no more than that we should approach them as critically as we do Josephus, Tacitus or Suetonius. That the books were written to have an authoritative use should put us on our guard more, for that makes them socio-political propaganda, documents for contemporary people to accept without question and act on, and if required give up their lives for. All people in power try to write (and rewrite) history and it was no different in the early church. The Old Testament consists of foundation books for the origins of Judaism, written to promote the interests of a particular power group. Some off-text sections have survived which makes the archaeology of the text particularly interesting.
Religions mostly base themselves on stories of one or more deities. Theravada Buddhism alone presents their founder as human and not divine, which did not translate to Tibet, China and Japan, where deities abound in Mahayana Buddhism. People then as now varied from concrete/pictorial to philosophical. The common folk needed pictures, whether in words or icons; the more thoughtful could see beyond them to deeper principles. It is what God means in these deeper principles that concern us here.
God is pictured (described through a picture) even in the Hebrew Bible where creating images of God was forbidden. 'He' walked in the garden, was a shepherd and king, and so on. I describe this process in some detail in the chapter on symbolism in my Creating the Old Testament (1989). A picture can be demythologised. God is not really a shepherd but an aspect of care and protection is shepherd-like (the argument would go). Of course the same God who protects also destroys when in a different mood. The prophet Jeremiah focused on political disaster as a divine punishment for sin. Hindu deities are iconic (presented in the form of icons or images). Saraswati goddess of wisdom is a lady, dressed in white, crowned, with a Sitar, rosary and book. I asked children what wisdom is, and one said, "a wise person is someone who knows a lot about a lot of thiongs, but is humble and not proud and uses what they know to help others". So this is what Saraswati means. This deep inner wisdom is part of what we mean by God. This is one of many images of God that Hindus use and all can be deconstructed similarly. Ganesh, with elephant head, is the remover of obstacles: what better than an elephant to knock a wall down; but Ganesh has an untied bond (meaning to remove inhibition), a cake (meaning to maintain strength), a goad (meaning to make maximum effort) and a broken tusk (meaning to take risks). Obstacles are only overcome thus, with inner strength and conviction. Inside each of us is a reservoir of inner strength, which we need to learn to draw on. God therefore refers to these inner strengths. But again, what is created comes from the destruction of what went before. Siva is creator, but also destroyer, reminding people of the procdess of change and entropy.
Religion can make us either dependent or independent. Fatalism is to say that God has it all planned and we can do nothing. If we do nothing, disaster will happen and we will say it is God's will. Blaming God for disaster is as old as religion. Praying for help might unlock inner strengths that will succeed.
Prayer is another interesting topic. In a sense, we pray within ourselves to no external person; but the inner dialogue may be helpful. By externalising the vision (that is, thinking of an objective God) we might focus ourselves to succeed instead of fail. We all need an inner reflexive dialogue to clarify our thoughts and motivations. Contemplation is a monologue, but prayer is a dialogue. Artificial maybe, but effective. Prayer is an internal discipline which is more helpful than unhelpful.
If I think about ethics, I can visualise the apogy of ethics: perfect, positive communitarian behaviour. This is part of the conceptual cluster I call God. Similarly with justice, there is a core concept of perfect justice. And virtue, and goodness, and altruism, and fidelity, and empowerment. All these give God substance, and I cherish them, the highest of all positive values.
Thursday, 21 October 2010
On Becoming a Person
Carl R Rogers, in On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy, poses two challenging questions: how have I come to think the thoughts I do? and How have I come to be the person I am? From that, he leads into a descriptive autobiography, but I will try to be more focused.
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.
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.
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.
Monday, 27 September 2010
Ancestry
Since the last post, we have toured west Scotland around Mull and Skye. This leads me to reflect on ancestry. My mother's family from Nottinghamshire mining stock I will write about later. My father came to England from Dublin in 1936 and joined the RAF. Of the Protestant persuasion, his parents came originally from Scotland. Any connections between the name Bigger and the town of Biggar in Scotland I doubt, having visited Biggar last year and talked with a local historian. But he certainly came from the Glasgow area. There were several Biggers in Ireland, including a medical family, Sir Hugh Bigger as Officer of Health for Dublin early in the 20th century, and Prof. Joseph Warwick Bigger who wrote the first Bigger's Handbook of Bacteriology, the standard text throughout the 20th century, Man Against Microbe in the 1930s, and reports such as that into diseases in Jordon just before world war 2. An Irish MP called Bigger was active in the call for home rule in the late Victorian age. Francis Joseph Bigger was a local historian and author in Northern Ireland.
My particular interest is in my father's mother, grandma Macmillan, who died probably around 1917 having born 13 children, 12 of which survived childhood. She either came from Canada, or Scotland via Canada to meet grandfather and settle in Dublin. I discovered Macmillans in Arran (the publisher and prime minister's family) but the more regular ones were in the west near Fort William. In many cases, 'were' is the right word. The Macmillans were harassed by their landlords, the Camerons in the period of Highland Clearances. Many Macmillans were cleared off lands their families had worked for centuries. Landowners in Scotland had a legal but not moral claim for land ownership, as royalty gifted lands to supporters, turning the traditional population into tenants who could be turfed out without redress. Many historic land claims today in the Highlands are based on the same inequity. By 1800 the Cameron laird thought himself as a landlord rather than a chief, and wished to create a stately home and estate, requiring him to raise funds, including rents, and clearing away unprofitable crofts and villages. In 1802, with evictions beginning, Archibald and Allan Macmillan left the Lochaber district with 450 people to make new lives, sailing in three ships, Jane, Helen and Friends. Where they settled became Glengarry County. (My thanks to James Hunter, A Dance Called America: the Scottish Highlands, the United States and Canada, 1994).
My grandmother was somehow related to the Canadian Macmillans, meeting and marrying grandfather sometime in the 1880s.
In Fort William, I looked at the statue of the Cameron chief two generations later without celebration.
My particular interest is in my father's mother, grandma Macmillan, who died probably around 1917 having born 13 children, 12 of which survived childhood. She either came from Canada, or Scotland via Canada to meet grandfather and settle in Dublin. I discovered Macmillans in Arran (the publisher and prime minister's family) but the more regular ones were in the west near Fort William. In many cases, 'were' is the right word. The Macmillans were harassed by their landlords, the Camerons in the period of Highland Clearances. Many Macmillans were cleared off lands their families had worked for centuries. Landowners in Scotland had a legal but not moral claim for land ownership, as royalty gifted lands to supporters, turning the traditional population into tenants who could be turfed out without redress. Many historic land claims today in the Highlands are based on the same inequity. By 1800 the Cameron laird thought himself as a landlord rather than a chief, and wished to create a stately home and estate, requiring him to raise funds, including rents, and clearing away unprofitable crofts and villages. In 1802, with evictions beginning, Archibald and Allan Macmillan left the Lochaber district with 450 people to make new lives, sailing in three ships, Jane, Helen and Friends. Where they settled became Glengarry County. (My thanks to James Hunter, A Dance Called America: the Scottish Highlands, the United States and Canada, 1994).
My grandmother was somehow related to the Canadian Macmillans, meeting and marrying grandfather sometime in the 1880s.
In Fort William, I looked at the statue of the Cameron chief two generations later without celebration.
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