For the Monday Group and an invitation to Colleagues:

5.00-7.00 1WN 3.8. Monday 10/10/05.

After our initial check in with sharing experiences from the week, I'd like to show a 13 minute video sent in by Amy Glover. Amy has spent much of her working life developing community health provision in KwaZulu-Natal and continues to work in Nongoma. Last summer she visited Bath to explore possibilities of including a living theory approach to well-being with aids in Nongoma in a proposal for funds to Comic Relief. I think we will clearly see the appropriateness of a living theory approach to well-being with aids, in learning in the community about hygiene, nutrition, agriculture and community well-being.

Alon has been working to finalise his thesis question and Abstract. His question is:

How Do I Consistently and Methodically Lead A More Meaningful and Gratifying Existence In and With the World for Myself? A Heuristic Approach to Constructing My Ontological Living Theory

And you can access his amended Abstract in response to last Monday's conversation at:

http://www.bath.ac.uk/~pspas/docabst.htm

And you can access his amended Framing at:

http://www.bath.ac.uk/~pspas/thesfra.htm

Alon continues to receive responses to his writings, from the living action research list, that his communication through writing needs to be transformed. I'd like to raise the possibility that for Alon to lead a more meaningful and gratifying existence in and with the world for himself he may need to transform his ontological relations with those he is seeking to communicate with. I'm thinking of a transformation that could be helped by the meanings in one page of Alan's writings on 'The Inclusional Nature of Neighbourhood: A Universal Dynamic Solution'. You can access this page at:

http://www.jackwhitehead.com/monday/arneighbourhood.htm

Margarida's work on proprioception continues to extend in influence as she communicates her ideas about the significance for education of an understanding of the body in space. Ken will be sharing the development of ideas (from conversations with Sami Aswan from Bethlehem University, Irris Singer and others) for his visit in November to explore the value of the expression of Qi Gong and dance and the development of political strategies for extending the influence for peace of the relationships of the bereaved parents of Palestinian and Israeli children, killed in the bombings and shootings.

At the B&NES breakfast cafe conversation this morning (5^th October) Marie said:

"I believe people (young and old) grow their understandings and create valued knowledge through dialogue with themselves and others. Over the next year I hope to work with Jack to bring people together with others with whom they have points of shared interests and with whom they can share such creative conversations. Our focus is on working with 4 groups,

the B&NES conversation cafe, the Heads Pause for Thought, the Action Research Teachers group and the collaborative creative enquiry groups (which include children) and opening the channels of communication between them.

What I hope to do for Jack:

- Offer a productive enjoyable collaboration to create knowledge we both value;

- Bring accounts (including my own)into the public domain as further evidence and legitimisation through the academy of living educational theories and the

importance of living values;

- Connect him with educators locally with whom there could be 'rich' conversations;

- Connect his understandings to other work such as TASC, Primary Networks, APEX, Emotional Literacy, Inclusion... in the hope of continuing to influence educational practice after we are both long gone;

- Give him reasons to laugh – rather than sigh!"

We'll be working on this together over the next year and we are anticipating that Margarida's pleasure is going to resonate with our own.

Robyn has formed good quality questions in her work with vulnerable young people and their parents. Moira has just completed the Second Part of her methodology handbook for teaching English in the new curriculum in China and would welcome responses. I'll show where the handbook can be accessed on Monday. Jean is continuing to support doctoral action research programmes in Ireland and is working on her presentations for New Zealand and South Africa. It is looking likely that invitations may be coming through to visit Nelson Mandela and Stellenbosch Universities to support AR in the spring. The final editing for Action Research: Living Theory should be finished next month, ready for a launch at AERA 06.

Ben Levin is supporting the development of AR in Ontario and Jackie has invited him to the Act Reflect Revise conference in November. I'm going to be focusing the keynote on 10^th Nov. on Jackie's work in developing a culture of inquiry that supports the creation of teachers' and pupils' living theories of their educational influences in their own learning.

Paul has now started his 12 month contract with Guadalajara University in Mexico and we can look forward to hearing how his community projects and AR workshops with staff at the university are developing. Pete has been working on the archive of the BERA Practitioner Researcher SIG 2005 e-seminar and you can access his continuing engagement with the archive at http://www.jackwhitehead.com/bera05/Main%20Index.htm

Any other news you'd like to share do e-mail it in. (Marian it is going to be good to catch up with your news). Viv, whenever you'd like to share your enquiry into bullying just let me know.

Here is a holiday photograph with a difference. It is a photograph with Joan on our Wedding Anniversary on the 9th September at the Menega Beach Cafe in Bali. I've put it as my computer screen saver. With the expressions of delight communicated by the two women behind us, I felt the pleasure of inclusionality as it appeared on my computer screen. Now my attention is drawn to the space behind the two smiling women where an individual walked last Saturday and killed himself and others by exploding a bomb. It's living contradictions like these that makes Alan's ideas on inclusionality all the more significant.

Love Jack.