For the Monday Group and an invitation to colleagues:

5.00-7.00 1WN 3.8 Monday 20^th March 2006.

For details see http://www.jackwhitehead.com/monday/m200306.htm

Margarida Dolan will be contributing ideas on proprioception to the conversation. Margarida will be video-taped with the group. With the help of the visual record we will explore educational possibilities for our learning of connecting our understandings of proprioception to our understandings of a relational dynamic awareness of inclusionality.

I'm hoping that we will also be able to see connections in our conversation to Marian's ideas in her thesis, 'I am because we are (A never ending story). The emergence of a living theory of inclusional and responsive practice.' See http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/naidoo.shtml . I also think we will see connections with Maggie's ideas in her thesis,

How can I create a pedagogy of the unique through a web of betweenness? See http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/farren.shtml

I am thinking of the kind of connections that can communicate the meanings of new, relationally dynamic standards of judgement. I'm thinking of the living standards of judgement for the new epistemology that Schon called for and believed would be created through action research.

The master's educational enquiries of Vic, Richard, Meg, Nina, Marie, Ros, Steve, Juliet, Claire and Viv have been accepted and on Tuesday evenings we are moving on into the next enquiry where we will be focusing on strengthening our research methods in education.

Jackie and Jack are working on a presentation for the Invisible College conference in San Francisco on the 6^th April on, 'Researching connections between the systemic influences of an educational leader and the explanations of teacher-researchers of their educational influences in learning.'

The paper on 'Experiencing and evidencing educational influences in learning through self-study using ICT in schools and universities' by Margaret Farren, Joan Whitehead and Jack Whitehead has been submitted electronically to AERA, to meet today's deadline for presentation at the AERA 06 Conference in San Francisco on the 8th April 2006. You can access this at: http://www.jackwhitehead.com/monday/mfjw&jwaera06ok.htm

Very pleased that Cathy has responded to the section on 'How can I racialise my educational conversations with whiteness in a way that doesn't damagingly scarify myself and others?'

"I have read your section of the paper and am very moved and energised by it. I am struck by you saying 'I seek to resist being sucked into such disabling vortices'. It seems to me that this signifies the desire to live a productive life. There are so many of these disabling vortices that can appear and attempt to suck you in. It feels to me that they can have a seductive quality to them so that you can find yourself beginning to slip down them if you do not have the life affirming energy that you speak of.  The term scarification is so evocative when thinking about issues of race and relationships within and across 'races' and other differences."

Cathy will be joining the conversation on the 22^nd May and sharing ideas that have emerged from her doctoral programme on 'Seeking Knowledge For Black Cultural Renewal.'

Jean is back from the month of lectures and workshops in South African Universities and the action research programme in Khayelitsha, the black township near Cape Town. We shared our delight yesterday as we both received in the post, hardbound and softbound copies from Sage of our new book on Action Research Living Theory. Additional treats on Monday evening to celebrate!

I'm wondering if the African indigenous knowledge of Ubuntu could inform the development of our relationally dynamic awarenesses and understandings of inclusionality and proprioception. I've produced the video-narrative from conversations, writings and an AR workshop at the University of the Free State to raise this question:

How do I express and communicate embodied values of Ubuntu in an explanation of their educational influence in my own learning and in the learning of others? See http://www.jackwhitehead.com/jwubuntupapc.htm

Moira has just sent through, from CECEARLFT, Wang Shuqin's second action research report on How Can I Help with the Students' Learning out of Class to Improve Their English Level? This will be in the AR in China at Guyuan section of http://actionresearch.net by next Monday.

Looking forward to our conversation. Any more news to share do just e-mail it in. Anat writes: "I wanted to tell you a story of how I really finally realized the main theme of my paper, the main underling motive of the difficulties of being a teacher in another culture. I wont tell you the story but I will write what I have finely came to realize after going down the spiral slide. My specialty I think, is teaching with accordance of what I see, hear and feel from my students. It goes back to the video camera where I WAS INTERESTED IN HOW THE "OTHERS", this TIME THE BABIES perceive their educational environment, from their point of view and then based the training of their caregivers upon their perceptions. In the south Lebanon refugee kindergarten I write how I changed my curriculum, my interactions according to their needs and culture. I can say that in Oranim I continue to get marks as a distinguished teacher because I base my educational response to my students needs, I hear them, I help them to bloom because I am attuned to them (vygotzky). So that may be my special trait that I developed seeing the other. but being in a different culture I could not see. Hear. Sense the "other". Only after unknowing and unlearning was I free of my self involvement and this year I was able to be open enough to listen, hear, sense and love them. I have developed along the years the sensitivity to consider and accept what the "others" my students need of me, need from the system - from babies up to mature women from a different culture. ( I am talking about professional circumstances, on the day to day bases I am no different than any one else,) So I find Myself going back to dear old Buber who by the way lived next to me in Jerusalem when I was young tall and blond! Do you think anyone would be interested in what I have to say?"

Anat's very good news is in an e-mail of the 14th March. "Yesterday I got Tenure in Oranim college. This is the first time in 12 years (Since leaving the kibbutz) that I finally have some economical security. On one hand it makes me feel sooooo old on the other hand it is a relief, but now I have to prove to them that they made the right decision." So, lots to celebarate on Monday.

Love Jack.