For the Monday group and an invitation to colleagues.
5.00-7.00 1WN 3.8 Monday 21st November 2005.
Lots of news to catch up with and to respond to in our conversations.
Kari has written from Norway to say how much she enjoyed the conversation with us a week yesterday and the workshop with Margarida. Kari is hoping to visit again when her Ph.D. is submitted. Marie has invited Barry Hymer to the session. Barry is working on philosophy for children in B&NES and working on his doctorate. I'm hoping Barry can make it. Jane - the live url for the Unhooked Thinking Conference on addiction is included below. This is the conference Alan Rayner has been working on with a group that includes Marian Naidoo and James Pryor. Margarida, just let me know when
you might be able to show some of the video-clips illustrating the importance of proprioception.
The DVD from the video, filmed by Ken last night, of John's contribution to our conversation on Astrology, Philosophy and Ethics, includes John's embodied expression of his meanings of Astrological symbols. Creating a visual narrative with the help of clips from the video might be useful to John's enquiry. A delight to see such artistry in his pedagogy. You can see the notes for John's contribution by scrolling down http://jackwhitehead.com/monday/m071105.htm
Alon is continuing with his drafting and re-drafting of
his writings for his thesis on "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"
Many of
Alon's writings are at: http://www.bath.ac.uk/~pspas/ with his Abstract at http://www.bath.ac.uk/~pspas/docabst.htm
Ken, Irris and Shelley are back from their conversations with the Bereaved Parents Forum of Palestinian and Israeli parents and hope to contribute to Monday's conversation as we think about ways in which a living theory approach to action research might help to enhance the influence of the flow of values and understandings from the Bereaved Parents Forum.
Moira and Branko have originated a Moodle site for educational conversations at:
http://www.e-lar.net/education/moodle/
You can also access this from the What's New section of http://www.actionresearch.net . I'm wondering if we should respond to Branko's and Moira's invitation and create a moodling 'room' for conversations on exploring the implications of sharing evidence of our educational influences in our own learning, in the learning of others and in the learning of social formations? (I'll also chat with Pete Mellett about this tomorrow as an extension of responses to the BERA Practitioner-Researcher 2005 e-seminar archive)
Jackie Delong's, Cheryl Black's and Ron Wideman's book on Action! Research for Teaching Excellence, has just been published by Data Based Directions: Quality Resources for Educators, of Ontario. For details see
http://www.databdirect.com/storeusa/store.cgi?action=link&sku=58ActRsrch&uid=176 Jackie was very pleased with last
week's Act, Reflect, Revise Conference III and with the quality of the
presentations from the practitioner-researchers. It was a first for
collaborative enquiries with Early Childhood Educators and primary educators.
Great opportunities to develop research with parents and for the encouragement
of pupil-researchers. Tim Pugh has already started to encourage
pupil-researchers in his classrooms following the video-clip from Croatia of 10
year old pupil-researchers working with Branko and his colleagues. Last
Friday's Keynote with reference to this video-clip at:
http://www.jackwhitehead.com/monday/arrkey05dr1.htm
Alan, Marian and James (Pryor) are pleased with progress on the planning and participants for the Conference on Unhooked Thinking 19-21 April 2006, Assembly Rooms, Bath. For details see:
http://www.unhookedthinking.com/
Alan's continuing educational
influence in his inclusional thinking can be appreciated through the way he is
including ideas around reciprocal power-distributing relationships.
"There
has, however, been a 'missing' or at least 'unarticulated' dimension to my
description, which has become evident from our recent conversations
and may be linked to your more mathematical physics-oriented interest in
the nature of MOTION and POWER DISTRIBUTION. This missing dimension, I think,
concerns 'perceptions of centres' and the need to shift from FIXED, EXECUTIVE
to DYNAMIC, RECEPTIVE perceptions in which 'centres' are 'inferenced' via their
'dynamic neighbourhood'.
Putting
these together we can arrive at an understanding of how the dynamic balancing
and resultant relative stability and instability of natural flow forms, as
dynamic electromagnetic embodiments of space, revolves around the reciprocal
power-distributing relationship between inferential receptive centres and
informational dynamic interfacings of flow-forms. Hence 'executive power' is
displaced from supernatural point-mass centres to the dynamic relationship of
local as an inclusion of nonlocal through dynamic interfacings." (Rayner e-mail to Ted Lumley,
15/11/05)
Viv's draft MA Dissertation on 'The Role of Structured Approaches in the Management of Bullying Situations' is now ready and we'd appreciate some time on Monday to share ideas on approaches in the management of bullying situations and Viv's and Jack's reflections on the dissertation. Viv points out in her dissertation that:
"Managing a bullying situation in a school presents one
of the most complex, plural problems facing a practising teacher, emotions can
run high, power gradients can be strong and there are usually high levels of
conflict apparent among the multiple contributors. From the point of view of
the practising teacher it often feels as if each bullying situation is seen
afresh because there are few in any unifying approaches which can be used to
structure a response to the specifics of a situation".
By next Monday we should have some news to share of
responses, from the Tuesday evening Master's group and the Wednesday morning
B&NES Breakfast Cafe Conversation, on Marie's draft account of the
beginnings of the B&NES Action Research and Inclusion Group. Details of the
day's conference on a living educational theory approach to improving
educational influences in learning, organised by Marie for the 19th
June 2006 can be viewed at:
Any more news to share do e-mail it in.