Introduction
How do I evolve, maintain and communicate a receptive,
responsive practice as an inclusional educator in an international context?
INTRODUCTION
Every story begins with the starting of the telling
and so in this thesis my narrative format conforms with Maclure (Maclure 1996)
suggestion that it is part of becoming an action researcher to move backwards
and forwards to the past to try and make sense of the present. My thesis has
two major stands of enquiry that are interwoven and inseparable. The first
being my life long enquiry into the self-study of my own learning and practice
that embraces all the different facets of my life such as the nurse, educator,
Buddhist priest and my human values. The second extends the first put places
them firmly in the context of a specific time frame. Picture are important to
me and the weaving of textual narratives that pass between the different
aspects of my multiple selves will build a picture for my reader one that
will inform them of the values base I use for discerning, judgments and
standards in their emergence over time. One that will give insights to a unique
position I hold of being a foreign educator in a culture that is completely
different from reader's own.
I show my reader how I arrived in Japan full of
confidence and grounded with utter certainty in the Eurocentric rightness of my
whiteness as a teacher. I show how such cultural insensitivity was discovered
in me through critical reflection and a deep soul searching as my colleges and
environment responded to me. The reader will be presented with the mistakes
made and the lessons learned which allowed a transition of sorts where a deep
ontological shift occurred one that now guides my life as I continue to
metamorphoses as an educator and human being.
I see my ontological self as the frame of a window and
the panes of glass in the window invite the reader to insights to the differing
but connected aspects of my research and life. Therefore the focus to this
thesis opens a window in a time frame which started in 2003 when I finished my
Masters in education (Adler-Collins 2000a) and moved to Japan were I studied as
a Shingon Monk for 3 years waiting for the university to be built. The start
date for the classroom research was April 2003 when I was appointed as an
associate professor in the department of basic nursing (Mental Health) of a
Prefectural university in Fukuoka Prefecture. It is in this institution I
introduced a new curriculum for healing and reflective nurses, the object of my
PhD research.
This research is a complex process in a complex
context. Language barriers and cultural differences impacted on the research.
There was ample opportunity for misunderstandings and conflict yet at the same
time there was in (Rayner 2003a) understanding of the fluid dynamics of space
and non space; presented an opportunity to embrace inclusional thinking.
By suggesting that my ontology is the framing of the window holds the
differing panes to different aspects of my life. I believe I am being inclusional
for as the reader is invited to engage with my different worlds. The boundary
which is so important to communication, that being they are distinct but not
discrete are those of the panes of glass. The reader is not separated from me
in the individual but shares a fluid dynamics of perception. I offer these
windows as a means to avoid the separation of one from the other in so doing
both my reader and I co-create a journey of understanding and exploration.
This narrative is not a victory narrative (Maclure
1996) nor it narrative wreckage (Frank 2006). I claim that is a living
account of love at work (Law 2006), grounded in the passion of my compassion to
teach and to serve in the fullest Buddhist sense of service; that to humanity
with humble mindfulness. I claim this from the power and authority of my own
being as I reflect on what I did, what I experienced, events that
impacted on my research and the findings in my classroom as the students'
voices reach out to inform my learning. I deal with the tension of focusing on
the object which is my thesis and at times clearly I have to set aside my
preferred inclusional way of viewing the world in the subjective wholeness I
have developed through my educative process and Buddhist practices
(Adler-Collins 1999a).
Frank (2006,
p.30) in his book the Wounded Story Teller, described three
main themes relating to narratives which he associated with sickness
narratives. They are however applicable and relevant to my thesis as my writing
has passed through all the stages several times and I experienced profound
ontological changes. These stages are: (a) restitution narratives, in which the
plot involves returning to one's previous state of health; (b) chaos
narratives, in which all life events are contingent and no one is in control;
and (c) quest narratives, in which illness is seen as a spiritual journey.
Frank's first point, that of restitution, speaks to me through the filters of
my Buddhist understandings in that I want to be released form suffering (1st
Nobel truth) and return to a state of balance and harmony while in this human
incarnation. His second point of chaos speaks to me of the actions I have
committed, seen and experienced where I have faced issues of deep frustration
and disempowerment caused by my desire for control rather than surrendering to
the will of my path. His third point that of the quest speaks
directly to how I see all my learning as spiritual.
Where I
have come from is to me as important as to where I am going. In the Maclure's
(1996) sense of becoming an action researcher I revisit the echoes of the past
to seek their learning and to discern how far I have moved on or not as the
case may be. In my Masters of philosophy transfer to a doctoral enquiry
presentation on the fourteenth January 2004 at the university of Bath I wrote
that my research:
Éwill involve the clarification of the
embodied values and knowledge of healing and enquiring nurses in the process of
their emergence in nursing practice. It will also involve the
clarification of my own embodied values and knowledge, in my practice as a
professional nurse educator, as I design and pedagogise a curriculum for the
healing and enquiry nurse. In the process of this clarification, the embodied
values and knowledge will become transformed into living educational standards
of judgment and practice that can be used to evaluate the validity of my
knowledge claims.
(Adler-Collins 2004a, p.6)
I claim to have achieved that
clarification as I identify and present to my reader the values of the healing
enquiring nurse and the modification of my own in a Japanese context through
their emergence in this thesis. In
2004, I argued the position that knowledge and knowing are no longer in or
under control of the state. Social formations have to look to the future
with the advent of the virtual Universities and direct access to the Professors and authors of the books that the institutions
lay the claim to be gate holders of the authority of the institution is under
challenge in terms of knowledge but still maintains a firm grip on
power. (Bernstein, 2000) expressed the opinion:
Education is central to the knowledge base of
society, groups and individuals. Yet education also, like health, is a public
institution, central to the production and reproduction of distributive
injustices. Biases in the form, content, access and opportunities of education
have consequences not only for the economy; but biases can reach down and drain
the very springs of affirmation, motivation and imagination. In this way such
biases can become and often are, an economic and cultural threat to democracy (Bernstein 2000b, p.12).
Bernstein's words were proved
prophetic as my research commenced in Japan. Outlined next is the contents of
my thesis by chapters that give the reader an indication of the logic and flow
of the writing.
Chapter One
This chapter places the thesis
into a clear historical and contextual position that presents my reader with my
engagement with historical issues and asks the important question of: Why
this enquiry? The complex nursing
structures and politics of education and nursing in Japan are introduced as
well as social insights and engagement with economic issues that directly
effect nursing and nurse education in Japan.
Chapter Two
The life long journey that I
have walked to understand my values and how I make standards of judgment are
presented in this chapter. My reader is introduced to the methodological
considerations, arguments and rational used in this thesis. The reluctance I
have to place my methodology in any one box of qualitative or quantitative
paradigms is argued. Narrative is introduced as a research instrument along
with my ideas around the meaning and creation of a safe space. By safe I am not
just meaning conforming with health and safely regulations but my belief that
teaching spaces are healing spaces that embrace the inclusional concept that we
have different bodies those of the: physical, spiritual , emotional and the
spiritual, all of which need to be safe and nurtured in the teaching space.
Complex issues surrounding the power of truth and the truth of power are
examined with particular attention being paid to the limitations of the
research ones imposed internally and those imposed externally by the ethics
committee. The debate is not engaged with in an exclusional manner or a
narrative wounding, rather it brings in to clear focus the different cultural
understandings that existed between my training and understanding of what a
teacher is and what my Japanese colleges understood a teacher to be.
Chapter Three.
Asking what appears to be a
simple question in the Whitehead (1989) sense of: How do I improve my
practice? Is central to this chapter a s
to answer it I need to engaged with what my practice actually is. This is
researched and defined along with the action planning of the thesis as the
concepts of the safe healing/teaching space are further deepened.
I tell the story of the
introduction of the use of new classroom teaching methodology for my students
that of living action research and new teaching outcomes such as portfolio
building, reflective journals and the integration of internet and computer
technology in my classroom. This chapter opens to deeper scrutiny my self
enquiry of my learning over time, my bias and the different pedagogies that I
have to conform to, those of Bath University, the ministry of education and my
own university in Japan.
Chapter Four.
In order to help my reader make
informed judgments about the nature and foundation of my knowledge claims I
have in this chapter briefly but thoroughly presented for examination the
ontological values I hold as living as a Buddhist monk in the 21 century.
I have presented the framework of the Buddhist 4 Nobel truths and other basic
Buddhist teachings. It was by passing through this process that I came to make
import ontological changes as my scholarship of western enquiry revealed to me
issues that needed to be addressed in my faith. The reader is not asked to pass
judgment on the Buddhist teachings rather they are being offered the
opportunity to engage with another life world view.
Chapter Five
This section of the thesis asks
the question: How do I know what I know? This is not narcissistic navel gazing
but a genuine quest to understand. The reader is presented with different
theories and models from emanate scholars, such as (Dewey 1916, 1920, 1933)and
(Schšn 1983, 1995) and debate is engaged with in the form of a discourse
with myself.
Chapter Six
Critical thinking is often
talked about as being needed to be a scholar and to be professional. Such views
are examined in this chapter and I ask the questions: How we become critical?
What doest it mean and what shape should critical thing be taken in Japan?
The moral issues is presented of teaching students to be critical in a
society that holds conformity and stability above all else.
The complexity of race is opened
and discussed along with the redefining of my practice and ontology as a result
of my learning. Standards for curriculum design are developed as my Eurocentric
values are investigated and modified in practice.
Chapter Seven.
In this chapter I examine the
evidence of the data from my students and present the students engagement,
feeling, ideas and worries relating to their study and practice in my
curriculum of the healing and reflective nurse. Engagement with the voices of
my students was a crucial learning experience for me and I found answer a
question that I almost feared to ask, that of: Is my knowledge transferable?
Chapter 8.
As this research is not and
never will be finished as long as I am a teacher, this chapter draws a line in
the sand and tells the reader where I am at this point in time. Conclusion and
recommendation are made and the future post doctoral research planning is
introduced.