Creating a World of Educational Quality through Living Educational Theories

Jack Whitehead, Department of Education, University of Bath.

Paper presented at AERA 2007 in Chicago, 13 April, 2007 as a contribution to the programme of the Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices Special Interest Group in the session on Place, "Race," Culture, and Society: Creating a World of Educational Quality

Submitted for consideration for publication to Action Research Expeditions, 23 April 2007

Abstract

This presentation uses visual narratives of living educational theories to show and explain the contributions that individuals are making to the creation of a world of educational quality. Living educational theories are the explanations that individuals produce to explain their educational influences in their own learning, in the learning of others and in the learning of the social formations in which we live and work. At the heart of these theories are the living logics, energies, values and standards that individuals use to give meaning and purpose to their lives through their productive work. The narratives are used to communicate the significance of including flows of life-affirming energy with values, in explanations of educational influence in enquiries of the kind, 'How do I improve what I am doing?'

Using a process of action research the energy and values are formed into the living standards that individuals use to account to themselves and others in creating a world of educational quality. In creating this world it is argued that it is vital to exercise educational imaginations in recognising and understanding the logics and power relations that serve both reproductive and transformatory interests in determining what counts as valid and legitimate educational knowledge.

Introduction

What I am hoping to do in this presentation is to captivate your imagination with the idea that visual narratives are needed to bring both living logics and expressions of energy with values into valid explanations of our educational influences in our own learning. I am assuming that our living logics are the modes of thought that are appropriate for comprehending the rationality (Marcuse, 1964, p. 105) of what we are doing. I am also assuming that we cannot do anything, including what is educational, without energy and values. However, explanations of educational influences in learning have tended to ignore the issue of how to represent and communicate flows of life-affirming energy with values, in what we do.

Vasilyuk has drawn attention to these poor conceptualizations of the links between energy and meaning, energy and values and energy and motivation:

Conceptions involving energy are very current in psychology, but they have been very poorly worked out from the methodological standpoint. It is not clear to what extent these conceptions are merely models of our understanding and to what extent they can be given ontological status. Equally problematic are the conceptual links between energy and motivation, energy and meaning, energy and value, although it is obvious that in fact there are certain links: we know how 'energetically' a person can act when positively motivated, we know that the meaningfulness of a project lends additional strength to the people engaged in it, but we have very little idea of how to link up into one whole the physiological theory of activation, the psychology of motivation, and the ideas of energy which have been elaborated mainly in the field of physics. (Vasilyuk, 1991, pp. 63-64)

Because of the vital connections between energy and values in living standards of judgment I want to be clear that I using Vasilyuk's insights into the following relationship between energy and values.

Although a value as a content of consciousness does not initially possess any energy, as the inner development of the personality proceeds the value can borrow energy from motives operative in reality, so that eventually the value develops from a content of consciousness into a content of life, and itself acquires the force of a real motive...This transformation of a value from a primary motive into a real, perceptible motivational force is accompanied by an energy metamorphosis which is hard to explain. Having once become a real motive, a value suddenly proves to possess a mighty charge of energy, a potential, which cannot be accounted for by all the borrowings it may have made in the course of its evolution. One supposition that may be advanced to explain this is that when a value becomes truly part of life it is 'switched in' to the energies of the supra-individual entity to which that value links the individual. (p. 120)

To avoid repeating the terms life-affirming and energy-flowing each time I use the words, values or standards, I will assume these terms below when I use these words.

In organising this presentation I like the headings that AERA required participants to use in the submission of their proposals. These headings are:

Educational Significance; Objectives; Theoretical Frameworks; Methods; Data Sources

In the main body of this presentation I focus solely on the educational significance of one idea. This is because I want to see if I can communicate the idea that I think has the greatest educational significance. This idea is that visual narratives can communicate meanings of energy with values in living logics and standards of judgment. These meanings are expressed below in explanations of educational influence in learning that are contributing to the creation of a world of educational quality. I explain later my use of the term 'living logics'.

To communicate my meanings I want to focus on the expression of embodied meanings of energy and values through moving images. In the video-clip below an individual is responding to a question about the values that give meaning and purpose to her life and to which she holds herself accountable in her work in Children's Services in the UK. The context was a meeting on Improving Practice I attend in our Local Authority to support the development of action research in improving practice. I asked if each individual would say something about the values at the heart of what they are doing.

The following sentence taken from a book is used to express the values she hopes to live in her work in Children's Services as she engages with children who need support in benefiting from the educational opportunities in the schools in the Authority:

"He seemed a man who gazed on all he saw with approval and affection who began every interchange with deep and abiding regard for the person in front of him."

As I watch the clip I feel the authentic expression of values that matter to the individual and to which she is saying she holds herself accountable to. I am claiming that the visual images communicate much more that a transcript of what is said could do or a prose description could offer. The images enable a better connection to be made than text alone, with the expressions of energy flowing values. It is such flows of life-affirming energy with values of approval, affection and deep and abiding regard for children that I am claiming can be communicated through visual narratives with greater validity than they can through text alone. My belief that these narratives are providing the living standards of judgment for a new epistemology for educational knowledge is open to your questioning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDcggqIb7J4

In communicating the one idea with what I hope is simplicity, I also want to acknowledge the complexities in my own learning as I have come to understand the significance of multi-media accounts in explanations of educational influence. Hence I acknowledge this complexity in the four Appendices in which I describe in more detail the objectives, theoretical frameworks, methods and data sources that support the case I make for the educational significance of the idea. I also use a collage of video-clips in the following section to emphasise the importance of connecting and working with the values and understandings of others through the boundaries and interconnecting and branching channels of communication of widely different geographical and cultural contexts.

I think that the comprehensibility of much that I want to communicate rests in understanding the relationships between the living logics of inclusionality and propositional and dialectical logics. The living logics are connected with, and distinguishable from, the propositional and dialectical logics that are also used in the generation of living educational theories.

The idea of logic as the mode of thought that is appropriate for comprehending the real as rational (Marcuse, 1964, p. 105) appeals to me. If someone says of my writings that they aren't logical I take this as a fundamental criticism of the validity of my ideas. I want my ideas about the nature of educational theory to be logical in the sense that they are comprehensible to a rational mind. Yet even as I use the words 'rational mind' I am aware of at least three logics that can distinguish very different forms of rationality. Here are the distinguishing characteristics of three logics I use in my educational enquiries into the nature of educational knowledge and theory.

The first logic I learnt to use in my studies of educational theory was logic with a 2,500 history in the Western Academy. It is the Aristotelian logic that eliminates through the Law of Contradiction, the possibility that two mutually exclusive statements like, I am free/I am not free, can be true simultaneously. In my engagement with theories in the philosophy, psychology, sociology, history, economics, theology, politics, management and leadership of education they all abide by this Law of Contradiction in eliminating such contradictions between statements (Popper, 1963, pp. 313-317).

The second logic I learnt to use was a dialectical logic, again with a 2,500 year history. This logic, from the ideas of Socrates, was expressed through the writings of Plato. In the Phaedrus, a dialogue on love, Socrates explains the art of the dialectician in holding both the One and the Many together. Socrates explains to Phaedrus that human beings have two ways of coming to know, they can break things down into separate components as nature directs (and not after the manner of a bungling carver!) and we can hold things together in a general idea. Today, I follow Ilyenkov's (1977) text on dialectical logic in my own understandings, with its nucleus of contradiction.

The third logic I am learning to use is a living logic of inclusionality (Rayner, 2005). Living logic emerges in the course of the evolution of one's own form of life, with responses to the possibilities that life itself permits. These possibilities exist in particular environmental, global, social and cultural contexts. Inclusionality is a relationally dynamic awareness of space and boundaries as connective, reflexive and co-creative. Living logics of inclusionality, in the sense of a mode of thought that is appropriate for comprehending the real as rational, evolve in the process of giving form to life itself.

I now want to focus on the one idea that I hope will stimulate and captivate your educational imaginations.

The educational significance of visual narratives in communicating the meanings of energy with values in explanations of educational influence that are contributing to the creation of a world of educational quality.

The main purpose of this presentation is to see if an idea about educational qualities makes sense to you. As well as making sense to you I also want to check if you believe what I say about the educational significance of the idea, in creating a world of educational quality. I am claiming that educational qualities are distinguished by their energy and values in standards of judgments as well as their living logics in explanations of educational influences in learning.

I want to begin by showing you a collage of video-clips that connects me through relational spaces and boundaries to the energy and values of other educators and practitioner-researchers. You can also access the collage with the addition of a visual narrative at http://www.jackwhitehead.com/jack/jwyoutubeimages3.htm . You can stream the video-clips to your browser by clicking on any of the clips below. Most of the clips are some 5 minutes long. Because of their number I am not expecting you to access them all for this presentation. What I believe is that any one of the clips will serve to communicate the importance of a flow of energy with values in explaining both what the individuals are doing and their educational influences in learning in contexts that are widely separated (the UK, Africa, Canada, Japan, Ireland and China)

The energy I have in mind is life affirming. I am assuming that for something to be educational it must involve some learning that flows with a life-affirming energy. The values I have in mind are those that give meaning and purpose to our lives and that we feel as a dynamic presence as we express what really matters to us.

I want to focus on the expression of such energies with values from within and between the individuals shown on the video-clips below. Probably because I know the majority of individuals in the clips I feel a strong resonance with the values and understandings being expressed in each other's living space and through the relational boundaries of each clip. I am suggesting that such flows of energy, values and understandings within and between our boundaries are both vital and necessary in explanations of educational influences in learning. I am also suggesting that there is much work to be done in developing and legitimating appropriate living logics and standards of judgment for evaluating the validity of these explanations.

Rayner describes the connection I feel between the flow of energy and values within and through the boundaries of the video-clips in terms of receptive responsiveness. He has re-framed, within a 'living theory' context, the meaning of 'educational leadership' from the prescriptive imposition of authority to the evolutionary navigation of transformation with the humility of including oneself as a learner in this evolution:

Only the latter can provide the basis for true 'learning' and 'creative exploration' by 'showing' what's possible, not 'telling' what's done. Could anyone 'tell' me how to ride a bicycle? Just imagine the instruction manual - let alone the lecturer with PowerPoint - informing me how to calculate dynamic balances in ten dimensions simultaneously! But someone who through her own learning shows me what's possible and supports and encourages me as I gain the 'feel' of the flow the bike and I are inclusions of - now there's a form of leadership I can recognise without defining exactly how it's done. This is the form of leadership which I think may, in all humility - because it involves the humility of including oneself as a learner - be recognised as 'world leading' - but according to very different standards of judgment from those conventionally prescribed. I think this is what Jack may have been feeling for. (Rayner's contribution to BERA e-seminar 26 Feb 2007 14:06)

While this is not the place for an analysis of educational leadership, I do recognise my own belief that I am offering the idea of new living logics and standards of judgment for educational knowledge in the hope that they are contributing to world leading educational practices, knowledges and theories, and that they also carry the humility of including oneself as a learner.

As each person below offers their story as their living educational theory (McNiff, 2007), the practitioner-researcher is expressing such humility and educational leadership, through including themselves as learners in the creation of their living educational theory. Each researcher works with a relationally dynamic understanding of living standards of judgment and includes analyses of the socio-cultural influences (Appendix 2) in their work and understandings.

As I have said, the educational significance of this presentation is the idea that visual narratives can communicate both living logics and living standards that include energy and values in explanations of educational influences in learning. Each living theory, flowing through web-space, is grounded in the expression of the energy, values and explanations of the practitioner researcher. The researchers ground their enquiries in their being in and towards the world, that is, their ontology. Bullough and Pinnegar (2004) have highlighted the significance of this ontological grounding in their analysis of educational qualities. Each unique living theory shows how the meanings of the values, that give meaning and purpose to life, are contributing to the creation of a world of educational quality.

The following self-study researchers have engaged with professional, academic, cultural and political relationships in the creation of their unique living theories. They have sustained their enquiries over many years, including the legitimating of their knowledge-creation in doctoral theses of at least five year's duration. They are continuing their post-doctoral enquiries in Chinese, Canadian, South African, Irish and UK contexts.

Each practitioner-researcher (McNiff, 1989; Laidlaw, 1996; Whitehead, 1999 Delong, 2002; Farren, 2005;) has used action and reflection cycles that are consistent with ideas of scientific enquiry (Medawar, 1969) in clarify the meanings of the values as these emerge through practice. I am thinking here of Medawar's point that a scientific enquiry begins with a story about a possible world that we invent and criticise as we live so that it becomes a story of real life. The educational significance of the use of this action research methodology is that it can demonstrate how the values of the self-study researcher can form, in the course of their emergence and clarification in practice, the explanatory principles and living standards of judgment for evaluating the validity of the educational knowledge being created.

The action-reflection cycles include the expression of concern as values are experienced as not being lived as fully as desired. This tension and experience of living contradictions stimulates the imagination to form action plans to improve matters. The cycles include acting on these plans and gathering data with which to make a judgment on the influences of the actions in improving matters. They include evaluating the influences in terms of values, skills and understandings. They include modifying the concerns, ideas and actions in the light of the evaluations. They include the production of an explanation of the learning through the enquiry into improving practice that is offered to a validation group for advice on strengthening the comprehensibility, normative judgments, evidence-base and authenticity (Habermas, 1976) and rigour (Winter, 1989) of the account. The explanatory principles in the accounts are formed from the energy flowing values of the researcher and clarified in the course of their emergence in practice as living standards of judgment.

The evidence-based claims of educational significance for these living standards can be accessed in their flow through web-space from the urls below. Each of the video-clips shows an expression of the energy, values and understandings of the researcher that characterise both their uniqueness and common humanity. The clips can be accessed from a streamed server from the url immediately below each picture and the doctoral thesis of each practitioner-researcher can be accessed from the given location.

Jean McNiff

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGyuQ1uTrzM

McNiff, J. (1989) An explanation for an individual's educational development through the dialectic of action research. Ph.D. thesis, University of Bath. This thesis is in the Library of the University of Bath. You can access details of McNiff's publications and other work at http://www.jeanmcniff.com

In the video-clip, McNiff is explaining to colleagues in St. Mary's University College the contexts of her present research and her future plans. Her outstanding contributions to the development and communication of a new epistemology for educational knowledge as well as her global educational influence is largely due to the responses to presentations such as that above in different international contexts and to the clarity of her writings and their capacity to captivate the imaginations of her readers about her generative and transformation approach to self-study in action research.

Moira Laidlaw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1jEOhxDGno

Laidlaw, M. (1996) How can I create my own living educational theory as I offer you an account of my educational development? Ph.D. thesis, University of Bath. Retrieved 28 February 2007 from http://www.actionresearch.net/moira2.shmtl

This video-clip was taken at the end of a lesson with students in Guyuan Teachers College (Now Ningxia Teachers University). I had switched the camera off and then turned it on again as Laidlaw moved to the door of the classroom. This is one of the most significant clips I have made in showing the responsive receptiveness of an educator with students as she communicates a recognition and valuing the other in expressing her own life-affirming, energy flowing values in loving what she is doing.

The international excellence of Laidlaw's practitioner-research can be appreciated in the action research accounts she has been influential in stimulating in China's Experimental Centre for Educational Action Research in Foreign Language Teaching. The centre is now hosted by Ningxia Teachers University. Some of these accounts can be accessed from

http://people.bath.ac.uk/edsajw/moira.shtml

Jack Whitehead

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBTLfyjkFh0

Whitehead, J. (1999) How do I improve my practice? Creating a discipline of education through educational enquiry. Ph.D. University of Bath. Retrieved 28 February 2007 from http://www.actionresearch.net/jack.shtml

The above video-clip is from a performance text in which I am reconstructing my response to a draft report of a Senate Working Party that was established in 1990 to investigate a matter of academic freedom following a Board of Studies decision that there was prima facie evidence of a breach of my academic freedom. The draft report produced by the Working Party claimed, rightly, that my academic freedom had not been breached. In the clip I am expressing my values of academic freedom, justice and responsibility in claiming that the Working Party would be shirking their responsibilities as academics if they did not acknowledge the pressure to which I had been subjected. The final report to Senate stated that while my academic freedom had not been breached this was because of my persistence in the face of pressure. A less determined individual might well have been discouraged and therefore constrained. It is such life-affirming, energy-flowing values of academic freedom, justice and responsibility that this presentation is claiming can help to form into the living standards of judgment of a new epistemology for educational knowledge.

Jacqueline Delong

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4R1ilkWB9Dc

Delong, J. (2002) How Can I Improve My Practice As A Superintendent of Schools and Create My Own Living Educational Theory? Ph.D. University of Bath. Retrieved 28 February 2007 from http://www.actionresearch.net/delong.shtml

In this clip, Jacqueline Delong and I are discussing the Abstract for her thesis and the importance of communicating Delong's system's influence as a living standard of practice and judgment. In a clip in Appendix 1 (First Objective) Delong is responding to a question about the system's supports she has helped to create for teacher-researchers. Her flow of pleasure as she describes the responses of the S.W.A.T. team is the quality of energised and energising expression that I am claiming can form the new living standards of judgment for the new epistemology of educational knowledge.

Margaret Farren

http://www.dcu.ie/~farrenm/chrisvalidatear.ra

Farren, M. (2005) How can I create a pedagogy of the unique through a web of betweenness? Ph.D. University of Bath. Retrieved 28 February 2007 from http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/farren.shtml

Margaret Farren's practitioner-research is to my mind world leading. This is because of the way it shows how an individual researcher can produce her own educational knowledge in her living theory, while demonstrating how the social formation of a university can be moved, in its curriculum and assessment procedures, to integrate support for the creation and legitimating of the living educational theories by other practitioner-researchers. The University of Limerick has also shown this quality of leadership in relation to educational knowledge with its legitimating of the three living theory thesis of Sullivan (2006) Glenn (2006) and McDonagh (2007) supervised by McNiff (2007). In expressing her pedagogy of the unique within a web of betweenness Farren shows the energy and values that constitute her explanatory principles in the explanations of her educational influence in her own learning and the learning of her students. In her living theory doctorate Farren also explains her educational influence in the curriculum and assessment procedures of a university in a way that is consistent with her energy and values in a web of betweenness.

The creation of a world of educational quality through living educational theories also requires a global approach to the development of cultures of enquiry (Delong, 2002). If there is one thing that is certain in the creation of a world of educational quality it is that human beings have much to learn in how to contribute to this creation. Learning is one of the characteristics of being human. I do like and agree with Habermas' conjecture about learning:

It is my conjecture that the fundamental mechanism for social evolution in general is to be found in an automatic inability not to learn. Not learning, but not-learning is the phenomenon that calls for explanation at the socio-cultural stage of development. Therein lies, if you will, the rationality of man. Only against this background does the over-powering irrationality of the history of the species become visible. (Habermas, 1975, p. 15)

Human beings learn many things, some of which are not educational in the sense that the learning does not carry hope for the future of humanity. In creating a world of educational quality it is important to ensure that the learning is educational. The recognition of learning, as educational, requires an educational imagination in distinguishing learning and contributions to knowledge that are educational and distinguishable from other forms of learning and knowledge.

The quality of the educational imaginations of those in the Academy who influence what counts as educational knowledge has been critical in legitimating living educational theories. It will continue to be so. I say this with A. N. Whitehead's (1962) point of view in mind that a University should be concerned primarily with the imaginative acquisition of knowledge. For White head, Universities are schools of education and schools of research. He believes that the justification for a university is that it preserves the connection between knowledge and the zest for life, by uniting the young and the old in the imaginative consideration of learning. This learning, according to Whitehead, enables human beings to construct an intellectual vision of a new world, and it preserves the zest for life by the suggestion of satisfying purposes (p. 139). For Whitehead the proper function of a university is the imaginative acquisition of knowledge. As he says, a university is imaginative or it is nothing – a least nothing useful. (p. 145)

The validation and legitimating of living educational theories requires the quality of educational imagination shown by the examiners of the living theories at http://people.bath.ac.uk/edsajw/living.shtml. However, I would not want you to believe that the legitimating of living educational theories at the University of Bath has been easy! It has involved an engagement with the power relations in the institution that continue to be resistant to recognising new living standards of judgment. Schön (1995) recognised this resistance in his understanding that the new epistemology would present a challenge to the epistemology of the modern research university (p.27). He also recognised that introducing the new scholarship into institutions of higher education means becoming involved in an epistemological battle. He says that it is a battle of snails, proceeding so slowly that you have to look very carefully in order to see it going on. But it is happening nonetheless (p. 32).

The evidence of the knowledge-base of living educational theories that, for me, make an outstanding contribution to educational knowledge is in the Library of the University of Bath and other Universities, like Kingston University, Limerick University and the University of the West of England. It is flowing through web-space through other publications and work in other Universities from http://www.actionresearch.net . What I am hopeful about, in continuing to contribute to a world of educational quality, is that these living theories will serve to stimulate the educational imaginations of others to generate and disseminate their own. In saying this I am aware of the battle of snails referred to by Schön taken place in universities around the world.

Universities can be places of paradox and living contradictions. They can provide living spaces of economic security for creativity to flourish in the generation of living educational theories. At the same time colleagues can provide evidence of their responses to the knowledge generated by that question and deny its significance. Hence, bearing MacIntyre's insight in mind, universities are likely to continue to provide forums for constrained disagreement for the exercise of educational imaginations in recognising what counts as outstanding contributions to educational knowledge:

The rival claims to truth of contending traditions of enquiry depend for their vindication upon the adequacy and explanatory power of the histories which the resources of each of those traditions in conflict enable their adherents to write. (MacIntyre, 1988, p. 403)

In engaging with the workings of the power relations that continue to support the truth of power I seek to stimulate educational imaginations that support the power of truth. I see the truth of power being exercised in a judgment such as:

"We only recognise outstanding contributions to educational knowledge that can be seen in established and renowned international refereed journals."

When such a claim was made in my own University in 2006, no e-journals existed, to my knowledge, that could both present the multi-media explanations of living educational theories and had the time to become established and renowned international refereed journals. So, no matter whether or not an educational researcher has made an outstanding contribution to educational knowledge, this cannot be recognised by those whose educational imaginations are constrained by the requirement that the knowledge has to be disseminated through established and renowned international refereed journals. The catch 22 of educational research up to 2006! Hope rests in e-journals such as Action Research Expeditions, Ontario Action Researcher and Teaching Today for Tomorrow in developing their reputations so that they are recognised as established and renowned international refereed journals. Until then, the battle of snails is likely to continue!

Conclusion and Moving on

What I hope that this presentation has accomplished is to captivate your educational imagination in a way that resonates with the logics you use in making sense of yourself, in making sense of others and in making sense of the world in which we live. I hope it has connected with your live-affirming energy and values of humanity in your recognition of the need for new living standards of judgment in a new epistemology for educational knowledge. There is much work to be done in legitimating these living logics, standards and epistemology throughout the Academy.

I am hopeful that many of us will be working together to contribute to the creation of a world of educational quality through generating this new epistemology for educational knowledge. I am thinking particularly of working together in educating the social formations of universities and the wider society about the educational significance of creating one's own living educational theory (McNiff, 2007) and of legitimating the living standards of judgment in the Academy.

I am also thinking of the significance for each individual and for the future of humanity of generating our own living educational theories with the life-affirming and energy-flowing values that sustain a connection with, and carry hope for, humanity and our own. I know it isn't easy to hold oneself accountable to the dynamic presencing of one's values in explanations of our educational influences in learning. I have explained why I think it is necessary in creating a world of educational quality.

What counts as educational knowledge in universities around the world has both reproductive and transformatory influences in individual and social formations. Because of this I am advocating the exercise of our educational imaginations in the academic legitimating of new living logics and standards of judgment that are grounded in the energy-flowing values of our educational practices and educational knowledge-creating activities.

I conclude with the expression of hope, faith and belief that it is through the exercise of our educational imaginations in the creation and sharing of our living educational theories that the expression of our life-affirming energies, values and understandings will influence the creation of our world of educational quality.

Appendix 1

Three Objectives

My first objective is to present the meanings of the values that constitute the relationally dynamic standards of judgment used by self-study researchers in enquiries of the kind, 'How do I improve what I am doing?' The presentation is informed by an expression of inclusionality. Inclusionality is a relationally dynamic awareness of space and boundaries as connective, reflexive and co-creative (Rayner, 2005).

As I am contributing to a session on Place, "Race," Culture, and Society: Creating a World of Educational Quality, I particularly want to acknowledge the influence of Yaakub Murray in bringing into my awareness an understanding of a postcolonial critical consciousness. Yaakub also raised my awareness of the importance of racialising my discourses with understandings from different racial and ethnic groups and cultures. Because of Yaakub's educational influence I want to focus your attention on a video-clip, made by Yaakub's wife Asma, as we talk about Yaakub's doctoral research and express pleasure in being together through our laughter. Yaakub is talking about some of my educational influences. What I think the video-clip communicates is a flow of life-affirming energy with our shared passion and love for what we are doing in our educational enquiries.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3TjLxEiyPk

The main point that I am making is that an explanation of my educational influence, in my own learning, in the learning of others and in the learning of social formations, requires life-affirming, energy-flowing values as explanatory principles. I am also claiming that your explanation for your educational influences in learning in enquiries of the kind, 'How do I improve what I am doing?', will also require your life-affirming, energy-flowing values as explanatory principles. For example, in explaining Jacqueline Delong's educational influence in helping to form and sustain a culture of inquiry in the Grand Erie District School Board (Delong and Whitehead, 2007) we have drawn on the life-affirming energy-flowing value of the pleasure and love in what Jacqueline is doing as she responds to a question about the support provided for teacher researchers with her influence as a Superintendent of Schools in the District School Board.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsECy86hzxA

We have also used the following clip from a doctoral supervision session to communicate the meanings of the expression of a life-affirming, energy-flowing value of pleasure in what we are doing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2kdOfRKFYs

The fourth illustration of life-affirming, energy flowing values is provided by Eden Charles in his doctoral research where he is describing his responses to working with a group of women in Sierra Leone who experienced great pain during the civil war.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcfZE_z-C_w

In his doctoral submission Eden explains his educational influences in his own learning and in the learning of others in terms of an African Cosmology with ubuntu and he develops the ideas of societal re-identification and guiltless recognition in making his own contributions to the creation of a world of educational quality. As I watch the video of Eden I recall my experiences on the day in which I felt Eden's receptive responsiveness to the humanity expressed by the women in Sierra Leone in their life-affirming, energy-flowing humanising responses to their experiences. I am wondering if I have communicated the transformational potential of bringing life-affirming, energy-flowing values in the living standards of judgment of a new epistemology into the Academy?

The second and third objectives below flow from the above, in responding to Snow's point about the need to systematize the knowledge of practitioner-researchers in education. The methods section below is also relevant to Snow's point:

The knowledge resources of excellent teachers constitute a rich resource, but one that is largely untapped because we have no procedures for systematizing it. Systematizing would require procedures for accumulating such knowledge and making it public, for connecting it to bodies of knowledge established through other methods, and for vetting it for correctness and consistency. If we had agreed-upon procedures for transforming knowledge based on personal experiences of practice into 'public' knowledge, analogous to the way a researcher's private knowledge is made public through peer-review and publication, the advantages would be great. (Snow, 2001, p.9)

My second objective is to present a form and content of educational theorizing that engages with workplace, life-long learning, in a way that recognises and resists colonizing methodologies while supporting an emancipatory interest.

I am thinking of educational theorizing as something that we do throughout our lives as we reflect on what we have been doing with our lives, what we have learnt about others and ourselves and about the cultural and other social influences in what we do. Reflection is necessary to educational theorizing but not sufficient to distinguish it. It is the explanations of our educational influences in learning that are necessary and sufficient to distinguish educational theorizing. This theorizing is not restricted to our workplaces, although much of our reflections on what we are doing may be connected to what we see as our work. It is certainly not restricted to schools, colleges and universities. For example, the living theories flowing through web-space from http://people.bath.ac.uk/edsajw/living.shtml include the explanations of educational influences in learning of police, health, management, teachers and other education workers.

What each living educational theory has in common is the recognition and engagement with power relations that serve a colonizing influence through the exertion of pressure that denies the validity of the voice, values and understandings of the practitioner researcher. I am using colonizing in the sense of seeking to replace indigenous understandings with other forms of understanding without respecting the vital part the indigenous understandings play in the identity of the other.

I first became aware of such a colonising tendency of propositional theories in my early studies of educational theory at the Institute of Education of the University of London (1968-1972). The dominant view of educational theory of the time was known as the 'disciplines' approach because it held that educational theory was constituted by the philosophy, psychology, sociology and history of education. The colonising tendency in this approach was its view that the explanations I generated from my practical experience were at best pragmatic maxims that 'should' be replaced by principles with more fundamental, theoretical justification. This mistake has been acknowledged and clearly expressed by Paul Hirst, one of the early proponents of the 'disciplines' approach when he said that much understanding of educational theory will be developed:

"... in the context of immediate practical experience and will be co-terminous with everyday understanding. In particular, many of its operational principles, both explicit and implicit, will be of their nature generalisations from practical experience and have as their justification the results of individual activities and practices.

In many characterisations of educational theory, my own included, principles justified in this way have until recently been regarded as at best pragmatic maxims having a first crude and superficial justification in practice that in any rationally developed theory would be replaced by principles with more fundamental, theoretical justification. That now seems to me to be a mistake. Rationally defensible practical principles, I suggest, must of their nature stand up to such practical tests and without that are necessarily inadequate." (Hirst, 1983, p. 18)

Kierkegaard pointed to this damaging colonising tendency of replacing the understandings generated from practical experience with conceptual frameworks from traditional propositional theories when he warned of the danger of creating unities in our imaginations that become detached from practical living.

Hence I want to hold firmly to my focus on the creation of living educational theories in supporting an emancipatory interest in enhancing the flow of values and understandings that are contributing to the creation of a world of educational quality. This is why I emphasise the importance of questions of the kind, 'How do I improve what I am doing?' in retaining a connection with one's practical life. This emancipatory interest includes an understanding of critical theories. I am thinking here of critical social theories that explain how economic and other interests work, in supporting reproductive and transformatory power relations, in social, historical and cultural formations. These power relations reproduce existing inequalities and violations of the values that carry hope for the future of humanity (Fromm, 1947, 1960; Marcuse, 1964; Adorno, 1963; Shroyer, 1963; Habermas, 1975, 1976, 1987, 2002).

I owe much, in the growth of my educational knowledge, to these critical theorists. Erich Fromm in particular was influential in developing my understanding of a Marxist analysis of capitalist social formations in the development of marketing personalities. I understood the importance of the ethics in his humanistic psychology in sustaining a productive orientation to human existence in the face of market pressures to succumb to the marketing orientation. I followed and agreed with his points about the need to retain the art of loving in one's own existence, and of the significance of hope and of small face to face groups engaging in productive conversations for enhancing well-being in social formations.

Marcuse's (1964) idea of a one-dimensional existence served to re-inforce Fromm's points about the importance of a productive orientation. I continue to use Marcuse's idea of logic as the mode of thought that is appropriate for comprehending the real as rational. With Adorno (1963) and Schroyer (1963) I focused on the critique of Heidegger that claimed the 'I' in Heidegger's thought remained formal while pretending to contain content in itself. This insight continues to focus my attention on ensuring that the 'I' within my writings is authentic and contains content in itself. The words of Martin Buber help me sustain a connection with this 'I' while being aware of the importance of avoiding the domination of the 'I' of ego:

"How much of a person a man is depends on how strong the I of the basic word I-You is in the human duality of his I.

The way he says I - what he means when he says I - decides where a man belongs and where he goes. The word "I" is the true shibboleth of humanity.

Listen to it!

How dissonant the I of the ego sounds! When it issues from tragic lips, tense with some self-contradiction that they try to hold back, it can move us to great pity. When it issues from chaotic lips that savagely, heedlessly, unconsciously represent contradiction, it can make us shudder. When the lips are vain and smooth, it sounds embarrassing or disgusting.

Those who pronounce the severed I, wallowing in the capital letter, uncover the shame of the world spirit that has been debased to mere spirituality.

But how beautiful and legitimate the vivid and emphatic I of Socrates sounds! It is the I of infinite conversation, and the air of conversation is present on all its ways, even before his judges, even in the final hour in prison. This I lived in that relation to man which is embodied in conversation. It believed in the actuality of men and went out toward them. Thus it stood together with them in actuality and is never severed from it. Even solitude cannot spell forsakenness, and when the human world falls silent for him, he hears his daimonion say You.

How beautiful and legitimate the full I of Goethe sounds! It is the I of pure intercourse with nature. Nature yields to it and speaks ceaselessly with it; she reveals here mysteries to it and yet does not betray her mystery. It believes in her and says to the rose: "So it is You" - and at once shares the same actuality with the rose. Hence, when it returns to itself, the spirit of actuality stays with it; the vision of the sun clings to the blessed eye that recalls its own likeness to the sun, and the friendship of the elements accompanies man into the calm of dying and rebirth.

Thus the "adequate, true, and pure" I-saying of the representatives of association, the Socratic and the Goethean persons, resounds through the ages." (Buber, 1970, p.117)

With Habermas (1975, 1987) I have kept my focus on learning with my own distinct emphasis on explaining educational influences in learning. I continue to use Habermas's (1976) four criteria of social validity from his work on communication and the evolution of society, to strengthen the validity of explanations of educational influence in learning.

Ideas of each of these theorists have helped me to understand the colonizing influences of the social formations in which I live and work. They have served to keep my enquiries grounded in serving the emancipatory interests that are enhancing the flow of values, skills and understandings that carry hope for the future of humanity. The work of Michel Foucault (Gordon, 1980), on how power relations are connected with knowledge, has also helped me to sustain my well-being when working alongside disciplinary power relations in my institution that either denied recognition to my contributions to educational knowledge or were mobilised to terminate my employment (Whitehead, 1993). Foucault's work, more than any other, helped me to understand and respond creatively to the exercise of these disciplinary power relations.

My third objective is to focus attention on values of humanity grounded in the African cosmology of ubuntu (Benghu, 1996) that emphasise the significance of the recognition of the humanity of the others in educational relationships.

In focusing attention on the values of humanity I value Gaita's (2002) insights into love, truth and justice as values of common humanity, especially his focus on love:

To speak, as I do, of fully acknowledging another's humanity will, I know, sound like rhetoric to many people who would prefer to speak of recognising someone fully as a person, or even as a rational agent, at least when, in philosophical mode, they try to make perspicuous what really is the bearer of moral status. My endorsements of Weil's remark - that love sees what is invisible - will sound even worse to them. In this preface I can only plead that I mean both and soberly. Later I argue that improbable though it may seem at first, placing the weight that I do on our humanity and on love rather than on, say, the obligated acknowledgement of rights, is more hardheaded than the longing to make secure to reason what reason cannot secure, all the while whistling in the dark. "(pp. xx-xxi)

I am identifying the creation of a world of educational qualities with such values of common humanity in living educational theories.

I have a particular political and ethical intent in asking that we engage with ubuntu ways of being from Africa in the language we use for stressing the relational values of our humanity. The political and ethical intent that moves me to do this is that I want to acknowledge a relational understanding of humanity from Africa that could contribute to the creation of a world of educational quality. I understand something of the violations of humanity under the Apartheid regime and the embrace of ubuntu in the South African constitution after 1994. Living near Bristol I am near a significant place of the part played by British Colonial Interests in the Slave Trade with its devastating consequences for several African countries as well as for its dehumanising influence in the perpetrators. In supervising the doctoral research programmes of Yaakub Murray and Eden Charles in particular, with their foci on postcolonial critical consciousness and ubuntu respectively, I have developed my own understandings of ways of being that emphasise the significance of recognising our own humanity in the humanity of others.

In my learning through supervising Simon Riding's research programme, with his idea of 'Living Myself Through Others' (Riding, 2003), I have also developed my understandings of relational ways of being and knowing in one of the English translations of ubuntu of 'I am because we are?'

Through conversations and her multi-media doctoral research programme, Marian Naidoo has shown me how such qualities of relationship can help in the emergence of a living theory of inclusional and responsive practice:

I am because we are (a never ending story). The emergence of a living theory of inclusional and responsive practice. (Naidoo, 2005, Retrieved 28 February 2007 from http://people.bath.ac.uk/edsajw/naidoo.shtml )

I cannot overstate the significance of Marian Naidoo's multi-media communication of the meanings of a passion for compassion in her emerging living theory of inclusional and responsive practice. The University of Bath amended its regulations in July 2004 to allow the submission of e-media in research degrees. Naidoo's use of e-media shows her relationally dynamic awareness of space and boundaries in generating living standards of judgment for

a new epistemology of educational knowledge.

I trust that the above section has served to focus your attention on the possibility of engaging with the significance of ubuntu as a relational way of being and relational standard of judgment in the development of living educational theories. I am thinking of living theories that serve the interests of creating a world of educational quality as I now move on in Appendix 2 to consider the theoretical frameworks that have been significant in the evolution of my own living educational theories. I want to stress the importance of understanding that each living theory is unique and will draw on the different constellations of values, skills and understandings from theoretical frameworks such as those below that influence the individual in their own socio-cultural and socio-historical contexts.

Appendix 2

Theoretical Frameworks

Insights from the following theoretical frameworks, amongst many others, can be used in the generation of the living theories. They can be used in the explication of the meanings of the embodied values and the living standards of judgment that constitute a world of educational quality. What I have done below is to bring together some of the most influential ideas from a range of theories that are continuing to evolve my unique living theory. I think it is worth repeating that each individual will have their own unique constellation of values, theoretical and emotional insights that are hel