How do I respond receptively to Marie Huxtable's enquiry, 'How do I improve my practice as a senior educational psychologist working in B&NES while researching my practice for a research degree?'

Jack Whitehead, Department of Education, University of Bath.

Marie Huxtable, Senior Educational Psychologist, Bath and North East Somerset

Research student, University of Bath

(Note – the views in this paper have emerged from our research into our professional practice and are not intended to represent the ideas of our employesr)

DRAFT 27 APRIL 2006

In our working lives we have many questions about the educational influence of the work we do. We love what we do in the sense that we are energized by the values, skills and understandings of many of the teachers and colleagues we work with. We feel the pleasure in living a productive life as we support others in enhancing the flow of values we share in a community of practice and as we develop our skills and understandings.

We are aware of our desire to respond receptively in the different relationships and widely differing contexts that constitute our work. We understand the influence of Alan Rayner and his ideas on inclusionality in this awareness. We are also aware of wanting to be of some assistance in the processes of improving educational influences in learning. We mean this in the sense of improving our own learning, of contributing to improvements in the learning of others and in improving the learning of the social formations and contexts in which we live and work.

The title of this paper contains two overarching concerns which both unite and distinguish our unique enquiries and contexts. There are many questions we are asking ourselves in relation to our questions and in this paper we are seeking to develop a better understanding of the influences in our own learning of reflecting on seeing and experiencing ourselves in relationships with colleagues in B&NES and the University. In particular we are seeking a better understanding of the meanings of the values we express in our relationships in the course of their emergence in practice, as well as understanding their educational influences in our own learning and in the learning of others.

The way we have constructed this paper is for Marie to look at a 10 minute video-clip in which she is explaining to colleagues her concern with the way 'targets' form a 'basket of indicators'. Marie is explaining what she thinks is missing from the present 'standards' in terms of the values she believes to be vital to education. Marie then responded to the video with some reflections that connected to the values and understandings that give meaning to her life in education. Jack then integrated the video-clip and images into the text and responded to Marie's initial reflections and questions.

Our questions are focused on:

i) Can we communicate the meanings of our embodied values?

ii) Can we distinguish the educational influences of the expression and recognition of our embodied values in our learning?

iii) Are our meanings of our embodied values experienced by others as the living standards of judgement we use to evaluate the validity of our beliefs about our educational influences in our own learning, in the learning of others and in the learning of social formations?

In answering these questions we are drawing on a video clip taken on the 26^th March 2006 in a Wednesday morning Breakfast Café Conversation in B&NES. This is a meeting with colleagues to share ideas and to explore the possibility that the living theory approach to action research initiated by Jack can contribute to enhancing the quality of our practice in relation to the policies of B&NES on Inclusion. The clip is some 10 minutes long (38.4Mb opening in Quicktime and taking some minutes to download using broadband). You can access the clip from:

http://www.jackwhitehead.com/marie/mhjwclip1.mov

Here are Marie's reflections on the video, taken by Jack. Jack selected the images because he felt that at the moment they were taken Marie was expressing qualities of listening, enquiry and pleasure that she values not only for herself, but that she responds to in others as qualities that are vital to education and inclusion.

Marie's reflections

As I look at the clip of myself in this conversation café I am trying to see myself with the eyes of another as I seek to enquire with, rather than simply to communicate to, others. Jack Whitehead took the video, so in one sense I am seeing myself through his eyes. Through this process I wish to progress my own practice by understanding more about what I do well and where I can improve, and to share my learning in a way that can enables others to construct meaning of their own from my experiences. I find looking at myself on video an uncomfortable experience emotionally and yet I am doing it because I want to understand better what I am doing and to improve my educational influence in my workplace.

I have chosen this clip because it is the first time in the conversations where I have made a sustained contribution on an issue that concerns me deeply. The issue is one of standards and judgements and my strong feeling that the government policies on the forms of accountability we are under pressure to use in local authorities are omitting some vital qualities of inclusionality and education. These qualities are not omitted from the lives of the educators I am working with.

I have seen others expressing these qualities through their behaving as educators as the are influencing their own learning and the learning of others be they children or adults. For instance Ed with a nursery child, Louise with 10 year olds, Jack with South African educators. A common feature I would like to be able to see in more of my own practice is the ability to engage in a collaborative, creative, educational conversation. That is, create a space for enquiry between myself and another where we each try to listen to, and enquire of the other and our self with humour and pleasure and to create something new, not only between us, but also each within our self.

In the 10 minute video-clip I believe that I am expressing myself with humour and pleasure and I am expressing my desire to create something new, not only between us, but also each within our selves. I can hear myself seeking to create something new in adding to the 'basket of indictors' those qualities of love, pleasure, humour and enquiry that I see and recognize myself expressing in the video-tape. As part of my concern that my beliefs about myself should be valid, I am seeking to strengthen the validity of my beliefs by submitting them in this account for your appreciation and critical responses.

I know that in the video, unusually for me, I can be seen making the longest contribution I have made in these conversations. As I watch the video I am listening intently to myself. Listening does not require just the ears to hear the sounds. It requires both a skill and intention to hear and respond to what is seen, heard and felt of the response to what I am trying to develop and communicate. It also requires an intention to understand, and creatively connect with, what the other person is bringing and creating. It requires modification of the communication to engage, acknowledge and build on the response of the other and maintain engagement in the enquiry. Communication requires a skill and intention to convey meanings and understandings behind and beyond the words through a genuine interest and pleasure in the other and a belief that the venture is a worthwhile activity where something new can be created. In the moment of the following image I am focusing on the importance of qualities of an inclusional human existence that are at present omitted from the government 'targets' and the standards used in the workplace to judge our 'effectiveness'.

In producing this account and making it available to you on the web it is inviting a response from you that I think could help to create new living standards of judgement in education that more closely connect with the values, skills and understandings of inclusionality that we wish to see expressed more fully in the world. In my inclusional relationships I think that I communicate an interest in the other from the genuine feeling of valuing the other. In the image below I recognize myself seeking to engage with another. I am seeking to connect my understandings with theirs with an invitation to enquire and in the expectation that something worthwhile will be produced.

Because of the nature of my academic training as an educational psychologist my initial desire is to develop a behavioural observation schedule! But, I am resisting my tendency to create a category system and then organize it into a taxonomy because I now see that this is analogous to pulling the wings off the butterfly in order to appreciate its beauty. Hence in this presentation I am asking you to hold in view my intention to engage with others in enquiry. I think that the video-clip shows me seeking to do this through the way I seek to relate to others in my 'scanning' of the room and in the tentative way in which I am expressing myself. There are particular images in the video-clip where I experience myself enquiring of the other about their understanding of what I am saying. The communicability of my points about the meanings of particular images require antecedents and some understanding of context.

As you view the video-clip do you recognize, as I do, that I am expressing my pleasure of being in a collaborative, creative, educational conversation with others? I believe that to connect with another person in such a way brings with it a feeling of pleasure that overrides and can support me to attend to rather than give in to temporary unpleasant feelings of embarrassment, fear, or anxiety which interrupts learning.

Do you recognize my expressions of humour. I believe that these often accompany moments when there is a connection between people who have shared values and understandings; who share that moment of realisation of that connection or the recognition that something new and of value has been created between them or within one of them.

Do you experience as I do moments in the clip that you can see that humour which carries with it bursts of physical pleasure and energy.

We will pause now for responses from colleagues and participants in the Monday and Tuesday evening conversations at the University of Bath and the Wednesday morning conversation in the Bath and North East Somerset Local Authority before we move further into our enquiries:

iv) Can we communicate the meanings of our embodied values?

v) Can we distinguish the educational influences of the expression and recognition of our embodied values in our learning?

vi) Are our meanings of our embodied values experienced by others as the living standards of judgement we use to evaluate the validity of our beliefs about our educational influences in our own learning, in the learning of others and in the learning of social formations?

Please do not hesitate to offer responses, no matter how critical they may feel, that you believe will help us to improve our professional work and enquiry into our research-based professionalism.