|
Title: |
The Process of critical enquiry and of becoming critical as a practitioner: The dawning of a new paradigm of Global co-operation and educative understanding or old colonial values repackage and represented? |
|
Authors & affiliations: |
Rev Je Kan Adler-Collins, Fukuoka Prefectural University, Faculty of Nursing, Mental Health Japan Ms Yukiko Ohmi Fukuoka Prefectural University, Faculty of Nursing, Adult Nursing Japan |
|
Abstract: |
The context of this paper is embedded
in the telling of an educational story about practitioner research grounded
in our teaching practice as we investigate the process of our pedagogising
our claims to know and our knowledge into the development, implementation,
assessment, and evaluation of our curriculum for healing reflecting nurses in
a Japanese University. Our
research context focuses on the process of becoming critical as
practitioners. In a culture where critical thinking is not the same as in the
west as it is bounded by a strong social context of conformity and resistance
to change. We will show our process of becoming critical of ourselves as
educators and as conscious human beings and how we integrated our different
cultural understandings and values into our curriculum. We am not using
critical in the sense of a "bad" thing or to " criticize" rather we are evolving in the (Wink, 2005) sense of
critical " seeing beyond". The
theoretical context was grounded in the concepts of heuristic living action
research where we engaged with curriculum issues, in terms of theory and
design. We explore our understanding of our own racial teachings, the
embodied values of one authors "whiteness" (Adler-Collins),(Adler-Collins and
Ohmi, 2005)' We
seek to extend our understanding of Japanese cultural response to the
curriculum by the analysis of our students' data sets from their reflective
journals, portfolios' and evaluations of our teaching. We do this by
heuristically immersing ourselves (Moustakas, 1990)in the process of
becoming critical. A dynamic process of learning where each author is striving to see the other and set
aside their own issues to facilitate a new understanding and merging of
culturally different ideas. The
contribution to knowledge this paper brings is that of the difficulty of
importing educational systems from one context bound environment to another.
The issues around colonisation of knowledge and ethics are highlighted along
with the need for global educators to be aware of their own bias of race,
gender and culture. This paper is not a theoretical account but an authentic
account of what happened in practice, the problems faced and actions we took
to resolve them. ADLER-COLLINS, J.
(2005) Pedagogising a Living Educational Theory Curriculum for the Healing
Nurse. Exeter, British Educational Index. ADLER-COLLINS, J.
& OHMI, Y. (2005) Sticks and Carrots: Living, Holding and Developing our
Educational Values Through Times of Transformation, Challenge and Change British Education
Index. MOUSTAKAS, C. (1990) Heuristic
Research: Design, Methodology, and Applications, New York, Sage. WINK, J. (2005) Critical
Pedagogy, New
York, Pearson,Allyn and Bacon. |