For the Monday group and an invitation to colleagues

5.00-7.00 1WN 3.8 Monday 7 February 2005.

Because of numbers we might need to start Monday's conversation in a different way to our usual sharing of each others' news from the week. At the BERA practitioner-researcher day we organised last July the process of trusting the generativity from the group seemed to work.

Tony Bennett, the Director of Postgraduate Programmes and Principle Lecturer in Marketing at the Ashcroft International Business School will be joining in the conversation and he is particularly interested in sharing ideas from his Ed.D. research on "The extent to which part-time Master's courses improve the professional practice of students: An action research inquiry"

You can read the summary of Tony's enquiry at http://www.jackwhitehead.com/monday/tonybennetthtm.htm

Mark Potts has just finished his masters dissertation on:

How can I improve my practice by communicating more effectively with others in my role as a professional educator?

I'll bring a copy along to show how Mark has used a multi-media approach to understand the educational influence of his presence and mindfulness with colleagues and students (James – P & S – I think this will interest you both as you develop your visual narratives of your educational influences in your own learning and in the learning of others). Mark has also integrated in his educational enquiry the idea and embodied value of alongsideness from Robyn's doctorate. Great to see this.

I met Branko Bognar at BERA 2004 and his multi-media presentation of his research on "Action research mentoring for supporting professional development ofteachers as learners: a growth of understanding in English and Croatian educational contexts." was the most stimulating session I attended.

Branko is a pedagogue, at the Elementary school "Vladimir Nazor" in Slavonski Brod and in his e-mail I found myself focusing on:

"We are just a small group of people with vision to improve something

in our educational and our living practice. We do not have power, money and

all great things which make the world go around. For now we just have ideas,

passion, belief, patience and care for each others."

From: Branko Bognar <branko.bognar@sb.htnet.hr>

To: 'Jack Whitehead' <A.J.Whitehead@bath.ac.uk>

Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2005 02:16:13 +0100

Subject: RE: connecting again

X-Spam-Score: -1.9 (-)

Thank you Jack,

It is really interesting opportunity to share details about our ongoing

researches and projects. I am waiting impatiently for Monday.

Thank you for your explanation of meaning 'Love Jack'. I will tell you how I

experienced the meaning of 'Love Jack'.

The journey to Manchester was really frustrated challenge for me. I had to

overcome so many obstacles to participate in BERA that I have not enough

words to explain all in details. When I came back to Croatia many people

asked me about my experience. I told them about my impressions, but I always

emphasised your interest and care about my presentation and our work here in

Croatia. We are just a small group of people with vision to improve something

in our educational and our living practice. We do not have power, money and

all great things which make the world go around. For now we just have ideas,

passion, belief, patience and care for each other. I am always delighted

when I meet somebody who believes in the science of love, who believes in

'small' things which really change the world (which beginning from me/us)

not just makes them go around.

Therefore, thank you for love Jack.

Branko

"For now we just have ideas, passion, belief, patience and care for each other."

This certainly resonates with the values I experience in our conversations as we work at enhancing the flow of these values as we learn from each other. Alan's idea of inclusionality as a relationally dynamic awareness of space and boundaries is transforming my understanding of educational relationships in terms of a movement towards a fully contextualised understanding of self. Alan's course notes for his undergraduate curriculum on 'Life, Environment and People' - Encouraging creative and critical biological and scientific enquiry into issues concerning human relationships with the living world – offer the inclusional understanding of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment of a remarkable educator and original thinker. You can see these at:

http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/values/arLEPnotes.htm

Thanks to Margarida we met Nemrata and shared her insights into a participatory action research project in Kenya on "Institutionalising Suspicion : Investigating the role of social and cultural norms in governance and management of user owned micro-finance systems". We also shared her hopes for her work in Nepal and India. Do let's keep in touch Nemrata.

Madeline's Ph.D. is now in the examining process and I had one of those educative moments yesterday as we were talking, before her viva, about her work in evaluating social change networks that are focusing on HIV and AIDS. Madeline explained that in seeking to help different networks to work together she tended to focus on the question, 'What do we want to work on together?' This seems like a very good question to me. Looking forward to Madeline's graduation in July and a Summer celebration with us all.

Eleanor's Ph.D. viva is on the 11^th March and I'm hoping that Eleanor can join us in a pre-viva session on the 28^th February. I asked Harry Daniels our new Professor in the Department if he would like to join in the conversation on the 14^th February and share some ideas from his research. Harry hopes to join us on the 14^th. Moira will also be joining us on the 14^th and would like to share ideas on how she can continue to support colleagues at China's Experimental Centre for Educational Action Research in Foreign Languages Teaching. Moira would like to focus on ideas on how to develop collaborative living educational theories with an inclusional perspective and with Chinese characteristics. Cathy Aymer from Brunel University also intends to come along on the 14^th to share ideas from her doctoral research programme on Seeking Knowledge for Black Cultural Renewal.

James & Debbie – very good to hear about the progress in the creation of your own living educational theories. I'm hoping that the plans to involve Nemrata in a video-taped session at the Royal Agricultural College might help us to develop a better understanding of how to communicate the educational influence of our embodied values.

Looking forward to Monday evening's conversation. If I've missed out a contribution you'd like to make, do please e-mail – also good to hear your news from the week if you can't make it in person.

Peggy has created a web-log (a blog to the initiated!) and I'll show you how to access it on Monday to respond as critical friends as Peggy enhances her educational influence as Manager of ABLE (The Academy of Best Learning in Education) in Singapore.

Love Jack.