GOVERNING THE SOUL?

I have been trying to repair a big black hole in my education concerning 'sociology' and 'politics' by getting to grips with Nikolas Rose's 'Governing the Soul - The Shaping of the Private Self' (1999 second edition). A quote from it from a student stimulated my interest and then a colleague recommended the Preface to the 2nd Edition which explains his methods in exploring 'the historical sociology of the self' and 'some of the historical events, cognitive shifts and technical innovations that have gone to make up our current ways of understanding and relating to ourselves as human beings with a certain subjectivity'

I have to confess I may have missed something as I read of how he argues developments in the following areas have impacted on our 'psy':'the government of military forces and civilians at times of war; the regulation of the factory; and of economic life more generally; the development of new ways of understanding and intervening in child development and family relations; the rise of psychotherapies' But then I went back and read the Preface again and realised I'd missed the detail contained under 6 dimensions he uses to carry out his 'critique' . I urge my colleagues in work based learning to consider the questions he poses under each heading as offering a rich epistemology to the reflective practitioner as he/she seeks to understand 'The Shaping of the Private Self' I list each heading below with a question of my own that links with kind of questions Jean McNiff and Jack Whitehead use in opening up an action research enquiry:

PROBLEMATISATION : What is the problem and why am I/should I be concerned about it?

EXPLANATIONS: Am I satisfied with the kind of explanations I am offered to respond to my concern?

TECHNOLOGIES : Am I satisfied with the 'manner' of the explanation, how the explanation is made/delivered?

AUTHORITIES: Am I satisfied with/ do I believe "them", the so-called 'experts' and authorities?

SUBJECTIVITIES: What do 'I' make of all these explanations and authorites? What impact has it made on me and what am I choosing to do about it amd why?

STRATEGIES: How comfortable am I with the 'intent', 'purpose' behind the explanations I am given?

I see parallels between his dimensions and our learning descriptors A and B when he says 'These six dimensions do not amount to a formal anlytical grid appropriate for all problems. They simply serve to generate the kinds of materials chosen for examination [Learning descriprors A] and the kinds of questions which I ask of these particular materials [learning descriptors B]

Any views?

Peter Critten

BACK TO PRINCIPLES & VALUES...YOU KNOW IT MAKES SENSE

These themes emerge from features in COMMENT section of today's Observer. Two features relate to Obama getting his Healthcare Bill passed . Henry Porter attributes this success to ' Principled and passionate' oratory (Page25) and cites Obama's words '..we are not bound to win but we are bound to be true'. Another feature on page 26 also extols us to 'Envy the eloquence with which Obama changed America' and points to Obama entreating 'veteran parliamentarians to recall what inspired them to get involved in politics in the first place'. The Observer's main leader is entitled ' It's not just about cuts - it's about values' (Page 26). And finally Andrew Rawnsley celebrates the growing popularity of Chancellor Darling for being honest and 'telling the truth' (27)

A link for me with previous two blogs is around the need for open and transparent dialogue if we really want to change things. It also resonates because at momentI'm playing around with some ideas for a paper to be presented at a conference on Work Based Learning next month, sure to be subject of a future blog. The theme is around contribution work based learning can make to 'policy making'. My opening line is that 'The evidencing of work based learning gives employees, practitioners a "voice", a way of making sense of what they do' Inevitably the process itself of reflecting on your practice brings to the fore values and beliefs that define who you are. And in recognising what is true for us, we begin to recognise the truth (or otherwise) in others.

Here endeth the lesson for today.

FROM JACKIE JEFFREY'S SPIRIT OF ALIGNMENT TO THE RED KNIGHTS

It seems to be a characteristic of my Sunday blog that it is informed by stories in the Observer. I want to make connections between four features in today's Observer with reflections on session I had with my colleague Jackie Jeffrey - see blog of 20 March

First - what might be the connection between these four features in Observer today - all in main News Section?

' Don't Destroy our universities. Our future depends on them' by Will Hutton on page 40
'Unions could be such a force for Good' by Nick Cohen on page 41
' Little to spend, little to celebrate: Darling must think outside the box' by Hetaher Stewart pg 50'
'Ethical Investing sees wind of change' by Lisa Bachelor on page 55

Oh, and I could also throw in 'Red Knights aim to win control of Manchester United in June with a £1.25bn bid' by Richard Waachman on page 49!

Without going into con-text of each piece, these are the themes that resonated with me which were to do with
- Need for imagination, look for alternative possibilities
- New alliances, partnerships outside of predictable political/corporate ways of doing things

On the first day of Spring there seem glimmerings of new hope and horizons for business and indeed the UK 'tired' and bored with the Status Quo. Back now to conversations with Jackie (see previous blog) and her concept of alliances. Here are some notes I made on the bus yesterday. For those unable/ unwilling to read previous blog the context for this is a Professional Doctorate Jackie is trying to nail around her campaigning for giving play team leaders in S Africa opportunity to 'immesre themselves' in different culture thereby enabling them better to recognise their own identity and capabilities when they returnEd to their own culture. Jackie calls herself a 'Social Edupreneur'.

She describes a journey of challenges with all manner of political and bureacratic beasts and how simply 'telling stories' can itself galvanise a situation allowing for new possibilities and above all, ALIGNMENTS.. She illustrates how she has managed to get support and funding for a range of projects from the franchise of a forest in Kent where the young (and not so young) can learn to play and heal their lives to an eco-village in Gambia where she has support from the Government of the day.

She makes a distinction between mere SHARING to ALIGNMENT. Only in the latter process, she argues, is the unique voice of the individual or indeed groups of individuals respected. By definition, alignment presupposes there is a 'diversity' of views that need to be aligned . She also demonstartes that to work, to really have value, 'alignment' implies a cost: that to work there must be real resources committed which could be money, people, ideas, 'place'

It just strikes me that if we can only stop being mesmersiued by 'the plan', 'the targets' imposed upon and us and look around at the freedom we all have to become who and what we need to be ...what a world it would be. GO ON YOU RED KNIGHTS!

Somehow , I think my blogging, is takinjg off into different directions! Jackie, I would welcome your observations as I would from those who have managed to find me

Until next week, then

REPRESENTATION AND THEORISATION - THE KEY TOOLS OF WORK BASED LEARNING

I want to try and capture some thoughts following a stimulating conversation with my colleague and DProf student Jackie Jeffrey at Trent Park yesterday. She submitted her DProf last June entitled ' The Mapping, Nurturing and Nourishing of New Learning Lanscapes: A Case Study in Community Education in South Africa and the UK' It is the story of her struggles to get funding for a group of playwork team leaders from South Africa to come to the UK as part of an accredited development programme. Her contention was that by taking these team leaders out of their 'comfort zone' and into a completely new culture the experience would enhance their learning and a sense of their own identity. This was an Action Research led investigation based on the values based/ Living Theory approach of Jean McNiff and Jack Whitehead. And Jean was one of external examiners.

The examiners agreed the study merited a DProf but stipulated a number of conditions which Jackie and I are currently working through. Jean made a significant comment at the Viva. She said 'I love your story but why should I believe you?' For Jackie, as I suspect for many practitioners, it is their 'story' that defines them. But as far as academia are concerned this isn't enough - there needs to be what Jean calls 'theorisation' so that the story as represented can be 'validated' in a wider context which would include references to the literature as well as the pulling together of emerging patterns and themes from the presented stories that enable 'others' to validate the claims made. In Jackie's case these emerging themes are around the importance of a process of 'alignment' in the creation of new social formations. I'd like to reflect on that more in a moment but want to stay with the question of what it is that justifies a piece of work as being 'academic' - and what is role of the'academy' in this process in the specific case of work based learning where it is the experience in/story of the work place that is privileged.

Out of yesterday's discussion there emerged for me a three stage process which I'd like to offer for comment. I would prefer to create a graphical representation but at moment limitation of knowledge of this blog prevenets me from doing it so these are three stages:

Stage 1: CONCRETE EXPERIENCE: There has to be an engagement with/ immersion in the living experiuences/events, But in themselves they are simply 'data'. They need process in second stage to make them accessible so that others can understand them in the same way as does the work based learner. This is stage two

Stage 2 : REPRESENTATION: This is where the story is told, the evidnece created for others to scrutinise. For me 'Representation' is a more meaningful than the other R word, 'Research' and , I suggest is more in keeping with how practitioners make sense of their professional context/work to themselves. In jackie's case she has chosen to describe the complexity of relationships in communities in the form of comic strips as well as DVDs of verbatim observations of these team leaders from S Africa as they confront the London Underground system for the first time. But, as Jean McNiff said, she loved the story but why should we believe it and indeed exactly what was it that Jackie wanted us to believe. This requires the big jump to stage three


Stage 3 : THEORISATION. I've just seen a quote from W Edwards Deming which may be appropriate here: 'Without theory, experience has no meaning. Without theory, one has no questions to ask. Hence, without theory, there is no learning' And this is what characterises everything academic - but in the case of work based learning the theory is not taught in a class room. Indeed,we might question whether the theory taught in classrooms necessarily leads to 'theorisation ' on the part of the learner. The learner is more likley to reproduce the theory as taught rather than genuinely 'theorise' for himself/ herself which is exatky what is required of the work based learner

I'm going to leave it there - posing questions to my colleagues in work based learning as to how by using these three processes we might construct a simpler framework for our students to use to navigate their journey. My thanks to Jackie for sparking off these ideas. And I'd finally like to pick up on her use of the word 'alignment' as a significant way of 'framimg' how our stories are just not shared but 'aligned' with others's stories and where that might lead us. And that's topic for next blog








not just the shaing of stories with others

'LEARNING NETWORKS & CONNECTIVE KNOWLEDGE ' - OBSERVATIONS AND REFLECTIONS

I am very grateful to my colleague Peter Bryant for passing on to me the chapter on 'Learning Networks' by Stephen Downes which is the first chapter in a book of contributione edited by H H Yang and S G Yuen in a book entitled ' Collective Intelligence & e-learning 2.0' (2010) IGI Global. It reflects very well principles I've long held about learning and knowledge. Below I identify key issues arising for me and how we might make use of them in way we promote WBL

An underpinning principle is that knolwedge is not contained in any one place, neither within University nor, indeed, part of the brain; it is distrributed across a wide range of people and sources. [ Note. I think this has significance re iWBL's 'A' group of learning descriptors which are all about range of sources we draw upon]

Downes focuses on the 'Personal Learning Environment' where the 'management of learning migrates from the institution to the learner' (p12). It allows the learner not only to consume learning/knowledge but to produce them as wellL 'Learning therefore evolves from being a transfer of content and knowledge to the production of content and knwowledge# (p12)

In contrast to traditional institution led learning 'e-learning 2.0 takes a "social pieces" loosley joined approach that combines the use of discrete but complementary tools and services - such as blogs, wikis and other social software - to support the creation of ad-hoc learning communities' (12)

Downes cites the following 8 'Ds' as characterising 'network learning' : Decentralised, Distributed, Disintermediated (ie by-passses central editing), Diaaggragated (Bundles of 'small pieces loosely joined'_, dis-integrated (not part of 'one' brand) Democratic (freedom to negotiate networks) Dynamic (always changing), Disaggregated (Happens anywhere)

How to evaluate effectiveness of a network?
'The mechanism for attaining the reliability of connective knowledge is fundamentally the same as that of attaining reliability in other areas, the promotion of diversity , through the empowering of individual entities and the reduction in the influence of well-connected entities, is essentially a way of creating extra sets of eyes within the network' (18) . He then goes on to pose 4 criteria which link nicely, I think with our own learning descriptors: diversity, autonomy, connectedness and openness'

We might well add these questions to our decriptrors:

DIVERSITY - 'Did the process involve the widest possible spectrum of points of view?
'Did people who interpret the matter one way, and from one set of assumptions, interact with people who approach the matter from a different perspective?'

AUTONOMY ' Did views come arise from contributors ' 'own accord' or were they acting 'at behest' of 'some external agency?

INTERACTIVITY or CONNECTEDNESS: 'Is the knowledge being produced the product of an interaction between the members or is it a (mere) aggregation of the members' perspectives? A different type of knowledge is produced one way as opposed to the other. Just as the human mind does not determine what is seen in front of it by merely counting pixels, nor either does a process intended to create public knowledge'

OPENNESS - 'Is there a mechanism that allows a given perspective to be entered into the system, to be heard and interacted with others?' (18) [ Could be applied to the organisational learning descriptors - I am working on]

' Learning...occurs in communities where the practice of learning is the participation in the community. A learning activity is in essence a conversation undertkane between the learner and other members of the community. The conversation in the Web 2.0 era consists not only of words but of images, video , mult-media and more. The conversation forms a rich tapestry of resources, dynamic and intercoonected, created not only by experts, but by all members of the community, incluidng learners' 18-19 , [ Link with 'Listen to Your Organisation Learning]

This for me is a telling point, that the 'on-line ' community is not just an adjunct that follows on from a 'course' but should lead TO the course

'..the community is the primary unit of learning and ...the instruction and the learning resources are secondary, arising out of and only because of the community' 20

'learning will be available not in learning institutions but in any given environment in which they [the learners] find themselves'

And finally, back to the PLE (Personal Learning Environment) : '...the heart of the concept of the PLE is that it is a tool that allows a learner (or anyone) to engage in a distributed environment consisting of a network of people, sources and resources' (20)

For me, Downes' chapter re-affirms many discussions over last few years I have had with Aboubakr Moteleb and Alan Durrant and lately with Peter Bryant as ro what is at the heart of WBL. Dare I say that, for me at least, it is not 'work' but the kind of learning networks Downes describes so elegantly. Could the research group Alan is sugesting we set up privilege 'learning networks' over WBL? And then we might review the learning descriptors - of which i am a great fan - in that light adding some of the criteia Downes cites in this chapter

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THE HUMAN TOUCH IN A DIGITAL WORLD

Sunday 14 March 2010 - Article on page 26 of 'New Review' of Observer. Alex Krotoski reports on interview with evolutionary anthropologist Robin Dunbar who maintains that 'we can only ever have 150 friends at most'. That's how many our brains will allow us to connect with. He cites Doomsday records which show average number of a village to be 150.

But what struck me most was last two paras when Dunbar reflects on the role of the web in all of this and whether it can it can lead us to 'meaningful relationships' . He concludes:
'..in the end we actually have to get together to make a relationship work........In the end we rely heavily on touch and we still haven't figured out how to do virtual touch....Words are slippery, a touch is worth a 1000 words any day'

For video of interview see : www.guardian.co.uk/video