How Do We Enhance Our Educational Influences In Learning Through The Expression And Development Of Our Talents In The Production Of Gifts.

Jack Whitehead, Department of Education, University of Bath.

6 December 2008

This question has a history of some 41 years professional engagement in education. I trace its beginning to a special study on ‘A Way To Professionalism In Education?’ I produced this study for my initial teacher education programme (1966-67) in the Department of Education of the University of Newcastle.

I am presenting my present answer the question in the title in the form of two narratives. The first is focused on the expression of a talent for responding to the talents of all pupils in enhancing learning. The second is focused on the talents of an educator for expressing in educational relationships:

· a life-affirming and loving dynamic energy

· a passion for sustaining commitment

· a passion for collaboration

· a passion for generosity towards others

· a passion for supporting others

· a passion for the expression and strengthening of courage

· a passion for the exercise of imagination

In some concluding reflections I clarify my foci on: educational influences in learning; life-affirming energy in recognizing and valuing the other; educational responsibility towards the other; living educational theories.

My primary interest in sharing the narratives is to see if they captivate your imaginations, evoke a stimulating connection with the energizing values that give meaning and purpose to your own life in education and motivate you to respond.

Two narratives that answer the question, ‘How do we enhance our educational Influences through the expression and development of our talents in the production of gifts?

I feel privileged when individuals share stories that reveal the values and understandings they use to give meaning and purpose to their lives. I listen to such stories to see if I can comprehend the practical explanatory principles they give to explain their educational influences in their learning. I am thinking of the practical principles they use in the explanations that constitute their living educational theories as they explain their learnings from their life experiences.

The above question emerged from two recent experiences.

The first experience was with teachers, students and parents from Wellsway school on the 16^th October 2008 at the University of Bath. Five, Year 12 students presented their extended projects from their AS curriculum and answered questions from the audience on their projects. Video clips of their answers to the questions are included below.

The second experience was with teachers and advisors at a meeting in the Guildhall, Bath on the 18^th November 2008 on Leadership in Gifts, Talents and Education. In this meeting teachers and advisors shared ideas on the development of an inclusive approach to gifts, talents and education. This approach involves enhancing the learning of all pupils in relation to the recognition and development of their talents in the production of gifts.

Your responses could help me to check the validity of my belief that sharing the narratives contributes to the flow of the life affirming energy that I felt circulating in both spaces, into your own. This belief is grounded in my experience of tutoring on a master’s degree programme with teachers on Tuesday evenings. Most of the teachers arrive, clearly tired after a day’s teaching. After some 30 minutes of so there is a flow of life-affirming energy in the room as the teachers share their values and stories of their classroom experiences as they seek to help their pupils to improve their learning.

Much of my educational research is based on this belief. If I am mistaken it would be good to know as I will need to change what I am doing. I am sharing the visual narratives below with the belief that they will evokes the expression in you of your own life-affirming energy and your love of enquiry learning and well being. I believe that it will do this first through a resonance with your values and then through a recognition that others are expressing the values and understandings that help to give meaning and purpose to your own life. Do please let me know if you think that my belief is justified or mistaken in relation to your own responses.

The first narrative draws attention to the talents of educators for expressing a life-affirming energy through humour and a love of enquiry learning and well being. It draws attention to the educators’ talents for creating an educational space where these qualities can be expressed and developed in the production of gifts that are freely shared.

The first narrative: an inclusive approach to gifts, talents and education.

One assumption in an inclusive approach to gifts, talents and education is that everyone has a talent for something that would like to express and develop in the production of a gift for others.

In Government Policies it is usual to see the language of ‘gifted’ and ‘talented’ where being gifted describes students who have the ability to excel academically in one or more subjects such as English, Drama, Technology and where being talented describes students who have the ability to excel in practical skills such as sport, leadership and artistic performance:

“The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority defines gifted and talented as: "Gifted and talented pupils are those that well exceed the expectations for their age group, either in all subjects or just one. The gifted and talented are a diverse group and their range of attainment will be varied, some do well in statutory national curriculum tests or national qualifications. However, being gifted and talented covers much more than the ability to succeed in tests and examinations. Therefore, it is impossible to set one way of identifying gifted and talented pupils." (National Literacy Trust, 2008 http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/database/able.html#definition )

I use the language of gifts of talents with the understanding that we can all recognise and develop our talents in the production of gifts. My primary interest is in the expression and development of the talents of educators as they produce and share their gifts. I am thinking of the gifts of their explanations of their educational influences in their own learning in the learning of their pupils, students and/or colleagues and in the learning of the sociocultural formations in which we live and work. Hence my commitment to working and researching with leaders of gifts, talents and education in schools.

The talent I wish to recognise and help to develop is the one distinguished in the transcript below by Jon Stevenson of being able to recognise and develop the talents of all pupils, especially in terms of improved learning for all the learners identified:

All institutions are free to determine the size of their gifted and talented populations, but should be able to justify this in terms of improved standard for all learners identified. (DCSF, 2008, p.11)

The transcript below is an extract from a video of a meeting of leaders of gifts, talents and education on the 18^th November 2008. It includes access to the video from which the transcript was taken. It begins with me describing the government’s proposal to develop an all masters profession with a masters degree in teaching and learning. It ends with Jon explaining his commitment to develop the talents of all his pupils. It includes two images to illustrate the importance of non-verbal communications that cannot be understood from the transcript along. Jon’s humourous expressions cannot be experienced from the transcript alone. The images and video help to communicate the expression of Jon’s life-affirming energy, pleasure and values that evoke the pleasurable response in others.

Through your responses to this narrative, with its inclusion of transcript data and video, I hope to test out the validity of my belief that the sharing of such expressions of energy, pleasure and values can help to enhance their flow into your own context. I also want to test the validity of my belief that explanations of educational influences in learning which include Jon’s talent for recognizing and responding to the talents of all his pupils, will help to spread the educational influence of an inclusive approach to gifts, talents and education.

Following the transcript below I include some of my own reflections on the processes of personalized learning supported by Sally Cartwright with pupils from Year 11 on an extended project in a pilot scheme for the new diplomas. The commentary includes access to the video-clips of students responding to questions from an audience at the University of Bath on the 10^th October 2008. It also includes access to Sally’s masters account of how she encouraged students and staff to develop their action reflection cycles in enquiries into improving their own learning as they realized and developed their own talents. Each student offered the gift of their presentation to the audience and Sally’s gift of her account is now flowing freely through web-space.

Video, image and transcript extracts and from the meeting on Leadership in Gifts Talents and Education at the Guildhall, Bath, on the18 November 2008.

Transcript of 35:46 to 41:51 minutes of the whole session.

(Clicking on the above picture should begin the 6 minute clip in Quicktime)

Jack. Everybody experiences that confusion genuinely. It does last for several weeks because it is a totally different set of assumptions. The government is going to bring in from September 2009 this idea of an all masters profession through these modules on teaching and learning.

Now actually they want everyone in the first five years to get that masters degree. That’s the idea. My point is that we have had many more years in education than the first five and you have already got that, the embodied knowledge of a master educator. So what you are doing everyday is actually embodying that kind of knowledge so what I’ve been working on is how do we get that public. In the course of that it evolves we bring in ideas. The confusion is coming to a university where the assumption is that you are going to get the knowledge transmitted. Whereas actually you’ve already got this really exciting knowledge.

Jon. That’s the thing isn’t it each unit that you do, so the unit isn’t given to you, the unit that you do is your account , is what you do. Your account is your particular thing…

Marie. Creating your account. If you think about the TASC wheel the last section if you think of that being last rather than something we start with it is actually in communicating to others we create new understandings for ourselves. In making that embodied knowledge public that you are actually offering what it is that you know and in actually doing that you create something new. Which answers you and everybody else.

Jon. I still need to firm up my question don’t I.

Liz. Me too

Jack. Let’s keep going for a few minutes.

Liz I’ve got to go

Jack Okay - When we were talking about the learning opportunities and you said, ‘Well I’m in this confused state’. If you were to start with that and then you focus in on what it is you are wanting to do in the school and it feels that enhancing the learning of the pupils feels really crucial.

Liz Because when we had Mr OfSTED in, he homed in on me and said I’m interested in this role as learning opportunities leader

Jon – Oh great – thankyou for that!

(Still image of the burst of laughter and flow of energy at 2:29 minutes into the above clip)

Liz. He was asking what I was doing with children with special needs and gifted and talented

He was saying what about the other children what about the children who are neither?

And so I was saying we had the booster programme There’s a lot of crossover in gifted and talented and special needs children identified with special needs will also be identified because they’ve got gifts and talents

But that still wasn’t enough for him. He was still saying what are you doing for the rest of the children who aren’t identified for anything and I was saying, I don’t know;

Marie. Because you do know - its actually how do you articulate that knowledge. Because the trap we keep falling into is asking, What are you doing about the others?

Jon. There aren’t any others. That’s the thing isn’t it. That’s the point of categorization isn’t it? You categorise a child as SEN, you categorise a child as gifted and talented and then of course they are going to say, ‘What about the middle children?’ because they want to categorise the other group of children as ‘the middle children’.

So what are you are doing about the middle children? So we say ‘Well actually our provision is for all. It’s not for this group or that group or this middle group it is actually for all of them so what we are trying to produce is something for all of them’.

Liz. I think we are somewhere along that road in as much as when we identify gifted and talented it is very much based on the knowledge that the teachers have of the children, you know their abilities. I want to look at children who go to after school clubs and those sort of things as well, I don’t look at levels I just go on what the teachers tell me about what they know about the children.

It’s getting that across to the authority because we had an incident , I can’t remember when it was now, when someone from the authority was questioning the size of our register of gifted and talented children saying why have you got so many on the register, there are too many on the register in relation to the proportion of children in the school. Why are there so many on the register. It’s because those are the ones we’ve identified. But I’m actually feeling like Jon that everyone has got some gifts and talents. So really all of them should be on the register

Marie. Next time you get that question and it will come through - you cut and paste from your policy statement your rationale and put it back in and send it off. So my question to you would be: What is the educational purpose of your register? So rather than say – it should be the other way round we should have 100% on the register.

So to help you with that one - We can help you with that one and that’s Jenny’s contribution.

Jenny. We found the man from the LEA who was asking the question. He was having to ask that question because the government wanted to know and he said that it’s all right they can tell me anything I’ll just put that in.

Jon. (41:11 minutes – still image of a flow of life-affirming energy with pleasure evoked through humour)

That is the thing. There isn’t a statutory thing that says you’ve must have x or y on the register as long as you can justify it. If someone asked me that question I would say well actually we have identified the gifts and talents of all our children. Our governors had a real issue as did we with the terminology of gifted and talented so I never use gifted and talented now, I always use gifts and talents.

So when I’m introducing the subject we always talk gifts and talents. We don’t talk about the gifted and talented we talk about the children’s gifts and talents. So my register is of the children’s gifts and talents.

In the narrative above the focus is on a conversation in which individuals are clarifying their understanding of differences between gifted and talented education as defined in government policies and an inclusive approach to gifts and talents in education. In an inclusive approach all pupils are believed to be capable of expressing their talents in the production of gifts.

In the second narrative below the talents of a group of 5 students are developed and offered as gifts with the educational influence of Sally Cartwright.

I am offering the second narrative below for responses of readers to check the validity of my explanation of Sally educational influences and to see if I have understood Sally’s explanation of her own influence. What I am also wanting to understand, through your responses, is whether I am using visual narrative in a way that evokes a resonance in you of the energizing values and understandings you use to give meaning and purpose to your life in education. As I have said, I am particularly interested in your responses to my belief in the educational value of sharing such visual narratives. I am thinking particularly of the educational value of sharing expressions of our life-circulating energies and love of learning and well being. I am thinking of this sharing in terms of our explanations of our educational influences in our own learning, in the learning of others and in the learning of the sociocultural formations in which we live and work.

Second Narrative – My explanation of Sally Cartwright’s educational influence in her own learning and in the learning of her students in terms of her talents as an educator and her living educational theory.

The social context of the video-clips in this explanation of Sally Cartwright’s educational influence is room 3East 2.4 of the University of Bath on the 16^th October 2008, from 6.30-9.00. The space was made available to enable five, 17-18 year old students to present accounts of their Extended Projects as part of their AS level course. It was made available for Sally to enable these presentations of her students as part of her masters programme into explaining her educational influence in her own learning and in the learning of her students.

The explanatory principles I am using to explain Sally’s educational influence are distinguished by flows of life-affirming loving energy and receptive responses to the unique educational needs of each student.

If you click on the still photographs below you can play the video-clips in Quicktime. In some browsers a cursor below the video-clip allows you to move the images backwards and forwards at whatever speed you like. This movement is important because the digital technology enables readers to see educational relationships and communication as relationally dynamic. It allows us to freeze a particular frame whilst being aware of what preceded and what follows this particular frame with meanings that are limited when communicated through words on pages of text. I think that you can see this most markedly in the video, images and transcript above of the session on gifts, talents and education. I am thinking of the differences in communication from the meanings you take from just the transcript and the meanings you make as you experience the video at the two points where everyone laughs and shares the expression of a flow of life-affirming energy in Jon Stevenson’s contributions.

I think that you will also see below in this second narrative the importance of a relationally dynamic awareness in explanations of influence I believe that you can appreciate Sally Cartwright’s relationally dynamic awareness If you click on the 3.34 minute clip of the ‘interval with nibbles’ video-clip. I see Sally at 1.34 minutes moving through the space with a relationally dynamic awareness of the presence of others. I’m wondering if you can see this too. The digital technology allows the inclusion of the video-clips that can show the importance of such relational dynamics in explanations of educational influence. The visual representations seem to me to enable the communications of the practical principles individuals use to give meaning and purpose to their lives. I am thinking that such practical principles include flows of life-affirming energy with the values and understandings we use to meaning and purpose to our lives.

What I have done with the clips of Sally’s introduction and concluding thanks, along with the thanks from James, is to include the transcript after the clip. I have also included the 5 clips of the question and answer sessions with Louise, Nathan, Simon, James and Devon because I believe that along with the 15 minute presentations of each project, it is in the question and answer sessions that Sally sees her educational influence most clearly.

If you will now click on the image of Sally below the 1.22 minute clip should play in Quicktime and you can move the cursor backwards and forwards to get a sense of the expression of Sally’s embodied meanings that accompany her verbal meanings in the transcript below. What I see Sally expressing is her affirmation of the educational value of the work of her students and of the contributions of others who have helped with guidance and understanding. What I want to do now is to offer Sally my explanation of her educational influence in terms of what I am seeing Sally value and understand in the contributions of others. I want to do this in a way that doesn’t violate Sally’s understandings. I am also mindful of wanting to avoid the indignity of speaking for others when they are most capable of speaking for themselves. My explanation includes commitment, imagination, collaboration, generosity, passion, support and courage. These are all words that Sally uses in the transcript of her welcome.

What I also experience in Sally’s welcome is the expression of a life-affirming and loving dynamic energy. I feel that Sally loves what she does in education with her students and expresses this in her talent to express this love in a flow of life-affirming energy that carries her passion and sustained commitment to collaboration, generosity, support, courage and the exercise of imagination in developing a strong sense of one’s unique identity in one’s own loving relationships and productive work. The explanatory principles I want to check out with Sally are what I am seeing as her expression of her talents:

i) a life-affirming and loving dynamic energy

ii) a passion for sustaining commitment

iii) a passion for collaboration

iv) a passion for generosity towards others

v) a passion for supporting others

vi) a passion for the expression and strengthening of courage

vii) a passion for the exercise of imagination

I’d also like to check out with Sally the use-value of Joan Walton’s original standard of judgment in her doctoral thesis of a loving dynamic energy. I am using this explanatory principle and standard of judgment in constructing an explanation of Sally’s explanation of her educational influences in her own learning, in the learning of others and in the learning of the sociocultural formations in which we live and work:

Through telling my personal story, I offer an emergent methodology that includes both narrative inquiry and action research. I generate a living theory which offers ‘spiritual resilience gained through connection with a loving dynamic energy’ as an original standard of judgment. (Walton, 2008)

Here is the video and transcript from which I’m inferring that Sally is expressing the above explanatory principles through which we can understand her educational influences.

1.22 minute clip of Sally Cartwright’s introduction.

Transcript: I’d like to extend a very warm welcome to all of you. I think that congratulations go to all of you for actually finding the building that was a major achievement and dealing with the traffic in Bath.

I think we are all very excited by this evening and it is a huge tribute to the students who are speaking tonight because they have been part as many of you know the pilot project and they’ve actually worked with huge commitment and huge imagination and I would also like to say a big thank you to Jack from the University of Bath and to Marie from B&NES who have really guided us and provided us with a huge understanding of how to work as a collaborative research community and these students have done that and they have responded to that and they have supported each other really generously but they have also each followed their own passion so I have no doubt that you will give them an enormous amount of support as they courageously stand and speak to us this evening.

The question and answer sessions below with Louise, Nathan, Simon, James and Devon take some 31 minutes to view in total and you might like to click on one of these and move the cursor along quickly to get a sense of the individual’s confidence in responding to the questions. If time is short I would move to the video-clip of Sally and James bringing a close to the evening. In her expression of thanks I believe that Sally is emphasizing her own passion to support the development of collaborative learning relationships in which each individual can follow their own passion in creating something worth while for them. If you click on the 3.34 minute clip of the interval you will see people talking and enjoying the nibbles and drinks provided by Sally. I use the word ‘enjoy’ with care, because as I looked around the room in the interval, I saw everyone engaged in animated conversations with faces expressing pleasure. At 1.34 minutes you can see Sally move round the room into the gathering and then back to a group of students. I believe that this shows Sally’s inclusional (Rayner, 2004) way of being as she receptively responds to the relational dynamics with others in the educational space.

Here are the video-clips showing the five question and answer sessions, the interval and the closing remarks with Sally and James:

Louise’s question and answer session 6.03 minutes

Nathan’s question and answer session 6.56 minutes

Simon’s question and answer session 6.22 minutes

Video extract of interval with nibbles 3.34 minutes 1.34 minutes Sally’s relationally dynamic awareness and receptively responsive relationships in the living space

James’ question and answer session 4.36 minutes

Devon’s question and answer session 5.38 minutes

Sally’s and James’ thanks - 2.10 minutes

Sally - But could I also say that we are only able to be here this evening because of the huge amount of work, the huge amount of thinking and also along the way I would say a huge amount of positive criticism as students. They produced their presentations this evening from essays which were no smaller than 5000 words. So to be able to start from absolutely nothing and have a seed and have an idea and develop it and pursue it where they’ve worked as a group and as you’ve seen the huge diversity of what they’ve actually investigated but they’ve supported each other in this huge diversity I think is a huge testament to not only what they’ve achieved but them as a group of individuals and them as a group who really worked in and built these incredible learning relationships and I know Mrs Sanderson and I who have worked with them have found it very challenging for us, we’ve all been going into the unknown but it has been an incredible privilege to work with them so can I just say to all five of you thank you so much for what you have given to us this evening.

James - I’ll just say a few brief words. Thank you on behalf of everyone who participated in the project a huge thankyou to both Mrs Cartright and Mrs Sanderson and especially to Jack and Marie who really helped us to set up a research community with a seminar base, which personally I felt was the most beneficial part of the experience - the ability to critique and analyse each other and adapt our methodology I think it really added to everyone’s final product. So just a big thankyou for that. We’ve got a small token of appreciation. Thank you very much.

Sally Cartwright (2008) has explained her educational influences in supporting the inclusion of action reflection cycles, known as the TASC wheel (Thinking Actively in a Social Context – Wallace, 2000), into the learning of both students and colleagues.

You can access the account Sally successfully submitted as an educational enquiry in her masters degree programme at:

http://www.jackwhitehead.com/tuesdayma/sceejan08.pdf

This describes how Sally introduced the TASC wheel as an action research process into the personalized learning of students and helped to extend the approach with other colleagues. I’m hoping that you might find the approach helpful in recognizing and developing your own talents as educators and in recognizing and helping pupils, students and colleagues to developing their own talents in the production of their gifts. In the context of bringing the embodied knowledges of master and doctor educators into the professional knowledge-base I am referring to gifts as the explanations of educational influences in learning that are made freely available for others.

CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS

In these concluding reflections I clarify some assumptions in my understandings of what I am doing in producing the above narratives. These assumptions concern: educational influences in learning; life-affirming energy in recognizing and valuing the other; educational responsibility towards the other; sharing the narratives of others.

Educational influences in learning

I was influenced by my first degree in physical sciences to see the causal relationships in scientific theories as being primary explanatory principles in explanations for why things happened in the world in the ways that they do. As I began to reflect on my educational relationships with my pupils and to study the growth of their scientific understandings for my masters dissertation in 1971/72 on a Preliminary Investigation ‘Of The Process Through Which Adolescents Acquire Scientific Understanding’, I began to appreciate the difference between an intentional relationship and an causal relationship. As I began to understand my pupils and myself as learners I could see that no matter what I did with my pupils, my educational influence in their learning depended on their conscious engagement with what I was doing and the exercise of their intentionality in their own learning. I could not say with any validity that ‘I had educated my pupils?’ in a causal sense. I could say with some validity that I had influenced my pupil’s learning. This distinction between causal and intentional relationships is vital in comprehending my emphasis on the importance of enhancing educational influences in learning and of explaining these educational influences in the professional knowledge-base of education.

The idea of explaining educational influences in learning is centrally important in my research. Human beings can learn to do many things, many of which I could not accept as educational because the learning violates the values, skills and understandings that carry hope, for me, for the future of humanity and my own.

I know that what counts as an educational influence can be seen as culturally relative. In one culture a group of individuals can learn to see themselves as freedom fighters. In another culture individuals have learnt to see the same people as terrorists. Whilst understanding cultural relativism, I exercise my educational responsibility is judging and explaining what is an educational influence in learning and what is not. To help reduce the bias and prejudice I submit my judgments and explanations to the democratic evaluations of my peers. In this democratic evaluation I ask for assistance: in strengthening the comprehensibility of my explanations; the quality of the evidence I offer to support my assertions; the understandings I show of the normative background of the culture from which I am writing; what I might do to show that I am genuinely committed to the values and understandings I claim that I use to give meaning and purpose to my life. I draw these four criteria from the writings of Habermas (1976, pp. 2-3) on communication and the evolution of society. I hope that this explains my emphasis on the importance of generating explanations for educational influences in learning.

One of the distinguishing qualities of the practical explanatory principles in such explanations are expressions of life-affirming energy in recognizing and valuing the other.

Life-affirming energy in recognizing and valuing the other

When I am in the presence of what I call a master or doctor educator I feel an expression of life-affirming energy in their recognition and valuing of the other. It is difficult, if not impossible, to communicate the meanings of such expressions using only words on pages of text. This is why I use video to communicate the meanings of flows of life-affirming energy in educational relationships and in explanations of educational influences in learning. What I see expressed in the educational relationships of master and doctor educators is a life-affirming energy in recognizing and valuing the other. In the two narratives below I want to focus your attention on the expression of this energy, recognition and valuing. I want to check with you the validity of my claims about the educational significance of these expressions in explanations of educational influence in learning. What I also see expressed in the educational relationships of master and doctor educators is an educational responsibility towards the other.

Educational responsibility towards the other

One of the distinguishing qualities of master and doctor educators is their expression of educational responsibility towards their pupils and students. By this I do not mean the expression of a responsibility for the other. The distinction is important to me. It is intended to convey an understanding of a creative space between the expression of responsibility of the educator towards a student and the responsibility of the student for themselves. I can be responsible for myself and others can express a responsibility towards me. I know that there are cases, such as the Power of Attorney I used when my Aunt became disabled with Altzheimer’s disease some years before her death, when I am prepared to accept a responsibility for the other. In my educational relationships I insist on expressing a responsibility towards the other in a way that is intended to express a respect for the responsibility of the other for themselves. It is the ground of an individual’s responsibility for themselves and towards others that gives significance to my advocacy of the creation and sharing of living educational theories.

Living educational theories

What I mean by a living educational theory is an explanation given by an individual for their educational influence in their own learning, in the learning of others and in the learning of the socio-cultural context in which they live and work. My motivation for advocating the development by individuals of their living educational theory is related to my belief that part of the recognition of living a worth-while life is understanding one’s influence in the world. Because I associate education with the values, skills and understandings that carry hope for the future of humanity and my own I believe that educators can both improve their practice and contribute to the educational knowledge-base through creating and sharing their living educational theories. I am committed to enhancing the professional knowledge-base of education with living educational theories (Whitehead & McNiff, 2006). This commitment is based on the assumption that extending the educational influences of living educational theories will contribute to making the world a better place to be for all. One of the ways in which such influence can be extended is through the production and sharing of educational narratives that include the individual’s living educational theory.

Sharing the narratives of others

I find that working with the above individuals helps to sustain my continuing desire to keep working in education. Because of this I found myself wondering if sharing my experiences of this work through the above visual narratives might help to amplify within and across the boundaries of our professional contexts the flows of life-affirming energy with values that carry hope for humanity and our own. I may be mistaken in believing that sharing these visual narratives with you, evokes a resonance with your life-affirming energy and love for enquiry learning and well-being that can help to sustain your own passion for education.

I’d really like to hear your responses as I think they will be helpful in the evolution of my own understandings of how to enhance professionalism in education. I am thinking of this in terms of supporting students in improving their learning and through contributing to the knowledge-base of education by improving their practice and generating and sharing knowledge of the expression and development of their own talents in the production of their gifts for others.

References

Cartwright, S. (2008) MA Unit on Educational Enquiry. Retrieved 24 November 2008 from http://www.jackwhitehead.com/tuesdayma/sceej

DCSF (2008) Handbook for leading teachers for gifted and talented education. Nottingham; DCSF Publications Centre. Retrieved 24 November 2008 from http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/primary/publications/inclusion/gt_lt_hbk/

Habermas, J. (1976) Communication and the evolution of society. London; Heinemann

National Literacy Trust (2008) Gifted and Talented Children. Retrieved 24 November 2008 from http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/primary/publications/inclusion/gt_lt_hbk/

Rayner, A. (2004) INCLUSIONALITY: The Science, Art and Spirituality of Place, Space and Evolution. Retrieved 3 December 2008 from http://people.bath.ac.uk/bssadmr/inclusionality/placespaceevolution.html

Whitehead, J. & McNiff, J. (2006) Action Research Living Theory. London; Sage.