5.00-7.00 1WN 3.8, 4/04/05

For the Monday group and invitation to colleagues.

After catching up with each others' news Marian would like to hear any

responses to Chapter 1 of her thesis on 'I am because we are. How can I

improve my practice? The emergence of a living theory of responsive

practice.' at:

http://www.actionresearch.net/mnch1.htm

Do let's focus on Marian's introduction to see if we think it provides a

strong 'framing' for the thesis.

Bob Stephenson from the University of Buffalo is with the Department for

some weeks as part of his Sabbatical. I've asked Bob if he could join us

for this Monday evening's session and also to focus on his work on the

18th April. Bob is particularly interested in 'Judging Action Research:

What standards? Whose standards? Reporting and evaluating educators' study

of their own practices.'

Ram Punia is back from India and I'll be seeing Ram earlier in the day on

the 4th. If Ram can't stay for the conversation I'll pass on his news.

Jean and I have a joint presentation at AERA in Montreal on the 13th April

on 'How Do We Explain Our Educational Influence in Living Our Democratic

Values?' to a session on Action Research in Higher Education.

If you have the time and inclination it would be good to have your

responses to help strengthen the draft before it is sent to the discussant

next Tuesday. You can access the paper at:

http://www.actionresearch.net/jwjmaera310305.htm

Maggie's website is outstanding. You'll see in the paper the point:

"One of the most impressive examples of the originality of mind and

critical judgement of a living educational theorist, in demonstrating an

educational influence in the education of a social formation, can be seen

on Margaret Farren's website at http://webpages.dcu.ie/~farrenm/ .

Clicking on the Educators section at

http://webpages.dcu.ie/~farrenm/currentwork.html

brings you to the Dissertations section at

http://webpages.dcu.ie/~farrenm/dissertations.html

where you will find examples of living educational theory theses,

supervised by Farren and legitimated by Dublin City University.  Those

colleagues who wish to see such accounts of educational influence in

learning, legitimated in their own Universities, may find inspiration as

we do, from this demonstration of what is possible on Margaret Farren's

web-site. In demonstrating her own originality of mind, Farren also

shows our educational influence and in turn influences our own learning

with her idea of the significance of developing our pedagogies of the

unique."

Alan has finished his latest painting that includes an expression of

life-affirming energy. Alon, Alan and Jack are planning a joint paper

on 'Negating falsifiability - revealing the absurdity of false positivism

in the construction and testing of scientific hypotheses'

Alon is now writing up his doctorate on a heuristics of human existence

and you can keep up to date with his writings at:

web-site at http://www.bath.ac.uk/~pspas/

Je Kan has written to say that he is OK after the recent earthquake in

Japan that affected Fukuoka. He is working on the development of an

e-journal on living action research and educational theory and forming an

editorial board with those who have been awarded their doctorates for

their living educational theories.

The reference for the new book edited by Dean Tian Fengjun and Moira is:

Tian, F., & Laidlaw, M., (Ed) (2005), 'Action Research and the New

Curriculum in China: Case Studies and Reports in the Teaching of English,'

Beijing; Beijing Foreign Languages Research Press. (in press)

Looking forward to seeing you on Monday. If you can't be here and have

news to share do just e-mail it in.