For the Monday group and invitation to colleagues.

5.00-7.00 1WN 3.8, Monday 28^th February.

Looking forward to introducing the following visitor to the group:

Dr Ruth Gorinski Senior Researcher, Pacific Coast Applied Research Centre, Bay of Plenty Polytechnic, Tauranga, New Zealand. Ruth is a friend of Pip and you might like to read Pip's and her colleague's analysis of the Performance-Based Review Fund on tertiary providers in the paper 'Does the PBRF need reshaping? A new Maori educational institution's perspective'. click here

Jean is back from her week of talks and AR workshops with the Faculty of Education at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in SA and hopes to be here on Monday with her news.

As usual when someone is preparing for a doctoral viva we give priority to their contribution to the conversation and this Monday Eleanor is preparing for her viva on her thesis ‘Love at Work’ with her examiners Peter Reason and David Coughlan on the 11^th March. You can access Eleanor’s prologue at

http://www.jackwhitehead.com/elFront%202.htm I know that Eleanor would welcome our questions related to her meaning and representation of love in her thesis. There is a paper by Daniel Cho in the latest issue of Educational Theory that draws on Lacan’s psychoanalytic insights to point to the primacy of love in educational relationships. I think you might like the following quote:

“In the love encounter, the teacher and student do not seek knowledge from or of each other, but, rather, they seek knowledge from the world with each other: ‘‘Knowledge emerges only through the invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.’’ (36) Love marks the splitting of the teacherstudent that structures the truth of the void of the relation by pushing both parties into the world in the pursuit of knowledge. Notice now that, with love, the incomplete status of knowledge is no longer a condition of its content but of its very frame: love means the pursuit of real knowledge, knowledge that is no longer limited to particular content passed from one to the other, but rather knowledge that can only be attained by each partner seeking it in the world. To put this differently, knowledge is by definition the inquiry we make into the world, which is a pursuit inaugurated by a loving encounter with a teacher. With love, education becomes an open space for thought from which emerges knowledge. If education is to be a space where teacher and student search for knowledge, then we must strongly affirm that ‘‘Yes, a teacher and student can and must love each other.’’ But our previous discussion demonstrates that it is important to make clear that, when a teacher and student love one another, they do not have sex, they do not merely care for one another, nor do they pass knowledge between each other. Rather, with love, both teacher and student become self-aware and recognize that ‘‘there is no such thing as a teacher-student relation.’’ This truth opens a space for both lovers to preserve the distinctiveness of their positions by turning away from one another and toward the world in order to produce knowledge through inquiry and thought. Let us not be mistaken: under the technical, rational conditions of standardization, the stakes are high. If education is to be a space of thought, we must insist with Freire that ‘‘It is impossible to teach without the courage to love.’’ (37)”

36. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Continuum, 1970), 72.

37. Paulo Freire, Teachers as Cultural Workers: Letters to Those Who Dare Teach (Boulder, Colorado: Westview, 1998), 22, emphasis in original.

Cho, D. (2005) Lessons of love: psychoanalysis and teacher-student love. Educational Theory, Volume 55. Number, 1 pp. 79-95.

Looking forward to hearing about Nemrata’s visit to the Royal Agricultural College. Hoping that James has some video-footage to show us that might help us to understand better how to communicate the meanings of the expression of our inclusional values in our explanations of educational influence in our learning, in the learning of others and in the education of social formations. Wondering if there is some footage with Nemrata that might be helpful for Paulus’ session on the 10^th March at Sussex’s Diversity Week, with Jack and Q?

Je Kan is producing plans for the launch of an e-journal on Living Action Research/Living Educational Theory. Moira is back in Guyuan doing the final editing of her book with Dean Tian on Action Research. Passion in Professional Practice 4, edited by Heather, Jackie and Cheryl is on its way to us. Marian and Maggie are in the final phases of their write ups for the submission of their doctorates.

If I’ve missed any potential contributions for Monday, just bring them along and do e-mail in your news if you can’t be here.

Love Jack.