Education is not a commodity, although it seems to have been reduced to that it has a far higher purpose and should be accorded

In my educational relationships with Louise and You, how can I enhance my educational influences in y/our learning?

Jack Whitehead

2 May 2007

What I'd like to do is to respond to Louise's reflections on the Mathsmagic videoclip in a way that contributes to my educational influence in Louise's learning (and hopefully, you own). In saying this I want to emphasise that I would never claim to have educated anyone other than myself. This is because whatever I might do in educational relationships, it is the creative responses of the other in responded to whatever I might do that generates an educational influence in learning. But, what I can sometimes see, in the educational/learning narratives of others, is my educational influence.

Louise has explained to me that the more she understands others the more she finds that these understandings help her to understand herself. So, what I am going to try to do is to respond to Louise with the learning intent of enabling Louise to produce an educational enquiry that can satisfy the university's criteria of:

"Made critical use of literature, professional experience and, where appropriate, knowledge from other sources, to inform the focus and methodology of the study or enquiry.

Made appropriate critical use of the literature and, where appropriate, knowledge from other sources, in the development of the study or enquiry and its conclusions.

Demonstrated an ability to identify and categorise issues, and to undertake an educational study or enquiry in an appropriately critical, original, and balanced fashion.

Demonstrated an ability to analyse, interpret and critique findings and arguments and, where appropriate, to apply these in a reflective manner to the improvement of educational practices.",

without losing a direct connection to the meanings that Louise is expressing in her reflections. What I'm curious about is whether I can respond to Louise's desire to understand me, in my work as an educator and educational researcher. I want to respond in a way that helps her (and you) to produce an educational enquiry that shows the embodied knowledge of a master educator.

I also want to respond in a way that achieves the longed for influence of exciting Joy about the desirability of producing writings for research methods in education! I want to respond in a way that acknowledges the reality and influence of some of the tensions Amy, Claire, Joy are experiencing in preparing for SATs (and Steve for a job application and Sally responding to the vision of possibilities in her recent experiences) while wanting to retain the integrity of their educational values.

Let's see if there is something in my responses that connects with your enquiry, as I bear you in mind – especially in the video-clips where you are sharing with the group what really matters to you. Ros – just seeing your pleasure on that video-clip where you are sharing what really matters to you: Here goes!

Dear Louise – I'm going to respond to your letter with the intention of enabling you to understand me in what I am doing. Through sharing this understanding I'm hoping that you will see how to evolve your writings into an educational enquiry that can fulfil the above criteria for this masters unit, without losing contact with what really matters to you. Because of the emphasis in the first two criteria about critical use of literature I want to show how much of my understanding of myself I own to the ideas and language of others who have shared their understandings of themselves, their lives and their work. My responses are in normal type to your reflections in bold italics.

Reflections on the Mathsmagic videoclip shared with the Tuesday evening masters group on 1 May 2007-05-02

Louise Cripps

I really enjoy watching this clip of the learning taking place between the four of us for many different reasons I think which I'll try to express here.

Firstly it puts me into a position which I really value, which is of being able to learn alongside other learners, and to work collaboratively with them in a genuine attempt to work together.

In my life I understand this value of working and learning together with the help of a passage from the work of Marx (Bernstein, 1971, p.48) on the affirmations we can feel as we produce things as human beings:

"Suppose we had produced things as human beings: in his production each of us would have twice affirmed himself and the other.

In my production I would have objectified my individuality and its particularity, and in the course of the activity I would have enjoyed an individual life, in viewing the object I would have experienced the individual joy of knowing my personality as an objective, sensuously perceptible, and indubitable power.

In your satisfaction and your use of my product I would have had the direct and conscious satisfaction that my work satisfied a human need, that it objectified human nature, and that it created an object appropriate to the need of another human being.

I would have been the mediator between you and the species and you would have experienced me as a redintegration of your own nature and a necessary part of yourself; I would have been affirmed in your thought as well as your love.

In my individual life I would have directly created your life, in my individual activity I would have immediately confirmed and realized my true human nature."

As we work together I feel this quality of affirmation. I know my language can sometimes get in the way of good communication, but I do value the Theories of Being we live with and I feel that I share with you a relational quality of ontological security that Tillich writes about in his work on The Courage to Be. I bring in another quote from Tillich below when you write:

The laughter is very important for me too, but I'm not really sure why.

As I write this I have in mind the video-clip in the collage of the group where you suddenly express what I feel as your life-affirming energy and ontological security through laughter. I think everyone in group will know the moment I'm referring to on the clip.

In your educational relationships, especially the ones you are pleased to see on the video-clip I also believe that you will recognise the special humility of the educator that Buber refers to:

"If this educator should ever believe that for the sake of education he has to practise selection and arrangement, then he will be guided by another criterion than that of inclination, however legitimate this may be in its own sphere; he will be guided by the recognition of values which is in his glance as an educator. But even then his selection remains suspended, under constant correction by the special humility of the

educator for whom the life and particular being of all his pupils is the decisive factor to which his 'hierarchical' recognition is subordinated."

(Buber, p. 122, 1947)

Buber, M. (1947) Between Man and Man. London; Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner

& Co. Ltd.

I think you express your ontological security, your life-affirming energy and your humility as an educator in the flow of your focused conversation:

I really appreciated the flow of focused conversation between us all as we tried out different understandings. The conversation also required the learners to be understanding each other and their difficulties with understanding, and so there was a reflective quality built in. I think I'm generally quite fascinated by the thoughts of others, particularly in a shared learning experience because it pushes me to a deeper engagement with my own ideas and thinking in order to make sense and assimilate the ideas of others.

I hope that you experience my own understandings of the importance of conversation in trying out different understandings. I hope that you experience my fascination and feeling of privilege when others share insights about their values and understandings in conversation with me. Here is something I wrote in 1991 that includes quotations from Gadamer's ideas on the importance of questioning and the importance of the art of conversation:

"Gadamer's ideas appealed to me because I could identify with his emphasis on the importance of forming a question. For Gadamer, questioning is a 'passion'. He says that questions press upon us when our experiences conflict with our preconceived opinions. He believes that the art of questioning is not the art of avoiding the pressure of opinion.

"It is not an art in the sense that the Greeks speak of techne, not a craft that can be taught and by means of which we would master the knowledge of truth".

Drawing on Plato's Seventh Letter, Gadamer distinguishes the unique character of the art of dialectic. He does not see the art of dialectic as the art of being able to win every argument. On the contrary, he says it is possible that someone who is practising the art of dialectic, i.e. the art of questioning and of seeking truth, comes off worse in the argument in the eyes of those listening to it. (Gadamer, 1975. p.330).

According to Gadamer, dialectic, as the art of asking questions, proves itself only because the person who knows how to ask questions is able to persist in his questioning. I see a characteristic of this persistence as being able to preserve one's openness to the possibilities which life itself permits. The art of questioning is that of being able to continue with one's questions. Gadamer refers to dialectic as the art of conducting a real conversation.

"To conduct a conversation requires first of all that the partners to it do not talk at cross purposes. Hence its necessary structure is that of question and answer. The first condition of the art of conversation is to ensure that the other person is with us.... To conduct a conversation.... requires that one does not try to out-argue the other person, but that one really considers the weight of the other's opinion. Hence it is an art of testing. But the art of testing is the art of questioning. For we have seen that to question means to lay open, to place in the open. As against the solidity of opinions, questioning makes the object and all its possibilities fluid. A person who possesses the 'art' of questioning is a person who is able to prevent the suppression of questions by the dominant opinion.... Thus the meaning of a sentence is relative to the question to which it is a reply (my emphasis) , i.e. it necessarily goes beyond what is said in it. The logic of the human sciences is, then, as appears from what we have said a logic of the question. Despite Plato we are not very ready for such a logic." (pp. 330-333)

Gadamer,H.G. (1975) Truth and Method, London; Sheed and Ward.

I think my understanding of the nature of an educational conversation helps me to resist impositional pressures in educational relationships. I think we share this understanding and the desire and willingness to resist imposition:

There was no imposition by anyone on the others on the group. I felt that I, as a learner, wasn't pushed or rushed into being able to do something at the expense of really understanding it, and I also felt that the others in the group felt in the same position although they had different levels of knowledge or understanding about the task.

There is something about the task itself and the way it was presented which was challenging and worthwhile but also accessible. There was enough time given to the task for us not to be rushed into a superficial understanding, but not too much time. The person setting the challenge was very aware of the learning occurring in the different groups, and was sympathetic to what was going on.

Throughout the activity at the time, I was very aware of the way in which the knowledge and understanding was being woven throughout us all. This activity couldn't have happened without the relational flow between the learners in the group.

This is where I think you can also show your critical evaluation of the present literature in educational research. Most published papers in research journals follow a propositional form that eliminates contradictions from correct thought and does not communicate or adequately represent the meanings of our educational influences in our educational relationship. In the paragraphs above I think you are showing a quality of relationally dynamic awareness of space and boundaries that characterises inclusionality as a way of being.

You might like to see the quote on Inclusionality from Alan Rayner's original use of the term:

Inclusionality is an awareness of space and the variably permeable boundaries - ultimately formed by what physicists refer to as 'electromagnetic energy' - that inseparably line it, as connective, reflective and co-creative, rather than divisive.

Rayner, A. (2005) Space, Dust and the Co-evolutionary Context of 'His Dark Materials'. Retrieved 2 August 2006 from

http://people.bath.ac.uk/bssadmr/inclusionality/HisDarkMaterials.htm

I've shortened this to:

Inclusionality is an awareness of space and boundaries as connective, reflective and co-creative.

By showing a recognition of the limitations of propositional and dialectical thinking as ways of representing educational influences, I think you could move on to making an original contribution to our understandings of inclusional ways of being in educational relationships. In understanding what I am doing in my educational research and tutoring of the MA units I think it is important to understand how I am using three different logics:

The idea of logic as the mode of thought that is appropriate for comprehending the real as rational (Marcuse, 1964, p. 105) appeals to me. If someone says of my writings that they aren't logical I take this as a fundamental criticism of the validity of my ideas. I want my ideas about the nature of educational theory to be logical in the sense that they are comprehensible to a rational mind. Yet even as I use the words 'rational mind' I am aware of at least three logics that can distinguish very different forms of rationality. The purpose of this brief paper is to clarify the distinguishing characteristics of the three forms of logic I use in my educational enquiries into the nature of educational knowledge and theory.

The first logic I learnt to use in my studies of educational theory was a logic with a 2,500 history in the Western Academy. It is the Aristotelean Logic that eliminates through the Law of Contradiction, the possibility that two mutually exclusive statements like I am free/I am not free can be true simultaneously. In my engagement with theories in the philosophy, psychology, sociology, history, economics, theology, politics, management and leadership of education they all abide by this Law of Contradiction in eliminating such contradictions between statements.

The second logic I learnt to use was a dialectical logic, again with a 2,500 year history from the ideas of Socrates expressed through the writings of Plato. In the Phaedrus, a dialogue on love, Socrates explains the art of the dialectician in holding both the One and the Many together. Socrates explains to Phaedrus that human beings have two ways of coming to know, they can break things down into separate components as nature directs (and not after the manner of a bungling carver!) and we can hold things together in a general idea. Socrates holds in high esteem the art of the dialectician in holding both together these apparently contradictory perspectives of holding something as both One and Many.

The third logic I am learning to use is a living logic of inclusionality which emerges in the course of creating one's own form of life with responses to the possibilities that life itself permits in particular environmental, global, social and cultural contexts. Inclusionality is a relationally dynamic awareness of space and boundaries as connective, reflexive and co-creative. Living logics of inclusionality, in the sense of a mode of thought that is appropriate for comprehending the real as rational, emerge in the course of giving form to life itself.

I think you are showing below, with the help of the video, your meanings of 'thinking body language. By contexualising your narrative with the help of the visual record I think you are able to communicate the meanings of your relationally dynamic standards of judgment:

There was a real connection between the four of us as learners as the ideas passed from one to another. Geraldine started of with the knowledge, but wanted to share it. It was her challenge to help us understand. Louis very quickly knew what it was all about, and kept testing what he was seeing against the ideas already in his head. Edward quietly watched, and was given the space to keep working out what was happening. I was aware that at the beginning he was as puzzled as I was, but my perception is that he was seeking clarity in the same way as me. This is reinforced for me by watching the video, when near the beginning we unconsciously mirror the same kind of thinking body language. I was aware with Edward with a breakthrough moment when amidst all the chat, he quietly reaches out and picks up the cards to try something out. At that stage I don't think it quite works out, but Edward I think has found a new theory to pursue.

Also in terms of the dynamic of the group, each respected the learning of the other and made space for it. I felt too, there was real respect for each other as well as the learner. This activity wasn't just a polite exchange of ideas, it was real collaboration. There were separate conversations and exchanges happening throughout as well, but not to the exclusion of others in the group. I wanted to know what Louis' understanding was because I was fascinated by what his thinking was and he was able to articulate it. He wanted to know what my thinking was because he wanted to understand where I was, so he could show me more clearly how to understand. Although we all knew each other, we hadn't worked in this way together before, and I'm thinking that it makes explicit the quality of relationship which must exist, and which I greatly value as an educator, but which I wouldn't take for granted. The culmination of the activity in what I thought I'd understood not working out was the shared laughter between us. I think perhaps it is an affirmation of the relational quality of the learning experience. Louis thought it was very funny, that I hadn't understood that I didn't need all the cards, and I think that is what generates laughter for him whenever he sees the clip. That is his favourite part. The laughter is very important for me too, but I'm not really sure why.

Do let's see if we can understand better why you value the laughter. I value laughter too and I agree with Bateson that it has a profound role to play in human evolution and communication.

Gregory Bateson (1980) has related humour to evolution. He says that the mere fact of humour in human relations indicates that multiple typing is essential to human communication. In the absence of logical typing he says that humour would be unnecessary and perhaps could not exist. (p. 124, Bateson, G. Mind and Nature, New York; Bantam. 1980).

I'm also aware of the value of the life-affirming energy I feel accompanying my laughter, and I feel this with your own. I have no theistic sense but recognise the power of being that Tillich writes about and that I associate with the flow of life-affirming energy:

"It is the state of being grasped by the power of being which transcends everything that is and in which everything that is participates. He who is grasped by this power is able to affirm himself because he knows that he is affirmed by the power of being-itself. In this point mystical experience and personal encounter are identical. In both of them faith is the basis of the courage to be." (Tillich, 1973, p. 168)

Tillich, P. (1973) The Courage To Be, London; Fontana.

As I watch the clip, I'm also fascinated about what the other learners bring in terms of their gifts, and I'm challenged about the importance of providing opportunities for the learners I'm responsible for to develop their gifts. Louis has really appreciated the chance to work specifically with like minded people where he knows his ideas will be understood. Although he had developed an understanding very quickly he was happy to wait to explain what he understood. He gave that to the group, and helped us all develop our understanding in an inclusional way. Geraldine gave us a clear demonstration, and was also very patient in helping us understand, and gave us clear pointers without feeling she had to dominate or be the one who knew. She too was able to read the group and each of us in it, and give us the space we needed. For me Edward had the capacity to stay with the task, to listen and watch, and build his understanding in that way.

I think too I feel pleased by my role in the group, as it's how I want to be as an educator. I'm very happy learning alongside others. I want people's ideas to be heard, and I want people to feel valued. I really enjoy engaging with the ideas of others, trying to understand what they're thinking but what they say. Like Louis, I find it helpful to know where people are in their thinking and understanding. As an educator if I know that, I can more readily help others move forward in their understanding, and as a learner I can move forward in my own thinking and develop my own understanding.

In my understanding of what I do with my focusing on supporting educators in bringing their embodied knowledge into the public domain, I am doing this because I believe that professionalism in education will be enhanced through the development of such a knowledge-base. As I look at your paragraphs above, I think that they could be included in writings appropriate for a master educator's educational enquiry with references to their significance in relation to the four ideas of Jean Rudduck that Michael Fielding distinguishes as Jean's contributions in his obituary of the 1^st May:

"Her research interests included gender and achievement, transfer and transitions, and teachers' professional development. However, her main field of research, and the work for which she is best known, was the transformative potential of pupil voice, including consultation in relation to pupils' learning, pupils' identities, teacher-pupil relationships and school improvement. She directed numerous research projects for the ESRC, the Department for Education and Skills, various local authorities and other agencies, and it was from her remarkable capacity to operate at ease and with flair in these multiple, diverse arenas that the creative synergy and extended influence of her work drew much if its energy.

The roots of her interest in pupil voice can be traced to the highly innovative humanities curriculum project in the late 1960s. Here she argued for the necessity of teachers letting students know what they were trying to do and why, rather than simply doing something very differently, however imaginative and potentially liberating it might be. This was to prove a key insight. Teachers and students needed to be encouraged to move towards a commitment to the mutuality of joint exploration, described by the teacher Ted Aoki, in a phrase she quoted regularly, as "a communal venturing forth".

At the heart of her work were a number of findings that, if understood richly and profoundly, provided the basis of what would amount to a transformation in the realities and experiences of schooling on a daily basis for pupils and teachers alike. First, she argued that the social maturity of the young significantly outstrips most schools' understanding of their capabilities and interpersonal realities, thus leading to institutional practices and professional dispositions that do not fit current realities of childhood and adolescence and are thus wasteful of human talent and insight: the "deep structures of schooling" that include assumptions about what a pupil is have to change.

Second, young people's perspectives on learning and teaching, combined with their holistic experiences of schooling, contain important messages about these matters that could contribute significantly to school improvement at both an organisational level and on a day-to-day basis in the classroom.

Third, some dialogic relationships and a much more open partnership between teachers and students are both possible and necessary if student perspectives are to be honest, accessible and productive of real change.

Lastly, in her most recent work with Donald McIntyre, she agued strongly that attention should not be diverted from consulting pupils in classrooms to what she saw as less productive and less demanding forms of student participation in other aspects of school life.

The recent meteoric rise of student voice in schools and in wider social contexts gave her cause for concern as well as celebration. Among "the perils of popularity" are issues of power, of surface compliance, and the marginalisation of those whose voices are uncongenial, inconvenient or silent. Anyone reading Rudduck's work will be struck by the elegance and occasional beauty of her writing. It testifies to a view of the world that saw the joy and the energy of the human spirit as integral to our development in the community.

We will miss Jean's fierce integrity, her sense of fun, her kindness, her modesty, and her resolute belief in the beauty of life and the necessity of young people's contribution to a "new order of experience".

Michael Fielding (2007) Obituary to Jean Rudduck, Guardian Newspaper 1 May, 2007.

Having a clip like this is a gift which helps me to reflect and understand more about what it is in my own practice and values which are really important to me, and in discussing it with others, it gives it credence to what I believe in as an educator, and helps to strengthen both my values and practice.

What excites me about such video-clips is the way that they can be integrated within a visual narrative that brings into the public domain (and the Academy) the life and embodied knowledge of an educator. I'm thinking here of visual narratives that can answer Catherine's Snow's point about working out how to bring the practical knowledge of educators into the public domain. Her criticism is that we have no procedures for systematizing the knowledge of educators:

"The .... challenge is to enhance the value of personal knowledge and personal experience for practice. Good teachers possess a wealth of knowledge about teaching that cannot currently be drawn upon effectively in the preparation of novice teachers or in debates about practice. The challenge here is not to ignore or downplay this personal knowledge, but to elevate it. The knowledge resources of excellent teachers constitute a rich resource, but one that is largely untapped because we have no procedures for systematizing it. Systematizing would require procedures for accumulating such knowledge and making it public, for connecting it to bodies of knowledge established through other methods, and for vetting it for correctness and consistency. If we had agreed-upon procedures for transforming knowledge based on personal experiences of practice into 'public' knowledge, analogous to the way a researcher's private knowledge is made public through peer-review and publication, the advantages would be great (my emphasis). For one, such knowledge might help us avoid drawing far-reaching conclusions about instructional practices from experimental studies carried out in rarified settings. Such systematized knowledge would certainly enrich the research-based knowledge being increasingly introduced into teacher preparation programs. And having standards for the systematization of personal knowledge would provide a basis for rejecting personal anecdotes as a basis for either policy or practice." (p.9)

Snow, C. E. (2001) Knowing What We Know: Children, Teachers, Researchers. Presidential Address to AERA, 2001, in Seattle, in Educational Researcher, Vol. 30, No.7, pp.3-9.

Understanding what I am doing in education does include seeing my commitment to make public and bring into the Academy the embodied knowledge of professional educators. I think most of my life in education can be understood in terms of this purpose. In felt this purpose being re-inforced by Elliot Eisner, when I attended his inspiring Presidential Address to the American Educational Research Association in 1993 on:

Eisner, E. (1993) Forms of Understanding and the Future of Educational Research. Educational Researcher, Vol. 22, No. 7, 5-11.

I do hope that you will read this along with:

Eisner, E. (1988) The Primacy of Experience and the Politics of Method, Educational Researcher, Vol. 17, No. 5, 15-20.

and

Eisner, E. (1997) The Promise and Perils of Alternative Forms of Data Representation. Educational Researcher, Vol. 26, No. 6, 4-10.

All three papers can be accessed freely from the on-line resources in our Library and they are all in:

Eisner, E. (2005) Reimaging Schools: The selected works of Elliot W. Eisner, Oxford & New York; Routledge.

Sam – you might like to bring more of Eisner's ideas into the group from your readings of his work. Joy – I'm hoping his paper on the politics of method inspires you to feel excited about exploring research methods in education that are appropriate for researching ourselves, research young people researching themselves researching our world. Living in hope!

Education is not a commodity, although it seems to have been reduced to that it has a far higher purpose and should be accorded a far higher status. It should not be thought of in terms of consumer and client. In our materialistic society, a great shift in our perspective has been allowed to occur.

In understanding what I do I am aware of the importance I give to A. N. Whitehead's (no relation!) ideas in a Chapter of his book on the Aims of Education on Universities and their function:

"The universities are schools of education and schools of research (p.138).... The justification for a university is that it preserves the connection between knowledge and the zest for life, by uniting the young and the old in the imaginative consideration of learning. The university imparts information, but it imparts it imaginatively. At least, this is the function which it should perform for society. A university which fails in this respect has no reason for existence. A fact is no longer a bare fact: it is invested with all its possibilities. It is no longer a burden on the memory: it is energised as the poet of our dreams, and as the architect of our purposes.

Imagination is not to be divorced from the facts: it is a way of illuminating the facts. It words by eliciting the general principles which apply to the facts, as they exist, and then by an intellectual survey of alternative possibilities which are consistent with these principles. It enables men to construct an intellectual vision of a new world, and it preserves the zest of life by the suggestion of satisfying purposes. (p139)

.... Necessary technical excellence can only be acquired by a training which is apt to damage those energies of mind which should direct the technical skill. This is the key fact in education, and the reason for most of its difficulties....... (p. 144)

Thus the proper function of a university is the imaginative acquisition of knowledge..... A university is imaginative or it is nothing – a least nothing useful." (p. 145)

Whitehead, A. N. (1962) The Aims of Education And Other Essays. London; Ernest Benn Limited.

True education is about an exchange of ideas and understanding between people who respect each other. It's in our understanding and recognition of the other as someone important that the educational exchange can take place.

In understanding what I do I think it is important to see the significance that the idea of educational influence has in my thinking and in my work. I have explained above why I cannot claim to have educated anyone other than myself. This is because of the creative/critical response that I need to see in the other to what I do that serves to emphasise the importance of influence. I use the following quotation from Edward Said to support my own focus on influence:

"As a poet indebted to and friendly with Mallarme, Valery was compelled to assess originality and derivation in a way that said something about a relationship between two poets that could not be reduced to a simple formula. As the actual circumstances were rich, so too had to be the attitude. Here is an example from the "Letter About Mallarme".

No word comes easier of oftener to the critic's pen than the word influence, and no vaguer notion can be found among all the vague notions that compose the phantom armory of aesthetics. Yet there is nothing in the critical field that should be of greater philosophical interest or prove more rewarding to analysis than the progressive modification of one mind by the work of another.

It often happens that the work acquires a singular value in the other mind, leading to active consequences that are impossible to foresee and in many cases will never be possible to ascertain. What we do know is that this derived activity is essential to intellectual production of all types. Whether in science or in the arts, if we look for the source of an achievement we can observe that what a man does either repeats or refutes what someone else has done – repeats it in other tones, refines or amplifies or simplifies it, loads or overloads it with meaning; or else rebuts, overturns, destroys and denies it, but thereby assumes it and has invisibly used it. Opposites are born from opposites.

We say that an author is original when we cannot trace the hidden transformations that others underwent in his mind; we mean to say that the dependence on what he does on what others have done is excessively complex and irregular. There are works in the likeness of others, and works that are the reverse of others, but there are also works of which the relation with earlier productions is so intricate that we become confused and attribute them to the direct intervention of the gods. (Paul Valery, 'Letter about Mallarme', in Leonardo, Poe, Mallarme, trans. Malcolm Cowley and James R. Lawler (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), p. 241.

Valery converts 'influence' from a crude idea of the weight of one writer coming down in the work of another into a universal principle of what he calls 'derived achievement'. He then connects this concept with a complex process of repetition that illustrates it by multiplying instances; this has the effect of providing a sort of wide intellectual space, a type of discursiveness in which to examine influence. Repetition, refinement, amplification, loading, overloading, rebuttal, overturning, destruction, denial, invisible use – such concepts completely modify a linear (vulgar) idea of 'influence' into an open field of possibility. Valery is careful to admit that chance and ignorance play important roles in this field; what we cannot see or find, as well as what we cannot predict, he says, produce excessive irregularity and complexity. Thus the limits of the field of investigation are set by examples whose nonconforming, overflowing energy begins to carry them out of the field. This is an extremely important refinement in Valery's writing. For even as his writing holds in the wide system of variously dispersed relationships connecting writers with one another, he also shows how at its limits the field gives forth other relations that are hard to describe from within the field." (Said, p.15)

From Said, E. W. (1997) Beginnings: Intention and Method. p. 15. London ; Granta.

As well as influence, like you, I value respect and striving to understand the other. I think we might also agree on the importance of recognition and I think you are aware of the quality of recognition described by Fukuyama in our relationship:

Human beings seek recognition of their own worth, or of the people, things, or principles that they invest with worth. The desire for recognition, and the accompanying emotions of anger, shame and pride, are parts of the human personality critical to political life. According to Hegel, they are what drives the whole historical process. (Fukuyama, 1992, p. xvii)

Fukuyama, F. (1992) The End of History and the Last Man, London; Penguin.

Initially this respect and striving to understand the other might only flow one way, but it is our responsibility as educators to maintain this attitude towards the other, and the reward is when and if it is returned, and the educational journey with two learners alongside each other begins.

This is the reward and the response, not to be seen as a result. It is very hard to measure. How can you measure the depth of someone's engagement with the other, and the impact this has on someone's ability to learn, either independently or collaboratively. It has nothing to do with the effectiveness of different learning styles, when you take time to know and respect someone, you create/open a channel through which educational flow and /or engagement can occur. Because it is very difficult to measure, it is not easy to show accountability, and it doesn't lie easily with the business model it has become. We have let it become a system rather than the relationship it is and was intended to be.

I hope you experience my relationship in terms of your own understandings that when you take time to know and respect someone, you create/open a channel through which educational flow and/or engagement can occur. When the third world congress on action learning, action research and process management was held in Bath it had the theme Accounting for Ourselves. In understanding what I do I believe that all the individuals I work with want to look back on what they have been doing with the recognition of a life well lived in the sense of including loving relationships and productive work. I believe that producing accounts of our educational influences in our own learning, in the learning of others and in the learning of social formations can help us to live more loving and more productive lives in our work in education.

I believe that sharing our ideas and the ideas of other can help in this process and I'm wondering if anyone in the group might like to Jean Rudduck's voice and insights more fully into the group as part of the process of accounting for ourselves.

This is my latest response Louise and I hope it hasn't been too overwhelming!

Here are Jean's Publications on Pupil Voice.

Books:

FINNEY, J, HICKMAN, R, NICHOLL, B, MORRISON, M and RUDDUCK, J) (2005) Re-building Engagement through the Arts, Cambridge: Pearson Publishing.

RUDDUCK, J. AND FLUTTER, J. (2004) How to Improve your School: Giving Pupils a Voice, Continuum Press.

FLUTTER, J. AND RUDDUCK, J. (2004) Consulting Pupils: What's in it for Schools?, London: RoutledgeFalmer

RUDDUCK, J and FLUTTER, J (2004) The Challenge of year 8: Sustaining Pupils' Engagement with Learning, Cambridge: Pearson Publishing.

MACBEATH, J., DEMETRIOU, H., RUDDUCK, J. AND MYERS, K. (2003) Consulting Pupils: A Toolkit for Teachers, Pearson Publishing.

JONES, B., JONES, G. and RUDDUCK, J., with DEMETRIOU, H. and DOWNES, P. (2001) Boys' Performance in Modern Foreign Languages - Listening to Learners, London: CILT.

RUDDUCK, J., CHAPLAIN, R. and WALLACE, G. (eds.) (1996) School Improvement: What Can Pupils Tell Us?, London: David Fulton.

Articles on pupil voice:

DEMETRIOU, H. and RUDDUCK, J. (2004) Pupils as researchers: the importance of using their research evidence, Primary Leadership, March, pp31-34.

RUDDUCK, J., BERRY, M., BROWN, N. and HENDY, L. (2003) with Chandler, M., Enright, P. and Godly, J. (2003) Learning about improvement by talking about improvement, Improving Schools, 6,3, 246-257.

RUDDUCK, J. and DEMETRIOU, H., with Pedder, D. (2003) Student perspectives and teacher practices: The transformative potential, McGill Journal of Education, 38, 2, 274-288 (spring).

RUDDUCK, J (2003) Pupil voice and citizenship education, article for QCA Citizenship and PHSE Team, March (pdf version available from QCA website at http://www.qca.org.uk/ages3-14/subjects/6236.html

RUDDUCK, J. (2002) The transformative potential of consulting young people about teaching, learning and schooling, Scottish Educational Review, 34, 2, pp.123-137.

RUDDUCK, J. (2001) Students and school improvement: 'Transcending the cramped conditions of the time', Improving Schools, 4,2,7-16.

RUDDUCK, J. AND FLUTTER, J. (2000) Pupil participation and pupil perspective: 'carving a new order of experience', Cambridge Journal of Education, 30,1,75-89.

DEMETRIOU, H., GOALEN, P. and RUDDUCK (2000) Academic performance, transfer, transition and friendship: listening to the student voice, International Journal of Educational Research, 33, 425-441.

BATTY, J., RUDDUCK, J. and WILSON, E. (2000) What makes a good mentor? Who makes a good mentor? The views of year 8 mentees, Educational Action Research, 7,3,369-378.

MORRISON, I., EVERTON, T. AND RUDDUCK, J. (2000) Pupils helping other pupils with their learning: cross-age tutoring in a primary and secondary school, Mentoring and Tutoring, 8,3, 187-200.

DODDINGTON, C., FLUTTER, J. AND RUDDUCK, J. (1999) Exploring and explaining 'dips' in motivation and performance in primary and secondary schooling, Research in Education, 61, 29-38.

RUDDUCK, J. (1999) 'Education for all', 'achievement for all' and pupils who are 'too good to drift' (the second Harold Dent memorial lecture), Education Today, 49, 2, 3-11.

DODDINGTON, C., FLUTTER, J. and RUDDUCK, J. (1998) Year 8 - a suitable case for treatment, Improving Schools, 1,3,39-42.

KERSHNER, R., FLUTTER, J. and RUDDUCK, J. (1998) Teacher research as a basis for school improvement: but is it useful beyond the school in which it was carried out?, Improving Schools, 1,2,59-62.

RUDDUCK, J., DAY, J. and Wallace, G. (1996) The significance for school improvement of pupils' experiences of within-school transitions, Curriculum, 17, 3, 144-153.

HARRIS, S., WALLACE, G. and RUDDUCK, J. (1995) "It's not that I haven't learnt much. It's just that I don't really know what I'm doing": metacognition and secondary school students, Research Papers in Education, 10,2,134-153.

RUDDUCK, J., HARRIS, S. AND WALLACE, G. (1994) 'Coherence' and students' experience of learning in the secondary school, Cambridge Journal of Education, 24,2,197-211.

HARRIS, S. and RUDDUCK, J. (1993) Establishing the seriousness of learning, British Journal of Educational Psychology, vol. 63 (part 2), 322-366.

HARRIS, S., NIXON, J. and RUDDUCK, J. (1993) School work, homework and gender, Gender and Education, 5,1, 3-15.

Chapters on pupil voice in books:

RUDDUCK, J. (2004) Consulting pupils about teaching and learning, in Learning Texts, Nottingham: National College for School Leadership, pp80-92.

RUDDUCK, J. AND URQUHART, I. (2003) Neglected aspects of transfer and transition: gender and the pupil voice, in C. Skelton and B. Francis (eds) Boys and Girls in the Primary School Classroom, maidenhead: Open University Press. Pp167-185.

RUDDUCK, J., WALLACE, G. and DAY, J. (2000) 'Students' voices: what can they tell us as partners in change'?, in K. Stott and V. Trafford (eds.) Partnerships: Shaping the Future of Education, London: Middlesex University Press, pp 1-26.

RUDDUCK, J. (1999) Teacher practice and the student voice, in M. Lang, J. Olson, H. Hansen and W. Bunder (eds) Changing Schools/Changing Practices: Perspectives on Educational Reform and Teacher Professionalism, Louvain: Garant, pp41-54.

RUDDUCK, J. (1998) Student voices and conditions of learning, in B. Karseth, S. Gudmundsdottir, and S. Hopmann, Didaktikk: Tradisjon og Fornyelse, Festskrift til Bjorg Brandtzaeg Gundem, Oslo: Universitet i Oslo, pp 131-146.

RUDDUCK, J., WALLACE, G. and DAY, J. (1998) Consulting pupils about teaching, learning and schooling, in H. Horne, (ed) The School Management Handbook (fifth edition), London: Kogan Page, pp 95-100.

WALLACE, G., RUDDUCK, J. and FLUTTER, J. with HARRIS, S. (1998) Using ethnographic methods in a study of students' secondary school and post-school careers, in G. Walford (ed) Doing Research about Education, London: Falmer Press, 76-92.

RUDDUCK, J., DAY, J. and Wallace, G. (1997) Students' perspectives on school improvement, in A. Hargreaves (ed.) Rethinking Educational Change with Heart and Mind (the 1997 ASCD Yearbook), Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, pp.73-91.

HARRIS, S., RUDDUCK, J. and WALLACE, G. (1996) Political contexts and school careers, in M. Hughes (ed.) Teaching and Learning in Changing Times, London: Blackwell, pp.32-50.

Some of Jean Rudduck's Other Publications: Since 1999

GALTON, M., GRAY, J. AND RUDDUCK, J. et al (2003) Progress in the Middle Years of Schooling (7-14): Continuities and Discontinutities in Learning, London: The Stationery Office for the DfES.

RUDDUCK, J. and MORRISON, I. (2001) Sutton Centre, in M. Maden (ed) Success Against the Odds - Five Years On, London: RoutledgeFalmer, pp.275-306.

RUDDUCK, J. and McINTYRE, D. (eds) (1999) Educational Research: The Challenge Facing Us, London: Paul Chapman. (211 pages)

RUDDUCK, J. (1999) Innovacion y Cambio: El Desarrollo de la Participacion y la Comprension, Sevilla: Publicaciones M.C.E.P. (trans. P.M.Bernardez). (206 pages) (translation)