Saturday, September 30, 2017

An unexpected present.

The present appeared in a tweet from Kentucky.

When I say "the present", I mean that as an antonym of "the absent".

I have a book on my Kindle.

"The attention merchants" by Tim Wu.

I have not taken the time to read it yet.



Amazon cares not.

Amazon counts my clicked clientele.

Twitter cares not.

Educauses care for what?

Those who are "resident" on social media.

Are they really "present"?

Are they really "present" for you?

Are they really only present for your clicked clientele, your likes, your retweets, your plus ones, your node, your gold in their death star?

If I ask these questions, it is because I am sure that we are unable to be really present for others unless we risk leaving a part of ourselves here.

Will we accept being bait for their hooks?

I use the word "they" for those who would deny others lives and cultures respect.

Les absents ont toujours tort.



Charles Perry

Bloody Gold; the California Gold Rush and state sponsored genocide

100,000 California Indians killed during Gold Rush genocide

The absent (minded) are always wrong...


The present appeared in a tweet from Kentucky.

When I say "the present", I mean that as an antonym of "the absent".


I am humbled by Terry's and others' presence of mind, of the care and the attention that he, that they  show.

I sit down and type out my existence...an act of defiance in this alienating wilderness.

The lines, the between the lines are traced and transformed by acts of generosity which make me feel appreciated for whatever I am.

And then I see other tweets

And I feel drawn to those human connections.

And I feel drawn by those human connections.

And I go and turn my thumbs, and look and think.



And then those human connections become


 And that emotional weft which binds us becomes tighter.



Thank you my friends.

This is my present for you.

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Seeds for change.

Most comments go unread.

Most questions go unanswered.

Most efforts go unrewarded.


Most cries go unheard.

Most pleas go unheeded.

Most lessons go unlearnt. 

Most.................go un.................

Most ................go un................

Most ................go un................

Most.................go un................

Shift Change.


Seeds for change.

I was reading Terry Elliott's recent blog post "Seeds for change."

It's not very long.

It contains the germ of an idea.

"It might seem a lot for a little, but what I have bought is strong signal. Seeds are information beacons. I want to know if my soil fits that info. Will it sprout readily, will it take root well, will it winter, will it tolerate the oft-wet, sandy, jackrock soil? Each seed is a small story waiting to be heard."

Terry Elliott

Seeds for change.

The idea of being attentive to a complex, fragile, ecosystem.

The faith to invest one's energy in the faint hope of something growing.

Curiosity to learn what will take root, what will sprout.

Seeds for change.

I cast out a few ideas.

A story of bilingual rock-climbing sprouted via Facebook and seeded in other fields.

A story of craft chocolate appeared in the classroom, contained in a large carrier bag.

A story of athletes kneeling was murmuring around the rooms.


Seeds for change.

The idea of being attentive to a complex, fragile, ecosystem.

The faith to invest one's energy in the perhaps faint hope of something growing.

Curiosity to learn what will take root, what will sprout.


Seeds for change.

"It might seem a lot for a little, but what I have bought is strong signal. Seeds are information beacons. I want to know if my soil fits that info. Will it sprout readily, will it take root well, will it winter, will it tolerate the oft-wet, sandy, jackrock soil? Each seed is a small story waiting to be heard."

Terry Elliott












Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Very small samples.

I had typed my prejudice in black and white.

"They generalise from very small samples."

I took in its catastrophic irony.

"If you look at the teachers...."


I categorised.

"This idea that my learners will have learnt x is probably based on something...which is probably faulty from the start."

It all sounded (un)convincingly adamant.

Even on the page.

Grid-locked.

"What we need is a grid of criteria", was the refrain.

"Otherwise how can we choose?"

"How can we judge fairly?"

"They are demanding a ranking."

"We have to do this with tight deadlines."

"If we have cross-disciplinary collaboration that will look good."

"If we have a partnership with business that will look good."

What the fuck is grading to do with research?

Grid-locked.

I sat down in the same chairs as the week before.

I set my phone to time.

I chose the first student to start the evaluation.

"Don't worry it won't last long."

"You'll be fine."

"No really, you'll be ok."

How the fuck did I know that?

The candidate (deliberate objectification) fled in panic.

The candidate knew much better than I.

What the fuck is grading  to do with learning?








Sunday, September 24, 2017

At last...

Look. They are just thistles.

It's just a wasteland.

But it mattered to me at that moment.

It matters to me now.



I stopped.

I framed.

I paid attention.

Thistles. Just thistles. No arty filters.

It was just another day.

Today.

I was caught between conflicting feelings.

"Fuck it all."

"I'll read that book."

That book by that well connected, well respected, well accepted peer.

I reviewed the choices.

"Fuck it all."

That book.

"Pay attention to those students." 
"Show them you are there"

I was here.

Conflicting feelings....

Conflicting feelings...

Power to choose.

I chose the students.

A considered choice it was.

I took the spreadsheet.

The students couldn't do that.

Data.

Just fucking data.

It wouldn't really have mattered.

They were just students.

I clicked on a link.

It was a person, a real person.

A person with fears, hopes, expectations...

No expectations...

Low expectations...

A person, with memories, with stories, with stories to write.

"Fuck it all."

What is more important?

It clicked.

This wasn't really work.

It was life.

LIFE.

I got caught up in the joy, the curiosity, the responsibility that was a click away.

I clicked, I measured my words, I wanted the moment to count.

I am just a teacher.

They were just thistles.

She was just a student.

Make it fucking count.

I counted.

I even timed it.

With a fucking iPhone.

It took me two hours.

At last...

Two hours for twenty people.

I calculated.

6 minutes per person.

What counts?

How long is a song?

You don't need so much time.

A word, a reference, a link, a picture, a song.

Just a word.

Just a second.

Just a déclic.

Just a song.

"Fuck it all."

Another person.

Binoche.

Her again.

I shall go and Google her here.

Touches of sense...

There was a teacher they were talking about.

She was talking about her.

Being her.

For the other person.

For her.

So many years after.

At last...

There was a song on the TV.

I posted it here.

To mark the moment.

To remember an instant.


AT LAST.

"Fuck it all."

I'll read the book after.

I'll do the paper, the conference after.

What counts?

The applause?

The status?

The money?

Touches of sense...

I received a couple of mails.

Just students.

They said: "Thank you."

In so many words.

Nothing else.

Counts.

Interstellar on TV.

I am not watching.

I am writing.

I am aware of...

Etta James on Youtube.

Jazz chilling out on the sofa.

Another day.

I am here.

This was life.





Sunday, September 10, 2017

Engraving a rose.



I paused, grief pitched.

It was leaking, ground up.

It was decaying, sky down.

Its canvas was crumpled.
Its fly sheet was fraying.
 Its frame was haggard.

All shrieked of decomposition.

I salvaged a bag of pegs.

The A's, I kept, as keep-sakes

I took four photos.



Its was an unwilling engraving.

It, however, had already become something else.

engraving.




a rose.


Thursday, September 7, 2017

Blackbird.

Stop.

NO REALLY.

STOP.

An instant.

Can you hear the beauty?


That song?


"What are we/they ACTUALLY doing? That's what matters." Peter Goodyear.



I sat down this morning with my friends and colleagues, early.

Early enough to REALLY appreciate the coffee.

Somewhere, PEOPLE had decided on PLATFORM POLICY which was stressing out my friend.

WE DIDn't FUCKING EXIST (on their platform).

That was causing problems.

Because despite the digital policy evidence to the contrary,

WE DO EXIST.

REALLY.

For a moment, I am brought back to listening to Bonnie Stewart's keynote at the ALT conference.

In the light of recent discussions, in the light of the morning coffee, I am feeling that I need to come back, to walk slowly with Bonnie's keynote, to listen to it with new ears.



Years and years of Inuit oral culture.

I think for a moment of that story that Bonnie refers to:

Sir John Franklin, a Western explorer, undoubtedly well-financed, attempts to "force passage."  

His ship sinks into an oblivion.

SIR was remembered by Inuit oral histories but lost to Western science for 168 years.






Bonnie, in the light of her experience attempting to "teach" the Inuit asks us to think critically about our use of educational technology, of education (which is a technique, a technology) and challenges the "NORMAL".

Where is the space for those without voices?

How can we learn from those whose voices are SILENCE?

How can we learn from those whose science are STORIES?

I think of this as a parent of children who use SILENCE as a weapon.

ANONYMOUS

The day before in the VConnecting session with Sian Bayne, Peter Alston and others, we had spoken about anonymity.



How do we situate our practice in a world governed by platform capitalism?

I wondered.


I wondered.


Wendy took her time, a napkin, a pen, Twitter and amplified and extended the WONDERING.





So there I was after coffee with my friend Leisha.

We were brought together to talk of connecting students in France and the UK.

Being just the two of us, we took our time.

Documents, led to photos, to videos, to VConnecting, to a research survey which stopped me in my tracks. (NB TRACKS - WHOSE TRACKS?)

I had written about being stopped in those tracks here:

"Survey and Surveillance".

I had wondered.

"How can I position myself as a researcher with friends and colleagues?"

I had lined up a conversation with my friend Maritta Riekki to talk about this tomorrow.

I have always had a problematic relationship with research and researcher identities.

I had noticed my colleagues' intake of breath on the mention that I was working towards a thesis.

"Who does he think he is?"

"What am I?"

"Who do I think I am?" IN DEED.

IN DEED.

Quite naturally during our conversation, we moved from a submission to a conference, from informal conversation to agreement that we would capture our conversation, to agreement that we work together on reflective practice and extend our conversations within our local community.

What REALLY counts is the TIME we spend giving attention to OUR COMMUNITIES.

I underline the words: OUR COMMUNITIES.

I remembered a post of Maha Bali: Keynoting and Impostering ,talking of the conflicting feelings which concern the words:

OUR COMMUNITIES.

In the light(darkness?) of:

  • WESTERN COLONISATION, 
  • MERCHANT CAPITALISM
  • SLAVERY CAPITALISM
  • PLATFORM CAPITALISM, 
  • NEOLIBERAL MONETISATION of ACADEMIA
  • NORMED ATTITUDES to GENDER/SEXUALITY/ETHNIC orgins.
  • GLOBAL WARMING

What constitutes  OUR COMMUNITIES?

Who do we spend our time with?

Who do we really give our attention to?

Who do we ignore?

Do we extract resources data and privilege from from subjects, THEIR COMMUNITIES?

Do we protect ourselves in WALLED COMMUNITIES?

Do we protect our power behind PERMISSIONS TO EDIT/CODE/MODERATE?

So that we may add value to our brand in OUR REPUTATION ECONOMY?

I hear a blackbird singing.

Who is the TROLL/TERRORIST/IM-MIGRANT/EXPERT/TEACHER/LEARNER/FRIEND?

What constitutes OUR COMMUNITIES?




COINCIDENCE?

It so happens that at noon, I had a VConnecting session.



It was, amongst others with the morning's keynote speaker: Peter Goodyear.

I went back and noted some words.
And some other words:

And some ideas:
And some pictures which echoed conversations with Leisha.
It was perhaps a coincidence that a question came to the fore:

"How do you, as a researcher, present yourself to "'practitioners"?"

This came from my conversation with Leisha about how our colleagues perceived the words:

"RESEARCH" "RESEARCHER".

We decided that the power differentials inherent in the terms made the colleagues defensive.

I mentioned to Leisha that I myself had been aggressively defensive to what I considered appropriation of my work for the benefits of "researchers" and their CV's.

I remember "What are you?"

I remember feeling excluded and belittled by academic language.

I remember a conversation with a student who talks of academics deliberately marking rank with "academic language"

I remember Bonnie talk of IQ tests, Bell Curves, and how they are culturally biased.

Innuits: "What is this dahlia?" "What is a blackbird?"

What might we learn from Inuits about orality - history, knowledge, song?

The conclusion that I am coming to is the following:

We must walk the walk, taking time to treat people right, to respect our differences.

Science may give us massive data sets, neutral objectivity.

Does Google do no evil? (ERR?)

Can we trust Facebook at face value? (NOPE)

Do researchers have the right to do wrong to the anonymous?

The darkness that binds us.

Life reminds us that however distant we are from others' reality there are universal facts.

We are born, we move, we die and then we know no more.

We spoke of that with Leisha, we have a duty to revise the old odysseys with our learners.

"Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none."

William Shakespeare.

All of this entails: care, love, humility, trust, time, attention, craft, artisanship.

I am reminded of a little girl who used to play in the sand-pit with me as a child.

She used to play with the Inuit in the snow, as her parents were missionaries.

She opened her eyes to the reality of life dying in the street in India.

KNOWLEDGE may BLIND more than it allows us to see.

I wrote about her story.

It was called "Blinkers and Socks."

I have a difficult relationship with my missionary past - Nagasaki Mon Amour.

I am reminded of the writing of my friend, Paul Prinsloo.

Who consitutes OUR COMMUNITIES my friends?

I hear a blackbird sing.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for the moment to arise

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life,
You were only waiting for the moment to be free

Black bird fly, black bird fly
Into the light of the dark black night

Black bird fly, black bird fly
Into the light of the dark black night

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise


What/Who is on your "to do list" today?

"What are we/they ACTUALLY doing? That's what matters." Peter Goodyear.