I had just taken up writing this again when I was interrupted again.
Not only did I lose all that I had added, I lost track again of what I had been writing....
No matter.
So here I start again.
So here I am again.
I changed the title again.
I changed my title again.
Title 1: Kaleidoscope
Title 2: Odds and Ends
Title 3: Bits and Pieces
So where was I?
A kaleidoscope image keeps coming back to me.
I was looking through a kaleidoscope and as I turned the lense I became aware that I was seeing coloured bits of myself or at least bits that I recognised.
Were they mine, I thought?
It was a vision which emerged on writing in 'An Untext' .
This 'Untext' stems from connections made in #rhizo14.
(If you know nothing of either 'The Untext' or #rhizo14 this will probably make no sense to you.)
I look again through the kaleidoscope.
I am looking through the lense and I become less and less interested in bit appropriation.
"That bit is mine."
"That bit is hers."
"That bit is his".
"That bit is ours.
"That bit is theirs."
I am frankly less and less interested in this.
I am looking again through the lense.
I am captivated by the beauty of the patterns that are emerging.
I am looking again through the lense.
Bits and pieces...
I seem to be participating in other places on patterns which are being put together at the moment.
I am not all together sure when or where these bits will be seen in other lights of day.
I don't really care one way or another.
I am just quite happy to play along and enjoy gazing at the patterns.
I am intrigued by what is emerging.
There's a thing with slides.
I get a slide to play with.
I enjoy colouring in the space allotted.
I wasn't quite sure how I got to have such a slide.
I feel a bit like a little kid who gets a piece of paper to draw on.
I like drawing.
There's another thing with slides in a space called Voice Thread.
I enjoy colouring outside the slides.
I enjoy messing with sound and pictures and text.
I enjoy adding bits and pieces of graffiti here and there.
Then there's another thing which seems to be an article.
I enjoy reading that.
I enjoy the writing bit without the colouring.
I enjoy the writing bit without the speaking.
I enjoy the writing bit without the drawing.
I enjoy being part and particle of making patterns, of becoming patterns...
Outcomes and outflows...
I am coming to conclusions.
I think conclusions and outcomes are deadly.
I prefer what is unfinished, what is unknown, what is unknowable.
I prefer outflows, outsprings...
There is a quote which emerged in my head which I am struggling to remember.
An angel passes.....
Ah yes, here it is:
"This world is not a data mine to be exploited."
I observe the patterns emerging and say to myself,
Process
The methodology of autoethnography as described by these authors gives me answers to what I was trying to drum out with my frustration with 'science-bound'.
I see no reason in participating in research which simply calques discourses to reinforce an unsustainable (education) system.
I have been trying to draw a picture of what I mean over a number of years.
Are we talking about conservation or preservation?
(not sure those are the pertinent terms - never mind I shall check later). Are we as teachers enabling learners to express what is inside them outwards or are we trying to keep a check on them to mould them to a common core?
In the case of language learning, are we teaching forms of a dead language, or fostering desire to communicate within foreign language communities as actors moving from the periphery towards a centre (their centre)?
I am digressing a little.
I had looked earlier at Keith Hamon's coding in our autoethnography file.
I had already been aware of him being interested in prepositions.
At first I took no notice. I didn't really take it in.
It is often like that, it was the same process with Kevin Hodgson's poetry remix activity 'Steal my Poem'.
It was the same process with Terry Elliot's Zeega's which I loved.
It takes time for whatever attractors to connect, to connect to create, to question, to play.
I tweeted a quotation I remembered, from a moment years ago, when this sense stuff started flooding out.
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” ― Marcel Proust
(I often thought before it was/had to be nonsense particulary as I was surprised at its speed and its unfortunate habit of forcing itself out in the middle of the night uncalled for. Bloody nuisance I agree!)
Damn I lost internet connection.
I tweeted to Keith and we tweeted back and forwards
I had already noted a draft post yesterday entitled 'Map in space' which may or not come to something. I had already found the image of Noman's land which would be the trigger.
I have been thinking about landscape, spaces, time, perspective.
I had found the following image on a Pinterest board of Vannessa Vaile with a quotation from one of two books I salvaged from my uncle's house following his death.
I should add that often images act as trigger, or scenes, they become alive for an instant.
Something happened, happens and I can not stop it. The image of the doll's house came back to me. It is an image of confinement, of conservation, of anxiety. It is an image which came to me when engaged in psychoanalysis. It is a key image for me. It is a key image for how I felt at school, at home, at work, and about certain academics. I am their object, a potential toy in their games.
As the picture came back, it connected to quotations of Ibsen (A Doll's house). I like quotations, they fast forward my reflection. I have been collecting them since the time IT all started flooding out. I had been thinking of how to include theatre in my writing - I love theatre. Ibsen was a good start. I have never seen an Ibsen play. I shall now.
From Ibsen I connected very quickly to an image which has stayed with me from what I now remember to be one of my favourite films ever: Bergman's Fanny and Alexander. Here is a taster (note I am coming back to add this after I had first published this post.)
That will do here.
Thank you to you for reminding me of this film. I am not a toy. I am a very busy man.
I toy with images, with spaces, with words, with sounds, and they come out here and elsewhere.
This rhizomatic learning course is working for me, because I am finding sparking nodes, who stimulate me, the space is only defined by the map which is constantly drawing itself.
Outcomes
I have little to do with this post.
It wants to be written.
I guess IT is DESIRE.
I am nothing, without connections...
I am nothing worth much if I follow their instruction manuals. It came out this way.
Methodological Footnote
The "crisis of confidence" inspired by postmodernism in the 1980s introduced new and abundant opportunities to reform social science and reconceive the objectives and forms of social science inquiry. Scholars became increasingly troubled by social science's ontological, epistemological, and axiological limitations (ELLIS & BOCHNER, 2000). In particular, scholars began illustrating how the "facts" and "truths" scientists "found" were inextricably tied to the vocabularies and paradigms the scientists used to represent them (KUHN, 1996; RORTY, 1982); they recognized the impossibility of and lack of desire for master, universal narratives (DE CERTEAU, 1984; LYOTARD, 1984); they understood new relationships between authors, audiences, and texts (BARTHES, 1977; DERRIDA, 1978; RADWAY, 1984); and they realized that stories were complex, constitutive, meaningful phenomena that taught morals and ethics, introduced unique ways of thinking and feeling, and helped people make sense of themselves and others (ADAMS, 2008; BOCHNER, 2001, 2002; Fisher, 1984). Furthermore, there was an increasing need to resist colonialist, sterile research impulses of authoritatively entering a culture, exploiting cultural members, and then recklessly leaving to write about the culture for monetary and/or professional gain, while disregarding relational ties to cultural members (CONQUERGOOD, 1991; ELLIS, 2007; RIEDMANN, 1993). [2]
Gradually, scholars across a wide spectrum of disciplines began to consider what social sciences would become if they were closer to literature than to physics, if they proffered stories rather than theories, and if they were self-consciously value-centered rather than pretending to be value free (BOCHNER, 1994). Many of these scholars turned to autoethnography because they were seeking a positive response to critiques of canonical ideas about what research is and how research should be done. In particular, they wanted to concentrate on ways of producing meaningful, accessible, and evocative research grounded in personal experience, research that would sensitize readers to issues of identity politics, to experiences shrouded in silence, and to forms of representation that deepen our capacity to empathize with people who are different from us(ELLIS & BOCHNER, 2000). Autoethnographers recognize the innumerable ways personal experience influences the research process. For instance, a researcher decides who, what, when, where, and how to research, decisions necessarily tied to institutional requirements (e.g., Institutional Review Boards), resources (e.g., funding), and personal circumstance (e.g., a researcher studying cancer because of personal experience with cancer). A researcher may also change names and places for protection (FINE, 1993), compress years of research into a single text, and construct a study in a pre-determined way (e.g., using an introduction, literature review, methods section, findings, and conclusion; TULLIS OWEN, McRAE, ADAMS & VITALE, 2009). Even though some researchers still assume that research can be done from a neutral, impersonal, and objective stance (ATKINSON, 1997; BUZARD, 2003; DELAMONT, 2009), most now recognize that such an assumption is not tenable (BOCHNER, 2002; DENZIN & LINCOLN, 2000; RORTY, 1982). Consequently, autoethnography is one of the approaches that acknowledges and accommodates subjectivity, emotionality, and the researcher's influence on research, rather than hiding from these matters or assuming they don't exist. [3]
I, yes I said I, came second in the end of year physics exam.
"Bloody hell!"
A group of suspiciously chattering pupils stood looking at the notice board.
To say that I was, that they were, surprised at my apparent physics prowess would be understatement to the power of ten.
That year like all years, I had occupied my customary seat next to the window where I could benefit from draughts of sea-air passing through the single glazing and hide my physics exercise book/sketch pad.
"Look lads, we're going to do a really brilliant experiment," was the teachers' sales-pitch.
I remember being lulled into nascent curiosity.
There was a wooden bench propped up at an angle, a sort of wooden trolley with ticker tape attached to it. The trolley went down the angled bench, the ticker tape followed.
That was that.
What had it all meant? I didn't, I don't have the foggiest inkling of an idea.
I remember feeling that I had been had.
If that was the ultimate excitement that one could have in a "physics classroom" then clearly it wasn't going to be for me.
I enjoyed scribbling, feeling the draught, looking vaguely out of the window while paying ear-service to the ambient educative goings-on.
I liked the teacher in so far as he left me in peace.
I never enjoyed physics as much as the year that God mysteriously decided that I would be gifted sudden brilliance in the key testing moment.
I came second in physics.
The teacher must have thought he had worked really well.
I remember nothing else.
"Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school." A. Einstein.
Simon Ensor
