the journey continues ...

Some more from mshoff,

Adhering to the George principle that the true value of the research often emerges as you conduct the research, I'm struggling to frame my study in any coherent manner. I know what I want to do, I know the main points I'm interesting in studying, but I can't get my actual questions to say what I want them to say. I always struggle with research questions, not actually asking questions but creating valid research questions with a capital R and Q. I feel like I should know what the research is going to tell me in order to write the research questions, which completely misses the point of conducting research. Maybe I'm not inquisitive enough. Maybe I'm just willing to investigate a general area and see what develops throughout the study. The latter sounds better but it doesn't help me write my proposal any faster.

I remember feeling this way, and still do. Rather than work against this process, which is really a traditional, positivistic type paradigm, qualitative research must make a claim for a differnt type of knowing and development. The idea that you can write the research questions, do the reading and lit review, then go and do the reserach, then write up the 'findings', is I think, insane in some ways. The idea of research in education, and one that investgates reflection or conversation or learning or anything dynamic like that, is one that needs to be wide enough to accept what I would call (and many others before me of course) an 'emergent research design'. Research that 'mirrors' or attempts to reflect the learning process itself. I guess this idea cuts across others like action and practioner research. The kind of work that Johnny Loughran has been doing for years (he is a lovely guy actually, and a wonderful teacher). mshoff continues,

I can deal with the ambiguity of reflective practice, since it keeps the act of reflection flexible. No one really agrees on a definition of reflective practice, although most draw from with Dewey or Schon, and there is constant discussion over whether reflection is individual or collaborative. One thing I'm not finding in the literature, though, is whether reflection must be written to count as reflective activity. Does reflective discussion count? Can a group of teachers - pre-service teachers, too - sit down over coffee, have a thoughtful conversation, replete with past events and solutions for the future, and call that reflective practice? I don't see why not - but it does feel a bit like the "if a tree falls in the woods" argument.

This one is really intersting, as it's basically what I tried to have a go at arguing in my honours thesis. 'Can a group of teachers - pre-service teachers, too - sit down over coffee, have a thoughtful conversation, replete with past events and solutions for the future, and call that reflective practice?' I would say wholeheartedly, YES! I would argue that this is often the best form of professional learning available to teachers in these times of 'PD' that is one-size-fits-all, reductionist, that ignores teacher knowledge and basically 'inducts into ideological compliance' (Locke, 2003). There is a lot of writing on this subject (I can give some refs if anyone wants em).

Sometimes I wonder if I should go back and teach high school again. If I did that before writing my dissertation, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't finish the PhD. And if I went back to teaching after finishing my PhD, I'd probably shoot myself in the proverbial foot - how would I look to a university as a potential professor if I went back to high school rather than scaling the ivory tower? Still, sometimes I really feel the disconnect between university and secondary school. How can I teach students how to be good teachers of high school students if I'm not involved with high school students? I can't draw on my past teaching experiences forever, especially since each year that passes put those years of experience more firmly in the past. Could I teach for a semester while I was writing the dissertation? No, not the way I teach: all or nothing. I wouldn't have the energy or the focus to write after teaching all day - and grading, and monitoring, and cheering, and talking, and walking, and everything else that goes with teaching. I don't want to become one of those professors completely divorced from the reality of high school teaching but I'm not quite sure how to avoid that future without the constant reinforcement of working with teenagers.

Ah, THE CONUNDRUM for beginning researchers-aspiring academics. In the back of my mind I see a change in the way teacher education is set up; a change in the academy-school binary; a change in recognition of the value of teacher knowledge and professioalism; a change in the attitidues of teachers and academics/teacher educators towards each other and towards their work; a change in the conditions of work that might just enable teachers and academics to work together and in tandem; a change that might just enable teachers to talk with one another about their work, and to blog if they choose.

Anyway, thanks mshoff for an hour of thinking pleasure.