Embrace mess and imperfection?

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the gray Sunflower poised against the sunset, / crackly bleak and dusty with the smut and smog / and smoke of olden locomotives in its eye– / corolla of bleary spikes pushed down and broken like / a battered crown, seeds fallen out of its face, / soon-to-be-toothless mouth of sunny air, sunrays / obliterated on its hairy head like a dried wire spiderweb, / leaves stuck out like arms out of the stem, gestures / from the sawdust root, broke pieces of plaster / fallen out of the black twigs, a dead fly in its ear, / Unholy battered old thing you were, my sunflower O / my soul, I loved you then! … / A perfect beauty of a sunflower! a perfect excellent / lovely sunflower existence! ~ ‘Sunflower Sutra’, Allen Ginsberg

Allen Ginsberg’s poem ‘Sunflower Sutra’ celebrates beauty in decay. Ginsberg laments the way technology can destroy creativity and crush inner beauty. He reminds us, though, that “we are not our skin of grime”; “we’re all beautiful golden sunflowers inside.” Ginsberg suggests that if we stay true to ourselves, celebrate our humanity, our uniqueness, our creativity and our connection to the natural world, we can retain our souls and rediscover our glorious selves.

The poem, published in 1956, still resonates today, 60 years on. How many people in our current world feel like they are weighed down by the “grime” of pressure, technology, work, external expectations or life events? How many are influenced by the “soot” of the social media highlight reel, the constant always-on-ness of devices, the weight of online trolls? How many feel they aren’t accepted, let alone celebrated, for their authentic selves? How many make life choices out of freedom rather than fear?

This post has come about because today’s post by Naomi Barnes has me thinking about mess and imperfection, and the ways in which we impose structure on the magnificent chaos of human experience. I agree with Naomi that Twitter is an example of a wonderful, lovable mess. I like her notion of trusting the mess; that messiness is ok, even diffractively productive. It allows meaning to be made and connections to entangle and untangle. Her metaphor of tangled webs of yarn as webs of learning and connection resonates with me. It feels to me like an extension of our blogversation around the web-ness of learning, research and relationships (my webby musings are here, here and here). Naomi has reflected on webs of research as messy. While Pat Thomson talks here about why it can be good to follow intuition and live with mess in research.

I wonder what we dismiss or try to control, which, left alone, might be beautifully imperfect or gloriously creative. Or is it the job of teachers, writers, researchers, artists and scientists to work to make sense of the mess, for themselves and others?

I’ve chosen some of my own images, below, which explore the beauty of the messy or the broken.

Do we look closely enough, at people, situations, places and possibilities, in an effort to appreciate, accept and celebrate them for what they are? Do we see people, not for how we think they can be fixed, improved or developed, but what they offer and how they are their own wonderful selves doing their own authentic things? To what extent do people and organisations feel they need to conform, to organise, to fix or to judge?

Can we trust mess and idiosyncrasy? What happens when we do?

We’re not our skin of grime, we’re not our dread / bleak dusty imageless locomotive, we’re all / beautiful golden sunflowers inside. ~ ‘Sunflower Sutra’, Allen Ginsberg

 

broken or beautiful? rail at Gullfoss

broken or beautiful? rail at Gullfoss

irregular or extraordinary? Pinnacles at dawn

irregular or extraordinary? Pinnacles at dawn

imperfect or interesting? wire at Shark Bay

imperfect or interesting? wire at Shark Bay

misshapen or unique? NY Halloween pumpkin

misshapen or unique? NY Halloween pumpkin

mess or creativity? painting with nature

mess or creativity? painting with nature

Let’s not forget the magic and joy in reading

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Books bombarded his shoulders, his arms, his upturned face. A book alighted, almost obediently, like a white pigeon, in his hands, wings fluttering. In the dim, wavering light, a page hung open and it was like a snowy feather, the words delicately painted thereon. In all the rush and fervour, Montag had only an instant to read a line, but it blazed in his mind for the next minute as if stamped there with fiery steel. ~ Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury

fiction pile on Shell Beach

fiction pile on Shell Beach

I’ve been thinking a lot about reading recently. Learning to read, teaching to read, analysing what we read. And books. In part this is because I am immersed, always, in story. Partly it’s contextual. Recently in Australia, the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute and News Corp have partnered to launch a February ‘Raise a Reader’ campaign to encourage parents to read to their children, in an effort to improve the literacy and vocabulary of students entering school. Additionally, with school going back in Australia this week, there have been click-bait media pieces which paint either parents or teachers as the villains of children’s education. Linda Graham reminds us, though, that we need parent-teacher partnerships, not polarisation.

In this post I attempt to weave together some of my non-linear, multi-layered thoughts on reading and books. It is parents and teachers (and role models and family members and libraries and society) who can help the perceived value of reading and the effective development of literacy. Discussions of literacy, reading and books should be about effective strategies, but also about joy, play and power.

from Dr Seuss' My Many Coloured Days

from Dr Seuss’ My Many Coloured Days

I’ve been surrounded by books my whole life. My family moved a lot, but my childhood homes were linked together by the presence of books. They were sometimes (often?) more plentiful than possessions. I could take unexplored books off any shelf, without having to check the rating or ask permission. As a family, we went to the library, one night a week, when we would each return the previous week’s stack of books and take out a new stack. Science fiction for my mum. Crime fiction for my dad. And whatever books we kids wanted, changing as our tastes changed over time. My grandfather’s study was a wonderland of ancient paper and earthy leather tomes. Books in my childhood were something enjoyable. They were individual escapes but also connected us through the practice of reading, and talking about our reading.

The purpose of Newspeak was … to make all other modes of thought impossible…. Newspeak was designed not to extend but to diminish the range of thought. ~ 1984, George Orwell

Since I became an English and Literature teacher I’ve spent my work days surrounded by books (now sometimes electronic). I get to read and talk about books for a living. My Year 12 class is currently looking at dystopian texts, some of which explore the power of language to both control and free us. George Orwell’s 1984 explores the idea that minimizing language and vocabulary can diminish and control thought. Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 explores a world where books are seen as powerful weapons of knowledge which threaten government control and societal compliance. Yet both novels also show the power of language to free and the power of human thought to prevail. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World explores how suppressing books and controlling stories of the past can control the present. Our class has discussed the announcement of the Oxford word of 2015 as an emoji, and whether the distilling of language into pictorial representations is helpful or hindering to communication and thought. We’ve looked at words which exist only in a particular language and wondered whether you need to have a word in order to experience a thought or concept.

Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces. ~ 1984, George Orwell

Part of my Head of English roles at three schools involved leading reading curricula and pedagogy, sometimes from the early years up until the final year of school. David Sousa’s (2014) How the Brain Learns is a good introduction to the world of the alphabetic principle, phonemes, graphemes, encoding, decoding, and the cognitive neuroscience how of learning to read. Sir Jim Rose’s (2006) Independent Review of the Teaching of Early Reading recommended that the best approach to teaching beginning readers includes discrete, high-quality, multi-sensory, systematic phonics work. It also promoted the use of sharing books, songs and rhyme as ways to develop children’s positive attitudes to literacy. Synthetic phonics is certainly important for children, but so is instilling enjoyment of reading. Always an advocate for balance, in debate and in teaching, I don’t think that phonics and whole language need to be polarised approaches. Systematic phonics instruction explicitly teaches students how to decode and encode language and to be successful readers, but it doesn’t teach them to be readers who value and enjoy reading.

In my high school English classrooms, and in student work, I can tell those students who have devoured books through their childhoods and those who haven’t. In Teaching the Brain to Read (2008), Judy Willis applies brain research to the teaching of reading. She discusses the importance of pleasure and motivation in learning to read, and the role of dopamine in learning. Students need choice, variety, and enjoyment of reading, not only drills and explicit instruction.

my original copy of the Alice Golden Book

my original copy of the Alice Golden Book: rabbit hole reading

When I became a parent, out came my childhood books, including tattered Golden Book volumes. Our shelves at home filled with early readers, picture books, storybooks and favourite novels. As recommended by the recent Australian ‘Raise a Reader’ campaign, we have read to our children since birth. Now 3 and 5 years old, this year in Kindergarten and Pre-Primary, our children are being exposed to the Jolly Phonics program at their local school. They bring home sets of words, in slowly spiralling levels of difficulty, to sound out and learn. They are read to at school and they take books off the shelves of their classroom. They visit the school library with their teachers and the local library with us.

The minimum we read to our kids at home is two books at bedtime. Often we read more than this in a day. This week my eldest started Pre-Primary and on his first visit to the school library he brought home a book which had 223 big pages. Between my husband and I, we read 80 pages the first night. The next two days the first thing our son did when he woke up in the morning was to run and get this book. We finished it tonight, three days after he took it out, and both boys have chosen to sit and listen to every page. This amount of reading wasn’t our choice as parents, but our son’s, so excited was he to read the stories within. He’s hoping we can read the whole thing again before he has to return it.

So as I find myself developing readers at home, being a reader myself, and exploring reading with my students (not to mention academic reading and nerdy reading for my own learning), I find the multi-layeredness of reading too unwieldy to tie down into a simple formula. There are systematic and sensible ways to conceptualise reading; these are, of course, important. And then there are the intangibles: the magic, inhaling the booky perfume (released by the glorious chemical breakdown of lignin and cellulose), the sound and feel of turning pages, and the internal world which comes alive when a book has grabbed you and pulled you deep into its world.

my eldest (then 4yo), reading to our youngest (then 2yo)

my eldest (then 4yo), ‘reading’ to our youngest (then 2yo)

Using coaching in qualitative research interviews

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being interviewed about my research

being interviewed about my research, in front of Sydney Harbour

In my last post, I tried to illuminate some of the internal dialogue and thinking that goes on in the coach’s mind during a coaching conversation. On Twitter, in response to that post, Avril Nicholl reminded me that being deliberate about interaction, and explicit about role, is applicable to qualitative interviewing. So in this post I’ll explain how I used my coaching toolbox when I was conducting qualitative interviews for my PhD.

My PhD experience of the qualitative interview comes from both participant and researcher perspectives. I interviewed one group of participants for my study, as interviewer and researcher. But ethical issues resulted in another group, and me, being interviewed by an independent interviewer. So I was interviewer, designer of protocols and questions for someone else to interview some participants, and an interviewed participant in my research.

Interview is a widely used way of generating data, especially when the researcher is seeking to explore feelings, relationships, beliefs, identities, and insights about people in action in their social worlds. As I discussed here, the creation of meaning is a complex interaction dependent on meaning-maker and context. Narrative researchers often agree that participant stories are not fully formed, waiting to be drawn from the person. Rather, meanings are made on the spot; shaped by the questions asked, the interview structure, the interview environment and the interviewer themselves. Interviews do not just recall knowledge; they produce it, in the moment.

Anecdotally, I experienced this myself in being interviewed for my study by the independent interviewer, who I had briefed on interviewing me and other participants. I had written the questions and the protocols, so I was surprised by the experience of being interviewed for my own study. In thinking aloud, or being probed to think further or differently, my own thinking was not only illuminated, but deepened, extended and re-shaped, even though I knew what the questions and foci beforehand.

The interviews for my PhD sat somewhere between semi-structured and un-structured, designed to elicit storytelling from participants. I wanted to, as narrative research doyenne Catherine Riessman suggests, “follow participants down their diverse trails” (in ‘Analysis of personal narratives’, 2002). I wanted interviews to be less about my agenda (although of course my study had its foci) and more about surfacing participant stories in all their messiness and humanness.

Planned questions were sparing; there were only a few. These were based on the phenomena on which the study focused. Mostly, these anchor questions started with, “Tell me about …” There were also suggestions for probing questions. The interviews were designed to be broadly consistent for each participant (in question order and focus) but the structure of the interview was flexible enough to explore tangents which emerged from each participant’s responses.

When interviewing, I was explicit about my role as researcher and interviewer, especially because I was interviewing people from within my own professional context. I used my coaching toolbox to give me a structure and approach for research interviewing. I applied an interviewer listening pattern of ‘pause, paraphrase, ask question’ (borrowed from Costa & Garmston’s 2006 Cognitive Coaching). This interview structure encouraged participant storytelling, while allowing patterns and idiosyncracies to emerge.

I was aware of leaving space in conversation for pausing and thinking, rather than jumping in when there was silence (as I mentioned in my previous post, restraint and pausing are areas of personal mindfulness for me). My coaching training on eye movement (see visual representation above for more on how to recognise eye cues) allowed me to see what sort of thinking the interviewee was doing, which helped me to wait while that thinking happened; I knew if I jumped in with another question I would be interrupting the person’s internal dialogue or their recollection of an experience. Usually the silence in the interviews didn’t last long but instead was a jumping off point for the participant to speak further; it was a space in which the interviewee was thinking and after which their story would continue.

I found that, rather than asking questions, I was attempting to distil, clarify, or abstract the person’s thinking with a well-considered paraphrase. While the focusing questions were necessary to direct responses onto the research foci, a Cognitive Coaching approach allowed me to ‘get out of the way’ of participants, following them along their own stories as they directed and developed their own responses. After the interviews I had feedback from a number of participants who said that for them the interview was useful, a great conversation, and a luxurious space in which to reflect on their own professional selves and practices. The research interview was valued by participants as an opportunity which provided the space and structure for learning and reflection.

My Cognitive Coaching training also helped to bring to my awareness, during the interviews, to the importance of trust, rapport, body language mirroring, pausing and paraphrasing. Conscious of maintaining rapport, I did not take notes, but allowed a Dictaphone to capture the audio. I watched the conversation body language in a kind of meta out-of-body looking-in-from-outside experience, and often found myself mirroring the interviewee’s body language. I was mindful of how participants used their bodies and hands to express their ideas and their relationships to things. This allowed me to pick up on the nuances of their thinking. Were they sequencing points on their fingers or in the air in a linear pattern? Were they expanding themselves and their ideas out into abstraction or magnitude, or bringing them close to their chests, showing something was dear to them? Non-verbal cues helped me to paraphrase participants’ responses.

For me, coaching and being coached has influenced the way I have conversations in all sorts of arenas. As a parent, as a partner, as a friend, as a teacher and as an interviewer. As a PhD candidate and neophyte researcher, the coach’s toolbox was helpful in developing my approach to qualitative interviews. As interviewer and coach, my PhD interview transcripts and audio provided data for reflection on my practices.

While the role and purpose of a research interviewer is different to the role and purpose of a coach, the principles and skills are transferrable: belief in the capacity of the individual, active listening, paraphrasing, asking questions which mediate thinking, and keeping oneself (coach/interviewer) out of the conversation. Both kinds of conversation – coaching and research interviewing – should be primarily about the person doing the thinking, talking, sharing, storytelling. Although the coach or interviewer of course influences the words and thoughts generated, they should aim to be almost-invisible catalyst, mirror and conduit.

The hard cognitive work of coaching and the curse of expertise

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Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath. ~ Michael Caine

This week I had a chance to reflect on the work of being a coach, work which happens in the throes of a coaching conversation. I was co-presenting part of the Cognitive Coaching course to some colleagues, and as part of the course I modelled a Cognitive Coaching planning conversation in front of the group, with one of the course participants as the coachee.

In my journey to coaching, I’ve often likened the experience of coaching to being a duck, apparently gliding effortlessly across the surface of the coaching conversation pond while the legs paddle manically beneath the surface. This analogy reflects for me my intention of providing for the coachee an experience of effortless rapport. No matter what internal coach dialogue or self-critique is going on inside my head, I want the coachee to feel that I am fully present in the conversation and that the conversation is natural and fluid.

Being fully present in a coaching conversation in which I am coach is hard cognitive work. In that moment I am focusing on maintaining eye contact and watching body language. Are my body language and facial expression open? Is my brow unfurrowed? Am I mirroring the posture and gestures of the coachee? What are their non-verbal cues telling me about their thinking? How can I paraphrase what they are saying in a way that helps their thinking? Do they need me to help boil down the essence of their thinking? Do they need me to help clarify a goal? Bring coherence to a system of ideas? Shift the level of abstraction of their thinking? Challenge them to consider their problem from a different point of view? Apply a different State of Mind (in Cognitive Coaching these are Consciousness, Craftsmanship, Interdependence, Flexibility and Efficacy)?

In a coaching conversation I am also working, in my head, on asking the best questions. Are my questions succinct? Do they reflect the language of the coachee? Do they use those things which my Cognitive Coaching training tells me are best for thinking: open-ended-ness, tentative language, plural forms and positive presuppositions? How is the coachee responding to the words I’m choosing? Have I understood the coachee’s thinking?

During this week’s model coaching conversation I was reminded of Pamela Hinds’ 1999 paper ‘The Curse of Expertise: The Effects of Expertise and Debiasing Methods on Prediction of Novice Performance’ (which I have written about before in terms of doing a PhD). Hinds found that experts may have a cognitive handicap; they are unable to accurately predict the time and difficulty novices need to complete a task. Intermediate learners were more helpful for novices as they still remembered and understood the problems of the beginner.

The curse of expertise suggests that becoming an expert can ‘black box’ the understanding of being a neophyte. Experts seem to forget what it was like not to know something or be able to do something. They have often forgotten the steps, the misconceptions and the struggle to mastery from the novice perspective. I reflected on this as I thought about my performance as the coach in my model conversation. My co-presenter, a Cognitive Coaching trainer with much more expertise than me as a coach and trainer, had taken some data for me during the model conversation. This data was a record of the questions I asked and my pattern of pausing, paraphrasing and questioning. Its purpose was to give me, as the coach, some non-inferential data on which to reflect, in order that I could refine my practice.

As I reflected on my thought processes as coach in the conversation, I found plenty to improve upon. And yet I remember that a few years ago, my post-coaching-conversation reflections were around much simpler and less layered aspects of coaching. Now I am reflecting on more than the conversation maps, the precision of my questioning and paraphrasing. While I still have to focus on those things (and pausing! I have to be very mindful about not jumping in) these aspects have become somewhat automated. I am now able to be thinking also about the Five States of Mind: which State the coachee is focusing on and which I might be able to help them access. I’m able to pay attention to eye movement to tell me about what sort of thinking is happening for the coachee. I’m able to consider how to paraphrase: whether I will clarify thinking or help to shift thinking to another level.

I don’t yet feel like an expert coach but I can see that I’ve moved from novice to intermediate, where some of the basic elements of being a coach in a coaching conversation have been internalised, allowing me to layer nuances of my practice and coach with a more craftspersonlike approach.

Sometimes now it seems my little duck legs are moving in slow motion; I have more control and less mania in my mind while I am coaching. I’m learning that as my skills develop, I stay buoyant more (but not totally!) effortlessly. It’s hard cognitive work, but work which has powerful outcomes for coachee and for the coach themselves. And the liberating thing about the work of coaching, I think, is that the hard work happens in the conversation. It’s in the conversation that the coach needs to be present, focused, and paddling like the dickens. Afterwards — when the coachee’s thinking has been sparked, pushed, pulled, surfaced and mediated through coaching conversation — the coach can reflect on their own practice, but is liberated from taking on the coachee’s thinking, solution finding or working through of problems.

My PhD found that becoming a coach can be a constant state. Just as our identities are in a constant state of becoming (we never arrive but are always being formed and reformed and transformed), coaching can become a way of being and a continual process of growth, self-development and identity work.

Traditional Progressivity or Progressive Traditionalism: Ditch the dichotomy

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Do we need to butt heads? It's not all black & white. Source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/black-and-white-africa-animals-wilderness-3158/

Do we need to butt heads? It’s not all black & white.
Source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/black-and-white-africa-animals-wilderness-3158/

I’ve never liked labels and boxes. I remember in high school when another student frustratedly asked me, “What ARE you?” I was bemused that this student was seemingly angered that my varied wardrobe (surfie t-shirts, black jeans, hippie skirts) didn’t fit one high school mould. Similarly, I’ve been a bit perplexed with the ongoing social media flurry around the ‘traditional vs. progressive’ debate, which is often positioned as being an ‘us vs. them’ or ‘right vs. wrong’ dichotomy.

I get uncomfortable when things get dichotomised as I think it increases unproductive antagonism and shuts down nuances and possibilities. Even Star Wars recognises the light in the darkness and the darkness in the light. My sentiments are similar to those of David Rogers who describes himself as a prog-trad continuum slider, and of Stephen Tierney who argues that traditional vs. progressive is a false dichotomy. I agree that traditional and progressive approaches in education aren’t warring factions. We don’t need a hard black line drawn between them. They can co-exist in schools and classrooms, with approaches moving along the continuum depending on teacher, students and the purpose of a lesson. We can attempt balance and compassion in debate and in teaching.

The trad-prog debate is often seen as rooted in ideology. As an educator I am a product of my own childhood, education, previous teachers, teaching experience and life. In order to tease out my perspective on the trad-prog sliding scale, I’ll try here to be transparent about my own beliefs about education, in order to perhaps illuminate the decisions I make about my teaching practice and my perception that we should consider traditional and progressive, rather than traditional or progressive.

I have core beliefs about what teaching should be, including that it is about empowering young people with the knowledge, skills and capacities to be critical (questioning! skeptical! even subversive!) consumers, creators and challengers of knowledge. As an English and Literature teacher I believe in the power of language, and that an ability to decode, interpret and wield language is part of empowering students to be people who can successfully navigate their worlds. I believe that students should learn the literary and artistic canon, the classics, philosophy, history, but also that these are shaped by their contexts (who wrote them? who had power? whose story is told? whose story is absent? who was unable, within that context, to share their [hi]story?). Students also need to navigate popular, multimedia and new media texts and discourses.

I teach English, a compulsory subject, to sometimes reluctant students who are studying English because they have to, not because they enjoy it or see its value. Many students struggle to find success in the English classroom, yet they have to attend. So my approaches to teaching English (as opposed to Literature, where students have chosen to do the course and are often enthusiastic and motivated) are influenced by this. I use Understanding by Design to backward plan curricula, starting with what it is that students need to know and be able to do – KNOWLEDGE. SKILLS. – as well as overarching essential questions.

Students need to be able to read, analyse, critique and develop evidenced arguments. But first they must know the content. The texts. The concepts. What a good argument looks like; what it doesn’t. I use diagnostic tools and pre-testing and rigorous assessment. I instruct, a sage-on-the-stage passionate about the content. I model analysis and argument. I provide exemplars. Texts are chosen for their merit and for their likelihood of being engaging for students. We read texts together and independently. I write. We write. They write. I work with small groups and with individuals to push them to the next phase of knowledge and understanding. I work hard on my questioning technique. I use regular formative assessments to gauge students’ understandings so that I might address pace, or go back or forward a few steps.

Yet I also on occasion – gasp – let students, to some extent, choose their own edventure, personalise their learning and have some autonomy about how they communicate their understanding. I’ve played with genius hour. I’ve negotiated tasks from an adjusted Bloomgard matrix. I use online discussion forums to develop students’ engagement with each other, and with me, around texts and concepts. I use the debate-promoting tool of the ‘human continuum’ in which students choose and defend a position along a classroom wall on a topic (To what extent is Macbeth a villain? To what extent is Frankenstein’s creature a monster?). My creative writing group has a blog in which they add to a collective story. When I’ve taught Romantic poetry, students have spent a lesson channelling their inner Romantic, taking a notebook and pen to a quiet spot around the school to write poetry which embodies Romantic ideals (a task which needs a knowledge of Romanticism and skills to control and manipulate language for effect). My creative writing lessons at the river and the cafe strip aren’t going to win any awards for knowledge-transmission. I don’t set up my desks in rows like isolated islands, but incorporate comfort and flexibility into learning spaces. I don’t see my students as vessels to be filled with knowledge. I expect students to do the work set, but I encourage them to intelligently question and challenge rather than mindlessly comply.

The thing is, I want my students to know that English is entrenched in life and ideas and society. Language is about knowledge and rules, and knowing when you’re accepting the knowledge and rules, and when you might challenge them. It can be about fun and satire and aesthetics and critique and expression and enjoyment. It can challenge the status quo or celebrate the way things are. It’s not black and white; knowledge or process; fun or seriousness; acceptance or opposition. This isn’t about my whims as the teacher or an ideal of free thinking do-what-you-like-preneurship. It’s about making deliberate practitioner decisions based on a knowledge of students, context, teaching, learning and the classroom, without feeling the need to conform to an extreme or singular view.

Students need knowledge. Students need skills. In English, they need to know and remember and synthesise and read and write and speak and listen and question and argue and persuade and create. They also need to play, experiment and develop their capacities for engaging thoughtfully, reflectively and critically with texts, ideas and … people.

Classrooms are more than effect sizes. They involve a combination of knowing and doing and feeling and being and learning and listening and thinking and wondering and working. Trust and vulnerability and relationships and identity formation. Let’s not reduce all that to a dichotomy of good vs. evil in education.

On writing: Is it dense to be complex?

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writing is power (my image, of course!)

writing is power (my image, of course!)

Writing can be bold and dangerous and disruptive. It can be quiet and still and sneaky. It can be melodious and rhythmic and beautiful. It can be subversive and challenging and difficult to read. As a reader and a teacher of English and Literature, I am a believer in the power of language, of words, of literature, of story and of writing. To educate and to soothe. To challenge and to change. It’s why writing is so important for everyone. Writing – and being able to enact authorial intent, to release thought and emotion through words on a page or screen or device – is power.

I teach my students of English to write for audience and purpose. For whom are they writing? What is their purpose? To persuade, to shock, to inform, to inspire, to call to action, to explain, to intrigue? As authors, once they have identified for whom and why they are writing, they can make choices of form, structure and language. I teach them the ‘rules’ of various genres and forms so that they know how to use them, and how to deliberately break them. The same goes for any writer: know your game, how to play and conform, and how to challenge or subvert.

I find blogging an interesting form in the sense that the audience is sometimes unclear. In some ways I write it for myself – as a web log of reflections. Yet I write around particular topics, and I know that I have a readership of individuals and groups who are (it seems!) interested in what I have to say. In some ways I write to share my story so that others might glean something from it, in part because I get so much from others blogging their journeys or writing ‘aloud’ their thoughts and theories as they form. I like even more the collaborative nature of blogging; when it opens up conversation, in comments, on social media or in new blog posts. As Pat Thomson writes, writing can be identity work; it can be a way into being and into connection. And as author and self-publisher, a blogger is free to write how and about what they choose. It’s a kind of free writing.

Academic writing is a different beast. Some academic writers work to make their writing accessible to a broader audience than the academe or a narrow field of scholars. Sometimes I use my thesaurus in reverse (‘What’s a simpler way of saying this?’). But often, as Greg Thompson and Linda Graham have suggested recently, academese can be complex, esoteric and hard to decode precisely because of the densities and intricacies of the ideas being tussled with. Readers and writers of academic prose need to work hard, grappling with words and concepts. Sometimes it seems that every third academic writer invents a new word just to sound more obtuse and scholarly than the next. Yet these discourse-specific terms can be the result of the sweat and tears of theorisation; ‘How do I best communicate this theory?’ Like literature, often celebrated for its multi-levelled complexity, academic texts often need to be read and re-read in order to be understood, and on different levels. Academic allegory. A journey into knowing.

One’s own writing, too, can involve struggle. Using big words isn’t necessarily gratuitous chest-beating in order to show off or project cleverness; it can be the result of ideas and words wrestled with, toiled over, written and re-written. Boundaries pushed at persistently. Knowledge formed or reimagined. I am a neophyte in the world of academia, but my PhD has taught me that writing in academia can mean taking one step forward to take ten steps back. Often I write my way into understanding, like Naomi Barnes who sees writing as inquiry and blogging as process.

my crude Venn diagram of the writing-reading process

my crude Venn diagram of the writing-reading process

Meaning is made at the junction between text (as performed by the writer) and reader. The writer brings themselves to the text, with all their own context, authorial processes, beliefs, assumptions, knowledge, gaps in knowledge and writerly decisions. The reader, too brings their self, context, beliefs, values, and skills of interpretation to the written piece. It’s in that zinging middle space – like in the tension between the fingers of Adam and God on the Sistine Chapel ceiling – that meaning is made. It’s why no reading of a text is ever the same, and why there can never be a ‘right’ interpretation, only perhaps a dominant one.

In today’s world there are a range of places and forms in which authors can communicate their work, theorise, research, think and write. Writers make decisions based on what they want to communicate and who they are reaching out to (or away from). They can choose big words, small words, combative words, inclusive words. They can simplify or complicate. They might write to situate themselves in a particular discourse, within a particular conversation, or with a particular group.

Readers, too, make choices. To read, engage, re-read, give up, struggle through. Or to respond and engage by writing, writing, writing.

One word 2016: MOMENTUM

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I spent the last day of 2015 in motion, quad biking along a beach.

I spent the last day of 2015 in motion, quad biking along a beach.

Last year, in the new year, I focused my attention on three words: presence, sharing and strength. I was focused on being present in each life aspect and relationship, sharing and storytelling, and building my strength in body, knowledge, connection and conviction. My 2015 ended up being focused around lots of writing, and on the one word we had written on our chalkboard at home: CONQUER. I was focused mainly on conquering my PhD thesis (and I got it submitted), but also conquering some academic papers and conferences, conquering fitness and strength goals. Seeing a daily reminder of that one word gave me a laser-like focus on finishing, completing, conquering. I pushed hard, remained motivated and hit milestones. But it also left me exhausted!

This year I was looking for a “one word” (sometimes called one little word or one word 365) which was more yin and less yang, more reflective and less explosive, more about regeneration than domination. While I was still attracted to active words like inspire, ignite and create, I considered gentler words like refine, renew and play. But none of these cover what I think my 2016 will be about. Maybe I’m not so ready for stillness or space or quiet just yet. I don’t want to be conquering in 2016, but one of my big lessons of 2015 was to put one foot in front of the other and just keep moving.

I spent my last day of 2015 quad biking with friends and family on a long pristine stretch of white beach. Snaking, quickening, turning, moving, the wind whipping around and against us. Speeding up. Slowing down. Driving away and towards and around. Playing with speed and direction, throttle and velocity, movement and pace. Feeling the terrain beneath the bike: sometimes flat, sometimes bumpy, sometimes hard, sometimes cushioned by peaks of white sand. Concentration. Adrenalin. Acceleration. The word I have come to for 2016 is MOMENTUM, from the Latin movere, meaning “to move”. This will be a year of being in motion or on the move.

my son, dressed as an angel, in motion

my son, dressed as an angel, in motion

I’m not starting 2016 from a stagnant place. I am already moving. My PhD is being examined, and will hopefully be done, dusted and doctored some time in 2016. I have some academic papers in the pipeline. The coaching professional learning model at my school is implemented and in an iterative refinement phase, and I’m in conversations about what my role might look like in 2017 and beyond. So what I want to do in 2016 is keep the momentum going, capitalise on what I’ve achieved so far and push ahead. Move.

The idea of momentum in the sense of a rolling snowball isn’t quite right for me, as that kind of momentum is quite linear. I’m thinking of something more fluid. Kayaking through rushing river water. The momentum of paintbrush over canvas. Skis slicing through snow. Music building to crescendo. Feet running off a mountain to begin a paraglide. Quad biking on a beach. This kind of momentum requires a combination of knowledge, precision, creativity and mastery. It can be messy and lead to the unexpected.

I’m not sure about the end point of my momentum. People have asked me what I’ll do after the PhD and the answer is, I don’t know. I have some ideas of what might be similar or different from what I’m doing now, but I’m not set on one course. I’m happy where I am, doing what I’m doing. But I’m open to alternative directions and possibilities. I figure if I set my intention for 2016 on being in motion – forward, diagonally, in, out, reflectively, critically, creatively – my path with open up before me. Or I’ll find that I’m already travelling along it.

roses in the ocean, in motion carried by the waves

roses in the ocean, in motion carried by the waves

Light in the darkness & darkness in the light: Yin & yang in The Force Awakens

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How many Star Wars blog posts is too many? This is my second about The Force Awakens. If you want my spoiler-free review it’s here, written the day the film was released. The following post does contain spoilers.

Woodblock print from WoodcutEmporium on Etsy. Source: https://www.etsy.com/listing/130958015/star-wars-yin-yang-woodblock-print

Woodblock print from WoodcutEmporium on Etsy.
Source: https://www.etsy.com/listing/130958015/star-wars-yin-yang-woodblock-print

I wrote in my previous post that Star Wars shows its audiences the complexity of people’s capacities for good and evil, kindness and cruelty, bravery and cowardice, zen calm and uncontrollable rage. Episode VII builds on the idea that there is both light and darkness within and around us all.

The stormtroopers are one example of how The Force Awakens teases out the complexity of our inner worlds. The First Order stormtroopers are, like their Galactic Empire predecessors, dressed in yin-yang colours of both black and white, with their white armour over black body-glove suits. I’ve always wondered why the characters who are the living arsenal of the Star Wars ‘bad guys’ wear white armour, when white is so often used in the franchise to symbolise goodness. Rather than being identical clones, the new stormtroopers are shown to have humanity and individuality, even though they are programmed henchmen of the dark organisation within the world of Star Wars.

There is ambiguity in the stormtroopers and the potential for alternate readings of them. A dominant reading might be: fascist ruling government = power-hungry murderous baddies / resistance = goodies fighting for peace and good (and power?). In a more resistant reading, within our current socio-political climate, we might ask what groups we consider to be well-armed governments with supreme power, who are hunting down groups of resistance and rebellion? What does Star Wars have to offer our world about the ways in which we view power and those who resist or challenge it, when the rebels and resistors are presented as the heroes?

In the Star Wars world presented to us in The Force Awakens, stormtroopers might be seen as victims of a dictatorship, loyal foot soldiers protecting order, or well-trained weapons of evil. The character of Finn, or FN-2187 (for fellow nerds, 2187 is the number of Leia’s cell on the Death Star in Episode IV), shows the most human side of the stormtrooper, by showing someone who, like the protagonists of the Bourne movies, despite his mental and physical programming to become a devoted warrior-soldier, rebels against conformity and embraces individuality. Is the message here that goodness can triumph? Or that the instinct for self-preservation trumps all? The first exchange between Finn and Poe is telling. When asked why he’s helping Poe, Finn replies: “Because it’s the right thing to do.” But Poe realises: “You need a pilot.” And Finn admits: “I need a pilot.” Finn wants to run, and to save himself, but, later reflects Han Solo’s reluctant heroism in the original episodes, when he returns and puts his life on the line to save his friend.

In another example of the entanglement of light and dark, in Episode VII we see Kylo Ren, while desperate to embrace his inner darkness, feeling “the pull of the light” and feeling “torn apart” by the struggle within him on his journey to villainhood. Adding to Kylo’s inner good, his real name, we discover, was ‘Ben’, the name that Obi-Wan Kenobi took on when he was in exile on Tatooine. Kylo’s choice to kill his father, to strengthen his dark powers, is reminiscent of Luke’s battle with his father and the Emperor, when the Emperor challenges Luke to strike him down, to give in to anger in order to become a servant to the dark side. In The Force Awakens, Kylo seems to struggle with his decision, but is committed to becoming like Darth Vader, his grandfather, who we know had his final moments as a good man-cyborg. Will Kylo’s fate be similar? (And will the next two movies in the trilogy be as derivative of the originals as The Force Awakens was of A New Hope? Or will there be narrative surprises along the way?)

In the lightsaber battle between Kylo and Rey, Luke’s blue lightsaber is like the sword Excalibur; it won’t budge for Kylo but flies violently past him to Rey. Kylo cannot control his anger (as we are also shown in his lightsaber slashing tantrums), while Rey, an untrained novice, closes her eyes mid-fight to “feel the Force” and strike Kylo. Here, the film sets up our main villain-hero pair, with a villain who has turned away from his family towards a powerful dark master, and a hero who is only beginning to know her own power. Kylo is set up as a baddie-in-training who might yet be saved, despite his murderous decision in Episode VII. The audience is left with the question: Is there enough yang in Kylo’s yin to bring him back to the light?

(An aside: What is Rey’s parentage? Is she Luke’s daughter? -“Rey, I am your father” – Is that why her power is so strong and why Luke’s lightsaber calls to her? Perhaps her mother was also a Jedi, which might explain why she is so intuitively powerful? Was she hidden on Jakku to protect her, as Luke was hidden on Tatooine? So is she related to Kylo? Are they cousins? Could they be brother and sister, somehow? What’s with the hug Leia gives Rey? It’s a familial kind of an embrace, complete with Skywalker family music.)

So the characters of Star Wars continue to show us the power of both the individual and the collective, and remind us that we all have choices to make about the paths we choose for ourselves. About whether we embrace darkness or light, but that both exist within us and around us. About whether, in times of stress and conflict, we choose to search for calm and goodness (the light side, the bright side, kindness, compassion, forgiveness), or we give in to negative feelings. Roll on Episode VIII.

The Force Awakens: What Star Wars tells us about humanity

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This post doesn’t contain spoilers regarding what happens in Star Wars Episode VII. I promise!

I could have titled this post ‘Why I’m a big Star Wars nerd’, but it emerges from my reflections around the pro- and anti- Episode VII hype. As the film was released today, social and traditional media are filled with cries of ‘I can’t wait to see it’, ‘I’ve got no interest in seeing it’ or ‘I’d rather scratch out my eyeballs than see it’.

Why is Star Wars a franchise that people either love or dismiss? What is it about the series of films (especially Episodes IV, V and VI, and now VII) which drew so many of us in and continues to capture imaginations, 38 years after Episode IV was released? Why did I choose to go alone to the cinema (for the first time ever) to watch Episode VII today (apart from that my children were in school and I was on holidays, so I could)? Why did I watch the new episode with simultaneous anticipation, nostalgic joy, emotional investment and white-knuckle excitement?

One answer is that Star Wars films, like Shakespeare’s plays or Orwell’s novels, communicate the universality of humanity; the essence of what it is to be a person in the world. The films talk of the light and darkness within us all; our capacities for good and bad, kindness and cruelty, bravery and fear. In Star Wars, these struggles are internal and external; they happen within characters and across galaxies. Within the action-packed, emotion-charged fantasy world of Star Wars, we see the complexities of being human. We are shown the power of looking out for others, and of gaining self-control and self-awareness. We see people’s capacities for good and evil, quests for power, journeys of identity-becoming or identity-unravelling. The ethics of technology and the use and abuse of power are questioned.

Star Wars creates a universe in which heroes, male and female, ‘feel the Force’ and ‘search their feelings’. They are sensitive to the shared energies of the world around them, as well as a having a keen awareness of inner self and deeply felt emotion. It’s a world where heroes can be small, green creatures which speak in confused syntax, tall furry ones, or robots. Where mentorship and courage are found in unlikely places and anyone can save the galaxy, as long as they’re in touch with their senses and their feelings, and they have friends to support them on their journey.

At the beating heart of Star Wars is not the special effects, which have often been cutting edge for their time, but the relationships. We see the connections, compassion and conflict between friends, strangers, enemies, lovers and family, and combinations of these. These are underlined by the movies’ familiar scores, recognisable leitmotifs and iconic costumes which help to embed viewers in, and propel viewers along with, characters’ story arcs.

This time around, in Episode VII, The Force Awakens, battles for power re-emerge, but there is a little more 21st century diversity of gender and race. There is a female villain, a female heroine, a female general and a black hero, as well as the usual array of characters of various species, languages, sizes and levels of machination. While the film can be seen as an escape from reality, the universal themes of goodness, family, friendship and courage to do what is right or fight for those about whom you care, continue to resonate and have something to say about the world in which we live.

Fans of the original trilogy will be satisfied by Episode VII. It’s a fan’s film, a reawakening of the original spirit of the series, with plenty of recognisable hat-tip references. The movie brings together familiar Star Wars characters with new characters and modern special effects. It is funny and emotional. Fast paced and with enough unanswered questions to leave the audience intrigued for Episodes VIII and IX. The film doesn’t carve a new path for the Star Wars brand, but it does take its audience forward by embracing its past. My nerdy child-of-the-80s heart was bursting with old-school-meets-new-school Star Wars love.

Postscript: This post, written after a second viewing of the film, DOES contain spoilers.

5 things I learned in 2015

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Beware the barrenness of a busy life. ~ Socrates

Epiphanies and moments of clarity can be simple and, on reflection, obvious. The following list of ‘5 things I learned in 2015’ may seem like statements of the bleeding obvious. They are nothing new, and yet this year I’ve seen new refractions from, and noticed more minute details of, these simple truths. They have been affirmed for me this year through my experiences of being and becoming. Of teaching, leading, parenting, coaching, being coached, researching and writing.

local café wisdom

local café wisdom

1. Doing many things at once can work, but it’s also important to take breaks.

In the last few years I’ve been working 0.8 of a teaching and leadership job at a school, parenting two pre-schoolers and working on my PhD (now submitted – woot!). While I always had a sense that this was working for me in its strange busy way, it wasn’t until my first writing retreat this year that I understood how much. On my retreat, I found it difficult to stay on my one task – editing the PhD thesis draft – for a full weekend. I realised that my routine of intense short bursts of PhD, in among the other many things in my life, worked for me. These short, regular, time-constrained bursts of energetic PhD work were intensive and focused. They felt like an indulgence, some intellectual ‘me-time’ in which I could luxuriate, a brain-bending haven from my other responsibilities. It helped me to love my PhD, while also appreciating the specialness of my teaching, leading and parenting roles.

Yet, as I discovered, relentless busyness is not sustainable. Breaks are required. Real, curl-your-toes-in-the-sand, unplug, breathe deeply and love abundantly kind of breaks. Nourishment for wellbeing. Care for self and others. Time to breathe.

2. Welcome resistance & engage in respectful disagreement.

On my blog, which is now 16 months old, as in Twitter and in my professional life, I have been becoming more comfortable with, and encouraging of, disagreement, although I prefer dissent to be served in a respectful, articulate and reasoned manner. And I prefer disruption which emerges from deep purpose, rather than trendy buzzwordification. Last year I completed the Adaptive Schools Foundation course, which champions graceful disagreement as a key element of high-performing groups. I’ve written a few blog posts which err on the side of controversial. I’ve engaged in Twitter debate. I’ve experienced my first peer review comments from academic journals, and attempted to take critique as an opportunity to strengthen my work. And in my role leading and implementing a school coaching initiative for teachers, I have welcomed the contributions of those who are resistant to the change.

I’ve found those individuals who might be dismissed as ‘resistors’ or negative voices, to be important ones worthy of close listening. I find myself asking those who disagree to take the time to explain their view to me. I listen intently, wondering, ‘What can I learn here? How might this help me to make what we’re doing better, stronger, and meaningful for a wider range of people?’

I am reminded of this line of Richard Bach’s from his novella Illusions:

There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts.

It is often in engaging with those who disagree with us, that we are taken to new places in our own thinking, helped to consider alternate perspectives, or are able to find solutions which we may otherwise not have reached.

3. Trust individuals. Believe in their capacity. Choose empowerment.

Punitive accountability measures which promote fear and compliance can only undermine teachers’ and school leaders’ professions, identities and practices. Through my experiences of coaching, my PhD research into school leadership and organisational change, and my observations of systems of teacher evaluation around the world, I have become increasingly convinced of the need to focus on empowerment and growth, through support and trust. It’s the belief upon which my school’s coaching model is based.

4. Connections with others are powerful.

We know that connecting with others is powerful. One of my ‘three words’ for 2015 was ‘sharing’ and another was ‘presence’, both words which speak of connecting with others and being present in relationships.

This year, not only have my personal and face-to-face professional relationships been impactful, but so have connections I have made online. For the first time this year, I began to meet ‘in real life’ individuals I’ve connected with on Twitter and through my blog. Catching up over drinks, breakfast or the conference room had been a seamless transition from tweet, blog post or Voxer message, to in-person banter, support and inspiration. I’ve engaged in wonderful blogging conversations. I’ve become bewitched with the potential of our interconnectedness and the ways in which technology might help us grow support networks and knowledge webs.

5. Teeny regular steps add up to a long journey.

My PhD was the thing that brought home this truth to me. Over three years I plugged away with little step after little step, finding stolen moments of doctoral time in the cracks in my days and nights. Regular, persistent effort. Sometimes forward; sometimes back; but maintaining forward momentum. And then I looked back along the path I’d walked and found that it added up to a thesis. So my big lesson was, just put one foot in front of the other. Keep going!

sunset, Gnarabup

sunset, Gnarabup