Restor(y)ing lives: Autobiographical reflection and perspective transformation in adults returning to study
Jennifer K. Miles BAppScience (Leisure & Health) Sydney University 2004 Diploma of Vocational Education and Training (VET) Practice 2006 Diploma of Training and Assessment (TAA) 2006
Submitted to the Faculty of Education in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Education by Research Monash University November 2010
Declaration This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university or other institution and affirms that to the best of my knowledge, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference is made in the text of thesis.
The research for this thesis received the approval of the Monash University Standing Committee for Ethical Research on Humans (Reference number CF09/2401 – 2009001408)
Signed ____________________ Date ________________
1
Acknowledgements I am deeply grateful for the support of my supervisors Damon Anderson, Allie Clemens, Terry Seddon and Gail Fitzsimons and for the encouragement of Kate Dempsey and Rosamund Winter, all of whom have inspired and challenged me to reach ever higher. There are innumerable people who, through sharing the stories of their lives across the years, have enriched and shaped my own transformative journey, and to them I would like to offer my wholehearted appreciation for the gift of themselves. Annie, Kate, Sara, Penn and Zac for their courage and commitment, and for participating so enthusiastically in the sharing of their stories for my research; Ieva for her good-humoured support of the process; Christine, Chui, Joan and Heather for their incredible generosity and wisdom; Jane for her encouragement and unwavering belief in my potential; my friends, family and colleagues who cause me to continuously interrogate all I have come to know – Alistair and Hege, Lauren and Ed, John and Di; and Roy, Jo and Wendy for their fabulous camaraderie as we travelled the Masters road together. Above all, I thank my beautiful men - Cambell, Sam and Alex - who have accompanied me along this arduous road and who continue to astound and delight me daily with the strength and purity of their hearts as they undertake the creation of their own unique stories.
2
Table of Contents Declaration ........................................................................................................................................ 1 Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................... 2 Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................ 3 Table of figures................................................................................................................................. 4 Abstract.............................................................................................................................................. 5 Chapter 1: Introduction – how stories came to matter. ........................................... 6 1.1 Taking time for reflection ........................................................................................................ 6 1.2 Storytelling across the spectrum ............................................................................................. 7 1.3 Validating storytelling’s strengths within the context of Vocational Education and Training .............................................................................................................................................. 9 Chapter 2. Methodology - the transformative journey of disorienting dilemmas, meaning making and moving toward a story untold ............................................. 12 2.1 Recruiting participants - the plan, and the reality .............................................................. 12 2.2 Telling and interpreting the story ......................................................................................... 12 2.3 What’s in a name – is a rose as sweet by any other name? .............................................. 13 2.4 The best laid plans of mice and men … ............................................................................. 16 2.5 The questions and tools that guided the process .............................................................. 18 2.6 Data collection – gathering stories ....................................................................................... 19 2.7 Data collection - the participants.......................................................................................... 19 2.8 Data collection – the individual interviews and focus group .......................................... 21 2.9 The research process – a visual representation.................................................................. 23 2.10 Engaging with the reflective process ................................................................................. 26 Chapter 3. Literature review, findings and discussion - the stories old and new, of lives lived and meaning found .................................................................................27 3.1 Finding other voices ............................................................................................................... 27 3.2 Finding oneself ........................................................................................................................ 27 3.3 The journey that is transformative learning........................................................................ 37 3.4 The frog in the well ................................................................................................................. 38 3.5 Disorienting dilemmas and discontent ................................................................................ 38 3.6 Ways of knowing ..................................................................................................................... 46 3.7 Contesting the social structures and ruling ideologies...................................................... 47 3.8 Education and gardening – promoting growth ................................................................. 54 3.9 Time and space ........................................................................................................................ 55 3.10 Cultivating reflection ............................................................................................................ 56 3.11 Reconciling the events of the past – a transformed perspective .................................. 61 3.12 The learning identified through the stories – the focus group .................................... 68 Chapter 4. Conclusion -- the power and potential of storytelling in adult learning. ..................................................................................................................................72 4.1 Back to the beginning ............................................................................................................. 72 4.2 The research journey in summary ........................................................................................ 73 4.3 Support from across the spectrum....................................................................................... 73 4.4 The learning from the stories shared ................................................................................... 74 4.5 Limitations and opportunities ............................................................................................... 75 4.6 Becoming agents of change – the power of narrative to transform .............................. 76 4.7 Recommendations -- Moving toward a new story ............................................................ 78 Closing thoughts ............................................................................................................................ 80 Bibliography .................................................................................................................................... 81 Appendix ......................................................................................................................................... 86
3
Table of figures Figure 1: Flow chart of the methodological approach............................................................ 23 Figure 2: Session outline for introduction to storying the learning of life and to the research study ................................................................................................................................. 24 Figure 3: Session outline for post-reflective individual interviews ....................................... 25 Figure 4: Session outline for focus group.................................................................................. 25
4
Abstract Throughout the course of our lives we are at times presented with the opportunity to reflect on our learning, to consider the experiences, the people and the environments that have contributed to the shaping of our sense of self, and to the expectation we subsequently have of ourselves and our future capacity. Nelson (1994) suggests we have the potential to transform our perspective if we have been enabled to explore the schemas woven into the fabric of our self-identity and to consider the impact this brings to bear on our life and learning. He speaks of the autobiographically reflective process as coming to imagine a future previously unknown. This small-scale study, in one Technical and Further Education (TAFE) institute, examines the process and self-articulated outcomes of five participants in a qualitative, narrative based inquiry, investigating the capacity of autobiographical reflection to promote perspective transformation in adults returning to study within the context of vocational education and training. Drawing predominantly on the work of Brookfield (2005), Mezirow (2000), Freire (1972b), Shor (1992), Cranton (1994), Frankl (1964) and Rogers (1980), it explores the personal and social dimensions of meaning-making, identifying the role of critical reflection in transforming learners’ perspectives as they come to critique the power relationships and hegemonic assumptions that have influenced their construction of self-identity. Utilising a storytelling methodology, the thesis honours the narrative tradition in weaving the process and findings of the study through the stories of the participants as they dance on the edge of their knowing (Berger, 2004). Through undertaking an autobiographically reflective process that included individual interviews and a focus group, participants were ultimately able to articulate a sense of meaning making that enabled the construction of a foundation on which a new future – a new story - might be built. Recommendations have been made around further investigation of the implications of these limited findings as they relate to the potentially greater social benefits of individual perspective transformation.
5
Chapter 1: Introduction – how stories came to matter. “… you need only claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all you have been and done, which may take some time, you are fierce with reality.” Florida Scott-Maxwell (1968) 1.1 Taking time for reflection Throughout the course of our lives we are at times presented with the opportunity to reflect on our learning, to consider the experiences, the people and the environments that have contributed to the shaping of our sense of self, and to the expectation we subsequently have of ourselves and our future capacity. Nelson (1994) suggests we have the potential to transform our perspective if we have been enabled to explore the schemas woven into the fabric of our self-identity and to consider the impact this brings to our life and learning. He speaks of this autobiographically reflective process as coming to imagine a future previously untold. In traversing the path of my adulthood, I have been provided with opportunities along the way to reflect on my life – to unfold and tell the stories of my learning, of the experiences and people who have been part of this passage. At each point, as I have been encouraged to explore my achievements, struggles, frailties, enduring strengths and imagined future, and to consider the impact the construction of my self-identity has brought to bear on my approach to life and learning, I have been impressed by the capacity the self-reflective process holds to transform perspective of personal capability and of a future yet to be created. This research study is born of my own transformational learning path. It has informed and continues to be informed by the process of inquiry that has underpinned its development and is both the product and the dormant seed that holds within it undiscovered potential for unimaginable truths. Throughout this process I have drawn on the voices of the many whose stories have been shared with me in various learning spaces and contexts along the way. To each of them I offer my unconditional gratitude for all they have offered of themselves.
6
1.2 Storytelling across the spectrum In the word question there is the beautiful word quest. I love that word. We are all partners in the quest. The essential questions have no answers. You are my question and I am yours – and then there is dialogue. The moment we have answers, there is no dialogue. Questions unite people. Answers divide them. Elie Weisel My early introduction to the transformative power of narrative emerged through various environments where identifying and attending to the psychosocial needs of others was paramount. My earliest employment was in a hairdressing salon where stories of incongruence of the inner and outer world of the self necessitated the development of a creative hand coupled with an empathic heart, and as I moved into marriage and motherhood and the joys of storytelling with children, I became keenly aware of the need to nurture and seed creative, authentic self-expression for optimal growth and development (McKeough, 1998; Rosen, 1986). As my children grew I stepped into aged care where the psychosocial support of elders in a nursing home became my new focus, and where the significance of telling stories became richly evident. In spite of an environment where the reigning medical model afforded no value to the subjective and unquantifiable benefits of narrative, the health and wellbeing of my elders was none the less richly enhanced through the telling and sharing of their stories. Stories of love and hope, guilt and regret, of pride in achievement and survival, of lifetimes of self-denial and unspoken and unrealised dreams were shared and reconciled through the telling and retelling. During that period, as I made the decision to change the course of my own life, and to create a new chapter where I left my marriage behind and undertook the sole care of my three children, I recognised the need for further professional development, having only a hairdressing apprenticeship and Year 9 schooling as a foundation on which to build the future of my family. Whilst balancing the demands of work and home-life with study, I completed certificate courses in Recreation, Fitness and Workplace Training, and commenced an undergraduate Bachelor of Applied Science in Leisure and Health. A period of working in a local Community Centre with adults with intellectual impairments complemented my work in the nursing home and enhanced my insight and responsiveness in the role I took on as a personal trainer in a health club. Within each of these contexts, rich stories of self emerged. Expressions of perceived inadequacy, personal barriers and self-defeating behaviours came to the fore across the diverse age and ability spectrum of my clients in each vocational context and it became evident to me that in order for these people to move forward with a sense of authority and personal power regarding their health and wellbeing, it was essential that I provided space for the telling and unpacking of these stories. As my undergraduate studies progressed my developing skills and knowledge enabled me to better support my clients as they located and claimed a transformed sense of personal strength, perspective and purpose in this space.
7
Through these converging pathways, I found myself invited into the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector as a facilitator of learning for mature-aged students. Initially working with a predominantly female cohort returning to the workforce and formal learning in a Community Services environment, I have now come to facilitate the learning of staff participating in professional development programs, including the Diploma of Vocational & Educational Training (VET) Practice, Certificate IV in Training and Assessment (TAA) and the Course in Assessment of Informal Learning, across a range of Technical and Further Education (TAFE) colleges. Within these contexts I hear many stories of expressed fear among students as they contemplate entry into the unknown and unfamiliar environment of adult learning. Some students speak of discouraging early educational experiences and relate a degree of pessimism regarding their perceived ability to successfully navigate further education. For others, limited self-awareness related to the impact of internal and external influences throughout the course of their lives seems to produce a general malaise around engaging proactively with further learning – a reluctance to look beyond the bounds of current situations, and the possibilities that exist outside of what is known by them. For many who are able to consider a reinvented or reinvigorated self, the absence of family and social support is often identified as a barrier to potential success as they tentatively step out on their new learning pathway. These discussions and my observations of the students that come through the doors of my classrooms cause me to wonder about the environments in which these people have spent their formative and adult years, and to consider the ways in which these early environments, combined with limited knowledge of self, have influenced and impacted on learner self-identity and perceived capability. As a result of recognising the rich benefits of reflecting on one’s-story over these last years, I now include autobiographical reflection - narrative - as a tool in the learning process, providing a space for these adult learners to reflect on their own stories of life and learning. Like me, and the many I have spoken to along the way, they speak of the transforming journey of self-discovery they undertake through the course of this selfnarrative, and articulate insights that mirror my own experiences and those of the individuals discussed here and in the literature reviewed for this research (Alheit, 1995; Atkinson, 1998; Brady, 1990; Brookfield, 2005; Dirkx, 2001; Dominice, 2000; Frankl, 1964; Freire, 1974a; Mezirow, 2000; A. Nelson, 1994; Rossiter, 2002). The stories told and shared by them identify and articulate the place of self-recognition individuals arrive at, and illustrate how examining their lives can enable a change in perspective through the preliminary identification and acknowledgement of previously unrecognised and unchallenged life views. Telling our stories seems to provide the space for the identification and allocation of meaning to behaviours and attitudes that may have been carried with us for decades, but which might now be seen as unproductive, sometimes destructive, and often dispensable (Frankl, 1964). Once identified and acknowledged however, learners speak of being able to release these previously owned and limiting beliefs and behaviours, and of opening themselves more fully to the possibilities inherent within their journey of adult learning - making sense and reconciling aspects of the past that have bound them to a sometimes narrow window of existence and knowing. Through understanding more fully their capacity as lifelong learners on a new path of
8
identity formation, they are able to step with personal authority into a future of previously unimagined possibility (A. Nelson, 1994). Early in my learning career, the theoretical understanding of my diverse experience with story was limited, but it has founded a personal knowing and applied practice around the biopsychosocial benefits of narrative - uncovering, examining, allocating meaning and ultimately honouring the self. My undergraduate studies uncovered the link between disparate aspects of self as they relate to health and wellbeing (Marmot & Wilkinson, 1999), and within each of the contexts along my own learning and career pathway unknown, and unnamed by me before the step into my Masters research - I have come to know that stories have the power to heal fractured aspects of self . Stories transform learning and lives. Stories matter. 1.3 Validating storytelling’s strengths within the context of Vocational Education and Training These observations and experiences are anecdotal, and so my purpose in undertaking this research has been to examine the validity of these findings, to determine if others have experienced and documented similar outcomes related to the use of narrative, utilising a Transformative Learning theoretical framework (examined in Chapter 3), in adult learners returning to study within the VET sector. Vocational education and training (VET) is not traditionally, let alone contemporaneously, designed or recognised for its transformative role and potential. In the work-dominated discourse of VET policy and practice (as indicated in the following quote from the Victorian TAFE Association, peak employer body for public providers of TAFE within the Victoria VET sector), it is commonly and officially assumed that vocational education and training, as the name suggests, is directed towards preparation for work or developing skills for employment. The Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector provides training and education for specific vocational purposes. While primary and secondary schooling concentrates on generic skills and knowledge development and the university sector provides broad skills and knowledge for professional work or study, the VET sector caters for the majority of the population who need vocational skills for work and life. These are called competencies - that is, skills and knowledge applied in a work context … for students of all ages and backgrounds … across all industries … all occupational groups … in operative/clerical, trades and professional/paraprofessional areas. Training delivery includes apprenticeships and traineeships … related to Government policies that address national, state -wide and regional skills shortages and community needs … in such areas as manufacturing, hospitality, tourism, primary industries, biotechnology, heritage trades, textiles, e-business, environmental sustainability and services to small and medium enterprises. (Victorian TAFE Association) The typical student is identified as “… more likely to be an adult, already employed and upgrading their job skills rather than a school leaver,” although Anderson (1999) argues that
9
student motivations for enrolling in VET are multiple and multifaceted, and could include both vocational and the non-vocational reasons. So within the domain of VET, and focussing on adult learners returning to study, my aim has been to uncover the contexts within which research may have taken place; to establish what findings have emerged, and to identify opportunities for further research related to the following questions: In what ways can telling and reflecting on their stories provide adult learners returning to study with a greater knowledge of self that may foster a richer engagement in the learning process, build learner self-identity and potentially promote more beneficial learning and vocational outcomes? How might any transformations in the perspectives of adult learners returning to study extend beyond the individual to their immediate environment and society? What are the potential implications of these findings for pedagogical practice and curriculum design within the VET sector? The thesis is divided into four chapters – Introduction, Methodology, Literature Review (introduced and woven through the Findings and Discussion to illustrate and build strong connections between the broad range of literature accessed), and Conclusion. This Introduction draws the reader’s attention to the contexts and personal experiences that have founded my quest to validate what has been observed of storytelling’s capability and application. Chapter 2 outlines the methodological approach and draws on a number of qualitative regimes and interpretations in an endeavour to represent the voice of my participants most authentically, and without limitation. Various interpretive methodologies and terminologies that work with the concept of storytelling and meaning-making in adult education are explored, amongst them interpretive biography (Denzin, 1989), educational biography (Dominice, 2000) biographicity (Alheit, 1995), autobiographical reflection (Kenyon & Randall, 1997), narrative and storytelling (Andrews, Squire, & Tamboukou, 2008; Rossiter, 2002). These terms are examined briefly to gain a small window of insight into the concepts that underpin their use and application, but throughout this paper the terms are used interchangeably to represent the broad ways in which people come to examine, to interpret and to tell the stories of their lives, past, present and future. Data collection included individual interviews, undertaken after a collective examination and discourse around the outcomes of reflecting on individual stories of life and learning, followed by a focus group where participants were invited to share the experience of reflecting on their own learning history, utilising a creative method of expression that was identified as meaningful to them.
10
In Chapter 3, a comprehensive review of the literature uncovers much discourse around the transformative value of a narrative approach within learning spaces across a broad range of contexts, and includes rich writings around the benefits of a transformative approach to learning within the context of higher education (Brookfield, 2005; Bruner, 1979; Denzin, 1989; Mezirow, 2000; A. C. Nelson, 1995 ). Little emerged however, that identifies the benefits of this transformative approach, incorporating the narrative methodology, within the context of VET, and it is in this domain that my research aimed to shed light on new knowledge related to the inclusion of narrative within learning spaces for adults returning to study in vocational education and training. I chose to integrate the voice of my learners and the analysis of the process and associated learning outcomes identified by them, with the examination of the voices uncovered in my literature review. My endeavour was to explore the individual participants’ journey towards greater personal understanding and authority as it relates to existing knowledge and to create new knowing around the transformational capacity of storytelling within the context of VET. This study unashamedly has at its core my own very intimate journey of self-discovery, drawing on the writings of Nelson (1995 ), Brookfield (2005), Mezirow (2000), Freire (1972b) Frankl (1964) and others whose devotion is the construction of meaning–making in and about life. In Chapter 4 I conclude with recommendations based on my findings, around the design and development of transformative learning programs across a range of adult learning spaces that incorporate the narrative methodology, and are contextualised for diverse learner cohorts.
11
Chapter 2. Methodology - the transformative journey of disorienting dilemmas, meaning making and moving toward a story untold What we call the beginning is often the end And to make an end is to make a beginning The end is where we start from … A people without history Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern Of timeless moments … We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time T.S Eliot (1970) 2.1 Recruiting participants - the plan, and the reality This chapter outlines the disorienting but ultimately transformative process I personally underwent as part of identifying the methodological approach to my investigation. Firstly, I introduce the chosen methods and process of data collection and, as indicated in the introduction, establish and justify the broad methodology that framed my fluid approach to data collection and analysis. I discuss the various barriers encountered that threatened to derail my research project, which ultimately necessitated an abridged time frame for the identification and recruitment of suitable volunteers, and for subsequent data collection and analysis, and finally I examine the implications and limitation of choices made along the way. 2.2 Telling and interpreting the story As I puzzled how I might undertake my investigation of the potential of self reflection through storytelling, and the capacity it contains to transform perspectives of self and of personal capability, and as I journeyed through the maze of rich but often irrelevant and incongruent texts around methodological frameworks as they related to my work, I became increasingly aware of an alternative way of approaching the joint tasks of collecting and analysing data, and of ultimately writing my thesis. I came to Atkinson (1998), Brady (1990), Denzin (1989), Dirkx (2000), Dominice (2000), Nelson (1994), Riessman (2008) and others who inspired me to use narrative as my method of inquiry, data collection and analysis, and who gave significant value to the realised power of storytelling. As will be examined in the next chapter, I found the inspirational voices of Brookfield (2005), Mezirow (2000), Freire (1972b), Shor (1992), Cranton (1994), Frankl (1964), Rogers (1980) and others who urged me to draw on the political and social dimensions of meaning-making, identifying the power of critical reflection in the transformative learning process as individuals begin to critique the power relationships and hegemonic assumptions that exist within their immediate and larger environment.
12
The opportunities to examine my own story had brought into question the developed foundations of the creation of my sense of ‘self’ and the identification of the impact of ruling ideologies and social structures on my agency. As I had come through my own personal tribulation and ultimate revelation through my learning career, and now supported others on their own journey of personal discovery, I recognised that it was no longer appropriate to accommodate what I saw as the needs and interests of ruling others - academic conventions in my case - in the representation of my research. My aim in making a unique and substantial contribution to my field of practice, one that promotes understanding and optimal responsiveness to the ever present challenge of engaging individuals in the transformative journey of learning, found validity in its use of the transformative stories of my learners, themselves a reflection of my own transformative story, of the transformative story of my research, and of the transformative journey of the storytelling tradition. Mezirow (2000) speaks of disorienting dilemmas that are often a catalyst along the path of transformative learning, and my totally disorienting journey of coming to identify the discontent with what I saw as traditional academic approaches, of finding my authentic voice, and of recognising the imperative to ensure that what I had to say was communicated in an authentic way, not surprisingly found the voices of others on their own path to authentic academic representation. The final piece of my Masters thesis puzzle came to me in the form of a text – ‘The authentic dissertation: alternative ways of knowing, research and representation.’ (Jacobs, 2008) In it, Four Arrows (Jacobs) adds his voice to those who have traversed the Doctoral and Masters journeys and have chosen an alternative path than that traditionally valued by academic convention. I chose to walk this alternative path in using the storytelling methodology to argue and represent my thesis. 2.3 What’s in a name – is a rose as sweet by any other name? I searched endlessly in trying to pin down my methodology, wading through myriad terminologies given to diverse approaches to data collection and analysis. Some of these included narrative, autobiography and autobiographical reflection, biographicity, educational biography, interpretive biography, storytelling and restorying, and all contain commonalities around providing the space for people to tell and come to a new understanding around their stories within an educational context. I have chosen to draw on each of them at various points throughout my research journey casting a small light on some of these methods to represent the ways in which they intersect with my own research.
Narrative and autobiographical reflection. According to Brady (1990), narrative is about going back to the beginning and examining the course of life. In Redeemed from time – learning through autobiography (Brady, 1990) he speaks about autobiography as originating in “bios” – the course of life – and proposes that in reflecting on this life we have three aspects of self on which to focus •
the remembered self - recalling the scraps that slowly link together to form the story.
13
•
the ordered self - finding a way of making sense – meaning making that enables the construction of a foundation on which a new future – a new story - can be built.
•
the imagined self - the dreaming, the possibilities, the creation of the yet to be told.
He sees the remembered self as the drawing of a self-portrait with words … storytelling. Memories and the interrelationship between past events and the memories of these events - a second reading of the human experience. Perhaps re-membering – reconnecting to aspects of self in a new and more congruent way (Myerhoff, cited in Brady, (1990)) The ordered self refers to an aerial view of one’s life. Brady suggests that without memory
we lose our history and our past. Through remembering, human life is given shape that extends back into the past and forward into the future. He refers to the Ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus who spoke of the act of bringing logic and order to the universe and proposed that a person cannot step twice into the same stream - that in one’s integrity, the whole harmony of the universe is entirely, and as it were uniquely existent (Brady, 1990). If one were to look through the lens of this perspective, the critically reflective inquiry that one experiences through the narrative process might be seen as a hero’s journey to discover one’s very intimate and unique capacity, through drawing together the learning and strengths developed over the course of one’s life. Brady’s representation of narrative theory and its benefits (1990) aligns closely with Mezirow’s transformative process (Mezirow, 2000) explored in Chapter 3, in his discussion of the imagined self. According to Brady, in the recalling of one’s story a cosmology takes place (Brady, 1990). The impulse is to create, and in the autobiographical act one creates the self, becoming the hero of one’s own mythic tale. William Butler Yeats (1955) alludes to the names and faces that may be forgotten, but suggests that the creative spirit recalls the ideas and truths that lay behind and within them. What was unremembered was invented and reflected his deeper perceived realities - it wasn't necessarily what happened, but his memory of what happened. He called this his memory for eternal things (Olney, 1980) and proposed that every autobiography is a work of art and a work of enlightenment. “One goes from year to year gradually getting the disorder of one’s mind in order and this is the real impulse to create. Until one has expressed a thing it is like an untidy, unswept, undusted corner of a room William Butler Yeats (1955) Karantzakis, (1961) like Yeats examines the tension between the truth of historical fact and the truth of imagination. “The truth which had been storing up anguish in my breast for such a long time was not the real truth; The real truth was this newborn creature of imagination.
14
By means of imagination I had obliterated reality, and I felt relieved.” Karantzakis, (1961) In the account of his passage undertaken as a priest critically examining his life, Nelson proposes that by reviewing and interpreting one’s life story … ‘accounts of transformative and emancipatory learning emerge …’ (1995 ) and one has the capacity to construct a new reality that can contain a strongly identified and enacted authorship of one’s life course. He suggests that a transformed perspective can develop through the imaginative and critical process of what became known to him as ‘autobiographing’, using methods that can include “interviews and hermeneutic conversation … artwork, metaphor analysis, and parable.” (A. C. Nelson, 1995 ) In imagining, he suggests, the individual’s conscious and unconscious domains of knowing are connected, and the ongoing critical analysis and synthesis of this inner and outer experience and knowing has the capacity to reshape previously inculcated behaviours and attitudes. Nelson speaks of coming to imagine a future previously unknown through undertaking the transformative process of narrative. Andrews et al (2008) depict narrative as combining “… the Modernist interests in describing, interpreting and improving individual human experience … with the Postmodern concerns about representation and agency …” Candy (1991) relates life history narratives to the rewriting of a manuscript that still retains evidence of the previous story … a palimpsest … and suggests that it contains the potential to draw together all the aspects of one’s diverse cultural and life influences. Personal and societal aspects of life are connected – a web of life: “We each bring forth our world by living Because to live it to know And what we know serves as a lens Through which we interpret new experiences Candy (2005)
Biographicity Biographicity according to Alheit (1995) refers to our ability to redesign and reshape “…the contours of our life” (p125) within our unique life context, in order to create new personal meaning constructs.
Restorying Kenyon and Randall (Kenyon & Randall, 1997) propose a way of “… understanding what it means to be a person. To be a person is to have a story. More than that, it is to be a story.” They speak of the power inherent in providing opportunities to support individuals in telling their story, and cite Alheit’s reference to the facilitators of these opportunities as ‘agents of restorying’ and ‘biographical coaches’ (1995), Further, they suggest that through the
15
process of restorying, the lives of both the storyteller and facilitator are changed – that personal healing is possible for all. Restorying is a complex process, indeed an aesthetic process, for it concerns the shape we assign to our experience overall. In a sense, it is a poetic process, where ‘poetic’ derives from poeisis, a Greek word for ‘making by imagination into words’ (Hillman, 1975). From poeisis, we also get ‘poetics,’ which means the study of the literary arts--or literary theory. Restorying, we could say, is the literary process of re-composing the stories we have ‘made up’ about who we are, where we have come from, and where we are headed ... in so assisting them you will likely be restoried yourselves … the very act of intervening in their lives changes both them and you … it is about healing ourselves. (Kenyon & Randall, 1997) Kenyon and Randall speak of the cumulative layers of texts residing within each of us, and reflect both Denzin (1989) and Reissman’s (1993) reference to creating and interpreting the texts that represent the stories of our lives. In Denzin’s case he speaks of this as interpretive biography.
Autobiography or educational biography In Learning from our lives, Dominice (2000) highlights the difference as he views it, between autobiography and educational biography, identifying the specific nature of educational biographies as a tool to foster understanding around one’s learning pathway. He concludes that whereas autobiographies are a broad platform in which one can examine any aspects of one’s (hi)story the educational biography requires focussed attention on the details of one’s learning process. Dominice adds his voice to the many writers whose research has uncovered rich value in the inclusion of life reflection in educational contexts, and in each of these methodological representations, I have found strong connections to the emergent story of my research. Consequently, throughout my thesis these terminologies will be used interchangeably to reflect the synthesised appreciation I have of the many attributes of each methodology that is appropriate within particular contexts. In a sense I see this view as an extension of my fluid perception of the uniqueness of each individual, each moment, each life, each opportunity. There is no one lens, or one defined approach that can capture the richness and depth of meaning of all. 2.4 The best laid plans of mice and men … My plan in undertaking my research was to locate adult learners, those newly returned to study at the TAFE Institute in which I work, and to invite them to engage in the reflective process of storytelling as part of their reintroduction to learning, and at the
16
conclusion of this session, to invite them to consider volunteering to be a participant in my research. My initial search for potential participants took me across various departments and cohorts within the TAFE Institute that included Indigenous Studies, the Certificate in General Adult Education and migrant adults from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds undertaking English Language and various vocational studies. After unsuccessfully navigating the many barriers experienced as part of gaining Ethics Approval from the TAFE institute, who ultimately considered the risk in working with the unique sensitivities of these groups too great, I was eventually given permission to work with students enrolled in a Diploma of Liberal Arts. This altered the original intent of my research - to work with adults newly returning to study - as the students to whom I now had access were already well entrenched in the learning process, six months into their diploma course. Having successfully gained access to these students however, I chose to proceed with my ethics application, making appropriate modifications to the project plan, and by mid-year my Monash Ethics Application was finally ready for submission. Various delays around notification of ethics approval unfortunately took me past the end of the student year, and my opportunity for data collection was delayed for a further six months. The end result of these unanticipated circumstances was access to a limited selection of students who were now in the second year of their diploma studies – a different cohort than that originally planned. The data gathering As part of their learning program in the Diploma of Liberal Arts, all students are encouraged to engage with the concept of a reflective process, and to build it into their practice, so it was arranged with the program coordinator that I would provide a guest session on developing a critically reflective practice, using the methodology of storytelling. Originally planned for two sessions to optimise the opportunity for reflective critique, timetabling constraints dictated only one session of three hours, in which I introduced the concept of reflective writing, and facilitated an applied activity using a storytelling framework. The session included a shared discussion of prior experiences and current attitudes to learning, linking the concept of past experience with current perspective. I distributed a sample reflective essay as a representation of the style of reflection I was seeking, and provided the space for the participants to engage in the storytelling methodology utilising a method of expression that was meaningful to them – writing, drawing, poetry, oral storytelling. In the TAFE sector, deeply grounded in a competency–based approach, objective, measurable observations, statements and outcomes are valued and actively sought. I felt it critical that I establish the importance of each individual finding and honouring their authentic voice through this exercise, and that they be encouraged to allow themselves the freedom of expression that was truly reflective of their own experience and knowing - that it not be an environment of the models Piaget and Nicholson-Smith reference (Piaget, 1979), of pressure on the side of the educator and receptiveness and compliance on the part of the student.
17
During the session (see Figure 1), we explored some of what has been written about the benefits of deeply critical reflection within other contexts, and all students were invited to take time during the session to explore, to think critically about the experiences, environments and people who had contributed to their learning pathway and constructed self-knowing about capacity, and to record their story, using an expressive modality that was meaningful to them. I again encouraged them to write, draw, or utilise a combination of methods to record their story in a way that most effectively utilised their individual preferences, and gave them permission to be free to write or draw as thoughts arose during our session. Once these stories had been recorded by them, individuals were invited to share any thoughts about the activity, about any recognition that may have come to the fore for them, and around the potential benefits of the reflective exercise and of its possible incorporation into applied practice. After we had shared elements of the stories able to be told, I introduced the research I was proposing, and distributed an explanatory statement, outlining the broad process and time commitment required of participants (see Tool 2 - Explanatory Statement & Consent Form in Appendix) after which an invitation was issued for individuals to consider participating voluntarily in the study. At this point, as outlined in my ethics application, a representative from Student Support Services was introduced to the group to discuss the services available to them if they chose to be involved in the research project. It was explained that in undertaking the storytelling process required as part of participation, a potential existed for disorienting and painful memories to emerge that might require therapeutic intervention, and to inform the participants that support was available to them if this turned out to be the case. 2.5 The questions and tools that guided the process The questions and tools used to guide the process, including the introductory class session, individual interviews and final focus group, were framed around the aim of inviting individuals to reflect on various circumstances of their lives that contained stories of learning, and to gradually introduce questions that invited deeper reflection on the underpinning premise of their expressed knowing. The tools that underpinned the process of data collection are outlined below and can be found in the Appendix. Tool 3 includes the information and relevant questions used to guide the participants in their reflection. Tool 1 Pre-reflective survey Tool 2 Explanatory Statement & Consent Form Tool 3 Instructions to Research Participants Tool 4 Post-Reflective Interview Questions - Researcher Tool 5 Post Reflective Interview Questions Participant Tool 6 Focus Group Interview Questions
18
2.6 Data collection – gathering stories In response to my invitation, four volunteers identified themselves as interested in participating in my research study, and a meeting was arranged to clarify the aims, design and participation requirements of the research. At this meeting, the participants were asked to take time to reflect further on their learning pathways, on their sense of identity as learners, and to give further consideration to the ways in which circumstances and environments may have influenced this construction of self-identity. They were again encouraged to find ways of recording their reflections that were meaningful to them, in the lead-up to the individual interviews arranged with each of them. These interviews were clarified as providing the forum in which we would discuss the individuals’ insights gained through the process of their reflective journey and where we could flesh out stories of how the transformative process unfolded for each of them. Through this recruitment process, an additional participant came forward, peripheral to the Diploma group, who had commenced a course at the TAFE Institute in the previous year and had withdrawn prior to its conclusion. Through a contact within the group, he had become aware of the study and expressed an interest in taking part, as he saw participation in the study as a possible means of examining ways of moving forward on his learning and career pathway, given his emerging dissatisfaction with his current vocation and its associated lack of opportunity for stimulating personal and professional growth. 2.7 Data collection - the participants
To be a person is to have a story. More than that, it is to be a story. (Kenyon & Randall, 1997) While my original hope had been to recruit seven volunteers for the study, delays around gaining Ethics Approval necessitated that I move promptly into data gathering with my five participants, introduced below.
Kate (K) My first research interviewee was Kate, a deeply reflective woman, fifty years of age, whose life experiences to this point have afforded challenging but rich opportunities for her growth. Currently enrolled in a Diploma of Liberal Arts, she expressed interest in involving herself in my research as an opportunity to engage with a potentially interesting life experience. She didn’t express any particular expectation, and was happy just to be involved in the reflective process associated with participation.
Annie (A) A bright young woman, full of energy and joie de vivre, whose 19 years have seen her nurtured in a predominantly female environment in the absence of her father through
19
most of those years. Enrolled in the Diploma of Liberal Arts, and currently in the process of responding to an identified restlessness, she keenly expressed interest in being involved in the study to take advantage of the opportunity to address this emerging recognition of the need for change in her life. Spirited and joyful, she approached the task as I imagine she does most things in life, with admirable and energising honesty and openness.
Sara (S) An intensely reflective and emotionally intelligent young woman, Sara expressed an enthusiasm for the opportunity to reflect more deeply on her motivation and direction in life. Enrolled in the Diploma of Liberal Arts, and contemplating enrolment at NIDA or another of the academies for the study of dramatic arts, she is an emerging actor and producer and saw participation in the study as a potentially rich learning opportunity to complement her developing skills and knowledge.
Penn (P) Penn, 19 years of age and my ‘poet laureate’, tells of being a product of a deeply loving and nurturing extended family, whose rich engagement saw him joining to only a limited extent in the company and recreational pursuits of his early school friends. Initially enrolled at a state primary school, he speaks of coming to a Christian school where the anonymity and lack of personal attention of the state system were left far behind, and where he felt free to explore his interests and strengths with encouraging support. Also enrolled in the Diploma of Liberal Arts and contemplating a career in teaching.
Zac (Z) Zac - an intriguing young man, whose intelligent and inquiring mind has fostered a keen interest and grounded knowledge in the practical and scientific world around him. Full of bravado, and with strongly articulated opinions of the world before him, he has yet to engage with an environment that provides the space to critically reflect on his assumptions about life and living. Initially enrolled in a VCAL Certificate II in Hairdressing, he left the course and school prior to completion of Year 11 and has been employed in a job that he identified as providing limited opportunities to stretch his always present curiosity and knowing of potentially greater personal accomplishments. In hearing about the research study through a peripheral contact, he expressed interest in participating as a possible means of clarifying how he might move forward personally and professionally.
Myself as learner and storyteller I am deeply situated as a learner on a discovery tour within this research. Now fifty years of age, I have spent my last thirteen years as a sole parent, nurturing my three sons into adulthood, encouraging them in their exploration of the infinite possibilities that are ever
20
present, all the while undertaking my own intensely challenging, but ultimately transformative journey. My story forms the foundation of my research study - it has initiated, informed and continues to direct the process of my inquiry, and has been brought to the table of the interviews with my storytellers so that we could share the joys and the turbulence of the path to our knowing and becoming. This inclusion created a rich dynamic that enabled the continued exploration of ideas examined in our introductory class session. Each participant came to the interview with their unique motivation, and an approach to the task at hand that saw a weaving of a tapestry of life stories that truly honoured the narrative tradition. Through observing this uniquely individual approach, each story of life and learning took different paths, and found its own way through the process of exploring the experiences and influences of the people and environments of each of their lives. 2.8 Data collection – the individual interviews and focus group The ninety-minute individual interviews were conducted in locations identified by the participants as uniquely comfortable to each of them and included an enclosed garden at the institute, a quiet study room, a park, a beachside location and in a private home. The participants were invited to share the reflective process each had undertaken as part of the lead-up to the interview, and to discuss the method they had chosen to record these reflections. Utilising the narrative methodology, each individual was encouraged to express their story in a way that was meaningful to them, and questions structured to draw out potential evidence of the ten phases of transformative learning (Mezirow, 2000) were included where needed to guide reflections (see Figure 3, also Figure 6 and Tools 4, 5 & 6 in the Appendix). Self-determination and freedom of expression was explicitly highlighted to each individual as we approached the interview, to give them permission to explore anything that came to mind that they considered relevant to their learning story, and to promote a stream-of-consciousness participation in the reflective exercise. Their right to exclude anything, or to cease the interview at any point was also strongly articulated and reinforced both prior to commencement and throughout the sessions. These interviews are examined in Chapter 3. Two weeks after the last individual interview took place, a focus group was held with three of the participants only, as we were unable to schedule a time where all five participants could attend due to various other work and study commitments. Individual phone interviews were undertaken with the two participants unable to attend the focus group, and the interviews, both individual and group, were digitally recorded with supporting notes. At this meeting, and through phone conversations with the two participants unable to attend, we reflected on the ways in which the autobiographical process had fostered the unfolding of stories and understanding, and influenced the perspectives and learning of each participant. The opportunity was also provided to reflect on changes of attitude or behaviour, in response to any recognised perspective transformation achieved through the process. In summary, primary data was drawn from
21
– – – – –
–
My personal reflections on the process of facilitating the class group of students in the introductory session One collective introductory session with the four initial voluntary participants One individual introductory session with the fifth participant One individual interview with each of the five participants on their personal understanding gleaned from the reflective process One focus group with three participants, and two individual secondary phone interviews with the two unable to attend, on the autobiographical process and its capacity to foster greater personal understanding and potential perspective transformation. One final phone interview around any new/further reflections or insights about the role of the autobiographical process in fostering personal or professional growth and development that was not experienced, recognised or manifested during the program, and may have promoted altered behaviours or expectations of future learning and career pathways.
The qualitative data was transcribed and coded in NVivo, to identify commonalities and recurrent themes across the responses, for analysis and in preparation for recording the findings of my research study. The project overview is outlined in Figure 1. My research was a small-scale study conducted in one TAFE institute involving a relatively small, self-selected sample of participants and limited data gathering activities, all of which restrict the generalisability of my research findings. Due to the limitations of the study, there is much that remains unanswered and a broader, large-scale research study is required to interrogate what has yet to be uncovered around the transformative benefits of providing space for reflective storytelling within the context of vocational education and training.
22
2.9 The research process – a visual representation The following flow charts represent various aspects of the research project. Firstly, an overview, and an outline of each method of data collection: the initial class session where volunteers were recruited, the individual interviews, and the focus group.
Figure 1: Flow chart of the methodological approach
23
Session outline: Introduction to storying the learning of our lives All participants of the Diploma of Liberal Arts were included in these activities as part of an introduction to storying the learning of their lives as a reflective activity.
Figure 2: Session outline for introduction to storying the learning of life and to the research study
24
Post Reflective stories – the individual interviews. After individuals completed the telling of their stories, we met, one-on-one, to discuss the experience and to explore any learning gained through the process.
Figure 3: Session outline for post-reflective individual interviews
Post-Reflective Focus Groups – the shared stories and experiences Three participants met to share their experience of undertaking the reflection, and to explore any learning gained through the process. Phone interviews were conducted with the two participants unable to attend.
Figure 4: Session outline for focus group
25
2.10 Engaging with the reflective process Narrative and other forms of reflective autobiography value expression as well as explanation (A. Nelson, 1994) and as my participants came to the place of telling their stories, I was overwhelmed by the enthusiasm that each demonstrated as they engaged with the opportunity to look back over their lives. Transformative learning as autobiography claims that the learner composes their life by using imagination and critical reflection to gain insight and understanding around the circumstances of their becoming (A. Nelson, 1994) and as each participant immersed themselves in the writing, the drawing and the telling, threads of stories emerged that flowed freely into associated memories woven together meaningfully to affirm known truths, and highlight previously unconnected, or perhaps unexpressed knowing. Although a format had been framed to prompt thought and response where needed, throughout most of the interviews, questioning and deeply critical reflections arose naturally and fluidly from each participant as they became increasingly absorbed by the process of restorying their lives, reexamining and re-membering the learning in all that had gone before, within the cultural and social contexts and confines of the time. In analysing and recording my findings as they emerged, I chose to weave the stories of my participants through the learning and knowledge that arose within our discussion, from my observations at the time, and through my later reflection on our interviews. I have endeavoured to use the words of my participants wherever possible, to retain the authenticity of the thoughts expressed, within the context of the story of each individual. Ultimately, through gentle prompting on my part that guided them through reflecting on the phases of the transformative process that Mezirow identifies (Mezirow, 2000), stories found their way to a point that promotes an imagery of standing at a gateway, where what has gone before can be seen, acknowledged and potentially reconciled, and what lies ahead can begin to be imagined and anticipated. "Narration preserves the meaning behind us, so that we can have meaning before us" (Ricoeur, 1984)
26
Chapter 3. Literature review, findings and discussion the stories old and new, of lives lived and meaning found 3.1 Finding other voices This chapter firstly explores the protracted path I took through the many writers whose work emerged as significant for my research, all of whom contributed an appreciative perspective around the complexities of the process undertaken in examining and seeking to understand the experiences and environments that contribute to the shaping of selfidentity. This initial investigation began with my first Masters coursework unit around work and learning studies, where the theoretical understanding of my earlier uninformed journey through storytelling began to crystallize, and the beginnings of a critical consciousness emerged. The chapter secondly draws together the writings of transformative learning theorists and other radical educators whose work examines the oppressive internal and external environments in which many find themselves, and proposes that we as educators must foster the ongoing development of a critical consciousness across the life span. A wide net has been cast to highlight the common themes that have emerged for me in writers across higher education, organisational leadership, psychology, religion and agronomy, as my investigation found congruence and support in surprisingly unexpected places. Next, as previously indicated, a broad range of storytelling methodologies has also been included to acknowledge the rich diversity of approaches to the telling, capture and interpretation of my participants’ stories, and to ensure that no limitation is placed on the representation of individual voice introduced as finally, I draw together the theory with the lived experience of my participants. 3.2 Finding oneself My preliminary inquiries into this arena of telling life stories commenced with the works of Bourdieu and his theory of habitus, the deep-seated values and structures of thought, perception, appreciation, and action shaped in our formative years, most notably around the notions of structure and agency (Bourdieu, 1977; Bourdieu & Coleman, 1991; Swartz, 1997). Bourdieu and other contemporary social scientists (Giddens, Duneier, & Appelbaum, 2007; Giddens & Held, 1982; Novak, Giddens, Lloyd, Ormerod, & Institute of Economic Affairs (Great Britain). Health and Welfare Unit., 1998) explore the central sociological issue of the relationship and interaction between the subject and the object – the subjective within objective structures, and the influence each exerts on the other. In what ways do social structures and subjective experience influence individual self-identity and enacted agency? How does individual agency influence change from within constraining external structures? Through my initial engagement with the Marxist concept of individual emasculation at the hands of unseen and unrecognised structures of ruling ideologies (Freire, 1972b), I found the beginnings of congruence that gave voice to the kernel of knowing that was emerging within me.
27
This emergent seed was further cultivated by discovery of Brookfield (2005), (and through him) Mezirow (2000) and the theory of transformative learning. Their interrogation of the concept of perceived personal capacity and agency within an externally constructed and imposed environment captivated me, and a tremendous yearning emerged around finding meaning in the questions that had for so long remained unattended and unanswered for me. As I travelled the path of coming to know and clarify what had been written before me and to explore the foundations on which I would build my own rendering, it struck me that the very process of this journey itself mirrored the issues I was seeking to examine, and was contained within literature accessed. As I researched the topics of my endeavour and interrogated the ways in which storytelling might evoke change of perspective in those returning to study, I found myself and my own knowing transformed through the undertaking. This transformative process is framed by Mezirow in his theory of transformative learning: 1. A disorienting dilemma – loss of job, divorce, marriage, back to school, or moving to a new culture 2. Self-examination of feelings of fear, anger, guilt, or shame 3. A critical assessment of assumptions 4. Recognition that one's discontent and the process of transformation are shared 5. Exploration of options for new roles, relationships and actions 6. Planning a course of action 7. Acquiring knowledge and skills for implementing one's plans 8. Provisional trying of new roles 9. Building competence and self-confidence in new roles and relationships 10. A reintegration into one's life on the basis of conditions dictated by one's new perspective Transformative learning theory describes the process an individual undertakes, ignited by a disorienting dilemma, which leads to the questioning of long-held assumptions about themselves and the world around them. This critically reflective passage seems ultimately to bring about a reassessment, a renewed recognition or a completely transformed understanding of their ability to engage with and influence the differently perceived world, viewed through the lens of this new perspective. This examination of the subjective experience challenges the previously perceived relationship and interaction between the individual’s agency and external structures, and can lead to a newly constructed sense of authorship and influence in one’s life. The process by which we transform our taken-for-granted frames of reference (meaning perspectives, habits of mind, mind-sets) to make them more inclusive, discriminating, open, emotionally capable of change, and reflective so that they may generate beliefs and opinions that will prove more true or justified to guide actions (Mezirow, 2000)
28
As I considered the ways in which Mezirow, Brookfield and associates (Mezirow, 2000) named and identified the transformative process, and related it to my own journey of transformation, narrative-based inquiry (Andrews, et al., 2008; Bruner, 1983; Denzin, 1989; A. Nelson, 1994) became the vehicle through which the burning quest of my search for knowing found voice. As I began preparation for my research and read more widely, the writings of Freire (1972b, 1974a, 1974b, 1985) and other radical educators captured my imagining and flamed an unquenchable fire that continues to consume with seemingly no abate. Kate My tool of choice for telling my story is to write – sometimes to draw, but mostly to write - and the power of storytelling, in my experience, lies in providing the space for individuals to find their own authentic voice, and their own authentic modality of expression that resonates for them. When we met a few weeks after the initial class-based session on storytelling and reflective practice, to clarify the requirements of participating in the study, and to confirm each individual’s agreement to proceed with interviews, Kate, after again questioning the rationale for the study, asked if we might proceed as soon as possible with the interview, articulating that she had no desire to reflect further before meeting with me - she would rather allow her story to unfold naturally as we spoke. Both of us taking advantage of the opportunity before us, we immediately procured a quiet and reflective space in the indoor garden, and commenced our interview. Having established that Kate chose speaking her story as her mode of expression, I began our interview by asking her what she had come to know about herself through the influences of her early years. (K) It was unlimited, there are no boundaries in learning and you never stop learning. That was something that my mother taught me. It didn’t matter what age you were, you learned, if you wanted to. We used to live on a farm in the middle of nowhere … (my father) would take us at night to the middle of the highway … he would show us the stars. He took us one day in the daytime and there was a flock of galas and they started to fly up and he plucked one from the air to show us, so we could pat him … talked about it and then he released it. That … had an impact on my life, because it drew me to nature, drew me closer to the environment … every life had meaning, every life was precious … My mother … viewed people as people … we weren’t brought up with races, we were brought up with people … Having given herself permission to remember, Kate was immediately transported back to the memories of her earliest years and to the messages imprinted in her being about life and living, drawing their wisdom back again to her present perspective, connecting her past and present as she spoke. Brady refers to this – that through remembering, human life is given shape that extends back into the past and forward into the future (Brady, 1990). (K) … as a child I was innocent and didn’t feel a need to protect myself … was very open to …so many different aspects of people … I could see there were different types of people … different emotional people … I look at infinite and understand bigger picture …it’s connections. Kate had earlier referred to herself at one year of age, as being fascinated by the micro aspects of her environment … focussing on removing hairs and specs from dummies.
29
From an early age she discussed a fascination with what went on around her, wanting to identify and build understanding of what she saw and experienced. Here I can recognize shades of Frankl’s Logotherapy 1 (Frankl, 1964) - finding meaning in what is, in order to understand how to respond, and ultimately, how to be. (K) I was always a very black and white person … it either was or it wasn’t … my mother used to say there are grey areas … I never understood what she was talking about … to me, to infer a grey area … was inferring that some sort of dishonesty was okay … so I couldn’t accept it … I couldn’t understand why she was saying that … couldn’t understand what she meant. If somebody said to me “Does this look good on me?” … I didn’t realise I was supposed to say “Oh yes, you look lovely in that.” even if they didn’t. I thought “They are asking my opinion, so I’m going to tell them.” I wasn’t very considerate of their response. Kate had referred earlier to the identification of her values - integrity, honesty, calling things truthfully. (K) You cannot fall through trap doors … you can just walk on solid ground. Everyone knows where you stand … everyone knows where they stand with you. Annie Annie’s experience of school and early life influences seem to have developed a good sense of her strengths, certainly around expression. Before the interviews were arranged, in the first session, she commented that she knew exactly how she wanted to undertake this reflection about her life and learning, and it was to draw her story. (A) I drew a picture ... I did all the questions you had on the Tool 3 sheet and I tried to answer them … so all my answers are the ‘rays’. Annie showed me a beautiful picture of her lying down on the grass with the sun behind her and rays emerging around her body as comments, in response to the guided questions distributed to each of the participants (see Figure 1). (A) I did it that way as I see things better when I’m drawing … things are better when they are visual … writing an essay isn’t for me … I don’t really think you understand your thoughts until you’ve got them in front of you … I think that is one of the benefits of an experience like this, you realise things about yourself when you say them and tell it to somebody else, because when it’s just in your head it’s fairly immaterial.
1
Viktor Frankl, a psychotherapist prior to his wartime experiences as a Holocaust survivor, was later to examine these experiences through the lens of Logotherapy, a theory he developed around the notion of meaning-making in suffering (Frankl, 1964). He maintained that relative to our ability to find and attach meaning to a situation, we are able to endure any suffering, and to emerge as victors rather than victims.
30
I asked her to talk me through her reflections. (A) … one of the questions (was) about what you were constricted by. I was really constricted by my surroundings, by the people around me, because I have all these expectations and pressures and it makes it really hard to decide what ‘I’ want to do. It’s all about what everyone else wants me to do, not about what I want to do. That really changes why and how I do things. The next one is how VCE changed everything, all these expectations … because I was the first one of the family who was going to get into uni, do ‘excellent’. I didn’t do so good, so it made everything really different … made things trickier … didn’t meet everyone’s expectations ... it was really disappointing. Through having identified the space as safe for honest reflection, and utilising the modality by which she could express her understanding of her life to this point, Annie was able to articulate personal knowing about the influences of her environment, and the limiting impact this has had on her sense of authority and authorship. Nelson speaks of the power of autobiographical reflection in bringing to the light these issues (A. Nelson, 1994). I asked Annie about her cultural education, the messages passed on to her about learning, finding a place in the world and the impact it had on her. She spoke of the encouragement from her family. (A) … especially academically. My Dad … didn’t do VCE … my Mum dropped out of school in Year 9 to go work in a factory … Dad is always saying “Take every opportunity with education” because he ended up going back to TAFE and doing VCE … he is very academically motivated, but Mum isn’t. Dad reads scientific magazines, mathematic textbooks … just for fun at night. He’s a concreter and he doesn’t get to use the academic skills … so he’s always encouraging that, and interested in what I’m doing at school. They are really involved and want me to do really well … I know a lot of people who don’t have that … people who care or want to be involved. It gets to the point where I go “Just leave me alone, I want to be on my own, I don’t want to tell you what I’m doing … just leave me alone.” But it’s good, better to be smothered than not noticed at all. Sara Sara was happy to have a little time to reflect before we met, and so we arranged to meet at her house when we would decide on a location for our interview. After an introduction to her family where I was invited to sit down and share in delightful stories of family experiences, Sara suggested a local park where we found a picnic table, and with her knowledge of sound recording from her performance background, we were able to identify the surrounds as suitable for our purposes of recording her interview. As with all my participants, I began with a question about how she chose to reflect on and record her life story. (S) My objective all the time is to find different ways of expressing myself. I have always been a very shy, quiet person, quite defensive in a sense … very scared of letting the world in. That’s why I love my
31
acting… it allows me the freedom that I don’t have naturally … art as a sense of autobiography … creative arts like painting, all different forms of art … keeping a journal. I think it is … a form of letting go of me … I found out through finding out what I’m not … I’ve found out more of what I am. I asked Sara about the experience of exploring her story, and she commented that it was an emerging, evolving sense of who she was. (S) I think also exploring the story in different ways as well … some people who know themselves really well can write it down … it’s like you said, how do you want to do it, write it down or draw it, it’s up to you, so I tried a bit of each … you might get nothing except something in the drawing, like a little right at the end. I suggested that it only happens through the process…. (S) Yeah, of trying all of them. Seeing what way of drawing it out, draws out different aspects Without any particular reference on my part to previous life experiences and learning, the simple question of asking Sara how she chose to record her story brought forward the richest reflections. Based on her knowledge of the intent of my research (and in my experience as a natural trait of human behaviour within a reflective space) Sara’s story started to weave in connections and attach meaning to aspects of her experiences (Frankl, 1964). Already a deeply reflective person, the opportunity to delve into her thought processes through a mode that was meaningful to her, provoked a profound expression and articulation of the power of introspection. (S) For most of my life up until I went to high school, I didn’t really say very much. It’s funny because I didn’t even play very much. A lot of people who end up where I have ended up, always played with the dolls and really kind of made stories that way … put on little plays etc. … but I was always too selfconscious for that, and I was an observer … I watched people and I loved watching people. I would find sitting with mum and listening to her conversations … wherever we were and whoever we were with … was a lot more interesting than playing with people my age … little kids … playing with barbies … I really didn’t get much out of it. I didn’t really believe it. I was an observer, and I think that it’s funny because that has carried through … I like watching and listening … and then only now I’m learning to take risks. I think I take after my Dad in that sense … my Dad is very quiet and reserved, and he’s a very kind person … my Mum is a lot more expressive than my Dad is … and even being able to observe my parents … when you grow up a bit and step away and look at who they are and learn from them … my Dad … being quiet I think is a family thing … but extremely creative, an amazing artist. He could sell things if he wanted to … he is someone that could have work at the art gallery. I don’t think he’s ever allowed himself to take that beyond a hobby, or be around people that are more likeminded … I think I see the similarities of myself and my Dad where I think if only he could let himself go a bit and paint and let the guard down and see that it isn’t so scary … I think that’s where I … can do that and … kind of share that with Dad. I invited Sara to tell me more about her cultural education, the messages from her family imprinted through her early years about learning that had informed what she knew about herself, about her learning and her place in the world. A couple of times last summer we went down to the beach, because we often get Dad a pad and paper … some charcoals or pastels or something to encourage him to do something with it … and Dad was on the
32
beach and he was drawing this amazing sunset with pastels, and people were walking past and asking “Do you sell this?” and he replies “Oh no, it’s just art.” But he could … that’s what I’m learning as well, to be open to what comes easily and effortlessly that allows you to further yourself, and as you said, honour yourself … when you are struggling, you aren’t heading in the right direction. It’s funny being this open, as I feel like … my dad is an amazing person, but in the way that he’s led his life … and I don’t mean this to sound bad … but it’s almost what I don’t want to do. I think it’s one of the best things you can learn from your parents, is what you would do differently. Still, his amazing kindness and openness to talk to anybody … both of my parents are amazing, … they are the first people to go and help someone and … even though my brother and I go “Gosh, they are doing it again” we actually think that it’s really cool. They are there and won’t stand back … they are concerned with the other person more than themselves. I think my Mum is such a goer, she had thyroid cancer when she was 25, so she’s always had this idea that you don’t wait until you experience that wake up call to tell you “Don’t waste life – don’t wait until you go through something that makes you experience that.” Mum gets along really well with my friends as well, and she says “I’ve never treat anybody like they are young, just always talk to everybody.” I love my friends, … it’s like a family … I admire my friends and how they are such great people. They are so non-judgmental, and I think it’s not so much the needing to get something from your friend, it’s just sharing their lives and being fascinated by how they grow and move … how they change. I think there is a lot of learning that I have been reflecting over … just the fact that I am Jewish and I’m very proud to be Jewish … I love having that cultural sense of history … there is such a richness there. My Mum and I are working on a family story as well … my Dad’s family history has been written and I’m yet to read that… My mother has some fascinating uncles and I think … that … is my way of reflecting on my story, as I think so much of yourself … is reflected in past generations … family traits are very present still. Sara’s comments here reflect Bourdieu’s habitus 2 (1977), the strongly held connections and continuities of our cultural past. Penn Penn chose to meet me at the institute, and we were able to find a small breakout room where we started by discussing his chosen method of recording his reflections. In the first class-based session, where I introduced the concept of reflective storytelling, Penn created a poem to reflect his thoughts on his life and learning experiences. I asked him to tell me about his process in the intervening time …
2
A cultural theory of action developed in response to one’s early family influences. Bourdieu suggests that structures are created
that frame our unconsciously held expectations and subsequent behaviours and life choices. A system of embodied dispositions lasting culturally acquired schemes of perception, thought and action. (Bourdieu, 1986; Swartz, 1997)
33
(P) I started thinking about the earliest memories I had, and how much things had changed physically around our house. I actually hadn’t thought about it for many years, then I started to think … I remember when there was a clothes line there and remember when those trees weren’t there, and this wasn’t there, and it was quite interesting realising how much had changed … questions you don’t often think of until something sparks it, then you start like a rolling chain…. Penn’s comment reflects Annie’s experience – that through beginning to reflect on life, it almost takes on a life of its own … (P) I noticed that I am a very self-motivated person when it comes to learning, but only when it interests me. One thing I have realised is I never really follow up something if it’s thrown at me, and that’s been something recurrent throughout my entire education, that whenever I’ve been … told that I have to learn this … quite often I’ll be thinking “This bores me so much, this bores me so much” but then if it’s something that sparks my interests then I’ll pursue it. Now that I’ve started thinking about it, most of my interests are things that I’ve discovered and thought “That’s kind of interesting” and then followed it further. When I’m forced to do something I really fight against it, almost unconsciously, it’s almost a natural reaction, it’s just that I don’t like being forced to go down a specific path. He speaks here of becoming aware of personal inauthenticities – that without ownership and a congruent understanding of an idea, he rejects and actively rebels against imposed expectations. Where Annie has to this point unquestioningly assumed and carried the expectations of those around her, Penn has identified an unconscious rejection of others’ impositions, unknowingly working to claim authority over the act of his life as it has unfolded. Nelson refers to a strongly identified and enacted authorship of one’s life course that emerges through the autobiographical process (A. C. Nelson, 1995 ). 3 Penn goes on to explore the messages passed on to him about learning and his place in the world … (P) One thing that I quite appreciate is that my family as a whole have always encouraged me to do anything that I wanted. They said “Anything is possible, it just depends on what you personally want to do.” I quite like having had that freedom to know … to be in a place where I do have every option in front of me. My family is always willing to encourage me and my brothers, but we have never been told to do something specifically. We have just been told to “Do something, pick something and go for it.” They certainly wanted me to try everything, but my parents were always very supportive if there was something I just obviously wasn’t good at. There was quite a firm line, “How do you know you aren’t good at it, if you haven’t given it that try? You can go ahead and do whatever you like, but you have to give it a try, or otherwise you won’t know.” I invited him to reflect on how this had impacted on him (P) It’s quite freeing in a way, to have had an upbringing where you are told that anything is possible, because I think you are less likely to be afraid of going after what you want. I think I find it a lot easier 3
The issue of gender may well be significant in differentiating these disparate responses to environmental influences,
however it was not examined within this study. It does however identify an opportunity for further research, around the possibility of exploring gender specific storytelling spaces and strategies.
34
to have that confidence to go and decide “This might be difficult, but I think this is what I want to do, so I’m going to go for it.” I feel like I can pick something and throw myself at it and if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. But I don’t feel obligated to do something. When you have to do something you dislike, it’s like walking uphill and if it’s something you enjoy it’s like strolling along and you don’t even notice that it’s an effort. Interestingly, both Penn and Sara have commented on the ease of doing something that is honouring and authentic to the self – that in connecting with one’s truth, life can be more fluid. This will be explored further in this chapter. Penn has been able to identify that, in contrast to Annie, the influence of his family has enabled within him a great confidence to actively seek out and take on anything that ignites his interest, and he is able to articulate that he has had permission to try and to fail, knowing that other equally intriguing and rich possibilities lie ahead. Zac Zac was my final interview, and we decided to sit in his lounge room when no-one else was home so we wouldn’t be disturbed. As it turned out, we had to make two additional times to speak due to interruptions, which had an impact on the flow of Zac’s story, and the opportunity to build on the critical reflections that arose. Like Kate, he chose to use his words for our interview, preferring to speak his story rather than writing or drawing. He also identified the learning from the various influences of his life … (Z) My mother always told me that anything was possible ... my father … basically told me to become successful and earn lots of money … my teachers basically told me to give up … I was never given any work. I … finished the work that was set … and had nothing to do so I became rowdy and eventually teachers stopped giving me work altogether and just gave up … wrote me off. I asked him if he had wanted more. (Z) Yep, constantly wanted to learn and always told to stop … they were telling me one thing and doing another. Pretty much all the standardised tests and the IQ tests I have always scored exceptionally high. I’ve been accused of cheating multiple times … you show them what you can do and they don’t go from that … by grade 3 in Primary School I had essentially read every book in the library more than once, and was told to stop reading … they started giving me newspapers in the morning, which were boring as hell for an 8-9 year old … they sort of gave up because they were like “We can’t go at your pace and leave everyone else behind.” So you just have to sit here and do the same thing constantly … it got to the point where I reduced myself to less than normal pace and fell behind. Zac identified teachers in his later years at school that tried to nurture his intelligence and eagerness to learn, but commented that it was left too late. We discussed the experiences of others in the educational system …
35
(Z) … primary and secondary education is almost pointless because your head gets filled with that much useless crap that you forget the essential things … you are taught from a really early age that by the time you get to Year 12 you must decide what you are doing to do for the rest of your life … and that you have no other options but that ... Through reflecting deeply on the experiences of their childhood and early adulthood, Kate, Annie, Sara, Penn and Zac have been able to identify circumstances and environments that have contributed to their sense of self-identity and of self-knowing, and to articulate an emerging understanding around the impact of these experiences. Brookfield (2005) identifies the significance of critical reflection in the transformative learning process as individuals begin to critique the power relationships and hegemonic assumptions that exist within their immediate and larger environment, coming to identify the political and social dimensions that have influenced their meaning-making. Penn reflected on the experiences of himself and his peers in his early years at school, echoing Zac’s discontent around the lack of regard for the unique needs and preferences of each individual, and the absence of a learner-centred approach … (P) … that frustrated me greatly in school … I was never too bad with tests but I had a couple of friends who were terrible in tests … they did know all of the stuff, but they would get so stressed out. I remember raging and saying “Why do we do this when obviously it’s not a matter of intelligence … this isn’t working for these people or … isn’t working for me?” I have a friend Joel, he is a very physical person, makes things with his hands … he always intensely disliked most of the classes that we had. So me and one of my friends Cam, helped him through school … told him “Just go for it, it doesn’t matter. Keep going and get through it.” I remember … Joel was utterly baffled when me and my friends were doing woodwork and we’d be trying to make a desk and it would be wonky and shabby and he would be rolling on the floor laughing. A lot of people around me as I was going through high school … thought that high school was the end of everything and that if they didn’t do well it would matter … I’ve never been that stressed about school or anything, because I’ve always known that it doesn’t really matter in the end. We had another friend Sean, who … said to us after we graduated from Year 12, that if it hadn’t been for us, he would have dropped out in Year 10 … he just couldn’t find any use for it. It wasn’t just a one-way thing … we helped each other in anything. Zac identified deeply discouraging learning experiences where he has been unable to find meaning and relevance, and where the educational system has seemingly failed to respond to his particular forms of intelligence (Gardner, 1983; Scherer, 2006), and Penn has witnessed and empathised with his peers undergoing the same demoralising experiences.
36
(P) I think it is more from other people’s perspectives that I have had negative views of different learning experiences … I remember thinking “Obviously this isn’t working for this person,” or “This person isn’t that great at this, so why are we doing it?” We spoke about a strengths-based approach to learning and educational leadership (Rath, 2007) as an alternative method that identifies and acknowledges the unique capabilities of an individual, but that wasn’t obviously present within the mainstream educational environment for Zac, and for Penn’s friends, and pondered the impact of these divergent approaches. When awareness arises about the relevance and validity of ruling epistemological frameworks, we have the choice of staying in our familiarity, or of stepping out to find personally authentic meaning amongst previously irrefutable ‘truths’. Shor and Freire (1987) speak of this as a critical consciousness that develops through contesting what was previously uncontested. Penn has experienced student life in both a government school and a private Christian college, and commented on the differences … (P) I was just going to a public school and half way through year 7 I started going to a private Christian school … it was a little strange at first as I’d come from a fairly big size school … the entire school was smaller than the Year 7 class that I’d come from … I think it was extremely positive … at first I was quite dubious, because I was looking about, thinking that this is just tiny and things are so bizarre here … a community … more than a school of a thousand that you don’t know … instead of a gathering of strangers it was a family community and everyone knew each other … every teacher knew you. Penn refers to the ‘strangeness’ of the new environment, due to its sense of community and connection, a far cry from the anonymity of the state system. We are often so immersed in what is, that we can fail to recognise any discordance, or incongruence, or to look to what else might be (Freire, 1972b). We can easily slide into living a limited existence until we recognise an opportunity for change. If, as in Penn’s case, one encounters an environment that opens up unknown possibilities and potential, this can for a time be unsettling. 3.3 The journey that is transformative learning Transformative Learning Theory (Mezirow, 2000) asserts that from a disorienting dilemma in one’s life – an event that throws one off the known and familiar course of one’s existence and knowing to that point, a process of self-examination emerges, that causes the questioning of long held values, behaviours and world views. From this new questioning standpoint, a growing discontent and alienation can emerge from what have been the traditionally accepted social norms and structures. A greater critical awareness of others, both within and outside of the individual’s morphing view of the world ensues, that critiques previously accepted social roles and expectations, and the habitual ways in which these assumed roles have been enacted. Penn expressed this understanding of his experiences – initially at the government school as he became increasingly concerned by the lack of responsiveness to individual student needs, and then again as he made the transition – out of his ‘well’ as it were, to use the analogy of the frog from our upcoming fable – to a vastly different environment where everything he had known was turned on its ear. A choice is necessary at this point – one that not all are willing to make – to allow
37
ourselves to stretch into the possibility of who we might become, or to return instead to the known territory of our previous and familiar existence. 3.4 The frog in the well There is a story, a fable adopted by many cultures and in various forms about the frog who lived in the well (Aesop, Temple, & Temple, 1998). It is the tale of a frog whose entire life has been lived in the safety and familiarity of a shallow well. The frog is deeply proud of the richness of its existence, and of the magnitude of its environment. When one day a passing turtle invites the frog to view the world that sits outside of the well, the frog is challenged by the news of an entire ocean existing beyond his comfortable existence. The frog in the well knows not of the great ocean. Some cultural versions of the fable have the frog angrily denying the likelihood of such an inconceivable possibility, others see the frog expressing humility in the face of such news, and others have him picked up on the wings of a bird to discover all that lies outside of what he has known to this point. I prefer this last version - it speaks to me of the disorienting process we undergo when our view of self and of the world in which we live is challenged, or is shown to be limited, and it illuminates the liberatory process of change that can ensue when we choose to step outside of our known existence, and to open to the possibility of the new and unknown. Mezirow’s reference to reinterpretation and construction of meaning attached to past experiences (Mezirow, 2000) is similarly integrated, and the growing awareness that the individual’s own lived experience and discontent has been shared and acknowledged by others can support an openness and willingness to construct a new and unique frame of reference. My own adaptation of Aesop’s Fable of the Frog in the Well is that the frog pops his head out of the well to see other frogs, also emerging from their own wells, who have lived what might seem from this new perspective to be an illusionary life, given the new frames of reference. Nelson speaks of these new frames of reference as supporting and guiding action that can take the individual beyond any previously perceived horizon of their expectations (A. Nelson, 1994). 3.5 Disorienting dilemmas and discontent The core concepts examined by this thesis are viewed through the dual lenses of Mezirow’s transformative learning theory (Mezirow, 2000) and Brookfield’s critical theory (Brookfield, 2001), promoting ideology critique and liberatory education. Brookfield supports Mezirow’s assertion that critical reflection can be part of the transformative learning process, but proposes that without examining the power relationships and hegemonic assumptions that exist in one’s immediate and larger environment, transformation is unlikely to take place. He sees that transformation
38
requires the critically reflective process to be politicised in order to identify the impact of ruling classes and social structures on human agency. Brookfield suggests that transformative learning occurs when what was once was seen to be permanent and stable is recognised by the individual as being relative and situation specific, and often shaped to accommodate the needs and interests of ruling others. (Brookfield, 2005) The works of Brookfield and Mezirow are founded in Marxist philosophy (drawn from Habermas (1984), himself influenced by Marxist theory (Martin, 2001)), and explore the epistemological frameworks, hegemonic assumptions and ontological questionings that arise within the context of adult learners returning to study. For Kate, Annie, Sara and Penn, now in their second year of studying in the Diploma of Liberal Arts, and for Zac at the beginnings of his inquiry, a critical consciousness is emerging in uniquely individual ways. The concept of critical consciousness, notably promoted by Freire (1972b), and further interrogated with Shor (Shor & Freire, 1986) is fostered through an approach to education known as critical pedagogy (Shor, 1992). Shor advocates the cultivation of a critically conscious lens across the life span, and joins Nicholson-Smith and Piaget in challenging a limiting approach that often begins in early learning and discourages a critical persona in life: “The child is called upon to receive from outside the already perfected products of adult knowledge and morality; the educational relationship consists of pressure on one side and receptiveness on the other side. From such a point of view, even the most individual kinds of tasks performed by students (such as essay writing, making a translation, solving a problem) partake less of the genuine activity of spontaneous and individual research than of … copying an external model; the students’ inmost morality remains fundamentally directed toward obedience rather than autonomy.” (Piaget, 1979) It is the rejection of this mindless acceptance of others’ knowing and authority that underpins what Mezirow (2000), Freire (1972b), Shor (Shor & Freire, 1986), Brookfield (2005) and a chorus of others propose - that through developing a critical consciousness we can come to the place of contesting previously taken for granted ‘truths’, and find personally authentic meaning amongst the inauthenticities of the ruling epistemological frameworks that have been held to be irrefutable. Annie, Penn and Zac have all expressed an awareness of their discontent and Mezirow’s first and second phases of the transformative learning process - a disorienting dilemma and self-examination of feelings of fear, anger, guilt, or shame - were observed here. As they reflected on how for each of them their disorienting experiences unfolded - Penn for the distress he observed in his peers, even while working to build his own framework of understanding, Zac in being stymied in his pursuit of learning, Annie in not meeting everyone’s assumed outcomes, and the strong emotions expressed around these inauthenticities reflected the recognition of a lack of authorship in their lives.
39
Annie spoke of her devastation at receiving poor marks in her VCE, and of her ongoing battle to maintain a high performance, even through all the stress of supporting her family through her Mum’s emerging health crisis. (A) … I was devastated … bawled my eyes out at school … the teacher put me in a room on my own, talking to me about it. I didn’t understand, how could I not do well … I was embarrassed and ashamed … how could I get a D?. She explained that she had dealt with her devastation through her art (reflecting the enthusiastic embrace of drawing her story for the research study). (A) I never took art classes really in high school because it was kind of like a waste of time, my parents said don’t do art – what are you doing art for? I did Business … Health … book subjects … because that’s your pathway … why would you waste your time doing art? … I understand that, because it’s not a career, you can’t go into being an artist … it’s not a stable career. I’m doing academic stuff … that’s where I want to be … don’t get me wrong it’s what I want to do … I’d like to do other things too but this is what I’m doing. We discussed her earlier comments about not being able to work, think, and express herself well through writing and considered this self-recognition against her decision to follow an academic path. (A) It’s a contradiction I know. It is what I’m meant to do though … it’s what I do want to do. But I do want the opportunity to do other things too. These things have a way of sorting themselves out eventually … hopefully. Teaching has pretty much always been a constant and this year I have four kids in high school (Year 7) that I do reading with ... and I love it. Last year I worked as an Integration Aid ... year before that I was in a primary school … before that I was in a day care centre. I’ve always been doing it and I like it … I like making a difference … it’s where I’m going to be. … I always wanted to do teaching since I was a little girl. It was either a ballerina, a Planeteer or a teacher … you know … Captain Planet … saving the world, that kind of stuff. Everything comes in together, but there are other things I want to do too. If I can bring them in somehow, I will. Actual art would be good … if I can put to use all those hours and hours of time I’ve spent drawing, then that would be good. I’m looking at doing a little bit of art when I go to uni and do my Arts Degree. Having contemplated the discontent Annie had named around feeling pressured to live up to everyone’s expectations, we were both admiring the beautiful illustration she had done of her reflections on her life, and discussed the ways she might be able to incorporate this passion within her teaching, to utilise her authentic strengths. I asked her about another of the rays in her reflective artwork, about ‘finding and keeping’ (A) That is the theme of my whole thing. This is where I find everything is … I don’t want to disappoint my family … I want them to keep me … I don’t want them to kick me out and say I’ve had enough of you. I want to find my real Dad, and know that he really wants me, but I don’t want to tell my family that because they might think I’m disrespecting them. So I don’t want to go looking … I want to be found.
40
Annie went on to explain that she knew nothing about her biological father – he has been absent her whole life. (A) I have hit a point where I’m sick of waiting … I thought when I turned 18 that would be it. Then 18 came and went … every holiday and birthday for as long as I can remember I expect someone to turn up or a card or something. I’m exhausted from hoping. In this moving expression of her deep sense of grief around the absence of her biological father, and of her hope that he might re-enter her life, she is aware of fears around her hope, that she may be disappointed herself, or may disappoint others through her expressed discontent. The examination of these feelings is referred to in the second of Mezirow’s phases of the transformative process (see Figure 6) I asked Annie if she could talk to her Mum about it (A) I don’t think I could. I think it would really upset my Mum if I went behind her back. She is one of these people who likes everything to be contained within the family. Like everything has to be within … one life at home and one for everybody else … you have to keep everything within … I think it’s all about the protectionist thing, you have to keep everything within as it is all you have … your family … I feel that I can only rely on my family and myself … I can’t necessarily rely on everyone else …I know I have traits of that. It’s really tricky …I don’t want to upset my Mum …she’s sick … she has OCD 4 and her thing is control, she has to be in control of everything. When she isn’t in control, that’s when she loses it … and when she loses it, it affects everyone, not just me. So it’s like really selfish to upset the apple cart. I don’t want to upset her … because it’s not fair to everyone else … it would upset my Nanna too. My Nanna’s bladder is too close to her eye-balls … she cries at the drop of a hat. I wouldn’t want to upset her … she’s always crying my Nanna. I got that from her though. We had a little giggle about her Nanna’s eye-balls, and talked about times where observing the deeply emotional events of others has caused each of us to be so overwhelmed by the painful knowing of shared experience … having lived with such grief and longing, one develops enormous empathy for others. Annie’s expressions of growing discontent, and fear of acting or failing to act, mirror my own experiences. As one becomes increasingly aware of what might go on beyond, much like the frog in the well, we can take steps forwards and backwards, but inevitably, it catalyses what turns out to be an almost unstoppable process. I asked Annie if she thought it was right for us to limit our life experience and potential because it might upset somebody … that in keeping everybody happy and never doing anything to upset anybody we might never come to find ourselves and move beyond situations. (A) It’s not logical thought, it’s something completely different. Annie spoke about her childhood, growing up with her Nan and Mum, who remarried when Annie was eight, her new Dad, new siblings, her Mum’s recent diagnosis with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and the responsibility she has had to take on: 4
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
41
(A) … it got really bad for a while … really hit its peak last year … she ended up having a break down on Christmas Eve, and I had to take the kids … Dad’s like “I need you to leave with the kids before I can get Mum out, because they can’t see Mum like this.” So I took the kids to Nan’s, it was 11pm on Christmas Eve … where do you take kids? … they are meant to be in bed asleep, waiting for Santa to come. So I took them to Nan’s. No-one was meant to know … but I needed someone to understand … because we keep it in the family … it comes down to me and my Dad … if I didn’t do it what would happen? It would all fall apart. Someone has to do it. I remember telling my friend Georgia about my Mum as I couldn’t cope with it anymore … I found out that her mother also has OCD. It was the same thing but her Mum had been diagnosed for years and she’s been on medication and it was like … when I finally opened up to someone they understood and they knew … it was great, really good to know that someone understood. Annie commented on the strong relationship she has with her step-father and I asked if he might be the key to finding out about her father. (A) I wouldn’t want to upset him, as he’s been around forever … he adopted me when he married Mum. I remember that discussion about “Do you mind … is that okay?” I didn’t take much notice except for saying “Aren’t you my Dad?” I think he wants better for me than for his own daughters … my Dad’s really good to me. I recognize there really is only one path and that’s directly to my Mum, but it’s a hard thing. I don’t want my Dad to think I’m trying to replace him, or that he’s not good enough or something. Annie is in a truly disorienting dilemma (Mezirow, 2000). Torn by the stressful demands of living with and responding to her mother’s condition and its impact on the family, deeply grateful for the love of her Mum and the Dad who has been there for her for most of her life, but longing to find out about her biological father. (A) I just want to know his name, just something like that. What really worries me … what if … has no idea? That would be dreadful … what if she said “Oh well, there were a few guys around then, don’t really know …” … that would be awkward. I suggested that there had been a movie written about it. (A) Yep, I get the story line and that would be the worst! I’m sick of wondering and work in a supermarket … if a customer is especially nice to me and the right age, I think “Could it be??” Then I think “That’s ridiculous, what are you doing, it’s just a nice customer…" but it’s so time consuming. What if I look like him? …that would be cool! … What if I had some massive crazy disease? … That would be bad! It could be a complete disaster. My best friend in high school Rory … he was the same … he found out who his Dad was … that he lived in South Australia and he drove over to SA to see him and he had a new family, wife and kids and “I don’t want anything to do with you.” He was devastated for a year after that. I would hate that to happen. My Nanna’s husband disappeared, and then 40 years later he turned up … 6 months ago. He went out one day … my Nanna was pregnant … 8 months … but never came home … my Nannas first husband … I didn’t know she had a first husband until he came back … my Mum’s side of the family are really secretive … they don’t tell anybody anything. My Dad’s side we know everything about. Her second husband was a really bad man … he used to beat up my Nanna and my Mum and stuff. But he just turned up.
42
We talked about the impact this would be having on Annie’s Mum, possibly contributing to her own personal crisis, and the relevance and connectedness of all of these things arising. Annie identified that her own efforts to excel were tied to not upsetting her mother. Her emotional intelligence and wisdom as a child enabled her to see that what she did influenced her mother so strongly, and she had the incredible insight and courage to be able to respond to that. We pondered whether there might be another way forward to support her Mum in a way that was still honouring of Annie, rather than spending her life being somebody according to someone else’s ideals, instead of being true to herself. (A) Either that or I skip through to when I’m about 37…. I could do that or sort it out now. You kind of like brought this all on … brought it all to the forefront now. I’ve been talking about it a bit lately and it’s better now I can talk about it. I just don’t think I can go anywhere further with it … I’ve tried every possible way I can do this on my own and I can’t. Sanaya Roman (1986) speaks of the tension that is a constant presence in the natural world, as a precursor to the ongoing changes of life and living. What you call tension or anxiety before an event can be viewed instead as focusing your energy to prepare you for something new. It is a change in your vibration to prepare you for something that is finer and higher in your life. You may feel that you must first conquer fear and anxiety before you step out and accomplish something. But everyone has that inner feeling of tension to some degree before attempting new things; it is a period of gathering energy to make the shift into a higher vibration. The joy of living. (Roman, 1986) When I asked Sara to reflect on any barriers or questioning of self she had identified, she commented on her somewhat challenging path to emerging from her inner world. (S) I always wanted to go for leadership positions … one of the other things I’ve grown up with is, if you try, the worst that can happen is that you don’t get it. It’s so funny, as when I was in Grade 6 and went up to do my School Captain speech, and the teacher was asking me “Are you sure?” … I’m terrible at Maths … don’t know my multiplications … but my Math’s teacher said I couldn’t be a leader if I couldn’t do that as well … he was so against it all … “If you can’t do your maths, then don’t be a leader.” And later in secondary school … (S) I was trying to convince the VCE people that I wasn’t made for Accounting … I even had a tutor for it and he was convinced that I wasn’t putting enough work in … I left class multiple times in tears … I couldn’t believe I left class … I don’t think I said anything … but I felt so small walking into that classroom. I told Sasha a story about Joey the baby bush kangaroo who experiences exhilarating success at Bush Baby School with jumping and running, because he is a kangaroo, and
43
that’s what kangaroos do. But when the time comes for all the bush babies to learn how to fly at school, despite his mightiest efforts, and with all the remedial support from wellintentioned teachers, he isn’t able to master flying. Joey experiences an overwhelming sense of failure in not being able to live up to the expectations and abilities of others. Moral of the story – kangaroos are skilled jumpers and are not designed for flying. We talked about the importance of celebrating and working with our strengths (Rath, 2007). (S) … when I was doing … Year 12, it was so awful … think I’m still recovering from it. … I was doing the school musical, which was so amazing, but I was also editing for my radio play, so I would be up at 5am to edit until 7am for about 2 weeks, and in the end I couldn’t see my editing program I was so tired … I ended up with an E+, and it was like “Who didn’t see that coming?” There was one teacher, she was more like a mentor … she was amazing saying things like “Don’t feel guilty for loving this, because the people who feel they have the responsibility over your future … they make you feel guilty for looking at something that doesn’t have a guaranteed future … but when you have nothing else …” Both Sara and Annie’s comments related to the tension between their personal aspirations and the expectations of ruling others resonates strongly with Brookfield’s notion of the conflict between personal agency and social structures (Brookfield, 2005). As I had personally discovered, the flame of the authentic self, and the capacity contained to exercise its authority cannot be extinguished – it can be denied and ignored, but it abides deep within the self. As Helen Keller noted “One must never consent to creep when one has an impulse to soar.” (Keller, 1967), and in coming to a place where one has no option, “…when you have nothing else” as identified by Sara’s teacher, but to contest the previously uncontested, one honours the self. Through deconstructing what has been known, one can finally construct an authentic self, founded on deeply held personal truths and knowing. (S) I like watching and listening … only now I’m learning to take risks. Last year I did a year studying at night at the VCA, doing acting … Victorian College of the Arts. I did that 2 nights a week for the entire year … it was amazing … and I never really did intense drama courses before then because I never really felt I was ready to take that step myself … I think it’s funny when you look at learning because I don’t think I was ready to learn. I was working on my own confidence to do something with that and allow myself to fail kind of thing, and not feel like it’s failing. … how I could be in that kind of environment, to lose a bit of the self-consciousness to take in what was happening … to step up. I spent the whole year pretty much being terrified of going first … like when we were doing exercises … where a big part of it is not being afraid to take that risk … which is what you want to do … For a lot of people who are self conscious and don’t have a lot of confidence, they find that when you put yourself out there in the centre of things … like in performing … it is the place for judgement and scrutiny, it’s like the centre … you are putting yourself out there to be open to that … and yet it is the same place for freedom. … standing up … where you can be judged … is the place of freedom. I see within these comments a recognition on Sara’s part that there is much that sits outside of what is known by her that is worthy of pursuit. Sara has been raised in an incredibly supportive environment, and she has articulated that the limitations that have contained her are internally imposed, but in spite of these barriers, she has dared to peer over the edge of her ‘well’ and taken action to step out into the unknown. I would argue that due to her deeply reflective nature – well developed before undertaking participation
44
in the study – she has chosen to challenge her perception of what is possible for her, and identified potential new ways of being (A. C. Nelson, 1995 ). Zac’s disorienting early learning experiences continued as he dropped out of school in Year 11 and started working full time in a factory. (Z) I was doing a Certificate II in Hairdressing … initially it was to piss off my father, and it was something I was interested in … I was drawn to the social side of it, and the pretty much endless possibilities for creativity. Things that turned me away from it were no social life, very poor hours, poor pay, also just the attitude of many of the people doing it. Midway through decided it wasn’t for me … stopped showing up. I inquired if he had a sense of what he wanted to do (Z) Not a clue, and still no clue … after I got kicked out of school, I had about 2 months of unemployment and basically doing nothing, which was scary ... I didn’t know what was going to happen ... I don’t like not knowing. I went out and got drunk and got talking to a mate who said his parents were looking for workers … I’m working for a sign writing company (now) I asked him what he was learning in his job. (Z) Not a lot … just a stock standard factory worker job … nothing more to be learned… menial, repetitive tasks. I want to do something that engages me and challenges me constantly. There are always going to be certain days where things are going to be repetitive, but I don’t want day after day same thing … it’s a dead end job that I’m not at all happy with, and I definitely do not plan to do it for much longer … I’m not going to resign until I know one hundred percent what I want to do. To prompt his thinking, and to provide the space for his expression, I asked him about some of the things that he loved to do when he was younger - with mates, at school, at home, things that got him excited. (Z) To be honest, I don’t remember a lot of my childhood, by choice … didn’t enjoy it. Never really had any dreams or ambitions … if someone ever asked what I wanted to be when I grew up I would pull the first thing off the top of my head. Now, still have no idea what it is exactly I want to do … every time I start to get interested in something, I seem to come across certain attitudes and behaviours that turn me away.
45
3.6 Ways of knowing The search for a resonant and authentic way forward brings me to the concept of knowing - the epistemological truths, and ontological world-view our lived experience has constructed that informs the ways in which we engage with life and opportunity. In ‘Understanding and promoting transformative learning’, Cranton (1994) draws on a number of frames of reference when considering the ways in which we come to know, relating it to adult learning, most specifically within the context of teacher education in higher education. In my personal quest for understanding the concept of epistemology, and of Brookfield’s critical notion of contesting hegemonic assumptions and ruling ideologies (Brookfield, 2005), I found these frames of reference to be invaluable. Habits of mind One of these frames of reference is based on Mezirow’s identification of six habits of mind (Cranton, 1994) that he sees as interdependent and interrelated, and that influence our worldview through our culture, our background and our lived experience. 1. Epistemic – knowledge and the ways we acquire and use it, learning styles 2. Sociolinguistic – social norms, cultural expectations, ways of using language 3. Psychological – self concept, needs, inhibitions, anxieties and fears 4. Moral – ethical, conscience and morality 5. Philosophical – transcendental, world view, philosophy, religious doctrine 6. Aesthetic – values, standards, attitudes, tastes, judgements about beauty There are many lenses through which we can view the circumstances of our lives, and build knowing, and Mezirow’s habits of mind offer a useful tool for critiquing underlying values and uncontested hegemonic views of the world. One can see contradictions arising in Annie as she views her world and her place in it through these various lenses. Strong moral and sociolinguistic habits of mind wrestle with the psychological and the aesthetic as Annie struggles to identify a way forward through her disorienting emotions and incongruent truths. Zac, based on what he has come to see as desirable in life, continues to reject ideas and opportunities based on these strongly formed habits of mind, unique to him. He admires aspects of the aesthetic nature of hairdressing, but is repelled by the superficiality of behaviours and attitudes typically associated with this domain. These habits of mind can serve us well, guiding us to make choices that resonate with our authentic selves, but can also cloud our outlook. In the example of the frog in the well, much like Annie, much like myself at her age, this way of knowing was based on cultural background and individual lived experience. For the frog, being born into the well, and living his life up to that point within the unidentified constraints of its environment, his view of the world was very much filtered through the lens of these habits of mind. He knew what he knew about the grandness of his abode, its rich beauty, the rightness of his existence, based on all he had come to know through his lived experience, within his
46
particular cultural environment. Having no other experiential existence on which to base his knowing, he reacted defensively to the suggestion that there were indeed other ways of the world. In the version I alluded to, after much rejection and protestation he surrendered himself to discovering what had always lain outside of his ‘world’ by flying with his friend the bird to gain new experiences that reframed his knowing. Even in the telling, through the lens of various cultural versions of the tale, diverse outcomes of this fable are identified, and various cultures have taken a particular viewpoint on the reaction and action of the frog, based on ruling ideologies of the time and place. These cultural lenses influence what is seen as an appropriate response to such a disorienting dilemma. Another frame of reference identified by Cranton (1994) also relates to the individualsocial continuum – that we are individuals, but always within the context of a social influence. It draws from Habermas (1971) and more recently Mezirow (1991), and relates to ways of viewing and interpreting what we have come to know: 1. Technical knowledge – based on objective, observable phenomena 2. Practical knowledge – communicative, shared, interpretation 3. Emancipatory knowledge – questioning of technical and practical. This frame of reference is reflected in the dilemma of the frog. He was able to observe the phenomenon of his environment (technical) and to eloquently articulate this knowing to his friend the bird (communicative), but it was only when he allowed himself to open to the possibility of more than he had known to this point, that he attained emancipatory knowledge. This aligns to Mezirow’s third identified phase of transformative learning, critical assessment of assumptions (See Figure 6). The world as he had known it was shown to be only a small part of the greater whole. Through the telling of his story, Zac is seen to be at a point where he is questioning the observable world and rejecting much of what he has been exposed to. He is standing on the edge of emancipatory understanding. 3.7 Contesting the social structures and ruling ideologies Brookfield’s assertion that critical reflection of self is part of the transformative learning process (Brookfield, 2005; Mezirow, 2000), underpins the rationale behind the concept of story-telling within the context of this study. Through examining the power relationships and hegemonic assumptions that exist within the individual’s immediate and larger environment, the transformative process begins to unfold. Through the critically reflective process, the impact of ruling ideologies and social structures on one’s agency become apparent, and what was once seen to be permanent and stable is recognised by the individual as being relative and situation specific (Brookfield, 2005), and often shaped to accommodate the needs and interests of ruling others. (Freire, 1972b)
47
This system functions to diminish, placate, satisfy, eliminate all that can break the balance – all, including the revolutionary, transforming impetus. Let there be no doubt: Aristotle formulated a very powerful purgative system, the objective if which is to eliminate all that is not commonly accepted, including the revolution, before it takes place … it is designed to bridle the individual, to adjust him to what preexists. Augusto Boal (1979) Zac and I had spoken about his discontent with his current position in life, doing work that was less than the ideal for him, but he commented that he was reluctant to take the risk of letting go in order to find a more personally authentic place where his work might be more complementary to a balanced and satisfying life. (Z) To be honest I don’t think it’s possible to work to live in this day and age, with the cost of everything and the responsibilities and stuff, it just seems like everyone turns into a lab rat once they finish school … they stop enjoying life, get married, have kids and essentially become money factories. Nobody is happy with what they have got anymore. They have to work so hard for everything that by the time they get it, or by the time they achieve something it becomes superfluous or they aren’t interested anymore … everyone I know is a slave to their job. I asked him if he could imagine his ideal existence: (Z) Barely … the only thing I’m interested in at the moment is going out getting drunk and not feeling anymore … I’m just so over all the pointless crap in the world, there is no point even trying to change something until you are at least in your forties because you don’t have an opinion until you’ve slaved half your life away … rules are made by people that haven’t experienced things for twenty to thirty years. They are talking about alcohol fuelled violence for example … people aren’t rationalising because they aren’t there … Some people (take drugs) just to get messed up, other people to get away from something, but at the end of the day, it’s all still there when you wake up in the morning. There is no permanent solution to anything … nobody’s found anything yet … I think everybody stopped searching, that’s why divorce is so high, that’s why teenage suicide is so high, that’s why nobody stays in a job for more than 5 years, because everybody is so uninterested in life … instead of trying to fix things and make things better, they just pick up and move, or they end themselves, or they push their loved ones away … go and get a piece of paper that says “I’m not attached to you anymore, and I’ll go and start something with somebody else” … nobody is committed to life anymore. Zac’s outpouring can be viewed as an emerging understanding of the discontent that pervades his thinking. Not yet able to fully articulate his knowing about the existence and impact of ruling ideologies and social structures on individual agency, he expresses an irritable contempt for his nameless oppressors (Freire, 1972b). Zac’s articulation is a great illustration of Cranton’s identified frames of reference related to the individual-social continuum (Cranton, 1994) – that we are individuals, but always within the context of a social influence. He is able to communicate his observed knowing with intelligence and
48
skill, but his emancipatory understanding has yet to be fully realised. Zac is at the edge of his knowing, at the growing edge (Berger, 2004), where he has the opportunity to identify and name this knowing, a place of enacting a more equitable recognition and distribution of power and authority. This expressed discontent with existing structures is a strong precursor to the transformative learning process (Mezirow, 2000). Zac has to this point articulated no apparent change in his views of life, no sense of identifying new possibilities since his discouraging early learning experiences. These early environments failed to ignite in him any passion for moving forward with his life, and yet through the following discussion, imagining begins to emerge (Brady, 1990). Nelson refers to the process of transformative learning that occurs in the contexts of our everyday lives – that ‘the construction of the life story interacts with the author’s transformative learning. Autobiographical learning is discernible through significant changes in the learner’s selfunderstanding, worldviews, and ways of being in the world.’ (A. C. Nelson, 1995 ) Zac’s selfunderstanding is in its infancy, but one can see the seeds of self-awakening taking root as he articulates his discontent through the interrogation of what he has come to perceive of his current environment. I asked him to reflect on any transformational moments that may have been a catalyst for change in his life, in a positive or negative way. (Z) Just before I left school … was asked to leave … I had a bad break up with my … girlfriend at the time, and then that, combined with being kicked out of school and being jobless sent me in a bit of a downward spiral … I sort of started to give up I guess … started to wonder what the point of life was. Then actually getting a job made me realise that there are things in the world that you can’t control … there is always going to be someone else’s shit to clean up after. So sometimes you just have to grit your teeth and bear it. Then there are other times when you can actually stand up and say otherwise. It’s all about picking, learning the difference between the two. I highlighted the wisdom he expressed in being able to recognise and act upon the best way of moving forward effectively, and that given his fragile emotional state at the time, he had demonstrated a great deal of strength and courage. (Z) I didn’t really have a choice, I owed people money and I needed money to support my own habits. I really had no choice in the matter. I asked him about his choice to work, rather then choosing to go on the ‘dole’. (Z) I don’t think it’s fair. It shouldn’t be a choice in my opinion. It should be an absolute last resort. And at that stage it wasn’t, I had a family that could support me, friends that could support me. So in my eyes it wasn’t really an option … I think it’s really unfair when people go on the dole by choice. Especially when there are so many options available. Berger speaks of dancing on the edge of meaning, standing on the edge of knowing (Berger, 2004), and if I draw a picture of Zac in my mind, he is at the very edge, ready to fall into a whole new realm of knowing. At nineteen years of age, and yet to engage in further education beyond his initial foray into hairdressing, like the frog, he will for a while raise his nose above the edge of his well to take note of possibilities, but retreat back to the safety of the known. One day soon he may step out.
49
Mezirow speaks of the disorieting dilemmas in one’s life that are often a catalyst to an altered perspective, and Kate identified the learning drawn from her own disorienting life experiences. (K) I think there were certain circumstances in my life that pushed me to a different side of life that I needed to go to for various reasons … to give me a proper perspective of that side of life, instead of looking from the outside in. Another was to survive what I had just come from … I had been interrogated by my husband to the point where I was 25 years old, I didn’t know how old I was, my mind was mush …he interrogated me in a room for hours … hours … chair in the middle of the dark lounge room and just tore my family to bits … I wouldn’t crack … I went into the toilet and cried my heart out, but I didn’t give him that satisfaction. To survive that I needed to change environments ... I needed to be there to heal … to heal enough to know how old I was. I came out the other side of that … didn’t come out unscarred though. Freire problematises the inequalities inherent in the power relationships between the ruling classes and the oppressed discussed in his many works (Freire, 1972a, 1974b, 1985). He proposes that in identifying and naming this inequality, the oppressed come to identify, and enact a more equitable distribution of power and authority, and that this change in perspective underpins the transformative learning process, which he notably refers to as conscientization. He identifies the self-fulfilling prophesy of the oppressed – that if they see themselves as powerless and unknowing, this knowing is enacted, and argues for the recognition, on the part of the educator and of the learner (as it relates to the educational context), of the capacity and potential contained within the individual. He asserts that relative to the personal authority and power they come to recognise and embrace, the oppressed are able to critique the social structures that have held them captive, and to exercise their individual and collective agency for democratic social change. Freire suggests (1972b), as does Brookfield (2005), that through critically reflecting on the political aspects of their oppression, there arises within the learner a new opportunity for the creation of a transformed future. As Kate went on to describe some of the untenable aspects of life with her former husband, reflecting on how the behaviours and circumstances of daily existance gradually eroded her sense of self-identity and self-worth, her experiences resonated strongly with my own, and of so many others whose stories have been shared. Nelson (1994) reflects on his discovery of himself as author of his own life, and postures that relative to the capacity one contains to imagine how else one’s life might be, there develops an emerging sense of authority. Swartz (1997) ponders the underlying motivation, or the transformational moment in time, that causes one to move from a point of “stuckness” (1994), of extreme cognitive dissonance, into a future of hope and possibility. How is it that one finally reaches a point of recognising and choosing to utilise one’s agency in order to create positive change within a structure that is so intensely constricting? In Kate’s case, her recognition of this emergence is tangible. Initially unable to see beyond the constraints of her marriage, as various life experiences came into play, an altered sense of self emerged that enabled progression beyond previously impenetrable barriers. Critical internal and external environmental factors can often act as catalysts to a previously unimagined future, and Nelson speaks of this moment of change “ … the instrument of transformation … trouble that leads to crisis … if this disruption to order is unable to be accommodated within the existing social structure, there may arise the legitimation of a new order …” (A. Nelson, 1994)
50
Kate identified a combination of factors that contributed to her change of attitude and expectation. (K) I had to sit down and be very strategic about getting away from him … he had me in a place that was many miles away from family and isolated … I had to convince him to take me and my children back to my family home and that everything would be fine … That took a lot of work and a lot of strategic thinking and conversations … I had to tick every box and dot every ‘i’ and every full stop to make that journey back … I had to do it for my twins, and my survival. In his seminal work ‘Man’s search for meaning’ (Frankl, 1964), Frankl proposes that relative to our ability to find and attach meaning to a situation, we are able to endure any suffering, and to emerge as victors rather than victims. He cites Nietzsche, (quoted in Frankl (1963) p121). ‘He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how’ Autobiographical learning involves critical reflection, fuelled by imagination, and can lead to a transformed perception of one’s personal power and capacity to engage in and influence the world in which one resides (A. Nelson, 1994). Sense can be created, meaning understood (McAdams, 1985). Kate expressed that this was very powerfully the case for her as she re-evaluated her life in light of her emerging sense of self. In daring to imagine life beyond the bounds of this ‘hell’ in which she lived, Kate was able to imagine the telling of a new story that drew on one the strengths of her childhood (Bourdieu, 1977) - her attention to detail. (K) If you have the detail, then you have the whole picture. You can assess the situation. If you can assess the situation, you can make the right decisions… that served me really well. Don’t forget I was protecting my twins … I had to bring up my son so he wasn’t violent towards women, and my daughter so that she wasn’t intimidated. … It’s not an easy thing to do but sometimes life pushes you to that point … you have to make that decision … or you can be afraid. There is only so long you can be afraid for … before it gets old and those boundaries fall away … It’s easy for me to say, but it’s not easy to live ... not easy to stand there and do, but if you have to, you have to. Steinem wrote a book entitled “Revolution from within” (Steinem, 1993), about meeting and claiming the authentic self. In it she speaks of the unfolding journey to the centre of one’s being, and the quest to find the power that lies within, all the while living within the constraints of structures that threaten to extinguish one’s life-breathe. That is how it was for Kate, as it was for me in my own turbulent journey into self. As Swartz recognised (1997), it is a slow process, but it gathers strength and urgency until finally, you recognise the need to move beyond what you have previously known, you find yourself, and your voice, and you make the decision to create an authentic life. Swartz (1997) discusses Bourdieu’s reference to the response of the individual, at a cognitive and physical level, to the cultural conditioning of their early environment. My own experience has contained a strong testament to this early conditioning throughout my life, most notably in my later years, and I see in Kate an even greater strength and authenticity over much of her life. Like me, she lost herself for a while, but as Mezirow highlights (2000), through the disorienting dilemmas of one’s existence, we can find ourselves in a place of questioning long-held assumptions about ourselves and the world around us. This critically reflective passage seems ultimately to bring about a
51
reassessment, a renewed recognition or a completely transformed understanding of our ability to reengage with and influence the differently perceived world, viewed through the lens of this new perspective. It continues to be a point of wonder to me, to observe within myself, and in the lives of those who have shared their stories with me, the remembering, the reconnecting with long forgotten truths and capacities. As the heart and mind opened to the possibilities, as one dares to imagine a story untold, the body and mind respond with inconceivable strength and endurance to this deeply held habitus (Bourdieu, 1977). Kate acknowledged the strength that emerges through such turbulent times (K) Getting up and keeping going, standing your ground when you need to, no matter what … (it is) about choices, about making choices, being honest. It is very hard to be honest with yourself and easy to turn a blind eye … I won’t look at that too much … it’ll be okay … If you don’t look at that point, that’s the damage you are passing on and it’s not right … it’s not right to damage your children. It’s a hard choice … there is consequence of action, no matter what. With incredible dignity and insight, Kate reflected on her current life circumstances that find her separated from her twins. (K) I have to be strong emotionally for this process to take place. This is hard for me … I’m a Mum … I want to have a relationship with my son and daughter … they are my twins … my first children … they need to make that completed journey to grow as people … I’ve bought them up to be individual people … not just reflect me …and that is hard. Again we see the most profound expression of Kate’s integrity and authentic commitment in the way in which she has chosen to provide the space for her children to grow. In addition to, and in spite of the incredible ordeal she undertook to free them from the suffocating constraints of their early existence, she has identified and granted the freedom required for them to undertake their own journey. Kate spoke of the circumstances of their separation at length, and identified that she has been able to attaching meaning to her suffering, as discussed by Frankl (1964). (K) I go in and out of places that I am very vulnerable … sometimes I need to go home and shut the door and close the world out … just go inside and do nothing … I need to regroup and re-strengthen myself. This is where integrity comes into it and standing your dig on what you believe … this is where is comes to where we were talking about choices before, and I was saying that there are causes and consequences of choices … the causes and consequences of the choices I made by standing my dig with the twins, is that I don’t have that social relationship with them at the moment, even though we are still connected and the want is still there … I asked about the impact of this courageous decision on her sense of self. (K) I think it still incites a sense of ‘Stand your ground’ … of strength ... I’ve been to points in my life where I’ve thought “Has it all been worthwhile?” … and been very hurt because it appears like it isn’t. Once I get past that insecurity or that hurt … I have to get back to the fact that I know one day we will all re-connect. But at what cost? … There are costs … it is hard and it is confronting ... As we neared the conclusion of our interview, the conversation turned to life, and the struggles inherent in living. Deeply personal stories were shared around the intense labour of survival we have each witnessed in others and experienced ourselves.
52
(K) I feel like I’m in this haze or soup where I can’t see where I’m supposed to go. I was very excited I did this (Diploma) … I had to fight to get here, and I had to fight to stay here, and I’m still fighting … and I’m done. I’m sick of it … I have to fight for it every step of the way … why am I challenged like this all the time? The talk of struggle brought up a current news story about an older couple having suicided. (K) That is incredible emotional pain, mental anguish … suicide is not an easy task … I know what it’s like … I have been to that place significantly at least three times in my life, so I know how hard it is to push that thought away and how hard it is to live through that wanting to die … extremely hard to push through and people who do it and lose that battle, that touches me deeply because I know what that battle is. When people are driven to suicide it’s usually the bottom of the world drops away, and everything you have ever lived for/touched/felt becomes zero. It’s like battling a monster saying “This is all you’ve got? This is all you’ve got? This is why you’re going to go!” and it’s like self-taunt, self-worth that dissipates … you become worthless to yourself. Usually with things like that it’s an instinct of the body not to take life … it’s for life. … you have to get to that point where you go “I have a right to live, and I will live and I’m not going to do that.” I don’t see anybody doing any work there. … I told Kate about people close to my own life who had been touched by deep depression and attempted suicide, and we spoke of the impact it has on all. (K) Incredible fight … and the bottom line is … I have a right to live … and that you have got to have a starting point. When you get that starting point you go “I have a right to live!” and that has always been my starting point. And it’s pushing away the monster … the monster is the unforeseen expectations of someone else ... and who are they to challenge you, because that’s what they want you to do? It’s about following and leading and standing true to yourself. And that was my catch phrase “I have a right to live and I will live!” and if I choose to die then it will be because I choose it, not because circumstances out there are pushing me that way. As I reflect on these words of Kate, and on the words of my own loved ones, I see what I have never seen before – the words of someone crying righteously and fervently against the suffocating constraints of ruling ideologies and social structures that deny individuals their freedom to be. Be it capitalism, religion, patriarchy - for each undertaking their gruelling journey through life, the circumstances are unique, but Kate has identified in the telling of her story that on the brink of death, just as in life, the human spirit cries to be liberated. I asked her if this lived experience might in some way be part of her future work (K) This is one aspect of human beings I’m passionate about because I don’t think there is enough work … there has never been an examination of the monster that pushes people toward that … that’s important. I would argue that the examination that needs to take place is not from some externally imposed utility, but one that begins from within. Supported by skilled and empathic facilitators, the journey is to find the self – the hero’s journey – remembering, restorying and cultivating the strength and authority of one’s life.
53
“As autobiographer I am hero of my own tale And I want to elucidate the past In order to draw out the structure of my own being in time Keen & Valley-Fox (1989). 3.8 Education and gardening – promoting growth “ … your job is to walk around with a can of water in one hand and a can of fertilizer in the other hand … try to build a garden.” Jack Welch, cited in (Joss, 2007) Business guru Jack Welch was Chairman and CEO of General Electric between 1981 and 2001. In 1999, Fortune named him the "Manager of the Century," and the Financial Times recently named him one of the three most admired business leaders in the world today. His reference here to building a garden is within the context of organisational leadership, but his esteemed voice joins a distinguished chorus that ties us as leaders, whether in business or education, to the rhymes and rhythms of nature. So with the agronomy model in mind, my literature review drew on several writers as they link the processes of agriculture to the process of adult learning. Carl Rogers, the father of humanistic psychology, originally commenced studies in agronomy - “the science of soil management, land cultivation, and crop production” (Rogers, 1961) and related, across the span of his career, the idea of cultivating and nurturing the relationship between the teacher (or therapist, as his primary career as psychotherapist evolved to include education) and the learner as the soil through which their inherent but often latent potential emerges. Whereas our earlier Modernist approach favoured a leader/teacher-centric and results oriented focus, Rogers’ person-centred approach, both in a therapeutic application and in an educational context, has as its foundation the three tenets of unconditional positive regard, authenticity and empathy (1961). He posits that in order to be effective in leading a person through a process that enables and fosters learning and growth, one requires unconditional positive regard for that individual. It is not necessary to agree with or even to like the person - the authenticity encourages honesty and transparency – but one needs the insight and wisdom of being able to step into the shoes of the other and to attempt to gain understanding of their perspective - empathy. Rogers uses the agricultural analogies of tilling the land, planting seeds and watering, cultivating, nurturing, supporting growth and harvesting, and the image of fallow fields being rested to enable strong regeneration.
54
Promotion of future productivity can also be conceptualised within this model and applied to all adult learners returning to study within our educational environments, and was a concept foundational to my research study. Just as Rogers ponders the process of enabling and establishing a relationship that provides the groundwork in which the individual can cultivate their personal growth, the aim of my study was to examine the ways in which undertaking the quietly reflective process of telling the stories of one’s life might foster future growth and productivity. These same analogies relating to the idea of cultivation can be seen in M. Scott Peck’s conceptualisation of education: “Education is derived from the Latin ‘educare’, literally translated as ‘to bring out of’ or ‘to lead forth.’ Therefore when we educate people, if we use the word seriously, we do not stuff something new into their minds; rather we lead this something out of them; we bring it forth from the unconscious into their awareness. They were the possessors of the knowledge all along.” (Peck, 1978) 3.9 Time and space To illustrate how this ‘something’ might be enabled to be led forth from our learners, I will return to the notion often quoted here of providing the ‘space’ for this process to unfold, and link it the Socratic notion of the educator as midwife. In supporting the ‘birth’ of this ‘something’ that lies within each of our learners, we also need to consider the quality of time required for them to inhabit the ‘space’ most effectively, as creating space for something doesn’t necessarily mean it will emerge. Rämo explores the Greek bifurcation of the concept of time, as it relates to the notions of chronos and kairos, (Ramo, 1999). He highlights that where chronos refers to ‘the concept of time as change, measure, and serial order’, the quantifiable, measurable aspects of passing time according to the clock in a neutral, absolute sense, the kairos notion of time relates to the ‘right or opportune time to do something’. He gives as an example a farmer’s ‘kairic’ or intuitive sense of the right moment to sow and harvest, adding that it is tied to the self-determination of the individual. Smith (1969) identifies three aspects present within the concept of kairos – the right time, a time of tension that calls for a decision, and an opportunity to accomplish some purpose. Elliott Jaques (1982) and philosopher José Luis Ramírez (1995) also stress kairos as episodes of intentions and goals, while Hammond (2007) proposes that in Hellenistic Greece, kairos denoted a time in which something could happen. He proposes a fitting or opportune time - a ‘season’, a time for ‘something’. In De Categoriae (107a 8–10, 119a 26–37), Aristotle suggests ‘What happens at the right time (Kairos – season) is good’. The Oxford English Dictionary (Simpson, Weiner, & Press., 1989), defines Kairos as ‘Fullness of time, the propitious moment for the performance of an action or the coming into being of a new state.’ And Prigogine and Stengers (1984) have suggested a ‘kairo-logical’ right moment in their discussions around chaos theories. Wheatley, in her contribution to the Chaos Theory conversation (M. J. Wheatley, 2005), links these ‘right times’ and ‘seasons’ where ‘something’ can be led forth, to the natural rhymes and rhythms of life
55
“ … I’ve learned that if we organize in the same way that the rest of life does, we develop the skills we need: we become resilient, adaptive, aware, and creative … and life’s processes work everywhere, no matter the culture, group, or person, because these are basic dynamics shared by all living beings.” Margaret Wheatley (2006) These references to nature, the basic tenets of horticulture and responding to ‘the right or opportune moment’ suggest to me that we as educators can respond to our learners in a way that can more effectively and productively foster their growth and development, and it is this approach that underpins the narrative tradition, providing the space for transformative learning’s journey to unfold. Much like Mezirow’s identified stages (Mezirow, 2000) (See Chapter 2), and utilising the analogy of the agricultural model, we can see elements of Brookfield’s critical theory (Brookfield, 2005) through the cultivating process before optimal growth potential can be achieved. Goethe reflected these same connections: “Nothing in nature is isolated. Nothing is without reference to something else. Nothing achieves meaning apart from that which neighbours it.”
-Goethe (1749-1832)
These writers from diverse disciplines join Mezirow (2005), Nelson (1994), Brookfield (2000), Cranton (1994), Rogers (1961), Frankl (1964) and Freire (1972b) and many other writers who advocate the cultivation of a process through which we can interrogate what, why and how we have come to know, and having gained this new perspective, begin to imagine who we have yet to become (Brady, 1990).
3.10 Cultivating reflection The final frame of reference I drew from Cranton (1994) responds to this process of cultivation. In working with my VET practitioners towards the development of a critically reflective practice, and in trying to promote self-authorship of their own transformative journeys, I encourage my teacher/students to take time to reflect on what they have come to expect of themselves as educators, based on past experiences and influences. It became apparent that time taken for reflection does not always produce deeply critical thought, and that some see the task as requiring an uncontested report of what had gone before. Utilising Cranton’s distinction between modes of reflection, coupled with the identification of the differently viewed chronos and kairos time, a framework has now been provided for them that transforms their critical practice, and has informed the approach I took with my research participants. 1. Content – description of the problem “What is happening here?” 2. Process – checking problem-solving strategies “How did this come to be”
56
3. Premise – problem itself is questioned “Why is this important to me? Our world viewed through the limiting lens of our lived experience and habits of mind and within the context of social, cultural and environmental constraints, will ensure we always remain like the frog in the well – unaware of the potential available within and around us. It is only through identifying these perspectives as problematic, considering how they came to be, and examining the premise that founded their knowing, that we are able to effectively identify the hegemonic assumptions that underpin so much of what we have come to know, and ultimately begin the exploration of new and more personally authentic strategies for imagining a future story, as yet untold (A. C. Nelson, 1995 ). This takes time – kairos time – and space to grow. “There is genius in the word educare – to lead out or draw out. It contrasts richly with the word instruere – to build in. The educator leads students out to confront basic questions, while the instructor merely builds in information and techniques, answers to questions that each person need not ask anew in that thrusting transcendence, that personal energy that builds identity. We are talking about Education – to lead or draw out by exciting students so that they freely initiate the learning process … and bring to bear their own energies and responsibilities. “This is what it means to others … what might it mean to me?” Ultimately … “Who am I going to be?” (Wilshire, 1990) Penn had been discussing his discontent with what he observed through much of his educational experiences. (P) I know that will frustrate me greatly if I do end up teaching VCE English … I really don’t like the form or structure of a lot of things. I dislike the structure of the VCE education system, because I think it’s almost specifically designed to produce a kind of person that the country as a whole is looking for … I don’t think it leaves a lot of room for different people. I was quite fine with the system, I got through … but at the same time I was just so annoyed as I had a lot of friends for whom it really mattered. Penn’s reference here reflects Brookfield urging us to recognize and contest ruling ideologies (Brookfield 2000). He has identified and expressed a discontent through examining the power relationships and hegemonic assumptions that exist within his environment, and reflects on the impact of these social structures on individual agency in accommodating the needs and interests of ruling others. (1972b). Penn goes on to imagine how he might respond to his identified discontent, imagining himself facilitating the learning of his future students … (P) I think that might be part of the reason I would love to be a teacher. I think there needs to be more teachers, especially in the high school system … that sort of cater to the other students that don’t learn things by ‘rote’. I would like to be that teacher, who can identify when somebody gets the subject, they just don’t get the way it’s being taught. Through speaking his story, Penn is beginning to imagine the further unfolding of his story.
57
(P) I never really thought of myself as choosing something for that reason … if I’m going to do something, I might as well have it be something that solves the problem. I can see there is a need for teachers who take more of an interest in that level. I would love to do that. One can see within Penn’s comments strong references to Frankl's ‘will to meaning’ (1970). 5 We need to be able to attach meaning to something that is purposeful and personally meaningful before we can really engage in it properly … if he is going to be teaching, Penn has expressed that he needs it to be resonant for him. (P) Because at the end of the day, I don’t want to be looking back and thinking “That was all pointless.” … I’d like to be able to look at myself at a certain stage and think, “Thinking back over what I’ve done, I’ve done more good than harm.” We discussed the influence of Penn’s early years – the freedom he had been afforded to exercise authority over his life and life choices, and the encouragement and support he has been given as he undertook that path. He articulated a self-knowing that holds an absence of fear or judgement. (P) I think that I have been blessed with the gift of choosing my own way really and I think that is the sum of my experiences. I have the confidence and willingness to see what happens and give it a go. I asked Annie to reflect on any transformational moments that she had become aware of through the storytelling process. (A) Probably my VCE was a big turning point. I got the results on the day of my 18th birthday, ruined my 18th birthday. I was so ashamed … people wanted to come and see me for my birthday … I said “Tell them to go away ... I don’t want to see anybody.” I sat on the floor crying for 2 hours and then my Mum said “I‘ve had enough of this crying, get up off the floor”, took me to the TAFE, with my best friend Gemma, who was also crying because she got the same. That was the worst day. Retrospectively, I realise now how it’s not the be all and end all … that changed ‘sooo’ much. I thought it was a given, I was going to get into uni … that was it … nothing to it. To be honest looking back I wasn’t ready to go to Uni. The things that I learned in my first year at TAFE, I would have sucked, I would have failed so bad. I didn’t have the skills I needed … I feel like I’m still getting them now. I think it was a blessing that neither of us got it. I don’t know if I would have done if I’d got in and she hadn’t … it’s such a big deal and that’s all everyone talks about for a year. “How you going, are you going to uni after VCE?” You tell everyone “Yep, I’m going to uni and I’m going to do this.” For the next few months after that it’s all anybody talks about “How did you go?” “What did you get?” “What are you doing to do now?” So I understand the whole massive failure thing. But it’s not the end of the world, and it’s not a failure, you just choose a different pathway … another way to get there. At the end of Year 12 I felt like giving up a bit … “I’m not good enough” … but I knew that wasn’t an option, and I’m glad I didn’t … I would have then been glad to just go and get a job like everyone else … because of all the people I did Year 12 with, two of them go to uni … all the rest are either 5
Frankl suggested that Freud essentially postulated a will to pleasure as the root of all motivation, and Adler the will to power. Logotherapy postulates a will to meaning. (Morgan, 2005)
58
unemployed, working part time jobs or pregnant. That’s it. I would have been ready to do that but my parents wouldn’t have allowed that. So that’s really good that they have pushed me to go … I get a better head start in life, better than my parents did and a lot better than all the girls that I grew up with. I look at them and what they are doing and am happy for them, but they could be doing a lot more. I think it’s really good that I have had that push, and I haven’t given up when I wanted to give up. I think with everything that has happened, it has really pushed me to be who I am and I‘m a much better person for it. Before everything else I was kind of naïve, and I was really self-centred it was all about me, but I’ve realised how important everyone else is now. So I think it’s really good as it’s made me a better person in that way. I asked Zac about some of the people in his life that had been the biggest influence on him. (Z) My Mum showed me that you are never too old to learn … she has always encouraged me to learn more … even if it does piss me off sometimes. My oldest brother’s drive to work constantly … work for what you want … buy what you want … do whatever. My middle brother’s attitude toward life … sort of “You might die tomorrow, what does it matter if you have $100,000,000 in your bank account … live for now.” All my friends have kept me interested in life. My oldest brother is a caulker and … does it because it’s an income and needs to work otherwise he’ll stop functioning, and the middle brother is a plumber … in between here and overseas. He’s working to live, not living to work. He’s going overseas to do work for charity, for an organisation … basically he is going to go and live in Africa for a month and essentially help rebuild … communities. So instead of just pouring money into a country, you are actually achieving something and seeing it happen. I commented that his older brother was trying to find something that was meaningful in some way, to be committed to something more than the mindless, brain-numbing existence Zac had referred to earlier. (Z) But all he’s doing … yes, it’s a great cause and it’s achieving a lot of good … but at the end of the day, what is that teaching anyone? You are basically teaching an entire community “Don’t you learn how to do it, someone else will come over, pay for everything and do it for you.” Zac speaks in a voice of awakening – on the edge of his knowing (Berger, 2004), strongly expressing his discontent, but yet to recognise and embrace the personal authority and power that will enable him to constructively critique the social structures that have held his thinking captive. Reflecting the uninformed and uncontested opinions of others around him who have no knowledge of the community development methodology underpinning the project named, he speaks derisively of things he has yet to discover, much like the frog in the well. Reference was made earlier to Swartz’s (1997) discussion of the underlying motivation, and the transformational moment in time, that causes one to move from a point of “stuckness” (A. Nelson, 1994), of extreme cognitive dissonance, into a future of hope and possibility, and perhaps a point will come when Zac recognises and chooses, like his brother, to utilise his agency to create positive change within an otherwise constricting and inconguent structure.
59
(Z) Working full time has helped sort of change my perspective on the world … I suppose it does that to everyone. I now see why the world is such a dull place … it makes me want to find something that I enjoy and will continue to enjoy doing, but it’s obviously about finding that thing in life that keeps you motivated. Habits of thought, reading, writing, and speaking which go beneath surface meaning, first impressions, dominant myths, official pronouncements, traditional clichés, received wisdom, and mere opinions, to understand the deep meaning, root causes, social context, ideology, and personal consequences of any action, event, object, process, organization, experience, text, subject matter, policy, mass media, or discourse. (Shor, 1992) Shor joins Freire (1972b) and Brookfield (2005) in suggesting that through critically reflecting on the political aspects of their oppression, there arises within the learner a new opportunity for the creation of a transformed future. I would argue that narrative provides a space where we as educators can support our learners in reflecting on the story of their lives, to interrogate the authenticity of all they have come to know. Martin (2001) speaks of this same imperative, using the catchphrase ‘learning and unlearning’, suggesting that we need to discover how to question and potentially unlearn much of what has gone before – a deconstruction of what has been known about the self and the world in which we reside, so that construction of a new and more authentic sense of self can arise. He refers to Socrates and his proclamation that an unexamined life is not worth living. "... questioning is not just somewhat useful; it is an indispensable part of a worthwhile life for any person and any citizen.” (cited in Nussbaum (1997) The observation is made by Nussbaum that “… Socrates and his followers the Stoics were aware that many people at that time, not unlike now, led passive lives with their actions and choices dictated by conventional belief. The central task of educators, according to the Stoics, was ”… to confront the passivity of the pupil, challenging the mind to take charge of its own thought" This is not without its stresses though for the transformational educators of today. For many, the educational experience has reflected Freire’s notion of a ‘banking’ model, where learners' ‘deficiencies’ are overcome by ‘topping up’ their existing skills or ‘adding value’ to their productive capacity by way of depositing extra skills. This ultimately renders them ‘employable’ (Freire, 1972b),. but fails to ignite a sense of critical consciousness where their discomfort and discontent with ruling ideologies might be allowed to emerge.
60
Positioning oneself as a teacher in opposition to the hegemonic culture inscribing classrooms is never a comfortable role for teachers or students. In this sometimes discomforting role, Shor asserts, one must struggle to find strategies that encourage rather than discourage students from thinking of themselves as critical agents shaping their own education. When students are able to think of themselves as such empowered agents, Shor maintains that both students and teachers develop their capacities as democratic agents and social critics—everyone becomes involved in the learning process (Villaverde). It is the unquestioning assimilation of all that has gone before – uncritical acceptance of all that has been said, experienced and assumed – that has underpinned the incorporation of a critically reflective space for my learners. Whether these learners are new to vocational education and training as they undertake a vocational course, or are highly experienced VET practitioners undertaking professional development, this reflective space gives voice to what has previously been unseen, unknown and unnamed. This space allows new and personally authentic knowing to arise and take root, and it is this space that storytelling unfolded for my participants as they explored the learning of their lives to this point. 3.11 Reconciling the events of the past – a transformed perspective How do we come to know, to identify, to name and to reconcile the truths and stories of our lives, to find a way of moving forward that is personally authentic? Viktor Frankl, a psychotherapist prior to his wartime experiences as a Holocaust survivor, was later to examine this same dilemma through the lens of Logotherapy and its associated search for meaning-making in suffering (Frankl, 1964). He maintains that relative to our ability to find and attach meaning to a situation, we are able to endure suffering, and to emerge as victors rather than victims. “… Thus, I exercise imagination, creating images and metaphors in the development of the narrative, and in doing so add myself to myself. Through imagination, the autobiographer creates the past by infusing facts and events with interpretation, direction, suggestiveness, and ultimately human meaning” Brady, E.M (1990) It is proposed by many (Brady, 1990; Brookfield, 2005; Bruner, 1983, 1990; Clark, 1999; Cranton, 1994; Denzin, 1989; Dirkx, 2001; Dominice, 2000; Erikson, 1975; Frankl, 1997; Freire, 1974a; Gardner, 2006; Maslow Abraham, 1962; McAdams, Josselson, & Lieblich, 2006; Mezirow, 2003; A. C. Nelson, 1995 ; Rogers, 1961; Willans & Seary, 2007) that we are continually coming into being, and Olney (1980) writes eloquently of ‘an essential
61
oneness’ that holds together the multiplicity and continual transformations of being, in the task of reconstructing the unity of a life across time. Kate had spoken earlier in our interview about her current employment as a cook in an aged care facility, and the sense of safety and opportunity for reflection it had provided her. Conversation then turned to a sense of a time of change and emerging choices, even while burdened by her past. (K) I’m thinking I’ve been there long enough, I’ve found where I need to go now. But don’t forget I’m thwarted by certain things too … where I lack experience/confidence … so I’m still constantly trying to regain that confidence in myself … who I am … and I had to go out on a strong limb to protect all four of my children. The fact that they are young adults I can now start to relax. I’m not ‘ear up’ … I can sleep through the night now … I went through a very intense part of my life where I was consistently awake … I was protecting little children from … the action and reaction of ignorance. Where I am now … fifty … good spot for me to be because I’m coming out the other end of a lot of things. We were talking about impacts of life, and people … and I said about taking the good. It took me a long time to learn that, to learn how to take the good out of something instead of focussing on the result of being hurt. I think you have to go through the victim stage to come out the other side. Kate’s comments echo Frankl’s reference to finding meaning in suffering (1970), and her recognition of the continual transformations of being, referred to by Olney, in the task of reconstructing the unity of a life across time (1980). We discussed the variety of vocational identities she has assumed over her career and learning path to this point, which included Veterinary Science, building on her childhood love of and connection with animals; art and music, as a legacy of a creative and highly talented mother; hospitality, where she spoke of a high level of competence; and currently as a cook in Aged Care. Kate commented that much of her work had contained servitude, and I asked her if there was something additional she would like to learn now that might contribute to her future. (K) I’m learning it now … I have come to the academic side of my life and that’s where I have been trying to go all my life, ever since I could read. I feel like I’m finally making the beginning of that journey Having articulated a strong connection with the creative and caring sides of herself through our interview, I asked her to consider the strengths and values she had identified as meaningful … connections with people, animals, art, expression of feelings, and suggested demonstrated strengths around psychology, human services and the creative arts. (K) I’m not clear, I’m still finding my way, if I knew where I was meant to go or where I was being directed … sometimes we prevent ourselves from getting there because we are just not ready … I can only think that must be the case. We spoke of the feelings that can arise before the birth of something new – discontent, irritation, boredom and restlessness. (K) It’s a bit like when you are in labour isn’t it, when you get to the point where “I’m fed up, I’m ready to have this child.” and you have to get to that emotional and mental state before you are relaxed enough to have the baby. I have been looking for it for a long time.
62
In my closing thoughts, I invited Kate to give more thought to our discussion, to let me know if she wished to add to the story, and that I hoped it might plant some seeds and lead to new imagining about how she might move forward in some way. I also invited her to consider, that given her expressed interest in art, whether sitting down and drawing some pictures around her reflections might help her to ‘percolate’ it a bit more. I asked her if she had any closing thoughts. (K) It’s open ended, so I have no closing comments. I probably don’t get to have intellectual conversation like this very often, so it’s been good for me … to be able to open up and have a conversation with someone who has that sort of understanding. We reflected on the incredible strengths Kate had identified in herself through her struggles, finishing with a thought of what she might be able to contribute of her own life learning towards the resolution of others’ pain. (K) I would like to contribute to that fight ... I hadn’t thought about it like that – thank you The function of insight is twofold To remove blocks in our customary and fixed conceptions of things, And to gain new perceptions. Douglas Sloan, (1983) Having come to a place where he was able to articulate the strong foundation of his life, I invited Penn to identify any barriers to moving forward personally or professionally. (P) Probably my laziness … if something doesn’t interest me, I really don’t bother with it. Which I possibly should … but that’s one thing that I have to make myself do … if it’s something that doesn’t interest me and I really have to do it for a reason … I have to make myself do it. Really have to just push through these things … you can’t really let anything stand in your way, especially if it’s your own shortcoming. I think if you come up against a wall it’s very easy to fall into a habit of just walking away and ignoring it. Even if it’s just something that only … you know about … it might just be a mental hurdle that you yourself have to overcome … I think you have to do these things to satisfy yourself. I have always thought that it’s very easy to only do the good thing when everyone is watching, the hard bit is doing what is right and good when you are by yourself. I always try to make myself … do these things because it really is falling into the habit of doing the wrong thing or taking the easy path. I think making yourself go the extra mile with everything in your life gives you that opportunity that when you have to do something, you don’t even have to stop to think … you just naturally do it … exercising your mind and your moral code. I think it gives you a lot of confidence as well when you have that certainty in yourself. When you can say that I’m a good person. Or I may not be a good person, but I’m a decent person. I think that allows you to stand tall and proud and walk forward through things and you come to a hurdle that you aren’t going to get around … you can face it because you’ve got that sense of self esteem and you know who you are and what you are.
63
We discussed making decisions in life that are less than authentic, that erode the sense of self-image as opposed to living authentically. (P) I have found that, and I think that has led to the person that I am now more than anything Brady (1990) speaks of going back to the beginning and examining the course of life, and of the three aspects of self on which we can focus. Penn has examined the remembered self and recalled ‘the scraps’ that slowly linked together to form the story. He has constructed a strong sense of meaning attached to his experiences and identified a secure foundation on which a new future – a new story - can be built. This ordered self, according to Brady, enables the creation of the imagined self, and I asked Penn about his vision of the future … if his life could be anything he wanted it to be, what would it look like? (P) I have no idea … I think that’s half the excitement … taking it as it comes. I mean, I don’t really speculate that often on what my life will be like in five years, because looking back I can see when I have speculated on what life may be like in the future … it’s always been entirely wrong. Not bad … different … but not a bad thing … it’s always been a pleasant surprise to think, “Oh wow, isn’t it amazing that this kind of thing happened?” I really quite look forward to the future, because I like that sort of surprise and it doesn’t really scare me thinking “Oh what will things be like in five years time?” I quite relish the opportunity to … look back and think “Oh gee … didn’t see this one coming…” Like we talked about before … making the right decisions for you … because it gives you that sense of knowing that you are leading a worthwhile life. Everything about me I think gives me the opportunity to know that no matter what comes, I’m not going to look back and feel bad. I’ve made wrong decisions at times, but they seem right at the time and in retrospect if you went back, it’s the only choice you’d make … I think that’s the freedom of living a confident life where you are certain of who you are … that gives you that confidence and freedom to know that no matter what happens you will have made the right decisions for you. So there’s no fear … because you know you will take it as it comes. Penn has indeed been able to identify and articulate the personally authentic knowing that has emerged for him through the storytelling process - a second reading of his human experience (Brady, 1990). Myerhoff, cited in Brady, (1990), speaks of remembering – reconnecting to the self in a new and more congruent way. Penn’s learning experiences have been positive for him, buoyed by an apparently rich cultural capital (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977) that has encouraged him to reach unafraid for life’s challenges, and through the storytelling process, he has been able to reaffirm this knowing and build on the imagining of what lies ahead for him in his story yet to unfold. Zac and I then spoke about reconciling the understanding of how all that had happened in his life has influenced who he is today, his sense of identity as a learner and his ability to move forward in life. (Z) At the moment I’m not, I’m back-stepping. I haven’t really achieved much at all … there is always a positive to everything … there is always a way of getting through anything … if there wasn’t we wouldn’t have progressed as far as we have … even when other people say it can’t be done. They get laughed at, they get ridiculed, there is always that one person who says “I don’t care what you think, I’m going to do it anyway. If it works it does, if it doesn’t then so be it.”
64
I asked him if he was excited about finding a new way of doing something. (Z) Of course, but what is there to do now that isn’t already being done? There’s a hundred things a day that go through my mind, then I weigh up the pros and cons and push them out of my mind and forget about them … I want to do something, not sure what, but I do want to do something. There is millions of possibilities of what I could do, what I should do, what I can and can’t do. I’m obviously not happy with where I am at the moment … need to figure out what I want to do. I queried whether he had any thoughts about how he could do that. (Z) Not really. Not without taking time off work, which I can’t afford to … I don’t have much leave and I can’t afford to have time off not paid. I need to go back to school, that’s what I need to do … I just need to make it happen. I need to find something, make sure I’m dedicated to it, then start it. I asked how he might figure out what he needed to do and if he could identify any barriers to moving forward personally or professionally. (Z) How long is a piece of string? I could be walking through the park one day and see something I enjoy doing, I don’t know how it’s going to happen, but it will happen. I’m willing to learn, I’m perfectly happy to cut back and go back to earning less. It’s just a matter of time, finding out what needs to be done before jumping in. And finally I invited him to imagine a future that would be his absolute delight, and to describe what it would look like. (Z) Probably own a lot of restaurants and resorts, night clubs. Probably more night clubs than restaurants, social atmosphere, bringing people together, having fun, that’s what I enjoy doing. Autobiographical learning, a form of learning from experience, sustains the ongoing formation and reinvention of life (and its narrative), but only in so far as learners attend with both imagination and critical reflection to the contexts and circumstances in their lives ... (it) includes all the processes by which we come to compose and construct our life story of continuity and change. Learners generate narratives of selfunderstanding, and find explanations of change in a variety of ways; sometimes suddenly, at other times as a result of a lengthy period of learning. (A. Nelson, 1994) Zac’s understanding and explanations are still unfolding for him, but the questioning and imagining he has articulated as part of participating in this storytelling process has opened windows of speculation. Much like the frog in the well, his imagining will emerge to the extent that his questioning allows him to open to the possibility of the new. Nelson speaks of the arduous nature of the transformative process (A. Nelson, 1994), and how Zac chooses to allow that questioning to seed new perspectives is yet to be revealed.
65
“A man possesses himself in flashes, and even when he possesses himself, he does not reach himself completely. He does not realize that constant cohesion of his forces without which all true creation is impossible. I mean to say that he has a distinct reality which redeems him. Nevertheless this man exists. Should he be condemned to oblivion simply because he can give only fragments of himself?” Antonin Artaud (1976) Annie had shared an incredible journey through her life-story, and I invited her to reflect on her development to this point, and to consider the people, environments and circumstances that have influenced who she is today … some of the strengths she was able to identify through the learning. (A) I think I’m really strong and can hold things together well. I can keep things going, I think that’s a really good skill to have. I think it’s made me tougher, I think I was a push over before, I still am but I am tougher now, I can say “No.”. I think I’m a good carer, caring for and about people. Loving and compassion and understanding, I think I’ve got that. It’s difficult to talk about yourself. I am creative and I think I’m talented ... I know I’m smart … when I got my offer for this year, I felt intellectually validated … I felt smart … it was like “I’m good enough.” and I like that feeling, that worth. All my extra work paid off … that extra year at school paid off … it wasn’t all a mistake, and I shouldn’t have just gone and got a job … I can achieve anything. It was really good. I think I’m a lot more accepting than I was, like it doesn’t always matter. I think it’s about acceptance … you don’t have to fit into that perfect box and you can be a bit different … that’s a very valuable thing to learn … know. I think I have a lot more perspective now, and a better understanding of myself. You should understand yourself … you are the one you’ve been with for the whole 19 years. I think I understand why I make the decisions I make a lot more. Like instead of being good, I know why I want to be good, instead of just trying to be the best, I know why I want to be the best. Not just because I want to get a good job and go to uni, there are other factors behind it. It can help me with my motivation, now I know what I’m working for. Instead of just working for something and not knowing why, I now do. I asked her about any personal or social barriers that she was aware of that might influence her ability to continue to move forward in the ways that she has imagined. (A) Myself more than anything, as I let everything else get to me. I’m always trying to make everybody else happy, so they aren’t disappointed. I need to decide what I want and go forth with that as opposed to doing what everyone else wants me to do … even though it might be the same thing … having that different motivation. I think I need to figure everything out for myself … it’s all on me now … not everyone else. Never had to sort out stuff for myself … everything has been always sorted for me. I think it’s trial and error right now.
66
We discussed whether her art was a way for Annie to work through knowing how to move forward – her guiding light to find the links to her future, given that it had been such a powerful tool in enabling the expression of her thoughts about whether she was worthy of being found and kept. I asked if she had been conscious of this knowing before her participation in the study – whether she had previously named it, or if it was something that had come out of the process. (A) When you started this, I read through and thought about all the things that I had to ask myself, and I actually talked through it with my friend Gemma beforehand and it came out during that discussion. So it is because of this that it all came up. So when I spoke to you, I knew what I wanted to talk about, it gave me a place to start talking about it at. You were right about the introspection … like really looking at myself … I’d write something down and think “Why am I writing that’? What’s behind that?” So I found it really opening … like an opening experience to find out what I think the way I do, and why I want the things I do ... things I really hadn’t considered why before. It’s just what it is, a really opening experience. Annie’s process through the study has been a strong representation of Mezirow’s phases of the transformative learning, about growing awareness of her discontent, with strong feelings of fear and guilt around her emerging restlessness. She has identified aspects of her assumed knowing, and has chosen to look beneath what she had unquestioningly come to accept as her truth. The space for storytelling has provided the opportunity for her to critically assess long held assumptions, and she is opening to new possibilities – daring to imagine an alternative way forward. I suggested she might like to consider getting herself a little sketch book, and that as she was inclined, to sit down and continue her story. (A) I think I would, I like the sound of that. We had discussed Annie’s intention to move into a double degree in Liberal Arts & Education, and I asked her if had any other thoughts about how she might like to move into her future. (A) I would like to take up a design class and maybe dancing again, as I quit that 12 months ago. I love dance, it’s the best. I’ve looked at doing a part time design type of course but there is only full time available and I can’t commit to full time. Now I have my licence I can actually travel further and look at other places. Was there anything she had recognised that she would like to leave behind as she stepped into her future? (A) Probably the worrying, I worry a lot. I think I need to sort things out, get answers, stop questioning and go out and find answers … constantly worrying about everything, maybe I need to roll with the punches a bit more. The worrying is constant, and I can’t get other things done. I always worry about the worst thing that can happen all the time … I’m a worrier … worry about the weirdest things all the time. It’s just so consuming, I could be doing so much more, more productive. Like getting into art! Too indecisive … too wishy washy … need to be more decisive.
67
I asked Annie about her ‘no holds barred’ vision of her future, - if she could shape it differently, and be anything she wanted to be, with no limitations, what would it look like? (A) I would be a teacher, married and have 3 kids. But then I would do foster-care, as Mum did that when I was a little girl. I had foster sisters, so I’d have a big family. I’d work in a school that was poor, not a rich or private school, one like I went to – one with a bad reputation. I’d dress really nicely everyday, pencil skirt, blazer. I don’t have to worry about that, it’s just going to happen. I will make it happen. We closed our interview with thoughts of drawing and African dance to honour Annie’s creative passions, and to provide some fun space for her ongoing expression. (A) Time for me to do fun stuff, something crazy – not too crazy though!! “Retelling the life story is neither mere reiteration, nor even paraphrase. It is the serial reconstruction of the life story that takes form within and through the process of the author's ongoing self-interpretation. Each new telling of the life story reveals the emerging self-understanding of the author.” (A. C. Nelson, 1995 ) 3.12 The learning identified through the stories – the focus group In our focus group, which Zac and Kate were unable to attend, I invited Penn, Sara and Annie to reflect on any changed perspectives on life identified since our individual interviews – new knowledge of self uncovered, possibilities previously unconsidered, barriers identified – anything related to the life and learning reflection they had undertaken as part of the storytelling process. Annie commented that she wanted more answers, less questions, more action as she moves forward. (A) The fundamentals haven’t changed but I think they will be different people in my life … it will be better too. Different for the better, hard to articulate … not just being along for the ride in my life … I want to make some choices … I don’t want everyone making my choices for me. I’m twenty this year and I’ve still got my parents making my choices for me. I’m going to start making my own choices, and make something of myself … I’m turning twenty and I haven’t rebelled yet. I have become much more specific as a learner … I’ve opened myself up a lot more to more opportunities. Things I didn’t think I could do, well why can’t I? … At the same time I’m much more focussed on trying things I haven’t done before, so it’s kind of altered me on both ends of the scale. I was stuck to the book subjects, that was what I was expected to do and I was focussed on those, but I have interest in other areas too and now I can branch out and focus on both ends of the scale. I think that’s really helpful as I might not have done it otherwise.
68
Penn identified personal barriers to his moving forward (P) I have the tendency to make decisions on the basis of “I could do that now... or...” ... I always tend to choose the fun option. I’ve always known that at a certain stage I’m going to have to be a little more responsible. … I don’t want to look back at the end of my life and go, “I didn’t really have that much fun.” My favourite teachers were the ones that would run into the classroom … everyone was just sitting down and taking out their books … teacher runs in and says, “No, put it all away, we are doing this!” Then we would go on a crazy jog through the forest … I love those teachers. We talked about him becoming that teacher, and I asked if there was anything he would like to add about his vision of his future. (P) I suppose I tend to think of everything in terms of looking back, because I used to be quite a shy person … still am in a lot of ways. But at a certain stage … I realised that not doing things is not worth it. When you are at a comedy show and somebody asks you to get up on stage, if you are the guy sitting there going “Just leave me out of it”, you still feel exactly the same afterwards as if you got up there. The difference is that if you really do it, when you tell the story later you can say, “Yep I got up there, I was on stage” ... everyone says “That’s … fantastic!” Have you seen the show ‘How I met your Mother’? Where the format is the guy telling his kids about stories, I tend to think of everything in that regard. When I do something I do it thinking this is going to be so embarrassing, but next weekend when I catch up with my friends, I’ll be telling them about this and it will be awesome and I think that’s just how I think about everything. I want to be able to talk about it later and when you’ve got something in front of you, you want to be able to say you did the awesome thing, the brave thing, like you walked across the coals. It might hurt like hell, but later you can go, “I walked right across a bed of coals and it was brilliant … See these scars?” That’s how I think about things that I do, I want to look back on it and think “God, you were awesome!” I commented that he was already awesome – an ongoing thing, and a fabulous attitude to have. (P) That’s my worldview – awesomeness. And Sara’s vision for her future? S) It was funny being asked that question because … one of my biggest fears is time … I’m scared if I don’t do everything now I will live with the regret of not doing it, that’s why I go insane and do everything. So I think it was more after I spoke with you … it was building on what I spoke about … I want to be able to earn a living from what I love so I can go home and do things like be with my family … go to bed at a sensible time … so it doesn’t all run into each other and not everything is fighting for time ... even though I like how it’s pretty unpredictable, the acting, you don’t know where you are going to be and I think that’s awesome, to be in a place, do the hard work, get your grounding and go out and really get into the world. If my vision on the future has changed in that little way, I think I’m ready to commit more because I know how much I want to do it. … I didn’t articulate it very well the first time, but for a
69
lot of people who are self conscious and don’t have a lot of confidence they find that when you put yourself out there in the centre of things, like in performing, it is the place for judgement and scrutiny, it’s like the centre, you are putting yourself out there to be open to that, and yet it is the same place for freedom. I think it’s … growing more aware … that when you’re learning, don’t let your mind drift or anything because it’s the detail in what you learn not the broad idea … it’s paying attention ... being more present. So … you are aware when something bigger comes along that you’ve actually been waiting for.
After the Focus Group, I rang Zac to seek his final thoughts on the reflective process. He spoke of his plans to enrol in a university course in 2011 that would lead him into what he named broadly as politics. We discussed the Diploma of Liberal Arts as a possible introduction into the many intersecting aspects of humanities and the social sciences, and the opportunity it offered to build the skills required around study. Zac is taking it all under consideration. Through our conversations I have come to see that Zac has a highly intelligent and inquiring mind, a creative approach to life, and is gifted with great strengths around communicating with people - all he has lacked is a purposeful and meaningful way of utilising and applying these assets. My hope is that through having undertaken this reflective process, and now stepping out onto this new learning pathway, he will find the stimulation and interest he seeks that will allow his bright new future to unfold. The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. George Bernard Shaw (1903)
In my final discussion with Kate, I inquired if she had any further reflections on the process. She recognized that undertaking the storytelling had stirred her thinking, and had been surprised by how powerfully looking back at the past had impacted on her. She now has insight into why she responds to certain situations in the way that she does, where previously she hadn’t understood why some things affected her so intensely, when they didn’t affect others at all. Looking through different eyes, Kate has expressed an understanding that it relates to unresolved issues, and commented that through the process of coming to understand this she has also identified that these issues will probably remain unexamined for a time, if at all. She identified her inability to move forward most effectively until such time as she is able to confront and deal with the issues. Kate expressed that it has been beneficial for her to have clarified this
70
understanding and was grateful for the opportunity to gain insight into why she behaves and responds the way that she does. As a parting gift to each of my participants I bundled a notebook with a fountain pen and coloured pencils and encouraged each of them to continue their storytelling through drawing, writing, imagining and expressing the possibilities. Speaking their story into existence.
71
Chapter 4. Conclusion -- the power and potential of storytelling in adult learning 4.1 Back to the beginning
What we call the beginning is often the end And to make an end is to make a beginning The end is where we start from … A people without history Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern Of timeless moments … We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time T. S. Eliot (1944) What then is the learning that can be identified within the telling of these life stories? What are the common themes that have emerged that can be utilised to optimise the learning and career opportunities of the adult learners who populate our learning spaces each day? How can we cultivate the growth of these individuals as they step tentatively out on their journey into further education? My purpose in undertaking this research has been to: Explore the validity of the anecdotal evidence I have gathered over many years, around the transformational power of story. Determine if others had experienced and documented similar outcomes related to the use of narrative, utilising a Transformative Learning theoretical framework, in adult learners returning to study within the VET sector; Examine the educational contexts within which research may have taken place, most particularly related to the VET sector; Establish what findings have emerged, and Identify opportunities for further research within the VET sector
72
My inquiry related to the following questions: In what ways can telling and reflecting on their story provide adult learners returning to study with a greater knowledge of self that may foster a richer engagement in the learning process, build learner self-identity and potentially promote more beneficial learning and vocational outcomes? How might any transformations in the perspectives of adult learners returning to study extend beyond the individual to their immediate environment and society?
What are the potential implications of these findings on pedagogical practice and curriculum design within the VET sector?
4.2 The research journey in summary Chapter 1 introduced the range of personal experience that has founded the incorporation of storytelling as a tool for promoting transformational learning across the diverse contexts of my vocational practice. In Chapter 2, I outlined the disorienting process of examining the broad range of literature related to the narrative tradition, and the ultimate incorporation of the relevant strengths of each to support the examination of the learning stories shared. Reference was made to utilising the storytelling approach across the breadth of the research project, including the writing of the thesis, to further highlight the transformative nature of narrative for my self-selected participants, for me as both participant and researcher, and for the research project itself. The open-ended questions that guided data collection though individual interviews and a focus group were discussed, as were the choices and environmental circumstances that placed limitations on the process and outcomes of the study. Chapter 3 saw participants’ life stories woven through the rich body of literature around promoting transformative learning and critical inquiry across learning spaces, most predominantly within the context of higher education. Various theoretical approaches to cultivating the learner on their journey through the process of their becoming were related to the experiences and new perspectives shared through the stories of my participants. Finally, Chapter 4 draws together the rich learning identified and makes recommendations for the development of programs that incorporate the storytelling methodology for adult learners returning to study, and for a broader participative research study to further explore the limited generalisability of these findings. 4.3 Support from across the spectrum My quest for credibility in my approach to providing space for returning learners to undertake a reflective storytelling approach has found rich support in literature across many seemingly incongruent arenas. Not surprisingly I found rich endorsement from educational writers who promote a Socratic and person-centred approach to encouraging the learner on their transformative journey, all advocating, in various forms, a critically reflective, self-determined cultivation of and by the individual. They concur that in order
73
to optimise personally meaningful learning outcomes, we as educators must ensure that safe spaces are provided for our learners to explore and critically question assumptions, and where they can deconstruct what has been unquestioningly assimilated. Through creating the conditions where this critical consciousness can be cultivated, individuals have the opportunity to more effectively construct an authentic sense of self-identity and personal capacity. Where I assumed that an economic approach to achieving objectively measurable success in the corporate world might preclude a humanistic approach to transformative learning, I found Welch (1998) and Drucker (1995), both giants of business, who joined a chorus of organisational leadership writers (Goleman, Boyatzis, & McKee, 2002b; M. Wheatley, Tannenbaum, & Griffin, 2003) in encouraging us to cultivate the individual in order to best meet the aims of the corporation. Most unexpected. Perhaps there is a bridge between the economic imperatives of capitalism and a socially just world. 4.4 The learning from the stories shared The literature reviewed provided strong evidence of the benefits of critical reflection, sometimes as a catalyst, always as a tool in successfully navigating the questioning that arises through the transformative process. Taylor (2007) recognized the need to differentiate the significance of forms of reflection, and Mezirow’s identification of content, process and premise reflection (Cranton, 1994), supports Taylor urging us to foster the development of the deeper act of premise reflection – questioning the underlying importance we are placing on the problem itself … “Why is this important to me?
Ways of knowing Throughout this study, the research participants were encouraged to critically examine the knowing expressed by them, in order for space to be provided for identification of hegemonic assumptions on which this knowing is founded. Brady’s remembered self (Brady, 1990) was brought to the fore through the process of storytelling, drawing together the disparate and seemingly unconnected aspects of past experience. As their stories wove together, meshing historical fact and truth of imagination (Olney, 1980), each participant has had the opportunity to create meaning that has to various extents enabled a more ordered self to be formulated – the foundations on which a new story can be built. Now the imagined self can begin to take root, as new possibilities, new dreaming is seeded and nurtured (Brady, 1990). Nelson (1994) spoke of discovering authorship of one’s life, and that relative to the capacity we have to imagine how else life might be, there develops a buoyant sense of personal authority. He referred to critical internal and external factors that can often act as catalysts to a previously unimagined future, and of this moment of change “ … the instrument of transformation …trouble that leads to crisis … if this disruption to order is unable to be accommodated within the existing social structure, there may arise the legitimation of a new order …” (A. Nelson, 1994). As choices and deeply rooted changes in behaviour and enacted personal authority came into play for each of my participants, an altered sense of self emerged that holds promise for progression beyond self-identified barriers. As their knowing arises,
74
deliberate decisions will need to be made to enact alternative ways of being that will constitute a conscious shift away from previously valued personal commitments that may contravene long held practices and the strong influences of institutional or cultural norms (Taylor, 2007). The transformative journey, as Taylor has indicated, can be an arduous, and often drawn out affair, where new epistemological frameworks take time to percolate and gain clarity (Taylor, 2007). He speaks of “… developing a sense of trust in the process of transformative learning, allowing for students to live with some discomfort while on the edge of knowing, in the process of gaining new insights and understandings.” Each of my participants has articulated an awakening sense of possibility of how they might now step forward, and have expressed a sense of freedom in choosing to claim and enact a more personally authentic and self-authored life. The brief opportunities provided to lay open the depths of their memories through the telling of their stories is limited in its capacity to achieve a totally transformed perspective for these learners, but it is a springboard to another level of understanding. Is it re-creating or re-storying? Is it re-membering? Is it reconciling? However we call it, it is coming, perhaps for the first time, to our truth – the unfolding of the story yet to be told. My storytellers are on the edge of their own knowing (Berger, 2004), along the continuum of the ever-morphing path of becoming. 4.5 Limitations and opportunities As has been identified through the telling of these stories, in the living and unfolding of our lives, the stumbling blocks encountered often turn out to be the building blocks of our future, and the story of my research has reflected this same reality. My original intent had been to find learners in the infancy of returning to study, whose early experiences had discouraged and disabled their sense of self-identity as a learner, but I encountered many stumbling blocks along the path to undertaking my research that created barriers to this end. Where I had hoped to interview those with limited experience in personal reflection, and to support them in undertaking the telling of their learning and career pathway, the barriers encountered through the preparation and implementation of my study resulted in the recruitment of four out of five participants whose approach to the learning opportunities in life was already well developed, and whose lives already contained deeply reflective traits. My research was a small-scale study conducted in one TAFE institute only, involving a relatively small, self-selected sample of participants and limited data gathering activities, all of which restrict the generalisability of my research findings. The issue of gender may well be significant in differentiating disparate responses identified throughout the interviews, but was not examined within this study. It does however identify an opportunity for further research, around the possibility of providing storytelling spaces and strategies that are responsive to gender specific issues and attitudes. Even within these limitations, my research has uncovered unexpectedly rich learning. I have found that when provided with a safe space to reflect deeply, these learners have been able to draw on the story of their lives and to tell the stories of their continued
75
‘becoming’. As Nelson has identified (1995 ) when we attend with both imagination and critical reflection to the contexts and circumstances of our lives, and as we examine the continuities and changes, it leads to an interpretive story of improvisation and selfcomposition. He notes that the self-understanding and transformational learning that emerges is often achieved through an arduous journey, with explanations sometimes gained suddenly, sometimes through lengthy periods of learning. Each of the participants, to varying degrees, has articulated recognition of past influences on current attitudes and behaviours, and an emerging awareness of how they might compose new ways of moving forward with their lives. 4.6 Becoming agents of change – the power of narrative to transform
The questioning that arose – did I find my answers? In undertaking this research, my aim was to determine if others had encountered and documented outcomes similar to my own anecdotal experiences, related to the use of narrative, and utilising a Transformative Learning theoretical framework, in adult learners returning to study within the VET sector. I discovered that while much literature exists around both Transformative Learning Theory and the power of narrative within the context of higher education, I found no apparent evidence of an integrated approach being applied within the context of vocational education and training. The work-dominated discourse of VET policy and practice (Victorian TAFE Association, 2010) suggests that learning in VET involves the acquisition of a set of skills or competencies that are external to the learner, and which the learner lacks, reflecting Freire’s notion of a deficit/banking approach, which aims to overcome learners' ‘deficiencies’ by ‘topping up’ their existing skills or ‘adding value’ to their productive capacity by way of depositing extra skills, ultimately rendering the learner ‘employable’. This approach assumes the locus of learning and curriculum lies outside the learner rather than within the learners themselves. I would argue that the findings of my research explicitly problematise, if not overturn, such assumption and narrow conceptions about the purpose and outcomes of VET, identifying that the nature of learning is far more complex, multifaceted and potentially empowering in non-vocational ways than is conventionally presumed (Anderson, 1999). It suggests that the most potentially valuable and transformative learning that occurs within the context of VET may well be that which emerges from a ‘curriculum’ that is generated from within learners themselves, wherein they are working on and from their selves - restorying their lives - which may also include the development of new technical skills or workplace competencies, but which cannot be simply reduced to the latter. Indeed, it could be argued that the development of new technical skills or workplace competencies may not translate as effectively into employment unless the learner has at the same time, as an integral part of the whole learning process, also rewritten, relearned and reoriented their life stories in ways that incorporate and embody the new skills and competencies in a newly constructed sense of self.
76
Rich opportunities exist for more extensive research to examine how this storytelling methodology might be applied and incorporated within foundational and other programs across the diverse spectrum of VET educational contexts. A summary of findings Q. In what ways can telling and reflecting on their story provide adult learners returning to study with a greater knowledge of self that may foster a richer engagement in the learning process, build learner selfidentity and potentially promote more beneficial learning and vocational outcomes? Given the limitations of my selection process, within the scope of my study and in the context of adult learners returning to study in vocational education and training, my research has shown that storytelling is a powerful tool in the quest for self-understanding. To greater and lesser extents, each participant has identified previously unrecognised personal truths that draw together aspects of their diverse cultural and life influences (Candy 1991), and articulated an eagerness to engage with new learning experiences that will draw them into newly imagined stories untold. Whether this newly developed perspective will inform sustainable changes in behaviour and influence in the broader ‘web of life’ (Candy 1991) remains to be seen, and is a potential question for further research. Q. How might any transformations in the perspectives of adult learners returning to study extend beyond the individual to their immediate environment and society? It appears significant, in my examination of the literature, that individual transformation may well be seen by many as a precondition for social transformation, but the former doesn’t always or necessarily lead to the latter. There are many writers, particularly within the context of higher education, who suggest and support the proposition that adult education promotes individual growth and transformation, but far fewer argue that it does or should facilitate collective empowerment and social change. Within the context of the corporate world, however, I found Welch (1998), Drucker (1977) Wheatley (2006) Golman (2002a) and other organisational leadership heavyweights acknowledging the benefits of supporting individual development for optimal organisational growth. “We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.” Peter Drucker (cited in (Wilshire, 1990)) Drucker speaks within the context of organisational leadership, but if we examine his reference to learning to learn – perhaps it needs to be more about unlearning first (Martin, 2001), in order that we can cultivate the ground more successfully to allow ourselves and our lives to spring forth more fully. Steinem (1993) highlights that each of us has an inner compass that enables us to find our true selves, and proposes that
77
through telling our stories and connecting with the child of our past, we are able to more fully engage with the true self that holds the keys to our future as yet untold. Through examining the broad range of disciplines that invest in the cultivating the growth and development of individuals, and in drawing together the themes of learning that run across the disparate domains of education, organisational leadership, science and agronomy, I argue that for the learner returning to study within the context of vocational education and training, enormous potential exists for change at an individual level through utilising the storytelling methodology. In applying the Socratic notion of the educator as midwife (Maxwell, 2009), we can support the ‘birth’ of these individuals as they draw forth their own knowing (Peck, 1978; Wilshire, 1990), and look for further evidence around the proposition of chaos theories that identify the profound impact a tiny change in one part of an entity can have on the whole (M. J. Wheatley, 2006). Further investigation is needed to interrogate the validity of the ways in which emerging individual change has the potential to foster change at a community and societal level within the context of vocational education and training. Q. What are the potential implications of these findings for pedagogical practice and curriculum design within the VET sector? I aimed to explore the validity of the anecdotal evidence gathered over many years around the transformational power of story, and I have uncovered rich evidence to support these earlier findings. While the small-scale size of the study limits its generalisability, what has emerged strongly through this study mirrors my own experience, and that of my students across these last years in both Community Services and in the professional development of VET practitioners. In providing the opportunity for individuals, at any point in their learning development, to reflect deeply on the construction of their sense of self and personal capacity, and through examining the premise that underpins the existence and learning contained within the experiences of their lives, heightened critical consciousness and transformed perspectives have been articulated throughout the study. Whilst acknowledging its limitations, I would argue that the study has nonetheless provided strong indications of the benefit of providing opportunities for individuals to reflect deeply on the learning of their lives, where they have the chance to uncover and ‘unlearn’ – to deconstruct inauthentic constructions of self, and where new compositions of capability and potential can be created and enacted. 4.7 Recommendations -- Moving toward a new story The literature on which I focussed for this study highlights the continuum that juxtaposes “transformative learning”, with Mezirow and Nelson towards the “individual/personal” end, and Brookfield and Freire towards the “collective/social” end, and it bears further investigation, around the issue of whether these as yet inconclusive links can be explicitly identified. In the last stages of writing my thesis, I became aware of two writers whose work will underpin future research to identify stronger connections between individual transformation and collective social change:
78
- At the individual/personal end, Jennifer Garvey Berger writes of our learners coming to the edge of their knowing - “the work of a transformative teacher is first to help students find the edge of their understanding, second to be company at that edge, and finally help students construct a new, transformed place. Ultimately, she argues, this process will help students find the courage they need to transform. (Berger, 2004) - At the collective/social end, a study around the relationship between individual perspective transformation and social change. In examining the ways in which individual agency and action might contribute toward a sustainable society, Lange (2004) has identified that transformative learning ‘is not just an epistemological process involving a change in worldview and habits of thinking, it is also an ontological process where participants experience a change in their being in the world including their forms of relatedness. As new meaning perspectives emerged, participants spoke of the imperative of ‘finding ways to enact their sense of social and environmental responsibility.’ The examination of these studies, in combination with the findings of this thesis, will inform further practice-based research around the development of pilot programs within TAFE institutes and the broader VET sector to interrogate the outcomes achievable through cultivating a space where individuals can come together to share the journey of revisiting their story, and in which they have the potential to re-member, re-evaluate and re-story their lives. A participatory research project where people can combine the strengths of their realised individual growth as they work together to transform their future. If we want more evidence-based practice, we need more practice-based evidence. (Green, 2008) This proposed research is strongly aligned with current Ministerial Council for Tertiary Education and Employment (MCTEE) national research priorities (National Centre for Vocational Education Research, 2010), and has the potential to inform policy. Two of the five research priority areas relate to the contribution of education and training to social inclusion - exploring the reduction of disadvantage through education and training, and to learning and teaching - understanding how, why, where and when people learn. It is the intent of this new researcher to build an evidence–based approach to the inclusion of storytelling as a key factor in the individual and collective success of our learners in vocational education and training and beyond.
79
Closing thoughts The process of learning about oneself has been identified as integral to the creation of effective, emotionally intelligent leaders in our communities (Goleman & Cherniss, 2001; Kenyon & Randall, 1997), and as people come to a place of being able to name and define their own knowing through reflecting on the stories of their learning, and to claim personal authority over their lives, a stronger sense of self-identity and self-determination arises that can lead to their creation as new agents of change. Through autobiographical reinterpretation of the past, we can create a meaningful present, and build a strong foundation for an imagined future, and it is change at the individual and personal level that holds the potential for change at a societal level. In fostering the growth and personal authority of individuals, we are investing in the future leaders of our communities whose wisdom and courage will guide our tomorrows. I passed Kate today in the institute canteen, and as I stopped to inquire about her studies, she told me, with a palpable mix of trepidation and exhilaration, of her application for entry into a Bachelor degree in Psychology in 2011. I would argue that for Kate the journey through story has indeed fostered a transformed perspective of the possibilities before her, and that through claiming authorship of a newly imagined future, her learning holds great promise for change in the lives of others. "Here truth no longer means verification, but manifestation, i.e., letting what shows itself be. What shows itself is in each instance a proposed world; a world I may inhabit and wherein I can project my ownmost possibilities. It is in this sense of manifestation that language in its poetic function is a vehicle of revelation" (Ricoeur, 1980 :102).
80
Bibliography Aesop, Temple, O., & Temple, R. K. G. (1998). The complete fables. New York: Penguin Books. Alheit, P. (1995). Biographical learning: Theoretical outline, challenges, and contradictions of a new approach in adult education. In P. Alheit, A. BronWojciechowska, E. Brugger & P. Dominice (Eds.), The Biographical Approach to Adult Education (pp. 57-74). Vienna: Verband Wiener Voksbildung. Anderson, D. (1999). Vocational education reform and students: Redressing silences and omissions. The Australian Educational Researcher, 26(2), 99-125. Andrews, M., Squire, C., & Tamboukou, M. (2008). Doing narrative research. Los Angeles ; London: SAGE. Artaud, A. (1976). Selected writings. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Atkinson, R. (1998). The life story interview (Vol. 44). Thousand Oaks Ca Sage. Berger, J. G. (2004). Dancing on the Threshold of Meaning: Recognizing and Understanding the Growing Edge Journal of Transformative Education 2(4), 336 Boal, A., McBride, C. A., & Leal-McBride, M.-O. (1979). Theatre of the oppressed. London: Pluto Press. Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice. from http://images.lib.monash.edu.au/crt6000/04119070.pdf Online Resource (restricted access): Structures and the habitus [chapter 6] p72-95 [1.09 Mb] Bourdieu, P. (1986). Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education. from http://images.lib.monash.edu.au/edf6821/04099050.pdf Online Resource (restricted access): Forms of capital [chapter 9] p241-258 [858 Kb] Bourdieu, P., & Coleman, J. S. (1991). Social theory for a changing society. Boulder, New York: Westview Press; Russell Sage Foundation. Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J.-C. (1977). Reproduction in education, society and culture. London ; Beverly Hills: Sage Publications. Brady, M. E. (1990). Redeemed From Time: Learning Through Autobiography. Adult Education Quarterly, vol. 41(no. 1), pp. 43-52. Brookfield, S. (2001). Repositioning Ideology Critique in a Critical Theory of Adult Learning. Adult Education Quarterly, 52(1), 7-22. Brookfield, S. (2005). The power of critical theory for adult learning and teaching. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Bruner, J. S. (1979). On knowing : essays for the left hand (Expanded ed.). Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Bruner, J. S. (1983). In search of mind : essays in autobiography (1st ed.). New York: Harper & Row. Bruner, J. S. (1990). Acts of meaning. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Candy, P. C. (1991). Self-direction for lifelong learning : a comprehensive guide to theory and practice (1st ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Clark, C. C. (1999). The Future of Complementary and Alternative Approaches (CAAs) in U.S. Health Care. Complementary Health Practice Review, 5(1), 3-4. Cranton, P. (1994). Understanding and promoting transformative learning: a guide for educators of adults (1st ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Denzin, N. K. (1989). Interpretive biography. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications. Dirkx, J. M. (2001). The Power of Feelings: Emotion, Imagination, and the Construction of Meaning in Adult Learning. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 2001(89), 63-72.
81
Dirkx, J. M., & ERIC Clearinghouse on Adult Career and Vocational Education. (2000). Transformative learning and the journey of individuation, ERIC digest no. 223 Available from http://www.columbia.edu/cgi-bin/cul/resolve?clio4361654 Dominice, P. (2000). Learning from our lives: Using educational biographies with adults. San Francisco, CA.: Jossey-Bass. Drucker, P. F. (1977). People and performance : the best of Peter Drucker on management. London: Heinemann. Drucker, P. F. (1995). Managing in a time of great change. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. Eliot, T. S. (1944). Four quartets. London: Faber. Eliot, T. S. (1970). Collected poems, 1909-1962. London: Faber and Faber. Erikson, E. H. (1975). Life history and the historical moment (1st ed.). New York: Norton. Frankl, V. E. (1964). Man's search for meaning: an introduction to logotherapy (Rev. and enlarged ed.). London: Hodder and Stoughton. Frankl, V. E. (1970). The will to meaning : foundations and applications of logotherapy. New York: New American Library. Frankl, V. E. (1997). Man's search for ultimate meaning. New York: Insight Books. Freire, P. (1972a). Cultural action for freedom. Harmondsworth,: Penguin. Freire, P. (1972b). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin. Freire, P. (1974a). Education for critical consciousness. London: Sheed and Ward. Freire, P. (1974b). Education, the practice of freedom. London: Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative. Freire, P. (1985). The politics of education : culture, power and liberation. London: Macmillan. Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed (30th anniversary ed.). New York: Continuum. Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind : the theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books. Gardner, H. (2006). The development and education of the mind : the selected works of Howard Gardner. London ; New York: Routledge. Giddens, A., Duneier, M., & Appelbaum, R. P. (2007). Introduction to sociology (6th ed.). New York: W. W. Norton & Co. Giddens, A., & Held, D. (1982). Classes, power, and conflict : classical and contemporary debates. Berkeley: University of California Press. Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R. E., & McKee, A. (2002a). The new leaders: transforming the art of leadership into the science of results. London: Little, Brown. Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R. E., & McKee, A. (2002b). Primal leadership : learning to lead with emotional intelligence. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press. Goleman, D., & Cherniss, C. (2001). The emotionally intelligent workplace : how to select for, measure, and improve emotional intelligence in individuals, groups, and organizations (1st ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Green, L. W. (2008). Making research relevant: if it is an evidence-based practice, where's the practice-based evidence? Family Practice, 25(suppl_1), i20-24. Habermas, J. (1971). Knowledge and human interests. Boston,: Beacon Press. Habermas, J. (1984). The theory of communicative action. Boston: Beacon Press. Hammond, J. (2007). Living on—and off—the clock: Some thoughts on time management 16. Retrieved from www.smcm.edu/rivergazette/_assets/PDF/may07/may07/reeveschair.pdf Hillman, J. (1975). Re-Visioning psychology. New York: Harper & Row. Jacobs, D. T. (2008). The authentic dissertation : alternative ways of knowing, research, and representation. London ; New York: Routledge. Jaques, E. (1982). The form of time. New York: Crane, Russak. Joss, R. (2007). It's not about you. Retrieved from http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/research/joss_you.html
82
Kazantzakis, N. (1961). Report to Greco. New York: Bantam Books. Keen, S., & Valley-Fox, A. (1989). Finding Meaning in your Life Through Writing and Storytelling. Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher Keller, H. (1967). Helen Keller, her Socialist years : writings and speeches / edited, with an introduction by Philip S. Foner. New York: International Publishers. Kenyon, G. M., & Randall, W. L. (1997). Restorying Our Lives: Personal Growth through Autobiographical Reflection. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. Lange, E. (2004). Transformative and Restorative Learning: A Vita Dialectic for Sustainable Societies. Adult Education Quarterly(54), 121–139. Marmot, M. G., & Wilkinson, R. G. (1999). Social determinants of health. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press. Martin, P. R. (2001, 7-9th February). Unlearning and learning. Paper presented at the 10th Annual Teaching Learning Forum, Curtin University of Technology, Perth. Maslow Abraham, H. (1962). Toward a Psychology of Being. Princeton, N.J.: D. Van Nostrand Co. Maxwell, K. J. (2009). Socratic Method. Retrieved 18th July, 2010, from http://www.socraticmethod.net/ McAdams, D. P. (1985). Power, intimacy, and the life story : personological inquiries into identity. Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey Press. McAdams, D. P., Josselson, R., & Lieblich, A. (2006). Identity and story : creating self in narrative (1st ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. McKeough, A. (1998). Storytelling: A foundational pillar of literacy. Retrieved September 19, 2010, from http://www.nald.ca/library/research/stortell/Storytelling.pdf Mezirow, J. (1991). Transformative dimensions of adult learning (1st ed.). San Francisco: JosseyBass. Mezirow, J. (2000). Learning as transformation : critical perspectives on a theory in progress (1st ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Mezirow, J. (2003). Epistemology of Transformative Learning. Paper presented at the Fifth International Transformative Learning Conference. Morgan, J. H. (2005). Naturally good. A behavioural history of Moral Development (From Charles Darwin to E. O. Wilson). South Bend, Indiana: Cloverdal books. National Centre for Vocational Education Research. (2010). National research priorities. Research Retrieved 17th October, 2010, from http://www.ncver.edu.au/research/priorities.html Nelson, A. (1994). Researching adult transformation as autobiography. from http://images.lib.monash.edu.au/edf6810/04139712.pdf Online Resource (restricted access): p389-403 [1.11 Mb] Nelson, A. C. (1995 ). The role of imagination in autobiography and transformative learning. Retrieved 13/4/08, 2008, from http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/dspace/handle/2100/261 Novak, M., Giddens, A., Lloyd, J., Ormerod, P., & Institute of Economic Affairs (Great Britain). Health and Welfare Unit. (1998). Is there a third way? : essays on the changing direction of socialist thought. London: IEA Health and Welfare Unit. Nussbaum, M. C. (1997). Cultivating humanity : a classical defense of reform in liberal education. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Olney, J. (1980). Some versions of memory/some versions of bios: The ontology of autobiography. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press. Peck, S. M. (1978). The road less travelled. New York: Touchstone.
83
Piaget, J. (1979). Behaviour and evolution (D. Nicholson-Smith, Trans.). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Prigogine, I., & Stengers, I. (1984). Order out of chaos : man's new dialogue with nature (1st ed.). Boulder, CO: New Science Library : Distributed by Random House. Ramírez, J. L. (1995). Skapande Mening: En begreppsgenealogisk undersökning om rationalitet, vetenskap och planering [Creative Meaning: A Contribution to a Human-Scientific Theory of Action]. Stockholm: NORDPLAN. Ramo, H. (1999). An Aristotelian Human Time-Space Manifold: From Chronochora to Kairotopos. Time & Society, 8(2-3), 309-328. Rath, T. (2007). Strengths finder 2.0. New York: Gallup Press. Ricoeur, P. (1984). Time and narrative. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Riessman, C. K. (1993). Narrative analysis. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications. Riessman, C. K. (2008). Narrative methods for the human sciences. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. Rogers, C. R. (1961). On becoming a person; a therapist's view of psychotherapy. New York: University of Chicago Press. Rogers, C. R. (1980). A way of being. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Roman, S. (1986). Living with joy – Keys to personal power and spiritual transformation. Tiburon, California: H.J Kramer. Rosen, H. (1986). The importance of story. Language Arts, 63(3), 226-237. Rossiter, M. (2002). Narrative and Stories in Adult Teaching and Learning. ERIC Digest, 8 Scherer, M. (2006). Celebrate Strengths, Nurture Affinities: A Conversation with Mel Levine Educational leadership Retrieved September 22nd, 2010, from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educationalleadership/sept06/vol64/num01/Celebrate-Strengths,
[email protected] Scott-Maxwell, F. (1968). The measure of my days. New York: Knopf. Shaw, G. B. (1903). Man and Superman The University Press: Cambridge, Mass. Shor, I. (1987). Freire for the classroom : a sourcebook for liberatory teaching (1st. ed.). Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook. Shor, I. (1992). Empowering education : critical teaching for social change. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Shor, I., & Freire, P. (1986). A pedagogy for liberation: Bergin & Garvey Paperback. Simpson, J. A., Weiner, E. S. C., & Press., O. U. (1989). The Oxford English dictionary (2nd ed.). Oxford and New York: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press. Sloan, D. (1983). Insight-Imagination -- The Emancipation of Thought and the Modern World. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Smith, J. E. (1969). Time, times and the 'right time'. The Monist, 53(1), 1-13. Steinem, G. (1993). Revolution from within: a book of self-esteem (1st pbk. ed.). Boston, [Mass.]: Little, Brown. Swartz, D. (1997). Culture & power: the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Taylor, E. W. (2007). An update of transformative learning theory: A critical review of the empirical research. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 26(2), 173-191. Victorian TAFE Association. (12 September 2008 ). Technical & Further Education (TAFE) in Victoria. Retrieved 2nd November, 2010, from http://www.vta.vic.edu.au/?Name=VET_Fast_Facts Victorian TAFE Association. (2010, 3 June 2010). VET in Victoria: Introduction to the National Training System. Retrieved 2nd November, 2010, from
84
http://www.vta.vic.edu.au/?Name=VET_Introduction_to_the_Australian_Trai ning_System#vetcba Villaverde, R. B. L. Ira Shor. The Freire Project. The Paulo and Nita Freire International Project for Critical Pedegogy Retrieved 25th September, 2010, from http://freireproject.org/content/ira-shor Welch, J., & Lowe, J. (1998). Jack Welch speaks : wisdom from the world's greatest business leader. New York: J. Wiley & Sons. Wheatley, M., Tannenbaum, R., & Griffin, P. Y. (2003). Organization Development at Work : Conversations on the Values, Applications, and Future of OD. from http://ezproxy.lib.monash.edu.au/login?url=http://www.MONASH.eblib.com. au/EBLWeb/patron?target=patron&extendedid=P_215099_0& Wheatley, M. J. (2005). Finding our way : leadership for an uncertain time (1st ed.). San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Wheatley, M. J. (2006). Leadership and the new science : discovering order in a chaotic world (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler. Willans, J., & Seary, K. (2007). "I'm not stupid after all" changing perceptions of self as a tool for transformation. Australian Journal of Adult Learning, 47(3), 433-452. Wilshire, B. W. (1990). The moral collapse of the university : professionalism, purity, and alienation. Albany: State University of New York Press. Yeats, W. B. (1955). The letters of W. B. Yeats. New York: Macmillan.
85
Appendix
86
Autobiographical reflection
The remembering and telling of your life story Tool 1: Pre-reflective survey May I please ask you to take a few minutes today to think about the following questions, and to discuss or document your thoughts in the space provided. You’ll have a chance to talk about these responses later.
Name:
Age:
Country of birth:
Male
Female
Learning history: Formal learning Accredited qualifications such as Certificate III in Aged Care or Cert III in Plumbing etc.
Non-formal learning -
Informal learning –
Training on the job for professional development, such as OH&S, Word 2007, disability awareness, cultural competence, conflict management, fire awareness etc.
Life skills and knowledge acquired over time, such as Coach of the netball club, Secretary of the Body Corporate, SES volunteer, school volunteer, moved family to new country etc.
Work and learning history – what things are part of your “bag of tricks”?
87
What do you currently do well the unique skills and knowledge you have learnt along the way? Is there something you would like to learn now that might change your future? The learning ‘challenges’ you can identify. Are there barriers to you undertaking this learning? How could you achieve this learning?
Your vision of your future - if you could take on this learning, what would your life look like?
What we call the beginning is often the end And to make an end is to make a beginning The end is where we start from … A people without history Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern Of timeless moments … We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time Eliot T.S (1970) pp. 207 - 208 88
Autobiographical reflection
The remembering and telling of your life story Tool 2: Explanatory Statement This information sheet is for you to keep.
1st September 2009 Student research project My name is Jenni Miles and I am conducting a research project with Damon Anderson, a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Education, towards a Masters of Education by Research at Monash University. This means that I will be writing a thesis which is the equivalent of a short book. Why did you choose this particular person/group as participants? I have chosen your group as being typically representative of the many adult learners who return to study in a TAFE environment. The aim/purpose of the research The aim of this study is to explore the ways in which undertaking the process of telling and reflecting on their stories might enable participants to transform their perspective of themselves as learners, and to enable their greater engagement with the potentially transformational process of learning. Possible benefits I am conducting this research to find out if the findings can inform the development of a program that has the capacity to acknowledge and be more responsive to the diverse needs of students that exist within the VET sector. What does the research involve? The study involves a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews, including a group interview, a one-on-one interview, and a final focus group. All interviews will be audio taped for later transcription. How much time will the research take? Participating in the research project will involve the time taken by you to reflect on and document your story, followed by three hours of face-to-face contact with me: – A one hour individual interview where I will ask you questions about your experiences of undertaking the autobiographically reflective process. – A one hour focus group where all the participants will be asked to share their experiences of undertaking the autobiographically reflective process. – A final one hour focus group where all the participants will be asked to share any developments that have arisen as part of undertaking the autobiographically reflective process Inconvenience/discomfort Undertaking a critical reflection of your life may involve revisiting sensitive issues from your past. You will not be asked to disclose or answer any questions which you feel are 89
too personal or intrusive. In our first session, you will be introduced to, and have access to a qualified counsellor from Student Support Services (phone number: Dandenong 9212 5269 or Frankston 9238 8435) if you wish to discuss any of the issues arising from this reflective process. Can I withdraw from the research? Being in this study is voluntary and you are under no obligation to consent to participation. If you do consent to participate, you may withdraw at any stage if you find yourself unable to continue. Please notify Jenni Miles if you choose not to continue. Confidentiality All information shared as part of the research process will be documented anonymously in my thesis, and will include the use of pseudonyms, so that no recognisable reference will be made to individual participants. Storage of data Storage of the data collected will adhere to the University regulations and kept on University premises in a locked cupboard/filing cabinet for 5 years, after which it will be shredded. A report of the study may be submitted for publication, but individual participants will not be identifiable in such a report. Use of data for other purposes Your anonymous data may be used for other purposes such as conference presentations, and because it is anonymous data, nobody will be named and you will not be identified in any way. Results You are welcome to request a summary report if you would like to be informed of the research findings. Please contact Jenni Miles on 9212 5406 or
[email protected] The findings will be available for 6 months after completion of the research. If you would like to contact the researchers about any aspect of this study, please contact the Chief Investigator:
If you have a complaint concerning the manner in which this research is being conducted, please contact:
Damon Anderson Senior Lecturer Faculty of Education Building 6 Monash University VIC 3800
Executive Officer Standing Committee on Ethics in Research Involving Humans (SCERH) Building 3e Room 111 Research Office Monash University VIC 3800
Tel: (03) 9905 9193 Email:
[email protected] ash.edu.au
Tel: +61 3 9905 2052 Fax: +61 3 9905 1420 Email:
[email protected]
Thank you. Jennifer Miles 90
Consent Form Autobiographical reflection
The remembering and telling of your life story NOTE: This consent form will remain with the Monash University researcher for their records I agree to take part in the Monash University research project specified above. I have had the project explained to me, and I have read the Explanatory Statement, which I keep for my records. I understand that agreeing to take part means that: 1. I agree to be interviewed by the researcher No
Yes
2. I agree to allow the interview to be audio-taped and/or video-taped No
Yes
3. I agree to make myself available for a further interview if required No
Yes
I understand that I will be given a transcript of data concerning me for my approval before it is included in the write up of the research. I understand that my participation is voluntary, that I can choose not to participate in part or all of the project, and that I can withdraw at any stage of the project without being penalised or disadvantaged in any way. I understand that any data that the researcher extracts from the interview for use in reports or published findings will not, under any circumstances, contain names or identifying characteristics.
Participant’s name: Signature: Date:
Thank you for volunteering to take part in my research project. Please return your signed Consent Form, via internal Chisholm Institute mail, in the accompanying envelope marked “Confidential” Jenni Miles 91
Autobiographical reflection
The remembering and telling of your life story Tool 3: Instructions for Research Participants. Thank you for taking the time to reflect on your life story. I hope you find the process enjoyable and personally beneficial. As part of participating in the process, I will ask you to take the time to consider, reflect on and record some of the stories of your life. You can write them, draw them, talk about them and make a recording, do a mind map, paint or construct them. I invite you to find a way, or a combination of ways, that are meaningful to you that will enable you to explore and uncover the various people, places and events that have formed the memories in the chapters of your life.
Looking back … Think about your history – go back and revisit the early days and try to look at it with both the wisdom of your current self, but also through the eyes of you as the child, the young adult. Consider: •
Your cultural education – the messages imprinted from your early years about education, work ethic, understanding and acceptance of others’ differences, about your place in and responsibility to the world.
•
The people who have had the biggest influence on you, and what they have given you.
•
The choices you made, or that were imposed upon you.
•
The transformational moments which have changed your life.
Write some of your thoughts down or draw some images of things that come to mind …
Reconciling … understanding what it means to you now Are you able to reconcile this understanding, to consider the elements from the past that have influenced your attitude / expectation of yourself and of others around learning, in a positive or negative way? •
What have you come to know about yourself?
•
What have you learnt about what is possible for you?
•
How do you see yourself as a learner?
•
Do you see any barriers to your taking up new learning for your future? Write some of your thoughts down or draw some images of things that come to mind …
92
What does this mean for you … and for your future? If you can see things differently, does this understanding impact on the way you choose to move forward with your life from this point? •
Work and learning history – what things are part of your “bag of tricks”?
•
What do you currently do well - the unique skills and knowledge you have learnt along the way?
•
Is there something you would like to learn now that might change your future?
•
The learning ‘challenges’ you can identify. Are there barriers to you undertaking this learning?
•
How could you achieve this learning?
•
Your vision of your future - if you could take on this learning, what would your life look like?
Write some of your thoughts down or draw some images of things that come to mind …
Read the excerpt from “Researching adult transformation as autobiography” by Alex Nelson (1994) or look over the chapter of the other person’s story included for some inspiration. Now think about your own life and consider your lifelong learning and career pathway. You are asked to construct a story of your own personal journey, including, but not limited to the areas discussed above.
What is your story? Write some of your thoughts down or draw some images of things that come to mind …
“… you need only claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all you have been and done, Which may take some time, You are fierce with reality.” Florida Scott-Maxwell (1968)
93
Autobiographical reflection
The remembering and telling of your life story Tool 4: Post-reflective interview questions to be completed by researcher
What we call the beginning is often the end And to make an end is to make a beginning The end is where we start from … A people without history Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern Of timeless moments … We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time Eliot T.S (1970) pp. 207 - 208
Participant _________________Date of individual interview ____________ Thank you for taking the time to reflect on your life story. I hope you find the process enjoyable and personally beneficial. As part of participating in the process, I have asked you to take the time to consider, reflect on and record some of the stories of your life. You can write them, draw them, talk about them and make a recording, do a mind map, paint or construct them. I invited you to find a way, or a combination of ways, that are meaningful to you that enabled you to explore and uncover the various people, places and events that have formed the memories that are the chapters of your life. I would like to take time now to hear how this process has been meaningful for you, and to discuss any insights that may have come to you, about understanding yourself as a learner, through having undertaken the process.
94
Looking back …
Think about your history – go back and revisit the early days and try to look at it with both the wisdom of your current self, but also through the eyes of you the child, the young adult.
How did you decide to go about recording it, and why?
How was the experience of exploring your story in this way?
What did you see about you as a learner when you looked back as the child, or as the young adult?
Your cultural education – the messages imprinted from your early years about education, work ethic, understanding and acceptance of others’ differences, about your place in and responsibility to the world What sort of messages were passed on to you about you, your learning and your place in the world?
95
What impact did this have on you?
The people who have had the biggest influence on you, and what they have given you. Who was a big influence on you and why?
What have they given you as a learner?
What impact did this have on you?
The choices you made, or that were imposed upon you.
Did you recognise things around and learning education that happened because of the choices not made by you?
96
What impact has this had on you as a learner?
Did you recognise decisions you made for yourself?
What impact has this had on you as a learner?
97
The transformational moments which have changed your life.
Tell me about some things that have happened that have changed your life course.
In what ways have they changed your life?
Why do you think this is so?
98
Reconciling … understanding what it means to you now Are you able to reconcile this understanding, to consider the elements from the past that have influenced your attitude / expectation of yourself, of others, of society, in a positive or negative way? Can you recognise any elements of the past that have influenced your expectation of yourself as a learner in a negative way? Can you recognise any elements of the past that have influenced your expectation of yourself as a learner in a positive way? Can you recognise any elements of the past that have influenced your expectation of others around learning in a negative way? Can you recognise any elements of the past that have influenced your expectation of others around learning in a positive way? Can you recognise any elements of the past that have influenced your expectation of yourself as you engage with society in a negative or positive way?
Can you see a different way of viewing and interpreting the events of your past? With the distance of time, is it possible to see that there are things that aren’t owned by you, that you may have taken on through other’s expectations of you? Is there an image you have had of yourself as a learner or otherwise that might have been influenced by someone else?
99
Does this understanding impact on the way you might choose to move forward with your life from this point?
What do you currently do well - the unique skills and knowledge you bring to your life because of the gifts and challenges of the past, or of the present? What gifts have contributed to your current skills and knowledge?
What challenges have contributed to your current skills and knowledge?
The personal and work barriers you can identify, and what you would like to do about them. What are some of the barriers that you can identify around your personal and professional growth at the moment? How might you respond to these perceived barriers?
The choices and the ability you have to influence or change what you recognise as no longer serving you. Are there attitudes and behaviours around you as a learner that you have carried with you, and have identified as no longer serving you?
100
Name them
Having identified and named them, what do you choose to do about them?
Your future as a learner Is there anything you would like to learn to take into your future?
Is there anything that you would like to leave behind at this point?
Your vision of your future - if you could shape it differently, what could your life look like?
Have you thought about what you might do to bring this into reality?
“… you need only claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all you have been and done, Which may take some time, You are fierce with reality.” Florida Scott-Maxwell (1968)
101
Autobiographical reflection
The remembering and telling of your life story Tool 5: Post Reflective interview – to be completed by participant
What we call the beginning is often the end And to make an end is to make a beginning The end is where we start from … A people without history Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern Of timeless moments … We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time Eliot T.S (1970) pp. 207 - 208 Now that you have had the opportunity to reflect on your learning and career pathway, may I please ask you to take a few minutes to respond again to the following questions, and to document your thoughts in the space provided. You will be provided with a copy of this for your later reference. Work and learning history – what things are part of your “bag of tricks”?
What do you currently do well the unique skills and knowledge you have learnt along the way?
102
Is there something you would like to learn now that might change your future?
The learning ‘challenges’ you can identify. Are there barriers that might interfere with you undertaking this learning?
How could you achieve this learning anyway?
Your vision of your future - if you take up this learning, what will your life look like?
“… you need only claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all you have been and done, Which may take some time, You are fierce with reality.” Florida Scott-Maxwell (1968)
103
Autobiographical reflection
The remembering and telling of your life story Tool 6: Post-reflective Focus Group questions What we call the beginning is often the end And to make an end is to make a beginning The end is where we start from … A people without history Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern Of timeless moments … We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time Eliot T.S (1970) pp. 207 - 208
Participant 1 __________________________ Participant 2 __________________________ Participant 3 __________________________ Participant 4 __________________________ Participant 5 __________________________ Participant 6 __________________________ Participant 7 __________________________ Date of focus group ____________ Thankyou for taking the time to reflect on your life story - I hope you have found the process to be enjoyable and personally beneficial. As part of participating in the process, you were asked to take the time to consider, reflect on and record some of the stories of your life. You were able to write them, draw them, talk about them and make a recording, do a mind map, paint or construct them. I invited you to find a way, or a combination of ways, that were meaningful to you that might enable you to explore and uncover the various people, places and events that have formed the memories that are the chapters of your life. We have spoken together individually, and now I would like to ask you to reflect on the process you have undertaken as part of being a participant in my research, to observe yourself and the ways in which you engaged or rejected the process, and to consider any perspective changes you may have experienced as part of this reflective process. You are free to involve yourself in this to whatever extent is comfortable for you. We have a Student Support Services person here if there is anything you wish to discuss with them.
104
This focus group will be audio taped for later transcription and analysis. A copy of the focus group recording will be made available for you.
How did you decide to go about recording your story, and why?
How was the experience of exploring your story in this way?
When you looked back at your early years as a learner, how did you find the experience of observing your life?
105
Did you recognise any particular influences in your life?
Is there anything you would like to share about examining your story and your journey as a learner?
Has reflecting on your learning pathway given you a different way of viewing and interpreting the events of your past? Would you like to share any of this understanding?
106
Are there any behaviours or attitudes that you recognise as no longer useful to you as a learner, and that you might like to leave behind?
What are the gifts from your past?
Does knowing this change anything about the way you want to move forward with your learning from this point?
107
What do you think your future learning and career pathway holds for you?
Has telling your story changed anything about your idea of what your future might hold? Does it look or feel different than it did before you undertook your autobiographical reflection?
Has doing this reflection been useful for you? How?
“You need only claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all you have been and done, Which may take some time, You are fierce with reality.” Florida Scott-Maxwell (1968) 108
