Next meeting Thursday 10th Nov 2011. 5.15-7.00 Room 1W 3.15

After our catch up we'll focus on any writings, papers, ideas, books you bring along.

Mark writes:

On Thursday I would like to say a little about Judith Suissa's ideas on parenting and early schooling.  The short paper of hers covers similar ground to the talk I went to and to her new book.  In particular her rejection of the current dominance of psychological 'fixes' for parents and her notion of what it is to be a parent:
 
..... how to be a parent is significantly different from the question how to parent.  While the latter question is inevitably linked to a reductive notion of
“parenting”, the former, I suggest, can be construed as part of the general philosophical question of “how to live”, and, as such, is as conceptually, ethically and educationally complex and rich. It is difficult, though, to ask this question, much less to begin to formulate an answer to it, in a language that is saturated with an instrumental logic and cut off from philosophical enquiry.

Suissa, J (2009) Constructions of Parents and Languages of Parenting  IoE  Available at:  http://eprints.ioe.ac.uk/5864/1/Suissa2009Constructions.pdf  

Marie writes about a paper by Judyth Sachs:

Teacher Professional Identity: competing discourses, competing outcomes.

"I thought it might strike a cord with a number of people trying to research to improve their educational practice in the current times and begin to tease out with them the difference between education and educational research and practice and why they may be experiencing tensions as their values are contradicted."

Judyth's paper can be accessed from the Reading Room.

Marie is determined to meet the deadline for the submission of her doctorate by the 1st January 2012. One helpful question we might ask her on Thursday evening is 'What is your Thesis?'

Andy's APEX Saturday workshop on the 19th November from 9.30-1.00 at Ralph Allen School is on 'Sketchbooks Developing Research Life Skills: Collaborative learning opportunity for Young People  Y7-Y13'. Check the calendar for details:

Looking forward to seeing you - if you can't be here but have news to share do e-mail it in.  We'll keep focusing on making 'critically engaged responses' to our readings and each other's writings, particularly in relation to Claire's EJOLTS paper.

Check the Message Board and login to check the CPD Project Members Blog and Ideas pages for other thoughts

Smile - Jack and Marie.