Emergence and the learning self

This week I have been thinking a lot about transitional spaces. Reading Ellsworth (Ellsworth 2005) she talks about the space we need to leave to ‘becoming…’ for the change from what was known to what is becoming known in the learning process.

She talks about the learning self, exploring,

‘…the concept of the learning self as the sensation of coming into relation with the outside world and to the other selves who inhabit and create that world with us.’ P.117

In module one we are asked to start to locate what the learning self of you is. When it happens (what are the circumstances under which you have noticed your learning self.) In the second module you engage with the learning self opening yourself to new ideas in terms of research methods and terms of inquiry in the particular context of this MA. In the third module you start to look at the learning selves of others your students usually) seeing if you understand them differently through the lens of the learning self in you that you have been working with in the previous modules. 

Interesting. My question to myself is whether I work under the assumption that the learning self is really just the witnessing of self-emergence. Ellsworth distinguishes the learning self in part by looking at the learning environments that create a response of emergence; the pedagogy of places – transitional spaces.

Adesola

Ellsworth, Elizabeth Ann. 2005. Places of learning : media, architecture, pedagogy. New York: RoutledgeFalmer.

Keep Calm and embrace the Possibility!

It has been a SKYPE whirl-wind recently and I have not got into regularly blogging. But I am back!

Everyone seems to be moving forward well. Module ones are on their lists of areas of learning.  It is good to get an outline of each area of the learning then choose one to work on with your advisor. Then you can use the experience of writing that one to inform how you approach the rest. 

Some Module ones are on Google+ which is different from BlogSpot. It is interesting you get used to what you know about. Now, for me, going to a different blog hosts is like going to a different country - different language and different ways to move around! 

Module Two is a bit of a different pace that module one in that it is more a focus on looking outside of what you know where module one is about looking 'inside' to articulate what you know. It is best to decide on a general area of inquiry and then start to look at the general research methods that the handbook introduces you too. You might feel you are moving away from your question at times. But part of the point of this module is to learn a bit about research methods in order to shape how you will approach you inquiry. The methods themselves affect how you ask your questions; affect what the questions become. 

Module Three: well its matter of hopping around and hoping too and getting on with collecting the data you planned to gather. Remember data gathering is not research it is just getting your ingredients the research is in the analysis you do - what you do with the literature, data and reflections. Not very comforting words. But once you are stuck into things you find a flow.

Well, my words of the week is transformation and transaction (maybe my words of the everything).
The transformation of learning is about allowing yourself to be permeable both as the teacher and as the student (and as the Place in which it is designated to happen):
Here is a lovely quote on that:
"If teaching is about thinking and not about complying with the one who holds the superordinate knowledge, if thinking is an encounter with the unthought, then for pedagogy to put us in relation with each other in ways we have never been before, for pedagogy to be a democratic civic pedagogy, it must create places in which to think about "we" without knowing already who "we" are. It must keep the future of what our engagements with those places make of us open and undecided" Ellsworth, E (2005) Places of Learning: Media, Architecture, Pedagogy. Routledge:Great Britian (p 94-95)

Adesola