Grasping with Body

What a relief: Two days ago I finished writing a book and sent it off to a referee. Even though I know this is just a first phase and still much work left, it’s a wonderful feeling to have written all of the planned pages. The book has actually already been on sale for some time before it was written – it was a shock to discover that a few months ago, but it also stressed me up to hurry with writing. This is how the book is featured on the publisher’s web page: http://universitetsforlaget.no/nettbutikk/begripe-med-kroppen.html        
And this is what the text in Norwegian means, roughly: 

Book title: Grasping with Body: Children's Experiences as Basic for all Learning

The book provides a comprehensive view of young children's experiential learning, with focus on the body, emotions and imagination. It argues for holistic and interdisciplinary understanding of Learning and development. Practical examples form the author's play with 3-5 year old children show how the children’s past and present experiences during explorative play with materials contributed to their imaginative cognition. 

The book is based on the author’s doctoral research. The author highlights how a child's unique combination of personal experiences is connected to meaningfulness of the learning process. "Micro-discoveries", during which a child achieves the feeling of mastery in solving a small self-initiated problem, function as powerful motivation for creativity and learning, and enthusiasm to deal with new challenges.

The textbook is written for the new preschool teacher education program, starting in Norway from fall 2013, addressing specifically the two subject areas in the program: “Child development, play and learning” and “Art, culture and creativity”. The author hopes to motivate preschool teacher students’ critical reflection on their attitudes and teacher roles. The book is also useful for professionals in the early childhood education, primary school teachers, and others concerned with education and children.

The Final Evidence

On January 27th I finally received written evidence that my dissertation has been successful conducted. A formal ceremony was carried out at The Oslo School of Architecture and Design, with director in a long, black gown, music and speeches. Three former PhD students (one was absent) and about 60 master degree students that successfully finished their studies in 2011, received their diplomas.


The photographers have been Mona-Lisa Angell (the photo of me) and Lise Swensen (the photo of Målfrid Irene Hagen, me, Kjetil Nordby and director Karl Otto Ellefsen).

Among Books

The library at Vestfold University College approximately once a month welcomes students, teachers and other personnel to take a seat among the books and listen to a talk. Last week it was my turn. To present my PhD-study, I prepared a short introduction for those who had not heard about the study, and planned to focus on something different from what I earlier presented to my colleagues and students. My choice was to present the “Model of Negotiating Grasp”, discuss children’s competences and raise some questions about teachers’ responsibilities in providing conditions for children’s negotiation of meaning.

The concept “Negotiating Grasp” was constructed during my study. It draws connections between physical grasping with hands (and other parts of body) and mental (or rather body-minded) grasping, and connects embodiment and cognition similarly to Efland’s (2004) concept “imaginative cognition”. The “Model og Negotiating Grasp” is developed in my theses (Fredriksen, 2011). It is a kind of framework which helped me analyse processes of young children’s meaning negotiations, and which, according to my PhD-committee, also could be helpful for other teacher and educational researchers.

The last part of the library talk was related a sentence from Eisner’s (Eisner, 2002) book “The Arts and the Creation of Mind” where he says that teachers can, by choosing materials and tools, provide conditions for certain learning processes, but cannot decide what will be learned. If we consider that new understandings are negotiated between children, teachers, materials and tools (and not transmitted in “traditional way”), providing suitable physical conditions, materials, books, music etc. becomes one of the most important tasks of a teacher. Another important task if we want children (or learners of any age) to participate in their own knowledge negotiation, would be to truly believe that learners are capable of contributing with their experiences. It is first when we are open-minded that curricula can be given new life (as in “curricula-as-lived” (Irwin & Chalmers, 2007)) along with the processes of negotiation.

The thesis “Negotiating Grasp” can be down-loaded at http://brage.bibsys.no/aho/handle/URN:NBN:no-bibsys_brage_25972

References:
Efland, A. D. (2004) Art education as imaginative cognition. In E. W. Eisner & M. D. Day (Eds.), Handbook of research and policy in art education (pp. 751-773). Mahwah: National Art Education Association / Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Eisner, E. W. (2002) The arts and the creation of mind. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Fredriksen, B. C. (2011). Negotiating grasp: Embodied experience with three-dimensional materials and the negotiation of meaning in early childhood education. 50, The Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Oslo.
Irwin, R. L., & Chalmers, F. G. (2007) Experiencing visual and visualizing experience. In L. Bresler (Ed.), International handbook of research in arts education (pp. 179-193). Dordrecht: Springer.

For my Colleagues (only?)

On December 1st I had honour to present my PhD-study to my closest colleagues who teach diverse disciplines at early childhood education programs at my university college (Vestfold University College). The presentation was based on the trial lecture (held on November 1st) where I was asked to comment on the on-going national revision of the early childhood teacher education.

The preparation for the trial lecture led to an understanding that the process of the revision is influenced by two parallel processes: making the early childhood education better adjusted to the early childhood practice, and the process of internationalizing Norwegian higher education. But this was not all: the important insight was that these two processes build on quite opposite ideologies. The largest problem though, the way I see it, is not that the two ideologies are impossible to unite, but that the people responsible for the revision do not seem to be aware of the ideologies! This ignorance has already led to number of conflicts, misunderstandings and tensions… and I cannot see any hope for “better” (whatever “better” or “higher quality” might mean) early childhood teacher education if the ideologies are not discussed!

Many of colleagues who listened to the presentation on December 1st seem to share my opinion that the insight about the opposing ideologies is important and should be discussed more. I am thankful for their support and I truly hope that teacher educators and leaders at Vestfold University College will find time for discussions before the new, national education program is to be implemented in our institution.

This is how I have illustrated the ideologies:

	Ideology behind Norwegian early childhood education	Ideology behind the international educational trends
	Embodied, pre-verbal competences	Knowledge as verbal-language-based
	Holistic, unity, embodied metaphor	Traditional, divided disciplines
	Complexity and contextualized understanding	Structure, generalizing and dis-contextualized testing
	Prolonged engagement, explorative play	Efficiency and economizing
	Self-motivation for learning	Knowledge externally defined
	Building identity on respect and will to contribute to others	Exclusion and focus on incompetence
	Imaginative cognition	Memorizing
	Quality of life – here and now	Quality related to international competition

Crossing to the Other Side

I have for long been wondering how it would feel to get on the other side of the dissertation day – the other side seemed so distant that I found it difficult to imagine. However, the crossing itself reminded me of barefoot crossing of a mountain stream coming straight from a Norwegian glaciers: the chilliness of the first step took my breath away, the slippery stones threatened my balance, and the strong stream kept reminding me that one doubtful move could result in disappearing under the frozen lake just a few meters away.

The beginning of my trial lecture made me dizzy as if a strong stream tried to pull me down. I got scared when my vision became double, but tried to concentrate on my breathing while I was talking. Somehow I came to understand that I had to ignore the cold feet and with self-confidence quickly choose where to step in the direction I had envisioned. And after a while I could neither feel my feet nor the stream – at least I did not have to struggle against it. By the time the trial lecture was approved and the committee members had started to ask questions, I had already acquired enough self-confidence that their questions did not seem threatening, but challenging in a positive way. The stream metaphor suddenly changed its character… Instead of puling me down, the conversations fell more like mutual balancing of steps, like in an Argentinian tango: the dancers have to feel the weight and direction of the other one’s body in order to adjust own moves in the improvising activity of dancing.

I am grateful to the committee members prof. Michael Parsons, Marte Gulliksen and prof. Halina Dunin-Woyseth who had read my thesis so carefully and with their interesting questions made it possible for me to negotiate new meanings during the questioning session. I thank my family, friends and colleagues who were wonderful audience and made 01.11.11 to a fantastic, unforgettable day!

Preparing for the Trial (-lecture)

The last ten day have been spent in preparing for the dissertation on November 1st. The theme for my trial lecture was received on October 18th – quite interesting theme, but also challenging and highly relevant. The committee has asked me to compare my findings to some phenomenon of the on-going national revision of the Early Childhood Teacher Education. This is the theme:

"The model of Negotiating Grasp as basis for a discussion of the distinction in the new Framework plan for early childhood teacher education (Forskrift om rammeplan for BA barnehagelærerutdanning) between the knowledge areas 'Children's development, play and learning' and 'Art, culture and creativity.' "

Here are some relevant links to web pages of The Oslo School of Architecture and Design, where the dissertation is taking place:
http://www.aho.no/no/AHO/Aktuelt/Kalender/2011/Disputas-Biljana-C-Fredriksen/
http://www.aho.no/no/FoU/Publikasjoner/Avhandlinger/Sammendrag-PhD/Biljana-Culibrk-Fredriksen/
http://www.aho.no/Global/Dokumenter/Nyhetsvedlegg/program_disputas_BCF.pdf

My Sand Castle

It was the 4th of October and, for a few days, I had been expecting a mail from my dissertation committee. My step-son kept reminding me that a negative evaluation could still have some positive consequences and that I should think about them in order to prepare for the committee’s decision. The wise 13-year old was trying to prevent a large disappointment.

Instead of sitting and waiting at the internet café in Villarcayo, close to Nela village where my step-son, my son and a few friends were staying (the kids had one week off from school), we went to visit a place called San Vincent in Northern Spain. When we arrive to the beach, the sight was overwhelming; I’ve heard it was a nice place, but I did not expect to experience such a wonderful sight; The banded blue horizon reminded me that the Earth was round, and that it continued to spin around and around.

While I was walking across the beach I enjoyed every moment; This day was finally my summer holiday – even though it was October, I did not have any real summer while I was rushing to finish my thesis. This was the little brake I was wishing for, for so many days… a cloud-free day before a storm…

My dissertation was built like a sand castle: I was carefully arranging each sand grain, adding water and pressing the flextible material with my hands. I imagined that the castle would stand up as a solid construction, but I still wanted the traces from my hands to remin visible - and the castle to appear as trustworthily vulnerable product of thousands of choices I had to take.

On the way back to Nela I checked my e-mail in Villarcayo: The response was positive! My sand castle did survive the storm… and the committee had understood that the “castle-builder” (they did not call me that) had “invested much of both her mind and heart in the inquiry”.

In a few days I will be receiving a theme to prepare for the trial lecture to be held on November the 1st. Today, Sunday 16th, I am enjoying another relaxing day – I think I deserve it...

The Point of No Return

The thesis was finished on Sunday morning, the last day of my three-year long full-time study. It was printed late in the evening, copied five times on Monday morning and personally delivered to my advisor Martina Keitsch in Oslo in the noon. I suppose that three of the examples are on their way to committee members: Marte Gulliksen, Michael Parsons and Halina Dunin-Woyseth. How it goes from here, is not up to me any longer…

The thesis has been titled “Negotiating Grasp: Embodied Experience with Three-dimensional Materials and the Negotiation of Meaning in Early Childhood Education”. An article based on the thesis has been published in the digital journal FORMakademisk. The article presents a few examples of children’s interactions with 3D-materials and suggests that children’s creative ideas come from interactions between their past and present experiences.

Moving the Bricks Around

I’ve got the feed-back on the thesis draft from my co-advisor (Liv Gjems) and reader (Ellen Marie Sæthre-McGuirk) – and you can imagine how I use my hours these days? Fortunately, I do not have to re-write too much or add some large parts, but rather take some bricks away, move them around and glue them better together. I also need to file the edges and smoothen out the surfaces, though my friend Nicola, with her native-English-competence, will be most responsible for the polishing.

The plan is to send Nicola the thesis before June 25-th and get it back from her around the middle of July; Then fix the lay-out and deliver the thesis around August the 1-st. The fact is that my time as PhD-student is over after the summer and I have to go back to teaching at Vestfold University College. But even if the study is over, I will still continue to blog on this page … possibly even more often… I already know about some interesting tasks waiting for me, but somehow I always hope that I will have more time after I am finished with what I am doing right now - Don’t you? Though, there is usually nothing wrong with being optimistic :)

Supervisor Worth Gold

I realized it was sunny yesterday. In the last months I’ve been intensively writing the thesis and did not pay attention that the spring has arrived. That’s wonderful: both that the spring is here, and that I can finally lift up my eyes from the screen. I’ve been working hard. Approximately each second week I sent a new chapter to my supervisor Martina Keitsch (see the photo), who read the text in a day and the second day we met to discuss the chapter. Can you imagine how fantastic it has been that she could give me the feed-back so quickly? Imagine if I had to wait for her feed-back for two weeks or a month – the writing process would have to take additional eight months of waiting…

I can understand that supervisors are busy people with many important tasks – but for a student whose work depends on getting feed-back, it is important that the student is placed close to the top of supervisor’s task list. This is important for the student to get the work done, but, above all, to feel that one’s work is worth something – that one should not give up! When the feed-back is also constructive and encouraging – as Martina’s has been, the supervisor’s support has immeasurable value: she deserves, at least, her own weight in gold :)

I cannot believe I am almost finished with writing the thesis before I send it to a “reader” (which is planned for next week). This is how the last phase of PhD study works at The Oslo School of Architecture and Design: A few months before the thesis is to be delivered, it is sent to an appointed reader, who in about a month gives her/his feed-back. Then it usually takes one to two months to rewrite the thesis. If one needs language editing (as I do since I write in English – my third language) that will probably take another month. And then, there is layout and making sure that references are properly written. This should be easy when one uses the software EndNote – but there are still so many details I would not be able to fix without the help of librarians Heidi K. Olsen and Kristin Østreholt. Thank you thousand times (as we say in Norwegian)!

Not strong enough

The last chapter of my thesis is written and I should be happy. However, the last chapters were hard to write, not so much because I was tired, but because I was sad, almost depressed by the results of my study. The new insights are hard to bare and I feel helpless: There are so many layers of misunderstanding and power that prevent children from being seen as competent.

Young children are promoted as competent in Norwegian “Framework plan for the content and tasks of kindergartens” (Ministry of Education and Research, 2006) and other government documents. However it is not clear what children’s competences are. In my study I have come to conclusion that their competences are in their embodiment – they are experts in sensing, experiencing holistically, taking explorative actions; They are experts learning thought their bodies! Materials in their environment offer them different types of resistance and young children (3 year old) and even the smallest type of resistance (something we adults don’t even notice) can initiate their motivation to solve problems, find solutions, discover how to contribute to others and discover personal knowledge. I have observed the pure moments of knowledge construction - “micro-discoveries”, as I called them. Young children are true experts of imagination which helps them connect their past and present experiences – the essence of creativity and learning!

One can now wonder: This is great news – Why should I be sad about it? The problem is that embodiment is so little acknowledged in today’s educational system. Verbal types of knowledge have much higher status and power that the embodied. What counts is the number of words three year olds can pronounce – and the embodied experience loses the battle. This really does not have to be a battle, but as long as the linguistic forms of knowledge have such a powerful influence of our understanding of quality in education, the embodied forms of knowledge will be supressed. How can we then be able to truly respected for their competences?!

I took responsibility to promote young children’s experiences and woices, and there is not so much I can do. There is so much power against the young children: both because they are young (and age has authority), because they are non-verbal (and verbal has authority), because they are “inherently artful” (Dissanayake, 2007) (and school arts do not have any power), because they are practical (and theoretical has power) … I feel helpless. Can a single PhD-study have any chance in convincing policy making that there is a large need to reconsider what quality of young children’s education is? They should consider the children’s point of view!

Young children have no political power, they are not strong enough and have no voice of their own. I have promised them to promote their competences, but I fear that I am not strong either. I hope they would forgive me… but by the time they would be able to understand, it will already be too late…

The image of the baby with large weights is from http://drippet.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/baby.jpeg

Dissanayake, E. (2007). In the beginning: Pleistocene and infant aesthetics and 21st-century education in the arts. In Bresler, L. (Ed.), International Handbook of Research in Arts Education. Dordrecht: Springer.
Ministry of Education and Research. (2006). Framework plan for the content and tasks of kindergartens.

Targeting at Quintain

During the process of intensive writing of my thesis, I constantly think about guintain. Robert Stake (2006, 2010) taught me that in qualitative research one has to aim at a target which is not too narrow and not to broad – that is what quintain is about. If a researcher aims only to the centre of a target, then he/she probably already knows what is to be found (and might become narrow-sighted); On contrary, if a researcher aims in one direction, without delimiting the phenomenon he/she wants to understand, the study might become too complex and difficult to grasp. Quintain is just the right scope of a target.

I watch my son training with his bow. It is satisfying to hit the middle of the target, but it is also OK to hit the other colours. I learn from him. But while I am writing the thesis, I constantly have to remind myself what is in the central part and what is in the periphery, or even outside the board that holds the target: Children’s negotiation of meaning with 3D-materials’ affordances and resistance are in the middle of the quintain; Children’s embodied ways of interacting with their environments are also in the middle but stretch outside the centre; And children’s negotiation of meaning with their teachers’ and peers is like a transparent layer that covers the whole scope of my quintain and reaches far outside it. I have to firmly grasp my quintain in order not to get lost…

Stake, R. (2006). Multiple case study analysis. New York: The Guilford Press.
Stake, R. (2010). Qualitative research: studying how things work. New York: The Guilford Press.

Negotiating Grasp

From Sculpturing Words to Negotiating Grasp – the focus of my study has gradually moved closer to embodied forms of interacting with and knowing our world; I am not saying that linguistic form of knowing is not embodied, but that it is only one of the ways humans acquire understanding of their world and themselves. We all had bodies before we could talk (Egan, 1997).
The new name for my thesis is Negotiating Grasp, with intention to illustrate the importance of physical interaction with materials. I suggest, as Parsons (2007), that thought is embodied.

Negotiating Grasp is an ambiguous construction where the word negotiating can be understood as both a verb and an adjective. The term I have constructed illustrates the conjunction between, on one side, a child’s physical action of exploring 3D-materials (like a hand grasp), and on the other, the child’s mental grasping of new understandings (through micro-discoveries). The word grasp refers therefore both to a physical and cognitive grasp. When the word negotiating is understood as an adjective, both types of grasp are active processes that a child can negotiate through and between. However, if the word negotiating is understood as a verb, the concept illustrates an activity where, besides a child and 3D-materials also others can be involved in, for example teachers and peers. The concept negotiating grasp is meant to cover all of the mentioned interpretations, with hope to illustrate the complex relation between physical experience, cognition and social influences.

I have written about children’s play with 3D-materials in the article: Meaning making, democratic participation and art in early childhood education: Can inspiring objects structure dynamic curricula? published in International Journal of Education through Art, 2010 Volume 6 Number 3: http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-issue,id=1945/

Another article has been accepted to be published on http://www.formakademisk.org/index.php/formakademisk
This article is based on the PhD study and is titled: When past and new experiences meet: Negotiating meaning with 3-D materials in early childhood education

Egan, K. (1997). The educated mind: how cognitive tools shape our understanding. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Parsons, M. (2007). Art and Metaphor, Body and Mind. In Bresler, L. (Ed.), International Handbook of Research in Arts education (pp. 533-542). Dordrecht: Springer.

Just busy with writing…

I haven't forgotten about this blog, but will have less time to publish on it this spring. This is (hopefully) the last spring of my PhD study, and I will from August 1-st be back on my job at the Vestfold University College. That means that I have to finish writing my thesis already in April, in order to send it to a reader, have time to re-write, edit and polish the language and have it delivered by the end of the summer.

The intensive writing started a few weeks ago in a little village in Northern Spain – in the peaceful surroundings I managed to produce almost one chapter a week (of course not form the scratch). And my friend Nicola was there, always ready to discuss my writing, help with the English and invite to walk, or a riding trip with her horses.

I am very happy with my new advisor Dr. Martina Keitsch – I’ve just sent her my second chapter, and the third should be on its way in a couple of weeks. I am also glad for the feed-backs I’ve received on my two articles (one sent to FORMakademisk, the other to A-Techne) … it is just that they need some revision and that also takes time… So, don’t worry if I don’t write on this blog as often as I should … I am probably writing something else…

Here are some pictures from my office, second floor over the garage. (The sawing machine is close, but not so much in use lately :( My dog Zorro sometimes keeps me company, and plays with empty water bottles.

Case (for) Studies

I am so pleased with possibility to attend Dr. Robert Stake’s case-study course (Educational Psychology 499) on Thursday afternoons! Showing up in the middle (or the end) of the course, not being familiar with the contents of the course, I try to participate as much as I can. This does not mean that I constantly undertake activities observable from the outside, but apparently passive engagement can also move and re-furnish one’s thoughts and understandings.


Getting engaged is not difficult in Dr. Stake’s classes: with variety of teaching approaches, he provides his students with possibilities for meaningful engagement and reflection. The three hours on the April 29-th seemed to be prepared to make diverse experiences possible (including diverse food tastes during the break); As an example of a self-study-case, Mr. Stake read for us poetically written essay by Loren Eiseley; To start reflections about (im-)possibilities of generalisation in case studies, he told us a fresh story from his own life; And to initiate a session of interactive, collaborative meaning making, he invited me to presented a half-imagined case study. Almost like in a “psychodrama” I played my role and the other students asked questions and gave advise to help me get closer to the core of my (imagined and borrowed) study. Little did they know that they in the same time also provided feed back on my “real study”.


Robert Stake was present on my presentation a week ago, but when we meet for a lunch, we did not directly speak about my project. Among other things, we spoke about curricula and documentation in early childhood, and I learned of his friendship with Loris Malguzzi (the founder of Reggio Emilia educational philosophy). Attentive and polite as he is, Mr. Stake did not ask many questions, but prepared some books for me to borrow as an extension of our conversation.


When we talk to someone, or present something, we always make thousands choices. What I wrote here about my meetings with Robert Stake and the three hours from the case-study-course is just a narrow selection from my experiences… and my own experience is of course completely different from experiences of others that were present that day. But what happens if someone mistakes that through my blog (research report, or conference presentation) I intend to present a “truth”? Can I ever prevent others from misunderstanding, or even misusing my words if they suffer from chronic need to generalize? Yes, I can try to express my self clearly, but how clear is possible to be would still be limited because a texts (according to Bakhtin) is always dependent on at least to participants – in addition to the text’s physical conditions and format, the present contexts … and all of the previous contexts and experiences the participants carry with them.

Communication is complicated! Writing about complex processes (as children’s meaning making is) feels like trying to wind up treads which are all tied up. If I pool too hard, they will tie worse… or tear. I know that there is a possible choice to cut them in small pieces - but then I would be disconnecting them from their original contexts, and someone would probably accuse me for simplifying…. I really need help with this! … And I am secretly hoping that my conversations with Robert Stake and other wise people would somehow help me to get out of this knot…

Connections

On April 26-th, I presented my phd-project at the College of Education, University of Illinois. Liora Bresler was so kind to arrange the seminar and invite people from the education and other departments who might be interested in my study. Among the 12 people that arrived, some had their interests in early childhood (like Robert Stake, and Nancy Hertzog with her guests), some in education in general (as Walter Feinberg and Bekisizwe Ndimande), and some with interests in arts-based methods (as Liora Bresler). One person was a researcher in mathematics (Gloriana Gonzalez) but found familiarities with my project thought some of the theoretical framework we both use (Michael Halliday).

After my presentation, we had time for a few questions, but I am still in the process of meeting the people who were there, and I keep getting feed back from them. My conversations with wonderful, wise and kind Walter Feinberg have developed in many different directions, based on our life stories rather than narrowed to my study. It is amazing how many connections can be found between different worlds, lives or studies! Bekisizwe Ndimande was right when he said “There are always connections” to my question if my study had any significance for his study of education in South Africa.


Daniel Walsh (one of the writers of the book “Studying children in context”) has given me valuable feed back on my presentation, and has really challenged me to search for a better balance between complexity (which without doubt is there) and a narrow focus (which is certainly simplifying the complexity, but is necessary in order to understand). We can not understand everything in the same time – as much as we can not make a “theory of everything”.

Inside the Fog

I finished my data collection three months ago, and since then I’ve been watching the videos from my interactions with young students (3-5), and I am constantly discovering something new. My embodied experience has made it possible for me to see “from the inside” and try to understand the complexity of children’s process of meaning making. But from the inside-position, like when standing in a foggy landscape, my sight might not reach too far: Our practitioner-researchers’ own lived experience can “cloud our vision against the very complexities we seek to capture, trapped as we are in socially derived constructions of the world we experience” (Brown and Jones, 2001, p.6).

Even though it can feel lonely researching inside closed contexts, it also feels quite safe and painless being inside the barely transparent “bubble” in the beginning. But as long as I have just my own eyes to see with … my own head to think with, and there is none there to help me sharpen my sight, I can (often unconsciously) overlook what I don’t want to see. Liora Bresler suggested once that I should let my colleagues take a look on my data with fresh sight and clear mind… oh, no, she probably did not say “clear mind” - but with their mind highly influenced by their professional focuses and personal understandings. And this is what I did:

• asked the children’s parents if my colleagues could watch the videos form my interactions with their children (two children by time)
• applied and got permission from Norwegian Social Science Data Service to show my data to my colleagues
• asked some of my closest colleagues to watch the videos with me and comment on them
• chose and edited some video-parts (the selections were made according to what I needed to get comments on, as well as according to my colleagues’ interest areas: drama, language, pedagogy, social science, qualitative research)
• placed a projector, a large screen and a camera to film the two events (This way I could later watch the collaboration meetings in order to note the feedback on my research, but one could also watch the events in order to learn form, and about, the improvisational style of meaning making that took place when many insightful people shared their thoughts.)

Liora Bresler says that collaborative, team research, involves improvisation and that it “emphasizes interdependent voices and diversity of perspectives within a connected group” (Bresler, 2006). My colleagues interpreted my data in variety of ways, helped me to see new details, and, what I found the most important, they questioned my ways of understanding. They could, of course, not see the way I could see… and I realized that my ways of seeing have also changed over the last months. The collaboration meetings made me more conscious about the process I’ve been through, and thought me that I will have to work hard to uncover the layers of my new embodied knowledge if I want others to see through the fog….

BRESLER, L. (2006) Embodies Narrative Inquiery: A Mehodology of Connection. Research Studies in Music Education, 27, 21-43.

BROWN, T. & JONES, L. (2001) Action research and postmodernism: congruence and critique, Buckingham, Open University Press.

White, white – with all its shades

These days everything seems white around me. Cold and white. When there is no wind the glazed trees are still as frozen, the time also stops and I can use all the time I need to absorb the silence and harmony, and pay attention to details.

Then I then see is that White is not the only child ms. cold and mr. winter, but has many brothers an sisters. Some of them are dressed up in fluffy textures. Others have tiny shades of blue, pink or violet – dependent on the temporary mood of the sun or the moon.

It is the apparent absence of contrasts that makes me curious. When some things seem the same at first sight, I get surprised when I discover the diversity of qualities between them. Differences are often so small that I can not match them with such small words, but have to describe them with long sentences – IF I had to describe them to someone I would probably have to sharpen both my language and attention.

This is why I love playing with harmony and contrasts when I choose visual art materials (or inspiration material) for my students, whichever age they are (3 or 43). Here is the collection of 11 balls in approximately same size, made of yarn in different qualities and origin. How different where they actually? Two 5-year-old boys found out that some of the balls ripped off the floor when they let them fall – others didn’t. Some of yarn would make a nice ice bear - others wouldn’t. The yarn balls were not so same after all.

How the boys made meaning of the yarn balls, and what they chose to knit of the yarn, is still to be analysed form the empirical material form my Sculpturing Words study. Wait and see which meaning I will make out of the boys meaning making…

Multimodal Communication through Books

I get exited when I find an interesting book, which also is important for my study! (Or is it interesting because it seems important?) Usually the book is from a library. I make notes in it with a pencil, make copies of the most important pages and erase the notes before returning to the library. But reading the copies is never the same!

During the copying the difference between left and right pages gets also erased, the numbers of pages have changed drastically, as well as the thickness and size of the book. My intuition doesn’t work any more in finding the most important quotations: I feel lost! Often I also lose my interest and excitement when all pages are the same A4-size, the paper sheets have the same white nuance and the same quality, and the colours form the front pages are gone…

One might think that communication through written texts doesn’t have much to offer – that it is objective and static – the letters and words are printed, and pages don’t really change much (when compared to digital pages). But, again if compared to a screen, books have their smell, thickness and weight, smoothness and consistency of covers, texture of quality of paper that influence the sounds the book makes when changing the pages. They are, after all, physical three dimensional objects that influence my senses and communicate in multimodal ways. This communication somehow gets personal - even before considering the contents of the book!

May be I should consider taking photographs rather than taking copies? A photo could at least preserve the illusion of three dimensionality…

Am I Wasting My Time?

After an intensive lecture program last fall, this spring I have many days (white and new, like an unopened notebook) to fill up with whatever I want. Fantastic! This was something I really was looking for!

I start reading a book for the course on Qualitative research, and I enjoy it! But after an hour or something I think: Shouldn’t I be reading something else first? Then I read something else, but I still have a guilty conscience. Does the reading feel wrong because I enjoy it?! I’ll certainly have to do something with my conscience…

I am not sure if this is the way my students (on the teacher training program) feel when they are supposed to organize a few weeks of project work. I use to tell them: “If you feel like everything goes as it should, that you have enough time, are not stressed… - then something is definitively wrong!” Shouldn’t I also be more stressed? May be this is why I am a bit uneasy about my own use of time…?

And then, there is this blog writing… Is it of any benefit to my project, or is it just wasting of time? At least, I practice writing… But it will have to be more than that if anyone out there would be interested in reading my blogs! “In your writing, you must do some thing – try to gauge and reach and hold the attention of an audience you will never see”, says Harry F. Wolcott in his fantastic book Writing Up Qualitative Research.
“OK – I’ll try! But sorry, not today! Today I should probably be doing something else…