We just had our SKYPE chat:
a four way conversation. We talked about responses to blogging – how blogging
can be frustrating if people do not respond to your posts by leaving comments.
But also how the blog can act as documentation for yourself of your process and
thinking as you travel through the course. In some ways you are posting for
others to read and in other ways you are posting for your future self to read.
Ahmet said a really cool analogy about being a stand up comic: you can play to
the audience for the laughs or you can play to the truth and hope you get some
laughs along the way.
We talked about the
reflection section of Module One and how ‘doing’ a journal is not the
fundamental point of the section of the module – the point is about looking at
how you reflect, what role reflection has in your practice and what other
people have said about reflection. Reading the handbook before you do too many
journal entries is good, this is because this section is about thinking about
reflection and yourself not producing a daily journal (– although you might
find that helpful and fun to do).
We talked about how
throughout the course there is a multi-layered experience you can have as ideas
do not appear ‘straight forward’ and you feel you are starting to think ‘differently’.
It was suggested that module One is a way to make yourself more stable as that
you can go on to the other modules with a sense of where you are coming from. I
think this is a useful comment because it also demonstrates how it might or
useful to return to Module One ideas when you are in Module Two and three as a
way to ground yourself.
We decided the experiment
went well and was useful. So I am going to do it every first Tuesday at 7pm
London time. Anyone can come from any module and we will talk about things that
people bring up to talk about – making links across the course and learning
from each others experiences.
I am naming it the First Tuesday Coffee House meeting – so
if you want to join-in the next one April 2nd send me your skype
address and /or a skype request so we are connected.
What do you think?
Adesola
People at the meeting today
were
Ahmet
http://mrahmet.blogspot.com
Kym
http://kymwalton.blogspot.co.uk
Sophie
http://sophiejones17.blogspot.co.uk
and me
Visit their blogs to see
what they say too….
Hi Adesola, It sounds as though the Skype session was a success! Great news. Unfortunately I teach on Tuesday evenings so I will be unable to experience it the coffee house meeting. However, I will keep up to date via the blogs...I just commented on Sophie's page that although these blogs are a good method of communication with fellow BAPPers, I find that it is always easier to connect with someone initially if you have visuals, either face to face or via skype.
ReplyDeleteThanks Adesola.
Best Wishes,
Jo
Hi Adesola,
ReplyDeleteRe. your Sykpe message on my Blog...the best time for me is lunchtime on Tues, Wed or Thurs. I will put a post up asking if anyone else is interested. Do you have a day that is best for you?
Best Wishes,
Jo
I could do next Thursday 14th at noon.
DeleteAdesola
This is great - it sounds like a particularly useful way of sharing ideas across the different modules. I think we can often just stuck in a bit of a rut communicating only with our direct peers...it can only be a good thing to widen the circle. Kind of like casting a big fishing net rather than just using a little rod....going to catch more fish!
ReplyDeleteHi Adesola,
ReplyDeleteSorry for posting this here as it's kind of changing the subject - but I'd love your thoughts on a recent blog post of mine if you have the time.
http://stephaniethomas-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/high-achiever-or-wide-achiever.html
It's about an article I found talking about whether it's better to be a 'high achiever' or 'wide achiever' - as you are a multi-tasker...dancing, teaching, researching and running your own company. I thought you would be in an ideal position to comment. How do you juggle all your working commitments? Does it stop you 'high' achieving in any one field? And does it even matter?
Appreciate your thoughts...
Stephanie
Hi Stephanie
DeleteI had a look and left this comment. see below - what do you think?
I think you make a number of interesting points. It is great how you are seeing links between philosophical approaches to society / the lived experience and our assumptions about the directions we are going. It is these bigger underlining frameworks that we need to have a thought about in order to know the framework from which we are making meaning of the research inquiry. So I would go back to look at the basic assumption you make.
Firstly how are you creating the parameters of a 'job'? Therefore does not seem to be any set boundaries.
To continue by looking at the pin example, who is to say that making the sharp part of the pin (or one of the jobs you see as part of the process) isn't a job in itself? And then who is to say that the pin is the finished product. The pin is all its iterations you could argue that the finished pin is the pin in the hat on someones head. So to do the 'whole' for some people could be to sharpen and for other to go from metal to usage in a hat. Who is to say when the job is complete. Marx was pointing out how so much of what we see as 'reality' is determined by the 'boss' of the factory deciding how far he wanted to go in the manufacturing process. So in terms of acting some people might feel knowing how to be an actor who does comedy is 'the' job while others might feel that know ing how to take written text film is 'the' job. Case in point you said on my blog I am a multi-tasker but I do not think of myself as that. To me dance is about doing technique, using movement to choreograph, articulating learning from moving in other forms like writing about it, teaching etc... I feel I have a very narrow focus everything I do is about the same thing. Someone else might see it as lots of things. But the question is about how you decide where things begin and end.
I think the idea about success is a totally different set of assumptions. It involves assumptions about who decides what your successes are; you or others. Also questions about whether success is a tangible thing, a thing that can be measured.
I think that so much of this work is about better understanding where you were coming from when the questions you wanted to inquire into seemed important enough to pursue. I think there is a moment when one realises that in this context it is not so much a process for finding an answer (because to recognise an answer we must grasp its relationship to the question) instead it is about better understanding the question, or even asking 'better' questions. If we look for answers then we limit ourselves to what we can already understand. If we look more deeply into the questions we move through processes of answers.
Wonder if this helps - in short it is all about definitions you need to decide what they are and who makes them. When you do this you begin to have a framework for further inquiry.
Adesola