Just thought I'd write a short post to keep in touch and not leave it too long since the last one. I want to get in the habit! I'm writing this pretty late, for me, so I might think it's waffle tomorrow but there's only so much waiting for a good time you can do. Bear with me.
At the moment I'm struggling to understand the big philosophical theories and ideas to be honest. I think I do but then if I imagine trying to explain the meaning of Ontology, for example, to someone else, and be able to use it in a context, Then I'm not so sure. Definitions are one thing but really understanding…. Perhaps I actually do understand it or… maybe I'm giving it a different meaning and missing the point.
Any tips greatly appreciated. I'm just trying to read about the same ideas in different books to see if it will come together.
Finding time to keep in touch with and respond to everyone's blogs and linked-in discussions is sometimes tricky, although they're always really helpful and interesting reading, so this week I'm much more in the mind set of just 'throwing my hat into the ring' and writing a quick reply to things. That means that sometimes I will read things I've written and wish I'd phrased things differently or got my meaning across more clearly somehow but I think something is better then nothing, much as I'd like to carefully compose my thoughts! It sometimes quite liberating to just 'nail your colours to the mast' so to speak. A colleague once told me to do that when assessing work and I think she meant 'be clear on your rationale and have conviction' although not 'to defiantly hold onto your beliefs until the end'! I've just looked it up. Nothing like a good idiom!
I'm not teaching dance at the moment as I'm still on my maternity leave and I haven't seen any live performances either so it's quite strange thinking about it all so much without the daily trickle of thoughts, observations and experiences that I usually get at work. It's a bit isolating but I'm teaching some Pilates to adults and many of the things I'm thinking about for my research are relevant to all physical teaching practices. Particularly feedback and it's relationship with confidence and performance. More on Linked-in soon.
Finally, my 9 month old baby daughter had physio today and we noticed a lateral bias which seems to be making learning to crawl a bit more difficult for her. Really interesting to see this so early, and what we can do to help her balance herself up! She cried when we tried to tempt her to roll onto the other side with her favourite toy, as if to say this feels so awkward! I know the feeling.
Thursday 23 October 2014
Sunday 5 October 2014
The nature of questions
Hi to all, good to be in touch again, it's been a while! and nice to talk with new people on the course. So, just to follow up on the Skype meeting today.
Our conversation about questions really struck a chord with me.
It can be difficult to know how to frame a question, what language to use to give a question some clarity, to get your meaning across. But what resonated most is to remember that whatever we ask, every person responding will have their individual take on it. It will mean something different to everyone, sometimes slight differences at times huge ones, because we all have different lived experiences. We all perceive ideas and knowledge uniquely.
So this (above) can help when we want to respond to someone's question but feel we maybe don't have enough knowledge on the particular subject. The fact that we are maybe coming from a different place, and have a unique perspective and body of knowledge is interesting in itself and so our response is equally valid to that of someone who is an 'authority' on the subject.
When we put forward a question we need to explore how others might find different meaning in it to our own. That others may understand it completely differently. This leads to openness in our research and that will lead to deeper knowledge and new understanding.
It's important to remember the idea that we don't have to provide an answer, let alone the 'correct' answer, whatever the forum may be where the questions are asked, it is fine to provide our own response.
We need to learn how to ask better questions in order to gain greater insight and understanding of our research interests. I've put that in bold to remind myself!
And finally, again the idea of openness. When we ask questions, that they are asked without anticipating or encouraging a particular answer. I think that makes for better research. That we do not have to try to prove something that we think we already know the answer to.
This sums it up for me.
"adhering to the presumption of absolute and authoritarian truth is the greatest obstacle to personal inquiry and the scholarly pursuit of knowledge." (Fraleigh and Hanstein, 1999)
Thanks and bye for now
Our conversation about questions really struck a chord with me.
It can be difficult to know how to frame a question, what language to use to give a question some clarity, to get your meaning across. But what resonated most is to remember that whatever we ask, every person responding will have their individual take on it. It will mean something different to everyone, sometimes slight differences at times huge ones, because we all have different lived experiences. We all perceive ideas and knowledge uniquely.
So this (above) can help when we want to respond to someone's question but feel we maybe don't have enough knowledge on the particular subject. The fact that we are maybe coming from a different place, and have a unique perspective and body of knowledge is interesting in itself and so our response is equally valid to that of someone who is an 'authority' on the subject.
When we put forward a question we need to explore how others might find different meaning in it to our own. That others may understand it completely differently. This leads to openness in our research and that will lead to deeper knowledge and new understanding.
It's important to remember the idea that we don't have to provide an answer, let alone the 'correct' answer, whatever the forum may be where the questions are asked, it is fine to provide our own response.
We need to learn how to ask better questions in order to gain greater insight and understanding of our research interests. I've put that in bold to remind myself!
And finally, again the idea of openness. When we ask questions, that they are asked without anticipating or encouraging a particular answer. I think that makes for better research. That we do not have to try to prove something that we think we already know the answer to.
This sums it up for me.
"adhering to the presumption of absolute and authoritarian truth is the greatest obstacle to personal inquiry and the scholarly pursuit of knowledge." (Fraleigh and Hanstein, 1999)
Thanks and bye for now
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