My son turns 13 tomorrow. Today we are celebrating his last day of
non-teenager-ness. So far this has meant he's got to stay in bed
watching You Tube on his phone & I'm hanging out in my kitchen
baking, listening to the 6Music & skim reading through my first
assignment from the EdD.
I'd forgotten how much I
enjoyed this. Sunday morning breakfasts were always my domain. I'd make
pancakes, sometimes bake bread. But these are winter routines, when the
aga is on and our basement kitchen is the warmest place in the house. In
the summer months I'm drawn to the sunnier spots upstairs to read and
write, or even dragged away from the EdD to play tennis. It's November
and I'm getting ready to hibernate.
Re-reading my
first assignment, submitted only 10 short months ago, is like stumbling
across an old friend who I only vaguely recognise. The first thing that
stands out to me is that I took risks from the get go. I wrote Part A of
the assignment as a confessional tale, which Sparks (1995) describes as
'autobiographical, highly personalized and self-absorbed to tell us
what 'really' happened (p.171). I wrote it in the style of a journal in
which I am exploring the developing relationship between my
professional self and the literature on the philosophy of education. The
first tutor comment was reassuring in my decision 'an interesting and
well focused abstract - I like the way you implicitly mobilise Sparks'.
The second thing I notice is that the tutor comments I imply
the purpose of educational research should solely be concerned with
improving practice. This resonates strongly with me on this lazy Sunday
morning, as I am still struggling to articulate what I want to study,
and more importantly why. I need to answer the 'so what' question of my
research, and to do this I need to dig deep, continue to ponder the
philosophical question on what I see as the purpose of educational
research and most importantly, it's time for me to stop sitting on the
fence so that I can have a research design that ensures my methodology
explains and justifies my ontological and epistemological position.
Sparkes,
A. (1995). Writing people - reflections on the dual crisis of
representation and legitimation in qualitative enquiry. Quest, 47 (2),
158-195
