Crohn’s Disease, Fluff, Knowing, Learning, Perception, Communication

Crohn’s Disease, if someone hasn’t been told there is something ‘different’ about them, are they going to be aware that there is something different? How is someone supposed to realize that they don’t do something as someone else would do? Is it the public’s obligation, or the individual's obligation to make changes to the individual that is different? What happens when someone is diagnosed with a non-obvious difference and is placed within a classroom setting with others that may be oblivious to his or her difference? What is the responsibility of the teacher and what is the responsibility of the student in the many possible outcomes of a learning environment created with these parameters? I feel as though there could be many interesting studies done within this area of learning that could help to further the understanding and learning experiences of everyone involved in the various scenarios that could be created through these created environments.

Fluff, What is fluff? When writing what would be considered to be fluff? For myself in my experience when I reflect back upon it my first thoughts when engaging with the academic (university) community where probably very similar with many questions such as ‘why are people speaking like this?’ and ‘why does everyone have this overly thoughtful attitude towards everything?’ could it be that this might be a reflection of the culture surrounding academic systems? When I first started reading different books from the recommended reading list, I was thinking about how many experts must be similar to the stereotypes of hippies in the bushes. After learning more from reading these authors, the student handbooks and starting to work on my own projects now, I have learned through the application of what I learned from the literature, and experimentation within my own professional practice that I needed to adapt my perspective when it comes to reading.

Another approach that I can think of now looking into ethnography, and ideas that form qualitative research methodologies, my thinking has changed now to ‘Fluff? Could that just be a simplified form of recorded communication that a qualitative researcher would be able to enthusiastically collect and analyze? How people choose to write or communicate can be a very strong indicator of themselves, their perspectives, experiences, and character, or even more. I have read that the word ‘hand-writing’ can often be interchanged with the word ‘eyes’ in the old saying that ‘the eyes are a window to the soul’ leading to ‘handwriting is a window to the soul’, I could take this another step further and suggest that ‘fluff is a window to the soul’. I have learned through A. Holliday, Judith Bell, Stephen Waters, Sondra Horton Fraleigh, and Penelope Hanstein that when it comes to the act of engaging in qualitative research practices, the process of creating data gets a lot deeper than just the appearance of the writing, or what it means on the surface. Based upon my own interpretation after reading about qualitative research I feel as though the important data lies within the feelings and perception of the researcher of the content of the writing, the perceived written context, perceived intended meaning, these three points are only scratching the surface of how in-depth and ‘fluffy’ qualitative research may become. Which takes me to my next point ‘perception’.

One of the biggest things I am learning about during my experiences participating in the MAPP involve perception. Now in module 3, after reading 37 books since the beginning of the MAPP I feel that only once one can adapt their perception can they start to learn through the experiences of others. This ability to change one's perspective combined with the ability to approach a subject or situation with an objective stance is central to any learning and or researching activity.

Communication, Do we know how to communicate? I would like to think so. If art isn’t a form of communication then what is it? Could expression be equal to communication, these words work very well if you frequently interchange them and people like to often state that art is a form of expression. Through my own teaching and adjudicating experiences, there have been many instances when I have asked students the questions “Why do you dance? Or Why do we dance?” and usually there is at least one student who answers “To express ourselves” or another paraphrased version of the same response. Perhaps another potential method of gathering ideas surrounding what communication is, is to look for ideas surrounding the idea of what it is to express oneself or to express something. Another point we covered within the subject of communication is our desire to adopt the form of communication. There seemed to be some apprehensiveness surrounding the idea of changing our perceived view of ourselves when we communicate. Which brings to have more questions such as ‘do we need to change?’ or ‘should we change?’ These ideas connect today’s skype discussion with my own enquire which revolves around the idea that “information is passed from generation to generation, which pieces of information get to be passed on, and which ones don’t, and why, and what are the results?”. Could these questions of ‘should we change?’, or ‘do we need to change?’ be central to what I am looking to learn more about within my own inquiry?

Another area of communication that we covered in today’s skype discussion was: how do we communicate our very abstract ideas within ourselves, to our students? I like this question because it made me think about how we choose what form of language to use when communicating with our students, and does our ‘teaching voice’ that we use in the classroom differ to that of our ‘student voice’ we employ when engaging with the MAPP. Our ‘artistic voice’ and our ‘academic voice’ There is a little discussion of this on Adesola’s blog where she writes “In the afternoon we talked about objectivity, artistic v academic, learning through dancing. This conversation included talking about the low value dance has in some peoples hierarchy of learning.” Again this question leads me to think more about perspective, in particular, academic versus artistic two separate yet intertwined communities and cultures and how, why, and if society really does separate them into two separate categories, or cultures/communities/social classes.

 References:

Adesola, Adesola, Adesola, Adesola, Adesola, & Adesola. (1970, January 01). Adesola MA Professional Practice. Retrieved from http://adesolamapp.blogspot.com/search?q=artistic

Bell, J., & Waters, S. (2018). Doing your research project: A guide for first-time researchers. McGraw Hill Education.

Holliday, A. (2016). Doing et writing qualitative research. SAGE.

Horton, S., & Hanstein, P. (1999). Researching dance evolving modes of inquiry. University of Pittsburgh.