Making a Difference?

After teaching a class of which there were only 3 students in total out of 19 from the previous week I got into a  conversation with the dance teacher who is usually present during class at the school (a extra-curricular class) where I teach to reflect on the lack of presence of the students in class that day.   Needless to say I didn't feel great about it and got into an old pattern of thinking that their lack of presence was attributed to my class and its content and style or perhaps it might have been too hard. Or another old pattern was "well here we go again! as an after school club they are not required to attend. Pulling my bootstraps up I thought well... for those who stayed I will give them a really meaningful experience and pay attention to particular issues/themes they would like to focus on.  In the end the class was great and it gave me an opportunity to observe the two who stayed (the 3rd student was so unwell that it would not have benefited him to stay - he clearly needed to be in bed, but at least he turned up!)   I know that a bug was going around the school which not only affected a couple of the performing arts teachers but it seems to have affected the vast majority of students who should have turned up for class?  Surely 17 of them could not have been struck by this deadly bug! I wondered whether for the younger students mostly year 7 whether dance was that important to them and as it was only a club didn't take it too seriously despite promises that they would attend.  I also know that for some of the older students in my class year 13s there is a lot of pressure on them at the moment to commit to and finish assignments related to their performance arts course which meant staying behind after school for subjects closely related to their course.

The group I am teaching this term are ranging in ages from 11 to 19 years (years 7, a couple of year 8s, a handful of year 10s, years 12 and 13) - its quite broad and is reflected in the type of class I teach which  although I want to teach a more Horton based class have to differentiate massively and theme it in such as way through a piece I am setting that is more all encompassing, all inclusive  and not specifically stylistic in the Horton sense).

Reflecting back to the conversation with the dance teacher, she told me that for a cluster of the year 13 students she has charged them with attending open days at colleges, universities and conservatoires to look at what they would like to do and focus on in terms of further study at higher education level or an alternative possibly. Some of the year 13s were a little unsure what to study at university level and felt a little pressurised by other areas of the curriculum subjects they studied plus parental pressures.  Dance for some seemed to be of a lower priority that is until it all changed after attending some university open days. All agreed that they wanted to study dance at a either university or conservatoire level and it was interesting that each university had a different characteristic that favoured their choice of dance at a higher level.  The teacher reported that they had a light-bulb moment! They wanted to study dance. One thing they fed back which was a resounding yes, was that they needed to get back to my classes!  I was heartened and also humbled because in previous times last year in particularly and a little bit this term those very students who made that statement didn't come to my classes!  So the pressure is on for me to make a difference in their learning experiences and hope that I can draw out their potential to meet their own personal needs and aspirations and marry that to the type of university they wish to attend to further their dance training and career.  One girl in particular has always attended my classes and I was really impressed by her hunger, openness and physical development intelligently in her body and also by the way she moved.  She recently attended the summer school at Laban over the summer and boy did I see a change in her, in her approach to moving, her intelligence the way she modelled a way of moving that had nuances of what I had taught her throughout last year, but also physically her body was a blank canvas ready to take on   degree of intense dance training that will have a positive impact in her career.  It made me wonder despite the ups and downs of low attendance at my classes whether what I teach and in terms of a modern dance technique albeit it an adapted form make a difference and was  preparation tool for them to choose their dance pathway.  It made me think of my own paths and choices and how my training and more intensively when I trained in Horton how much of a tool and conduit it became for my dance career path and the types of dance companies and choreographers I worked with in the past.

I hope that for those students who after attending open days come back to my classes so that we can all walk on that journey in readiness for the next chapter of their dance careers.  I also hope that the 'bug' that afflicted so may has gone so that I get my other students back and I hope that I really can make a difference.  Incidentally I had one student who finished year 13 last year, accepted a place studying dance at a university but due to personal circumstances has deferred for a year.  She has asked permission from her dance teacher at school if she can attend after school classes and particularly mine!  Her aim is to do as many classes as possible in this gap  or deferred year to keep in shape and in readiness for when she starts her studies.  It was humbling how she talked about my classes and what it did for her previously.

Where I am now is not where I started!

In the midst of developing and designing my research inquiry I realised that I have been holding on to some old assumptions through fear and rigidity and a sense that I was pretty sure about (or so I thought) and knew what I wanted to find out.  One of a number of assumptions was the idea that my idea could drop neatly into a template and come out the other end with the answer having  the right formula and  process of data collection methods and theoretical stances would become a synergistic blend.  This has not been my experience and where I am now is learning how to let go and give myself permission to look at what it is I wish to know with a different frame of reference or paradigm shift and not worry myself too much into the ground of what I will discover.  I suppose I had a fear that what I may end up discovering is not perhaps what I had intended and how would I deal with that? By sticking closely to my pre-conceived template and feeding it with the right data methods I thought would bring me back on track to my knowing in research terms - I now realise that there is no right or wrong way to approach my investigation.  Perhaps I was visiting an old fear of not doing this inquiry correctly and used to an earlier model of following an acceptable template that exists or not as I am finding out.  After all I am at the heart of the research and where I am now is in a place of acceptance of the change process that I will embark upon as I design the inquiry and be okay with where I end up!

Task 1 - Katherine Dunham and Jennifer Muller

I wanted to focus my task on Katherine Dunham and touch on the work of Jennifer Muller who are two quite different choreographers/teachers  and dance pioneers distinct but complementary in their approaches  to dance from the standpoint a non-positivist .  One perspective came from and transgressed positivist negative thinking and stereotype to evolve  a legacy philosophy and methodology that resonates with my cultural background and history and the other a different approach that rejects limited-historical positivism  by not becoming beholden to the past in favour of the here and now  grounded in the recognition of difference. The coming together of these two different and complementary worlds characterises me and my ever evolving thinking and experiences around the idea of non-positivism.  

Katherine Dunham was an artist and visionary and was one of the first modern dancers to blend ballet, modern and folk forms and present it to the concert stage.  However her path to the concert stage was marred by strong positivist and racist thinking of the 1930s but like other black dancers of her generation in the 1930s she used a variety of ideals and formats to  present and perform their work, ultimately getting the recognition she deserved and evolving a black modern dance aesthetic.

Black dancers in the 1930’s and 40s could not study modern dance or ballet.  There was a negative stereotype that black dancers and their bodies and any dances they performed was limited to Vaudeville and popular dance shows and musicals in films and any attempt to enter the realms of ballet and modern dance training would as the myth suggested black dancers would lose their natural spontaneity and naturalness as a dancer.  However the Harlem Renaissance created an aesthetic manifesto that would change that view and act as a blueprint for black artists.  Black dancers were not viewed in the mainstream and always seen as ethnic dancers whose performances were ‘barbaric, exotic and wild’.  It is interesting to note that at the same time modern white dance pioneers such as Ruth St Denis who was inspired by and performed material with strong ethnic dance influences, were treated as modern dance icons and not referred to as ethnic dancers.  It is within this backdrop that Katherine Dunham and other dance contemporaries  performed the same material but unlike their white counterparts were treated differently within a positivist framework.  To break down these barriers and create and define a black modern dance aesthetic Katherine Dunham through her work, teachings and research opened the doors and entered the mainstream of modern dance.   

Between the years 1937 – 1945 Katherine faced a conundrum whereby black concert dancers who staged themes of an Africanist nature were considered by white critics as ‘natural performers’ rather that as ‘creative artists’ and if black dancers staged works of a Eurocentric nature and bias they were chided or their work considered ‘derivative’ rather than as ‘original artists’.  However for white modern dancers when making work referencing dances from another race namely black they were applauded as an accepted convention in modern dance of the 1930s or as Susan Manning (2001) describe “Metaphorical Minstrelsy”.  The critic John Martin applauded Katherine Dunham’s reliance on the rich heritage of Negro dance but disparaged the integration of ballet into her inter-cultural movement vocabulary.  America in that time could not make the connection to or understand the form and function of her dances she staged and represented the diaspora of African people across the globe and specifically in north and South America and the Caribbean.

Katherine was a unique individual who contributed to the arts, was an anthropologist, choreographer, dancer and educator and humanist.  With an interest in dance at a young age plus an interest in books and subject material about people and how they lived their cultural lives led her to studying for a degree in Anthropology. Whilst there she continued to study dance and was trained in ballet but was also interested to know about how people of Africa moved.  She received a travelling Fellowship in 1936 to research and study dance in the West Indies.   When asked what kind of research she had in mind:

“She stood up in her tights and first did some movements of the type that were being taught in most schools ‘pretty steps and turns’ (Biemiller 1969 p88)....” She then demonstrated in African dance [what] she had choreographed earlier, that’s what I’m after.  I want to find out why Africans dance, how they started,  and what this kind of dancing does to people, the life they lead” Biemiller, (1969, p89)

Theories that developed through her travels, documentation of dances of people from African descent in the Caribbean eventually led to the creation of what is now called the Dunham Technique. The technique is both physical and emotional and was as the result of Katherine’s years of observing, studying, assimilating, creating, understanding and living.  Three theoretical models were evolved to create the technique and used as training and teaching model for her students and company.  The three models are

1.      Form and Function

2.      Intercultural communication

3.      Socialisation through the arts

Form and function – allowed for the understanding of the specifics of dance movement and why.  She incorporated the principles of time, space, and dynamics and how the dance related to the overall cultural pattern of a dance and its particular relevance

Intercultural communication. The technique allowed a person to understand a culture or many cultures through dance, and Katherine found that an understanding of different cultures takes place when one is immersed in the culture.  Through experiencing other ways of living, especially through the dances, knowledge is acquired

Socialisation through the arts. This model was a tool for training people not only as artists but as communicators. Albirda Rose writes: “Dunham believes that if given the opportunity a student can and will learn important information about him/herself through the art forms of his or her particular culture”

The above models formed what Dunham described as a ‘System’.  This system allows students the opportunity to  experience a way of life not only through the physical technical attributes of the technique itself but to set itself up as a framework for self-exploration and reflection.

Jennifer Muller’s work and philosophy was influenced by a large variety of instructors, cultural and political environments and philosophy that inspired the development of her work and also technique.  She went to the Julliard School where she studied Ballet and Modern dance with at modern dance pioneers of Pearl Lang, Anthony Tudor, and José Limón who she was eventually invited to join the company. She was also inspired by Anna Sokolow and took classes with Merce Cunningham.  She is rooted in Eastern philosophy for its ebb and flow and  energy – a lifeforce and is separate from a western perspective of philosophy.  This philosophy underpinned a lot of her technique and she had a humanistic and strong recognition of difference and acceptance plus a need for making a working environment harmonious.  Dance for Muller is a language and form of communication and presents works on stage that doesn’t represent historical characters preferring to work with individuals of the present.  The body she says is something that through its energy is permanently connected to the environment. 

The conceptual basis of the Muller Technique is founded on three fundamental principles:

1.      Working with the flow of energy

2.      The power of imagination

3.      Knowledge of the body’s physical structure

Her technique has an individual approach and designed to help dancers train with less tension and a desire that dancers are able to embody human emotions and movement.  Her approach lends itself to a broader application by others who are studying other techniques and for performance.   There are 7 approaches she uses and employs which are applicable to other forms of dance but the one which struck a chord with me was the imparting of fundamental social values,  for example acknowledging the individual and respecting others thus enabling dancers to learn and grow in a supportive, motivated environment. This characterises the general atmosphere of a Muller technique class and can definitely draw parallels with Katherine Dunham’s ‘System’ and methodology.

For both Katherine and Jennifer I got a  sense of  the power of  embodying movement through ‘sensing’ and use of energy efficiently creating  experiences   giving meaning a social significance  to their work and themes that recognises difference, celebration of equality. The life force or energy of Jennifer Muller’s approach easily translates to Katherine’s staging  of Africanist dance movement which although historical has a currency that is ever present and where critics talked about  her work having a ‘constant element’ or ‘reason for being’.  For me this constant and reason for being  is an energy, an ebb and flow expressed through the body and movement.  For me also it is endless possibility.

 

Bibliography

Clarke, V, Johnson S, Kaiso! Writings by and about Katherine Dunham

Diehl I, Lampert F, 2010, Dance Techniques 2010 Tanzplan, Germany

Osumare, Halifu, 1989 A National Dialogue Black Choreographers  Moving towards the 21^st Century

Rose, Albirda, 1990 Dunham Technique “A way of Life”

A Pause for thought....

A Pause for thought ...about aesthetics

I was reading today about the work of the founder of Urban Bush Women – Jawole Willa Jo Zolla and her processes  for  how she creates  work and the many influences that led her to evolve her aesthetic and how it informs her work.  It was a self study which charted her background, training, cultural influences that eventually evolved a process of self reflection collaborations with the aim of making dance theatre that is impactful and be a catalyst for social change.  It was interesting reading because in the back of my mind I was asking where on the spectrum or continuum was there a positivist or non-positivist stance – there was a fluidity that moved from one to the other.  There were so many influences which involved, live music and the jazz improvisational aesthetic in modern dance, personal histories and narrative, theatre.   She studied with Kei Takei and begun to understand the necessity for training people to move naturally.  She said that some people were natural dancers but that many good dancers had to be trained to find natural movement impulses  – a kind of embodiment of experiences of natural the impulses and knowledge of the body to express and perform.  I was intrigued by her interest of Folk Art as a visual medium that informed her process and how life experiences were expressed through that medium mostly by African American folk from an older generation who begin to use this visual medium the majority of cases for the first time when they are 60 years and over even though experiences in this visual medium meant that they were not formally trained. For Jawole, the training was in the histories and stories of their lives which were rich, dense and impactful and came through powerfully in their work.   Their experiences embodied the work and she drew on those experiences.  When working with dancers, Jawole  worked with older dancers over 30 years old which in her opinion was  a prime time for performing and with the theory of embodied experiences brought interesting nuances to their performances.

Two thoughts come to mind as I reflect on Jawole Willa and the evolution of her processes: the recognition of the body as a site for knowledge in other words the corporal body which acts as site of embodied knowledge.  I came across a paper about information modalities which acknowledges the use of corporeality as a form of information literacy with equal weight to a cognitive perspective whereby the mind was the key recipient of information and found an interesting parallel to dance and movement and the process of learning through the body by the use of corporeality as outlined by Dr Annemaree Lloyd (2010)

In respect to information literacy practice, corporeality is the source of embodied and situated knowledges, which cannot be expressly articulated through the written word, but is grounded in the physical actions and nuances of members who participate in the practices of a particular social site.

Bodies make information and the meaning that we make of information visible, and therefore make a 'shared understanding of the world possible' (Rambusch and Ziemke 2005: 1807). The materiality of practice is inscribed on our bodies, revealing our association with place, our identity, and our practical understandings. In turn bodies are accessed and read as information sources by co-participants who actively interrogate the bodies of others in practice in order gain access to embodied knowledge. Through our bodies we are able to demonstrate our practical knowledge and nuanced understanding which enable the communities to which we connect, to recognize our alignment and commitment.

Lloyd, A. (2010). "Corporeality and practice theory: exploring emerging research agendas for information literacy" Information Research, 15(3) colis794. [Available at http://InformationR.net/ir/15-3/colis7/colis704.html]

I had an aha moment when I thought about  her process of folk art and how it was used to draw out movement material through the canvas of life as expressed by elderly African American folk and how they allowed their bodies through training and experiences in life to offer  access to memory and knowledge.  It also points me into the direction of Merleau-Ponty who talked about sensing and perception and the emphasis of the body as a primary site of knowing the world.  I was also interested in Jawole’s use of older dancers to perform her work who I assume would have  had a bank of life experiences that would contribute to her work.  It got me thinking about young people and their experiences when learning and performing – even though young some young people I have come into contact with may have had an intense bank of experiences in their embodied lives to draw on albeit in a shorter time frame which would be just as valid as that of an older dancer.  I don’t doubt the journey that they are on but I would look at the quality of experience and how it enriches their lives which can be just as powerful and if I am a good teacher/ mentor could offer to bring that out if they would allow me to.  Would the work of Urban Bush Women therefore be alien to the experiences and understanding of young people? Would they not understand because being young they would not have a connection to her work?  - just a thought.  Mind you as I reflect this article about Jawole Willa was written some time ago and it would be good to see how much has changed and evolved. This also goes into the ethical aesthetic and contacts Jawole makes with her dancers with embodied experiences and also that of the audience who would view her work. A lot of the work is a collective embodied experience and therefore from a contractual stance.  I wonder whether Jawola Willa  like in Adesola’s PhD extract about Twyla Tharp entered a contract of code of aesthetic ethics with her audience as spectator and her role  as artist and practical researcher when presenting her work.   As a collaborative process a lot of the decision making process in Urban Bush Women is determined by the people it will affect. 

Fluctuations and Ethics

I had an eventful week a couple of weeks ago which threw up   issues to reflect and ask 1) what am I going to investigate in this module 2 inquiry 2) looking at ethical dilemmas resulting from my very eventful and thought provoking week and lastly 3) the variability of my work pattern and how it might affect my ultimate research project if permission is granted.

I’ve been fluctuating between the lines of inquiry I am interested in pursuing and trying to find meaning.    Its interesting how with the ideas I perceive  in my mind are clear until I test them and realise how much I need to return back to the drawing board and start again.  What challenges my ideas has been influenced by outside considerations that I had not anticipated and also when reading a range and variety of texts and I have come into contact with. I suppose that is what this journey is all about to test ideas and not fix them as yet.  I suppose I am illustrating a non-positivist stance in that my reality is not entirely fixed at this point but I do have a broad outline of what it is I would like to investigate.  Perhaps also I am hung up on the level of detail needed.

I am still interested in investigating a codified system of dance (Horton) seen through the lens of an embodied experience – and this has been constant for me in what it is I wish to create – that is fixed in a way but how it ends up will be determined by the type of framework I create.   However I have been faced with whether through creating this inquiry would it be relevant to what it is I want to find out ( do I know the answer already?) where do I intend to go with it? and who will this investigation ultimately serve or benefit?  As I reflect on this Alan’s blog from last week about remembering versus experience made me reflect back to my past training experiences in New York at the Ailey school to ask myself whether my experiences were constructed experiences when training in the formative time of my career and was it fit for purpose. What do I remember going through the rigorous training and how it resonated with my body, my identity physically, mentally, culturally – my sense of self.  Did I only remember the good parts and blot out the negative experiences?   Do I remember anything I constructed in those experiences? Well in my mind yes but fuzzy – however my body remembers the training which became part of my DNA.  I say that because after having my last child many   years after leaving Ailey and my body was not quite back to peak  dancer mode I took a Horton class and was petrified that I would not remember a thing or whether I would cope: the warm up series and fortifications.  I need not have worried.  My body knowledge took over and it was as though I hadn’t left the Ailey school at all. The experiences came flooding back – as if my body said ‘where... have you been for so long!?’ So an embodiment was present and occurred but my inquiry would be to look at the root of that and go through a process of physical analysis of remembering how I remembered.  The codification of the exercises and movement studies of Horton are very structured and anatomical but within that there was a freedom and in body memory terms of allowing and trusting my body’s memory to learn and absorb and understand.   With this body memory I want to get back to the source of it and by doing so make it adaptable and palatable for young people to learn and benefit from the beauty of the form. As it stands I do not teach it in its purest form simply because some of my students who do not have a large movement vocabulary would find it a huge challenge, so I have to adapt it to their preferred learning style and from there when there is sufficient body knowledge – offer more challenging studies. By constructing these experiences I in essence am creating them.  Although I still can’t remember who coined the phrase “you are who/what you think about....” I still draw comfort from it when I hear and express it.   So in essence I am constructing my reality and experiences based on my own belief system – which is okay.  The legacy of that belief has resulted in a vocabulary of dance ideas, experiences and remembering.

So, in finding what my sense of self is and quest for defining this inquiry I am paused by the assumption that what is right for me might not be right for my research subjects – in this case the young people I teach.  This leads to an ethical issue of whether what I am excited about and want to do in research terms would be fit for purpose and relevant to/for them.  Do they care after all and if so how do I frame any lines of inquiry, questions, dialogues, pilots or observational studies that would ensure their buy-in to take part in my research. How do I create research tools when faced with some young people with a host of issues which might challenge the integrity of the research?  The simple answer is find another group but for me it is not so easy due the freelance nature of my work which sometimes result in a longer term relationship during an academic year ( may be asked back next academic year or not) or in a lot of cases covering other teachers classes.  This scenario might affect the research methods I use and not give enough depth to the inquiry possibly. I am facing a dilemma of how to phrase the types of questions or what my research tools will be to frame this inquiry especially when I have to factor in and peel off layers of social and environmental concerns.  Perhaps this is the beauty of the challenge to investigate and see what happens and during the process make the inquiry bespoke to them as subjects and hope that they are in a state of readiness to subscribe to and take part in the inquiry.  A friend recently advised in response to my dilemma that they(young people) are on a journey of which they must travel and go through a range of situations  and emotions some of them more life changing than others and that my entry into their lives as their teacher at the crossroads with my inquiry is part of their journey and mine of developing experiences, learning and memory.   A code of ethics spring to mind by creating a structure or set of guidelines that will protect me as the researcher and my responses to the range of challenges that the project might throw up as well as the ethical considerations of the young people involved.  

 Another consideration around the ethics issue and codes of conduct has come to mind.  As a freelancer my work is dependant on funding which at times is erratic, sometimes last minute , and also dependant on the school’s scheduling.  Plus I am not always in the same school or organisational setting for long periods of time as it might be a one-off covering role.   It places me in a slightly vulnerable position as far as drawing up a personal code of practice for my  nquiry and who do I present it to.  Do I present it to all of the schools I come into contact with? Or my main employer which in this case is the RAD as a freelance tutor.  My only worry is that as my employer they may have the right to change the focus of my inquiry if they have some issue with it – I have to check it out.  I do take comfort  in what  Judith Bell (2010) in “Doing Your Research Project” (5^th edition) advises  that as long as I have done as much as I can do to satisfy myself that my inquiry is done and conducted in  a way that complies with my own ethical principles,  a bespoke approach can be adopted.  She describes a postgraduate student who worked as a teacher in a school and did a piece of in-house research in the school where he taught.  His approach was a bespoke personal code of practice which made clear the conditions and practices to ensure his own and the school’s integrity of the research.   I am sure that it was not without its problems but as a framework it is something worth exploring and food for thought.  I think I’ll bake a cake now!

I need a little time to think it over...!

I wanted to respond to Helen’s blog and post but for some reason (probably my techno phobic fear of technology) I couldn’t respond to the posting – everytime I hit ‘publish’ or 'reply' a message popped up refusing to let me publish – I must be doing something wrong -  so instead I am via my page replying and making it public.

Thanks for the posting Helen about time and opportunity to share.  It is timely and very interesting because for the last few weeks I have been consumed by, and pre-occupied, with time and my perceived lack of it and by my own admission have been a spectator recently due to my understanding of how to manage my time-   the challenges and issues and pressures that it throws up (life, teaching, etc) and how I have managed to deal with it. I have been feeling a little paralyzed by time and I agree that I am responsible for how I manage and shape my experiences in time - now from that spectator stance I am entering a phase where I wish to move through this paralysis and by reflecting and in the context of this current module (2) how I react to the world as I see and experience it.  As I read your blog and comments it  threw up the notion of whether  time for me is too linear or not and that it is simply there and any measure to denote  time is when we see  change be it physically ( as we grow and evolve) , cognitively, emotionally, cyclical. I’ve tended to rush and panic that I have a small window of opportunity to affect change or not enough time, be it the simplest of things  or find myself trying to catch up with other notions of time (e.g. rushing to get the bus, listening to regular news bulletins on the radio,  making sure that the children have done their homework, or making sure that the students in my class understand or learn a routine or exercise on time before we can all collectively move on to the next dance routine in a small window of time. I've been reflecting on this for a little while and as soon as I get to a point where I wish to affect some kind of change in time, something happens which challenges my concept and ability to engage and get stuck in time.  Also I have by reading all of the lively discussions both on the blogs and LinkedIn postings I have been trying to find a time entry to enter the debate.  What has been stopping me is a paralysis of time because I feel that I will have needed to have reflected on it for some time so that I can articulate a sensible response from an embodiment perspective.   In terms of where I stand in all of this I feel that in earlier years I have had influences which have been formative and shaping of my learning journey but now am entering a phase where whereby I have the responsibility to change and affect change and the time is mine to make it happen without waiting for the permissions or approvals of others.

Friday Musings

Hello to all my fellow MAPPers and hurrah to the Module Ones who finally made it!  It was a shame that I wasn't able to meet you all in person at the induction last week - I love the feeling of being embodied, present and connected to people on the course and would have enjoyed very much  the flow of discussions.  However this is a good forum and its great to read some of the musings of those of us who are about to embark on Module Two.  I have been musing and reflecting on the hand book too which was great and I am glad that I have done so (still a little bit to finish reading  the handbook as I'm taking my time to digest it).  I admit that before Module Two I wanted to have a sneak preview online but forced myself not too because a) I would have freaked myself out with the amount of work to do and b) I wanted to wait for the hardcopy that I could carry with me in my bag and read at intervals c) I didn't want to preempt the research tools and body of work to do around it with a project idea already developed that would not fit. 

I realise now after reading the handbook that I hade some preconceived notions and ideas for how to proceed with module two but have been stalled which is a good thing and my thoughts and feelings now have changed around how to approach it.  In a way by having a ready made research project idea would have limited effect of the outcome for my idea and my thoughts now are asking myself what it is I would really like to delve into – what is my real inquiry especially with this new epistemology of experience highlighted in the handbook and my own understanding and interpretation of it all.

Admittedly I took some deep breaths and found myself commenting whilst reading that for every new idea and theory around ‘dualism’, ‘moneism’ and the different bodies of knowledge and experiences etc I read I would need to delve even further to establish a personal standpoint. What the handbook presented was a very thin layer of an otherwise dense and multifaceted area of research to explore. In some ways I embrace it but without feeling overwhelmed!  For me to think about this new approach would be to look at the research ideas as there are lots of different approaches and ways of seeing and knowing much in the same way as looking at a coin say for example a 50 pence piece but viewing it from different sides.  The coin is still pretty much the same but from the viewpoint of many different sides that make up a 50p piece.

Well I had better crack on with the reading! Have a good Friday!