Page 47 - To know things we have to have the world inside us
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How to proceed?
It is easy to assume that teacher~researchers are literate in the language of light. Many of them use overhead
projectors frequently in their work with children. However, offering the opportunity to build a literacy in light, for
their own expression and thinking, changes the relation between the teacher~researcher and the available tools
and materials. Time is important to work out this new relationship and to work through frustrations. Support and
encouragement to persevere was vital. Once again we become aware of the importance of our own
reconnaissance with the tools and materials we were offering - helping us to be sensitive to the challenges, knots
and difficulties as well as the delight and pleasure experienced by the teacher~researchers in their discoveries.
The context now changed as everyone returned to their home towns scattered across New Zealand and we
returned to Melbourne. The ‘group’ only had the possibility of continuing by being ‘virtual’. How could the
research process continue?
We have come to realise that looking at one thing in depth illuminates it. We ‘see’ more than we expected. More
significantly we begin to see this thing in relation to its context. And context, we realise consists of other
things~objects~materials, other phenomena, other people and their many ideas and emotions. So looking at one
thing~object~material in depth, from a perspective of a pedagogy of relations, allows us to build, in Vecchi’s
words “a greater degree of completeness to thinking.”
This change in context was a moment to pause, to ‘take stock’ and to consider the larger questions that
underpinned this research. We returned to our starting point.
How do adults change the shape of their thinking so that it is possible for them to be more sensitive to the
knowledge building processes of children?
Sixth proposal
Working in small groups online, teacher~researchers were invited to reflect on and share moments/threads of
their research that were significant in some way.
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