How the NMAP Made RTB Reflexively Cry

NMAP: "I'm kind of tired of people claiming that academics and researchers are trying to 'tell practitioners what to do' - when nearly all of us these days who are researchers WERE and still ARE also practitioners. Why is the assumption that we don't listen to practitioners? That we have no real world experience ourselves? That practitioner knowledge should automatically trump theory?"


RTB: IMHO, the problem is that researchers DON'T tell practitioners what to do. Researchers in general do a lousy job of making their research findings praxiologically transparent. We talk at them, not to them. But we can't blame researchers for that...academe does not reward it. Consequently, the job often falls to some intermediary (for CALL@UTK, that would be me). But then the intermediaries get "uppity", want to try their hand at changing the world, only to find out that the only one changed is themselves. You teach, but are no longer a "teacher". You practice, but are no longer a "practitioner". You are a researcher...a new member of a particular flavor of cognoscenti. It is a position I will never be comfortable in...but I could never go back. It is a position in which there is no room for apathy because intense ambivalence fills every available bit of space. I lack the words to reflect on this at a 'meta' level, but images flash in my head...the poor/fortunate man freed from Plato's Cave is one. But for those of you who are closet fans of Cyrano de Bergerac, perhaps you will understand when I tell you that the image that resonates with me like a massive earthquake is the Comte de Guiche as he reflects on his life after becoming a Duc. I can totally see me playing this out in a decade. For those of you qui ne parle pas très bien le français, perhaps taking his reflective lines from the English edition and inserting myself into them somehow will help you understand. All I ask in return is that you send me a little something to give voice to my tension. A little theory-as-therapy, palliative philosophy. Even a citation will do...I know my way around a library:



(walking from Claxton to the Library)

RTB (AS THE FUTURE NMAP) (speaking of a teacher): Ay, there is one who has no prize of Fortune!--Yet is not to be pitied!

THE TA (with a bitter smile): But Dr. Berchot...

RTB : Pity him not! He has lived out his career, free in his thoughts, as in his actions free!

THE TA (in the same tone): Dr. Berchot!

RTB  (haughtily): True! I have all, and he has naught;. . .Yet I am proud to shake his hand!

(Waving to a colleague): Bye!

COLLEAGUE: I'll go over with you.

(RTB waves goodbye to the TA, and goes with the colleague toward the ramp.)

RTB (pausing, while the colleague goes up the ramp):
Ay, true,--I envy him.
Look you, when life is full of scholarly success
--Though the past holds no action foul--one feels
A thousand self-disgusts, of which the sum
Is not remorse, but a dim, vague unrest;
And, as one mounts the ramp of scholarly renown,
The NMAP's leather wheeled briefcase trails within its wheels
A sound of dead illusions, vain regrets,
A rustle--scarce a whisper--like as when,
Mounting the ramp to the sidewalk, your  leather wheeled briefcase
Sweeps in its path the dying autumn leaves.

RTB gets reflexive!

As you may or may not know, I have blog entries from the Rocky Top Bear Show (don't ask) beamed over to FB, because I have some friends that asked me to. They may soon regret having asked, but I hope not!

I've been looking over syllabi for my courses this semester, and noticed the following assignment for my discourse analysis class:

"As outlined by Watt (2007), engaging in regular reflection on the research process and on your growth as a researcher is an integral part of all qualitative, interpretive research. This is particularly true of discourse analysis from a discursive perspective. This assignment asks you to begin a reflexivity journal this semester and to make regular entries throughout the semester. I suggest that you use a blog for this purpose and post the link in the discussion board. If you would rather keep your journal private, you can send the link only to me. Alternatively, you may keep your journal in a Word document or some other electronic means that can be shared with me on a regular basis. At the end of the semester please write a synthesis of your journal entries/experience in the class, particularly how you have developed as a researcher and your understanding of the theory and practice of discourse analysis, discursive psychology and its applications to your own research agenda."

I gave some thought to how I wanted to keep this reflexivity journal and what would be most meaningful to me. My mind went back to a powerful article by Rupert Wegerif (2006) that I had occasion to read in a recent CMC/CSCL course, where he at one point channels Merlau-Ponty channeling Heidegger:

"...[T]he source of meaning is to be found not in the figures or in their backgrounds but in the difference between the two because it is the boundary around a figure that makes it exist as a thinkable thing." (p. 145)

This resonated strongly with a previous allusion to Bakhtin in the same article:

"the meaning of an utterance is not reducible to the intentions of the speaker or to the response of the addressee but emerges between these two". (p. 144)

I could very well keep this a private affair between teacher and student, or perhaps even open it up to classmates, but I'm certain that the entries would not _mean_ as much to me, because if I buy into this idea that meaning emerges in the boundary between "figure" and "background" or "speaker" and "addressee", why would I not want that boundary to be a granular as I could get it? Besides, a lot of my FB friends either are profound colleagues whose opinions I respect immensely and who "get" what I'm doing or are good friends who have my implicit trust and who often "don't get" what I'm doing, and the reactions on both ends of the spectrum are very helpful in reformulating my thinking.

So I'm using the Rocky Top Bear Show (well, a part of it) to house my reflexivity journal, which means that entries will also pop up in FB. Please feel free to react / discuss / whatever, either on the blog or on FB. Tag = epc531. If you're not inclined to play the part of "background" or "addressee", please ignore the posts. I just wanted you to know that no, I haven't become completely unhinged, I'm being "encouraged" (with a 30-percent-of-your-grade gun to my head) to essentially "think out loud". So you have my sincere thanks or most abject apologies, whichever is most befitting.

Watt, D. (2007). On becoming a qualitative researcher: The value of reflexivity. The Qualitative Report 12 (1), 82-101.

Wegerif, R. (2006). A dialogic understanding of the relationship between CSCL and teaching thinking skills. Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning 1 (1), 143-157.