Achievement unlocked

I haven't done a conference presentation for quite a number of years. I don't really count in house seminars at work although I do a couple of them each year. Sure, they mean getting up and talking in front of people, but usually the people are colleagues from various disciplines so they don't ask tricky questions. Today was different as I co-presented a paper here in Adelaide at the RAILS8 conference on GLAM, cultural policy and Australian cultural heritage. I was very relieved to have an excellent partner in crime as it were in Katherine Howard. I was also very relieved to be presenting in a friendly sized room ar UniSA. I had spent the evening prior with visions of giant, cold lecture theaters dancing through my head. Fortunately this did not come to pass. I thought about all the times I had blithely encouraged students in public speaking, or piano students in performances. How could have possibly been so uncaring? Anyway, apparently it's good for us to do something that scares us every day. Achievement unlocked for me today.

Wendy spends the day at her desk

dull powerpoint

I look forward to the Saturday that I don't spend it mainly inside sitting at my computer. Of course, this is made more pleasant now that I am using my shiny new Macbook with it's soft glowing keyboard and clear as crystal screen. Still, I would rather not be trying to whack together a presentation on Angry Boys at the last minute. It's an expectation of a my research allocation that I do a uni lunchtime seminar at least once a year. I blithely signed up for November 22 many months ago, thinking that by this time I would be free to spend all my working hours on writing and research with few other commitments over Term 3. HAHA on me. My kingdom for the crystal ball that would have foretold the endless upheaval and daily tasks associated with our area's restructure and change proposal. As a result, I am cobbling together something about mockumentaries, Chris Lilley and S.Mouse! with an accompanying dull powerpoint and hoping for the best on Tuesday lunchtime.

View from my freshly dusted desk

This morning I tidied and dusted my desk. Here's what I can see while I sit at it. I dream of a spacious work area at home. I would love a separate office where I can spread out, have lots of filing cabinets, shelves with everything organised and in the one place. I long for enough power points and usb ports and good lighting. Instead, because I have chosen to turn one of my bedrooms into a piano teaching room I have a weird assortment of desk-type furniture which is constantly piled with a mixture of junk mail, work stuff, library study stuff and research stuff. There is an unpleasant spaghetti mess of cords and powerboards hidden between the two drawer filing cabinet and the little desk. I choose to ignore that for there's no keeping it tidy. My workspace consists of the aforementioned filing cabinet which is chock a block with cords, warranties for electrical equipment, adaptors, chargers, sticky tape, ribbon and wrapping paper and other sundries. On top of the filing cabinet is a printer which I bought in May and am yet to hook up to my computer (so I probably didn't need it after all). The filing cabinet is also home to my lamp, my external hard drive and my modem. On the desk proper is my laptop, more chargers that use the computer, a corkboard , two containers for pens and bits and pieces and usually whatever I am working on at any particular time. Next to the desk is an antique traymobile. It should be used for dainty afternoon teas, piled high with cakes and fine china. Unfortunately, its wheels are dodgy so any attempts to move it anywhere result in the need for a pitstop to reattach the wheels. I love it though and it functions well as storage for overflow of books and CDs on the bottom shelf, while the top shelf is used as an extension of desk space. It belonged to my great grandmother's cousin. I'm sure she never pictured it housing some intrays from Officeworks but there you go.


I have quite the supply of citrus fruit at the moment.


My intrays....


My VIP Leonard Cohen pass. I was not a VIP but I knew someone who was. Looks impressive though doesn't it?


My china cabinet complete with Royal Doulton tea and coffee sets, small collection of miniature genie lamps and brass tea pot and sugar pot.


Container of pens and other junk.


Pencil case, diary, current paper draft....



USB..yes I know it's only 1GB but it was free at a workshop I went to a few years ago and still going strong.

I need more days like this

It's Friday. I hope it will be the first of many this term when I can work at home. I persisted through the revisions of a paper all day. I did allow myself a morning coffee and banana and coconut bread this morning downtown. But then I came home and got stuck in and forced myself to sit at the computer even though the writing was slow and tedious. When I had nothing to write I sat and thought. I watched the sun pass over the house and shine in my big back windows in the early afternoon. The cat kept me company by snoozing on the lounge. By 4pm I had made some progress and lost all ability to concentrate so I stopped. The evening was made bright with the arrival of some strawberries. I just polished some off with some yoghurt and thought how lucky I am to have strawberries straight from the farm.

I need more days like this.

That all sounds very grand....

Yesterday afternoon I "launched" my book. That sounds all very grand doesn't it. It wasn't really. I was determined it wouldn't be. I don't really like being the centre of attention and didn't want any of my kind friends and colleagues who attended to feel obliged to buy a copy. Instead, I decided to chat about the process of publication (very briefly!) and then chat about TV comedy. So that is what we did and it was lots of fun. We also had cheese, crackers, wine, tea, coffee and little cakes. In a slightly unfortunate turn of events someone (NOT ME) had tipped off the local paper so my photo may well appear in the auspicious pages of the News Mail at some point. Until, then you will have to make do with these photos of my book.



Afterwards, I raced home because I was late for a accompanying rehearsal with a double bass student who is playing in the Eisteddfod tomorrow. Then I ordered Thai takeaway, drank some of the wine that I had commandeered from the leftovers at the "launch" and settled in to watch an actual grand event on the telly. I finished the evening with a massive headache and went to bed. I certainly know how to party.

sadly, no chorus or jazz hands

So yesterday was Monday and what a Monday it was. Firstly, it was long. I was at work from 8:30 until 8pm. Then I went to choir and got home at 10. My tasks at work included some mild procrastinating, emails,marking, making a powerpoint slide, fixing a presentation for yesterday evening, giving a presentation yesterday evening at the "Research Showcase" (sadly, no chorus line or jazz hands, although I did crack some jokes which some people smiled kindly at), mingling and "engaging with members of the community" - mostly sciencey, agriculture people - you can only imagine how interested they were in a television studies research person who talked to them about critically reflecting on one's own practice as an educator to identify the assumptions which frames one's work. Safe to say, no-one came and asked questions of me at the end. The upside of this was that I could enjoy the food which for once was not the usual dire buffet of finger food one finds at such events. There was also wine although I did not partake of it because I had to speak, and then I had to go and sing and play the piano. When I got to choir late they were singing Streets of London. It really is a very pretty song. And then we practised our music for the Eisteddfod. We have a pre-Eisteddfod concert on Sunday. I am now singing first alto in the unaccompanied Sacred piece, and tenor in the madrigals. The tenor line goes just a little bit low in some places for my "range" (posh musical term for the highest and lowest notes I can sing with ease). For instance the F and E below Middle C are a little bit of a stretch. Still, madrigals are so much fun to sing and the tenor often has a great part. Then we finished with our accompanied Sacred piece, a short bouncy chorus from Judas Maccabeus by Handel. So I played the piano for that. My happy music mood was soured slightly by an officious email from an Eisteddfod committee member. I hate getting those kind of emails any time, but late at night is even more frustrating as it interrupts my sleep. Still, I have replied in professional manner this morning and there it lies.
Welcome Tuesday!

of writing, aging, music and other things

I feel I should post something but not sure what so here we go. I am not doing the novel writing in November thingo that so many people seem to be having a go with. It's enough to keep drafting a paper, blogging, tweeting and facebooking without a novel looming over me as well. Good for them though. I hope they make a million dollars. Well not really, but you get the idea..good writing wishes and all that.

I am now officially "working from home" most of the time on my research fellowship. Finally. It's only taken since June to get this happening. I'll tell you why. 1. Teaching. 2. Operation. At last, my teaching, student duties have died down after the end of term and I don't feel the need to run into uni every morning. It's much nicer to get up in a leisurely fashion, breakfast, shower, meditate etc, and write for the morning. At this stage it's all very drafty, and as always after having a long break from writing "proper" stuff, I seem to have forgotten how to do it but surely that's all part of the fun? Isn't it?

And yes, I did take my brave pills and attend a 20 year school reunion on Saturday night. hmmmm. 20 years is a long time, but what this confirmed for me was that essentially people don't really change, they just become taller, fatter, louder, quieter, more or less intense versions of themselves. It was all very interesting. Best bit...chatting with the two guys who I had been right through primary school with as well.

Anything else? Well I am off to Brisbane again on Friday. This time to see Leonard Cohen on Saturday night. I am flying as way back in June Qantas conveniently had a sale..so instead of the usual 200 dollars or so it usually costs (ONE WAY...THAT'S RIGHT) I am there and back for 140 bucks. An hour in a plane or 4-5 hours in a car. Decision was made.

working from home: in pictures

just a little tweeting every so often

This is my first officially sanctioned working from day. How exciting. I have delighted in the lack of phone calls, email tinging, people arriving at my office door unexpectedly and so on. I have also delighted in the amount of work I got through this morning...some things had been sitting waiting for a spare moment at work for months. I barely even procrastinated...just a little tweeting every so often and the odd facebook check for a minute or two. I can listen to whatever music I like, the kettle is really close by for cups of tea and coffee and if I want to I can wear my slippers.

Now, however I arrive at the real challenge - to work through my nana nap time. Surely, looking at the grammar module for the course I am teaching next term will keep me alert and alive.

We shall see....

they are not one and the same

What did I achieve this week?
1. Moved office. Knick knacks are now all in place. Everything tidied and put away.
2. Finally after months of trying to get to it I sent out some letters for the local oral history project Anne and I are in the middle of. When I say "in the middle of" I really mean, " a thing we started probably 18 months ago and on which we still have a huge amount of work to do". Still, no progress should be sneezed at, coughed on or even met with a surreptitious clearing of the throat.
3. Chatted with another colleague about the paper we are "writing" together. When I say "writing together" I mean that last year the paper got to a certain point and then we kept setting meetings and cancelling them because I hadn't found any time to look at it any further. It is now at the top of my to do list.
4. Made a "To do" list ready for Monday. Actually I made two "To do" lists. One is for teaching things and one is for research things. I'll let you decide which one is more attractive and which one will probably take first priority. I'll give you a hint. They are not one and the same.
5. Felt like I was starting to clear a little bit of head space for thinking about research. This ephiphanous moment (is that a word?) occurred when I was talking to a friend's daughter about her assignment on television that she is completing today at what will remain an unnamed Brisbane university. Suddenly I realised how much I missed talking to other people about TV. I hope I didn't frighten her. She's only in her second year. I may have got a little carried away.

So it's not much but it's a start. In between I spent a lot of time doing my other work, much of which seems to consist of sending and receiving emails.

A distinct lack of trumpet fanfare

Well today finally the first of June arrived. It was a lovely day weather wise, although distinctly underwhelming in many other ways. There were the usual pernickety emails, the students - prospective, past and current - wanting various forms of assistance. For Day One of the Research Fellowship there was no trumpet fanfare, procession, cake, or any either kind of sign that something new was beginning. There was just me, myself and a really messy office that needed tidying and moving up a floor. By 3pm I managed to muster up some enthusiasm and made a start with all my bits and pieces. Tomorrow the nice men from building and grounds, and ITD will move my filing cabinets, books, extra desks, computer and printer. It always takes some time to feel at home in a new office but once I have my knick knacks in place and have worked out how to fix what seems a totally borked vertical blind I'm sure I will settle in. One of first tasks is to come up with a list of readings for my PhD student (oooer that sounds a bit grand don't it!). I then have a call for papers that I need to get started on, a network to begin networking (whatever the heck that actually means) and a plan of attack to plan and then attack.

So you know, it's not like I've got nothing to do. Still, a trumpet or two would have heralded the day in nicely.

I just don't know what to do with myself

Like the song says, I am feeling at a bit of a loose end. The teaching term finished this afternoon. Not a moment too soon I hear myself say. I am a leetle weary and jaded, happy to see our students finish the program, already planning for the new classes starting in Term 2.

I now have a five week break with no teaching and already I can see it being frittered away with preparation and planning. Next term, for the first time ever I am going to be teaching the academic writing subject that is central to our program. But Wendy, I hear you cry in amazement, don't you have a postgraduate degree and a few fringe journal articles published, some book reviews etc and so on and so forth. Why yes, I reply, but for some reason, until this moment apparently I have not been up to the task of teaching students about academic essay writing and research. Even though comparatively speaking, I have done quite a bit of it. But Wendy, I say to myself, don't sound all bitter and twisted about the whole thing. No, my dear girl, embrace the new opportunity ahead of you. Okay, I say, I shall embrace the opportunity.

I just thought I might have had a bit more time to start getting prepared before June 1, which as regular readers of The Spiralling Shape will realise is Research Fellowship Starting Day. It is also next Tuesday. In preparation, I have bought a cheapo laptop so I can Work Well From Home Or Anywhere I Care To Work From. I have also requested an office change to a Quieter Spot in our Building. Both of these things will be good. On June 1 I also officially become an Associate Supervisor for the First Time. This is exciting and I am really looking forward to it. The thesis is going to look at underground musical subcultures in Malaysia, so it crosses a few areas of interest for me. I plan to start on Research Fellowship Starting Day by developing a two year plan of attack. Of course, I already had to submit a plan of attack in my application, so I best dig that out first and have a look at what I said I was going to do. Then I will probably change it slightly. After conversations a while ago with Anne M, formerly of Bundaberg, now of Clayfield, I am thinking about starting an online journal. How do I do that? I have no freaking idea, but it sounds like fun.

Between now and the end of next week I also have to read and write a book review. I have not started the book yet, although it looks very interesting.
I am also "reading" Shades of Grey (Jasper Fforde) Shantaram (which is fast turning into Ulysses and A Suitable Boy...i.e. destined to remain unfinished), and today bought that book about The Brain That Changes Itself...because you know, paperback and something or other extra percent off in Big W was irresistible.

So it seems I have plenty to do after all.

"If you watch a lot of TV you're not considered well-viewed"

So our shiny new Vice Chancellor decreed that there should be a celebration of research at our not so shiny and new university. He also decreed that it should take place this week. Last night the Bundaberg campus held its event, an evening of 5 minute talks by researchers for the community and students to attend if they so desired. I did a little talk about watching TV. I decided that if I talked about my actual research everyone would fall asleep and/or look at me strangely, given that the bulk of the audience were local councillors, sciencey-type people from govt departments, and local business people. So I gave the following very light talk. I got a bit nervous with the audience demographic. Some of them even looked like they woke up. They did laugh in the right places which was good.

For your enjoyment or otherwise:

TV is nothing if not constantly changing medium. We can watch it all shapes and sizes - from our mobile phones to our gigantic media rooms and everything inbetween. This technological development is one part of TV’s interest for me. The other aspect of TV that is fascinating is of its programs: the shows we sit down and watch each night. My particular interest is television comedy. In my PhD I examined some iconic moments in Australian TV comedy –including Graham Kennedy, Norman Gunston, Roy and HG and Kath and Kim. The future of my research as an Early Career Fellow with CQUniversity’s Learning and Teaching Education Research Centre lies in the genre of the television mockumentary, those TV programs which appear as documentaries, but blur this look with black, satirical comedy allowing them to often cuttingly critique various aspects of our culture. For instance, those of you who watched We Can Be Heroes it may be impossible to ever take the Australian of the Year awards seriously ever again. And if like many of us you watched Roy and HG tear apart the pomposity of the Sydney Olympics, it may well be that you will never watch an opening ceremony or mens’ gymnastics with quite the same innocence that you once were able to. My intention over the next two years is to consider the past, present and future of television comedy, particularly looking at the mockumentary. This means I will get to watch a lot of television, including groundbreaking programs like The Office, The Hollowmen and Summer heights High among others.

Some of you might be wondering how and why TV is taken seriously as a research topic. You might agree with Groucho Marx:

"I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set I go into the other room and read a book"

I’m the first to agree that my research isn’t life-changing in quite the same way as curing cancer, cloning a sheep or growing an ear on the side of a mouse might be. You might be asking how television fits into the great big exciting world of research? The task of research is to further our understanding of the world in which we live – its problems, its complexities and its contradictions. So with this in mind, let's return to the title of my talk this evening, “What can we learn from watching television?”

Now, the answer to this question is not “Nothing”, but rather “Plenty”. Television matters to our understanding of ourselves and the world around us. If you wear your disdain for television as a badge of honour I may not be able to convert you to my cause. However, if you have watched any television in the past week or so I hope to convince you that in doing so you were actually engaging with arguably one of our most powerful cultural technologies.


Television presents the world to us but let us not pretend that it presents the whole world to us without fear or favour. No indeed. Television “represents” the world to us. Perhaps the simplest way of explaining this is to consider what it chooses to broadcast. Television teaches us that some events are more important than others. For instance last week news and current affairs were saturated with Tiger Woods. Never mind that there was an earthquake on the American west coast or the government was being overthrown in Kyrgyzstan. I even understand that Britain is having some kind of election. This all paled into insignificance because an overpaid, although highly talented sportsman lost some sponsors but made a return to professional golf. Here, television is teaching us that a fallen celebrity making a comeback trumps politics and natural disasters – on the commercial stations at least. What does this example teach us when we see that so many of us then discussed Tiger rather than Gordon Brown around the lunch table or over dinner? It tells us that we may well have been influenced by the choices made by a television editorial executive. This is a simple example of how television represents the world to us; how it teaches us what is deemed important, what is valued, what we should be fascinated by and of course, what we should not bother ourselves with.

As citizens living in a media age we ignore TV at our peril. Instead, we should watch television and lots of it. And we should watch it with a critical eye. As Clive James noted in one of his 1970s television columns for The Observer, “Practically everyone who watches television has a critical attitude to it to some extent”. For those TV watchers among us, we are all quite certain as to what we like and what we don’t. But I am encouraging you to watch television even more carefully than that. Ask yourself, what is it that you particularly like or dislike about certain programs. Is it the fast paced action, the excruciating close-ups of human remains and autopsies, the wit, the jokes, the silliness, the arrogant whinging of airplane passengers, the time travel, the medical procedures tinged with romance, the solving of crimes and mysteries, the melodrama of Ramsay St, the apparently desperate housewives of Wisteria Lane. Perhaps it’s watching people transform from obese to healthy while being gently tortured, or the indepth analysis of current affairs. Perhaps like me you take an interest in the colour of Alan Kohler’s tie each night on the ABC News, or maybe you are confused as to why Tony Jones insists on taking questions as comments on Q and A. Do these things amuse you, horrify you, mystify you, entertain you, make you cry, inspire you or even just plain annoy you? Television, like all our other forms of popular culture can do all these things.

You can try and ignore it if you like but I don’t think it’s going away any time soon. It is one of the ways in which we make sense of the world, so if we are to be well-rounded, informed citizens we might like to consider comedian Lily Tomlin’s comment:

"If you read a lot of books, you're considered well-read. But if you watch a lot of TV you're not considered well-viewed"


As a TV studies researcher I am in the process of becoming well viewed and it’s my challenge to convince everyone else of the importance of doing the same. So in conclusion this evening I am going to set you on the path to television enlightenment with some homework. You might want to note this down under the heading of "Programs I Must Watch".

Revisit The Young Ones on ABC2. Try Burn Notice on Channel Ten. Enjoy Margaret and David battling it out on At the Movies. And give the wonderful British comedy Beautiful People a try. Once you have completed those set viewing assignments you might want to consider the following recommended viewing (some of which you will need to seek out on DVD) - Grand Designs, Talking About Your Generation, Doctor Who, Seinfeld, Torchwood, The Big Bang Theory, The Colbert Report, Bones, Frasier, MASH, Northern Exposure, Seachange, The Antiques Roadshow, The Daily Show, Rockwiz, The West Wing, Black Books, Father Ted, and The IT Crowd. This extra viewing is strongly encouraged, but please be aware it doesn’t attract any extra credit.

Due January 2010

Last August or so I blithely whacked together an abstract for a local journal run from the uni here. The issue is about supporting postgraduate students so I wrote an abstract entitled "Scribbling in the Margins: Negotiating the tensions and challenges of the regional research student". The due date for the paper was the end of January which seemed like years away. I then promptly put the abstract to one side. When I got the friendly reminder email earlier this week that the due date was nearly upon us, I quickly realised that I would have to start writing something. (I'm quite cluey like that!). So with all good intentions I pulled out the folder where I had stashed the abstract believing that of course I would have made some useful notes, written down some brilliant ideas and just generally got organised.

Here's what I found:


Here we can see some points I noted down. They all look a bit crap now so let's see what the day brings.

See how I've left a friendly reminder for myself of when the paper is due. That's nice.



All in all it should be an interesting day.

Me...Unleashed...on John Safran

I'm very excited because I have had an opinion piece published online at the ABC Unleashed website today. I have been keeping very quiet about it because they contacted me Wednesday afternoon and I wrote it that night. Having had a slight debacle the only other time I tried to write an op ed (with a national newspaper publication that shall remain nameless) I didn't want to talk about it too much in case I jinxed the whole thing. But look, it's real and it's on the net. I won't republish it here but will send you to the site with this link.

Friday just became a whole lot better!

Here tis....

I was going to write an interesting post about my research thingy. Instead I decided to just include the link to the uninews website where they have done that for me already. Here tis.....

Thursday: It's tiring being happy all day

So today was pretty blooming exciting for a few reasons.

1. I had coffee and cake before work with the wonderful Anne M. This will perhaps be our last coffee before she leaves to live in Brisbane ON MONDAY. I will miss her. Still we are going out for a farewell dinner on Saturday night as well with dear Jinx and Karen.

2. I got the letter offering me the Early Career Research Fellowship. This is an internal grant that will buy me out of approximately half my workload for two years starting June 2010. The plan in a nutshell is to continue researching and writing about the television mockumentary (journal articles, full book proposal), co-supervise a Masters by research student (given I have no supervision experience AT ALL), convene a Special Interest Research Group "Cultural Studies and Education" which belongs to the newly formed CQUniversity Research Centre - "Learning and Teaching Education Research Centre" (LTERC), prepare a grant application for once the Fellowship finishes in 2012.

At coffee Anne had said, "Make sure you let me know how you go with the application". So the phone conversation within five minutes of me opening the letter went like this:

Anne: "Hello Anne speaking"
Wendy: (Shouting excitedly) "I got the thing!!!!"
Anne: (short pause of mystified silence while she wondered no doubt if this was a new form of telemarketing....)
Wendy: "It's Wendy.....!!!"
Anne: "Oh Congratulations...."etc etc.

I probably should have said who I was first.

3. And then to absolutely top off the day, my Silverchair Diorama sheet music album arrived in the post and I was finally able to play "After All These Years". The key changes are amazing, unexpected, and very beautiful. It's too high for me to sing along sadly, but I can pretend along in my head.

All this meant that the minor plague of ants in the kitchen sink didn't really bother me on my arrival home.

I'm exhausted now though. It's tiring being happy all day.

Forward ho to a changed life through education!?

One of my "iss-ewes" teaching in a division, outside of faculty, and my research area, and in a university preparatory program is the question of research workload. Officially, the word has been 20% of an academic's workload at my institution was to be devoted to research. (I shall pause for some of you to fall about on the floor with hysterical laughter).

When I became employed permanently, I rather naively thought that this 20% would be a reality, time in which I could pursue my research into television. Sad for me, at that time my division had decided that its academics would only be supported (time wise and financially) if they were researching "teaching and learning". Although, clearly I was involved in the practice of teaching and learning, I had little interest in researching it. Also, I didn't see why there was no recognition of the contribution I could make to the division's research profile with my own work. This was not to mention, that as one of the minority of academics in the area with a research higher degree, I couldn't quite make sense of the division's refusal to recognise that it might be helpful for preparatory students (who we were teaching write and research academically) could see someone modelling that behaviour. Let me say, that I was not the only one in this "boat" as it were. There were few of us who had come into teaching the preparatory program who had PhDs in other disciplines. As we began to express our frustration both at the mythical 20% research workload, and at the ridiculousness of constricting research support to some areas and not others, things have slowly begun to shift and become more flexible. This is good. The 20% still doesn't exist, and "downtime" in our non-teaching term is also a mirage, however, we have been allowed to return to our disciplines, albeit with the condition that we do "some kind" of research into teaching and learning.

With this background in mind, two of my colleagues and I have begun a project looking at the role of the contemporary academic, particularly in preparatory/ enabling programs. We have all come from elsewhere, we have all taught in undergraduate courses in our own disciplines, and for various reasons have found ourselves teaching in a preparatory program. Questioning assumptions as to how our work as academics (teachers and researchers) is viewed by ourselves, our colleagues, and others further afield is the overall aim of the project. At the moment, the "project" consists of a paper in process. I have spent the morning reading and writing about the practice critical reflection in adult education. Contrary to my assumption about research in teaching and learning, it is surprisingly interesting, and much of it, particularly writing by Stephen Brookfield, resonates with many of our sometimes skeptical views. The main issue we are trying to pull apart ( I shall refrain from using the "d" word) is the theme of transformation. In our program, transformation, through developing self-awareness and reflective journalling, is a key element, one that it is assumed all students will successfully engage in. Forward ho, to a changed life through education! It is explicitly scaffolded into the curriculum. However, what of those students who resist the notion of "transformation?" - touchy, feely as it can sometimes be. And what of the teachers who are teaching this curriculum who are slightly uncomfortable with telling students "thou shalt transform and this is how thou shalt do it?". That is what we are really interested in. For it's my view that education certainly has a transformational potential, but surely we can't insist or guarantee that it will happen. And then, what of those of us teaching it with slight reservations? Does this tension also transform us or our teaching of the curriculum in any way? - good or bad? How do we balance this in our teaching practice?

As you can see at the moment we have a lot of questions and not many answers. It's only the beginning. If you have any thoughts they would be most appreciated.

When will I ever learn?

I ate a Freddo frog for afternoon tea.
When will I ever learn that I hate milk chocolate?
Perhaps the answer is blowing in the wind.
Yes...I did manage to segue from milk chocolate treats to a Bob Dylan reference in the space of two sentences.

Sorry everyone. My gantt chart is giving me trouble. Normal posts will resume as soon as possible.