Tuesday, April 7, 2009

some text even

A short story about a day in the life of someone who is considering doing my flexible learning course. This person is not called X because it is a sad name for a human who may have a range of flexible learning needs. Instead I am calling her Singe.

This story highlight issues that Singe may have for NOT doing my flexible learning course, as it is set up at the present time. At the same time these very same reflectiosn hold the potential for achievement on a deeply satisfying personal level. More about this another time...

Singe is a dancer - for the last thirty seven years she has spent between two and twelve hours daily manoeuvering her body around space - learning bodily intelligence. A synchronous application of mind participating with body. This place in bodily tissues became her training ground and also her job... when she had children, she became a mother's body too.. fluid, vast and ultimately singed.

Singe has had some of the following issues: not only does she have several jobs - managing a clinical practice for others' sore bodies, directing creative acts in dancers' choreographies and teaching other bodies about movement vocabularies, she never wonders about the problems of affording study but implicitly trusts that there is space in the world for her learning - it is a juggle but she knows that she can find the reasons to leave the precarious heave of employment for study.

Further to these spacious deliberations, Singe has had to be able to move (between) cities to find new sites of work, to attend classes and to invade new bodies. Difficulties range between straddling conceptual differences in learning in classrooms and learning within a sort of extreme virtual space. We could replace those two learning words simultaneously with teaching... and therein lies the what is not yet known - a curious and deliciously scary space.

Singe seeks to maintain self clarity and serenity at the pace of others, so that the belief that her new courses do not fit exactly with the range of things she wants to learn settles in to a list of simpler problems: she may not feel comfortable using computers (partly due to a rejection of the micro movement range which engenders pain and thickening in valuable connective tissues), her disability in managing relationships in a student centred environment and loneliness from missing her faraway family can only enrich her journey.

The purpose of me writing this story is to consider as many reasons as I can where people like me might be better able to access a flexible learning course. HINT: If you are able, it is best to read my story about a real situation as it has already been encountered if not heard about, and not necessarily confirmed.

4 comments:

  1. hmm, thanks Singe.. I mean Felicity.. it was cryptically tough (but enjoyable) to read into and I suspect you're warming up for something here. I look forward to the deconstruction. But I'll be watching for prejudices and questionable assumptions, you know.

    You might like Ken Robinson's video about how schools kill creativity.

    I wonder if you might consider reversing the scenario..

    There is a big bulky man named Leroy who is told by his councellor that he needs to get in touch with his body and how it moves, works and expresses itself.

    Leroy is willing to try, but he is a long long way away in the thinking and acceptance of these ideas.

    Trouble is Singe offers a course that requires him to attend classes with other people, and while he doesn't mind that so much, he does believe that approach to learning doesn't work well for him.

    He would like the opportunity to study as much as he can by himself so that when he does come face to face with Singe and her group, he gets the most value he can out of that time...

    Trouble is, Singe has no idea how that might work and tends to want to tell Leroy to get in touch with things...

    Another video you might like: In My Language.

    I have an urge to go for a walk and thin out some of that valuable connected tissue.

    ReplyDelete
  2. hmm, thanks - responses inserted below - I am keeping in mind the requirements of this course so following this through by blog responding..to a certain string length with the hope that it (as effort) will open up some interesting pathways for the assignments - I am not sure I am media skills building at the mo though?
    But I'll be watching for prejudices and questionable assumptions, you know. - back at you..

    You might like Ken Robinson's video about how schools kill creativity. Ill watch it..

    I wonder if you might consider reversing the scenario..
    not sure about comparisons or "reverses" - if I am to consider each scenario as individual - then Leroy may be a reflection of what is lacking in Singe - but not really the "other". (by the way what if his bulk is an embodied description of his owned intent to be noticed on the planet? - in order to be noticed/felt he may have needed bigness - as both a shield and a guide?)

    There is a big bulky man named Leroy who is told by his councellor that he needs to get in touch with his body and how it moves, works and expresses itself.
    What was that counselor thinking about - such language is so terribly close to the very thing which Leroy might find abhorrent - and/or alternatively Leroy may be in touch already but in his own bulky accepting way? - there is an amazing novel about a young Dominican man - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Diaz, J. 2000)

    Leroy is willing to try, but he is a long long way away in the thinking and acceptance of these ideas.
    That resistance is such a beautiful and creative space...

    Trouble is Singe offers a course that requires him to attend classes with other people, and while he doesn't mind that so much, he does believe that approach to learning doesn't work well for him. see Oscar Wao - he committed suicide.. so the counsellor's advice was to ridicule him further and perhaps the course of solitude could exacerbate feelings of not being able to be like others - to be accessible to others - to be human even?

    He would like the opportunity to study as much as he can by himself - good for him....
    self study... is useful...but human contact is also useful...

    so that when he does come face to face with Singe and her group, (how is this her gorup? how have "they" been identified like this..he gets the most value he can out of that time...
    what we mean by time here - relative to cramming in as much icky information or the quality of interface with other humans' textures, uncertainties, timings and possibilities (oh well - I know Im not going to get anywhere throwing in this kind of language..)

    Trouble is, Singe has no idea how that might work and tends to want to tell Leroy to get in touch with things...
    she probably wouldnt use that word though? She might say - I know this takes time.. I know you want soething and between us we can find out about that
    she night even go so far as to say - i welcome you in my teaching life because even though it seems that I know things you dont and you want those things - perhaps also there are things you know that my deliberately placing at risk our capacity for human contact - flawed and all as it is - I have denied myself the opportunity of knwoing the way you know your things (oh well)

    Another video you might like: In My Language.
    Mmh Ill watch that too

    I have an urge to go for a walk and thin out some of that valuable connected tissue.
    Drink water too. You are swimming in your own sea made fluid from which you - and I came once - at that point maybe there was a better connection.

    I ll reread this material and see if I can lift out some points which I can place on the assignment task..
    Immediately notice F/M gender thing? Is Leroy (M)less likely to adapt to a difficult learning environment than Singe (F)? Or is this an implicit way of describing comparison?

    ReplyDelete
  3. hi you two, Lovely conversation-I would love to be able to add something constructive but don't know how to add to what has been said, so shall just sit and read for the time being.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Sarah
    Hmm its so wierd how much contact comes by with midwifery.. we were just spamming you I think int witter - sors about that - Leigh seemed to think you could cope.
    the start of this curious link with midwifery.. - I was born at home in England 1960 - and had always known that..
    I attended a course at Naropa Institute about the somatic experience of conception birth and death.. the idea of experience informing each human - somehow needed a person in the picture - in mine - at my birth that is my Dad was there.. my Mum had a PPH - he waited with me - in the workshop I recalled this waiting ness and also the problem - I have with waiting.. not so much waiting but the whole world of waiting ability - what do you think about how babies determine their world from the moment they are born?
    is thisd something midwives think about?
    FM

    ReplyDelete