Educational Action Research

Vol. 19, No. 4, December 2011, 489502

Developing holistic practice through reection, action and

theorising
Mirn Glenn*
Inver National School, Barnatra, Ballina, Ireland
(Received 6 February 2011; nal version received 8 August 2011)
This article outlines how I, as a primary teacher engaging with a self-study
action research process, have come to a deeper understanding of my practice. It
explains how I have also come to an understanding of why I work in the way I
do; of how this understanding inuences my work, and the signicance of this
new understanding. My work as a teacher frequently includes doing collaborative digital projects with my class. As I engaged in research on my practice, I
initially experienced difculties problematising this work. I struggled to achieve
clarity not only with engaging in critical thinking but also with articulating my
educational values. I found Mellors idea about the struggle helpful as he
explains how the struggle is at the heart of the research process. My new
understanding around these collaborative projects emerged in terms of holistic
practice; clarifying my ontological values and learning to think critically. I am
now generating an educational theory from my practice as I see my work as a
process for developing spiritual and holistic approaches to learning and teaching.
I conclude by outlining what I perceive to be the signicance of my work and
its potential implications for education.
Keywords: action research; self-study; critical thinking; reective practice;
holistic curriculum

Introduction
In this paper, I will outline the process of the self-study research I undertook on my
work as a teacher. The paper examines how, through reection on and thinking critically about my work, I gained new insight and understanding of my practice and
developed a new epistemology of practice. Initially, I set out to examine the value
of the inclusion of digital technology in my work as a primary school teacher, but
as I began to engage more deeply with the process of self-study I realised that the
focus of my research had less to do with digital technology itself and more to do
with an ability to think critically and to clarify what my educational values were. I
will conclude by examining the inuence my research had on my own work practices, on the practice of colleagues and its potential inuence on policy.
In the beginning . . .
I teach in a small primary school on the west coast of Ireland. I have always had a
keen interest in how digital technology might enhance teaching and learning and
*Email: inverns.ias@eircom.net
ISSN 0965-0792 print/ISSN 1747-5074 online
2011 Educational Action Research
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09650792.2011.625694
http://www.tandfonline.com

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M. Glenn

this interest sparked what, for me, has been an exciting learning journey. My work
with digital technology was initially quite experimental as there were few formal
guidelines on how technology should be used in schools in Ireland at that time. In
my initial explorations with digital technology, I liked to encourage my young students to use images (and later video) and sound recordings to help them broaden
their ability to express themselves. I established a web space wherein the students
could publish their own work and reach an audience that was wider than the audience of their small rural classroom. I encouraged my pupils to use digital cameras
and audio recorders to interview people outside the school and use their recordings
to create projects. I hoped that these projects would enhance the learning process
not only for themselves but for other students also who might view my students
work on the Web. My students used email to make links with other schools in other
locations throughout the world and to establish interesting projects with them. I also
encouraged my classes to use digital cameras to record the changing seasons and to
focus on nature as it evolves outside the classroom.
My rst foray into research was to see if my collaborative projects were of educational benet to my students. As I explored the various approaches to research, I
was drawn initially to the ideas of action research and self-study. The idea that I
could research my own practice, develop a theory from that work (McNiff and
Whitehead 2010) and share that theory with others appealed to me. I liked the idea
that this theory was a living theory (Whitehead 1989), in that it was live and drawn
from the aliveness of real practice and not the ubiquitous one-size-ts-all theory that
frequently ts few individual teachers or students (Schmertzing 2007). I was drawn
too by the idea not only of working toward improving my practice, but also of working towards doing something that might improve the quality of lives for others. I
now see, however, that these initial forays into research, while being imbued with
enthusiasm and energy, were lacking in depth and understanding. This paper outlines
how I gained a somewhat better understanding of my work in subsequent years.
One of the projects that I undertook as part of my investigation at that time, was a
Learning Circles Project. This is a biannual event where groups of schools from all
over the world participate in collaborative projects, organised by iEARN.1 We were
one of a group of six schools and our objective was to share elements of our geography, culture and history with students from the other schools while exploring their
history and culture through their submissions to the project. This programme utilised
email and postal mail. The children wrote up projects on each of the topics and
shared them with our partner schools. We shared work on characters from history,
local recipes, local folktales, local animals and creative writing.2
My young students were excited about learning through the reading and writing
of their email messages. When asked her opinion on using email, which was a
fairly new technology in my school at the time, one of my students, Rose, said:
Its like theyre really there with you, like on the phone to you. Leo responded:
Its better than the phone. Youll know that theyll remember what you said
because they can keep it and read it later (Field notes, 3 November 1999). The
children were animated by writing their emails, or writing up their Learning Circle
Project. A growing sense of geographical exploration also featured; Susie commented (26 January 2000): In our Learning Circles we get to know things about
the world. Ann Maries comment was: Its good to tell other children what lms
we watch. Then we can compare the things we are interested in with what they are
interested in (Field notes, 26 January 2000).

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My initial ndings indicated that my work, in the form of digital projects with
my classes, was commensurate with what was considered to be good practice at that
time. I did not problematise the term good practice at that time, I simply accepted
the ideas and suggestions made by the literature at that time (see Glenn 2005). I
was no longer the sage on the stage and my students were becoming co-creators
of knowledge together and alongside me (Vygotsky 1962). My students were learning the collaborative skills of a learning community (Wenger 1998) and taking
charge of their own learning. They were also becoming multimodal (Mayer 2001)
in their own learning processes and how they expressed their learning. Heppell
(2001, xvi) points out that educators continuously make the, error of subjugating
technology to our present practice rather than allowing it to free us from the tyranny of past mistakes. I felt I had crossed that threshold outlined by Heppell and
had allowed technology to liberate me. I felt I had mastered the integration of technology in my teaching fairly successfully.
Reection on practice: learning that I still had a lot to learn
As time went on, and I moved on to the next phase of my research, I had a growing sense that I was missing something crucial. I had yet to gain an in-depth understanding of my practice. I used Whiteheads (1989) model of asking myself What
are my concerns? Why am I concerned? to help me investigate my work. I enjoyed
reading critical pedagogy writers and at the time I read the works of Cuban,
Chomsky, hooks and Freire with absorption. I remember reading Chomskys ideas
around how once you are educated, you have already been socialized in ways that
support the power structure (2000, 3) and how your ability to think critically about
the education system and other systems has already been modied before you are
even aware of it. I remember feeling a certain degree of smugness in my own perceived sense of my ability to think critically and feeling a certain sense of pity for
those poor educators who were unable to think critically about their work or the
education system. I had a lot to learn.
As part of my research process, I kept a reective diary and engaged in
reective thinking. I took hastily scribbled notes as I tried to engage in reectionin-practice (Schn 1983) during my normal busy school day. I used these often
nearly illegible notes as an aide memoire to inform my more formal reection-onaction at the end of the day. I found that I frequently reected on the mechanics
of teaching and learning and that my journaling techniques frequently consisted of
isolating methodological errors in my teaching and then planning how to improve
them. For example, on one occasion, I made a note in my journal that I had not
heard the voice of one of my students, Katie, once throughout the day. My reections on this suggested that this was an unfair situation and that I should take action
in terms of making sure to engage her in conversation in future on a daily basis.
My subsequent reections on the action I had taken suggested quite victoriously
that I had remedied the situation and that all was now well. While at one level this
was a worthwhile exercise, I am now acutely aware that Freire (2006) and Kemmis
(2006) recommend that the process of critical thinking should not adhere to the
methodology or the practical aspects of teaching alone. Freire (2006) believed that
issues of power, oppression and culture existed in many aspects of education, and
he sought to unravel their existence. While initially I felt that the issues of power,
oppression and culture had little impact in my classroom, slowly I began to open

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my eyes and see that Freire was in fact right. As I look back on my concerns about
Katie, I can see that, perhaps, she felt oppressed and voiceless in a culture that valued the correct answer as the only suitable answer. Perhaps, I had not adequate time
to give to Katie, to hear her thoughts and to engage with her meaningfully within
an ever-burgeoning and demanding curricular system. Now years later, I still do not
know why Katie did not speak in class. However I know why I do not know. I realise that at the time, I did not have the capacity to pose critical questions that would
examine issues around oppression or power.
I held few critical thoughts as I engaged in my initial reective exercises and
my reective journal fell victim to what could be termed as victory narratives.
Marcos, Snchez, and Tillema (2008) are rightly critical of meaningless victory narratives and reective journals that deal solely with providing solutions to mundane
classroom situations without adequate critical engagement. In subsequent years I
learned to write a more critical journal. I learned through beginning to engage critically with the literatures around reection (for example, Argyris and Schn 1978;
Dewey 1933; Carr and Kemmis 1986; Schn 1983) that I should assume very little
and question the givens. I learned the importance of recognising and developing
an understanding of my ontological and epistemological commitments in terms of
my educational values.
Educational values
McNiff and Whitehead (2010) remind teacher-researchers how important educational values are as part of an action research process. They explain that educational
values are the underpinning principles of an educators professional life as they try
to work in the direction of these values. As a practitioner engaging in self-study,
I needed to be aware of what my values were, not only because they were core to
my being as an educator but because these values were also the overarching ideals
towards which I needed to work. Whitehead talks about how the practitionerresearcher, claries, in the course of their emergence, in the practice of educational
enquiry, the embodied ontological values to which they hold themselves accountable in their professional practice (2005, 1). As I tried to identify what my educational values were, I found this to be a difcult process. I knew I held values such
as respect, creativity, social justice, spirituality, equality and care as educational values. I could see these values in my interactions with my students. For example, I
knew that if a child in my class misbehaved, I tried always to address the misbehaviour empathetically and to encourage them to talk through the behaviour and to
see how this behaviour was perhaps unfair and disrespectful of others. I knew that
this was different to the traditional ways of dealing with misbehaviour where the
child is reprimanded, punished perhaps, and instructed not to behave like that again.
I could explain my actions in terms of holding values around respect, social justice
and care. While these values were interrelated and sometimes interdependent, they
were also very diverse. I sought to nd a linking thread between them and to gain
the clarity mentioned by Whitehead above.
Difcult questions
I was part of a PhD study group at that time. Our group met regularly to discuss
issues that were pertinent to action research, self-study, living theory and reective

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practice. As I struggled to come to terms with my educational values and as I battled with how I might become more critical in my thinking, a further, even more
demanding, question loomed into sight. I needed to tackle Whiteheads (1989) question How can I improve my practice? as it was a key aspect of the research. I
experienced difculties addressing that question and indeed I have only begun to
address it now, years later.
In my study group, my colleagues and my tutor posed questions such as Why do
you do what you do? They asked why I felt digital technology was important and
they queried why I engaged in doing projects with my students as I did. They questioned why this was important for me and for my students. I found little clarity in the
jumbled responses I gave. I just knew and felt at an intuitive level that I was
involved in productive work and that digital technology helped the learning process.
Amidst this turmoil and confusion, I came across the writing of Nigel Mellor
(1998), who talks about the struggle and explains how his struggle in his practice
and in his research was at the heart of the research and that struggle became the
methodology itself. He wrote about the messiness of action research thus:
I know I have a goal, which is that I want to look at my job but I dont know what
the questions are to ask but I will know when I get there . . . It is only by getting
stuck in and . . . being confused and asking questions: What am I doing? Why am I
doing it? that it becomes clear . . . (Mellor 1998, 454)

I seemed to have difculties with the most important aspects of my research: I

could not articulate my educational values, I did not know how to begin to improve
my practice and I could not articulate why working with digital technology was so
important to me.
Into the light . . .
As I continued to ask myself Why do I do what I do?, I gained condence and
drew solace from Mellors struggles. As I reconciled myself with the idea that confusion was a natural part of the research, I began to see that I was developing a
more coherent insight into the question How can I improve my understanding of
my practice? and that this question needed to be addressed before I could make an
attempt to improve the practice itself. Gradually some clarity came. I will discuss
the process of the clarication of my thinking and gaining new insight into my
practice under the following headings: Holistic practice; Clarifying my ontological
values; and Learning to think critically.
Holistic practice
I saw that there was a close link between creativity and spirituality, through
engaging with the literature in these areas. Lucas (2001, 39) describes creative people as: questioning, experimental, risk-takers, being able to make mistakes and
being able to see connections between things. I saw my project work as being
similarly creative. The idea of seeing connection between various aspects of my
work was key to my research. I found the writing of Miller (2007) to be illuminating as I sought to answer the question Why do I do what I do? He outlines holistic practice in education in terms of making connections. He lists intuitive
connections, bodymind connections, subject connections, community connections,

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earth connections and soul connections as being integral to a holistic curriculum.

These connections were central to the digital projects I was organising in my classroom and I now began to develop an understanding of my work as a holistic practice.
I began to understand that my use of technology in the classroom was tied in
with the idea of being creative and of making connections between discrete subject
areas; between the classroom and the people outside; between school and the world
of nature; and between school and community. Noddings (1999, 3) talks about
how: educators can recognize everyday spirituality through poetry, music, biography, ordinary conversation and even just slowing things down once in a while
and letting the students look out the window. Pausing the busy-ness of the day
occasionally to stop and listen to the body and its surroundings can be part of this
process too. McCarthy (2001) draws an even stronger link between creativity and
spirituality, and suggests that sometimes the terms can even be interchangeable. My
own understanding of spirituality in education is aligned to Millers thinking. Miller
explains spirituality in education as a sense of awe and reverence for the life that
arises from our relatedness to something both wonderful and mysterious (2007, 4).
I began to see that interconnectedness and relatedness were at the heart of the projects I did with my students and that digital technology was a means of supporting
or enhancing the projects.
Now the focus of my work was beginning to shift. Initially I had been drawn to
the unquestioning use of technology as the primary focus of my work. Gradually, I
began to see that my project work was less to do with the technology itself, and
more to do with the outward expression of my underpinning commitment to working holistically in school. The focus of my work was no longer on technology, but
on how its inclusion might enhance, support and inspire teaching and learning in a
holistic way. The changes in my actual practice were nearly imperceptible to the
onlooker, but the change inside me and my understanding of my work practices
was enormous.
I was drawn to the writings of the Irish philosopher and poet John ODonohue,
who uses the term web of betweenness to describe the connecting threads where,
there was a sense that the individual life was deeply woven into the lives of others
and the life of nature (ODonohue 2003, 132). While ODonohue was neither
referring to education specically, nor to technology at all, I believed his thinking
could be very relevant to education and educational institutions. When, as an educator, I experience occasions when I weave my life into the lives of others and into
nature, my educational vitality is enlivened and my connections with others are
strengthened. ODonohue laments the fact that the web of betweenness is unravelling and needs to be re-awakened:
As in the rainforest, a dazzling diversity of life-forms complement and sustain each
other; there is a secret oxygen with which we unknowingly sustain one another. True
community is not produced, it is invoked and awakened. (ODonohue 2003, 133)

Finally, I began to see that the projects I undertook in my classroom were an

expression of these ideas. I had unconsciously perceived my classroom as a part of
ODonohues idea of community. I had been seeking to make the education process more holistic for my pupils and myself by trying to invoke (ODonohue
2003, 133) and actively build the connections between the classroom and the

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outside world; between my pupils and pupils in other places; between life inside
the classroom and the world of nature outside. I came to see that at an unconscious
and intuitive level, I had been using digital technology in an effort to develop a
more holistic curriculum.
Clarifying my ontological values
The following is an excerpt from my reective journal:
I am concerned about Pat. He is a lovely, pleasant and hard-working student. He is
always able to nd things that are missing, to remember where people (especially me)
have left specic objects and he is so gifted at making a place tidy and neat he should
be an interior designer. He is so willing to help and so good at restoring order into
my fairly untidy classroom. He is always unassuming, gentle and genial. But his endof-year standardised test scores are always so low and unimpressive. I know that this
is not because Pat is lazy or because he doesnt work hard. Pat always tries so hard
but he simply is unable to achieve high scores in tests because his learning strengths
are not of a mathematical or linguistic nature.
No matter how hard I try, I am unable to tap into that part of his learning that might
shine some light on maths and language for him. I look at his school reports over the
years and while all his teachers say how pleasant and kind he is, his test scores are
always low. This is so difcult for him and so frustrating for me. So much importance
is placed on school reports and test scores and yet they are not painting a very accurate picture of the amazing child that Pat is. I hate the unfairness of this! (Reective
journal, March 2004)

As I began to reect on my educational values, I came to realise that if my work

was to be the enactment of my educational values, then my values must lie in the
areas of engaging with the wholeness of the person. In Pats case, I valued the
amazing person he was, even though his test scores were miserable. I was drawn to
Bubers (see Yoshida 2002) ideas around IThou relationships as opposed to IIt
relationships. Buber speaks of the importance of developing an awareness and being
totally present to others in all engagement. I was trying to engage with others in an
IThou manner and to see the wholeness and human-ness of those around me. I
also valued respect and held that reciprocal respect was a kernel to all productive
work. I was also drawn to Noddings writings on care in education and seeking of
a better self. Noddings (1984) echoes Bubers thinking and suggests that educators
should be totally and non-selectively present to each student.
My thinking, as I was clarifying my values, was also illuminated by the writings
of hooks, who suggests that the basic principles of love in an educational setting are
a combination of care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust, and
that when these principles are at the heart of teacherpupil interaction, then the
mutual pursuit of knowledge creates the conditions for optimal learning (hooks
2003, 131). As I worked with Pat, I saw that I was putting care, commitment, knowledge, respect and trust at the heart of my interactions with him. I gradually came to
realise that my practice was the manifestation of my once tacit, but now claried values around love, the interconnectedness of people and their environment.
As I was beginning to develop a more coherent insight into the question How
can I improve my understanding of my practice? I came to see that this was what
my research was about: the developing of an understanding of my practice and of

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being able to see why I chose to work in the way I had chosen. I began to
understand that my work was an expression of my desire to experience education
as a more holistic process; to diminish the ever-growing sense of fragmentation that
seems to permeate much educational thinking; and to see each student as a young
human being who needs to be nurtured and guided towards reaching their potential.
As I began to make meaning of my project work, I saw that I was engaging in
many of Millers (2007) connective practices as outlined above. I could now
develop an understanding of my work in a more coherent manner.

Learning to think critically

My ability to think critically improved once I realised that I too was one of those
teachers, about whom Chomsky (2004) spoke, who was unable to think critically: I
was part of a system that Chomsky describes as: a form of indoctrination, that
works against independent thought in favour of obedience . . . that keep[s] people
from asking questions that matter about important issues (2004, 24). I was now
seeing my educational world with new eyes. As I began to develop an understanding of my work and of the values that underpinned my work, I also began to question situations that were the accepted norms of everyday school life. I began to see
how issues of power, oppression and culture existed in many aspects of education,
as suggested by Freire (2006). I began to see how fragmented and disruptive the
education system often can be. When I reected back on Katies silence (see
above), I saw that while it was laudable for me to notice her silence and to act on
it, it had needed deeper reection. Now when similar situations arose in my class, I
could problematise them. I could locate Katies silence in the bigger issues of
power, oppression and culture as suggested by Freire (2006). I could now ask questions such as: Does Katie only speak when she is sure she has the right answer?
Is she encouraged by her culture to be silent and to express no opinion? Does she
experience school as an oppressive experience? If I insist on including her in class
discussions, am I intimidating her further?

Developing a theory of practice

Drawing on Whiteheads (1989) ideas of using ones values as the guiding principles by which a reective practitioner might live their life, I now could begin to
look to my values to see if I was living in their direction in my everyday practice. I
found discrepancies in many aspects of my work as I experienced myself as what
Whitehead (1989) calls a living contradiction. When I experience myself as a living contradiction and I become aware of areas of my practice that are not commensurate with my values, I know that these are the areas of my work that need
attention. For example, as outlined above, I hold equality as an important educational value. However, I could see that while I held a value around each of my students having equal access to learning, where each child would be given the
opportunity to learn to the best of their ability, some students were experiencing difculties with learning because of the emphasis placed on mathematics and language
skills. I was experiencing myself as a living contradiction because I held a strong
value around each child reaching their potential and yet, in my everyday work, I
was teaching as if mathematics and language skills were the most important skills

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in the world. I was acting in direct conict with my values, and so this became one
of the areas on which I focused.
As my research into my practice developed, I began to use those recently articulated values as criteria to evaluate if, in fact, I was developing a better understanding of my practice as I sought to develop a theory of practice from my work.
Whitehead and McNiff (2006) call these criteria that have been drawn directly from
ones values living standards of judgement, and I will demonstrate how I established my living standards of judgement below. As I collected data in the process
of my research, I used the criteria that I had established to demonstrate the validity
of my work to transform my data into evidence. I used this evidence to establish a
theory from my practice in terms of offering descriptions and explanations of my
work. Let me demonstrate this process with one section from my project here.
The standards of judgement I used to evaluate my work were drawn directly
from my educational values. In this example I will focus on just one of these standards based on my value around nurturing the connections between education and
the natural environment. The criterion for this standard of judgement is drawn
directly from this value. I evaluated my work in terms of knowing how and why I
develop ways of working that nurture the connections between learning and the natural environment and the outside world beyond the classroom. I used the data I collected from my work with a small project on a local landslide to submit as
evidence that I was, in fact, developing a better understanding of my work. This is
what happened (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Landslide.

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M. Glenn

On the morning after the landslide, a school colleague and myself brought our
pupils to see the effects of the landslide. We travelled along the path of the landslide and took photographs and recorded the damage we saw. We gained rst-hand
insight into the destruction that had been wreaked by the landslide. When we
returned to school, we discussed what we had seen, read some literature about landslides and learned why they might occur. The pupils wrote about their observations,
uploaded their photographs and published them on the school website. While the
event had some small amount of media coverage at the time, the reports the children wrote were of great value to people who had emigrated from the area but who
still owned property locally, and therefore had a keen interest in the damage that
occurred. Many emailed us and thanked us for the information the children provided to them.3 While this was a small project, it is clear that it embraced many
aspects of curriculum, linking subject areas such as literacy, geography, science,
Social, Personal and Health Education (SPHE) and mathematics, and drew on the
multiple learning styles of the students I teach. It was connected very closely with
nature at its most dramatic and wildest. The project also made connections with the
wider community. It was rewarding for the children to have questions sent to them
about their reports because it showed that their work was of value to others. I could
now make a clear link between knowing how and why I develop ways of working
that nurture the connections between learning and the natural environment and the
outside world beyond the classroom. I could see the connection between my class
and the natural environment; between science, history, geography and literacy;
between class and life outside the classroom. I was using technology to extend that
connection further, in terms of encouraging my class to create web pages to connect
with a wider audience. I was gaining a better understanding of my practice.
While I have only drawn on some small aspects of my research for the purpose
of this paper, I have now reached a stage in my research that I am claiming as my
original contribution to educational theory and practice: that I have developed an
epistemology of practice which is informed by the fact that I know what I am doing
in my practice and I know how I have come to practise in this way. I am claiming
that I am developing an epistemology of practice that is grounded in dialogical,
holistic and inclusional ways of knowing (Whitehead and McNiff 2006). I perceive
the interconnectedness of people and their environment as a locus for learning and I
believe that people can develop their own learning potential and create their own
knowledge, through improving their capacity to establish and nurture relational
practices. I believe that technology can be a vehicle for enhancing such interconnectedness and creativity.
Signicance of this work
I believe that my research led to some change both at an individual and at an
organisational level and that it may be in the process of being inuential at policy
level.
As I reect on the signicance of my research for myself, I know that I am now
a more critical educator. I know that, through reection on and thinking critically
about my practice, I have gained new understanding and insight into my work. I
can now ask myself Why do I do what I do? and make a good attempt at answering it. I have become more aware of how I can question the givens and norms of
everyday teaching. I am choosing not to engage in an armchair revolution where I

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reect and do little else (Freire 2006, 66); I choose instead to engage in authentic
praxis (Freire 2006, 66), where reection leads to action. I look for ways to
include children of all intelligences and abilities in the learning process. Sometimes,
I nd this involves the inclusion of digital technology and sometimes it does not. I
now query the relevance of top-down reform by remote control (Tyack and Cuban
1995, 10) and one-size-ts-all educational programmes. Instead, I try to explore
ways of teaching and learning that embrace holistic and multiple ways of coming to
know, and that enable me to meet the needs of the children I teach as I try to create
an environment for them to reach their potential.
It is also of signicance for me that I now perceive myself as both teacher and
theorist. I have crossed the boundary between teacher and researcher, and, in crossing it, it seems to have diminished somewhat (MacLure 1996). While I work as a
classroom teacher in a primary school, I perceive myself as a researcher and as a
theorist also. I am aware that the hybridity of my role can pose some problems.
Because I am no longer afliated to a university because I have completed my PhD
studies, accessing current journals, books and quality literature on education can be
difcult and/or expensive. I am frustrated by the difculties I experience in locating
affordable, quality literature. I have also found that access to educational conferences is problematic. Furthermore, the organisers of conferences rarely advertise the
conference outside third-level institutions, and many of us outside that system are
dependent on word of mouth or Internet trawling to discover their existence. Then,
attendance at these conferences can be problematic also. Even though teachers are
on occasion permitted to leave their classes to attend such events, adequate substitution is rarely, if ever, provided for them. As a result, classroom teachers are effectively excluded from attending many educational conferences. As both a researcher
and a teacher, it is imperative for me to keep abreast of current thinking and ideas
around best practice. When one is effectively excluded from such access, then an
uphill battle ensues. Pithouse, Mitchell, and Weber (2009) remind us, however, that
adversity and exclusion are powerful motivators for teacher researchers. They say
that this motivation develops, the kinds of professional understanding and inquiry
that were too often missing from the canon of teacher education (Pithouse, Mitchell, and Weber 2009, 44).
I, too, have found that the hybrid nature of my role has its positive aspects too.
Because I am a practising teacher, I am privileged to know, live and understand
classroom teaching as it really is. I do not need to interpret someone elses thoughts
and ideas to develop an educational theory. Instead I can look at my own school
and my own classroom and use my own lived practice and experiences to theorise
my practice.
Generalisability and replicability are not part of my understanding of the outcomes of a self-study process. When I undertook my research, I was not aiming to
develop a theory or a programme that should be replicated or foisted upon other
teachers. Instead I was hoping to develop a theory that would give me a better
understanding of my practice; that might improve my practice and enhance the
learning environment for my pupils. Many critics of action research condemn action
research as an acceptable form of research because of its inability to bring about
educational change (see Waters-Adams 2006). However, I nd that when I share
my thinking with other educators, they are often enthusiastic about my thinking. I
do not try to force my ideas on them; instead I invite them to listen to my ideas, to
try them for themselves and make their own of them. I am aware that I am

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inuencing educational change in a small but relevant way. I have been involved in
designing sections of face-to face and online programmes for the inclusion of digital
technology for teachers wishing to engage in professional development programmes
for some years.4 My input always focuses on how digital learning can enhance and
embrace holistic approaches to teaching and learning. They feature connection and
inclusion as key aspects. Participants speak favourably of these and feedback is
always of a positive nature. Some teachers experiment with my ideas and suggestions and use them in their own teaching.
The possible inuence of my research on policy is percolating slowly also. The
Teaching Council (in Ireland) is developing a framework of continuing professional
development for teachers. It is currently developing a comprehensive continuing
professional development framework in consultation with the stakeholders.5 It is
also reviewing and accrediting programmes relating to the continuing professional
development of teachers and will make policy proposals to the Minister for Education and Skills. Recently, three teacher/researcher colleagues and myself approached
the Teaching Council of Ireland to remind them of the importance of including selfstudy and action research in forthcoming professional development programmes.
The Teaching Council listened to us and is currently funding an action research project in which we, four postdoctoral teachers, will each lead a group of practising
teachers as they investigate their practice and their understanding of their practice
with a view to gaining insights into and improvements in their work. While this
work is currently ongoing, my colleagues and myself are quietly condent that we
will generate enough excitement and passion about self-study action research that it
will become as important an approach to professional development as any of the
traditional, externalist approaches to examining education that are currently popular
(Pithouse, Mitchell, and Weber 2009).
To conclude
In the research process, I developed a new understanding around my digital projects
such that I can now perceive them as processes for developing spiritual and holistic
approaches to learning and teaching. I have developed an epistemology of practice that
draws on dialogical, holistic and inclusional ways of knowing and which is exemplied in the relationships that I nurture with and for my class and is enacted in the projects we undertake. Like Palmer (1993, xxv), I found that my quest for a holistic way
of knowing [had to] be translated into practical ways to teach and to learn.
I look forward to continuing my hybrid life of teacher and researcher. I know I
am engaging in what Schn (1995) termed a battle of snails and that my battle
may take some time. I hope that the hegemony that exists in the academy, in terms
of the exclusion of the authentic voice of the practitioner, will not disillusion me
and that it will continue to charge my creative batteries and inspire me instead. Like
Kemmis (2006, 474), I hope that as I continue to engage in my research I have the
capacity to question and explore the way things are and to imagine and explore
how things might be.
Notes
1. See www.iearn.org.
2. You may view the project online: http://www.inver.org/ceantar/Learning_Circle.

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501

3. You can read more online: http://www.iol.ie/bmullets/Lanslide/index.html.

4. See, for example, http://www.into-elearning.com/course/info.php?id=58.
5. See http://www.teachingcouncil.ie/section1/default.asp?NCID=558.

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