Only two months old

Looking back over the entries in my blog, it seems rather strange that I have only been a PhD student for 2 months because there are so many layers of complexity captured in these few reflections. I'm almost scared what two years at this game might produce. The past week has once again forced me to reflect on my positioning and identity. At one point this week I just said to myself – "Why the hell do you have to think in the way you do and ask questions? Why don't you just sit quietly in the corner and not draw attention to yourself". By speaking, asking questions, expressing your view point – you position yourself either in opposition or in solidarity to someone else's position. Of course this can be to your benefit or detriment. In many ways the PhD process is in part about learning, understanding, articulating and defending your particular position on a topic, so why was I so ruffled by this process this week. Guess it depends on how many people in the audience identifies and supports your position or whether you are simply just creating a disconnection. Sorry, I'm not being very clear. I went to a series of seminars this week – dealing with ethics, analysis methods and academic literacies. At each of these sessions I was vocal and just couldn't stop articulating my opinion. Great you say, yes finally I'm finding my voice. But what does this voice say about me? How do I see myself and how do others see me through the questions I ask and the comments I make. In the academic literacies reading group – I certainly positioned myself as a South African curriculum development practitioner; in the ethics seminar – as an ethnographer who will make certain decisions that will seek to protect my research participants and if necessary not disclose unsavoury activities if it negatively affects the reputation of the participants/institution but doesn't really affect the quality of the data I am able to obtain; in the analysis seminar - I was someone who wants to understand the epistemological basis of a particular methodology before buying into its approach. BUT this is my reading of my positioning and I know I might not have been seen in this light by colleagues listening to me. Importantly, do I want to stick out as different – do I want to accentuate my difference? Because I do feel very different in this context. In all these sessions I felt different; my difference was highlighted – through my accent, in my choice of words and use of phrases, in the stance I took on the topic, even through my use of Bernstein in academic literacies research.
But I see my difference not only in the view I take on a particular topic, I also see this whole PhD process differently. For me it's a collaborative process – I engage with my supervisors, mentors, other academics, research participants, colleagues and friends and so carefully weave a highly collaborative even communal construction of my understanding(s) over time. I don't do this alone – it's not an individual project or process. So I need people all the time, to hear me speak, to listen to, to ask questions, to engage with (even if they are dead or only speak to me through their words in articles and books), to explore and to be. And I seek people out – I want to see my supervisors as many times a month as I can – I want their opinions on the work I am doing, on my thinking and the ideas buzzing around in my head. I want to hear what other colleagues are doing and how they are managing this process – not for any malicious reasons, but simply as a way of sharing and learning from them. My position is that of – "I am, because of everyone else" – that sense of ubuntu. It's how I am in my personal life and certainly how I am academically. And this might be mistaken in rather disingenuous ways by some who are more inclined to an individualistic positionality. As was the case this week in what seemed a rather innocuous conversation about progress and supervision processes, where I inadvertently took some flak from a colleague who may have interpreted my engagement attempts as in some way negatively reflecting on the different way she was handling the whole PhD process.

As I said earlier this whole thing is about staking a claim on a particular aspect of a specific topic, developing an in depth, critical understanding and then defending that understanding. I also increasingly think that for me, it is about identifying how I want to position myself in relation to the underlying PhD process I want to follow, while becoming confident in the value of that process for me. Bring on the next two years…yeah right!

Over the top of my head

I read a paper last night by Karl Maton – a scholar who works with Basil Bernstein's theoretical frame but has also extended his concepts in innovative and intellectually stimulating ways. This paper was about theories that enable cumulative knowledge building and why Bernstein's theories have not enjoyed the same warm and positive reception as say Bourdieu. Well I managed to understand the overall gist of his argument, but actually grasped about 20% of the paper – the rest, well woooosh! over my head. But I was happy that I managed to finish reading the paper anyway. A common critique of Bernstein's writing and his theoretical exposition is that it is dense and highly abstract. To this Maton replies

"So while it is not necessarily more difficult to read and understand, whether it is experienced as such depends on whether one has the knowledge to understand the condensed concepts and/or the disposition to acquire that knowledge. This demands intellectual effort and the belief that this effort will yield rewards" (2008:34)

Makes one think hey!

Today at a seminar on thematic analysis (which was really great and did not go over my head, yet pushed me beyond my limits of understanding about this analysis method), I realised that there are so many 'things' I will have to juggle in my brain. All these bits and pieces about theoretical frameworks, their meta-histories and epistemologies, the data collection methods, the analysis methods and on, and on and on. All of these elements with their own rules, regulations and principles that need to be understood and applied. I asked a friend how the hell I will manage to keep all of this in my head. His simple reply was "Are you meant to keep them all in your head? Surely if you understand the principles, you don't have to store all the detail in your head?" See I'm thinking again.

Fireworks going off in my brain

From the title you can probably guess that I had a good supervision meeting yesterday. It was hard going for me, but so stimulating and challenging. We focused our discussion on the piece I had written with both my supervisors raising questions – in effect getting me to explain my understanding of BB and his theories. But their questions also forced me to think about how ‘others’ might view his work, along with how I would substantiate my use of his theories. I came away thinking, well I feel more confident about what I know about BB’s work and I am more astute at judging the perspectives other authors take when reading or engaging with his work. I can also see the gaps in my own understanding – primarily around the sociology of education – all those wonderful little “isms”. We also spoke about the relevance of BB’s work for my research – importantly the relationship between BB and academic literacies. An area I need to think and write about in the coming weeks.



On a more reflective note I was confront by two sort of related issues

• My own identity work

• How I give expression to my voice



Identity work

As yet I haven’t taken a firm position on my identity – I’m still struggling with this notion of ‘PhD student’ and would much rather be the ‘teacher-as-researcher’ I was a mere 13-14 months ago. Also I see myself as an academic developer, not an academic literacies researcher, yet I am working in the field of academic literacies without a background language, literacies or linguistics. So who am I and what position do I take? Mary made the point yesterday in our meeting that she was reading BB from an academic literacies perspective and couldn’t see his work with any other lens. As such she struggled to understand his position and questioned the use of his terminology etc…My experience had been an almost ‘neutral’ reading, seeing connections with my MRes research and my experiences of working in the HE field as a teacher. This connected a bit with the workshop I attended yesterday where the facilitator was stressing the importance of scholarly identity and authority in writing. I had to ask myself – so where are you located? I felt I couldn’t answer, but of course I have a stand – working with BB and academic literacies means I have taken a stand. One of the questions Robin asked me was whether I was still committed to the agenda which Bernstein’s work is aligned to – namely “deconstructing the ideological, political and social basis of knowledge and curriculum, while focusing on a concern for the consequences on these constructions for different social classes as they enter and engage with the educational system” So I have a stance, but I don’t feel I have taken on the authority of that stance (well not in a pure academic rhetorical way) – I am still tentatively testing the water, maybe as I forge and development a new identity and grapple with the boundaries that define those identities.



My voice

Two incidents made me think about this – firstly, during supervision, listening to myself try and explain my ideas and thoughts and thinking – hell I sound like a babbling fool. No sophistication or refinement in my word choices or vocabulary. Robin asked me if I could explain the controversy surrounding BB’s code theory – yes of course I could, but what came out of my mouth was another story all together. Secondly, while writing my blog last night, which took me almost an hour I was conscious that I was constantly editing my thoughts and expression – I wasn’t just saying what I thought, capturing my impressions and reflections, no I was constructing a position, fashioned in a sort of pseudo academic-come-casual voice. Was that the real me, was that really my voice? Then a comment from a friend today, referring specifically to how my writing was giving expression to my academic, and therefore formal rhetorical writing, development. I’m wondering if this is how I want this blog to develop. Is this ‘formalised’ writing curtailing my more reflective and affective insights? I looked at a hand written research journal I kept during my MRes and it was a gritty, raw and unmasked exploration of my thoughts and ideas – an aspect I don’t see in this blog. As I move towards one position I drift away from the other – and within the cultural context of the OU I perceive I should be talking, sounding, writing in a particular way, creating more internal conflict and contestation.



My voice and identity – two sides of the same coin, reflective of my current context, underlying intentions to project a version of my own reality, always aware of the audience and their interpretation of my voice and identity. Where the hell is that capeflatsgirl??? Heavy stuff hey!

Research as writing

 

Sjoe! Had a full day today! Workshop on "Turning a conference presentation into a publication" from 10am – 4pm, and then a supervision meeting immediately after that until 5:30 (separate instalment to follow tomorrow!). So I'm feeling exhausted but enthused about the road ahead and all its scholarly possibilities.

 

The workshop was presented by Pat Thomson, an Australian academic based at Nottingham University, who seems to be able, within a matter of seconds, to come up with just the right sentence to articulate that core point you've been stumbling over in a whole paragraph. Interestingly she framed her approach to writing for publication the following ways

• Research as writing
  
• Scholarly writing as text work/identity work
  
• Scholarly writing as dialogic
  
• Scholarly writing as discursive social practice
  

So her approach was very different from what she describes as 'tips and tricks' methodologies which present the whole process of writing for publication as a de-contextualised competence, simply involving a good understanding of the rules of the game, i.e. what the journal editors want in terms of structure and content. Her approach gets closer to the multiple elements that are needed when you write for publication in academia, including how identity as a scholar/academic is immersed in the act of writing. Of course she also placed emphasis on the practicalities of understanding the writing game such as picking the right journal, understanding the genre of the journal article, common problems etc…And in this respect provided a useful laundry list of question and concerns that should be addressed so you avoid the pitfalls of having your articles rejected (as if it were so simple!). We spent a considerable amount of time looking at writing abstracts for journal publication. A useful insight for me was that journal abstract need to be written in a different way from conference abstracts – "that's obvious" you might say – but it hadn't sunk in for me until today. She got us to write up an abstract that focused on five moves namely; locate (naming the angle), focus (identify what the paper will explore), anchor (establish the basis for the argument by outlining the research approach), report (summarise findings pertinent to the argument) and argue (open out the argument returning to the angle). A key insight that I took from the workshop was this notion that you have to take a stand and make a point through your writing (any writing that is, from the thesis, to a conference paper or a more high stakes journal article), engage and invite the broader community to enter into a conversation about your position and in so doing add to the knowledge in that community.

 

At a practical level, I started to construct an abstract and skeleton structure for a paper I want to present at the Higher Education Close Up (HECU) 5 Conference at Lancaster University in July 2010. I need to have a proposal ready for submission by the end of January 2010. I was forced to think about just ONE point I want to make about my MRes research. What makes it different from what has already been said in my field and how it might engage the broader academic community? I came up with it during the session. The draft while basic and in need of refinement in relation to its language, captures the main issue I think my MRes research highlights – addressing the "so what?" element associated with the research (I'll post it when it's slightly more polished).

I have to say that I'm somewhat cynical about the message promoted by people like Pat, who are experienced and well published, about the seeming simplicity of getting journal articles published. But I have to say I was inspired to focus on maybe one thing I wanted to say about my MRes research and hone this into a possible article (I also managed to get Pat to recommend possible journals that might be an appropriate platform). I have also been encouraged to look at the literature around writing as part of developing and projecting a scholarly identity – an area I previously avoided for fear that it merely presented a de-contextualised "how to guide" that almost also makes you feel inadequate because you don't manage to do all they say, or that fails to accommodate the many complexities associated with the act of academic and scholarly writing. We will have to see how all of that comes together.

The salt mines (or minds?)

I had a productive Saturday – went to the Open University to work because my bed was proving way to inviting, especially with the Cape like storm outside. Since Thursday I’ve been in a determined mood following positive feedback from my supervisors about my request for another meeting to discuss my understanding of BB (I like the sound of that, nice ring to it). Also got some encouraging and cape flavoured comments from my friends relating to my serious attempt to get close and personal with BB – one suggested I develop some chemistry while another recommended some fingering – I have taken both comments on board and it has done wonders for my relationship. So the chemistry and fingering has continued in earnest and smiles abound. The more I read about his work the more I understand – I’ve even drifted, although tentatively, to reading his own writings, so things are coming together it would seem. But the proof is in the pudding – all set for Thursday @4pm with the supervisors. I will have to prepare for this meeting and make sure the pudding is up to refined English palate.




My determination suffered a bit on Sunday – maybe because it’s Sunday and my internal dispositions say it’s the day of rest. I just couldn’t get going today no matter how much I tried, so I’m somewhat disappointed at myself, hopeful that I can catch up in the coming week. I’ve also started taking Gingko Biloba in the hope that my concentration will improve, which hopefully will help me to focus more, especially on the niggly, careless mistakes I make when typing or writing and reading – the do’s that should be don’ts, the left out words, and the misunderstandings created when I don’t read the e-mail or sms correctly the first time and in so doing get my dates all scrambled. Let’s see if helps, I’m forever hopeful. So, back to the salt mines, and a productive and purposive week ahead.

A clean house leads to a clean mind

 

Had a mad day, scrabbled up my scheduling so only realised at 12 realised that I needed to go to a very important 'training' session at 2pm. I had this meeting down to happen next week Thursday – but actually next week I have a full day workshop on writing for publishing that I signed up for and of course forgot about. Lekker deurmakaar! At the training session today I learnt that I would learn/develop 36 skills over the duration of the PhD. Great! And of course for quality assurance purposes, I am required to document and provide evidence for this development. Double great! Really looking forward to this. Might have to go on a training course on micro-time management or using Google Calendar. Maybe that will cure my scatty 'brainedness' at the moment. So got home tonight and thought…maybe if I clean the house and especially declutter my room, my brain will be decluttered. Someone told me once (Linda?!)…the house of a PhD student is ALWAYS clean and tidy, lovely distraction tactic. Once I clean the house I am going to do….a), b), c) then save the world by producing my PhD.

Seriously, I'm seeing my supervisors again next week on Thursday (right after the daylong workshop. Great scheduling hey?) to finish off what I was hoping to do at our meeting this Tuesday. That means I need to be on top on my game, so will be working this weekend and making sure that while I can articulate Basil Bernstein's theories, I can also outline what I don't understand and why. Now to write up a to-do list for tomorrow and correct my diary dates !

The PhD condition

I had my second supervision session yesterday and unfortunately due to various 'things' I'm only sitting down now to write my reflections on that meeting. As a result, so much of what I was feeling, rather acutely, yesterday has eased away and been tempered by the passing of time (that sounds rather melodramatic). But after yesterday's meeting I had two distinct realisation and their associated feelings, that seems to me, to define this idea of 'the PhD condition' – having 'problems' with the supervision experience, and/or (because often these two go together, although not always at the same time) feeling like you are the most stupid person on the face of the earth. Based on the MAGNATUDE of this statement, maybe it was better that I waited a day to write down my reflections J
These two issues go hand in hand, are interrelated, are interrelational – darn whichever way you want to define it – you can't talk about the one without the other. I'm grappling with Basil Bernstein – so as per my agreement with my supervisors I write up a 2000 word piece explaining my understanding of his work, focusing specifically on the pedagogic device. I even spend 2 hours trying to graphically illustrate this theory (included to add entertainment value and as evidence that I'm not talking crap). As agreed I send my piece to my supervisors ready for Monday morning. I get to the supervision meeting; unfortunately they either haven't finished reading it or haven't read it at all. So we don't talk about the pedagogic device, but I get asked analytical questions about why I want to use the work, how will the work add value to my research, why has he used the terminology he has – and I start reeling. Hell I don't know? I spend the rest of the hour repeating what I don't know or don't understand and expressing how hard it's been for me to process the elements of his theory. Seemingly excuse after excuse! Stating how I'm still grappling at the descriptive level so can't answer their questions. Nothing wrong with these questions, they're good, critical, challenging – but I'm not ready for the challenge, I don't expect this challenge at this time, not yet anyway.
And here in lies the second issue – feeling like a total twit! I've spent almost a month reading the man's work and come out of my meeting feeling like I have nothing to show for it. Arrggghhhh!!!! The PhD condition – conflicts around expectations about the role of the supervisor and feeling as if you are so so stupid. It's the nature of the game, the condition. These issues 'aint gonna go away' best for me to manage them. Or as a colleague of mine jokingly reflected "You have to manipulate your supervisors, not only manage them".


So two things to be done; first of course is to better manage the relationship with my supervisors. Maybe it's something 1^st year PhD students need to learn, because the 'manage-the-supervisor' advice I've received has always been from 2^nd and 3^rd year students. Also one has to be assertive and most importantly know what it is that you want from the interaction. I think it's almost an expectation here in the UK, that as a PhD student you know what you want. ALMOST always you will be told – "Well it's your PhD, you have to do what you want" when asking for advice about direction, pace, relevance…you name it. "No!, No I say" just freaking tell me what you think – right or wrong, yes or no!!!! Can't it be that simple? Of course I hear myself-as-teacher, saying these very words to my students and probably frustrating the hell out of them at the same time. My sins are catching up with me, no doubt.
Second, I need to manage the self-doubt that doing a PhD inherently produces. Common sense suggests that because you are doing a PhD, you must be super confident about your ability and intelligence, after all 'stupid' people don't get to do PhD's? The paradox of being a PhD student is that your intellect, conceptualisations, ideas are constantly being challenged – you're constantly asked to think about something you might know very well in a new and novel way. NOTHING gets taken at face value. And most importantly – you don't freaking have all the answers. In fact you have very little answers. But knowing all of this doesn't make it easier when confronted with the harshness of this cold reality. I will have to manage the internal paradoxes that flood my brain and emotions. I guess that's why some PhD students appear to come across so self-assured and cocky – to overcompensate for the moments when they too feel like idiots.


I've requested some additional feedback from my supervisors relating to my understanding of Bernstein – darn I didn't do that graphic for nothing. I know I'm not 'stupid' I just need a more suitable platform when I can demonstrate what I know, on my terms. I like the blurring of the boundaries between manage and manipulate. One also needs perspective – its early days yet…this kind of thing is going to happen again and again, I can't control every single aspect of the PhD. Talking about perspective, it was better that I waited a day to write this.

Number of words

I saw one of my fellow students from the MRes today. He doesn't live in Milton Keynes so only comes up to the OU maybe once a month or so. This was the first time I had seen him in maybe a month. Anyway he was talking about the PhD process and went on to explain that while doing the MRes he wrote a total of maybe 50 000 words for the various assignments and the final dissertation. According to his logic the PhD only requires about 80 000 words, so, because of the word count he had amassed during the MRes, writing 80 000 words for the PhD would not be a problem - because he had practically reached that figured already, save for a missing 30 000 words? This kind of reasoning was common last year as we all seemingly rushed to complete our essays, and comments like "only 1000 words left to go" or "I need to find another 500 words before this essay is done" littered Facebook status updates.




I could never understand this mentality (and still don’t) - what difference does it make that you can write 50 000, 80 000, 100 000 words - surely anybody can write 50 000 words? What is this obsession with a meaningless attempt to quantify the task of writing an essay or indeed a PhD thesis? But this kind of thinking is pervasive here, I seem to be the lone voice saying - "word counts don’t tell you anything!" Recently one of my colleagues, who I also call a friend and respect greatly, was trying to sum up our first year by looking at the outcome expected i.e. a 10 000 - 12 000 word overview of the literature, research methodology and research proposal. Again in his mind the amount of words required indicated a fair minimal task for a year's work. Surely it's the quality of the words used and how they articulate and outline your ideas, thoughts, conceptualisations and analytical insights  and argument that is important - the word length acts to guide the structure and possible style of the discussion, but accounts for nothing more than that.

Contributing to my intellectual stimulation

Think I should have done this earlier, immediately after the Battle of Ideas, rather than waiting for some spare time at practically 11pm on a Monday night. I obviously haven't learnt much from my fieldwork and fieldnote taking experiences in May and June. I went to the Battle of Ideas festival in the lush suburb (can it be called a suburb?) of Kensington, London on Saturday and Sunday. And I certainly got my intellect stimulated in rather unintended ways too. I went to talks that ranged from looking at the white working class in Britain, debating development, listening to music-developing a cultured ear, choice, rights and ethics in reproductive health, whether teachers should be role models, the role of critics in the arts, recession, the US and Obama and of course…South African 15 years after apartheid.


So a range of topics, facilitated in a very participatory and inclusive manner where dissident and divergent views were constructed, often in the makeup of the panel, and also encouraged by the engagement of the audience. An interesting theme that seems to resonate for me, and what I took from this event, was the role of ideological and political forces in shaping socio-cultural norms and values. What was also illuminated for me, was the hegemonic mechanism through which the status quo on all levels, is maintained; from how the working class is viewed in this country (who are referred to as chavs, basically a derogatory name given to mainly working class white people who unashamedly display their lack of taste in relation to fashion and style, seem to resist aspiration to better their lives, and generally behave poorly), down to the roles we think teachers should play in children's lives and whether classical music is inherently better than any other genre of music. Certainly on Saturday I came away thinking – Oh my goodness, I am looking at the 'other' with a value-laden, judgement lens, while recognising that these very values I personally hold have a socio-political and structural basis. So while I have been super resistant to being 'sucked' into middle class ideas, eager to assert my working class upbringing, the hegemonic forces where/are doing their work pretty well. And a key element of course, in all of this is the notion of education as the only valid means to social mobility and success.
So much research (including my own) has shown how education is more like to reproduce the inequalities between students of different class and racial backgrounds and entrench privileges already enjoyed by those with social, political and cultural power, education as the key to more choice and opportunity as been my mantra for years. I guess in my own defence I have always promoted learning for learning sake, rather than learning as a means to enhance your social or economic standing. Which brings me back to my fast becoming, favourite theorist of educational sociology at the moment, Basil Bernstein (interesting how once you start to understand what the hell a theorist is saying, you start to like them more). His whole theoretical project was to find ways to ensure that the curriculum, pedagogy and evaluation systems in schooling and education in general would accommodate working class kids in more meaningful ways and allow them to achieve and overcome a system specifically designed to exclude them. I am starting to see relevance in his work, or aspects of his work, for explaining how educational outcomes are linked to macro level socio-political influences and structures.