and the world is a better place

Especially when you have a good supervision meeting. I had a great supervision meeting yesterday. I cant quite put my finger on what exactly made it so great, maybe it was the easy conversation, the fact that I felt I could express myself, the confidence I felt about what I was saying, that I felt I learnt something, that I valued the input, suggestions, comments and advice suggested by my supervisors, that I appreciated their feedback and affirmation of the progress I was making and their confidence in my abilities to do "this thing". There is a subtlety in how they communicate with me, and I think I am beginning to notice what they are signally to me. An important point about this is their sense that I have I grasped the fundamentals of the aclits field and that I now need to move on to broader issues that will help me to really contribute to the theorising about academic literacy practices in my research context. I cant remember exactly how it was phrased (luckily I have the recording so can check later...) but I remember feeling - ah! I am being valued for the contribution my study could make, I am being gently chauffeured into a path that will allow me to make this contribute. The world is certainly a better place when supervision has been a positive experience.

Officially I have 3 masters degrees - and I now have the certificate to prove it. But what the hell does this mean? I was discussing with a colleague if we will receive our 'results', the actual marks attained for the dissertation - if somehow the world out there will be able to judge our abilities and obvious 'intelligence' quantitatively and so objectively compare the worth of the paper the degree is printed on. Without the marks - surely anyone with the same certificate could be judged in the same way? Then I had a chat with my sister, who told me about someone in SA doing a masters and being offered the possibility of having the degree upgraded to a PhD. Its a sort-of common practice in SA. And it got me thinking, not always positively, about the ideological nature of educational attainment - all degrees are not equal, because some are more equal than others. And we have all been feed this and it has been naturalised - we believe this to be true, and of course there is a whole regulatory system to institutionalise the rigours and standards associated with attaining these high level qualification that in turn provides evidence for its worth in status and quality in relation to others. Hell I was sprouting the value of a PhD attained in the UK in comparison to one attained elsewhere or to other  doctoral level qualifications. Basically trying to set myself apart from the 'others'. In many ways begging the question - why the hell do I have 3 masters degrees?

The natural progression is to move from masters to PhD - but for me, I wasn't ready to move onto the PhD after the first masters, I probably would have been able to do it, but I don't think I would have gained much from the process. I remember being rather resentful when I got to the Open University about doing another masters degree - one I didn't think was necessary. In hindsight, it was necessary, because I wasn't ready (on all sorts of levels) then for the PhD either. Nobody can determine what you learn from an educational encountered or whether you will learn anything at all - that is the nature of learning, it's something which the learner has to make sense of by themselves and derive their own personal value. Masters level research however, I do believe, is very different to PhD research and the path isn't always linear or progressive.

I see a similarity with my research and my reflections here about degree status and value. My research is hoping to challenge the dominance of specific kinds of  literacy practices that retain their high status because of ideological framing and institutionalisation that makes their dominance a common sense ideal. While I acknowledge the problem with this picture, I have been conditioned and acculturated into acceptance of this very unequal scenario in often subtle ways, evident in the awkwardness associated with proving the worth of 'my' qualification in relation to similar qualifications attained by others. I hope that the learning associated with this PhD degree will be more about acceptance of the personalised learning experience, rather than an evaluative display of my personal intellectual and cognitive abilities. Maybe if it results in such an outcome, I will honestly be making a real commitment to educational equality and justice for everyone. Or is this just an idealised, egalitarian dream?