Thoughts around reality and a non-positive position during a research project

How do I reconcile myself to a non-positive position? First of all, to talk about this position I have to define what reality means to me. Similar to truth, I believe that reality is constructed and self-referential. If I believe that what I say is real, that means that I perceive that it is real. By writing about a research, I’m not imposing this reality to anyone and I am aware that it only corresponds to one possible reality. Nevertheless, this doesn’t mean that this one reality is arbitrary. I don’t assume or blindly believe in something that could as well be unreal. I construct something by gathering data, by carefully choosing qualitative research methods and by respecting multiple stories. The idea of pragmatism is that there are multiple realities.

Being aware of this, I can allow myself to investigate something and to draw one reality. A reality based on lived experience. “(…) Dewey and other pragmatists called for a different starting point that was rooted in life itself—a life that was inherently contextual, emotional, and social.” (1) I don’t need to fight against the subjective features of myself, such as my origins, my emotions, my social status, etc. I am, as a researcher, part of my project, just like my phenomenon is. I acknowledge my own and my phenomenon’s personal, social, cultural, … context. However, I’m not only acknowledging this, but I also have to clearly include it, as part of the project/ presentation of my findings. My reality will be one interpretation constructed by what I see (through participant observation), hear (through interviews), feel (through perception) and finally come to know. This knowledge is built upon real interaction with the world/ experience.During my research project for my BA, I danced with disabled dancers. At the beginning of my research, even though I thought that I was very open and without bias, I had multiple prejudices.

During my research, I learnt that having pre-constructed ideas about something is okay. “More recent humanist and feminist researchers [even] refute the possibility of starting without preconceptions or bias, and emphasise the importance of making clear how interpretations and meanings have been placed on findings, as well as making the researcher visible in the ‘frame’ of the research as an interested and subjective actor rather than a detached and impartial observer (…).” (2) So, what happened during my research is that those preconceptions changed over time as I participated and made my own experience. I discovered an important and new dimension of inclusive dance and reformulated my knowledge based on my personal experience and on my interpretations of my findings. I felt like this new, bodily knowledge contributed to a better understanding and to a more complete story of inclusive dance. I experienced a new reality. This reality, however, couldn’t have existed without myself. I was part of it. I couldn’t have predicted my findings. Experience was part of it.  

Writing about this past experience doesn’t only show that I feel that a non-positivist position greatly contributes to a more complete story of my research, it also reveals how I feel about embodiment and dualism. My body opens a way to understand things with more depth. Once I experience something, my knowledge can shift or evolve. I gained this insight at a certain point in my life. At that moment, I slowly came to understand that I couldn’t make progress through an aesthetic approach. I was always trying to understand every mechanical process and each movement in my mind. However, what I needed was a deeper understanding of every single sensation and feeling. I developed an ‘inner approach’, an embodied approach that assisted my development as a dancer and teacher. I needed to include the experienced sensations. “(…) Dewey argued that experiences always have an emotional, embodied element, in which feelings provide an essential link between beliefs and actions.” (3) My mind doesn’t suffice to act. It doesn’t suffice to create movement. I need to feel it.I also understood that my movement depends on the reality of my body. This reality is different to other dancers’ reality and it changes with every day. My mind needs to be deeply connected with my body to create each day, each second, a reality that corresponds to myself. I am my own enquiry every day when I dance and therefore I believe that, when it comes to my research project, a non-positivist approach will correspond best with my views and beliefs. 

---

[1] Morgan, David L., (2014) “Pragmatism as a Paradigm for Social Research”, Qualitative Inquiry, Vol. 20(8), p.1047.

[2] Lester, Stan, (1999) “An introduction to phenomenological research”, Taunton UK, Stan Lester Developments

(www.sld.demon.co.uk/resmethy.pdf, accessed [12.03.2017], p.1.

[3] Morgan, “Pragmatism as a Paradigm for Social Research”, p.1047.

Thoughts around truth, certainty and knowledge.

When I think about notions such as truth, certainty, knowledge, … and try to relate them to the work of a choreographer, there is one piece that instinctively pops up in my mind. I cannot explain why it does, yet, but I can feel it through the movement. When I try to recall what it felt like to sit in the theatre and watch this specific piece, I know somehow, bodily, why I relate it to the notions mentioned above. Therefore, I will talk about The Season’s Canon from the Canadian choreographer Crystal Pite. I will not analyse the piece, but I will interpret it in terms of the above-mentioned notions. 

As I just explained, I only knew how to relate this piece to a concept of truth, certainty or knowledge through my body, at first. I couldn’t explain it with my mind. It was my body who knew something and my mind tried to make sense of it, to design something in order to communicate it. However, for me, that is the most difficult part. The bodily knowledge I possess is easier to share through its own language, through movement. It does resonate in my mind, but without words. Body and mind are not separated, there is not one that is of more value. There is only one who can process certain information, especially those received by means of kinaesthetic empathy, with more ease. The body very much participates in my interaction with the world. So very often, my mind needs another source, someone to give me some words that help me articulate this knowledge.

This time, this source came from a video I recently watched. In this video, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian novelist, talked about ‘The danger of a single story’[1]. This speech gave me the tools to explain what I came to know, to express how I feel about both, those notions and the work I relate them to.

In fact, Adichie explains that if we only hear a single story about a person or a place, we risk misunderstanding their story. It won’t correspond to the complete truth. She says : “The single story creates stereotypes. And the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.” When I watch Pite’s The Season’s Canon, I can see fifty-four dancers all telling their own story within one big story. I was touched because I felt like I saw completeness. I saw truth.

I didn’t see certainty. For me, certainty is a quite strong word and in this context, I believe that stories about humans, places, movement, emotions… are too fragile, too multifaceted, there are too many stories to be able to talk about certainty. I can say with certainty that a door is closed or open, because I understand what it means and because I can assert this fact through perception and language. However, when it comes to nonverbal language and movement, the truth becomes shifting, intricate, multi-layered. 

I can say that in the piece, I saw truth, because there were so many different stories that were transmitted from each dancer and that shaped one big, overwhelming and complete story. There was one big creature moving through the space. Upon a closer look, one could see individuals who contributed through their own movements to this one movement. Their language was raw, organic, visceral, honest, personal within one united wave. The story could only be told because of each individual. I wouldn’t have seen this wholeness if it wasn’t for the multiple stories/ movements.

Achidie also noted that “power is the ability, not just to tell the story of another person but to make it to the definite story of that person”. In a way, Pite showed a different power. The power of a community. The power of the difference. If we gather the difference, we create a community. One big movement emerges through different bodies and different movements. And we create a powerful truth.

When I relate this to my research project, I can see the importance of multiple stories. I won’t seek to prove something is right or wrong, something where I can say with certainty that it is true. I rather want to create something. I want to tell a story by collecting different stories. The one story will become stories. It will become true through the richness of diversity and through its changeability, just like Pite did with her dancers. She created an enormous creature through all those bodies and then let the creature change and transform itself through different movements from the dancers. There is nothing fix. Everything continues to evolve, to shift, to alter and this contributes to the convertible feature of truth.

---

[1] http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story

Thoughts on feedback for teachers and the ownership of the learning process.

Skype chat Sunday 05 March 2017 (morning)

Still trying to figure out what feedback I want to receive from my students, I noticed that, when reading through articles and blogs, feedback interlinks with so many different things: feedback and critical thinking of students, feedback and your relationship with students, feedback and your objectives or expectations, feedback and the process of understanding, feedback and assessment of progress… Adesola writes on her blog that for her “feedback is about giving someone more ideas to think about or another way to look at the same thing”, it is “two-way” and about “walking together through an idea”. This would mean that feedback encourages dialogue. When I think about the exchange I wish to have with my students during my class, I think about my relationship with them. This is why, during the morning Skype chat yesterday, I wanted to hear from others what kinds of relationships they have with their students and what impact different teacher-student relationships can have on teaching. Parimala explained that she has one personality or one way of interacting with her students ‘during’ class and a different one ‘after’ class (be quite strict or formal during the class and allow time after the class to share experiences - be like one big family). Imogen mentioned that she too tries to incorporate time for reflection. Those two reactions made me realise something important: ‘When’ do I want to receive feedback and what age group are we talking about?

First of all, I am talking about students aged 16 and over. This is important to note because we are talking about students who are (or should be) attentive and disciplined. Second, I believe that thinking about ‘when’ is very strongly related to ‘why’. During the discussion on Skype, it sounded like people are separating the time where feedback is encouraged, from the time where the students are learning. However, the feedback I want should happen during the class, for one reason mainly: I feel like people are expecting from a dance teacher an authoritarian teaching style, they are expecting to quietly do their exercises and receiving clear instructions (mostly through demonstration) and corrections from the teacher. The teacher talks, the students dance. When young adults are familiar with this teaching style, they don’t really know how to react if a new teacher approaches dance in a different way and I am not sure if they truly want that change. This is frustrating because I have felt on my own body how important verbal exchange in dance can be, how it can help you progress. So, what is it that I am looking for? I wasn’t able to name it until Imogen talk about what she is trying to do in her teaching. (So thank you Imogen!) In fact, what I want is to give my students ownership of their learning. That’s what I am trying to create in my class. I want my students to own their learning process, to be in charge of it. Feedback would then be the framework. Consequently, I want the feedback to be reactions, responses to what they experience.