Epiphany, insight via autobiography and ‘autoethnography applied’

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In my PhD I used aspects of autobiography including episodes that were epiphanic. By epiphany I here mean;

a. A sudden manifestation of the essence or meaning of something.

b. A comprehension or perception of reality by means of a sudden intuitive realization: “I experienced an epiphany, a spiritual flash that would change the way I viewed myself” Frank Maier.

I would add to the ‘Frank Mair example above and make it;

“I experienced several epiphanies, that would change the way I viewed education, the world and myself”

The particular episodes in my life I discovered to my surprise had led to the main dimensions of what was to become my model of what it is to be human the ‘I’ (Creative -subjective), the ‘WE’ (Caring – moral) and the ‘IT’ (Criticality-objective) dimension respectively that give us the three ways of engaging with reality. I had moved into autoethnography.

Autoethnography is an established, but still emergent, form of qualitative research. Described by Ellis and Bochner (2000) it is:

an autobiographical genre of writing and research that displays multiple layers of consciousness, connecting the personal to the cultural. Back and forth autoethnographers gaze, first through an ethnographic wide-angle lens, focussing outward on social and cultural aspects of their personal experience; then they look inward, exposing a vulnerable self that is moved by and may move through, refract, and resist cultural interpretations – see Deck, (1990); Neuman, (1996); Reed-Danahay, (1997). As they zoom backward and forward, inward and outward, distinctions between the personal and cultural become blurred, sometimes beyond distinct recognition. Usually written in first-person voice, autoethnography , autoethnographic texts appear in a variety of forms – short stories, poetry, fiction, novels, photographic essays, personal essays, journals, fragmented and layered writing and social science prose. In these texts, concrete action, dialogue, emotion embodiment, spirituality, and self-consciousness are featured, appearing as relational and institutional stories affected by history, social structure, and culture, which themselves are dialectically revealed through action, feeling, thought and language.

This does seem to well describe my intentions, and the way I proceeded. Storying is seen as essential for learners in the model, as well as being present in the autobiographic approach. The legitimacy of the applied dimension lies in the fact that I knew I wanted to present a model before I knew that I/the thesis needed to use the autobiographic – the surprise, for me, was how much they are one and the same.

Action research, focusing down to the autobiographic and the ethnographic, is explicit, or implicit, in the overall process of the SunWALK model per se. In a sense the thesis is the story of the thesis – of its evolution from the dynamic between praxis and reflection and beliefs and values. As White (2002) says action research can increase the likelihood that one’s behaviour is congruent with one’s theories about teaching and learning – and, one hopes, the values with which we choose to identify ourselves.¹

Given that the primary intention was to create a new model of education intention the suggestion was made that this could be called ‘Applied Autoethnography’.

 

To be developed

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Ideally I would like to see every school and every teacher connected with research and theory-creation, with relevant university departments working as supportive partners to the teachers. The subject of the study was my self, and my teaching, and the aim was self-understanding as well as producing a model of education – such an action research approach in all schools could not only ‘grow’ more effective teaching, but would also deepen and widen the possible communities to which teachers could belong.

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All postings to this site relate to the central model in the PhD. Summaries are HERE