| a playful research model |
From: Hillel (04/26/2000 10:30:49)
Dear Playmates,
I'd like to respond to some of the ideas that have come in recent letters and also relate to the general concern of all of us - where do we go from her e in building our Playful spirits in learning environments of schools, homes and workplaces?
I'm interested in what Milton describes as an interest among people at GLF and Japanese educators in creating an "educational portal site", and would like to hear more about what that might involve. It sounds as though it has a lot of potential for new directions and interactions.
Also, I'm very interested in the new model of research which was discussed in the recent posting by Koizumi-san and Miyata-san. During our PLAYFUL discussions, we sometimes referred to this model as "emergent research"; that is, we wanted our research to be done in the same spirit as the teaching/learning/playing we have all been engaged in.
About ten years, I had just completed my doctoral programs' coursework at Harvard Graduate School of Education and was preparing to write the first step toward doing my doctoral thesis. However, It was necessary for me to return to my teaching life fulltime, so I was spared what to me would have been an impossible life of focusing totally on completing my doctoral thesis. In the following years I was unable to make much headway in doing any reasearch that was acceptable. I found it extremely difficult and unrewarding to work within Harvard's traditional model of research which I found to be so restricting and unplayful. Everytime I had an idea that I wanted to follow, I was warned that if I went down that certain path, I would have to beware of the intellectual wolves who were waiting to leap out and devour me if I didn't have the proper intellectual weapons to ward them off. Rather than being encouraged to utilize my own experience and ideas to create my own path, my energies constantly directed toward creating the weapons to defend my right to take that path. I gave it up!
I'd be very happy to be a part of creating another model of research: playful, emergent, multi-sensory.
Maybe Edith and others will bring me to task for my lack of intellectual rigor! I know that I'm writing to a cyberhousefull of people who made it through that path of doctoral demons, so I'm ready for some rousing challenges to my ideas.
Hillel
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