Authors
V Plows, B Whitburn
Publication date
2017/1/28
Journal
Inclusive Education: Making Sense of Everyday Practice
Pages
249
Publisher
Springer
Description
The significance of people talking, and in talking sharing ideas, cannot be undervalued. In corridors, meetings and at conferences like The Inclusive Education Summit (TIES), communities come together to discuss what is of importance and meaningful in/to their lives. And as such, these exchanges are never just about theory, just about research, nor just about work, for these communications are always enactments of commitment to what is valued here and now. If we agree with American band REM’s sentiment then we are faced with coming to terms, amongst ourselves, with our commitments and how these simultaneously exist between us and within complex, dynamic–even ‘bigger’concerns–to do with what the lyric refers to as ‘life’. These are fundamentally ontological concerns. What alarms me however, as I listen to academic presentations and participate in workplace conversations, is whether we actually perform due diligence in checking our deliberations for the ways in which these work for or against what we apparently hold to be true. One example: the times when you might struggle to sustain conversation with school personnel whilst patiently wanting to jettison prevailing discourse like deficit-based accounts of personhood. It is a constant challenge being able to align our commitments across the varied landscapes of action1 we traverse. Life’s dilemmas and contradictions are endlessly present and serve as formidable adversaries in any attempt to secure an ethic enacting consistency. This chapter diverts somewhat from the standard afterword usually given to conclude an edited volume. What I want to offer instead is, in Wittgenstein’s …
Scholar articles
V Plows, B Whitburn - Inclusive Education: Making Sense of Everyday …, 2017