Integrating personal, political, and professional educational practice that gives meaning and purpose to my life and work

This paper shows Living Theory research as a form of research that enables me to recognize and research the integration of my personal, professional, and political educational practice to improve, with the hope of give fuller expression to my ontological and social values in practice and live a loving life that is satisfying, productive and worthwhile. Changes in policy and practice in 2012, demanded by central government, meant my field of practice had to change. My concerns however were, and still are, that practice, theory and research often appear to lose connection with the educational purpose of education; theory and practice appear to be developed independently and without explanation or evaluation related to educational values and; educational practitioners appear to practice in discrete worlds, each vying to exert their hegemony over the development of educational theory, practice and provision. In this paper I show how, by continuing to research as a Living Theory researcher (Whitehead, 1989), I am addressing those concerns as I try to improve what I am doing to realise my values in action and integrate personal, professional and political educational practice that gives meaning and purpose to my work and life. I describe and explain my developing understanding of Living Theory research as a multidimensional, relationally-dynamic and collaborative form of research, in which collaboration is an expression of embodied meanings of ‘i am because we are’, together with ‘we are because i am’ – represented as i~we~i.