I have moved from doctoral student to dissertation chair in five years. It is a scary leap (or in this case, PLUNGE) into the unknown. I learn from the other chairs. I seek advice from my mentor and I laugh nervously when the program asks me to talk about things like my theoretical lens or my methodology. But I go into those scary, dark corners and learn as fast as I can because there are doctoral students that rely on me to get it together and figure out ways to help them meet these head splitting deadlines that seemed easier for me when I was the student. I can control myself. I cannot control anyone else. I know how to push myself to get my act together. I talk about this semi abusive self talk here a lot. But how to show both compassion and actionable support for others is difficult. I am trying not to fall apart.
First, our Ed.D. program incorporates two (2) capstone projects in their 3-year cohort program. What that means is that besides spending about a year in a consultancy project for a community organization, the students must then quickly transition to their individual action research types of dissertations, and they have about half a semester to quickly shift thinking from consultant to researcher all while holding down a full time job.
So when I was asked to talk about methodology and theoretical lens, my first reaction was I don't have one. Untrue. I would have been called out on not having it. Instead I had to dig through old blog posts and my handy Evernote app to relive that part of the journey where I was searching for theory. Like the students I have now, we did not have a lot of time. I had to be very intentional on how I read. Luckily, while I was doing this, I was traveling a lot for work, so I always made sure I had on my Evernote two articles for the roundtrip. I gave myself 45 minutes each way to read, highlight, make some connecting notes. I also had to take these words like theoretical lens and methodology and simplify them even more .
The theoretical lens is how I make meaning of the world. It is my own way of knowing. I am old enough and have studied myself long enough to realize that my lens does not change. In other words, some people see the world through a feminist lens. I do not. But I do have a lens. I just had to read things that moved me and helped me to see myself in a certain theory until I disappeared, stop reading, follow the references for those things that resonated and go to those sources. In other words, jump into the rabbit hole, but with intention.
By trying to go back to the part of my journey where I was careening down the hole, I was able to follow a path that led me to the place that I landed (which was really about creating my own theory, or rather explaining my theory using my own word: moʻo).
I started with Paulo Friere, Methodology of the Oppressed because while getting my master's with Manulani Meyer, it is where I ended up. I also like Linda Tuhiwai Smith's Decolonizing Methodologies, but as a researcher, I don't want to go there - nor
do I want to still be decolonizing. My positionality was not to be radical or political in that way. I wanted to move forward from the whole oppression and colonization, even if I acknowledged my positionality within the oppression and colonization. So no to "critical race theory." I needed to know how I make meaning and know what my
tolerance was for telling my story. I landed on Sandoval, Chela which led to a chapter called "Love as a Hermeneutics of Social
Change" - Love as a Hermeneutic but I rejected the feminist, anti-racist
pedagogy that is attached to this scholar and focused on Love as well as
Hermeneutics
Hermeneutic - method or theory of interpretation
(Hermeneutics - especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom
literature, and philosophical texts)
This led me to spirituality. It also led me back home to "Hawaiian Hermeneutics" - Manulani Meyer - intention, permission,
first introduction, being awake. The rabbit hole called the references then led me to Reyes - ʻIke Kūʻokoʻa: Indigenous Critical Pedagogy - turns
aside from the Western democratization and individual liberation of critical
pedagogy, turns toward the liberation of entire communities and nations (from)
Red pedagogy (Grande); centers in place,
land, and functional knowledge (Meyer).
I Followed my naʻau, gut thinking versus head thinking by seeing how spirituality, relational
knowledge, values driven research could form into a pono methodology. When I
would get stuck, I would open the ʻōlelo noʻeau book and look for my answer.
Three years later, I heard Kū Kahakalau talk about Maʻawe Pono: research
practices grounded in Hawaiian values and realized that in my own methods, that
is what I had been doing.
So my lens is a social justice lens. It starts with a commitment to pono, kuleana, social justice,
honoring my community of teachers: E kaʻahele i ka māʻawe o ka pono (Kūʻs
translations) = tread on the good trail, the trail of goodness and
righteousness, of honor and responsibility.
I combined it with my years of seeing teaching transformations, including my own via the Hawaii Writing Project - Relational methodology (teachers teaching teachers) ʻike
aku, ʻike mai, kōkua aku, kōkua mai, pēlā ihola ka nohona ʻohana (know and be
known, help and be helped, such is family life) also when asking teachers for
feedback, it was over food, talk story, always starting with relationship,
moving into very open ended tell me what happened types of questions that
encourage their own story telling.
Collaborative pūpūkahi i holomua (what that looked like in
how I designed my PD)
Participatory ma ka hana ka ʻike
Careful, purposeful preparation (Intentional) - ʻAʻohe ulu e
loaʻa i ka pōkole o ka lou. (You need the right stick tool to pick the best breadfruit at the top of the tree).
In a nutshell, then, my lens is a social justice lens focused on love, spirituality, intentionality, pono, relationships and sustainability.
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