Very strange feeling now that the Programme Director role at Henley has all but ceased (just a few remnant pieces of work to finish off) and the responsibility for being on call and on-the-ball now sits with someone else. The volume of emails in my inbox has decreased dramatically (almost to the point where I’m wondering if anyone out there still remembers me!), but that is no bad thing as there were upwards of 70 a day to deal with usually.
I’m spending as much time as I can in an iterative circle of reading, writing, thinking (not necessarily in that order) on topics to do with the PhD. That project has now got a little more focus, and a new direction. The current title is “The Discursive Foundation of Learner Identity at Henley Business School: narrative lessons for post-experience Management Education”.
I’m not one of those people who finds a title and never changes it. It evolves all the time.
I was asked to author a short chapter in a proposed practitioner book on personal development and leadership, and in doing so came up with a diagram which has helped me sort my thinking about the twin subjects of “learning” and “identity”. Unfortunately, I don’t think I can paste it here from a Word document, but perhaps it can figure as a topic in its own right in another post.
Currently reading Paul Ricoeur’s “Time and Narrative”, volume 1, which is hard going but interesting. He starts by considering how time might be said to exist, in reference mainly to Book 11 of St Augustine’s Confessions. I think the perspective on time and narrative will become important when I am writing about my choice of methodology and method. I have also ordered Paolo Freire’s classic “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”, which I think will contain ideas relevant to the substantive domain of Education Research (my lead in topic).
Sadly, the world of Gregory Bateson will have to wait until after I do my PhD!
Chris Dalton's Personal Development Blog 
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