Impressions of Kashi Raj Pandey
When I first met Kashi Raj Pandey in Nepal in 2016, he was an organizer of an international delegation, including me, who were participants in a conference on transformative education. I remember our initial meeting vividly. As we were introduced, Kashi Raj extended his hand, his smiling eyes briefly engaging mine, his outstretched hand firmly grasping mine – squeezing firmly with his thumb. I trust you – you trust me. In my culture a handshake means a lot – as is evident in this short poem.
Perspectives on a Handshake
This is a handshake
extend your hand
fingers apart
interlock thumbs and squeeze
grip an other’s hand as warm palms connect.
Eye to eye, heart to heart, sincerity with a smile
bonded, unspoken, unbreakable
I trust you, you can trust me
solidity, enduringness, commitment, resolution
words fall short of meaning, meanings transcend actions
we are one, but never alone, and it’s only a handshake.
Kashi Raj demonstrated through his actions that he was a superb organizer and the extent to which he had built a network of people in hotels and tourism, as well as educational institutions. Under his leadership, our group embarked on a tour of Nepal during which we got to know one another. During this tour, Kashi Raj demonstrated willingness to educate others, while learning from them, and providing diverse types of support and assistance, when and as necessary. For example, one night when we arrived late at our hotel and the kitchen staff were already off-duty, Kashi Raj convinced the hotel manager to allow him to cook us a meal in the hotel kitchen. For every noteworthy event (e.g., helping others), Kashi Raj usually had a story. He is a great storyteller. Not only that, he also is a poet, and as we learned, a talented dancer and entertainer. Whenever he heard music, Kashi Raj was looking to join in – to perform and entertain. If there was a way to get involved; Kashi Raj got involved.
Because of Kashi Raj’s attributes, it comes as no surprise to me that a feature of this book is the manner in which he has infused his expertise in the arts through chosen stories in an autoethnography. The book illustrates how Kashi Raj comes to know himself through research of his lived experiences as a village boy in Nepal through to his present professional life as an educational researcher in a university in Kathmandu.
Terms I would use to describe Kashi Raj’s virtues include witty, observant, talented, and continually looking out to help others. Importantly, many of these talents are on display in Theorising Transformative Learning: The Power of Autoethnographic Narratives in Education. As Volume 71 of Bold Visions, a series I co-created with Joe Kincheloe, Kashi Raj Pandey’s book is the epitome of what we envisioned when we created the series. The book describes a Bold Vision, a presentation of research undertaken in Kashi Raj’s native country; subsequently written in its initial form in Perth, Western Australia.
Theorizing Transformative Learning
I regard theory as a way of seeing, lenses for looking at, seeing and making sense of lived experience (Tobin, 2009). A theoretical frame highlights while obscuring. Another way to express this feature of theory is to state that a chosen interpretive framework (i.e., theory) separates signal from noise. Hence, words such as transformative are important to unpack. Interestingly, when I first met Kashi Raj, we both were participating in a conference on transformative education research and sustainable development. It was clear from the papers presented at the conference that a key idea was to educate the citizenry so that they could live in ways that would sustain life and its constituent ecosystems on earth. A rather depressing context is that despite many decades of research and science education that addressed constructs such as climate change and global warming, humans have continued to enact lifestyles that consume resources with replenishment, while at the same time humans encroach on others’ habitats by adapting them for their own lifestyles. The rate of species extinction increased and as human populations increased, they occupied more space and adapted ecosystems to suit their needs, while making them less suitable for other species. In so doing, humans steadily came close to life forms from which they previously had been quite distant/separate. Inevitably, this proximity increases possibilities for pandemics that threaten ongoing existence of entire species. As is implied by the conference theme, educators and researchers regarded it as a high priority to intervene in ways that could steer humanity away from a course headed toward seemingly inevitable mass extinctions and environmental degradation. What remains to be seen is whether conferences and claims about transformation can catalyze meaningful improvements.
A Reunion in Perth
As a native of Western Australia, I have roots in Perth, having been a graduate student at both Curtin and Murdoch universities, where Kashi Raj began (Curtin) and completed (Murdoch) his doctoral degree. Even though I left Australia for the United States in 1987, for a number of years I held adjunct professor positions at both universities. It was in my role as adjunct professor at Murdoch University that I continued my relationship with Kashi Raj, at a time when Barry Down (advisor) and Stephen Ritchie (co-advisor) played major roles in facilitating his research. As a friend and colleague, I was privileged to read drafts of Kashi Raj’s thesis and provide suggestions of an editorial nature. During successive visits to Perth, and through regular communication using computer applications such as Skype, I had first-hand experience of his labors, that eventually led to successful completion of the PhD degree and subsequent transformation of his doctoral research into a fine book.
In the sections that follow, I address several issues that I believe are salient, not only to Kashi Raj and his roles as a graduate student/scholar, but also to readers of the book as they connect with the research, learn, and apply what they have learned to their specific contexts and purposes of reading the book.
Walking for Exercise: What’s in a Narrative?
Each evening at about 5 PM, I set out on a 3-mile walk in a gated community in which I now live. Usually I walk on the pavement, but move to the other side of the street, or onto the roadside when I encounter other people. This action is prudent and probably essential in the United States at a time when at least 3,000 people a day are perishing because of Covid-19 infection. In that context, during my walk I am conscious of a need to maintain at least 6 feet of distance from other humans.
Tonight, as I approached a pair of walkers, who were exercising their dog, I looked to see if I could cross the street. Unfortunately, others were walking on the opposite sidewalk, so I deviated toward the edge of the road, at least 6 feet from the approaching walkers. As dusk was falling, I felt content and secure walking on the edge of a somewhat deserted road. The two people and their dog passed and I continued to walk on the side of the road until I reached a convenient driveway 100 yards further ahead. My happy emotions, of which I was aware, suddenly were replaced by a sense of urgency (i.e., fear) as a speeding car whizzed past me. My heart leapt as I scurried back to the sidewalk, only to find my front foot slipping forward, and rising apprehension that I would tumble to the pavement. Oh no! The odor was unmistakable. The dog I just passed with the pair of walkers had apparently pooped on the footpath. I noticed a strong feeling of aversion rising in my mind, which was providing an ongoing commentary. “Disgusting!” I muttered as I regained balance and tried to wipe the poop from the sole of my sneakers. Quickly, almost seamlessly, my aversion switched to the speeding vehicle. “At least 45 mph in a 25 mph speed zone!” As my anger rose, my mind returned to the pair of walkers and their dog. “How could they be so thoughtless? Which is worse? 45 mile-per-hour or leaving slippery dog poop on the sidewalk?” I noticed my mind rapidly moving between topics as I created scenarios, replete with images, for confronting these individuals and dressing them down. Then, I noticed my emotions were falling and my mind was chattering: “False dichotomy! Not either/or, always both/and. What can I learn from these events? Be now. Breath. Mouth closed. Inhale and exhale through the nose. Walk. You are home. You are now.” I was aware of the chatter and recognized language deriving from Thich Nhat Hanh’s writings (e.g., Hanh, 2012) and my own ongoing research (Tobin, King, Henderson, Bellocchi, & Ritchie, 2016). My “monkey mind” began to wonder about Thich Nhat Hanh (known as Thay, which means teacher) and his well-being. An image of Thay in his wheelchair was accompanied by rising sadness and respect for him. Now, my nimble mind created an admonition from Luangpor Pramote – “know yourself” (V. Pamojjo, 2015). Just as quickly as it moved away from Thay, my mind returned to a familiar mantra: “Mouth closed. Inhale and exhale through the nose. Now you are home. Just walk …”
I begin this Foreword with a narrative because stories can draw a reader in. My intentions are to provide insights into the contemplative, mundane aspects of everyday life. Even an evening walk with the primary purpose of maintaining good health is deeply situated in context. This is not any random walk in the neighborhood – there is a Covid-19 pandemic that is particularly severe in the United States, especially in Florida. Since the pandemic is cause for the deaths of older people, and I am walking in a community for those aged 55 and above, it is important to avoid getting too close to others and forming clusters of people. Hence, there is often a need for walkers to zigzag across the road, to avoid other people and of course road vehicles.
Politics also are involved in my walk. From my perspective, the president of the United States and the governor of Florida have both been irresponsible in their duties to create national and state policies and practices associated with the coronavirus. In addition, both have spurned what most consider to be necessary actions to curb the spread of the virus (e.g., wearing masks, social distancing, no large congregations of people). Following in the footsteps of politicians, there are people in our community who do not adhere to internationally accepted guidelines for controlling the virus. During my daily walks, I encounter some of these people and inevitably my mind shows strong aversion to what they do and who they are. Petty thoughts arise. These people rarely move off the pavement to give me 6 feet of clearance, and also, they cluster in groups to talk with others. It is rare to see such people wearing masks. Little wonder the US is impacted by Covid-19 to a greater extent than other countries in the world. In each of these examples, my emotions build to high intensity. I witness their rise and fall. Emotions catalyze storytelling about past and future scenarios. I notice. I do not try to suppress the stories, and neither do I push to return to the present. When my mind and body are present, I notice that too. Also, some moments are settled and others are unsettled. When this happens, I notice.
As my introductory story indicates, walking can be a contemplative activity. The mind is relentlessly active, providing a running commentary of what is happening and how I feel about what is happening. As emotions rise and fall, my mind narrates accordingly – returning to the events of the day and jumping into the future as scenarios are played out for myriad possible activities. All of these examples are evidence of impermanence, which is central to my practice of being mindful during everyday life events, such as walking. The dog poop and speeding car are events that caught my attention while walking; events that framed ongoing activities for many weeks thereafter. Furthermore, my actions in real time were grounded in a history of strong emotions concerning failure to clean up after pets have excreted wastes and for motor vehicles being used for the convenience of drivers with little care for the well-being of others – human and nonhuman.
My final point about the introductory narrative is that the story I tell reflects my spiritual journey, particularly the teaching of two contemporary Buddhist leaders. What I have learned about the self, ego, body, and mind serve as windows into my lived experiences. I notice emotions as they appear and expect them to rise and fall. Similarly, I expect my mind to narrate and quickly move from topic to topic. I know to witness changes in my mind and in my body – not to “try to” control mind or body – but instead to bear witness. In this way my walking for good health is contemplative, an opportunity to engage mindfulness.
Although I walk each day, taking the same route, each walk is unique – characterized by an active mind and an active body. Every lived moment on the walk is unique, and in a macro sense, what I recall about any given walking activity are events that catalyze changes that I notice. For the most part, the noticing what I do as I walk is not retained as part of a response to a broad question such as “what happened during today’s walk?” Needless to say, much more happened than what I was aware of. For me at least, the take away big idea is that stories I tell are initially framed around events, which inevitably involve contradictions – that is, transformations, or to say it another way – unsettled times (Swidler, 1986).
As readers work their way through this book they may notice how the very elements I have described in the story of my walking for exercise also are present in Kashi Raj’s stories. A rich collection of autoethnographic narratives and ethnographies are resources for learning and potential change/improvement. Each of the stories has its unique elements – text provides numerous opportunities in the presentation of story and in associated efforts to make sense of them. Importantly, the stories draw on knowledge from the arts, politics and spiritual domains that can serve as potential hooks to facilitate learning and change. Reading the stories can expand readers’ knowledge of self as they make sense of what is happening and why it is happening from the perspectives of participants in the research. If this is to be the case, it may be necessary to school the mind to silence tendencies to judge and critique in favor of listening while searching for the affordances of what is being conveyed through the medium of stories, associated ethical dilemmas, and other events that crave attention.
Joining the River
It is a privilege to be a scholar, akin to joining a river that is long and wide; a river that precedes my entry and will continue long after my exit. The river is a metaphor for ongoing dialogue among scholars. Those of us who enter the river, do so with an awareness that we are privileged and that dialogue is continuous and ongoing. The river metaphor dampens craving for status and encourages humility, respect and enactment of values such as compassion, empathy, loving kindness, and learning from difference. Well, I temper such a bold claim with a caveat – I am describing an ideal, which I intend to apply to me. Regrettably, there are many in the river who do crave attention and have strong aversion for those who differ from them. Later, I return to this scenario.
My date of entry into the river is hard to pinpoint directly, but likely commenced in the early 1970s, when I began graduate studies in physics and science education; at about the time I switched from teaching high school mathematics and science to teaching education, specializing in science and mathematics education. From that time onward, my professional life oriented more toward research, especially research that transformed my own teaching and learning.
Initially, I was considered to be in the mainstream, with a progressive idea that changes in teaching and learning of science were mandatory. I was intrigued by the power of wait time; pausing phenomena during verbal interactions. Accordingly, in the early 1970s my first priority was to research uses of an extended wait time in relation to teaching and learning of science. To some degree, my research was against the grain. When I decided to study wait time as the focus of a thesis written for my master’s degree it followed an oral presentation by a freshly minted PhD graduate who maintained that all the work that needed to be done on wait time had been done already (Lake, 1974). How shortsighted! As Lake delivered a presentation based on his doctoral research, my mind lit up, stimulated by myriad ideas for research that would enable me to contribute to the ongoing conversation. Others published discouraging articles too. In one of her seminal papers on wait time, Mary Budd Rowe cautioned about the necessity to study macro forces such as high-stakes testing before classroom level research on variables like wait time would make a meaningful difference to classroom practices and enacted curricula (Rowe, 1974). Once again, I found myself in disagreement, this time with someone whose work I greatly admired. Within these contexts, I followed my intuition, entered the stream, and forged forward (Tobin, 1980). My work on wait time continued for a little over a decade, and culminated in a publication in the prestigious Review of Educational Research (Tobin, 1987). I mention this not to stoke my ego, but to illustrate that when I began my research project on wait time, research in this domain was far from complete or of no particular value.
Initially my work was regarded as mainstream, largely because I planned quasi-experiments and wrote papers in the conventional way required for publication in leading journals. However, this was to change as I realized that broad questions such as what is happening and why is it happening needed to be addressed before successful interventions could be designed and enacted with an expectation that would gain traction after the research was concluded. Accordingly, soon after my doctoral studies were completed, also on wait time (Tobin & Capie, 1982), my research began to embrace interpretive methodologies that were collaborative, included teachers and students as researchers, and employed theoretical underpinnings drawn from cultural sociology and myriad knowledge systems (Tobin, 2015). As years and decades of research in schools and classrooms were completed, my research evolved to accept multilogical frameworks and first-person narratives as a primary mechanism for disseminating what we learned from ongoing collaborative research (Tobin & Alexakos, 2021).
Earlier in this Foreword I raised an issue of scholars and ego. This issue leads to a scary specter of gatekeepers. For example, the freshly-minted PhD, who I mentioned in my narrative, was a person with considerably more power than me, since it was not common in the mid-1970s for teacher educators in Australia to have doctoral degrees. When he announced that all research on wait time that needed to be done had been done already – it was widely accepted as a truth. There were significant risks in me deciding to follow my path when he announced that nothing meaningful needed to be done in this area. Similarly, Rowe published a methodological paper in the Journal of Research in Science Teaching, in which her interpretations were weighty, especially with funding agencies, including the National Science Foundation. Rowe’s research served as a gatekeeper, giving considerable heft to an argument that macrostructures such as high-stakes testing and rewards systems obscured what could be learned from classroom and school level research on wait time. In both cases the issues concern status and power. To follow my insights and values required extra work to persuade others and courage to proceed on my chosen path.
To this day it is still risky, especially for those doing doctoral dissertations, to include narrative as a major part of their work. And, oddly enough, advisors and reviewers who accept narrative as a powerful component of research can insist that relatively junior scholars closely adhere to advisors’/reviewers’ preferred methodologies and theoretical frameworks. In other words, the advisors and reviewers serve as gatekeepers. In such cases it is risky for beginning scholars to follow personal preferences concerning methodologies and framing theories. Accordingly, in his book, Kashi Raj has been thorough in providing convincing rationale for his methods and associated interpretive frameworks.
Encouraging those who differ in key ways from what you value highly is a challenge for scholars (Tobin, 2009). I believe this is why radical listening is such an important construct. I first came across this idea as a practice when I began to work with Joe Kincheloe in 2003. When I had a research idea Joe would smile and invite me to tell him what I had in mind. As I spoke, he would continue to smile and act supportively with utterances, head nods, facial expressions, and gestures. Encouraging signs gave me the confidence to elaborate and clarify what I had in mind. Eventually, he would have questions, not to challenge me, but to see the advantages I perceived for doing what I proposed to do. Only when he had a firm grasp of what I had in mind did he begin to suggest complementary activities. His supportive practices reflected his willingness to learn from differences and embrace multilogicality (Kincheloe, 2010). His approach paved the way for me and my research squad to develop methodologies such as authentic inquiry and event-oriented inquiry – each of these examples being built on a foundation of learning from and valuing difference (Tobin & Alexakos, 2021).
I do not assert that there were no gates and filters in our research. However, I do maintain that we assign high value to learning from and valuing difference. Within our research squad, we embraced hermeneutic phenomenology, cultural sociology, and emergent and contingent research grounded in polyphonia, polysemia, and attentiveness to differences in axiologies (Tobin & Alexakos, 2021). As an example, that applies to Kashi Raj’s book, we employ narrative, autobiography, and multiple ways of representing what we learned from our research. However, consistent with accepting and valuing difference, we accept differences as they manifest in research and how we represent what is learned. Importantly, we do not shun those who are different, but want to belong to our research squad. Furthermore, we do not get to choose who accesses our published work and we cannot interact with them in an effort to enhance what they can learn, adapt, and apply to improve the quality of what and how they teach and whether their students learn in ways that are potentially transformative to them. Accordingly, when we write we do so with a sense of writing to draw readers into the text. The more we can provide potential connection points the higher is the possibility that they will find something that will stay with their consciousness long enough to frame their ongoing everyday practices.
… and in Conclusion
There is much to learn from the book, Theorising Transformative Learning. The storied nature of the text provides numerous opportunities for readers to connect and subsequently, to relate what they have read and learned to aspects of their personal narratives about teaching, learning and curricula that make a meaningful difference. There is a great deal in the book with the potential to meet the goals of those who read the book with the intention of using a similar methodology and also for those who would like to improve their professional roles as teacher educators and/or professional developers. Also, for those readers without any particular goals for changing what they do, there are many issues to ponder. As I have sought to illustrate earlier, each reader will bring to the reading of this book a unique set of life experiences and associated epistemologies, ontologies and axiologies. Accordingly, different parts of the text will stand out as signal, leaving others to be regarded as noise. Each reading is unique. Thus, successive readings are likely to result in different take aways. There is much to contemplate, not the least of which is what you can learn about yourself as you digest what Kashi Raj provides in this feast. Perhaps it is his passion in poetic as well as culinary arts that allows him to lay out a smorgasbord from which we all can find appeal on multiple visits to the table.
References
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