Impermanence:

Owned by Darlene Edgar
May 15, 2024
2 min read

Lyle, E. (2023). An education terroir. Of books, barns, and boardrooms: Exploring praxis through reflexive inquiry (pp. 9-17). Brill. https://discovery.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=e3b6ddf6-7d96-3c46-ad95-447d6097d200

  • Reflexive inquiry involves continuously seeing anew and acknowledging the possibility of loss and change. The process is likened to washing away or vanishing, where insights are possible because of what is left behind.

  • Consciousness does not eliminate bias but helps interrogate it, allowing for new beginnings to emerge from the threat of an ending.

  • Lyle's exploration of critical qualitative research stemmed from a desire to deeply examine human experience, particularly in the context of education. She emphasizes the centrality of the self in teaching and learning and critiques the education system's tendency to deny the human aspect, viewing vulnerability as a weakness.

  • Lyle began writing about her own experiences to uncover insights and sought scholarly discourse on the capacity of narrative to represent herself. However, she felt that positioning narrative as a method for meaning-making was not sufficient and turned to active writing as a way of knowing, which had deep epistemological implications.

  • Autoethnography, as proposed by Ellis and Bochner, became a method for Lyle to make connections between society and self through storytelling, emphasizing the continuity of experience and the role of relationality and temporality in knowing.

  • Lyle experimented with teaching and learning in non-traditional settings to explore more learner-centered pedagogical approaches. She questioned traditional schooling systems and sought alternatives, feeling trapped in curricula and practices that alienated learners.

  • Moving between theory and practice, self, and other, Lyle seeks to re-humanize praxis, synthesizing theory and practice to produce change. She understands praxis as practicing theory and theorizing practice, continuously seeking to improve contexts in which we live and work.

  • Lyle recalls learning moments in three unique environments—post-secondary faculties of education, horses, and corporate learning—emphasizing the importance of positioned experience in developing notions of praxis.