Abstract
Act One of this play will be performed by the author, Mari Cruice, and Victoria Perselli, who commissioned the piece for an edited volume entitled 'Education, Theory and Pedagogies of Change in a Global Landscape'. The events unfold more or less as described in the dialogue, which depicts the dilemmas faced by two teachers in mainstream schooling who must resume 'normal life‘ following the completion of their doctoral education, and the strategies they devise for using and developing theory in practice.
Permission to perform or otherwise reproduce Act 1 of 'Keeping the Lights On' and/or the accompanying Performance Note in the uploaded versions must be requested from M. Cruice [email protected] and V. Perselli [email protected].
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Publication status | Published - Dec 2015 |
| Externally published | Yes |
| Event | The Pedagogy of Ambiguity: Creative Practice and Arts-based Forms of Learning & Assessment Within and Beyond the Arts & Humanities - London, U.K. Duration: 4 Dec 2015 → 4 Dec 2015 |
Conference
| Conference | The Pedagogy of Ambiguity: Creative Practice and Arts-based Forms of Learning & Assessment Within and Beyond the Arts & Humanities |
|---|---|
| Period | 4/12/15 → 4/12/15 |
Bibliographical note
Note: Script adapted from Mari Cruice (2015) 'Keeping the lights on. A play in two acts' in Victoria Perselli (ed.) Education, theory and pedagogies of change in a global landscape, pp.196-212; performed by Mari Cruice and Victoria PerselliImpact: The full play script for 'Keeping the Lights On' was written by Mari Cruice for a research project: 'Where does theory come from in educational research', which was initiated by Victoria Perselli at Kingston University, UK, which investigated the places and spaces of theory and theorising in research in higher education from trans-disciplinary perspectives. The findings of the project demonstrated how participants were operationalising theory to bring about change in their practices and the inferences of this for structural and systematic change at institutional level. It also raised more general questions regarding the status of different forms of knowledge generation, transfer and mobilisation in higher education, as reflected by the diverse cultural and socio-economic contexts of practitioners in different parts of the globe when describing their working lives (Perselli, 2015).
This in turns opens a whole 'Pandora‘s Box‘, politically speaking, when comparing the experiences of practitioners working in theory-rich environments and those wrestling with the practical difficulties of 'survival‘ in their respective professional or disciplinary fields, brought to the fore in the dialogue between the two protagonists in Cruice‘s play, adapted for and performed at the Pedagogy of Ambiguity conference. The performance and ensuing discussion invites its audience to consider how collective resistance to political interference across the sites of schooling and HE may be achieved, since these are evidently eroding our intellectual capacities and practical abilities as scholar-educators. This, we argue, has a profound impact on our students as much as ourselves, in that it represents a depleted version of the education for which everyone now pays so dearly. The British government, we propose, surely can - and must - do better than this.
Organising Body: King‘s Learning Institute, Faculty of Arts & Humanities, Department of Culture, Media & Creative Industries‘ Research Network for Arts Based Learning & Education
Keywords
- Drama, dance and performing arts
- Ofsted
- fabrication
- performativity
- play script
- practice-as-research
- the Blob