No Longer Crumbling To Dust

It is a new year. It brings a hope that this might be the year in which the doctorate is completed, and a fresh determination to support that hope by getting on with things. The end is in sight. It is a long way off and there are several mountains to climb, but it is there away into the distance and the path is signposted.

I have spent the £10,000 that I had mentally allowed for the privilege of this study. I can’t say ‘budgeted’ because I never had it saved up to begin with, but have scrimped and saved over the last six years and had several periods of intermission when the funds simply weren’t there. And so there is a financial imperative to complete as well as an intellectual and practical one. 

In January I redrafted the methodology chapter. And so far in February I have redrafted the introductory chapter. Both now represent a third draft (though I am on a fifth draft of the findings chapters).

The breakthrough is really that I finally feel as though I wouldn’t be embarrassed for anyone to read them. I would no longer crumble to dust if they were shared. It’s a long time since I began writing both, and the cringy, self-important sentences are largely gone. When they were written in those earlier days they weren’t intended to sound self-important, more to desperately establish a claim in territory that I found slippery and hostile - clinging on in a place that I didn’t think I deserved to be. They make uncomfortable reading in the drafting process but their removal begins to remove some of my anxieties. Having more or less a draft of the whole means that each rewrite achieves greater clarity and narrative coherence. And the fact that some passages haven’t been revisited for many months means that objectivity is achieved through that distance.

The rest of February will be devoted to the Literature Review, which is currently around 15,000 words. It needs a whole additional section as well as a further rewrite. The assurances from my supervisors that it would simply be a case of expanding the original Literature Review included in the proposal was a little removed from the reality. I have read more than a hundred further books and papers since that was submitted five years ago. 

So, on I plod. The journey metaphor is annoying, and I have already overused it and mixed it up here, but it is a hell of a ride.

The Thing

I've found 'the thing'.

Everyone told me it would happen and I didn't quite believe them: that there would be a theory or branch of thinking that would serve as a framework for my thesis, and that I would find it at some point along the way.

I remember being on a university 'Away Day' during my first or second year where we all had to identify the organising principle of our work, by way of an ice-breaker. I was so far out of my depth that I couldn't even see any ice to break, and I haven't been back to an away day since.

For my supervisors it was dialogics and hermaneutics. I tried those, hopefully, and they didn't fit.

But this weekend, I found the thing that did fit.

It was a huge penny-drop, lightbulb-on moment where suddenly everything makes more sense and previously unanswerable questions can be reframed and addressed.

It happened after the third revision of my data chapters (which I believe to be quite late in the process!) when feedback from my supervisors pointed me in the direction of two particular articles. It turned out that I had independently reached conclusions that other had found before me. I was struggling to articulate them and suddenly found that I had a language to do it. 

What's more, in true 'Eureka' fashion, it happened in the bath. Unlike Archimedes I didn't start running through the streets though. I had to call for a pen and paper to scribble on. I tried at first to dictate but my thoughts were crowded and my husband impatient, so instead I scrawled on soggy, disintegrating pages (I was half way through washing my hair so there was much dripping) and in the cold light of day this morning, they still make some sort of sense.

The relief is overwhelming. A weight truly has been lifted, and now I need to go and pull my weight to get this thing finished. So excuse me while I get back to the thesis and try and unravel some of it.

And the thing? It's very simple, and it's actually been there all the way along, I just didn't take any notice of it. More to come!

Wrestling with the Literature Review

Of those 80,000 words, I have written about 25,000. I am awaiting feedback on three chapters and getting stuck into the literature review. 

It's hard. And painfully slow. Writing for this doctorate is like nothing I've ever done before. It feels as though I have to wrestle with every sentence; at times every word. They are slippery little suckers. 

And the literature review is particularly slow. I have begun with the literature review that I originally wrote for the proposal - although I have read more than 150 books and papers since then - so there are one or two things to add. But it is slow because it involves reference after reference, most of which I am having to reread, since it is abundantly clear that when I wrote the proposal with the original literature review I understood far less about what I was reading. 

The most astonishing thing, though, are the non sequiturs and the lack of coherence and organisation over all. The literature review for my proposal reads now like a bunch of notes about things I happened to be reading - with no system of organisation whatsoever. I had imposed one, but five years later it makes no sense.

I suppose, looking on the bright side, this is evidence of how far I have come on this journey. conceptually.

Remote Supervision

After my prevarication yesterday, I sent off three chapters last night - the opening rationale and two revised data chapters - and 'zoomed' into my first remote supervision session this afternoon.

The main feedback was the need for me to capture the ethos of the department and the responsive culture of receptive teachers ready to embrace change back in 2014, and to acknowledge that the seeds of theorisation and reflection had already been sown.

My supervisor suggested reading Pajares and acknowledging the disruptions to the 'apprenticeship of observation' that were already taking place, whilst emphasising the advantage of experiential and practice-based knowledge and learning.

I should consider the identification of boys and PPG students as problematic in this early part of the study.

And, above all I need to ensure the introduction of the idea of action research and my leaning towards participatory design early on in the writing, as a continuation or formalisation of a process already begun; which in itself epitomises the messy nature of this kind of research design.

We also talked about my reference to the book arch and student response to it in the opening chapter and the multiplicity of interpretations it may offer: students perhaps demonstrating a reverence and respect for books as sacred objects; and using this as a platform and culture from which to build.

A further remote supervision for two weeks time as a way of making up for time lost during the period of intermitting, and the university shutdown. I can't decide if that two week deadline is a cloud or a silver-lining.

Hard Times

I have called this post 'Hard Times', but in truth it is from another of Dickens' novels that I find the quotation to capture my mood... 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way...'

I have, for the last week or so, considered giving up, known that was definitely not an option, decided to do it anyway, convinced myself not to. Been elated by what I have done so far, and nearly destroyed by the thought of what has to come. I have written some difficult emails to important people and spent hours and hours and hours making what I hope might be final revisions to my proposal.

I am caught between the timetables of the university and of my institution. I have been encouraged to reach for the stars by one of my supervisors, dragged back down to earth and devastated by the other, patronised by the attempted consolation in relation to 'the difficulties of doing a PhD while working full time in a school!'

Right now, I don't know quite what will happen. This could be my last blog post.

No one said it would be easy...