AN ÁIT INA BHFUIL T’ANAM IS ANN A THÓGAS DO CHOSA TÚ (YOUR FEET WILL ALWAYS TAKE YOU TO THE PLACE OF YOUR SOUL): A STUDY OF TRANSFORMATION THROUGH INDIGENOUS WAYS OF KNOWING IN A COUNTY KERRY COMMUNITY Vol 1 ANNE KENNELLY MA Ed EDUCATION DOCTORATE 2013 AN ÁIT INA BHFUIL T’ANAM IS ANN A THÓGAS DO CHOSA TÚ (YOUR FEET WILL ALWAYS TAKE YOU TO THE PLACE OF YOUR SOUL): A STUDY OF TRANSFORMATION THROUGH INDIGENOUS WAYS OF KNOWING IN A COUNTY KERRY COMMUNITY Vol 1 ANNE KENNELLY MA Ed EDUCATION DOCTORATE NUI Maynooth Faculty of Social Sciences Education Department Head of Department: Dr Pádraig Hogan Department of Adult and Community Education Head of Department: Josephine Finn Supervisor: Dr Anne B Ryan Month Year: August 2013 TABLE OF CONTENTS Vol 1 Pages Acknowledgements 1 Abstract of Thesis 3 Part 1 Preparing for Journey 4 Prologue: ‘I am Kerry’ by Sigerson Clifford 5 Chapter One: A word before Journey (Introduction) 6 Chapter Two: Soundings of Journey (Place, Siamsa Tíre, 13 Soul and Spirit, The Navigatio) Chapter Three: Concepts: Mapping a new space for Journey 25 (Literature Review) Chapter Four: Storying the story of Journey 76 (Methodology) Part 2 Illuminations of Journey 97 Chapter 5: A Plan to Journey (Profiles of Learners, Personal 98 Profile, Needs of Learners, Rationale for the Pilot Project of Journey and the impact of its development on living and learning). Chapter 6: Performance 1: ‘Tabhair dom do Lámh’ 106 (Give me your Hand) Chapter 7: Performance 2: ‘Cos, cos eile……. 124 (One step, and then another step..) Chapter 8: Performance 3: ‘Súile le Solas’ 142 (Eyes with Light) Chapter 9: Performance 4: ‘Deir mé, deir tú…..’ 182 (I say, You say…….) Chapter 10: Performance 5: ‘Súil Isteach’ 201 (Insight Out) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to express my deep gratitude to all the learners on the assistive technology programme for adults with visual impairment, who participated in the ‘Hidden Voices from the Dark’ project. Your stories have opened doors to other domains of existence for all of us who journeyed with you and you inspired me to train and work in the healing world of art therapy. I will keep you in my heart always. My sincere thanks also to the Siamsa Tíre performing company and staff, to Des Dillon (artist), Paddy Kennelly (writer) and the members of community who journeyed with us. I would like to express my gratitude to all the staff on the Doctor of Education programme at NUIM who taught, advised and supported me throughout the process. In particular, I wish to thank Dr. Rose Malone for her insights on research methodologies; Dr. Bernie Grummell for reading the first draft of the thesis and providing valuable feedback, which helped to guide it to completion; Professor Tom Collins, with whom I began my supervisory process and who suggested many possible avenues of development for the thesis and Shauna Busto-Gilligan for her kindness and care in dealing with administrative queries and difficulties, throughout the undertaking. Foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Anne B. Ryan, for her patience, guidance, support and encouragement throughout the thesis journey. I feel very blessed to have a supervisor who believed in my work and who responded so courageously and tenaciously to the challenges associated with the emerging field of arts-based research. In this regard also, I wish to thank Dr. Eimear O’Neill for sharing her own journey in this field of research so generously with us. You illuminated the way for us. Míle buíochas leis an mbeirt agaibh. I am deeply indebted to Billy Donegan, Causeway, Co.Kerry and John Lynch, Listowel, Co. Kerry for their assistance with the dvd recordings for the ‘Hidden Voices from the Dark’ project. John faithfully volunteered and recorded each performance as it emerged. Billy recorded and produced the cd of the fourth performance. He also painstakingly produced each of the seven dvds which form part of the thesis. Your help and expertise have been invaluable to me. The encouragement and support of Kerry Education Service (County Kerry VEC) throughout the process has been vital to the completion of the thesis and I acknowledge their contribution with deep gratitude. 1 I feel fortunate to have travelled this path of learning with a wonderful group of classmates. I have learned so much from all of you through everything that we have shared. I wish you all well and hope your journeys bring you to places of fulfilment. Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends who supported me as I embarked on this research and experienced all the ups and downs of that journey. This thesis is dedicated with loving gratitude to my late parents, Maureen and Jack Kennelly, Finuge. 2 Abstract People have known from earliest times that the arts have the potential to heal and transform whatever needs attention in inner life. This study illustrates how a group of County Kerry adult learners with visual impairment communicated an understanding of their lives to their communities through various arts media. Exploring their worlds creatively through six stage performances and preparatory workshops, over a seven year period, brought them into deeper relationship with the self, other, community, the earth, their ancestors – their customs, traditions and their ways of being and knowing. Finding voice to tell the stories of the challenge between their internal and external worlds, the surface and the deep, was a transformative experience for them, changing their approach to learning and living. As they transformed their experiences of life on the theatre stage, life was transformed also for their everyday communities and those journeying with them as they co-constructed knowledge with the audiences who viewed their performances. This study uses an arts-based, heuristic methodology to illuminate their process of transformation. These illuminations in image, dvd and cd formats, are further amplified through the inclusion of the learners’ thoughts and reflections throughout the process. Transformation continued beyond the life of their stage illuminations and images of the visual art work capturing this process are also included, as are those of the researcher. This study shows how learning through the lens of imagination, as opposed to a more technical and rational one only, allows for experiences of soul. This, in turn, facilitates an experience of learning as living, which challenges modernist approaches to teaching and learning. An indigenous postmodern worldview and experience emerge from this work and make a contribution to pedagogical theory and models of education. The study also offers implications of an indigenous postmodern perspective for educational policies and approaches. 3 Part 1 Preparing for Journey 4 PROLOGUE I AM KERRY By Sigerson Clifford I am Kerry like my mother before me, And my mother’s mother and her man. Now I sit on an office stool remembering, And the memory of them like a fan Soothes the embers into flame. I am Kerry and proud of my name. My heart is looped around the rutted hills That shoulder the stars out of the sky, And about the wasp-yellow fields And the strands where the kelp-streamers lie; Where, soft as lovers’ Gaelic, the rain falls, Sweeping into silver the lacy mountain walls. My grandfather tended the turf fire And, leaning backward into legend, spoke Of doings old before quills inked history. I saw dark heroes fighting in the smoke, Diarmuid dead inside his Iveragh cave And Deirdre caoining upon Naoise’s grave. I see the wise face now with its hundred wrinkles, And every wrinkle held a thousand tales Of Finn and Oscar and Conawn Maol, And sea-proud Niall whose conquering sails, Raiding France for slaves and wine, Brought Patrick to mind Milchu’s swine. I should have put a noose about the throat of time And choked the passing of the hobnailed years, And stayed young always, shouting in the hills Where life held only fairy fears. When I was young my feet were bare But I drove cattle to the fair. ‘Twas this I lived, skin to skin with the earth, Elbowed by the hills, drenched by the billows, Watching the wild geese making black wedges By Skelligs far west and Annascaul of the willows. Their voices came on every little wind Whispering across the half-door of the mind, For always I am Kerry. 5 CHAPTER ONE A WORD BEFORE JOURNEY Introduction I begin with the poem, ‘I am Kerry’, by Kerry poet, Sigerson Clifford, to indicate that this study is rooted in County Kerry – its people, past and present and their ways of life; its landscape; its history; its customs and traditions. This is an indigenous, arts- based, heuristic, participatory research study on the importance of connecting to soul in adult learning. The purpose of the study is to explore how creative expression opens channels that allow the soul to express itself, thus enabling a process of personal transformation, which, in turn, transforms learning and life. The inspiration for the study was provided by a group of adult learners with visual impairment, whose experiences of life, learning and living were transformed in the telling of their sacred stories or personal myths, through the media of expressive arts. The learners were participants in an adaptive information technology programme for adults with visual impairment, which was set up by Kerry Education Service in 1998, a time in Ireland, of advocacy for greater participation in education for people with disabilities. This was a second chance, adult education programme, offering modules in Adaptive Information Technology, Braille, Communications and Life Skills related subjects. I first met with the learners in 1998 when I was conducting research into the issue of inclusion of people with disabilities, in education. I was undertaking this research as part of a Master of Arts Degree in Education. I carried out the research while working full-time in arts administration in Siamsa Tíre, The National Folk Theatre. The learners gave generously of their time, thoughts and feelings, during the interview periods for the research process. They spoke of feeling isolated socially and hoped that participation in their new learning programme would bring opportunities for greater social as well as educational integration. I completed the research project and returned to administrative work, but their expressions of longing for greater human 6 connection stayed with me. I felt deeply moved by all that they had shared so generously with me and I was haunted by a desire to give something back for what I had received from them. I was also conscious of wanting this reciprocal act to make a positive difference to their lives, in terms of opportunities for integration with, and inclusion in, community. The phrase ‘Hidden Voices from the Dark, integrate and interact’ had been coming in and out of my consciousness for some time. Its meaning puzzled me. One day, while turning the words over in my mind, I suddenly realised their possible significance. They could hold a key to greater social interaction for the learners. Integrated performance work with the Siamsa Tíre performers could provide the learners with a voice in the community. In 1999, I set up the ‘Hidden Voices from the Dark’ project with the learners and the Siamsa Tíre performing company, while remaining in employment in the theatre. The aim of the project was to produce and present a ‘once off’ performance to the public in the theatre in August 1999, which would create greater integration and interaction between people who were visually impaired and those who were sighted. The performance, entitled, ‘Tabhair dom do Lámh’ (Give me your Hand), was a truly transformative experience for all who participated in it and witnessed it - the learners, their families, the Siamsa Tíre company, the community and for me. It was clear from these reactions that the project would continue. I left my position in the theatre in 2000, following my successful application for an advertised teaching position on the learners’ programme. I taught Communications and Life Skills subjects to the learners until January 2011. The ‘Hidden Voices from the Dark’ project continued and during the years 2000 to 2006, five new performances, expressing various aspects of the journey of life for the learners, were presented and shared with the community. The project ended in 2006, following a re-structuring of the learners’ assistive technology learning programme. The learning programme comprised twenty-one learners, aged from early twenties to sixty years. Between eight and eleven learners chose to participate in the ‘Hidden Voices from the Dark’ project, each year, from 1999 to 2006. Four learners were core members of the project for its duration, with other learners replacing those either 7