The great social commentator Paul Weller (cough) once said “the more I know, the less I understand” in his three minute masterpiece that was The Changingman. I always thought it was about him, and his experiences of going through divorce and becoming a new person. Just lately I have been thinking about the phrase as my attempts to settle in to life as a PhD student. In October I gave a talk at the University of Leicester, brimming with confidence that what I was saying, as a practitioner, was correct. Now I’m trying to study the theory about what I think makes my ideas correct. The result is that my confidence is suddenly not as wilful, and my ideas are changing. My knowledge is growing – so I should be even more confident surely? But that is not the case. The more views and opinions I read, the more my doubts grow. I saw a graphic of a PhD researcher’s journey earlier this week. Continue reading “Research: The more I know, the less I understand…”
Month: December 2014
Public Engagement blog: Community and Participation – that is what it is supposed to be about
Like the recently discovered mastertapes of Bob Dylan playing live in abasement or rerecorded versions of discarded Beatles tracks that became top ten hits or John Lewis adverts here is a completely useless bit of academic writing which will probably serve no purpose other than to compare whether it actually improves in coming years. It’s called Community and Participation for no other reason than that is what it is supposed to be about. Continue reading “Public Engagement blog: Community and Participation – that is what it is supposed to be about”