Brilliant Bruce Retirement Bash

I spent the last few days in Champaign, Illinois partaking in what I will refer to as the Brilliant Bruce Retirement Bash.  This was a gathering of diverse individuals with a common reference point--Bertram (Chip) Bruce.  The actual day of the celebration was Saturday, September 25, 2010. 


There were 12 papers/offerings/poems.  They ranged from Patrick Berry's (English  Dept, University of Illinois) discussion of teaching and learning about writing in prisons to Lisa Boullion Diaz's (Extension, University of Illinois) description of the work Chip did in the Chicago neighborhoods.  Kevin Leander (Vanderbilt University) used "Chipscope" a take off on the inquiry work on chicks for which Chip is known.  Allan Collins (Northwestern University), a long time colleague of Chip's back to the days at Bolt, Baranak, and Newman, shared some research on the processes of experts.




There were eloquent tributes from Ching-Chiu Lin (Teacher Education Office, University of British Columbia)  in Vancouver (connecting by Skype), Leo Casey of the National College of Ireland--who had flown in for the event and talked of Chip's work as a Fulbright Scholar in Dublin, and Geoffrey Bokwer from the University of Pittsburgh.

My talk was titled "Bruce's Magnificent Quartet: Inquiry, Community, Technology, and Literacy--Implications for Renewing Qualitative Research in the 21st century."   A pretty heft title for a paper that is still in evolution.  I appreciated the opportunity to think more with what has been evolving in my mind about the historical reasons for technology resistance in anthropology and sociology.  I feel like I have taken another step forward in my arguments about technology and aesthetics. 

As would be in keeping with any discussion of Chip Bruce, the name "John Dewey" kept arising in different contexts.  There is always so much more one can learn about Dewey!  



There will be a volume coming out of these papers and others written by people who could not attend.  It will  be exciting to see the different links that surround and intersect through this amazing individual--Chip Bruce.  I can only offer my thanks for the opportunity to be part of his scholarly journey.  

Bruce and Bishop: New Literacies and Community Inquiry

I have just had the opportunity to read Bertram (Chip) Bruce and Ann Bishop's chapter for the New Literacies Handbook "New Literacies and Community Inquiry".  Sorry I can't give you a better reference than that. 

It is typical Bruce, in that it, in a careful (and yet seemingly effortless manner) he (and Ann) take the reader on a gentle journey reflecting in great depth upon Dewey's contributions to our world and expanding our understanding about literacy, technology, community and the meaning of inquiry.  I always marvel when I read one of his pieces--How does he do it? 

The opening paragraph really says it all.  Chip and Ann--I have to quote it!

Community inquiry research focuses on people participating with others, on the lived experiences of feel, thinking, acting, and communicating.  It sees literacy as part of living in the world, not simply as a skill to be acquired in the classroom.  Inquiry is central, because as people live, they encounter challenges.  Through inquiry, people recognize a problem, mobilize resources, engage actively to resolve it, collaborate, and reflect on the experience.  Making sense of experience in this way, and doing so in concert with others in embodied historical circumstances, is fundamental to learning.

While Dewey is central to the story, Chip and Ann have also turned to Jane Adams (a contemporary of Dewey) as a complimentary pragmatic voice.  Reading this piece and talking to their colleague Jeanne Connell (also at the University of Illinois) who is doing work in Adams and educational philosophy, I am convinced that I have to read more about Adams soon. 

From a very person perspective, I am asking myself--what are the implications of this piece and its focus on community inquiry for my teaching and my research? 

1.  It takes me back to work I did with Sarah Kuhn on Thinking with Things in Qualitative Research...and the question of:  How do researchers, particularly qualitative researchers, appropriate technologies for their work?
2.   How does apprenticeship in qualitative research serve as a form of technology itself, one that defines the ways technologies of research will be encountered?  How does this apprenticeship establish the rules of technology useage?  As researchers mature, how do they appropriate technology?
3.  How do classes serve as communities of inquiry?  Are we providing good thorny problems of civic value?  How does coursework engage students as democratic communities engaged in understanding problematic concerns?
4.  How might Chip and Ann's discussion of technology as lived experience serve me in thinking about the technologies of qualitative research?

Chip--as always, it's been a good read!

Chip (Bertram) Bruce: Ode to a Dissertation Advisor

When I entered my doctoral program at the University of Illinois College of Education, I was assigned an advisor.  Chip Bruce was new to the Curriculum and Instruction faculty, having spent the earlier portion of his career in a Cambridge based think tank.  Thus began a mentorship with a truly Renaissance man, creative and intellectually challenging, kind and humorous.  Loath to leave his fold, I went from doctoral advisee to dissertation advisee, completing my doctorate under him four years later. 

Chip has just announced his upcoming retirement from the University of Illinois (he is now located in the School of Information Science).  It seems like a fitting moment to consider the many gifts he brought to me and the others with whom he worked, and to offer a digital thanks to him.

This is not meant to be an obituary, because Chip is headed off to many new and exciting things, but rather this is an opportunity to think about the qualities of excellent doctoral advisement.  Here's what I learned from Chip:

• Be kind:  Respect each student.
• Be curious:  All is inquiry
• Be open minded:  Try to understand all sides.
• Be intellectual: Engage in theory.
• Laugh:  Appreciate the humor in life.
• Seek Community:  It is good to work with others.
• Love Dewey:  Only good can come from Dewey.
• Enjoy conversation:  It is the fruit of good community.
• Be practical:  Test all propositions against the world of practices.
• Be well organized: You get more done.
• Explore new media
• Be a global participant
• Don't gossip: Avoid sarcasm

Thank you Chip for these excellent rules of the road.  Good wishes with the next stages of your journey...


Chip Bruce's Blog