Literature reviews
1/
The main body of the book covers John Van Maanen’s views on the
three main ways of presenting your cultural findings in print; realist, confessional
or impressionist tales. As well as discussing the advantages and disadvantages
of each of these styles he makes the point that as much thought, care and skill
is required to be employed in the method of presenting your findings as to the
facts them selves. Awareness of your angle/biases, overall tone/style, bearing
in mind your audience, as well as the authenticity of the facts gathered during
your research is of equal importance. His aim is not to enforce one way of
recording cultural stories, avoiding putting down the various sociological and
anthropological methods of recording cultural data, merely to encourage the
writer to make the decisions over their choice of voice to portray their work
in a conscious one. The book is quite humerous at times and, although it
discusses in depth topics, is written in a conversational way making it more
accessible and enjoyable to consume his ideas. He refrains from rubbishing the
various sociological and anthropological methods of recording cultures and
merely presents his opinion that more of the writers feeling/personality should
be used.
This epiphany is of vital importance to my enquiry. If I am to
succeed in approaching this enquiry from a sensitive angle, paying homage to my
interviewee’s lives, then all of the above factors must be managed purposefully
to ensure the correct end result is achieved.
I could not agree more with the views of this book, I personally
feel that the importance of putting “self” into what ever you do, obviously at
an appropriate level, is of paramount importance. I have no desire to produce
merely a dry, factual document. For me it must be from my point of view and
clearly express as such.
This book has been a great introduction for me into this field
of recording cultural/biographical interviewing. It has provided me with a
great grounding to explore this field of research in greater depth.
I did however take a short break from it to
consult a more immediately accessible methodological book.
2/
It’s written from the point of view of University
Lecturer in Psychology and so this sets the general tone and angle from which
all the information is presented. It is put forward in a highly accessible way
and is obviously designed with students in mind as it has a self-test glossary,
key terms and exercises at the end of each section. Despite this point of view
each of the sections, in particular the one on research methods are written and
concepts discussed in a well balanced way presenting both the experimental and
non-experimental designs. For instance the subject of qualitative over
quantitative results is covered fully.
Although this book was immediately
useable and very useful for the technical aspects and methodology of gathering
and analysing data, the personal and subtle premise of Tales of the field will,
I think, prove to be of much greater value and importance to the soul of this
enquiry.
3/
A fantastic website that I have just
found. It does not seem to have an obvious angle, selling something etc, that I
have discovered yet and appears to be a great wealth of unbiased information. Wendy
is an established Life Coach who is openly discussing and sharing her
experience with those who wish to become Life Coaches. Her main aim appears to
be just to share her knowledge and experience. The site consists of 5 sub
headings: How to Become a Life Coach, Building your practice, Working with
clients, Goal setting and Important information. Contained within each of these
main headings are sub headings such as: coaching articles, becoming a life
coach, expert interviews a well as a whole section dedicated to her coaching
tips and goal setting ideas. It is very unusual that someone, without wanting
something in return, willingly gives so freely of their time, energy and hard
earned wisdom. For me this is a wonderful beacon of hope that there could be
coaches out there who truly are interested in merely helping people. This sites
information will be a great source to layer on top of my interview data, adding
much warmth and colour.
4/
An article written by Tom Mitchelson, a journalist
who seems to have a decidedly negative/skeptical view of the LC industry, “it seems that all he's done is
announce his intention of riding it.” he commented in response to a persons
decision to begin cycling more on his bike.
His main premise of the article is that
there is currently no supervisory body regulating the quality/qualifications of
Life Coaches. “When
you see a doctor, you can be pretty sure he's got a medical degree or two. But
if you see a life coach, they may have 'qualified' in just a few hours and have
less ability to assist you than your next door neighbour or the woman from the
Post Office.”
He embarks on a 6 day Life Coaching course and explains that “On day one we learn what a life coach is - someone who helps people help
themselves. The tutors define what a coach does, or rather, doesn't do.
We are
not mentors, counsellors or consultants. We don't direct, advise, analyse,
judge or look into the past. All our questions should be open- ended and not
leading or suggestive…The client should provide all the answers to their
problems themselves.”
He goes on to explain that the type of person that is
attracted to becoming a LC:
“Most
of the fellow students I talk to are dissatisfied in their jobs. They all have
something in common: they want to change their lives and are attracted to the
idea of being their own boss, helping others and qualifying for a professional
career within a week.”
He
felt that it didn’t matter how bad or even if you attended all the days of the
course you would still get the qualification.
The topic of the piece was about being qualified/job capable.
He is definitely of the opinion that many who claim to be LC’s are neither.
It’s a great thought
provoking article and it’s good to view other peoples opinions. Especially
those who are not currently very impressed by the LC role. Only by
understanding both sides can you better understand the topic as a whole. I
agree with the article, there are currently no formal qualifications/qualifying
process for becoming a LC. This damages the credibility of the job role, one,
because its not seen as difficult or skilled and two, it is bound to attract
less than able people to it, doing a terrible job for people leading to many
other LC’s being tarred with the same brush. However it does pose an
opportunity for those who are good, and find a niche they can excel in, to
stand head and shoulders above the rest.
No comments:
Post a Comment