I think that PhD development courses have to be tricky things to structure for a number of reasons; foremost, perhaps, is the wide-ranging experiences that participants bring: from the novice setting out, for example, to someone well through the research and thinking of the thesis, or maybe the viva – if there is one, which is testimony to the various ways in which theses are tested and examined, which is another complicatory factor. Then there's the language of discussion where not everyone will likely be confident or necessarily fluent, which is a real problem if you think that people need to contribute in order to benefit. Finally (for now), there's always a balance to be struck between input and discussion which will be particularly tricky if there are expert academics around whose habit is to speak theory as opposed to English. Sadly, the Cambridge event, for all its strengths, was not free of the last of these indulgences.
Although I left before the end, I thought that the programme struck an effective balance across all these needs and notions, and I understand that the evaluations were very positive. It was helpful I felt (though maybe I would) that we kept returning to the Alfie question: what's it all about, then? What is environmental education (EfS etc) research for? Given that the world is still heading to hell in a handcart, clearly we should be taking all that rhetoric about environmental education's being the key social strategy to save the world with a large pinch of salt. Not even education is that, of course – just an essential part of a potent mix of strategies. So do we need to be more modest in our claims? Or just more limited? We certainly need to be more careful.
My final thought is that the Homerton College team of caterers might also be more careful in the claims it makes about how good its food is. It's very good to have locally-grown (Lincolnshire) vegetables, but much of the point is negated if you persistently over-cook them.
Responses
I like to take this question a step further via Wendell Berry:
https://www.amazon.com/What-Are-People-Wendell-Berry/dp/1582434875
Thanks for continuing to bring the important question up though. I worry sometimes that the field is too myopic and (culturally) insular, and that educational research in general is too focused on tweaking process/delivery and not enough on the deeper philosophical questions.