Knowing ourselves as teacher educators: joint self-study through electronic mail

Abstract

This article is the third in a series of joint self-studies of teacher educators. The enthusiasm and energy created by the first two enquiries led to invite Jack Whitehead, who had been a sceptical onlooker and 'critical friend' into the third collaboration. Because the authors were located in three different geographical regions, they planned to use email as the main channel for communications. It is the story of this journey that is the focus of the present article. The authors did not even succeed in reaching agreement about the focus for their collaborative work. They failed to reach agreement on almost all the important issues. It was only the shame of having to admit this failure that pushed them to analyse their data and, in doing that, they came to see its potential to explain some of the complexities of using email as a medium of communication for collaborative self-study. The enquiry provides a critical assessment of the use of electronic mail within collaborative self-study, and critical insight into the tensions and dilemmas of collaboration as a strategy for self-study.