Being With
I experience and interpret ‘Being With’ as a process of be-coming together. Deleuze’s concept of the line of flight allows us to explore and follow meaning together. This article will explore these ideas in a bit more detail.
This post is a pulling together of several discussions I have had online over the past few weeks that were initially inspired by Joanna Grace and her team of researchers (all of whom have profound and multiple learning disabilities). Joanna Grace has been sharing the progress of their PhD project across social media, exploring the idea of ‘Being with and Identity’.
Some discussions here about slow pedagogy and conversations around Deleuze’s line of flight and created serendipity have also recently been reflected on Stimpunk’s website.
The 3-minute YouTube video of ‘Being With’ was part of The Research Methods e Festival (an online event organised by NCRM) looking at identity and ‘Being With’. There are two videos I’d like to share that I feel capture the wonderful potential and essence of what I believe should be at the heart of care and educational experiences for everyone celebrating the potential of:
*togetherness
*sense of embodied belonging
*shared experiences
* safe spaces
Video 1
https://youtu.be/MyU3E6dofYo?si=MH0YeUz25mchtM0y
Video 2
https://youtu.be/JVVfka8WFCU?si=5eDw4SnwnICoDwpJ
Bridging a Gap
Up until now, people with profound and multiple learning disabilities have been the “missing voices of inclusive research” (Walmsely, J). They have been the people others have researched on or for but not with (Nind, M. (2017), Practical Wisdom of Inclusive Research). This new research is helping to bridge that gap, not just by finding the voices of those with profound and multiple intellectual and learning disabilities but by providing space for them to share their way of being collaboratively. By being with people, we can create a space of shared experiences; there is potential and possibilities for a more enriching time together. This may be felt as an experience, a shared engagement rather than an event that can be easily captured in words or put into a lesson plan in school. It involves trust, not only between the people involved but within a school setting it also involves trust within the education system that those facilitating learning know the people they are working with.
Creating a Space of Being
Joanna Grace’s research team includes a girl called Felicity. In the video below, Joanna Grace talks about ‘creating a space of being with Felicity so that space can become a research encounter. This is an intended becoming of togetherness and enables a creative shared meaning that can only be experienced in a space of safety which is built up over time.
Giving time and ‘being with’ enables a deep connection to grow. I am familiar with intensive interaction and think it’s a truly wonderful approach. However, at the same time, having something called an approach can be a way of ‘othering’ those we are trying to include. This new research builds on intensive interaction in many ways, but I also resonate with this perspective shift and the simple potential of ‘being with’. These videos are only a glimpse of the wonderfulness that can happen when people are with each other in an embodied way, tuned in, sharing a flow state and rhythm together. To truly understand it, you have to ‘be with’.
“The concept of ‘being with’ is linked to finding the rhythm of the children but also attention to the ‘rhythm’ of colleagues, materials and ideas.” (Clark, A. (2023), Slow Knowledge and the Unhurried Child).
Felicity-ness
By creating space and time to be together, Joanna describes how it “enabled the Felicity-ness” of her “dancing fingers” so they could “dance together!”. I love the phrase ‘Felicty-ness’ as it sums up what can only be experienced in person with a unique individual. It is a feeling created between two people that may occur through dancing fingers, a vocalisation, an eye movement, or a different body movement. It is a moment that only happens in response to each other’s presence, a togetherness. The Felicity-ness of Felicity was able to shine through the space in what could have been missed in a busy classroom or by being preoccupied with everything else going on in life.
“A person’s ability to communicate is not dependent on their being able to master certain skills; it is dependent on our ability to listen and communicate responsively” (Grace, J. (2017), The Sensory Projects, Supporting People with PMLD Core & Essential Service Standards).
Learning and Being Together
Working with children with profound and multiple learning and intellectual disabilities felt like my happy place to be. We shared and created sensory experiences together. Within the structures of a school setting, I aimed to ensure the children led our time together as much as possible and I tried to work as a facilitator to help enrich and develop those experiences in some way as a ‘teacher’ along with the class team. Sometimes things worked well, and other times less well. It was always a learning curve for me, too.
Tuning in and Togetherness
My Autistic Realms work is advocating to ensure learning environments are as neurodiversity-affirming as possible. I am not just talking about being inclusive practically or functionally and providing access to educational resources and differentiated meaningful learning opportunities; this should be a given. We need to be inclusive in our bodies and minds to be with each other. Being a teacher in the often stressful environment of a UK school system where everyone has targets to meet, and teachers are accountable for ‘progress’, I feel we are sometimes missing the essence of what ‘being with’ people is about in our role as teachers. If we focus more on ‘being with’ people, that narrative shifts slightly; there is less hierarchy and more equal opportunity to learn together.
To ‘be with’, you need to slow down and have time to tune in to a togetherness. It is very much in line with some of the core concepts of what has been described as ‘Slow Pedagogy’, an understanding of the need to value the present moment, the sensory needs and the pace and flow of the person you are with.
Line of Flight
Deleuze and Guattari (1980) explore the concept of the ‘line of flight’ in their work One Thousand Plateaus. Their work is helping me understand the neurodiversity paradigm and very fixed ideas we often have of people’s identities, systems in society and ways of being. Deleuze opposes the ideas of fixed identities, ‘normality’ and offers a way of embracing the differences and ways of being for everyone. I am still reading through much of their work, (definitely no expert on this) but I feel there is a strong connection between Deleuze and the neurodiversity movement and the process of ‘becoming’.
If we make spaces to be with people, we can follow a line of flight and have an embodied connection of ‘dancing fingers’ together. This could lead to a whole new, wonderful sense of belonging and a more meaningful connection and communication between people that can grow and ‘become’.
Being together allows people to join in a collective flow state, a line of flight, which can lead to new possibilities for individuals but also impact rhizomatically within a classroom and lead to more learning opportunities. However, I would argue that actually ‘being with’ is not necessarily about learning ‘more’ in the traditional sense of the next steps of a curriculum and mastering skills. Instead, transcending those preconceived ideas of what being a teacher means, what being a student is, and what being a person with profound and multiple learning disabilities may mean is a way of also reframing of identities. For me, ‘being with’ is about going deeper into the folds between people, embracing the shared feeling of belonging, being understood in the moment, and seeing where that takes you together.
Being-with and Be-coming
Deleuze’s concept of the line of flight allows us to explore meaning between created spaces and through our connections with people. It is a way of moving beyond and between the gaps of the often preconceived ideas of what ‘being with’ people may mean, what our roles as teachers educators, care facilitators may be.
‘Being with’ creates an opportunity for an embodied sense of belonging and wonderful, meaningful shared experiences. ‘Being with’ is a process of be-coming together and full of potential.
Thank you to Joanna Grace and research team, including Felicity and Senen (in videos above).
Further Reading:
Aldred, K & D. (2023), Embodied Education: Creating Safe Space for Learning, Facilitating and Sharing
Clark, A. (2023), Slow Knowledge and the Unhurried Child
Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. (1980) A Thousand Plateaus
Grace, J. (2018), Sensory-Being for Sensory Beings
