Thank you for asking me to review this resubmission. As I told Marie, I’ve been able to read and comment on the first three articles only. I’m pleased that you shifted the focus away from ‘poverty’ and onto the meanings of a ‘culture of inquiry’ although there are still references to poverty that grate with me. The clarification of ‘ontological values’ helps although this might be work in progress, because the question of how educational values are acquired and revised through a lifetime is something that could yield important work. As you’ll see below, I still have a problem with the notion that multimedia is necessarily better than print but maybe this is also work in progress.

I have some points to make and some questions, below. None of these imply that the papers shouldn’t be published – on the contrary, my interest in making them is so that the issue is as strong as possible.

Paper 1

This paper sets the scene for the whole issue; I think it helps. However, I wonder if you could explain exactly what video adds to text. You say, “The constraints of poverty that we reference in our articles are traditional academic forms of print-based texts which neglect the embodied expression of moral and aesthetic values.” but personally, I think this is problematic becuase I don’t really believe that print-based texts neglect the embodied expression of moral and aesthetic values. I find the embodied expression of moral and aesthetic values in The Grapes of Wrath, Hard Times, Tom Jones, The Kite Runner and lots of other texts. In these texts and in many more, the writers’ values are embodied in their characters, their narratives, their own commentary and simply the quality of their writing. I’m sure there are multimedia ‘texts’ which do this too, but I will not easily be persuaded that they are better in this respect than books, just because you get to see images. (Having said which, I think there are some aspects of human experience which are more easily and effectively grasped through the moving image; I’m just not yet convinced by your arguments.)

The section ‘Responding to a Reviewer’ is nice – clear and concise. However, I remain unhappy about most of your references to transcending constraints of poverty. If you really want to discuss moral or aesthetic poverty, I think you should be clear about what you mean and provide at least some evidence to indicate where you are overcoming them. (I suppose I don’t buy the argument that all other research, published in journals, is morally or aesthetically empty.)  The section on methods is very informative and appropriately detailed, in my view. However, and I know that reviewers often make this point – the section on data analysis is not as strong as other sections. Surely identifying themes is only part of the analysis?

Paper 2

I think this is an important paper because it provides the fullest explanation of the theory that underlies the others. In fact, now that the papers are split, I wonder if it might be helpful to flag this up – something like ‘new readers, start here’. It would still be improved by some revisions in my view.

The paper gives a clear exposition of living educational theory including,

• · disillusionment with academic writing, in favour of writing in which participants can recognise themselves, coupled with a move away from traditional educational research and the ‘disciplines’ approach
• · ‘I’ as a living contradiction
• · living educational theory to understand praxis, starting with questions of the type, ‘How do I improve what I am doing?’ and generating explanations that individual practitioners produce to explain their educational influences in their own learning, in the learning of others and in the learning of the social formations
• · empathic resonance with visual data to communicate life-affirming energy
• · Collaboration as method and methodology, with the importance of building trust and respect through dialogue
• · Living legacy

I have questions about ‘I’ as a living contradiction: is this essential for the process of developing a living educational theory? how common is the experience, as described? Would a person expect to experience it several times during the course of a career? Are there further examples from your own career, Jack?

At around about this point, I think the paper as a whole loses focus; I’m not really convinced that the material about Nelson Mandela adds to the discussion and the ending, referring to ‘learnt heart’ needs cleaning up.

A few small matters:

15 need consistent language

19 an intention relationship

19 self and other – do you mean others?

Paper 3

It seems to me that this paper adds important insights about the conditions for establishing a culture of enquiry. These include,

• · valuing embodied knowledge
• · the purpose of expressing life-affirming energy: inviting people to join in and pool their own
• · the importance of allowing yourself to be and feel vulnerable
• · the importance of modeling this
• · comfort as a pre-requisite

A couple of questions: You say that Jack was relentless in his pressure and support but you tend to ignore the value of pressure in your own account, and focus very much on support and, indeed, comfort. Is this what you want? If so, I’d ask why.

In this paper, I see no distinction between living values at work and in life, more generally (one of the points I made in my first review). I still feel uneasy about this – it’s ok to take this stance as a retired person but I wonder if it’s true at all stages of life.

24 I don’t really understand ‘spray and pray’, more explanation might help

35-36 there is a lot of repetition from ‘and in fact’ to ‘become their own teachers’. Is this a mistake?

Finally – and I haven’t read the final three papers – I wonder if there’s actually too much repetition of the core messages. Might it be worth going through, quite ruthlessly, and eliminating all unnecessary repetition?

I recommend publication of these articles and I hope many people read them.