Introduction

So far there has been a lot of social and theoretical context setting. This was necessary to underpin on other terms of the educational what it is will now begin to be considered in the empirical data. The methodology for the interview extracts to follow can be found in the Appendix.

The moment of switch matters because it stands to restructure education. Crucial signs of gestalt switching will be shown in the latter part of this chapter. First, to recognise the fragility but power of the switch moment and its mirroring of a Kuhnian perspective on discovery and paradigm creation or unveiling, come supporting elements: aspects that allow and facilitate, as well as give meaning to, the discovery experience. These form a foundation for the realisation of difference that an educational alternative can bring. The data covers discovery of any alternative to mainstream provision, although EHE experiences dominate.

The interview testimonies are all about effects in the self and responses of the self; ‘the self ‘ meaning here, and throughout this book, the named individual with a unique identity. Following from discussion of Foucault's technology of the self these reactions and expressions seem like an interior rationale of the self answering and making sense to itself; people finding meaning (for themselves) in a new, elected world, full of surprise; involving active volition (and the joy of this), rather than blindly accepting the expected, given and assumed world.

Life-changing discovery

Discovery of EHE is an important life event for the people who have found it for the first time. With the various emotional, social, psychological, political impacts of EHE discovery, come a number of side effects shown in this data, often backed up elsewhere by other studies. Amongst them are: changed lifestyle (Arai, 1999; Neuman and Avriam, 2003); changed family relationships (Arai, 2000); changed perceptions of the politics of society, including a re-aligned attitude towards the formation of the democratic self (Meighan, 1984; Arai, 1999; Safran, 2008); changed ideas about community and changed perceptions of education and of pedagogical/heutagogical practice in the life of the child and also the adults in the family (Earl, 2006; Thomas and Pattison, 2007).