Background to an Unacceptable Book Review
In the spring of 1999, Don Chapman and Ian Hunt were approached by the editors of the Canadian Journal for the Study of Adult Education, with a request to provide a review of the book, Learning for Life.
The request apparently was based on the fact that the Adult Education Degree program at the University College of the Fraser Valley (UCFV) had adopted and had been using the book since its publication. The suggestion was that the review would be grounded in the experience of using the book in a formal program of study. In discussions regarding the potential review, it was indicated that UCFV learners had not universally embraced some of the perspectives included in the book. Our understanding as reviewers, was that the editors were interested in a review informed by this first-hand teaching/learning experience with the book. Book review guidelines were made available to the reviewers. A draft of the review was to be made available to the editors in the middle of September, 1999.
During the summer of 1999, a UCFV adult education program participant was asked to join the review team. An initial draft review was submitted in late August. Our first submission consisted essentially of the poem alone, with some introductory notes and comments. Revisions were requested by the book review editor.
We certainly would have been happy to release the poem only, providing a brief explanation of its purpose. Under editorial direction, however, substantial revisions were undertaken, but not to the poem itself. We wanted to be consistent with our earlier sense, not to diminish the poem, its presence, and its message. We proceeded to compose a more complete textual "frame." In doing so, we were conscious of not wishing to drown or submerge the poem in a sea of text.
In view of the editorial response to the revised review, we elected to withdraw our submission and to self publish the review to the email list of the Canadian Association for the Study of Adult Education, and subsequently to publish to this web site the review and something of the context of its creation.
Don Chapman, Ian Hunt & Susan Caron
|
