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South African Journal of Education
On-line version ISSN 2076-3433
Print version ISSN 0256-0100
S. Afr. j. educ. vol.31 n.1 Pretoria Jan. 2011
Doctoral learning: a case for a cohort model of supervision and support
Naydene de Lange*; Guruvasagie Pillay; Vitallis Chikoko
We document the efforts of the faculty of education of a large research-oriented university in supporting doctoral learning. The development of a space for doctoral learning is in line with the need to develop a community of researchers in South Africa. We describe the historical origins of this cohort model of doctoral supervision and support, draw on literature around doctoral learning, and analyse a cohort of doctoral students' evaluation of the seminarsoverthree years. The findings indicate that the model has great value in developing scholarship and reflective practice in candidates, in providing support and supervision, and in sustaining students towards the completion of their doctorates.
Keywords: cohort; community of practice; doctoral learning; scholarship; supervision
Introduction and rationale
"The model of seminars is a superb one - the structure, deadlines and support is excellent - Hope it has been written up!" (Anonymous doctoral candidate)
The debate concerning doctoral supervision and support persists in all higher education institutions especially regarding the best way of mediating doctoral learning. In this article, doctoral supervision and support towards doctoral learning are framed within an understanding of a doctoral cohort programme. The above quotation is from a comment on the evaluation form of a doctoral student in her third year of doctoral work. She was commenting on our cohort model of supervision and support, and it underscores the need to 'write up' and reflect on the model1 that we have been implementing and refining over many years at this particularuniversity. Bitzer (2007:1012) concurs that it is important that academics engage in their own research and that they write up their supervisory experiences:
Supervising as a scholarly practice might be effectively promoted where academics themselves are closely involved in research, but also when they reflect, write and publish on their supervisory experiences, seek student feedback and allow peers to critique their work.
We, as a team, have evaluated each session of the programme as a means of maximizing the benefits, as they pertain to the doctoral students and the supervising staff. Furthermore, writing about this collaborative supervisory experience affords us the opportunity to once again put the model under the spotlight and reflect on, and interrogate our work with the doctoral students.
The particular model of supervision and support which we describe here has a history2 and has been adapted according to the changing needs of the students and staff. It has greatly contributed to the Education Faculty's ability to consistently produce successful doctoral graduates. Producing doctoral graduates is a national priority and the National Research Foundation (NRF) has called for strengthening of the processes that universities have in place to increase the number of graduates. South Africa is in need of a new generation of researchers to drive research in the country and also to replace the aging members of the academy. Some countries in Europe have managed to double their doctoral outputs within a decade (Enders, 2004). Hence, South Africa is also working towards increasing its doctoral output, which would hold considerable benefit for the country. This was reiterated in the key recommendations of the recent Higher Education Summit, confirming the need for the "development of a coordinated plan to increase the number of younger researchers" (Kinnear, 2010:3). Thus, capacity development for the supervision and support of doctoral students to complete their research is critical.
We, as part of a larger team of academics, have facilitated the supervision and support of a three-year cohort programme operating in the Faculty of Education's doctoral programme. As one of many other models of support for learning and the development of scholars and scholarship, the cohort model operates over a three-year period and we felt the need to 'write it up' as a contribution to the debate of how to support students in developing scholarship and completing the doctorate. We acknowledge through this paper that sustaining the learning of doctoral students remains an undervalued dimension of assisting and assessing doctoral learning (Van Rensburg & Danaher, 2009). The research therefore aims to explore the nature of supervision and support in a doctoral cohort programme. We will therefore address the following research question: What is the nature of supervision and support in a doctoral cohort programme? In this article we first explain the notion of doctoral learning; second, we offer a description of the genesis of this particular model within a particular institution; third, we present the methodology; fourth, the discussion of the findings and finally we offer some conclusions.
Doctoral learning
The literature describes the nature or purpose of doctoral learning in a variety of ways. There is also little agreement on what can be regarded as the optimal form of supervision and support. Therefore, examples of 'best practice' are hard to determine (Gardner, Hayes & Neider, 2006). Universities worldwide organize the supervision of doctoral research in a variety of ways. While the most common form of support remains that of appointing one or two supervisors, Rinne and Sivenius (2007) report that supervision of a doctoral candidate by one or two supervisors is not adequate anymore, or at least it is not as rich as one in which this is complemented by input from more academics.
On the national front, Bitzer (2007:1010) rightly views "postgraduate supervision as a process involving complex academic and interpersonal skills". Furthermore, Bitzer argues that such skills include guiding students in developing proposals, making correct methodological choices, writing and publishing their research, as well as maintaining both supportive and professional relationships. Successful supervision of postgraduate students requires higher order thinking and deep approaches to teaching and learning and this often poses challenges to both students and supervisors. In this regard, Bitzer (2007) reports that in many institutions priority is given to support and training for supervisors. Johnston and Broda (1996) and Aspland, Edwards and O'Leary (1999) comment on the challenges that postgraduate students face, namely, the relationships they have with their supervisors, the need for support structures, the problems of study isolation and confusion over accessing resources. The challenges experienced by both supervisors and students as cited above, seem to confirm the need for support structures such as provided by our own cohort model, where ideas are shared and students learn in a safe space with other students.
The drive to provide university access is in line with the "massification of undergraduate education internationally" which "in recent decades has been followed by major growth at the doctoral level with pressures for change in doctoral education" (Pearson, Evans & Macauley, 2008:357). These authors further argue that such growth has seen an increase in the heterogeneity of doctoral populations. Theyprovide examples from the United Kingdom where more formalised approaches to research training have been introduced in an attempt to reduce attrition.
In contrast to the formal supervision and support examples described above, a variety of informal support practices also exist outside academic institutions, for example, peer support groups, where the doctoral students themselves support each other. Such a model is explored in Harrison's recent work, Developing a doctoral identity: A narrative study in an autoethnographic frame (Harrison, 2010).
Therefore, the formal practices of different universities, in different parts of the world, reflect a variety of approaches to supervision, the key one being an apprenticeship model, where one candidate is supervised by one academic staff member, who is an expert in the particular field of study. In some instances a co-supervisor, who has added required expertise, is appointed alongside the main supervisor. Another approach is that of allocating an advisory committee or a supervisory committee, where one candidate is supervised by a committee of three to five academic staff members. A further approach, complementary to the apprenticeship approach, and the one, we describe in this paper, is that of a cohort of doctoral students, working with a group of academics, who bring expertise from a variety of fields. The support for such doctoral learning thus takes place in various ways, including support from the main supervisor, the cohort of academic staff, as well as the cohort of peer doctoral students. Due to the complexity of the task, it appears that while the traditional one-on-one supervision and its related approaches cannot and should not be replaced, they need to be complemented by other strategies, such as the cohort approach that we report on in this paper.
A model to supervise and support doctoral learning
The origins
The doctoral cohort model of supervision we describe here emerged in the late 1990s from a Historically Black University (HBU) located in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. In the early stages of the planning and development of the doctoral cohort model of supervision and support, it was conceptualized around a very strong discipline interest. The cohort model was set up as a 'structure' to support intellectual development and knowledge production in doctoral education research, through a community of learning. The aim of the cohort model was also to make research, as a phenomenon, present in an Education Faculty that consisted of mainly undergraduate students, and to introduce new ways of thinking about educational research. The cohort model also intended providing a safe and critical space for learning to work together to bring about this change.
According to the Higher Education Qualification Framework (South Africa. Department of Education, 2007), a doctoral degree requires a candidate to undertake research at the most advanced academic level, culminating in the submission, assessment and acceptance of a thesis. The input in the form of seminars in the cohort model is offered as preparation or value addition to the research, but does not contribute to the credit value of the qualification. Traditional approaches to postgraduate supervision are often characterized by isolated, intense and sometimes intimate personal relationships (the apprenticeship model referred to earlier). It often sets up a dependency relationship between the supervisor and student and potentially abusive and unequal power relationships. The supervision and support doctoral programme based on a cohort model is one approach of supervision which may serve to 'dilute' the supervisory relationship and yet complement the supervision process.
The format
The cohort model is planned and designed to run over a three-year period as a supportive structure for the supervision of doctoral students. The value-added activities that are enacted in the different phases of the programme are designed to enhance the development of the student-researcher. The scaffolding of learning and development, which the cohort model creates through its processes, is not a taught doctoral programme. The team supervision that is made available through the seminars is not so much what the supervisors literally 'transmit' pedagogically, but rather how they enable the development of a critical exchange or dialogue between the student and the discipline. This dialogue is achieved by encouraging learning between and within a community of novice researchers.
The model revolves around supporting a cohort of doctoral students in three phases. The first phase focuses on refining and finalizing the research proposal; the second phase focuses on data generation and the third phase focuses on data analysis and 'writing it up'. Students who work at a faster pace are not locked into a phase, but move to the next phase relative to the actual work which has been done. The students who do not manage to complete the thesis within the three-year time frame then move out of the programme and continue under the 'apprenticeship' of the supervisor. According to Samuel (2008), learning in/through a cohort model has a three-fold structure: students learn to become researchers and knowledge producers through a range of activities (peer review, oral presentations, defending work in progress, and so on) while simultaneously learning to supervise; staff learn about supervision (mentoring/ team supervision, offering supervisory advice and critique), and there is collaborative support for learning through each of the phases (progress).
The programme is offered over six weekends of the year, and takes place on the university campus. The ideal number of students would be between 12 and 18 with three to four promoters. The structure is as follows:
Friday afternoon, 16:00 - 18:30
This is a plenary session, where either an invited guest lecturer addresses a certain aspect of the research process, or a recent doctoral graduate presents his or her work. There is also a reflection session on the process of research and the writing of a thesis, followed by a discussion of the plenary in the smaller groups.
Saturday, 08:30 - 16:30
In this session, various activities, such as input by academics regarding certain aspects of research, presentation of the students' work, critique and feedback by peers, sharing of literature, writing time, and so on, are carefully organized to the maximum benefit of all.
Sunday, 08:30 - 13:00
This session consists of a continuation of the activities from the Saturday, followed by a forward planning session where the doctoral students can flag what they require to be focused on in the next doctoral weekend, as well as an evaluation session.
Although each phase meets separately, tea and lunch breaks are taken together, with the specific aim of creating a space for rubbing shoulders with the other students who are either ahead or behind them on the research journey, as well as with staff members from the other two phases.
Theoretical underpinnings
Lee's (2008) typology of research supervision approaches is helpful in understanding student support and learning through the cohort model of supervision. Effective support produces a new identity for the postgraduate student (Nekhwevha, 2002), intellectual growth (Connell, 1985), learning opportunities that promote critical exchange or dialogue between the student and the discipline (Lusted, 1986), and new ideas of autonomy and independent scholarship (Johnson, Lee & Green, 2000). Lee's (2008) studyshows that supervision relationships involve five key elements: functional elements, enculturation elements, critical thinking, emancipation and relationship development. Each of the five elements necessary for student learning in/ through the supervisory relationship provides a different understanding of the studentsupervisor relationship, and hence of the function of support and feedback within that relationship. The strength of the functional element, according to Lee (2008), lies in its transparency and consistency whereby growth can be monitored. There is a rational progression of the students' learning and development through tasks directed by, and through, the supervisory process and managed by the supervisor. Supervision calls for "the active engagement of a supervisor" (Lategan, 2008:4) and requires the supervisor to reflect on his or her role in the relationship, not only as provider of support, but also as a co-developer of knowledge and identity production (Calma, 2007). Lee concurs with this "active engagement by the supervisor through the research process [= circle of activities] to lead/assist the student to solve [= find solutions to] a research problem" (Lategan, 2008:4). Enculturation, on the other hand, requires the doctoral student to engage in, but also to comply with, "community formation" (Lee, 2008:13). Supervision occurs through a community of research practice into which novice researchers are inducted in order to support their learning and development. The supervisor still occupies the position of expert, but his or her expertise is reconfigured to include many experts. Learning happens in a transitional way whereby the supervisor supports the movement of the student from novice to expert as part of the postgraduate pedagogy. Critical thinking enables the students to reflect on, and analyse, their work (Lee, 2008), supported by the supervisor, who challenges the students to think critically. To do this, the supervisor needs to inspire his or her doctoral students with confidence so that they find their own voice, and through the students' critical inquiry, to enable personal meaning-making and thinking. The power of emancipation lies in the development and growth of the candidate (Lee, 2008:13). Supervisors, by encouraging research values with integrity, without overpowering the students (Lategan, 2008), encourages autonomy and intellectual growth of the student. For Lee (2008), relationship development is central to the supervision process, with emotional intelligence being a key construct. Some relationships may be "marked by neglect, abandonment and indifference" but "there are those that show careful instruction or the positive and proactive exercise of pastoral power" (Johnson et al., 2000:136).
We show how these elements feature in a variety of ways over time in the cohort model of supervision in the doctoral programme offered at our faculty of education.
Research methodology
To answer the research question, we employed a qualitative, descriptive, interpretive and contextual research design (Mouton, 1996), to explore the notion of doctoral supervision and support through a cohort model. A single case study was used as research strategy. The students often spoke about the value of the cohort model and we were encouraged by the students to 'write it up'. We therefore acquired their consent to use the evaluation forms filled out at the end of the weekend programme, also ensuring them of confidentiality and anonymity.
The research was conducted over a three-year period in a large university with a large faculty of education. Doctoral students at this institution are allocated a supervisor and have a choice whether to enter the cohort model of doctoral supervision and support or not, but are usually firmly encouraged to do so. Each of the three phases, as described earlier on, is coordinated by one academic, complemented by three to five academic staff members - both senior and junior, and from various academic disciplines - to collectively supervise and support the cohort of doctoral students.
A convenience sample was used, as we drew on the cohort of doctoral students we had supported in the first three years of their doctoral work. The number in the cohort varied from year to year, for various reasons (and some were excluded after phase one, not being able to complete the required proposal in the stipulated time, while others moved ahead to the next phase once they had accomplished the 'task' of the phase). In 2007 the first phase of the cohort consisted of 16 students (14 females and 2 males), in 2008 the second phase consisted of ten students (9 females and 1 male) and in 2009 the third phase also consisted of ten students (9 females and 1 male). The cohort included African, Indian and white students. Not all were English first language speakers, but they were proficient in using English. They were mature students who mostly studied part-time, except for three who studied full time.
Data generation
At the end of each doctoral weekend the students were required to evaluate the programme so that we could use their input to further refine and improve the programme. We used a very simple evaluation form with three open-ended questions, i.e. What did you like and why? What did you dislike and why? What suggestions do you have? These evaluation forms were submitted anonymously. The data for this study was thus drawn from the same cohort of students' evaluation of each doctoral weekend programme over the past three years, evaluating phases one, two and three. The majority of responses were related to what they liked and only some to what they disliked, with few suggestions being offered.
Data analysis
The raw data, the responses to the three sections on the evaluation form, were analysed using Tesch's open coding (Creswell, 1994). All the responses were read, units of meaning were written in the margin, similar ones were grouped together to generate themes and subthemes. The themes were then discussed by two of the researchers and consensus was reached on the themes. Through abstraction, appropriate theme headings were created to answer the research question. The findings were then re-contexualised in the existing literature (Poggenpoel, 1998).
Qualitative inquiry cannot be judged by the criteria of reliability and validity (Geelan, 2003) and therefore Guba's measures of trustworthiness were applied, i.e. credibility (truth value), transferability (applicability), dependability (consistency) and confirmability (neutrality) (Krefting, 1991). Credibility was ensured through, for example, our prolonged engagement of three years in the 'field', as well as the spontaneous discussions about the value of the programme which are corroborated by the data on the end-of-the-weekend evaluation forms; transferability was ensured through a thorough or thick description of the context allowing other researchers to decide whether the findings are applicable to their own settings (Finlay, 2006); dependability was ensured by providing a clear description of the methodology used and the direct quotations from the data as an audit trail; while confirmability was ensured through the reflexive discussions of the three authors around method and findings.
Findings and discussion
Doctoral research is not only about graduating, but also about being inducted into a community of researchers. Therefore, the key is not only to support and develop capacity for producing new knowledge, but also to ensure that this is paralleled by a shift in identity from practitioner to scholar (Lusted, 1986).
The data from the evaluation at the end of each seminar resulted in the emergence of the following three themes, concerning doctoral support and supervision, through the cohort model: supportive practice, reflective practice, and community of practice.
A supportive practice
The theme of supportive practice is underpinned by the following categories: a well-planned and organized/co-ordinated programme; committed academic staff; and doctoral students who engage with each other's research and research learning in a respectful and meaningful way, to enhance the learning opportunities available. Through critical engagement and participation, the cohort model is more than just a student-supervisor relationship. Rather, it is about "the importance of collaborative knowledge sharing environments and collective models of supervision" (Malfroy, 2005:177). Lategan (2008:4) views postgraduate students "as one of the most important sources contributing to the development of new knowledge".
The cohort model that we put under the spotlight provides the space for exploring the nature of the support and learning through collaborative knowledge sharing environments. As a case in point, we argue that the cohort model supports doctoral learning and identity development.
Thorough planning and organization: Functionality
The cohort programme enables "productive working relationships with the supervisors who provide feedback" (Muller, 2008:42) and encourages the idea of students as important partners. Hence, it is necessary that boundaries are clear and explicit at the very beginning of the working relationship in order to foster lifelong partnerships (Van Rensburg & Danaher, 2008). The following quotations from the doctoral students underscore the importance of a cohort programme that is well-planned and orchestrated. The students commented on the merits of our setting up clear parameters and planning thoroughly:
"... good planning, organization and professionalism, punctuality ..."
"Overview of expectations and scope of PhD and what is a valid PhD project"
"PhD plan for the year was useful ..."
Supervisors in the cohort play an important role in guiding and gradually introducing the students to becoming part of the academic community through enculturation (Van Rensburg & Danaher, 2008). We can see from the comments described above how belonging to a cohort requires the students to not only engage, but also to comply with the guiding framework. We circulated the contact details of all the students in the cohort to each other which encouraged sharing and communication between and amongst the doctoral students. We also sent out brief notes, recommended readings and the negotiated plans for the coming seminar, clearly indicating what advance work was required. They were appreciative of this as the following quotations taken from the 'what I liked' responses indicate:
"A database of contact details ... emailed to everybody ..."
"... forwarding all seminar notes on email ..."
The importance of modelling, dedication and commitment by the academic staff members is crucial in engendering and sustaining the motivation required to complete the doctorate and to minimize attrition. Van Rensburg and Danaher (2008) remind us of the need for students to be inspired, encouraged and cared for by their supervisors, within a multifaceted and dynamic supervisory relationship. Through the cohort model, students are exposed to the views and understandings of manysupervisor-facilitators. The participants in this studywere appreciative of the qualities of the cohort staff, as is clear from the following responses:
"The commitment of the staff ..."
"Enthusiasm of facilitators ..."
"Getting new motivation to keep going little steps"
Respectful engagement: relationship development
A key part of a supportive practice is to engage respectfully with the doctoral students and their work, something we diligently modelled amongst ourselves as academics and which we also encouraged amongst the doctoral students. Stevens and Asmar (1999) concur with the merits of the need for both students and supervisors to be more explicit in their expectations of each other so that mutual respect can be established. The following quotations bear testimony:
"I think that the ambiance of the cohort weekend is largely due to the leaders. Respect, support ... all those elements. I learn so much about relationships, researching - deep learning that stays with me and develops the better part of me."
"... X has a respectful and accommodating manner."
"I really like the way we interact in these cohorts, they are empowering and help us with the progress for our studies."
For Lee (2008), relationship development is centred on the emotional and relational connections between doctoral students and their supervisors, with emotional intelligence being a key construct. The support for the development of students with regards to their academic scholarship and their identities as independent scholars, calls for respectful engagement (but without holding back), providing an honest critique of the work presented. Van Rensburg and Danaher (2008) remind us that the doctoral journey offers the space for students to reflect and analyse their work through critical thinking. Therefore, supervisors should foster the partnerships with their students and encourage research values with integrity, without overpowering the students (Lategan, 2008). The importance of addressing the issue at hand, without denigrating the person, encourages the doctoral students to be more willing to present their work. The cohort programme allows them to be critiqued in a safe social space, as demonstrated by the following statements:
"Critique process was helpful and insightful ..."
"I enjoyed receiving feedback without being made to feel inadequate."
"As always, good advice without putting people down ..."
"... the supportiveness of the team" and "... collegiality among the group"
"Keep encouraging us (as you always do)"
"I loved seeing how good everyone is feeling about the work they have done this year"
Kumar and Stracke (2007:466) also note that the "expressive function of feedback, which comprised praise, criticism, and supervisor's opinion" is valuable and is of most benefit to the student. A key aspect of the cohort model, as the above excerpts show, is that it provides a space for the students to feel safe enough to engage critically with their own and others' work, and it encourages greater participation. Creating a 'home' for opportunities and space to talk informally, to present their work, to give and receive critique and also to write, is what is used in the cohort programme. It is in contrast to the notion of a student being a nomad or exile, exhibiting or embracing a state of homelessness. Said (1994) suggests that feeling at home is when the true intellectual does not give in to comfortable, static and sedentary ways of thinking, being and acting, nor does he or she engage in a "rhetoric of blame". Instead of adapting and reconciling to hegemonic systems and ways of thinking, the doctoral students' intellectual growth is about developing a resistant consciousness and engaging in strategies of contestation (Said, 1994:57).
High level of participation: Emancipation
The defining quality of a learning community is that there is a culture of learning in which everyone is participating in a collective effort of understanding. Doctoral learning in a cohort works in ways to advance collective knowledge and in that way supports the growth of individual knowledge (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1994). The comments by the doctoral students regarding the quality of their learning experience in the cohort programme are indicative of the need for students to participate actively and freely with issues from different perspectives and expertise, as the following quotations suggest:
"Participative format selected by guest speakers really ensured we were 'active'... "
"... interaction is energizing ..."
"Relaxed atmosphere - all felt free to contribute ..."
Scardamalia and Bereiter (1994) state that experiencing the freedom to comment and use each others' diverse knowledge and skills as resources to collaboratively solve problems and advance their understanding goes beyond the development of scholarship. They argue that such freedom to comment supports the identity of an independent scholar whose "difference" is respected and valued within the learning community.
Reflective practice
The second theme which emerged focused on reflective practice, which is a crucial part of doctoral learning. The cohort system allows doctoral students an opportunity to present their own work and be critiqued, so as to learn from each other, and also to develop the skill of reflection. Furthermore, while listening to the other students' presentations, they are able to reflect on what can be learnt from the research experiences of their peers, and apply that to their own work.
There are various models of reflective practice to draw on within the field of learning theories, but Kolb's (in Kelly, 1997) early model highlights four key aspects of reflective practice, i.e. experiencing (immersion in the task); reflection (what did you notice?); conceptualization (what does it mean?) and planning (what will happen next? what do you want to change?). These four aspects help to inform ones understanding of reflective practice in the cohort programme. The doctoral candidate is immersed in the task of doctoral work, and presents an aspect of it to the cohort, putting it out in the "public domain" for "testing". The cohort provides a critique upon which the candidate can reflect, and conceptualise what the critique means for his or her work. Such reflection then requires further immersion in their research so as to think and plan what needs to be changed. Being constantly challenged to reflect, hones the reflective skills of the candidate, and pushes him or her toward further critical reflection. This we believe concurs with Kolb's experiential learning theory, which moves educational thought from the locus of the instructor (or supervisor) or other members of the cohort, back to the learner, the doctoral student (Kelly, 1997). This change of locus is one of the strengths of the cohort programme. It also positions the students' learning as participation (doing) rather than acquisition (having) (Edwards, 2005). Such learning then offers opportunities for constructing and reconstructing new knowledge positioning (Forbes, 2008). This is encapsulated in the following three categories: reflecting on others' research, reflecting on one's own research, and reflecting on one's own critique of others.
Reflecting on others' research
As time is of the essence when reading for a doctorate we often underestimate the value of time spent in engaging with other students' work. This has clearly extended the development of students in terms of being able to express themselves on research matters in an academic environment and to develop their own ideas. As such, the engagement with others' work is understood as 'learning by doing' (Edwards, 2005) and places the candidate in a position to fully re-engage with his or her own work, as the following quotations highlight:
"The developmental attitude within the presentations allowed me to really reflect on my study and see different/new avenues of exploration"
"I saw a number of similarities with my own and started to reflect to see how I could address some issues"
"I liked the opportunity of listening to all the students' presentations- I now have an idea of what is expected of me at this level"
"To be able to give input to others has boosted my confidence and improved my dialoguing with others"
The "community of practice" is a model that is often invoked in relation to such issues described above, whereby there is a sharing of knowledge and ideas.
Reflecting on critique of own research
One of the most difficult things to do in research is to look critically at one's own work. This is largely due to being too deeply involved in the work and not being able to look at it from a distance, and also due to not having sufficient time to think. The cohort programme allows input from the other students and the academic staff and also some time for reflection. The fact that all the students are at the same stage of their research journey and are grappling with similar issues, encourages reflection on the critique offered, allowing them to weigh up the value and importance of the critique. Sambrook, Stewart and Roberts (2008:82) acknowledge the challenging issue of "giving and receiving feedback". They say that "genuine constructive critique can often be perceived as being 'negative' (bad and painful) or 'positive' (nice and encouraging) when it could be argued that all feedback is positive in its attempt to improve performance" (Sambrook et al., 2008:82). The following quotations point to the positive reception of the critique:
"It challenged me to look at other angles and questions ..."
"Having to present forced me to clarify the lenses and frameworks through which I must analyse the data ..."
"It gave us time to think of our own work and the progress"
"I've started gaining confidence on saying what's bothering me ... [in my own research]"
"I realized what areas of my writing I need to ditch because they are not adding to my thesis - causing confusion"
"Thank you for honesty and transparency - 'the real truth'..."
Lusted (1986:3) refers to this as "recognizing the productivity of the relations and it renders the parties within them as active, changing and changeable agencies". The feedback to the students should therefore be helpful and release the energy and enthusiasm to sustain the doctoral learning. Kirby (1994:19) describes this release of energy as "[the] passion for the power in learning" and the "delight in the flirtatiousness of intellectual debate ...".
Reflecting on own ability to critique
Critique is also viewed as a way of knowing and a way of learning. Lamm (2004) concurs that critique is part of supervisory interactions, which creates opportunity for learning. The cohort programme provides opportunitiesfor students to work within a supportive communityof peers and creates space to develop their capacity to critique their own and others' texts (Aitchison & Lee, 2006). Considering the development of the ability to critique and to make their voice heard in a research context, but also having to accept critique of their own work, made one doctoral candidate realize:
" ... that it is easier to critique others' work than my own."
Such insight is useful as self-reflection, and touches on the challenge of subjectivity in one's own work.
A community of practice
The third theme reflects on how a cohort programme offered in a faculty of education can result in a learning community amongst developing doctoral students. Supervising and being supervised in a cohort programme serves to support and develop the capacity for producing new knowledge, to work with and to listen to others, and to develop ways of dealing with complex issues and problems that require different kinds of expertise (Bielaczyc & Collins, 1999). However, it also serves to ensure that this is paralleled by a shift in the doctoral candidate's mindset, from practitioner to scholar (Lusted, 1986).
This happens best in a space where peers are engaged in a similar academic endeavour. This is framed within a sense of belonging, a sense of learning and a community of supervision.
A sense of belonging
Intellectualityand knowledge production in the traditional one-to-one supervisory relationship is conceptualised as a lonely and difficult journey, requiring deep reflexivity, commitment and sacrifice (Johnson et al., 2000). However, learning and development, through the cohort programme, ensures that doctoral students are confident to take risks and explore different topics in the comfort of a community of researchers. The cohort programme thus reduces the sense of isolation, and creates a sense of inclusion and an increase in social interaction. This is clear from the quotations from the doctoral students:
"... growing sense of belonging to a community of learners"
"... share my thoughts with a group that has developed a sense of trust"
"Being with people who have the same academic interest I have"
"Camaraderie that has developed ..."
A sense of learning
The activities of learning communities must provide the means for individual development and collaborative construction of knowledge. It involves the sharing of knowledgeand skills among the members of the community and articulating and making visible the learning processes. It encourages individual and group research, group discussion, and working together to make public what is learnt, including the development of new ways of learning.
"The writing opportunity, each to his/her own laptop, and with his/her own thoughts, also proved valuable"
"The quiet writing session was beneficial. I found I could cover a lot 'in this controlled environment".
"... love the idea of a writing weekend"
To advance collective knowledge in research, as a way to support the growth of individual knowledge (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1994), the cohort programme makes available particular kinds of learning opportunities to support the movement of the student from novice to expert. In exploring what capacities are being developed and by what means, the shared dialogue is real, relevant and often inspiring:
"I enjoyed the two speakers - PhD graduates who have been through the cohort process
are an inspiration"
"... given me a sense of direction"
"... one learns from those debates"
"... learning from others' problems"
"... the diversity of topics and rich discussion"
"... very novel method of research shared ..."
"Sharing of ideas and resources ..." and "... sharing articles"
"It's interesting to see how conceptualizations have shifted"
Doctoral students and supervisors are linked to each other by having the same objective. In this instance, they are working collaboratively towards developing capacities and supporting scholarly autonomy, especially regarding the different roles that students take on during their journey towards the completion of their study.
Community supervision
The traditional approach to supervision is characterized as isolated and intense, and often sets up a dependency relationship between the supervisor and students. However, learning communities of research practice have the potential to open up spaces into which novice researchers can be inducted, mentored, coached and supported, without diluting entirely the supervisory relationship. The cohort programme encourages the formation of "learning communities" that change the conditions and the means by which doctoral students come to know (Lusted, 1986). The notion of being supported by a range of people is clear from the following quotations:
"Meeting with other groups (PhD phases)"
"Nice to see senior faculty mixing with students"
"I value the contribution by the sages but also the feedback I get from my fellow PhDears"
"The whole cohort process is extremely valuable! We learn from half a dozen 'supervisors' and twenty peers."
Community supervision through a cohort support programme alongside the traditional one-toone supervision relationship opens up other voices. These learning opportunities demonstrate that the supervisor no longer needs to be the "master" (Johnson et al., 2000:145), but a teacher of particular skills, ways of thinking, and who helps create a socially just world (Engeström, 1999). The supervisor in this community is seen as mediator between the student and the discipline or field (Connell, 1985). Lusted (1986) concurs with this and explains the importance of setting up a critical exchange or dialogue through various learning activities or opportunities. Hence, the end result of the research process is the empowerment of the candidate (Generett, 2009).
The above discussion does not suggest that the cohort programme is without challenges. It is acknowledged that there are issues regarding time, the size of the cohort, and the supervisors' participation that need to be taken into consideration. As most of the doctoral students in this study were part-time students, finding time to participate in the weekend programme was difficult for them. Yet once they had committed to taking time out for their studies, it became an extremely productive endeavour for all. Although the programme is offered with a view to complement the traditional apprenticeship model, not all supervisors chose to participate. This can lead to the student having to work with conflicting ideas, if the cohort and the supervisor are at odds. However, we turned this into an opportunity for scholarly development, requiring the student to weigh up the received inputs or critiques and to arrive at his or her own position.
We have put forward our iteration of a cohort model of supervision and support, which has been refined over time, to meet the needs of the students. Such a supervisory process is an intensive procedure, which can also be time consuming. However, we argue that it has great value in developing scholarship, providing support and supervision, and sustaining doctoral work towards completion.3 Furthermore, it also serves to develop a community of practice, which is in line with the government's request for academia to cultivate a much needed community of researchers in South Africa.
1. The cohort model was initiated at the then Durban-Westville University by Michael Samuel and Renuka Vithal in 1998.
2. We acknowledge the efforts of all the academic staff who, over the years, have contributed greatly to the refinement of the cohort model, and all the doctoral students who have helped us learn how to provide support.
3. Of the 10 students in the third phase six submitted their theses and graduated in 2010.
Aitchison C & Lee A 2006. Research writing: Problems and pedagogies. Teaching in Higher Education, 11:265-278. [ Links ]
Aspland T, Edwards H & O'Leary J 1999. Tracking new directions in the evaluation of postgraduate supervision. Innovative Higher Education, 24:134-154. [ Links ]
Bielaczyc K & Collins A 1999. Learning communities in classrooms: a reconceptualization of educational practice. In: Reigeluth C (ed.). Instructional-design theories and models. A new paradigm of instructional theory. vol. 2. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. [ Links ]
Bitzer EM 2007. Supervising higher degrees as a scholarly practice. South African Journal of Higher Education, 21:1010-1019. [ Links ]
Calma A 2007. Postgraduate supervision in the Philippines: Setting the research agenda. The Asia Pacific-Education Researcher, 16:91-100. [ Links ]
Connell RW 1985. How to Supervise a PhD. Vestes, 2:38-41. [ Links ]
Creswell JW 1994. Research design: Qualitative and quantitative approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. [ Links ]
Edwards R 2005. Dancing to an alien beat: Students' experiences of a professional doctorate programme. Education in the North, 13:6-13. [ Links ]
Enders J 2004. Research training and careers in transition: A European perspective on the many faces of the PhD. Studies in Continuing Education, 26:419-429. [ Links ]
Engeström Y 1999. Activity theory and individual and social transformation. In: Engestrom Y, Miettinen R & Punamäki R-L (eds). Perspectives on activity theory. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. [ Links ]
Finlay L 2006. 'Rigour', 'ethical integrity' or 'artistry'? Reflexively reviewing criteria for evaluating qualitative research. British Journal of Occupational Therapy, 69:319-326. [ Links ]
Forbes J 2008. Reflexivity in professional doctoral research. Reflective Practice, 9:449-460. [ Links ]
Gardner SK, Hayes, MT & Neider XN 2006. The dispositions and skills of a Ph.D. in education: Perspectives of faculty and graduate students in one college of education. Innovative Higher Education, 31:287-299. [ Links ]
Geelan D 2003. Weaving narrative nets to capture classrooms. London: Kluwer Academic Publishers. [ Links ]
Generett GG 2009. Engaging bell hooks: How teacher educators can work to sustain themselves and their work. In del Guadalupe D & Yancy G (eds). Critical perspectives on bell hooks. Routledge: London. [ Links ]
Harrison E 2010. Developing a doctoral Identity: A narrative study in an autoethnographic frame. PhD thesis. Durban: University of KwaZulu-Natal. [ Links ]
Johnson L, Lee A & Green B 2000. The PhD and the autonomous Self: gender, rationality and postgraduate pedagogy. Sydney: Taylor and Francis Ltd. [ Links ]
Johnston S & J Broda 1996. Supporting educational researchers for the future. Educational Review, 48:269-281. [ Links ]
Kelly C 1997. David Kolb, the theory of experiential learning and ESL. The Internet TESL Journal, 3(9). Available at: http://iteslj.org/Articles/Kelly-Experiential/. Accessed 19 September 2010. [ Links ]
Kirby V 1994. 'Viral identities: Feminisms and Post Modernisms, In: Burns A & Grieves N (eds). Australian woman: contemporary feminist thought.: Melbourne: Oxford University Press. [ Links ]
Kinnear J 2010. Wanted: caring Universities. Mail&Guardian, April 30 to May 6. [ Links ]
Krefting L 1991. Rigor in Qualitative Research: The assessment of trustworthiness. The American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 45:214-222. [ Links ]
Kumar V & Stracke E 2007. An analysis of written feedback on a PhD thesis. Teaching in Higher Education, 12:461-470. [ Links ]
Lamm R 2004. Learning and affect in the research higher degree. Paper presented at AARE Conference Melbourne Nov 28-Dec 2. Available at http://www.aare.edu.au/04pap/lam04571.pdf. Accessed 19 September 2010. [ Links ]
Lategan LOK 2008. Theme 1: Why the fuss about research and postgraduate supervision? In Lategan LOK (ed.). An introduction to postgraduate supervision. Stellenbosch, South Africa: Sun Press. [ Links ]
Lee A 2008. How are doctoral students supervised? Concepts of doctoral research supervision. Guildford, UK: Information Services, University of Surrey. Available at http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/info_sci/10. ATN Assessment. Accessed March, 18, 2009. [ Links ]
Lusted D 1986. 'Why pedagogic?' Screen, 27:2-15. [ Links ]
Malfroy J 2005. Doctoral supervision, workplace research and changing pedagogic practices. Higher Education Research & Development, 24:165-178. [ Links ]
Mouton J 1996. Understanding social research. Pretoria: Van Schaik Publishers. [ Links ]
Muller A 2008. Theme 5: Developing the idea of the thesis and the protocol. In: Lategan LOK (ed.). An introduction to postgraduate supervision. Stellenbosch: Sun Press. [ Links ]
Nekhwevha F 2002. The influence of Paulo Freire's "Pedagogy of knowing" on the South African Education struggle in the 1970s and 1980s. In: Kallaway P (ed.). The history of education under apartheid 1948-1994: the doors of learning and culture shall be opened. New York: Peter Lang. [ Links ]
Pearson M, Evans T & Macauley P 2008. Growth and diversity in doctoral education: assessing the Australian experience. Higher Education, 55:357-372. [ Links ]
Poggenpoel M 1998. Data analysis in qualitative research. In: De Vos AS, Strydom H, Fouche CB & Delport CSL (eds). Research at grass roots. Pretoria: Van Schaik. [ Links ]
Rinne K & Sivenius P 2007. Rigorous science-Artistic freedom. The challenge of thesis supervision in an art university. South African Journal of Higher Education, 21:1091-1102. [ Links ]
Said E 1994. Representations of the Intellectual. Vintage Books: New York. [ Links ]
Sambrook S, Stewart J & Roberts C. 2008. Doctoral supervision ... a view from above, below and the middle! Journal of Further & Higher Education, 32:71-84. [ Links ]
Samuel MA 2008. Learning in Community: The Cohort Model of Doctoral Studies. Presentation at Teaching and Learning Conference (UKZN), 26 September 2008. [ Links ]
Scardamalia M & Bereiter C 1994. The CSILE project: Trying to bring the classroom into world 3. In: McGilly K (ed.). Classroom lessons: Integrating cognitive theory and classroom practice. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press/Bradford Books. [ Links ]
South Africa. Department of Education 2007. Government Gazette No. 30353, 5 October. Pretoria: Government Printer. Available at http://www.che.ac.za/documents/d000148/Higher_Education_Qualifications_Framework_Oct2007.pdf. Accessed 18 October 2010. [ Links ]
Stevens K & Asmar C 1999. Doing postgraduate research in Australia. Carlton Sth, Vic: Melbourne University Press. [ Links ]
Van Rensburg H & Danaher PA 2009. Assessment in different dimensions. In: Milton J, Hall C, Lang J, Allan G & Nomikoudis M (eds). Teaching and learning in tertiary education conference proceedings. Learning and teaching unit, RMIT University. [ Links ]
Naydene de Lange, previously from University of KwaZulu-Natal, holds the newly established HIV and AIDS Education Research Chair at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Port Elizabeth,South Africa. Her research draws mainlyonvisual participatorymethodologies with a research as social change focus.
Vitallis Chikoko is Head of the School of Education Studies in the Faculty of Education at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. His research interests include leadership and management of education in rural contexts; decentralisation of education in the developing world; leadership development; and higher education.
Guruvasagie (Daisy) Pillay, is the Coordinator of the PhD Cohort Programme and is head of the discipline of Teacher Education and Professional Development in the School of Education and Development at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.


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Stranger in Paradise
The outsider art of Rev. Howard Finster on exhibit in Champaign
The Rev. Howard Finster produced more than 46,000 pieces of art before he died at age 84 in 2001. He was a man possessed, not by demons, but by the need to create art. He was a self-proclaimed "man of visions" who put his visions into his colorful folk art.
Born in rural Alabama in 1916, Finster was a preacher, tent revivalist, and jack of all trades before he heard a voice in 1976 that told him to "paint sacred art." He and his family were living near Pennville, Ga., then. He began creating art from found objects and starting work on "Paradise Garden," a collection of garden trails lined with colorful mosaics and whimsical buildings decorated with art and biblical sayings.
Krannert Art Museum in Champaign has organized "Stranger in Paradise: The works of Reverend Howard Finster," and it is like nothing you have ever seen. Four rooms at the museum are full of paintings, sculptures, and other curiosities that will capture your imagination. Compared to the work of local artist George Colin, Finster's art is like Colin on steroids.
Angels, the devil, Elvis and Henry Ford are common themes in Finster's work, as is the cheetah. At some point walking through the exhibit you may wonder if Finster had a mental illness, but he apparently did not. He was a hard-working man of good will, obsessed with making art, much of it covered with biblical quotations ("sermons in paint") and his own admonitions to live an upright life.
"All people shall pay for their wrongdoings in this life," Finster proclaimed, "or the world to come, Hell's planet. It would be so much better for you to listen to me than to learn for yourself to [sic] late."
Part of his urgency may be from drinking Coca-Cola all day long with spoonfuls of dry instant coffee now and then. It's a wonder he didn't die of a heart attack years earlier.
Finster was not a good speller, but some of his writings are just charming and add to the wonder of his art. He painted "I don my part yours is next" on one painting. Another is decorated with "My garding angel is a gift from God and I love her true."
Johnny Carson hosted Finster on "The Tonight Show" in 1983. The uninhibited Finster was a nonstop talker on the show, regaling Johnny and Ed as he sang, played banjo and rambled all over the stage. You can watch this segment on a tv in the last room of the exhibit. Watching it helps to better understand the artist.
Kudos to the staff at The Krannert for organizing this comprehensive show by one of America's finest and most prolific primitive artists. Many of the pieces came from the collection of the Arient family of Naperville, who have collected outsider art for some 30 years. Beth and Jim Arient bought their first Finsters in 1980, and developed a strong friendship with Finster and his family.
Champaign artist and guest curator Glen C. Davies, who first visited Finster in 1983, and Krannert Art Museum director Kathleen Harleman visited the Arients in 2007 to see their collection and decided to launch this exhibition.
The Krannert has published a handsome and fascinating hardback book for the exhibit with essays by Davies, Arient, N. J. Girardot, and Phyllis Kind, who showed Finster's work in her New York gallery.
"Stranger in Paradise" closes March 28 at the Krannert Art Museum, but will travel to six more venues. The Chicago Cultural Center will exhibit the show from July 24-September 26. Krannert Art Museum is open 9-5 Tues-Sat, 9-9 Thurs, and 2-5 Sun. Closed Mon. 333-1881 kam.illinois.edu.
Ginny Lee is a Springfield photographer and writer who wants to be an outsider artist someday.

subset: commoncrawl


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Behind The Scenes: Currensy & Wiz Khalifa Shooting "Jet Life" In Los Angeles!
The Stoned Immaculate in stores now!
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This model is no longer available or might have limited distribution.
This Speed Queen Agitator top-loader washing machine has
• Auto fabric softener dispenser
• End of cycle signal
• Stainless-steel tub
• Manufacturer recommends low-sudsing detergent.
• Comes with a 7 year warranty.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this product! Please focus on the product performance and quality. Your review will be posted on Consumer Reports for other subscribers to view. Please read our Privacy Policy and User Agreement for more information about the review process. If you'd like to report a safety problem with your product, please fill out this form.


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Alaska Nature & Wildlife Expedition
SGY-420 | Skagway, Alaska | See Special Notes
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*Price displayed in US Dollars unless otherwise noted; excursions priced in other currencies may be available on select voyages only. Prices are based on the amount Princess typically charges for each excursion, but your price may vary by voyage date and departure time.
Tour at a Glance
Tour Overview
The journey begins with a 45-minute scenic cruise aboard a high-speed fast ferry along North America's longest and deepest fjord to Haines. Enjoy spectacular views of waterfalls and ice-sculpted peaks as your onboard guide provides informative commentary and points out marine wildlife in route.
Upon arrival in Haines, join personable naturalists as you board your expedition bus to follow the route of returning salmon along the Chilkoot River. Nestled between rugged glaciers and snowcapped mountains, the fertile Chilkoot Valley is home to generations of brown bears, bald eagles, mountain goats, marine mammals, numerous birds and spawning salmon. Inquisitive visitors, bird watchers and photographers are amazed by the abundance of migratory and resident birds. Several stops along the way allow for a stunning photo opportunity and a fascinating depiction of Tlingit Indian legends and history by your guide.
View a fish counting weir where you may watch a technician count migrating salmon as they return. You'll make your way to Chilkoot Lake and set up powerful spotting scopes, which may be used for close-up views of mountain goats in alpine meadows, bears along the river and nesting eagles. You can actually take photos through the scopes. A refreshing nature walk beneath the canopy of trees in the temperate rainforest leads to you to an ancient muskeg.
Your tour concludes with a narrated drive through historic Fort Seward and downtown Haines, where you'll enjoy a sack lunch before returning to Skagway via ferry.
Special Notes
Wildlife sightings are not guaranteed. Seasonal wildlife updates are posted at the onboard Tour Office. Tide conditions can make ramp to dock very steep, guests with limited mobility not recommended. Wear comfortable shoes with traction. Some departures may enjoy lunch at the beginning of the tour. Afternoon departures have the meal in the evening. Vegetarian meal available upon request. Please notify Tour Office onboard at least 24 hours prior to tour.
Provided: Spotting scope, binoculars, bird and wildlife checklists, lunch, roundtrip ferry ride to Haines
Meal: Chicken Caesar wrap, whole-grain chips, fresh fruit, cookie, bottled water or juice pack
Unaccompanied Minor Policy: Children under the age of 18 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.
Child Price:
12 years & under only


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Get Used To (More) Disappointment
What's that? You want more "Missed Marks" wrecks?
... and ended up with something only a finger-painting preschooler could love:
Zebras of unusual stripes?
I don't think they exist.
Next, Tahneea made two notable discoveries: first, this gorgeous cake:
There's a shortage of perfect ruffles in the world. 'Twould be a pity to damage yours.
And second, a use for leftover coffee filters!
"I do not mean to pry, but you don't by any chance happen to have six hundred coffee filters on hand?"
"Do you always begin conversations this way?"
She tells me her baker showed her an impressive portfolio of gorgeous cakes, which made the final reveal on her big day that much more, well, you know ...


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Poor Cyprus is in terrible shape. After securing a bailout of its banking sector, the tiny island nation faces an economic adjustment virtually assured to lower the quality of living for most of its citizens. Much of the Cypriot economy relied on an oversized banking sector funded by overseas cash. That spigot is now shut off. Societe General analyst Michala Marcussen wrote this week that "Our Cypriot GDP forecast entails a drop of just over 20% in real GDP by 2017." A depression by any definition.
But outside of the direct impact on Cypriots, there was one part of last week's bailout process that I found positive. When faced with the prospect of another European country collapsing, and the serious possibility of a member leaving the euro, the response by the global financial system wasn't panic or dread, but a shoulder shrug. Headlines of "Cyprus bailout deal falls apart" and "Dow hits a new record high" could be found on the same day. This would be unthinkable two years ago.
Cyprus is tiny, mind you. Its annual GDP equals what Apple earns in profit every seven months. But Greece is also tiny, with an economy the size of Minnesota's, and its teetering from 2010 through last summer shook global markets to the core.
When Greece looked near imminent collapse, the worry was not that the country's output was imperative to the global economy, but that a collapse of its banking system and exit from the euro could spread throughout Europe. The same argument could have been made for Cyprus last week. The original bailout deal called for a portion of all deposits in Cypriot banks to be levied, sending a message to depositors across the continent that your money may be far less safe than once thought. Banking relies on confidence, and Cyprus buried confidence six feet under.
And yet! The Dow still trades near an all-time high. London's FTSE 100 trades at the highest level in five years. Germany's Dax index is near an all-time high. The MSCI World Index, one of the broadest measures of global equities, sits near the highest level five years. Gold, a proxy for panic, wiggled around last week, but trades lower today than it did at the start of the year, when many didn't even realize Cyprus was a country.
Contrast this with 2011, when a possible Greek collapse and euro exit sent the Dow down nearly 20%, global stocks down by a quarter, gold up by 40%, and churned up more than 10 million references to the phrase "double dip recession," according to Google. The market's response between then and now could hardly be more different.
There are a couple explanations for this, some more frightening than others.
One is that we are all oblivious to what's going on in Cyprus. It takes time to sort through details, and it's entirely possible that the chaos will begin only when the dust starts to settle and we realize who is holding what, and who has nothing left to hold. Indeed, our own banking collapse and bailout commenced in September 2008, but the panic didn't take off until October and November that year.
Another possibility, which I think holds at least some truth, is that we are entering a new phase in the global financial crisis. We've calmed down and are taking more deep breaths. Dire headlines are now treated with more equanimity as investors sort through news and take a long-term view of the consequences, rather than the sell-now-think-later approach that prevailed for most of the last five years. News of a crumbling banking system and bailout is nothing new to us anymore. We have been there, done that, and read the same story over and over again. But news of higher employment, a stronger housing market, and booming energy production is new, taking many by surprise, and so it appears to be getting the most attention.
Sentiment can change on a dime, and I wouldn't dare guess what happens next. But I think our response to Cyprus is evidence that we are moving on from the torment of the last crisis. Good riddance.


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Caroline Jones had those moments where she wanted to give up basketball. After all, as a four-sport athlete at South Lenoir the program she was part of that was the least successful was girls basketball.
Such is not the case anymore, and Jones is glad she continued to push herself on the hardwood.
DEEP RUN � Caroline Jones had those moments where she wanted to give up basketball. After all, as a four-sport athlete at South Lenoir the program she was part of that was the least successful was girls basketball.
Such is not the case anymore, and Jones is glad she continued to push herself on the hardwood.
South Lenoir, which hasn�t played in a state playoff game since 2008, earned a 10-seed when seeding was announced on Saturday and will travel to No. 7 East Bladen (21-6) for a first round game at 6 p.m. on Monday.
Jones, a senior who runs cross country and plays volleyball in the fall then runs track at the conclusion of basketball season, had thoughts of dropping hoops. But she didn�t, and as a senior she�s helped the Blue Devils do a complete turnaround this season.
�It was very trying just because it was so hard sometimes to keep working at something when it seemed like you weren�t getting anywhere. But this year paid off, for sure,� Jones said.
�I couldn�t sit in the stands and watch the girls play (without me).�
No player on the Blue Devils� roster has played in a public school state playoff game before, something that had discouraged Jones during her freshman-junior years.
She has competed in the state championships individually in both cross country and track and field, and is a starter on a volleyball team that is a virtual lock to reach the state playoffs each season.
Come basketball season Jones would be tired given the work she�d put in to two sports during the fall.
There were times when she didn�t feel it was worth it, both physically and mentally.
�You have to give a lot of credit to Caroline. � Sometimes you just need a couple of days to regroup and find yourself and comeback and do the thing that you love to do,� said Blue Devils coach Mishella Craine, who allowed Jones some time to think about her decision before asking her to make it.
�She�s done a great job. To be a senior and to be in the situation that we�ve been in it�s been kind of tough mentally and physically.
�She�s put in the time, and they all deserve all the credit that they�ve gotten this year because they�ve all pushed each other and worked very hard.�
One thing that kept Jones coming back was knowing the talent was there. It just needed to be tapped into.
�We�ve always had potential, I feel like, so that�s always given us hope,� she said.
One of Jones� biggest supporters has been her father, Joe Clay Jones Jr.
Jones Jr., who played college basketball at Mount Olive from 1981-83 when it was a junior college and then at Campbell from 1983-85, has helped South Lenoir (17-6) through the years and has been a personal coach to his daughter.
Caroline confided in her family for advice about whether to continue playing basketball, she said.
With their support, she was urged to keep on for the sake of the program and not for herself.
�The motivation was, not so much to jump out and win a conference championship as much as it was getting the girls into a winning frame of mind,� Jones Jr. said.
�You�re doing it for the sake of the school more than the sake of one season. You�re trying to get it to a level where kids want to play and don�t want to go out there and expect to get beat.�
This season South Lenoir has played exactly that way.
Not only did the Blue Devils completely turn around their fortunes to reach the playoffs, they also finished tied for second with East Duplin in the East Central 2A Conference after three straight last-place finishes.
Jones� decision to continue playing hasn�t been the sole reason for their success, but it helped. They also added senior transfer Heather West from Parrott Academy, got solid point guard play out of junior Hanna Meready, and the interior play was much improved with Demeyia Adams and Marquia Suddeth stepping up big.
In all, it was a total team effort this season by South Lenoir, from those on the floor as well as on the bench.
�They�re all so very important,� coach Donald Mooring said. �I hope Caroline�s senior year has been fun for her because she hasn�t had to try and do everything. She�s just had to go out there and play ball and play her part for the team�s sake.�
Added Craine: �I�ve been in some great situations with any program that I�ve worked with but I don�t think I have been more proud of a group of girls than these. I know where we started, and I know where we�re at right now. It�s enjoyable to go out there and watch them play and practice.
�All of them have been working and they�ve all improved and have so much confidence in themselves, and that�s what�s enjoyable � all their hard work is paying off.�
For Jones, the decision to stay is one she�s glad she made.
�We have more of a winning mentality now because we�ve experienced it,� she said. �Even though the first three seasons we were losing I don�t feel like they were wasted because I learned so much individually. That tied it all together.�
Ryan Herman can be reached at 252-559-1073 or firstname.lastname@example.com. Follow him on Twitter: @KFPSports.


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Superhero in a Burqa
She is completely covered. Only her eyes and fingers can be seen. The rest of her body is hidden beneath a black burqa. Jiya, as the heroine is called, only wears her burqa during fighting scenes, using her superpowers to fight evil in Pakistan. She doesn't use weapons, but books and pencils instead.
"It's like the phrase 'the pen is mightier than the sword'," explains Haroon Rashid, maker of the cartoon series. "We want to show that education can eliminate many problems."
The TV series comprises 13 episodes, each of which is 22 minutes long. They focus on the story of the heroine, who is a teacher by day, and on three young school children from the imaginary city of Hawalpur.
Not a symbol of oppression
The decision to have the main character of the cartoon wear a piece of clothing common among conservative Muslim women in Pakistan and Afghanistan has not been universally well received in Pakistan and abroad. Some people see the outfit as a symbol of the oppression of women.
"In the West, the burqa has a very strong symbolic value, so people are taken aback by it at first," said Sabine Schiffer, head of the Media Responsibility Institute in Erlangen, Germany. "But the heroine in this story does not fit the clichés. She shows a huge amount of strength when fighting injustice."
In the animated series, the burqa looks more like a ninja outfit than a traditional one. "She only wears it to conceal her identity. Just like other superheroes," explains Rashid. Apart from that, he says, it gives the cartoon a local flavour.
Rashid says he didn't want his main character to wear a suit like Catwoman or Wonder Woman because these racy, figure-hugging outfits objectify and sexualise women.
Moral of the story
The topics of the show vary. Sometimes they are about environmental protection, other times about minority rights. While the series is critical of Pakistani society, the message is packaged as an entertaining show for children. There are no brutal fighting scenes – it is more dialogue-based. In one episode, for example, a magician builds a robot, which is supposed to take over the world. For this, the magician has to send the robot around the world. But his plan fails when his visa application for the EU is rejected.
In the first episode, which was broadcast on Sunday, 28 July, a school in a village is to be closed. But the "Burka Avenger" is able to prevent this from happening. This conflict is all too familiar to Pakistanis. The Taliban reject education for women and girls and have destroyed hundreds of schools in the past. This episode reminds one of the Pakistani girl Malala Yousafzai, who was nearly killed while on her way home from school in October 2012 in a shooting carried out by extremists. Malala had spoken out publicly against the Taliban and criticised their values. She was also active in promoting education for girls.
Target group: Pakistani children
The series is predominantly targeted at children in Pakistan. It is currently being broadcast on a popular Pakistani TV channel in Urdu. A Pashto version is also in the making for Pakistanis in the northwest of the country and also for Pashto-speaking Afghans.
There is also a smartphone app because "that's where it all started," Rashid explains. Three years ago, he and a few IT experts created an interactive app about a female burqa-wearing fighter. For advertising purposes, he had someone create an animation. He liked the animation so much that he decided to create a whole TV series based on it.
Haroon Rashid financed the project largely on his own. He also used his musical background in the production. As a former member of a popular Pakistani boy band, he was clever enough to write songs for the series – each episode features songs written and sung by him along with other Pakistani rock stars.
For Rashid, the number-one objective of the show is to get people to laugh and to convey positive social messages, telling children that people are equal and that education improves the quality of life.
Media expert Sabine Schiffer believes that a lot still has to change in Pakistan for this message to become reality. "The show's message – that you can reach anything through education – is not quite correct when it comes to Pakistan." Even today, she adds, other factors, such as the caste system, often play a large role in determining a person's future.
Rachel Baig
© Deutsche Welle 2013
Editor: Gabriel Domínguez/DW and Aingeal Flanagan/Qantara.de


text:
I carried my first 9-mm. automatic Browning when I was just twenty years old. I was a National Service second lieutenant in the Intelligence Corps in Austria. It was my first clandestine mission, and I was in heaven. The year, I think, was 1952, and I was stationed in Graz, the hub of the British Occupied Zone in the early Cold War years. The gun was loaded. On the advice of the Air Intelligence Officer, or A.I.O., in charge of the operation, I wore it jammed into my waistband against my left hip with the butt foremost, allowing for an easy draw across the body. Over it I wore a green loden coat, borrowed under a pretext from one of our Field Security drivers, and, for additional cover, a fetching green Tyrolean hat, bought at personal expense. Such was my disguise of choice for a top-secret night trip through sparsely populated countryside to Austria's border with Communist Czechoslovakia.
The A.I.O., however, had opted for the more traditional spy's attire: fawn raincoat and trilby hat, which, together with his military mustache, gave him, to my callow eye, a rather too British look. But he knew best. The A.I.O. was a veteran of the business, as we National Service fledglings had often been reminded sotto voce by our seasoned superiors in the bar of the Wiesler hotel, reserved for British officers, where the A.I.O. could be observed of an early evening, always seated in the same corner and half-hidden by his Austrian newspaper, with a mahogany whiskey at his side and a crisp white handkerchief jammed into the cuff of his officer-class sports jacket. The A.I.O., they said, had done his share of this and that—as ever with the clear implication that we hadn't.
As became a man of mystery, the A.I.O. was a solitary. His office, which we never entered, was situated in the attic of the elegant villa on the edge of town that our military masters in Vienna had requisitioned for us Intelligence types. Spy ethic dictates that the higher up the building you go the more secret it gets, which explains why we mere Field Security trash were confined to the ground floor. But I knew his window. It was a dormer, thick with grimy net curtains. He had no known rank, and no known staff. He made no use of our mailroom. We assumed, but were never told, that he relied on his own communications system. Just occasionally, a standard tin box of papers would arrive for him by way of the Army Field Post Office, and although it looked exactly like the sort of junk we ourselves were handling, he would immediately hasten downstairs and, with an air of immense gravity, return with it to his aerie. He was said to be much decorated, but we never saw him in uniform. In short, he was the real McCoy. His work might look as boring as ours, but in reality he was an undercover Friend, meaning a member of M.I.6, the highest form of Intelligence life known to man.
Why me, sir? I asked him, when he suggested we take a quiet stroll along the river.
"Because you've got what it takes," he replied, in the bitten-off style of a man who would prefer not to be speaking at all.
How do you know I have, sir? I asked.
"Been watching you."
Our car was an innocent black Volkswagen Beetle with civilian plates. The A.I.O. explained that he had got it from Intelligence Organization Vienna, which, as far as I was concerned, was the summit of Olympus. Should we by chance be stopped by the Austrian police, he said, we were two businessmen from Graz interested in buying farmland for cash. This would explain the ten thousand U.S. dollars in the brown briefcase lying on the back seat of the Beetle. The dollars also came from Int. Org. Only when all else failed, he said, should we flash our cards and declare ourselves to be British military personnel engaged on secret duties.
At first as we drove I could think only of the Browning nudging at my hip. But as the night darkened and my body eased and the Browning grew warmer, we became a pair, which was what the A.I.O. had said we would do. "Think of it as part of you," he advised. So I did, even if from time to time I discreetly fingered the safety catch to make sure it was still on.
In what sort of situation might I be using it, sir? I asked.
"Contingency. If the Czech goons come after him, we give him covering fire. Not till I tell you, mind." And, as an afterthought, "Don't go for the legs. Aim for the mark."
The mark?
"Shoulders to groin and all points between."
My thoughts turned to the brave man we had come to meet: a high-ranking officer in the Czech Air Force, risking death and worse to bring precious information to the West. At this very moment, said the A.I.O., our man was creeping over the border with the aid of sympathetic frontier guards.
How about dogs? I asked.
Once across, said the A.I.O., who was a stickler for need-to-know, our man would proceed to a certain frontier village just inside Austria, and this was the village we were heading for. Its name remained secret right up to the moment when the signpost blew it.
Is he defecting, sir?
The A.I.O. looked grim and shook his head. "Man's got a wife and kids, for God's sake. It's a one-time sell."
And then he'll go back?
"If he can."
And if he can't?
The A.I.O.'s silence was more eloquent than words.
A tiny inn stood at the empty roadside. Light burned yellow in the windows. The only sound was of male voices, which stopped dead as soon as we walked in. The A.I.O. went ahead in case there was trouble. I followed with the briefcase. In a single low-ceilinged room, a score of peasants in blue overalls stared at us in mute amazement through the tobacco smoke. A billiards table occupied the center of the room. Nobody was playing. A vacant bench stood next to the bar. The A.I.O. sat on it. With the briefcase at my feet, I sat beside him, observed by the peasants. The A.I.O. ordered two beers in snappish, swallowed-up German. Today I wonder whether "two beers" was the only German he knew. The landlord set them in front of us, and the echo as they hit the table seemed to go on forever.
"Fancy a game of billiards?" the A.I.O. muttered, in English, out of the corner of his mouth.
Love one, I muttered back.
The gun was indeed part of me: so much so that I had ceased to notice its presence on my hip. Stooping to address the ball, I was startled by the clang of a heavy metal object striking the tiled floor, and looked around to identify the source. Finally, I saw the Browning lying at my feet, but by then the inn had emptied itself of customers and landlord. I retrieved it, returned it to my waistband, and picked up the briefcase.
"Abort," the A.I.O. ordered, pausing only to finish his beer.
His composure astonished me. Not a word of rebuke. We returned to the Volkswagen, sat in it, and waited. For whom? The Austrian police? Or our intrepid spy? The A.I.O. seemed at ease with either possibility, but neither appeared. He had a flask of Scotch and we took pulls from it. The dawn came, and somehow the purpose of our great mission evaporated. With a philosophical sigh, the A.I.O. started the engine and set course for Graz.
As with all great intelligence operations, ours had no known outcome—or none to me. Did the brave Czech airman ever make his attempt? I had no chance to ask. A couple of days later, the A.I.O. had vanished, leaving no forwarding address. Did he give back the ten thousand dollars, or keep the money for another day? In "A Perfect Spy," I made some use of the story, but my larger purposes did not allow me to give it the status it deserved as an account of my hero's first armed exploit On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
Nevertheless, with the ripening of years, I think I have hit upon an answer to the questions that have troubled me for so long. There was no Czech officer crossing the border that night. The briefcase did not contain ten thousand dollars; at best, there was an old pair of pajamas and a reserve bottle of Scotch. The A.I.O. was not the favored son of Int. Org., he was not an undercover officer of M.I.6, his work was just as tedious and useless as ours. He was one of those forgotten souls whom military bureaucracies dump on distant shores and forget about for years on end.
He was, in addition—if discreetly—mad, and living in a secret bubble all his own, a condition that in the spook world, rather like a superbug in a hospital, is endemic, hard to detect, and harder still to eradicate.
I can also hazard a guess about the nature of his madness, since from time to time I have experienced similar symptoms. The A.I.O., like the rest of us, dreamed the Great Spy's Dream. He imagined himself at the Spies' Big Table, playing the world's game. Gradually, the gap between the dream and the reality became too much for him to bear, and one day he decided to fill it. He needed a believer, so I got the job. I was well cast. Years later, for a short time, I did actually become an insider in the world that the A.I.O. pretended to inhabit, but it wasn't long before I, too, was fantasizing about a real British secret service, somewhere else, that did everything right that we either did wrong or didn't do at all.
My solution was to invent a spook world better suited to my needs, just as the A.I.O. had done. It was only our methods that were a little different.
My agreeable middle-aged roommate in the British Security Service, better known as M.I.5, was, I think, afflicted by a similar strain of the disease, although the symptoms in his case were different. But that is the nature of the disease.
I am speaking of the period of the Great Paranoia Epidemic that ran from the nineteen-fifties into the seventies, when practically everyone in M.I.5 above a certain rank, up to Sir Roger Hollis, the Director General, was suspected of being a Russian spy. The virus infected swaths of Whitehall and Westminster, but it was the spies who were worst hit, and they did it to themselves, on the strident insistence of America's intelligence community.
The bacillus had begun its life in America, before sweeping eastward. First had come the Joe McCarthy era. McCarthy died in 1957, but his torch was quickly retrieved by a deranged C.I.A. inpatient of vast persuasive powers named James Jesus Angleton, who preached that the whole of the Western spook world was being controlled by superheads in the Kremlin. In human terms, Angleton's apocalyptic vision was forgivable. He had received his education in the black arts of double cross at the knee of one Kim Philby, a long-standing double agent in the service of the Kremlin and, as head of the M.I.6 station in Washington, Angleton's bosom buddy. If any spy ever needed an excuse for going off his head, it was James Jesus Angleton: fabled poker player, master of the spook universe, who woke up one morning to be told that his revered mentor, confessor, and fellow-boozer, Kim Philby, was a Russian spy.
But that doesn't excuse the C.I.A., which made a folk hero of its mad doctor, and looked on while he poisoned the family. Not only did Angleton single-handedly immobilize his own agency. He then, with his masters' blessing, performed the same service for its closest allies, to the ribald laughter of the K.G.B. Was Angleton ever invited to address the only logical conclusion to his thesis—namely, to close down the entire Western intelligence apparatus before the Russians led us over the cliff? I doubt it.
And M.I.5, assailed by the Angleton theory, rose superbly to the challenge. It was not content with spying on its own members; a cabal of middle and senior officers also found time to spy on Harold Wilson, the British Prime Minister, an episode in M.I.5 history that was documented in a dubious memoir put out by one of the conspirators. The author, you may remember, was Peter Wright, another poker pal of Angleton's. Strenuous efforts by the British government to suppress the book assured it a wide readership.
The atmosphere in those days in the corridors of Leconfield House, on Curzon Street, was therefore very much as I portrayed it in "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy," and it was the atmosphere that prevailed in the corridor that led to the little room that my colleague—I'll call him Arthur—and I shared. In my memory, it is hushed, with furtive footsteps going past. It was my first in-house appointment.
Arthur was an M.I.5 paper-pusher of the old school: a meticulous, unadventurous, nine-to-six loyalist, with no ambitions to become what he was not. He had something of the donnish librarian about him, with bubbly gray hair overflowing at the sides, rimless spectacles, and an air of huge diligence and bustle. Sometimes he would humph, sometimes tut-tut, but he was always busy and never took a lunch hour: which was one good reason that the overworked internal-security staff decided that he was a Russian spy.
The lunch hour, they concluded, was when Arthur photographed his secret files for his Russian paymaster. The only problem was, what had he done with them? Fifty and more secret and top-secret files containing thousands of pages had been marked out to him by Registry over the past two months. None, it transpired, had been returned.
Had Arthur borrowed the files, hoping to get them back into the system before anyone spotted that they were missing? The sheer hard work of clandestine document photography is daunting, even these days. How many frames can you shoot off in a single lunch hour, even with a motor drive? A file could run to a dozen volumes or more. Each could contain a couple of hundred pages. Or was he taking them out of the building? On Fridays and Mondays, a good few of M.I.5's staffers brought suitcases into work for their weekends out of London. Was Arthur smuggling out files in his weekend suitcase? And was his overburdened K.G.B. paymaster, laboring in some squalid East End flat with the blinds down, perhaps behindhand with his photographing?
As the number of missing files grew, Arthur was hauled up to the fifth floor and invited to explain himself. His answers never varied: yes, he had worked on the missing files. Having worked on them, he had returned them to Registry. If they were missing, it was either Registry's fault or the fault of the janitors who pushed the trolleys. It was not Arthur's.
Soon his denials were rebounding on me. If Arthur wasn't a spy, then I must be. I had pinched the files from his "in" tray. Head of Personnel sent for me. How was I enjoying my first months in harness? Did I have money troubles? Was my marriage all right? How much was I drinking? He was willing to be a father to me. Like Arthur, I denied failing to return any files.
Desk officers in M.I.5 had individual steel cupboards in their rooms. If you left your room during working hours, you locked your papers in your steel cupboard and kept the key. One midmorning, two men in artisans' brown coats, the essential uniform of our internal-security team, strode into our room and demanded that Arthur hand over the key to his steel cupboard. Without lifting his head, he put a hand in the pocket of his librarian's shiny gray jacket, passed them the key, and resumed his work. Shelf after shelf of his steel cupboard was stuffed with missing files. But Arthur paid no attention, either to the files or to the men in brown coats who stood staring at them with their mouths open. He remained bowed over the file on his desk, studiously turning the pages.
Arthur and I were "vetters," Arthur the old hand, myself the trainee. Our job was to comb through the records of people who were in line to acquire access to secret information and make a first call about whether they should be allowed to have it, be investigated, or be shifted to less sensitive employment. Like the A.I.O., Arthur was a loner, with no home life that I knew of. Little by little, all the same, I persuaded him to share the odd Friday-evening pint with me in a nearby pub in Shepherd Market. And it was on one such evening that Arthur told me a disturbing story. A month before I joined his section, he had been dispatched to New York on a liaison visit to the F.B.I. And in New York, according to Arthur, the F.B.I. had shaken him out. Not once but every day, systematically. He likened the ordeal to sustained psychological torture, and he wasn't sure that he had survived it unscathed.
Each evening when he returned to his Manhattan hotel after a day's liaison, he discovered that he had been moved to a different floor. Nobody in the hotel acknowledged this, he said. When he asked at the desk—politely—for his room key, the concierge would laugh and shake his head and tell him he'd got the number wrong, but here was the right key anyway, sir. So, instead of being on the fifth floor, where he'd slept the previous night, he found himself on the eighth, or the eighteenth, or the twenty-eighth, always the same size room, he said, and always the same space, the same curtains, cupboards, and bedspreads. But always a different floor. Night after night after night.
And there were no outward signs, Arthur insisted, peering into his tankard. The floor had changed, but the room hadn't. Each time around, his suits, shirts, socks, and underpants were laid out precisely as he had laid them out in the previous room. In the bathroom, it was the same story: razor, shaving brush, toothpaste, you name it. He was a methodical man, he said. Known for it. The smallest deviation would have caught his eye, and there wasn't one. Only the F.B.I. could have pulled off a job like that.
I asked Arthur whether he had fathomed the F.B.I.'s motive for taking all this trouble, and he said that he had given the question a great deal of consideration. His conclusion was that the Bureau was putting him under strain, then waiting to see how he responded and whom he got in touch with.
"They were trying to flush me out," he explained to his tankard.
Why would they want to do that? I asked.
Because of the vetting cases he'd handled, he said: file-holders who'd been small-time Communist sympathizers in their student days, but Arthur had given them the benefit of the doubt. He wondered in retrospect whether he might have crossed the line. Gone with them, even.
What line? I asked. Gone with them where?
"Clearing chaps I shouldn't have cleared," he said. "If I was soft on ex-Coms, perhaps I was a Com myself, and not necessarily ex." Then he added, "And, for all I know, they're right."
Are you telling me you could be a Communist sympathizer without even knowing it?
"Other chaps are," said Arthur. "If other chaps are, why shouldn't I be?"
In the nineteen-fifties, it took a lot to advise a friend to put his problems to a shrink, all the more so if he was twice your age and you were a probationer sharing an office with him five days a week. And there was a standing order that, if a staff member felt the need to unburden himself to a shrink, he had first to get the name of a shrink the Service approved of: which in effect meant telling M.I.5's Head of Personnel that you had a mental problem. I hoped Arthur's delusions would pass, but they didn't. Where the A.I.O., in the monotony of his neglected existence, had recast himself as a knight of derring-do, Arthur had recast himself as a victim of his own witch hunt. In a world that was almost as paranoid as ours is now, the security-risk assessor had become a security risk to himself. And, having decided this, he took the only logical step available to him: he ceased to put his name to anything anymore. He locked everything away where even the F.B.I. couldn't see it. Then he was safe.
The superbug of espionage madness is not confined to individual cases. It flourishes in its collective form. It is a homegrown product of the industry as a whole. Is a cure at hand? I doubt it. The most down-to-earth citizens from the real world, appointed to oversee the spooks' activities, turn to clay in their hands. Faith in spies is mystical, fuelled by fantasy and halfway to religion. They're a protected species in our national psychology. Our banks and financial services may collapse, our economy may be going through the floor, our road and rail system may be a catastrophe, our Millennium Dome a laughingstock, the cost of fuel, energy, and water rising by the week, but our spies are immune to all of it. Never mind how many times they trip over their cloaks and leave their daggers on the train to Tonbridge, the spies can do no wrong.
It's the men who are mostly to blame. Were wise women present when the notorious and acutely embarrassing Iraq Dossier, justifying Britain's involvement in the Iraq war—and better known as the Dodgy Dossier—was composed? If they were, they were outgunned by the men of madness, who didn't merely plagiarize a five-month-old article dredged from an obscure academic journal; they seriously believed, in their hubris and ignorance of the real world, that they could get away with it. It is slender comfort, but entirely in keeping with the code of reward and punishment dear to our present government, that the dossier's principal architect should have been promoted to Chief of our Secret Service.
All of which is a tough thing to convey in fiction, or it was for me. I tried it long ago in "The Looking Glass War," and my readers hated me for it. I tried it again in "The Tailor of Panama," this time as comedy, and I was more or less forgiven. The trouble is that the reader, like the general public to which he belongs, and in spite of all the evidence telling him that he shouldn't, wants to believe in his spies: which, come to think of it, is how we went to war in Iraq. ♦