Introduction

The editors of this book met and became friends in Wellington in the late 1970s, when we were in our early thirties. We had a lot in common. We were taking time out from school-teaching, had preschool children in the Victoria University Crèche and, having gained our BA degrees in “other” subjects, were completing “bridging” courses required for entry to an MA by thesis in Education.1 We bonded in a student-centred course facilitated by Jack Shallcrass, who encouraged us to work independently on philosophical questions that would inform our theses. In 1979 we each—albeit in different contexts—got to know Geraldine McDonald. And for the next 50 years, our lives, research, publishing, and political activities—sometimes individually and sometimes together—would, from time to time, intertwine with hers