!

R E S TI N

P E A C E!

S T E PH E N J . DAV I E S

LEFT: STEVE DAVIESABOVE: AT LD/CUE/TC DINNER,
NOVEMBER 2008, AT PINK COW
IN SHIBUYA

Please join us in remembering Steve...
追悼：スティーブ・デイヴィスを偲んで...
Steve Davies of Miyazaki
International College, a long time
Learner Development SIG member,passed away early February. He not
only wrote the Adventure of Magenta M
series (Learning Learning, 2008, (15) 1 2009, (16) 2), but also contributed hisviews on learning and teaching in bothAutonomy You Ask! (2003) and More
Autonomy You Ask! (2006), taking aunique approach of blending fiction andtheory. This section of Learning
Learning is dedicated to honor andcelebrate Steve’s work and life.

セクションではスティーブの功績と人柄を偲びたい。

Memories of Steve[from Stacey Vye]

Steve was one of a kind and I think
if!someone had had a chance to meet
him -even just once- he!was that kindof person!you!would never!have beenable to forget. When I hung out withhim at JALT conferences, he'd either
have this impeccable timing to be able
to deliver a funnier-than-anything
cynical joke!and ask the right questions
長年に渡り学習者ディベロプメント部会 for me to spit out a funny joke right
メンバーとして活動されてきたスティー back; kind of like a 'manzai' team
ブ・デイヴィス（宮崎国際大学）が２月 without an audience. In fact,!I didn't
realize I could be humorous and!I
初旬に母国・英国にて永眠された。彼
continually!wonder how could heは本誌・「学習の学習」における「マジェンタの冒険」シリーズのみならず、 draw!that kind of cynical banter!rightout of my mouth. But!my best memory
部会発行の論文集 「Autonomy You Ask!
of Steve is when!he and Hugh Nicoll(2003) 及び[More Autonomy You Ask!」(2006)にフィクションと教育理論を融合 got their!return flight!time after a JALTconference in Tokyo back to Kyushu off
させた独創的な論文を発表した。このby a couple hours,!so they had to rushfrom the venue!in order to!catch theirflight. When!Hugh realized the time
glitch and told Steve the situation,
Steve!playfully laughed, packed up hisgear, smiled,!waved,!and ran for thedoor as!he!said goodbye to me like alittle kid with his bags and luggage
waving about. It's a memory that reallysticks with me because he drew one of
the biggest smiles from me instead of a
joke!!Well Steve, I want to tell you ajoke now, but instead my heart!issending you!a lot of!smiles, love,!andlight your way.!May you rest in peace,buddy.

STARGAZING STEVE

Please join us in remembering Steve...
追悼：スティーブ・デイヴィスを偲んで...
[from Andy Barfield]
I didn't really know Steve D. until theAutonomy You Ask! (AYA) project, andthen we didn’t meet for a while because
he didn’t make it to the Writers’
Retreat in Osaka. Steve had, though,sent in a draft of his chapter, and people
at the Retreat wrote feedback to hisdraft, which was then faxed to him afew days later. Steve also joined us inwriting the Preface to AYA and in
helping to fashion an ironic and playful
tone to the opening of the book (toningthings up… and quite definitely
sideways, too, I hasten to add).
I have a very happy memory of Stevestanding in front of a wall-size poster inan LD forum, a few years ago, theposter an extremely large version of
one of the drawings from his AYA
chapter. Slightly shy, a little lost, looking
almost like he would prefer to be
painting, Steve just stood there with anironic smile and those deep, sometimes
sad, shining-with-warmth eyes, as if
saying 'Come on guys things are awhole lot more wacky than that!'!Steve had a great sense of mischief
there and interest in authoring theworld in!different quite idiosyncraticallycreative ways.
He delighted in noticing the quirkinessof life around him, as in this short PS
from an email message he sent lastNovember from England:“PS Very cold this morning. Below
freezing. Ice on puddles. Frost. So why
was that geezer de-icing his car in a teeshirt?”
He also wrote about joining a writers’group in Cheltenham:!“We sit scribbling in the back room ofa pub called the Beehive where they
have these hideous low wattage bulbs. It

has a real Dickensian feel, not that it
seems to help the quality of the writing
much. At least the ale is up to the mark,but at £3.00 a pint it ought to be.”I smile and almost chuckle each time I
read those vignettes. At least the beerwasn’t Dickensian, either, and neither
was Steve. Creative to a fault, sad eyes,
warm smile, dry humour, laconic senseof the absurd. Steve.!

AT LD/CUE/TC DINNER, 2008

[from Amanda Bradley]
I worked with Steve from 2000-2007
when I left our common workplace. On
my arrival I had met with an unforseen
cultural challenge for which all my skills
were useless. Steve would offer me
blackcurrant tea and comforting chat.
He talked about things and ways backhome, London Uni, and joked about thetwo great social menaces of our nation(in the past that is!)...Oxon and Cantab.
When I left, Steve alone bade me
farewell and insisted on helping me
move, carrying my most treasured
books to a new office and a new life ina place of greater beauty and peace
where I will finish my career. Stevemused on the empty office and how it
would take on a life. It has now. The
books we carried and arranged are thereflection of myself and all that is dear

to me. And until now only Steve wasparty to this.
Steve was the mercurial emissary for
my journey as a teacher. He will always
be special to me.!

[from Ellen Head]
I got to know Steve through working on
the AYA and MAYA anthologies. I
remember him being surrounded by agroup laughing at the illustrations of theweird creatures in his article – theClarissa, Naals and Metakins. Thecreatures had fairly obvious symbolic
relationships with stereotypical actors
in the story of language learning inJapan, which made me uneasy eventhough I couldn’t suppress a laugh: “TheNaal had always been a home-loving
species, fond of complicated mindgames and rarely going anywhere…
They took delight in composing
elaborate written texts before slippingback into biostasis.” (Davies 2003, p.
234) The story becomes a framework
for looking back at material related toSteve’s own teaching, but at the sametime setting the story in a future sci-fi
world allows him to question the verybasis of classroom teaching: “TheMetakin have no need for education
since…they have learned how tosurgically enhance their own brains.” (p.
234). If this paper was a disturbing butamusing read, the next one was evenmore so. For MAYA Steve wrote amedieval murder mystery, and I waslucky enough to be paired with him as“reader-responder”. I enjoyed themelodrama of the medieval setting, usedhere to highlight the paradox that when
we monitor someone else’s work, wemay be infringing on their creative
freedom. Of course this is what
teachers do every day by asking
students to show us their writing, butPlease join us in remembering Steve...
追悼：スティーブ・デイヴィスを偲んで...
we hope that in the context of atrusting pedagogic relationship, suchmonitoring is not a violation. Not soamong the power-hungry monks ofthis story, who make life a misery for
their subordinates and stick at nothing
to take the credit for their work. The
rebellious scholar in this story refuses
to work at the pace and within theparameters demanded. Asked to selfevaluate, he writes “I am a multiple ofselves and all of them is me.” (Davies2006, p. 209). This poses the question“Can you honestly say you are neverin the role of the pressurizing,
hypocritical overseer?” I have known
Steve mainly through his writing sothat is what I have concentrated on
here. During the time when he wrote
the Magenta M detective serial for LL, I
would often be caught laughing wildly
in my office late at night as a new draft
arrived. Thank goodness we have
Steve’s writing. If you haven’t readthem yet, check out the Magenta M
stories and the AYA and MAYA pieces.
His blending of fiction and linguistic
theory was unique and brought not
only humour, but underneath it astrongly critical!voice to our group. Iwish I could have got to know him
better. I also wish we had his criticaland witty voice still with us reacting tothe things that are going on now.

and investigates these teachingproblems on various distant planets.
For instance, she goes to this planet
where the women learn to read
English, but the men just want to stickto their old alien hunting practices.""Erm...""I was thinking of another episodewhere the heroine - I'm thinking ofcalling her Magenta - has to interact
with robotic pets who are more
intelligent than humans. That would be
more a critique of research methods
in academia. Then there's another on
motivation: what does this mean whenbeings from other planets havecompletely different value systems?""That sounds ... interesting.""Science fiction is a great way to think
about critical issues like inter-galacticcommunication and the ethics ofimposing our language and culture on
another planet. I've got some otherideas too: how about learnerautonomy and missionaries in theSouth Pacific? Or a language learningand mind-reading? Or the Wild West,or ....."
Steve was a true inspiration: creative,
funny, wacky, thoughtful, irrepressible,original. I'm grateful to have had thechance to know him a little.

[from Alison Stewart]
I first met Steve at the LD/CUE SIG
party in the Pink Cow in 2007. "I've
got some ideas for a series of articles
in Learning Learning", he said.

Steve’s Contribution
to LD Publications
Anthologies

Davies, S. (2003). Learner portfolios:
Who is at the controls? In A. Barfield& M. Nix (Eds.), Autonomy You Ask!:"Well, it's a fictional treatment oflanguage teaching issues. It's set in the Learner and Teacher Autonomy in Japan
1. Tokyo: Japan Association for
future in an inter-galactic language
Language Teaching Learner
teaching center. The main character isa kind of troubleshooter who goes out Development Special Interest Group.
"That's great! Tell me more."

Davies, S. (2006). Sebastian’s journal: Ashort story about the darker side oflearner autonomy. In E. Skier & M.
Koyama (Eds.), More Autonomy You
Ask!: Learner and Teacher Autonomy inJapan 2. Tokyo: Japan Association for
Language Teaching Learner
Development Special Interest Group.

The Adventure of Magenta M
SeriesEpisode #1, The Adventure of Magenta
M. Learning Learning, 2008,Vol. 15 (1),32 - 37.
http://ld-sig.org/LL/15-1toc.html

Episode #2, The Strange case of Lady
Camilla Blemley, Learning Learning,2008,Vol. 15 (2), 27 - 34.
http://ld-sig.org/LL/15-2toc.html

Episode #3, Dinner for two, Learning
Learning, 2009,Vol. 16 (1), 35 - 37.
http://ld-sig.org/LL/16-1toc.html

Episode #4, Mandroids, fembots, and thepower of learner literacy, Learning
Learning, 2008,Vol. 16 (2), 40 - 47.
http://ld-sig.org/LL/16-2toc.html