There have been two previous times in my life that I have kept a journal. One was as a child when we went on our summer holidays to Portugal I would keep a record of what I had done every day, which pretty much consisted of; woke up, ate breakfast, played with toys, went for a swim, ate lunch, watched TV, ate dinner, went to bed. My life was very exciting!!
I actually found that journal not that long ago and my sisters and I had a good laugh over reading it, the only things I really went in to detail about was the variety of food and whether I liked it or not!
The second time (which I was hesitant to talk about on here) was last year when my mum was involved in a car accident and was killed. I started to record experiences I had had with her. I felt they needed to be out down on paper as I didn’t want to forget anything. I didn’t want to reflect on them right then but I knew they would be there in black and white for me to look at in the future.
I also used it as a form of therapy. I found it easier to express how I felt by writing it down than by saying it out loud. I could be honest and open and not hide anything. I used it as a way of understanding my thoughts, feelings and emotions. As Jenifer A Moon suggests a journal can be used “To provide an alternative `voice’ for those not good at expressing themselves” (Moon 1999a, pp. 188–194)
I love how Miranda Tufnell and Chris Crickmay describe the importance of being engaged with reflection “In the rush and pressure of our everyday lives we easily become numbed, cut off from our bodies” (Tufnell and Crickmay, 2004)
Life happens so quickly and we are always looking forward to the next thing that sometimes we forget to take the time to look back. Whatever form your reflection takes, be it talking, drawing, writing, or thinking, it is important for us all to take the time to do this. We need to know where we have come from in order to know where we want to go next. I believe reflection is an important tool not only in studying but in life.
Reflection is going to play a big part for me in this course and with what I want to do next. Over the last few years I have enjoyed performing and teaching dance but am unsure what direction I want to go in the future. Reflecting on what I have done, what makes me happy, what makes me passionate and enthusiastic and what I don’t enjoy so much will really help me move forward and find my next step.
This was a really personal approach to reflection, which I think really brings to fore one of the most important aspects of critical reflection (whether it professional or personal), and that is, what does the reflective processes mean for your practice?
ReplyDeleteThe idea of reflecting simply for the purpose of reflecting is kind of counter-intuitive. It took me ages before I came to the position of actually thinking that reflection was beneficial to my own practice. I used to blunder head long into every situation, thinking I could survive on bravado, bluster and talent (!). It took me doing the same thing for a number of years (teaching) before I realised that in many ways I was half-hearted about my practice.
My favourite writer on reflection is a dude called Steven Brookfield. He wrote a paper a few years back which identified a heap of research about how we as adults reflect, but very little about how adults 'feel their way through critically reflective episodes - to understanding the visceral, emotive dimensions of this process'. For me, this means that reflection is not a distant process, it is a personal, emotional, distressing, confronting and sometimes visceral process. Yes, at some point, the step back that allows you to reflect through an dispassionate lens is also a critical aspect of the reflective process. But the personal honesty that evolves from questioning, inquiry and evaluation will only seek to benefit the process rather than hinder it.
See if you can this article through the uni database
Brookfield, Stephen(1994) 'Tales from the dark side: a phenomenography of adult critical reflection',
International Journal of Lifelong Education, 13: 3, 203 — 216