The Reflective Learner

We do not store experience as data, like a computer; we story it.

Richard Winter

You will be both researcher, and the subject of research. You will be reflecting on episodes (these might be seemingly minute) within your practice in order to:

·        Gainfully explore issues/incidents which have perplexed/exhilarated/puzzled/surprised/worried you

·        Draw out knowledge and skills embedded within your actions, which perhaps you didn't know you had.

·        Share that knowledge-in-action with other practitioners within the group; and benefit from theirs

·        Perceive ways of building on the understandings gained,

You will do this through reflection

·        1. in action

·        2. through explorative writing

·        3. through discussion of that writing

·        4. on action affected by 1, 2, and 3

·        5. on perception of theory as affected by 1-4

·        6. on appropriate theoretical/professional texts you've read, as affected by 1-5

·        7. on alternative texts (fiction, poetry, spiritual, radio philosophy, TV, advertising, etc.) in the light of 1.-6

·        8. on the new links formed between previously isolated themes/theories

·        9. in action, as affected by 1-8

This kind of research will probably not provide 'right answers', but it may throw up invaluable questions, startling links, fresh light on relationships, new angles on hitherto unquestioningly held views. The effect on future action, however, may not be straightforward. Expect to be surprised, or even unsettled for a time! Many, many researchers respond to this writing and reflection process by exclaiming 'I didn't know I knew that!'

Reflecting in this fashion, opens the researcher to confusion, and not-knowing, leading to vulnerability. This can either result in defensive attitudes as a coping strategy, or an open evaluation which will lead to change and development.

Issues arise sometimes through the writing, which would normally be felt to be too threatening to expose to the possible ridicule or censure of others. Yet instead of loss of face, there comes from the other members of the group a capping with similar experiences, a compassionate understanding, and offer of support in creating a strategy for future action built on experience.

 

About Writing

"Begin at the beginning," the King said gravely, "and go on till you come to the end; then stop."

Lewis Carroll[Ref11]

Words can be taken for granted so easily, as the tool we use every day. After all in the beginning was the Word. We use language every day, all the time. We were all taught to write when we were little, and learned more and more through our school and undergraduate days. And then stopped. Yet writing has as complex a form, process, and set of variations as any other cultural form, say music or algebra. There are many more different ways to write than there are writers, because each writer can tailor their writing style appropriately to the work in hand. And each piece of writing belongs to the writer, while it is being crafted.

This course will help you unpick your assumptions about writing: what it is, for whom, and why, how where and when it might be written. It is saying: take ownership of your writing, and only hand it over to your reader when you are ready. Above all: use it as a learning tool; enjoy it for its own sake.

Introduction To Writing

Trust the Authority of Your Writing Hand

Writing is a valuable mode of expressing, sharing, assessing and developing professional experience: it is the one of best ways of reflecting solo, and stimulating effective shared reflection with peers and colleagues (Bolton 1995, 1994, 1991; Greenwood 1995; Landgrebe & Winter 1994; Paterson 1995; Rowland 1993; Snadden et al 1996; Tripp 1993; Winter 1889, 1988, Smith et al 1996). Reflective, or fictional writing is also an excellent mode for personal exploration (Bolton 1995; Progoff 1975), and research (Clough, 1996; Rowland 1996; Winter, 1991). Moreover, as students we have to write in order to: express ourselves; store an aide memoire; present an argument; demonstrate knowledge; explicate experience; or create a piece of literature. As teachers and lecturers, we are also involved in the same processes. If we are not, then something is wrong. We can only properly support our students if we have first-hand knowledge and experience ourselves (Murray 1982).

Writing is a staged process, and the initial stages can too easily be left out, to the detriment of our skill and confidence. To be literate, and make full use of that literacy requires confidence in our abilities. Writing does not come easily to many because of our early didactic training. We have all spent many years learning proper ways to write: the essay with its sequenced argument; the sonnet form; the beckoning beginning, slick middle, and sting-in-the-tail end of fiction; the punchiness of the journalistic voice. Writing, for most professionals, is for reports: a burdensome and long winded, hated but essential, means of justifying our work to our authorities. All too often we strive to imitate successful writers, to please our teachers, editors, line managers: we have lost ownership of our writing, forgotten we have our own voices.

One of the aims of this course is to encourage you to trust yourself to go back to the very first stages of writing. It is out of its scope to go through any more of the writing stages after these two. But then they are the vital ones: taking you from that hitherto frustrating time of seeming to have an empty head with no writing in it at all, to writing a telling account. Never again (well, not quite so much) that 'Oh my God' fear of a clean sheet or empty screen.

The first two stages of writing will be discussed in detail, in this course. This is partly because they are the vital self-explorative, self-expressive stages required for reflective writing. And partly because they are the stages all too often skipped over. Suggestions will also be made as to how a reflective piece of writing can be developed.

Why Writing?

Suspend your disbelief

Anna Freud

Why Writing?

·        Writing and sharing this kind of writing is a way of communicating really effectively with yourself, as well as with colleagues when appropriate.

·        Discussions around pieces of writing tend to be well-focused, offering depth and significance.

·        Writing can have a developmental power distinct from that of talking or thinking.

·Explorative and expressive writing:

·        Is a process with effects all of its own. It is possible to write things you did not really think you knew, thought or remembered

·        Is private until wittingly shared: a communication with the self in the first instance. It can therefore be a vehicle for deeper and more explorative thinking-through than conversation, in which something which has been said and heard, can never be unsaid

·        Can be torn up or burnt unshared with anyone, even the writer themselves, if that is required

·        Leaves footsteps which aid progressive thought. It is there in the same form the next day / year / decade to be worked on. Talking and thinking shift like Chinese Whispers, and then vanish on the air.

·        Is a longer, slower, more focused process than thinking. This allows for greater depth and breadth.

·        can readily make use of images or tropes such as metaphor; metaphors can give indirect access to feelings, thoughts, knowledge, ideas, memories not accessible to non-image contact which would be risky because too shockingly full-frontally direct.

·        Can readily make use of the fictional mode, which is confidential, less exposed, dynamic, and can convey ambiguities, complexities and the ironic relationships which exist between multiple veiwpoints.

·        Is a creative process which tends to increase self-confidence and self-esteem.

How to Start

You can't write the wrong thing. Whatever you write will be right - for you.

The initial stage of writing need not be shared; in the first instance it can be a valuable communication with the self. But in order to allow this relationship with yourself to be meaningful, you have to tell yourself that the words which cover the page may not be useful in themselves (you may never need to read them / allow others to, or you may redraft and edit them out of recognition); but the act of committing them to paper is invaluable. Writing is a staged process: every written word does not have to be public and perfect.

This first stage of writing is invaluable for reflective writing. It is also, however, fundamentally the same whether you are writing a story, a report or an essay. Some lucky people create everything clear in their head before beginning to write, and then write their complete piece without having to alter a word; their first draft is also more or less their last. But most of us feel we have nothing, or just a jumble, in our heads initially. Further to this, when confronted with a blank sheet of paper, I think all sorts of things need to be done before I can begin to write (like looking up just one more reference, or watering the plants). Although it is possible I am not ready yet to begin on this dangerous journey, these are usually mere delaying tactics.

Try the method below before you get in a dither about what you are going to write. It involves dumping the bits and bobs that are cluttering your head onto your paper. Some of these will be useful for the project in hand, some might be only your shopping list (or a scurrilous moan about your head of department).

But if that list is safely on paper, you'll be able to move on and concentrate more single mindedly on whatever you should be writing:

Begin by allowing the pen/cil to cover the pages on its own:

·        I. choose a comfortable uninterrupted place and time, and writing material you like

·        II. make sure you have everything you need to hand - like coffe

·        III. write whatever is in your head, uncensored

·        IV. time yourself to write without stopping for about six minutes

·        V. don't think about what you are writing, it will probably be disconnected and might seem to be rubbish - but don't stop to think or be critical!

·        VI. allow it to flow with no reference to spelling, grammar, proper form.

·        VII. give yourself permission to say anything, whatever it is.

You don't even have to reread it. Whatever you write it can't be the wrong thing - because no-one will read your writing in this form.

Have a go at the How to start method - writing for six minutes without stopping - try and allow your writing to be purposeless. You may find a subject emerges you wish to pursue for longer. If so - follow the vein - whatever it is, and the same way of writing, for about twenty minutes.

Now you no longer have a blank sheet or screen in front of you. You may have written quite a lot by now, or only a little seeming rubbish. Don't worry: the six minutes writing sometimes turns up gold, sometimes dross. It is always useful, however, for beginning to scratch the surface. As you write in this next way, try and remind yourself this is the first draft only, so it doesn't matter what you say - because you can redraft it - no-one else need read it. What matters is capturing those ideas.