Reflective Cycles
I have been walking in circles all semester. Or should I say cycles? Reflective cycles. Following Rolf’s reflective cycle route to be precise; the first lap with myself, battling every step, which was exhausting, conflictive and lacked clarity (Rolf et al. 2001). The second lap, where I gained confidence in my own metacognitive skills and I was able to come back to the so-called starting point with greater self-awareness. The third lap, where I was able to ask the students if they wanted to run the next lap with me and they came, they ran, they knew that I was running with them. Alas, for the rest of the semester, we ran together side by side.
Rolf's Reflective Cycles
Lap One: What? My Journey
On walking into the far-too-big lecture hall to meet this small group in week one, I carried a metaphorical rucksack full of debilitating assumptions, competency gaps which I could not even name and little time, space or emotional energy to engage in a metacognitive process. Even the term ‘thinking about how [I] think about [my] teaching’ would have been enough to send me over the edge Thirteen weeks ago. (Tanner 2012) I was too busy planning to deliver content for a course I had never taught before on a degree that I had only ever taught once before. I knew the overriding feeling was panic and I know myself well enough to know that the underlying emotion to that jittery panic that I feel in the pit of my stomach is fear.
So what? Hitting the Wall
I looked critically at where my cognitive gaps were in terms of module content; I tried to identify where exactly I was getting stuck and ask myself whether it was in the amount of reading that I expected ME to do or whether it was in the fact that I felt intimated by the expectation of the lecturer whom I was covering for. Was my sticking point the fact that I was spending hours preparing a module that I did not know if I would ever get the opportunity to deliver again? Was it the fear of losing my job and with that my identity and the chance to provide for my daughter? I tried to name the sticking points and decide whether they were emotional or academic gaps (Illeris 2003).
By breaking them down into different areas, I felt I could address them separately and with more order. As always I went straight to the emotions. It is the realm where I am strongest and yet weakest, because it is where I realise I have most work to do. I asked myself what the fear was really about. I realised that my fear was not about not having enough theory in my head because I knew that I could pick that up. My fear was around not being able to move fluidly between the theory and the practice in the classroom. I ‘get’ Community Development and Social movement practice; I have lived it and can look at practice from almost any perspective that the student could take, but ask me to undo the theory with relation to practice on the spot and I struggle, and my neck goes red and blotchy and I can’t think straight.
I began to break down which part of that process makes me feel uncomfortable and I came to the spiky realisation that what I struggle with is that all-illusive critical thinking. I realised that critical thinking does not come naturally to me but, alas, if I read political theory from a number of different perspectives and give myself time to digest it, I can start to think critically about it. I realised that I needed to give my new learning space to see how it fits with practice and time for it to connect with my prior knowledge and experience. I realised that if I just let it be and be open to what does not sit right with me, then I can think and feel my way critically around a concept. Practically, I came to the conclusion that what was required of me was time to have my lecture ideas prepared with a week’s grace for my head and my heart to catch up with what I had written and then be able to go back to it and peel back another, deeper layer of thinking.