``Reflection"

     

I had never encountered the terminology 'reflective practice' before embarking upon the BAPP Arts course, so it was necessary for me to gain a thorough understanding of the meaning behind the words in order to be able to apply them.

John Dewey says that there are:

      certain subprocesses which are in every reflective operation. These are: (a) a state of perplexity, hesitation, doubt; and (b) an act of search or investigation directed toward bringing to light further facts which serve to corroborate or to nullify the suggested belief.(Dewey,1933)

I was particularly interested to read that he mentions hesitation and doubt as being inherent to the reflective thought process, as these were feelings I encountered most strongly when first asked to do some reflective writing about my own professional practice. 

Initially I went into blind panic, not knowing what was expected and worrying how my thoughts and feelings on the subject would be perceived by the reader. Despite having researched the subject of reflection, I seemed unable to put pen to paper.

I was reminded of Ted Hughes poem 'The Thought Fox' in which he likens the blank page upon which he struggled to write to a blanket of snow and the words upon the page to the footprints the metaphorical fox makes in the snow.

I was therefore very interested to read Twyla Tharpe's chapter on The White Room in 'The Creative Habit' in which she compares the dance studio to a blank piece of paper or a blank canvas on which to create.

I found her theory that we can practice creativity very interesting . She states that:

      Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is a result of good work habits. 

I personally really struggle with creating a dance to order, so as an experiment, I tried this week,when designing choreography,to put a repetitive structure in place as Tharp suggests.

My strategy was as follows:

1. Listen to the music
2. Think about the ideas it suggests
3. Jot down the ideas
4. Set up the video camera on a wide angle on a tripod
5. Improvise some movements and record them
6. Watch the video and see which movements to keep and which to discard

I did this for two hours at the same time every day to see whether the theory worked for me - unfortunately it didn't. Some days I managed to produce some choreography that I could use and on other days I didn't manage to produce anything at all.

It was an interesting exercise, but I deduced from it that what works for one person doesn't always work for another. I could therefore easily identify with Gardner's concept of 'multiple intelligences'  -the notion that we are intelligent in different ways and therefore think and respond differently to given situations.


Boud and Walker state that:

      Reflective activities may lead students to focus on personal distress, oppressive features of the learning environment, the programme of study, resources provided, assessment practices and so on. There is no way that these can be barred, and facilitators of reflection need to be aware that any activity can tap into such issues. (Boud et al, 1998)

Reading Boud's words made me realise that I was not alone in my feelings of anxiety and apprehension with regard to writing about reflective practice. 


I realised, after a while, that, to paraphrase Helyer, I was allowing the potential fear of my work being assessed by others to get in the way of my enjoyment of the learning process.


This made me reflect upon my own drama pupils. I have observed how some children struggle with improvisation. In some cases they clam up and don't speak at all. In other cases they employ a defence mechanism and attempt to turn the piece into something comic by exaggerating and playing the clown, because they think this will curry favour with the rest of the class. In fact they are frightened of what their friends will think of them and are worried by the criticism they may attract. 

I always make a point of telling my pupils that, improvisation can't ever be wrong, because it is their own interpretation of the subject and that, sometimes it will work well and at other times it may not be so successful, but that it doesn't matter because they are learning all the time by watching each other's work. I tell them they are not being judged, they are merely sharing ideas.

With some pupils this concept helps, but, if they are particularly inhibited, it doesn't and they still worry about what others will think of them.


I have overcome this, in the past, by initially giving lots of guidance and suggestions to these particular pupils as to what to say and what to do in the improvisation. I have found that this gives them the confidence to perform better, because they are doing what the teacher has told them and therefore think they will get a positive reaction from their audience. Because their performances is stronger, it does result in more positive feedback. I have found that they tend to approach the task next time with more enthusiasm. 

I was interested to read about what Boud and Walker refer to as the:

      tension between guidance which leads to the problems of recipe-following  and a lack of structure which can lead to a loss of focus.


This made me question whether, in giving guidance to my drama students in the above way, I was in danger of 'recipe' giving. I think that, on reflection, I must be striking the right balance, because I am getting positive results from my pupils.


In thinking further about this subject, I realised that it is often the fear of the unknown which can prevent us from fully engaging with subject matter and that, like my own pupils, I was using my preconceived notion of what my audience might think of my reflective writing as a barrier to creativity.


Boud states that:

      reflection is not solely a cognitive process: emotions are central to all learning. 


I had discovered something about myself just by acknowledging my feelings and that was: that I was afraid of the judgement of others. I resolved to try to see this discovery as something positive, not negative, because, once identified, I could begin to address the problem and try to do something about it.


I determined to view the process as a voyage of self -discovery, during which I would also explore a whole new area of learning.


I was, unwittingly, already engaging with the reflective thought process and, in relating to the past experience of my pupils and recognising similar feelings in myself, I was, in Moon's words:


      learning from the meaningful representation of learning


I decided to look at some of the ideas my fellow students on BAPP Arts had shared about their reflective practice in their blogs.

This made me more positive about beginning my 'reflective writing' task, however I sat poised at the computer screen thinking, but still unable to write for hours. I didn't know how to begin as:


      knowing what to reflect upon out of the whole of one’s professional experience is not a clear process. The more it is focused upon, the more the truly important issues become elusive

I often write material for my pupils to perform. It ranges from short monologues for use in drama lessons to plays and musicals. I have also written a novel which I hope to publish. Whenever I experience writer's block, I write a working title on the pages and then write down any ideas associated with it; I then begin writing anything about each one to see where the ideas take me.

I didn't realise that this was a technique which is used in reflective journal writing known as 'concept mapping', until I read Moon's 'A Handbook for Reflective Writing'.

I thought back to Tharp's notion of the 'creative habit' and realised that, in using 'concept mapping' I was actually employing the concept of using a repetitive pattern to help creativity in my writing. It was interesting to note that I had developed this strategy without realising it and that this strategy worked for me in terms of being able to produce creative writing, but hadn't worked for me when creating dance.

I wondered if one possible reason for this might be because I use my mind in different ways when I dance. I perhaps switch from a more 'verbal-linguistic' state of mind that I adopt for writing into a more 'bodily kinaesthetic' state of mind that I use for dance and maybe what works for one state of mind doesn't work for another. I realised that, in my work as a dance examiner, I adopt a more logical-mathematical approach. This is in line with Gardner's multiple intellligences that I mentioned above.

I have always found, in my teaching experience, that it is necessary to find different ways of teaching a particular dance movement, because what works for one pupil doesn't necessarily work for another. Reflecting about multiple intelligences has made me realise why this is so and made me even more determined to continue to explore different teaching techniques.

I decided to do a concept map for my 'reflective writing' task and, having done so, I was finally able to make sense of the ideas I wished to discuss.

Initially I wrote the critical reflection article from a personal perspective, but then, looking back again at the BAPP Arts Handbook, I realised that it had to be written as an academic piece of writing so I restructured it. Writing it first from a personal perspective made me focus on the concepts which I considered most pertinent to me in my professional practice. Writing it again from a more academic viewpoint made me look at the wider picture of "reflective practice".

I have just published my "critical reflection on reflective practice" to a separate page on my blog. My biggest dilemma in the end was not what to include, but what to leave out. There is such a wealth of information out there about 'reflective practice' that it is a bit mind-blowing. I found using 'Evernote' (which I was prompted to use after reading Kim Morrison's blog) to collate the material very helpful.