From ‘Captivated by Learning’ Unpublished PhD Thesis (LancasterUniversity) Dr.L.Morgan 2001

INTERLUDE FOUR

Mirrors and Prisms: the kaleidoscope of reflection

When Snow-white’s wicked step-mother looked into the mirror, for a time it reflected only what she wanted to see. As Moon (2000:82) states, ‘reflection that focuses on self-awareness only, for example, is unlikely to bring about substantial change and personal growth.'’ Reflection on practice per se is not in-itself guaranteed to bring about change in that practice. Being aware of something does not automatically lead to its change. Practitioners may have been encouraged to reflect on their practice, but if they do not understand how that reflection can be transformed into learning, and the development of practice, the reflection itself will not have changed anything.

Reflection is often spoken of as if the mere act of doing it, whatever ‘it’ may be, is a developmental strategy in itself. Having a mirror behind your head, just shows you the back of your head. Reflection as a mirror is a way of seeing, reflection for transformation is a way of analysing, and this makes it more like a prism than a mirror. Knowing something is not the same thing as looking at it, and what is known is not the same as what is illuminated. ‘Good illumination helps us to see cheese rinds, but we could not say ‘the light was too bad for me to know the cheese rind.’ (Ryle, 1949/2000:155). Mere illumination is not enough, knowing what we do, and looking at it, whether actually or as contemplation, which we might call ‘reflection’, is not a learning act of itself.

In order to be useful to us, we have to fracture the mirror of reflection and use prisms as the lenses with which to view the kaleidoscopic images of practice. Moreover, we have to be able to articulate and debate what we see, if we want to change. Ryle (1949) likens reflection to the term ‘consciousness’ as self-luminosity, a model he states, particularly used by Locke when he described the ‘observational scrutiny which a mind can from time to time turn upon its current states and processes.’ (2000:153) Locke called this ‘supposed inner perception ‘reflection’ borrowing the word ‘reflection’ from the familiar optical phenomenon of the reflections of faces in mirrors. The mind can ‘see’ or ‘look at’ its own operations in the ‘light’ given off by themselves.’ Ryle suggests that the ‘consciousness myth’ described in this way is a ‘piece of para-optics’ (ibid).

Atkinson (2000:71) argues that the act of reflection in isolation, ‘does not ensure any learning since it carries with it neither support or challenge.’ Eraut (2000:260) in his critique of his paper, agrees with Atkinson (ibid) and suggests that ‘the outcome of the attempt to use reflection to reconstruct practice as a learning experience is likely to achieve personal knowledge about practice rather than ready-to-use practical know-how.’ Atkinson himself indicates that ‘reflection on practice may lead to better understanding but not necessarily to better practice.’ Reflective practice is used sometimes as a phrase that implies development, this may only be superficially true. Deconstructed and employed appropriately reflection, could certainly be in the tool box of ‘intuitive practitioners’ (Atkinson, Eraut 2000). To be effective Harvey and Knight (1996) indicate, ‘reflection has to be extensive, to involve examining lurking assumptions about what we do and why we do it’ (in Moon 2000:82).

In my research, LEA officers responsible for professional development of teachers identified the potential impact of reflection within the practice community learning context, but they did not begin to deconstruct the term.

“There is absolutely no question that engagement over a longer period of time on a piece of study, particularly when it relates to work in school or school improvement or approaches to teaching, provision for children with SEN or whatever, there’s no doubt that there’s a much greater impact on performance of teachers and therefore on the performance and achievement of pupils, if it goes on over a longer period of time. And the main reason for that in my view is that there is opportunity for reflection. You actually do it, come away, think about it, talk about it with others, go back and do it again.” (Respondent 4)

The use of the term reflective practice in this context demonstrates something more than the accruing of experiences of practice, particularly since in this reference the respondent identifies a sequence of events which includes ‘do it, think about it, and talk about it with others.’

Ryle (ibid:42) suggests that ‘it is of the essence of merely habitual practices that one performance is the replica of its predecessors. It is the essence of intelligent practices that one performance is modified by its predecessors. The agent is still learning’ (my emphasis). In his book ‘Concept of Mind’ (1949), Ryle philosophised that one of the difficulties with the useful analysis of consciousness, introspection and retrospection, is the sense in which we might wish to use this understanding to predict our own next moves, although we might carefully anticipate what we shall do next, the outcome is diversely affected by the act of such thinking. ‘One thing I cannot prepare myself for is the next thought I am going to think.’ (Ryle,2000:188) Praxis may be characterised as more or less continuous activity, both of thinking and doing, and this is why strategic reflection which could lead to better prediction skills in term of the actualities of practice, may be one of the most important aspecst of self knowledge that practitioners can acquire.

As has been demonstrated, integration of practice communities is not without its logistical dilemmas or professional predicaments, and the personal ‘poison chalice’ of reflective practice can be one of them. The private performance craft that is teaching can be a cocoon of self-sufficiency, and this was referred to by a number of headteachers, exampled by: ‘there are some teachers who perhaps feel they’ve made it…this is their job and this is where they are.’ (Respondent 2). A few years of basic professional experience may produce a comfort zone of embodied and embedded and encultured knowledge that is functionally effective, and practitioners may decide to ‘go with the flow.’ However, Hart (1995:214) suggests that to ‘emancipate’ themselves, teachers need to acquire the additional skills and resources of critical social science. With these skills she argues, ‘educators will be able to achieve the necessary critical stance towards practice.’ I would propose that they need to do this in order to publicly justify and account successfully for those practices that are essentially tacit in nature. Not all teachers would agree with this extension of personal understanding:

‘teachers have no time to wring their hands, reflect on complex theories of learning or of motivation, and make sophisticated choices between alternative courses of action. They have to act quickly, spontaneously and more or less automatically, immediacy is the essential characteristic of the situation, and any implicit theory the teacher may use must be such that it can swiftly produce the appropriate course of action.’ (Brown & McIntyre, 1993:53)

Actually this degree of professional skill, is way beyond the comfort zone of basic practice, and it is not as this reference implies, the norm for teaching professionals, not even for the ‘super skilled’ ones. A final suggestion from Ryle on this point:

‘It is only while I am actually trying to predict my own next move that the task feels like that of a swimmer trying to overtake the waves that he sends ahead of himself.’ (1949/2000:188)

To achieve a level of spontaneous but considered action, a practitioner would need to have engaged critically with a level of reflection on personal practice to the extent perhaps that actions and judgements appear to become ‘semi-automatic’. This might be called the achievement of ‘mastery’. Tacit understandings have been explored without fear of their complexity, and this I propose is the melding of metacognition with reflective practice.

Claxton (2000) develops this idea in his description of ‘intuitive practitioners’. In the critique of Claxton and Atkinson’s book, ‘The Intuitive Practitioner’, Eraut (2000:264) indicates that ‘processes integral to good teaching – flexibility, creativity, sensing children’s understandings and dispositions, developing motivation to learn, even judging children’s potential – have a strong intuitive dimension.’ To remove this dimension, he suggests is to ‘turn classrooms into cognitive and interpersonal deserts.’ Developing and recognising the intuitive side of practice, becoming a professional of integrity requires I believe an epistemology of reflective practice, not merely the use of the blanket term.

“Life can only be understood backwards, but it has to be lived forwards.”[1]

Change and practitioner research:

‘Change’, writes Fullan (1982, in Craft 1996:149) ‘is a process not an event.. educational change is technically simple and socially complex….educational change depends on what teachers do and think’ (Fullan, 1991). So although not all educational practitioners will seek the highest challenges of professionalism, some in the community may want to, and should to be encouraged to do so, in order to maintain the professional status and credibility of the whole community. This action is likely to engender new knowledge, develop new professional practices and challenge those initiatives that may be directed at practice communities from external sources, under the guise of ‘good practice’ perhaps.

Alexander (1992, in Woods, 1996:67) offers five considerations of good practice:

  1. EVALUATIVE – What practices do I most value and believe in?
  2. POLITICAL – Whichpractices do others most/least approve of?
  3. CONCEPTUAL – What is practice? What are its essential elements?
  4. PRAGMATIC – Which practices work best (or do not work) for me?
  5. EMPIRICAL – Which practices can be shown to be most effective in promoting learning?

However you might define ‘good practice’ and that is a study in itself, these five considerations would be adequately addressed by any good classroom based research project. Particularly one:

  • that came after a long period of focus on a specific theme, with an expert practitioner directing studies in related theoretical understanding.
  • that arose from supportive group discussions with other practitioners in the field, and
  • that was based on classroom observation, interviews with colleagues and reflection on personal practice.

It would be perfectly possible for any practitioner to undertake this sort of work, a motivator to do it might come from being part of a degree cohort, being expected to read and write for the assessed components of a degree level module, and this is the validation for doing such work. How you engage with such a process is more to do with the type of practitioner you havebecome or are becoming and the level of encouragement you receive from colleagues, mentors and the wider community.

When external initiatives are directed at communities of practice, particularly professional communities, it is important that practitioners are in a position to evaluate their implementation from a well supported epistemological position. In this research, a tutors who was also a principal education officer stated:

“I am a believer that you have to keep moving the profession forward, and those who do that are those who think and reflect on their practice, well that’s a learning process in its own right. This will allow practitioners to slowly develop a new set of knowledge, not one that will produce a new orthodoxy…but one which will constantly improve practice….With people continually trying new things and seeing if they work, this particular initiative (the Enterprise) is right in the mainstream of that sort of approach. Education has to do that hasn’t it…its got to challenge” (Respondent 6)

“….once you accept that people leave this experience changed, and the way they are different is that they are better at reflecting on practice, looking at its impact, building that into the improvement cycle that to me is a fundamentally good thing. I believe that what we are doing with this programme is and will have a fundamental effect on the professionalism of teachers and others in related work…we are starting to see the effect in officers who are involved in supervising or studying on the programme.” (Respondent 6)

In discussing the Educational Reform Act of 1981, Claxton (1990:1) worried that ‘the most damaging consequence [..] would be if it were to persuade teachers and others involved in the education business, that it was not worth continuing to think for themselves about education. Poor legislation can be changed, although it is a slow process. But it will only be changed if enough people have good ideas about how to improve it, and some sense of their ability to have an effect. If they feel powerless and clueless, prospects for change are diminished.’ These suggestions are even more pertinent in the current climate of continual reforms and initiatives and were at least part of the reason that the ‘enterprise’ was conceived.

Taking this a little further, Said (1994:90) proposes that intellectuals ‘can choose between actively representing the truth to the best of your ability and passively allowing a patron or an authority to direct you.’ It is he suggests even more difficult to find a way to be consistent with your beliefs and at the same time remain free enough to grow, change your mind, discover new things, or rediscover what you had once put aside.’ Practitioners need to be allowed time to undertake this level of intellectual professionalism.

Eraut (in Atkinson & Claxton, 2000:265) believes that there is a distinction to be made ‘between central prescription and professional accountability’, his research indicates that the current central specification was triggered by the professions’ reluctance to take their accountability to their clients sufficiently seriously.’ Teachers’ claims for autonomy he argues ‘were not based on arguments about any quasi-scientific knowledge base – they neither possessed one nor expressed any interest in developing one – but on their acquisition through experience of the process skills of teaching and their unique knowledge of their school context and of individual pupils.’

I believe that through focused and highly integrated professional development, teachers and other educational practitioners can blend their holistic image of what good teaching should look like and feel like, with a systematic, researched based examination of practice. They can be taught to deconstruct their tacit and experiential knowledge of practice, the ‘knowing’ that has given them the metacognitive pace to act spontaneously and rapidly in conditions where sophisticated choices have to be aligned immediately with an understanding of learning and motivation (Brown and McIntyre, 1993:53). They can become more emancipated from the ‘epistemic, institutional, or environmental forces that limit options or rational control over our lives’ (Mezirow, 1991:87 referencing Habermas on emancipation) and pursue a level of professional integrity.

Kolb (1984:224-225) writing of experiential learning and its position within the epistemology of the development of professionals suggests that ‘the pinnacle of development is integrity.’ Integrity in this context is not he suggests ‘a set of character traits such as honesty, consistency or morality’ which are ‘probable behavioural derivations of the integrated judgements that flow from integrated learning.’ Integrity he confirms, is ‘a desire to reach out, understand, become and grow, a pervasive motivation for mastery.’ In the context of this study, I would suggest that there are two levels on which this achievement might be premised:

  1. The LEA as a community of professionals endeavouring to reach out and grow their community knowledge base, seeking to crystallise its tacit components with professional development that is integrated with higher educational practice;

and

  1. Individual practitioners seeking to move beyond professional competence and functional effectiveness to a condition of being emancipated practitioners becoming more ‘coherent and less dependent upon the prejudices and dogma that permeates unreflective educational thinking.’ (Carr & Kemmis, 1986:124)

Becoming an integrated professional, one actively engaged in critical and strategic reflective practice is not a comfortable position, but like all development and all change, once it is part of a personal repertoire it is impossible to shake off, once you have become a ‘reflective practitioner’ you cannot ‘undo’ the process, or turn the mirror to the wall, when what you see is not what you would like to see. This fact was addressed by many practitioners during the research and exampled here:

Interviewer to headteacher: “unfortunately thinking of all angles of a problem is the legacy of an understanding of reflective practice…I teach modules on reflective practice and experiential learning theory and my students often say ‘I wish I had never heard of reflective practice cause once you’ve got it, its with you and you go into every situation being aware of it.’ Sometimes I wish I could ignore it – get a rest.”

Science adviser: “tutoring has been good for me…its challenged some of my pragmatism….so I think I have become a reflective practitioner as well…I didn’t really believe in that before…that’s your session input!…I’ve had to get to grips with some of the models and theories of teaching and learning that I haven’t had to look at in such detail before.” (Respondent 39)

Reflective practice however complex an issue that is, is a route to the ‘transformative learning’ that Mezirow (1991) might suggest produces Habermas’s ‘emancipated learner’, contributes to the ‘integrated professional’ of Kolb (1984), and to the ‘intuitive practitioner of Claxton and Atkinson (2000). To be effective, reflection on practice cannot only be a personal act, otherwise it will turn in on itself as introspection. Continual introspection I would argue is self-destructive, not a positive or emancipatory act. However, the reflective practice that is generated by collegiate discussion and theoretical debate related to issues of practice; where there is articulation of pragmatic and philosophical ideas about education, is more likely to be a productive, or transformative condition for learning. This would be particularly true in the context of long periods of study with a particular group such is achieved in post-experience degree modules. The dynamics of supportive group activities during focused and concentrated periods of academic study with the same people, produces the performer colleagues that the private performance of teaching lacks as a professional stimulus. The articulation of personal learning in such groups I believe transforms the learning experience and engenders effective reflective practice.