Posts Tagged ‘reflective practice’
Today’s journal will be unstructured; much as the models of reflection give you something to work with as a start, once you know what you need to get out of reflective practice, you can do nearly as much with an unstructured journal, and it often flows more easily that way. I’m going to talk about returning from time out, since it has brought with it a new set of challenges. Be warned, though, reflective writing tends to be long!
Thanks to donphin.com for the image
I originally went on time out for two reasons. Firstly, smallest one was getting to be a distraction. Cute, yes, vocal, very, and not exactly ideal for bringing along to tutorials. Since she was still being breastfed I didn’t feel happy arranging childcare. Secondly, loved one had recently lost his job. It was time to focus on the family for a while.
I had ambitious plans through my time out, though, mainly because I wanted to be done by Christmas 2011. If I made it to February 2012 before finishing, I would have been going for five years on the same course, and it’s fairly frowned upon, if not outright forbidden, to take more than five years to finish. Of course, being on time out meant I could add eight months to my finishing time, but that wasn’t the point. I wanted to get on with my life and actually be a fully fledged antenatal teacher. So I made plans to do as much of my written work as possible during my eight months out of circulation.
Being me, of course, that meant that two thirds of that work was done less than two weeks before my first tutorial. But, now, it’s done.
I am now trying to fit regular study time in around a cute but demanding baby who needs my attention the whole time, and screams non-stop if she doesn’t get it, and it is challenging to say the least. Not to mention the plan to get up early and study being scuppered by her waking up just as early. I do have Friday mornings to myself, but as often as not I tend to use that as ‘me’ time, such as hair cuts. With this screaming phase smallest one is going through, I just need to have some quiet time once in a while.
So there is still the issue of when exactly to get my study time in. Most of her nap time is taken up with the mountains of ironing that piled up while I finished my last two pieces of work. As I type I am surrounded by heaps of laundry that all needs ironing, and there’s more hanging on the line outside waiting to be done too.
Making time to study, it seems, is always a compromise. I can frankly say that being a stay at home mum to three children is a full-time job in itself, and even when I’m not studying it seems I’m taking regular shortcuts to save my sanity. (I really don’t know how working mums find the energy, and take my hat off to them.) So when I do study, the family life suffers.
Also, my preferred method of working is to just knuckle down for a few days to do nothing but read, write, think, breathe, dream the topic I am working on, but this of course just isn’t possible if I’m looking after small people. As a result, when I have a study deadline, everything suffers; I take short cuts with my work to get it over and done with as fast as possible, nobody gets fed properly, nobody gets to bed on time, and I don’t want to hear anyone’s problems till it’s all over. Not exactly a shining example of parenting. Or studying, for that matter.
Is there a solution? Well, I can think of one or two, but they tend to involve the goodwill of others. Loved one is under a lot of pressure at work, so I don’t particularly want to add to it by dumping the children on him while I go to the library on the weekend (though it might help me get a little respite, since screaming babies are not allowed in the university library). I could request help from the grandparents, but they are in their seventies and I feel bad dumping three children on them for a weekend. It’s a bit too big an ask, really. Also, until we move house it would be cheaper to pay for childcare with fuel costs the way they are. Which leads me to option three – paying for extra childcare -but right now we’re trying to tighten the purse strings in the anticipation of the house move, so it’s not really likely to help.
A solution is starting to form in my head, though, now that I’ve stewed on this a while. If I were to ‘book’ one weekend a month with loved one where I hibernate in the library for forty-eight hours and am around the other three weekends of the month, that might not be so terrible. It’s also a fairly realistic anticipation of how things will be once I qualify and teach regularly, so it would be good for him to get used to it now. More than one weekend a month would be too much, but I feel this is a reasonable request. He is their father, after all.
I think I’ll give it a try. Now all I have to do is catch loved one at a good time and tell him of my plan…
One of the things I’m supposed to do as part of my training is become more self-aware by learning to reflect back on various experiences. There are various models you can use to steer you in the right direction, such as Johns or Gibbs, though just writing down your thoughts is immensely beneficial. After each learning experience it is recommended that you have a reflective journal to (a) help the learning sink in more easily, (b) be in a better position to accept and deal with any issues that have arisen and (c) work out what you would do differently next time.
Sound boring? Well, it’s a bit of a hassle, but there are times when it’s extremely worthwhile. I use it less often than I intend to, but when I do it can have a major impact on my attitude to the subject.
One of the reasons I started this blog was to cover this base, yet because I’ve been on time out till two weeks ago, I haven’t really had the opportunity to use it in that way…until now. Teachers may find this more interesting than the rest of you, but from now till I complete I’m planning on using my Monday blog entries as my regular reflective journal.
I had a tutorial on Saturday, my first since September last year, and gave a presentation in the process, so I’m going to reflect on the presentation for now.
What happened?
I gave a presentation on relationships after becoming a family. It started with looking at a typical day in the life of a new dad and a new mum, where they had both had a rotten day (teachers among you will know the one!). It then looked at ways in which relationships can suffer and people sectioned off into groups to discuss possible solutions, as couples might in a class environment. Finally, we looked at how to get balance in a relationship.
What were you thinking and feeling?
I was surprised how nervous I felt. But then it has been over a year since I last taught a real class. I felt very thrown by the odd number in the group, because ideally I wanted the middle exercise to be in couples. In a real class situation I would (and have in the past) partner myself off with the odd person, but that did make me feel like I couldn’t keep an eye on the others. Also the person I was partnered off with was the least experienced there and took longer than the others did. I also found my voice wouldn’t behave itself. My normal voice kept trying to turn itself into a whisper, which loses points. Also, the situation felt very false. In a normal class I suspect I’d have been in my element, but here I felt like it wasn’t working so well. Having said that, I very much enjoyed teaching the last activity.
What was good and bad about the experience?
The good thing was, I enjoyed the first and last activity and will happily repeat them in a class setting. The middle activity was not so good, and- might be better left to a handout, or read out and discussed in a large group setting rather than going off into couples. My nerves meant that I was more concerned about saying the right thing than I was listening to the group; hopefully that would not be an issue in a real class. I would have liked a little more visual stuff, but the subject didn’t lend itself very well to pictures, and it would have been almost impossible to find anything kinaesthetic. Finally, my handout was ace, and I’ll be using that properly unless my tutor slates it in her marking.
What sense can you make of the situation?
I love this question! It always makes things sound twice as bad as they really are. Ultimately, unless I get such a bad mark that I have to re-do it, it’s another piece of work under my belt and a bit of practice for when I’m back teaching properly in a few weeks’ time. It affirmed my confidence in the first and last activities if not the middle one.
What else could you have done?
I could have found a way to incorporate more visual stuff into it, but I can’t work out how. I think if I hadn’t had to incorporate small group work into the presentation, I would have kept the middle activity as a large-group discussion, which would work just fine. I can certainly teach that way happily, even if I couldn’t do that originally.
If it arose again, what would you do?
Well, the only way it is likely to arise again is during teaching. So I would keep everything the same but change the middle activity to a group discussion rather than couples work. And I might try and find a way to put more pictures in – I won’t lose points teaching without pictures, but it does help stave off boredom if there’s something pictorial to look at every once in a while.. And hooray! I never need to present again!! Only proper teaching from now on 🙂
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