Becoming a Reflective Librarian and Teacher : Strategies for Mindful Academic Practice [1 ed.] 9780838915387

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BECOMING A REFLECTIVE LIBRARIAN AND TEACHER

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BECOMING A

REFLECTIVE LIBRARIAN AND TEACHER

Strategies for Mindful Academic Practice

MICHELLE REALE

An imprint of the American Library Association

CHICAGO 2017

MICHELLE REALE is an associate professor at Arcadia University

near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is the author of Mentoring and Managing Students in the Academic Library (2013) and Becoming an Embedded Librarian (2015). Her research interests include embedded librarianship, mentoring, narrative inquiry, and reflective practice.

© 2017 by the American Library Association Extensive effort has gone into ensuring the reliability of the information in this book; however, the publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein. ISBNs 978-0-8389-1529-5 (paper) 978-0-8389-1538-7 (PDF) 978-0-8389-1539-4 (ePub) 978-0-8389-1540-0 (Kindle) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Reale, Michelle, author. Title: Becoming a reflective librarian and teacher : strategies for mindful academic practice / Michelle Reale. Description: Chicago : ALA Editions, an imprint of the American Library Association, 2017. | Includes index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016042950 | ISBN 9780838915295 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780838915387 (pdf) | ISBN 9780838915394 (epub) | ISBN 9780838915400 (kindle) Subjects: LCSH: Academic librarians—Rating of. | Reflective teaching. | Academic librarians—Professional relationships. | Academic libraries— Relations with faculty and curriculum. | Information literacy—Study and teaching (Higher) Classification: LCC Z682.4.C63 R427 2017 | DDC 027.7—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016042950 Cover design by Alejandra Diaz. Images © arborelza/Shutterstock, Inc. Text design and composition by Dianne M. Rooney using Janson Text and ITC Avant Garde Gothic typefaces. This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992 (Permanence of Paper). Printed in the United States of America 21 20 19 18 17   5 4 3 2 1

Dedicated to Michael, David, Nicholas, and Isabella; my reasons for everything.

Contents

Acknowledgments ix Introduction: Reflection as Pedagogy  xi

1 Becoming Reflective 

1

2

Teach What You Know 

3

Reflective Practice as Intentional Practice  21

4

The Way to Do Is to Begin 

29

5

The Cycle of Reflection 

39

6

Using the Journal in Reflection 

51

7

Reflection That Accentuates the Positive 

69

8

Reflective Practice with Colleagues 

81

9

Reflection in the Classroom 

93

10

Professional Autobiographical Reflection 

13

113

Index 121

vii 

Acknowledgments

T

hank you to Dr. Jeanne Buckley for many, many reflective con­versations. Thank you to Jamie Santoro for your wisdom, guidance, patience, and encouragement—so very much appre­ciated! Thank you to my good friend Kaylynn Hills, a caring and meticulous third eye for me. Thank you to past and present colleagues—your input and encouragement in all of my professional endeavors are so greatly appreciated.

ix 

Introduction Reflection as Pedagogy I would argue very strongly that the self that is writing the story is changed by the process of writing it. —LAUREL RICHARDSON

F

or the whole of my life, I cannot remember a time when I did not reflect by way of writing. While this appears to be a rather bold statement, it is true. For whatever reason, I was born with a reflective nature. While still very young, my parents bought me my first “diary”—a psychedelic print on vinyl, white lined pages inside, and with the requisite little key, which every girl my age that I knew who had similar diaries, lost eventually, if not immediately. While that was my first “diary,” I have otherwise written in a journal, consistently, since that initial one that I kept in the third grade, before I even had a name for or concept of what I was doing. My writing practice morphed from my young girl’s conception of precious secrets, where everything I wrote was about my favorite subject, myself, to what I called my “journal”—where I continued to write about myself but about others, too, in addition to my immediate environment and the world around me. This progression was a natural by-product of maturity and worldview. The practice has continued, unbroken, in both my personal and professional life. I have often wondered how people function without the practice of keeping a journal. I do not understand things until I have committed them xi 

xii Introduction

to paper, until I can look at the words on a page and contemplate a situation, a feeling, and know that eventually I will be able to figure things out. In fact, looking over so many years’ worth of journals, I can see how true this statement really is. We live in a world in which we are increasingly called upon to bifurcate our experiences, and hence reflection as both a personal and pedagogical practice has become more important. Society would have us think that we are two (or maybe even three) separate people all at once. If we have something going on in our lives, perhaps an issue with one of our children, our marriage, our health, we are admonished to “leave it at home,” with the expectation that our internal lives operate by a switch that can be turned on and off at will. We are encouraged to think that our troubles, the minutiae and tribulations of our daily lives, have no place at work. There is a longheld belief that our thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and experiences during the other sixteen hours of our day should not have any bearing whatsoever on the eight (or more) hours we spend on the job in our professional positions. This is, basically, as preposterous as it sounds. That I am expected to be one person at home and another at work serves to deny the very essence of my integrated self. This book seeks to redress that notion. The best books that I have read on reflection as practice and pedagogy have not relied on technical rationality—the notion that denies or invalidates personal experience in favor of “expert” knowledge or “proven” results or replications, which permeate all aspects of our society. Instead, the best books consider the very factors that make us human: our thoughts, feelings, and ultimately our own experiences, which are all relevant and greatly influence our practice as librarians and educators. Everyone possesses tacit knowledge—things we know that have an ineffable quality, thoughts or experiences we cannot put into words, but that we nevertheless know to be true. This is often revealed more clearly while engaging in reflection, which seeks to make sense of our own experiences using our own words, our own narrative, in a space, time, and situation of our own choosing. It means that as professionals—as human beings—we get to describe, understand, and improve upon our own process, our own pedagogy based on knowledge of our practices and ourselves. This is best done

Introduction xiii 

in addition to reading and learning from our own professional literature, and thus learning from others who have engaged in the practice. As professional librarians we are influenced and enriched when we honor our own experiences while learning from others in the field. But to deny our own experiences in deference to the “experts” is a signal that we are out of touch with ourselves—a phenomenon not often experienced by those who engage in reflective practice honestly and consistently. In a further attempt not to bifurcate professional experience, I begin this book with a focus on reflective practice for professional librarians, particularly those who teach at the college level, and then I segue into the strategies that speak to teaching, and to mediating student reflection in the classroom. I firmly believe and work from the premise that an educator of any kind should not give reflection assignments or otherwise expect students to use reflection, in any way, in the classroom if they themselves have not used and do not understand the practice. Much has been written about the dangers of reflection and reflective practice as becoming just another “tool” in the ever-increasing size of the pedagogical toolbox.1 This can happen if reflection simply becomes a buzzword in both educational and professional practice, with educators thinking it is fine to foist on students, but they themselves have no time for it. Or worse, if they simply do not value it. Think of the clinical teacher who teaches his or her own students to be good clinicians—how does that happen unless the teacher, too, has practiced in the clinical setting? There is a reason we both understood and railed against the dictum “Do as I say, not as I do” in our youth. When we can teach, mediate, and support reflection in the classroom, when reflection is used as a pedagogical practice, we are implementing a foundation that students will use in the present and hopefully draw from in the future. This is because reflection, at its very least and quite possibly at its very best, helps us know how to be in the world, how to look at ourselves and our practices, examine our assumptions, and form a plan to move forward in our personal lives, our professional lives, and the inevitable conflation of the two. While at times it may seem as though I paint with a broad brush, this is intentional. Inasmuch as we can read to learn about

xiv Introduction

reflection (if we didn’t, this book would not be necessary), we need to do reflection in order to learn—in essence, we need to create our path by walking it. While some prescriptive elements are good and necessary, at other times one must trust that inner voice, that tacit knowing, and heed the call by simply beginning wherever we are. Manjusvara writes:2 Whenever we put pen to paper, each idea will have its subsequent effect—upon us, certainly, as we learn who we are by noting our response to what we have written, but also upon the people and things around us, inasmuch as it shifts to some degree the way in which we respond to them. In this sense, a piece of writing is always the beginning of a new journey: one that not only maps our current experience, but also helps us determine the state of mind we are about to move into.

I simply wrote the book that I would want to read if I was new to reflection practice and pedagogy. My conversational style is intentional: there are a plethora of books explaining the varied intricacies of reflection in considerable depth. Mine will hopefully serve as a friendly and informative guide, which is not intended to be exhaustive but instead to start the journey toward reflection. It is my sincere hope that this book is informative, prescriptive in all the right places, and ultimately supportive of a more conscious, intentional, and active professional practice for librarian educators. NOTES

1. Gary Rolfe, “Reflective Practice: Where Now?” Nurse Education in Practice 2, no. 1 (2002): 21–29. 2. Manjusvara, Writing Your Way (Cambridge, UK: Windhorse, 2005), 5.

1 Becoming Reflective We do not learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience. —JOHN DEWEY

T

here is no end to the debate on the nature, usefulness, ethics, and the ever-present standards and rigor of “measurable outcomes” that surrounds the discussion of reflection as both a subject and a practice. This book, I suppose, adds to the debate, though I don’t care to get caught up in the controversy. Reflection as a practice and a pedagogical tool is one that I believe in, and have seen the results of, as well. I am not certain that I particularly sought to write about reflection, but rather, at the risk of sounding clichéd, I feel as though the subject chose me. I have been a reflective practitioner for as long as I can remember, and it is something that I have tried to share over the years with many friends and colleagues at the risk of sounding too “New Age” or “precious.” But the idea of reflection is not “new” in the strict sense of the word. 1 

2  CHAPTER 1

Many professionals, at first blush, may misunderstand reflection as a tool, either because in our over-mechanized and rote practices we rely heavily on theories as prescriptions to follow, negating our own experiences, or because we simply do not think that our own reflections hold any value for our overall learning and teaching experience. I reject these notions outright. And while I have immersed myself for a long time in a plethora of books and articles on every aspect of reflection, I have learned to be an insightful reflective practitioner by just practicing, by doing reflection. I did not wait for permission, I did not wait for a proclamation by whoever in academia deems a practice wholesome and worthwhile, and I did not wait until I was told to do it. I certainly did not believe the naysayers who persist in viewing the act of deep reflection on our professional practice as, at best, self-indulgent navel-gazing and, at worst, a process that metrics or other validations cannot legitimize as a practice.

WHAT IS REFLECTION? Reflection is a natural process that most people engage in on a regular basis. At its very base it is thinking, plain and simple. In the course of our everyday lives we reflect on any number of things, such as the impatient response we may have given to a student, the cold pizza we had for breakfast that is not sitting well in our stomachs, whether to meet friends for dinner when it might be best to stay in and get some work done, and so on. The list goes on and on. We think about the past and worry about the future—a lot. This is a cognitive process that helps us to make sense of the world and our place in it. So if thinking is something that everyone does, without being wholly conscious of it, then how is reflection different? Reflection is deliberate and intentional. It is a process that we consciously undertake, in the professional sense, in order to take stock of our practice by interpreting, analyzing, and questioning the way we work. It is the first step in the process of looking at ourselves critically, questioning all of the assumptions that we have been operating on, and refashioning, reformulating, and reinventing the way we do things. Many of us can think of instances in our lives when we were jolted from our reverie by someone who confronted us with advice, constructive or otherwise, on how to do something better. Do you

Becoming Reflective 3 

remember the shock and indignation you might have felt because all along you’d been going through the paces of your practice, no one ever seemed to complain, and whatever you were doing seemed to be working? It can be a startling experience that, before it can galvanize us, usually seriously undermines our confidence first. When we initiate reflection of our own volition, we take the first step to act in concert with ourselves. We begin in the place where we are. What propels us into what should, ideally, be a daily practice is the deep desire to unite our potential with the increasing imperative to enact our best selves. Reflection requires honesty, a letting down of defenses, and a willingness to remain open to whatever the practice of reflection may bring to light. I would venture to say that if reflection does not make you squirm, you might not be doing it right. The discomfort that is often felt upon embarking on the practice of reflection is very much rooted in our own selective thinking: what we allow ourselves to see and believe about our practice, to the exclusion of other aspects that are lacking. Many of us may delude ourselves out of habit, mental fatigue, or lack of time—keeping us in patterns that no longer work, have never worked, and may have been detrimental both to ourselves and to our students all along. Argyris called this the “reflexive loop,” which is a roughly circular process that is based on how we both choose our focus while justifying this focus, all the while avoiding others.1 We become self-selective in what and how we focus on some things over others. But one interesting aspect of reflective practice is the process itself, so that, at least in the short term, the goal is not for the rock-solid solution of a particular problem or way of being, but the slow and circumspect examination of a problem or a belief system. Reflection is a highly conceptualized practice, something many librarians may feel uncomfortable with, since it appears to inhabit a realm of practice that does not seem very “down to earth.” But without it, the way in which we teach, do reference, and collaborate with colleagues suffers from remaining unexamined.

MY EXPERIENCE When I became a librarian, I considered my colleagues to be some of my best teachers. While in library school, I felt very intuitively

4  CHAPTER 1

that most of what I could reasonably expect to learn was, paradoxically, not in the classroom, but instead on the job. I engaged in a fair amount of observation. I would make a list of where and when my colleagues were teaching information literacy sessions and I would go and make copious notes. On the one hand, it helped me immeasurably to witness how a librarian enacts practice in the classroom and how information literacy material is handled. On the other hand, I found it quite intimidating. I despaired of ever having the lighthearted humor of one colleague who seemed to “liven up” relatively dry material, or the colleague who could dig into a database and make it seem sexy. I found, not surprisingly, that each librarian had his or her own style and points of interest that they focused on to the exclusion of others. I thought that a composite of all of them would have made the perfect professor librarian. The first session I ever taught was rough. I was nervous and the students seemed to sense this. I found myself nearly mimicking the lessons I’d seen others do. I began to feel as though my voice was not even really my voice. I persisted in the imitation, because I had yet to find my “sea legs” in the classroom. I was (and still am) passionate about librarianship and information literacy, but it took me some time to express myself in the classroom. Still, I would teach a variety of information sessions to classes of students who seemed to look right through me. I reasoned to myself that it couldn’t be me—not at all. I had an entire list of reasons why what I was doing was precisely what students needed—in retrospect, I realize that I put up those defenses in order to get by, otherwise I might have questioned myself to a point where I would have become entirely immobilized by selfdoubt and fear. Predictably, before a year was up, I became very dissatisfied with what I perceived as very bleak results from the sessions I was teaching. I had built up enough confidence to take my hands off of my eyes and take a good, hard look at my sessions. While I was still engaged in reflection mostly related to other aspects of my new career, I’d not been reflecting on my sessions. When I began, I will admit to having a bit of a crisis. I began to think that at its very base, what I had been trying to do was meaningless—that traditionally students disliked any kind of library instruction and to be honest,

Becoming Reflective 5 

most professors did not seem too keen on it either. I often felt like a placeholder—doing sessions for professors who would be out for conferences (resulting in very poor attendance of students) or new professors feeling as though whatever information I could give them was important, though they honestly could not articulate why. In my work journal, what began as whining and complaining turned into a very constructive look at myself. Ouch! It was not easy. I began to slowly question everything about my practice in the classroom, which, up until then, contained precious little of the real me. I’d been teaching what other librarians were teaching, which suited their liaison departments, but not mine. Also, like so many librarians before me, I realized that I felt I was short-changing students by agreeing to teach just one hour-long session—in fact, often I was limited to a 45-minute session—which in and of itself is not bad, except that it was the only time in the semester when I would be seeing that particular class. I also found that I tried to focus on too many things at once, assuming that a one-shot session with any given class would have to contain a lot in order to be helpful. In fact, it was counterproductive to student learning. Writing about a particular session shortly after it was over was revealing, to say the least: I am feeling a disturbing lack of agency and I am not even sure if I am entitled to feel that way. Feeling very uncomfortable. Embarrassed, even. I felt as though I was a waste of time today. The professor, an adjunct, had me come to her class—actually insisted upon it, despite my protestations that I felt uncomfortable doing so because there was not yet an assignment attached to the session. She told me to just come in and show them “Databases and stuff,” which, against my better judgment, I did. In the lab the students talked to each other, trolled Facebook, looked bored and zoned out while I stuttered and sputtered a bit, trying to go through the library web page and other info. I had nothing to teach to, though. It was a “lesson” with no discernible reason for it, except that the adjunct thought doing so would be helpful. Or not. I’m really not even sure. True, down the line students will have assignments,

6  CHAPTER 1

but I don’t think I will be asked back, because she clearly does not understand the potential of such a session. If I am asked to demonstrate my expertise to a class of students, I would think that I could have enough agency to say, “No, that won’t work. Let’s wait until you give them their first assignment.” I mean, I am not even sure that I can say that at this point. That one class just isn’t going to cut it. Somehow, I feel as though the students could sense that. (Michelle Reale, personal reflective journal, September 23, 2009)

I have a vivid memory of how I felt after that particular class, which was a freshman English composition class. I was feeling a lot of things that I would go on to explore in great depth. I had to face things about myself, in particular the lack of agency I felt. Feeling this lack of agency was, in retrospect, less about me and more about how it affected the students in the class whom I would not be able to “reach” in the way that I felt then (and still feel now) they needed me to. I felt disappointed in myself, particularly the way in which I both consciously and subconsciously justified my practice. In my mind it “worked” simply because I convinced myself that it did. I had a lot of fear of looking too closely, a fear of what that look would reveal. In this way, I understood that this type of reflection takes a true commitment in time. It can be, in many ways, time-consuming, and time is something most librarians seem to have less and less of. But this type of reflection is so essential that I almost cannot conceive of functioning as a professional without its many benefits. In the above journal excerpt, I mention two aspects of my teaching practice that I would focus greatly on in the future to the extent that they would change my practice in very distinct and fundamental ways: my personal agency as a professional who knows how to best deliver lessons in her own field, and my conclusion about the severe limits of one-shot instruction sessions. I was clearly entrenched in what Brookfield called the “stance and dance.”2 In the stance, librarians as teachers have a sort of beginner’s mind that is open to a spirit of inquiry—a constant and persistent questioning, in which one realizes that this questioning is perpetual, that one is always, in one way

Becoming Reflective 7 

or another, an “apprentice.” This does not mean to imply that we are forever “amateurs” in our professions, that we will never truly progress—but rather that we will experience the depth and breadth of our immense capabilities because our practice, like ourselves, will be in constant evolution, improving all the time. The “dance” is the proverbial “going out on a limb.” The dance entails risk, taking chances, and being willing to change things, sometimes in a radical way. When I wrote in my journal that I felt as though I had no agency as a professional, it was not enough to simply state the fact and then move on. Once you know, once you understand, the old way no longer works. I had to move forward, to take the chance of saying, the next time I was asked to do a one-shot instruction session, “Can we talk about this? In my experience, one session does not seem to work . . .” Taking this kind of action helps us to act in concert with the new information that is revealed to us, and act on what we believe to be a better and more enlightened practice. This entails, among other things, examining our core beliefs. Is this an intimidating process? To be sure, it is. But recognizing that the old way no longer works is half the battle.

THREE PROCESSES OF REFLECTIVE PRACTICE Larrivee describes the three practices that she deems essential for reflective practice.3 While reflection is a highly individualized and personal process in addition to being cyclical rather than linear, these three practices form a basis for solid and sound practice: making the time for reflection, becoming a perpetual problem-solver, and questioning the status quo. As with anything we want to become good at, we must give reflection time, and we must practice. Making and committing time to reflective practice is essential. If it is true that we make the path by walking, then living the life of a reflective practitioner cannot be divorced from the practice itself. Being able to reflect in a quiet place, alone and with a notebook, is invaluable and certainly the right approach. Solitude is the ideal climate for reflecting on our practice. In the space that we provide for ourselves, we are best able

8  CHAPTER 1

to understand how our practice affects our students in the classroom. Because our work is inextricably tied to the impact we have on minds in formation, reflection is not a luxury. Keeping a reflective journal is a great way to be able to write down our experiences in the classroom. The very act of moving pen across paper (I am biased in favor of the use of a paper journal) is meditative in and of itself. One line begets another until we are in a state of mind where we are ready to not only record details of our teaching and our students, but we become open to truly reflecting on these experiences. Reflection is not the mere recording of details by themselves, and it is not descriptive, although it often starts that way. Reflecting in the journal requires not only fresh eyes but seeing through the eyes of others. For instance, how might a practice that you feel particularly fond of be affecting students in your classes? What kind of feedback have you gotten? What have you dismissed? What might your assessment of your sessions reveal? Are you honoring your instincts or working against them? The process of writing in the journal is a recursive process in that you may (and perhaps should) go back and forth between your entries as you begin to understand and gain new meaning through your experiences. One of the reasons the journal becomes so important to our practice is that while we are teaching, whether it occurs at the reference desk, among colleagues, or in the classroom, we are in fact reflecting, but the journal further allows us to reflect on our reflecting. Even if we have prepared a lesson plan or any other preparation that we go through in our daily professional lives, we are thinking on our feet, acting in the moment. Because while we can be reasonably certain of what we think we will teach, say, and so on, what we cannot possibly predict is the reaction of those with whom we are interacting. Reflecting is a stepping outside of ourselves enough to see whether our teaching lands “soft” or “hard,” in a manner of speaking. The problem-solving aspect of reflection just makes good sense. When we are solving problems, that means that we are open to the change and resistance around us and act fluidly to find solutions. The reflective practitioner is challenged by problems, but not done in by them because they are not total surprises if one has been paying attention. This attentiveness to details, situations, reactions,

Becoming Reflective 9 

feedback, and so on gives us the information we need to not be blindsided when a problem arises. And because we have been in tune with our teaching, we can solve problems more readily, more consciously, and more deliberately. The reflective practitioner becomes a natural problem-solver because issues that arise no longer intimidate him or her. He or she also has the presence of mind to be honest about the issue and honest in the response. First, one must be able to both perceive and accept a problem before it can be solved. In fact, Dewey wrote about the recognition of a problem or particular dilemma as being the true condition in which reflection can be initiated and practiced.4 While I believe there may be some exceptions to Dewey’s assertion, I do believe that a problem or dilemma itself is most often the inciting factor in beginning reflective practice. The problem often creates the necessity to drill down and examine it closely, and then to reflect deeply. Working to solve a problem also helps us to realize that while sometimes situations can become worrisome or out of control, we are not out of control. Problems or challenges will most definitely arise in classrooms and other teaching situations in which experimentation is encouraged and mistakes are tolerated. We have the power to effect change in our day-to-day teaching by becoming more aware of ourselves. Questioning the status quo is extremely important in the kind of reflection that forms the basis of critical pedagogy. In fact, when the reflective practitioner questions the status quo, it sets an example for students to do the same. We can recognize that the way in which we teach and the policies that we create, enforce, or follow are created as a response to a political and cultural environment at both the micro and macro levels, and can therefore be quite challenging. Challenging the status quo puts us on the level with our own beliefs and helps to validate our own tacit knowledge. Mezirow describes critical reflection as the first step toward transformative learning.5 This learning is experienced both by the librarian and the student, which can lead to dramatic changes in the way we think, what we believe, and how we act to instigate and implement these changes. Reflection is integral to being able to fully understand and integrate these changes in thinking and attitude, and knowing how to best implement them in our day-to-day work.

10  CHAPTER 1

NOT A PASSIVE PRACTICE I’ve made the point that reflection takes practice. I would further assert that reflection in and of itself is practice. The way we learn and the way in which we pattern learning for our students is to experience our experiences while they are happening, and then reflect upon those experiences. We give voice to an idea or a situation, we act, and then we reflect on the process—not just the outcome. In this way, reflection is far from the “navel-gazing” that those who misunderstand the practice perceive it to be. Thinking is inextricable from the act of doing. Dewey, though, was astute in his observation that “mere activity does not constitute activity.”6 Dewey goes on to further explain the cause and effect of what it means to reflect on experience: To “learn from experience” is to make a backward and forward connection between what we do to things and what we enjoy or suffer from things in consequence. Under such conditions, doing becomes a trying; an experiment with the world to find out what it is like; undergoing becomes instruction—discovery of the connection of things. (Ibid.)

It is both activity and reflection that shape experience. Dewey believed that knowledge was not a thing or an entity in and of itself, but rather a relationship that an individual or a group has with an experience. The ancient model of apprenticeship was based on the idea of learning how a craft was done by doing—not by passively listening to lengthy lectures in which theory is separate from practice. Today we can (and should) acknowledge that both knowledge and acumen come from a combination of both listening attentively and practicing intentionally. Librarians know this combination very well.

FINAL THOUGHTS While much of the literature on reflective practice has come from other fields, most particularly from education and nursing, it is slowly catching on across the board. Librarians, in particular, can benefit by learning to incorporate reflection into their own daily practice,

Becoming Reflective 11 

as a way of rejecting the myth that technical rationality is the only model that can legitimize our practice. While reflective practice is perceived as passive, as I have attempted to show, it is anything but passive. It is a catalyst for more conscious, and therefore more effective practice personally, professionally, and educationally. What is sound practice for us as professionals is passed directly on to our students. It becomes a win/win situation all around. NOTES

1. Chris Argyris, Overcoming Organizational Defenses (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1990). 2. Stephen D. Brookfield, Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1995). 3. Barbara Larrivee, Authentic Classroom Management: Creating a Community of Learners (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1999). 4. John Dewey, How We Think: A Restatement of the Relation of Reflective Thinking to the Educative Process (Lexington, MA: Heath, 1933). 5. Jack Mezirow, “How Critical Reflection Triggers Transformative Learning,” in Fostering Critical Reflection in Adulthood: A Guide to Transformative and Emancipatory Learning (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1990), 1–20. 6. John Dewey, Democracy and Education (public domain, various editions, 1916).

2 Teach What You Know Habit rules the unreflecting herd. —WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

W

hile the title of this chapter may seem obvious, when it comes to assigning reflection activities in the classroom, that is not necessarily so. The topic of reflection has been tossed about in the library literature, giving it some of the attention it deserves, but precious little of it addresses the necessary implication that librarians, if they want to use reflection with their students, should be reflective practitioners themselves. I am working on the supposition that we can hardly expect students to learn and appreciate a practice we urge them to use if we ourselves do not use it. Reflection is one of those tools that can elicit groans from a class at its very mention. Personally, I have witnessed the rolling of many sets of eyes, the throwing down of pencils in frustration, the protests and the claims of “busywork” leveled at me from students when I try to engage them in the practice. Some might wonder why I persist. 13 

14  CHAPTER 2

I persist because I believe the practice to be an extremely important part of the learning cycle that can benefit a student in both the short and long term. I hardly need to itemize the reasons why students are already resistant to librarians in the classroom, but I will. Some reasons are our lack of authority in what is essentially someone else’s class, students’ total disinterest in how to find information, the “boring” aspect of what we do—in fact, the problem with what we seem to represent to the student is that students simply have no idea whatsoever what a real librarian does. So a librarian who goes into the classroom and attempts to incorporate some reflective activities into her teaching without knowing how or why reflection works can hardly be expected to have students on board.

AN EXERCISE Recently I led a workshop for faculty members with a colleague from a different discipline on the importance and the various aspects of reflection for students. I opened up the session by asking the attendees to take out a piece of paper. Unexpectedly, though interestingly, the room was suddenly filled with the sound of tortured groans. Imagine, this room was filled with instructors who wanted to learn more about the practice and pedagogy of reflection! I asked them to write down a difficult teaching moment in the classroom: what happened, how they felt, what they might have learned from it. More groaning. Whispers. Nervous laughter. I resisted the urge to cheer them on, to encourage them to write openly and honestly and with, well—reflection. While I did not intend this to be an experiment revealing attitudes toward reflection, in fact, that is what it turned out to be, taking my presentation in a slightly different direction. What I was surprised to see, right before my eyes, were faculty who were presumably very interested in using reflection in their classrooms, but who had little or no experience using it themselves, to say nothing of the frustration they expressed when asked to do a simple exercise. An interesting and teachable moment presented itself and I, being an opportunist in such situations, seized upon it with relish. After it appeared that everyone had written down something, I asked how they felt about the exercise. Many admitted that

Teach What You Know 15 

it filled them with dread. One, a psychology professor, admitted that she never reflected in any formal way whatsoever; another expressed her desire to write something totally different than what I had asked for. One other revealed that she “had not a clue to what I was doing or if I was even doing it right.” I smiled and said that all of their feelings were valid and very much reflected what any of their students might think or feel when presented with the mandate to reflect. I had to make the obvious point a bit more explicit, though.

HOW CAN YOU TEACH WHAT YOU YOURSELF DO NOT KNOW? I asked the group gathered why they felt so uncomfortable with the exercise. Their almost unanimous answer was that they were simply unsure of how and what they should write. Upon further discussion, most teachers in the room admitted they simply did not know what made certain writing reflective in nature and how it might be different from just thinking about things. This really gave me pause, because I wondered at the practice of asking students to engage in a practice that you yourself know nothing about. I put that out there to them. The tortured groans turned to nervous laughter. Heads nodded and looks were exchanged in agreement with what I was saying. In addition, they also had absolutely no idea how to assess such writing or exercises, or even what the outcomes should be. My prescription was, I believe, both profound and simple at the same time: to expect our students to use reflective exercises in the classroom necessitates that the instructor assigning them should not only have a fundamental understanding of reflection as a practice, but should also be a reflective practitioner him or herself. What we all experienced in the room was a perfect example of how our students feel when faced with reflection assignments. That room represented a microcosm of resistant student attitudes. While conducting the workshop, I actually reflected along with the other faculty in the room, quite simply because that is my practice. I did not consciously think of making a point (Look here! I am doing the same thing that you are!) but instead, my reflection practices and my enacting those practices in the classroom is intentional:

16  CHAPTER 2

basically, I practice what I preach. I told those in the room that I wrote along with them, that I was willing to share what I wrote, and that I almost always share my in-class reflections with students as a way of modeling the possibilities inherent in reflection and a very concrete example of what the words look and sound like on the page. It is more than the writing of facts or questions on a page. In the past, I have gotten the following responses: this class is hard, I don’t get it, I wish I didn’t have to do this, what am I getting out of this? The reflection comes in the answering of those questions. But one of the main points about reflective writing is that it must be modeled and mediated; otherwise, students may feel as though they are in free fall. We must also give reflective writing feedback, or else students feel as though their words are going nowhere, that they have no accountability, that the writing fulfills their worst suspicions, that the assignment in general and the writing in particular are pointless. And so, in order to model this for the faculty in the room, I attempted to give as many as I could feedback on what they had written. Many had scribbled incomplete thoughts, kernels of ideas, but without being fully formed, and some used clichéd language expressing feelings without facts and fact without feelings. I pointed these out and asked them to evaluate their own reflective writing as if it was something a student had handed in, in order to reflect back on the writing as their own. What soon became apparent was that in order to assign and assess reflective writing, the instructor giving the assignment should have firsthand knowledge of how difficult it is to write reflectively, how it can often threaten one’s sense of self and one’s abilities, and how, even harder still, it can be to evaluate such writing. Interestingly, though not surprisingly, librarians who wish to use reflection in their teaching sessions or classes need to be aware of their own cognitive abilities, which in turn speaks to their knowledge of reflection, in order to use this particular pedagogy in their classrooms. Schraw outlines three distinct kinds of metacognitive awareness that I feel are essential to know:1 This is knowledge that you know about yourself, how you learn (and by extension, how you teach), and what might impact or influence your learning or teaching performance.

Declarative knowledge:

Teach What You Know 17 

This is, quite simply, knowledge about doing things. How do you perform and assign tasks? How do you process the many strategies that you are presented with?

Procedural knowledge:

This knowledge is associated with when and why you choose to use declarative and procedural knowledge. Schraw emphasizes the importance of this kind of awareness since it helps the learner to discern how to both allocate and use strategies for full effectiveness. This knowl­ edge also helps the learner to readjust to each changing learning scenario.

Conditional knowledge:

Combined, the types of metacognitive awareness described above help librarians understand their students, while at the same time understanding themselves. This is learning and teaching that are aware rather than rote, or simply groping in the dark. Knowing, as they say, is half the battle.

FINAL THOUGHTS I had no previous intention of writing a chapter on the importance of librarians knowing the basics of reflection or the necessity of being reflective practitioners themselves, simply because I assumed that those who would want to use reflection as a tool would use it themselves. The workshop that I taught opened my eyes to the fact that this is not necessarily the case. So much of the unique way in which we approach our teaching, whether it is in one-on-one sessions, one-shot sessions, embedded practice, or over the reference desk, is a simple matter of heuristics, which is basically the way in which we approach our own learning and/or teaching and problemsolving. I cannot think of a single reason why intentionally learning how to reflect or using the precepts of metacognitive awareness could be detrimental in any way. In fact, knowledge of reflective practice can only enhance our learning and teaching capabilities, while at the same time helping us to have empathy for our students to do the often difficult but intentional task of reflection in order to know themselves, their learning capabilities, and their experiences better.

18  CHAPTER 2

Strategies ll

Understand the absolute necessity of being a reflective practitioner in order to use reflective assignments and strategies in your teaching.

ll

Begin to reflect! While opening up a document on your computer is better than nothing, the actual act of moving a pen or pencil across the page actually aids in the thinking/reflecting process. Find a journal that you will feel comfortable writing in.

ll

Reflect as soon as possible after an incident. I am an embedded librarian in a senior thesis class. It was (and continues to be) my routine to take 15–20 minutes to jot down my thoughts after each class. While in the course of a busy day it is not always possible to have the time to reflect, the thoughts that were fresh in my mind were committed to paper and later, when I had more time and could be alone, they served as prompts for fuller and more reflective writing.

ll

Share the subject of your reflection with a colleague. Professional learning and development rarely happen in a vacuum. While the act of reflection is often private, the results of that reflection don’t have to be. For a few years, I’d been feeling terrible about the fact that when I was asked to teach an information literacy session to a particular class, I could never seem to get the professor in the class involved in any way. Usually, they were in and out of the classroom or they were checking e-mail on their laptops. I’d written about this quite often in my reflective journal and this made me feel better, but when I brought it up with a colleague, albeit in a lighthearted way (tinged with exasperation, of course), she suggested we put it on the agenda for our weekly librarian meeting. Not surprisingly, it turns out nearly all of us had this problem. We brainstormed and put together some strategies. If I had not reflected on the problem, I would have taught my sessions out of habit, with little thought or care as to how uninvolved the professor in the class was—which would, over time, have been detrimental to myself, to say nothing of my students.

Teach What You Know 19 

ll

Be consistent. Reflection is a muscle. Do not wait for a particularly bad day or a particularly good one in the classroom to reflect on. Often, what we can learn about our practice happens not in large dramatic moments, but rather in small ordinary ones. Examine your daily practice, your thoughts and influences, and how they impact your teaching in the classroom. Take a look at and reflect upon your attitude. A colleague of mine once revealed that one day he stood up in front of a class to teach search strategies for about the thousandth time and realized that he had no good way of doing that. So he told the classroom of students just that: “I have no way that I know of to teach you these skills so they will stick.” He revealed to me that he was shocked that it had ever gotten to that point. Regular reflection can help to mitigate that sudden revelation, because with daily reflection, more likely than not, he would have been recording (and responding to) that kind of frustration much earlier.

ll

When assigning reflections, reflect along with students. Share your reflections as a way of modeling what the practice looks like.

ll

Simply begin. No excuses.

ll

Trust the process.

NOTE

1. Gregory Schraw, “Promoting General Metacognitive Awareness,” Instructional Science 26, nos. 1–2 (1998): 113–25.

3 Reflective Practice as Intentional Practice The important thing is to never stop questioning. —ALBERT EINSTEIN

R

eflection for librarians, particularly those in the academic arena, seems more important than ever. While reflection as a practice is well embedded in education, the medical sciences, the social sciences, and even business practices, the presence of reflection in the professional literature in our field is only now becoming more frequent. If necessity is the mother of invention, then reflection as both pedagogy and professional practice has come at a good time for professional librarians. Our profession has not only been in flux but has experienced a sea change from its strict and narrowly focused beginnings. I am, of course, well aware of the “controversy” over librarians “reinventing” ourselves (some would say contorting ourselves) to fit into an academic framework that neither understands nor appreciates us, but while I have not turned a blind eye or a deaf ear to it, I have decided that it is the work that 21 

22  CHAPTER 3

ultimately matters. If some feel that reflection, in any of its many forms, is not relevant or useful, I would assert that librarians have been reflecting, in one way or another, and perhaps without being fully conscious of it, since librarianship in academia began to change. We have questioned our mission, our day-to-day duties, our place in the classroom, within organizations, and so on. So in one way or another, we have all engaged in this thing called reflection, albeit in a very limited way. In previous chapters I have given an introduction to the processes of reflective practice as well as the necessity of knowing how to reflect if we desire to use this pedagogical tool in our teaching. But I want to delve further into the intentionality of the practice itself, which is the main difference between thinking (a passive activity) and reflecting (an intentional practice with transformation as the goal).

INTENTIONALITY There are many reasons why intentionality is a critical element at the core of reflective practices. As librarians, the cultural and pedagogical shifts in our profession and how we negotiate the difference is perhaps the main one, though there are countless others. For many years I passively allowed others to dictate to me the terms of my own profession, which were usually expressed as limitations: it’s not your class, you need to teach what the professor wants you to teach (even if it goes against what you think is educationally sound), you can’t take up too much time, you can’t give or grade assignments, and on and on. I felt extremely limited in the impact I was having in the classroom, coupled with the general perception of my fellow librarians as simple, stern people who love books. Talk about limiting! It was a topic that my colleagues and I often spoke about in our weekly meetings, and while venting served an immediate purpose, allowing me to feel heard in the moment, over the long term it did nothing to vitalize my or my colleagues’ practice, and also did absolutely nothing for the students that I so desperately wanted to reach. If a sort of breaking point often precedes the impetus for change, I had mine. As I was leaving the library for lunch one day and walking along a well-traveled path to the cafeteria, a few colleagues from another

Reflective Practice as Intentional Practice 23 

department were walking towards me. They were all smiling and I beamed back—I loved the feeling of camaraderie on campus. As they came closer, they kind of mock huddled together and one, the boldest (for an academic) among them, said, “Oh no! They let a librarian out! I’m scared!” Much laughter ensued and one of them tapped me lightly on the shoulder, a physical gesture to show me, perhaps, that it was all in good fun. The thing is I do, in fact, believe it was all in good fun, though my own insecurities about the state and perception of my profession caused me to be pretty wounded by the incident. While I have always been a journal keeper, almost to the point of obsession, I’d never really delved too much into writing about my professional experiences, in and out of the classroom. That week, I bought a black-and-white, old-fashioned marbled notebook, the kind that was required in grade school. I was well aware of the tenets of reflection, but what I started that week I did not label. It would be what it would be. I began with a series of questions. First I asked myself why I felt the impetus to do this. Then I asked myself for whom or what I was doing it. Then: what did I hope would come out of it? That was my first entry. I didn’t call it reflection that day, but that is exactly what it was. And to say it was intentional would be an understatement. That was nearly eight years ago. I have only deepened and widened the experiences since then. And what I did that first week was reflection in every sense of the word, starting with myself until an imaginary circle was drawn and everything that touched my teaching or practice in any way was soon included. Dewey recognized reflection to be as important an activity in learning as any other—one that is assiduous, questioning, and above all active.1 I would add to this “corporeal,” since the very act of reflection necessitates a slowing down of both the body and the mind to enhance clarity. Activity in the thinking process and the slowing down of the body are not mutually exclusive when reflecting—in fact, I very much think they both depend on one another. Have you ever been in a difficult situation in which you must act—the quicker the better—and you say to yourself: “Hold on; stop. Let me give myself a minute to think this through”? It is the same process. The thinking that I am attempting to describe here is very different from the kind of decision-making and action we are called upon to do in

24  CHAPTER 3

the course of our work every single day. We are constantly making decisions, retracing our steps, doubling back after consideration, and generally engaging in problem-solving strategies. And, of course, we are thinking—a reflection that Schön called reflection-in-action or reflection-on-action—something we all do to a lesser or greater degree every day of our lives.2 Connelly and Clandinin, who wrote extensively and critically on Schön’s theories, astutely made the distinction between the two similarly sounding terms to be the difference between thinking during practice and thinking after or before practice.3 What I am primarily writing about here is the reflection that comes after the action. One of the best ways to practice this kind of reflection is with a reflective journal. Not only is the actual writing while reflecting in and of itself transformative, but the ability to be able to go back and read over and over what one has written at any given time can show transformation, progression of thought, and problem-solving, and enhances a critical stance toward one’s practice: the ability to see, in retrospect, what one cannot reasonably understand while in the moment. Michael A. Gee writes in a lighthearted way of the academic journal that he decided to keep, though he means serious business.4 Admittedly, he is a professor of English, not a librarian, but what he has to say about the benefits of keeping a journal are worth stating here. He calls the journal an “introspective teaching aid” that helps him to recognize the difference between what is right and what is wrong. He further states, “The keeping of such a journal inspires the continual evaluation of unrehearsed classes to help a teacher get down to the true heart of what personally works in a classroom.” He writes what he calls a “brief evaluation of my instructional odyssey every day.” If language shapes our perception of our world (and we know that it does), his use of the words “instructional odyssey” primes his psyche by the very term that he uses: an odyssey that he will later explore, and of course, anyone who has been on an odyssey of any kind will ruminate on and recount the adventure over and over. This type of journal is a way to begin. As with any beginning practice, it is helpful to remember that it is a process and one whose value will certainly reveal itself over time.

Reflective Practice as Intentional Practice 25 

Christopher Johns, who has written extensively on reflection for the health professions, emphasizes the aspect of mindfulness in reflection.5 Mindfulness is more than just a buzzword—it goes hand in hand with intention. Reflection needs both. Johns asserts that “being mindful is having a virtual space between self and the situation where the situation can be appreciated for what it really is and where I can contemplate how best to respond given the particular circumstances.” The journal is where this often happens, as the very act of writing, seeing what we have written and then reflecting on what we wrote, eases itself into contemplation. Johns warns, however, against “false consciousness,” which negates the very act of reflection. If we are not willing to reflect and write truthfully, revealing ourselves to ourselves, the reflection we think we are doing becomes a mere exercise in futility—it keeps us bound to our rationalizations and excuses for doing things the way we have always done them. Reflection may very well bring you to a bedrock of truth, which can stop you in your tracks. Reflection means seeing a situation in the holistic sense of the word, from all angles, and evaluating ourselves from within that particular situation. To this end, Johns goes on to emphasize this important point: Reflection is concerned with harnessing energy for taking action. . . . Being open systems, people can exchange or convert this energy with the environment and create positive energy for taking action based on a reorganization of self as necessary to resolve the crisis and emerge at a higher level of consciousness; that is, until the next crisis.

As my illustrative anecdote at the beginning of this chapter reveals, crisis is often the inciting factor in beginning reflective practice. When I was a teenager, a journal keeper from way back, I would never write when all was going well with school, friends, and family. Instead, I would take to my journal, which was definitely a safe place for me, and write about the class I was failing (always math), the “friend” who ridiculed me, my mother’s seeming lack of understanding of my life, the invisibility cloak I felt that I wore, as no one ever seemed to notice me—more painful some days than others. It

26  CHAPTER 3

was crisis, pure and simple, that motivated me to write what I was experiencing, much like the day that I was (good-naturedly) mocked by my campus colleagues, who I truly believe meant no harm, but which brought to the surface the doubts I’d been harboring about teaching as a librarian in a way that felt inauthentic, stilted, and stifled, and was dictated by others’ terms. Looking at those reflective journals now reveals a process that I went through, my state of mind, my misapprehensions, my lack of action on my own behalf and that of my students, the flaws in my thinking. But I saw the triumphs, too, the moments when solutions presented themselves through assiduous hard work. It was crystallized right there in the reflective journal. I had proof! And I could return to that proof, time and time again.

FINAL THOUGHTS Keeping a reflective journal is good practice as a professional seeking to understand one’s stance and one’s professional and pedagogical practice. It may begin with an incident of frustration, doubt, or crisis, but it does not end there. It becomes a living exemplification of our professional life. For those who feel as though they do not yet know enough about the theory of reflection, have not read all of the books, but have an instinct for how the practice can be helpful, they should just begin. Get that journal, that copybook, that Google document, and start to write. One does not need to know in advance all the aspects of a practice before taking the initial steps and actually engaging in that practice. To learn to ride a bicycle, you need to get on the bike. To learn to swim you need to get into the water. The way to learn is to do. When you ask your students to reflect, in any way, shape, or form, you will be assigning a practice that you yourself have engaged in. You will understand the fear and resistance that you will inevitably feel as you too embark on the practice, and you will understand how threatening the act of reflection might feel for students. But whether you are an embedded librarian who spends an inordinate of time in a class, or you do a few sessions for a particular professor or department, you can teach and encourage reflection by introducing students to small exercises that can encourage them to get to

Reflective Practice as Intentional Practice 27 

know themselves not just as students who have to write papers and do assignments, but as researchers, scholars in the making, contributors and makers of knowledge. You will have firsthand knowledge of how this works, how transformative it can be to the educational experience (and for one’s inevitable future professional experience), and with authenticity relay this to your students. The old saying that people may not believe what you say but instead they believe what you do is very apt here.

Strategies ll

While the concept of habit usually has a bad connotation, as it applies to reflection, it is a most desirable one. Regularity with reflective practice builds a muscle, a habit of mind, a way of being.

ll

Try to find a regular time to reflect. While this is not easy to do, given the nature of our work and the multitude of tasks in our days, it might help to schedule fifteen minutes to a half hour a few times a week to focus on your notes and begin to reflect.

ll

Write down details as soon as possible. Often while teaching a session, I will jot down notes as I go along. These are usually the “facts” of the class—the material I am covering, the strategies I am using, and so on. I will also “editorialize,” such as “They are looking right through me,” “They seem to be resistant to everything,” “Their questions seem so off target.” Afterward, when I find some quiet time, I go back and reflect, and begin the process of working things out.

ll

Begin where you are. While it seems odd, at the very least, for me to advise against the intellectualizing of reflective practice, my reason for doing so is that it would be easy to talk oneself out of beginning because of a misapprehension about doing it right. Simply begin.

ll

A good place to begin may be with a preoccupation that you have. Early on as a librarian, I experienced one information literacy session in which I thought it strange (and exasperating) that

28  CHAPTER 3

the students were questioning me relentlessly. Why, why, why, they continuously asked. While normally I would welcome questions (in fact, I try to encourage them), I felt challenged and not in a good way. Reflection revealed—but it took some time—that I was feeling an acute lack of confidence, and was feeling that the instruction I was doing, in the way I’d been taught, was meaningless. ll

Ask yourself a question! For instance, “What do I want to get out of this?” Connect that question, in a direct way, to “Who benefits?” This will help to prevent a “hyper-focus” simply on ourselves. As librarians, and as librarian-professors, we enact reflection to understand, change, question, and refine our instructional practice, in which our students are the recipients of this new knowledge, too.

ll

Begin to think of reflection not as an auxiliary process or an add-on, but as an integral part of professional practice.

ll

Recognize reflection for what it is: a process.

ll

Trust the process.

ll

Have patience with the process.

NOTES

1. John Dewey, How We Think: A Restatement of the Relation of Reflective Thinking to the Educational Process (Lexington, MA: Heath, 1933). 2. Donald A. Schön, The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action (New York: Basic Books, 1983). 3. D. Jean Clandinin, F. Michael Connelly, and D. A. Schön, “The Reflective Practitioner and Practitioners’ Narrative Unities,” Canadian Journal of Education 11, no. 2 (1986): 184–98. 4. Michael A. Gee, “Instructional Note: On Keeping an Academic Journal,” Teaching English in the Two-Year College 32, no. 1 (2004): 26–29. 5. Christopher Johns, Engaging Reflection in Practice: A Narrative Approach (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006).

4 The Way to Do Is to Begin Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. —ARTHUR ASHE

T

he resistance to using reflection in our professional practice is mystifying on the one hand and deeply disconcerting on the other. The tenets of any profession are both challenged and changed by those who have thought deeply and observed assiduously that profession’s present practices. In fact, best practices, as we know them, are created from this exact approach. So why do so many resist engaging in a practice that can only enhance our personal experiences in our work, thus benefiting not only ourselves but our students? Informal chats with several librarians revealed a common thread: most, if not all, were worried about exactly how to begin the process. One colleague revealed to me that she would not engage in the practice since she did not yet know enough about it, and “If I am going to do it, I am going to make sure that I am going to do it right!” The colleague seemed proud to be able to tell me, in 29 

30  CHAPTER 4

no uncertain terms, that doing things the right way was important to her. I suppose she figured that this somehow increased her cachet. “I’m known as a perfectionist,” she continued, laughing. I could only think of how limiting it must be not to embark on something new and exciting because you did not know in advance all of the written facts, what could go wrong, the pitfalls. I am afraid that if most of us felt that way, nothing would ever get done—or, for that matter, ever even get started. We live in a world in which technical rationality is of the utmost concern. This has taken us far away from the intuitive self, the harbingers of knowledge of who we are, how we work. Technical rationality laughs in the face of tacit knowing, that ineffable quality of knowing something to be true and right, but being unable to put it into words—either by speaking out loud to someone else or by committing it to paper. It is almost as if the experts, in nearly every aspect of our lives, have taken over and stifled our sense of knowing. What do we need to know and what will be the means by which we seek this knowing? Unfortunately, we do not always know what we do not know. If this is the case, we often do not know how to begin. Beginning the process of self-inquiry will reveal to us, in time and with dedicated practice, what we need to know. Beginning to reflect is like being in a swamp, a term that Schön uses to describe the kind of knowledge we need in our day-to-day practice: how to solve practical problems that occur with alarming regularity.1 We need this knowledge to navigate our professional relationships in the workplace, and to manage expectations and conflicts as they arise in our workaday worlds. We are not librarians alone, though those who do not understand our profession think that we are. Ours is an incredibly social profession, one in which we are in constant communication with others through service and teaching, either over the reference desk or in the classroom. We can search high and low in books, which may speak to our professional dilemmas in broad terms, but who could possibly know us better than ourselves? The high, hard ground, as Schön describes it, is the place of research and theory, a place that is very useful as it is applied to and supplements our own insights and experiences. The goal is never a one-size-fitsall solution, but instead one that we are actively contributing to.

The Way to Do Is to Begin 31 

Does it feel as though there is no safety net? Perhaps. But that would presuppose (and also be untrue) that anyone, up until now, has had the key to unlock all of the answers. We learn as we go along, not by being haphazard, uncaring, or “letting the chips fall where they may,” but by being active participants in our own learning. This is an aspect of ourselves that is often lost in the teaching professions: that we ourselves must still learn, and in fact, still have very much to learn. I gained valuable insight one semester while being embedded in a capstone course for college senior majors in English. The students were taking so long to begin their writing. They were stockpiling research—veritable cornucopias of information in the form of articles they printed out and carried in their backpacks—huge stacks that they pored over, seemingly absorbing information and knowledge. “Ideas get tested in paragraphs!” was my mantra, but no one seemed to be paying any attention to me. I could not understand why. At one point, I told them that they would probably not need much more research and that the time had come to start writing. I underestimated how incredibly fearful they were of the writing process. I reasoned with them: “You are senior English majors. Think of how many papers you have written in your college career. You can do this!” But in fact, sadly, few of them thought that they could. Since I had implemented reflection practices all throughout the course which I will detail in a later chapter, one of the exercises revealed exactly what they feared: that they had no sense whatsoever of where their own thoughts and ideas fit in—or even if they did. One student, a bright girl who had dreams of doing her PhD, asked me if she was allowed to put in her own thoughts. Another asked if she could cite an article that she disagreed with as a point of comparison. These students were out of touch with their own thoughts. They did not feel as though they were “expert” enough to even contribute to their own papers. This is the direct effect of technical rationality where knowledge is not created or contributed to, but instead, handed down from the “experts,” whomever they may be, to enlighten us. I tell this story because we, as professionals, can recognize our own fears reflected in amazingly similar fears that our very own students harbor.

32  CHAPTER 4

I was able to get at the root of this particular problem by engaging in reflective writing during and after each class session, coupled with implementing reflective practice in the course curriculum. I trusted my intuitive process, and worked through the problem by trying to understand where the students were coming from. And through reflective exercises, I aimed to help them grow their reflective muscles in order to engage with their own practice. Pre- and post-assessment revealed how much of a difference this cognitive strategy and regular practice benefited them, and their capstone projects were indicative of that.

IT BEGINS WITH A QUESTION Reflection is essentially dialogic. This dialogue occurs both with ourselves and with others—not just in the direct form of talking about process with colleagues, but also as it extends to our teaching practice. This is always an active process, one that is engaged in precisely, purposely, and intentionally to change and modify our practice. Reflective practice has suffered from the label of “navel-gazing” simply because those who are not engaged in it do not know its potential as an extremely powerful agent of change. When we assign and implement reflection to and for our students, we need to mediate and respond to the reflection so that it be­comes truly dialogic. But how do we, then, begin as professionals? The simplest way is to start with a journal. We can start with a question or a problem. We can begin to write in a way that releases tension, looks like a stream of consciousness, or is a regurgitation of our frustrations and feelings on the page. That is fine. But for reflection to be transformative, we must move beyond that to a reflection that seeks to question, probe, reflect, interrogate, and respond to our thoughts, feelings, and dilemmas. Have you ever had a friend complain to you about their job, their husband, wife, kids, and so on? The first few times it is easy to be sympathetic, and maybe you even feel relieved that someone is going through the same things that you are; you feel less alone. But then each time you encounter that person they continue droning on about the same problems, they voice the same complaints—their boss, their job, their pay—until

The Way to Do Is to Begin 33 

you simply do not want to hear about it anymore. How many times have you wanted to yell: “Well, then do something about it!” We might guess, perhaps correctly, that a person who is complaining in this way lacks insight into his or her own situation—that the seemingly endless complaining is done out of habit, out of feeling stuck, out of a feeling of powerlessness. In fact, most of us are all too ready to blame any difficulties in our personal or professional lives on anyone but ourselves. In the journal we may complain, we can gripe, but we must also question. These questions can be broad at first and get more specific as we go along in the process, gaining insight into certain situations. Soon we will write, creating our own personal narrative, and our questions, both broad and specific, will begin to overlap with one another. O’Connell and Dyment have helpfully identified seven different types of journal entries: 2 1. Personal reflection and discovery (how a specific experience is affecting me directly and what I have learned from it) 2. Group dynamics (how I learn in and from a group, and what I may contribute) 3. Professional development (how have I or do I grow from my experience) 4. Sense of place/connection to place (how does place add or detract from my experience) 5. Transfer of academic theory to field courses (applying what I know in theory to my or my students’ learning) 6. Transfer of field courses to academic theory (how does experience meld with theory) 7. Factual information (day, time, weather, participants, and so on) Feel free to ascribe your own interpretation to the questions above in order to use them as springboards for reflection. Those of us who work in academic libraries interact in a variety of ways with colleagues. In my own library, we have meetings once a week in which all manner of “business” is discussed, but the times that I enjoy the most is when we talk about professional practice. One or more of us will present a reference question, an information literacy session, an

34  CHAPTER 4

interaction with a faculty member, and so on, and we begin to discuss it. We offer suggestions and refutations, we have disagreements, and sometimes we challenge each other. I am often so caught up in the conversation (we are a lively group!) that it is not until I have gone back to my office that I can begin to parse out a particular question or line of thought. That is how I usually begin writing in my journal: with a question. The very structure of the journal encourages the act of writing. It can also be satisfying after keeping the journal for a while to flip the pages and look back on what you might have written one month or six months ago. Our preoccupations will change and shift, and what may have been of paramount importance or particularly troublesome to us one week will subsequently resolve itself. In its place will be other preoccupations that we will puzzle over and reflect upon, using our journals as a repository of discovery. The value in being able to look back on prior problems, difficulties, or questions is having the evidence of overcoming them, figuring them out either alone, in the journal, or with others. But what begins in the journal is very important and is built on, expanded, and drilled down into in subsequent entries. We become a witness to our own growth. The journal becomes a tool for transformation.

THE FREEDOM TO DO IT OUR WAY If what I am describing seems like a messy process with little concrete direction, then you perceive reflective practice in its truest sense. Writing in the journal, uncensored, with the freedom to question ourselves, but also to pat ourselves on the back for something that works—provided we reflect on exactly why something worked—is freedom of a most satisfying kind. You are not obligated to show or share the journal, and its contents are determined by you and you alone. It is always a good idea, though, to share the fact of keeping the journal with your students—particularly if you ask them to do the same. This is a way to model practice. You may want to share some of your own insights with your students, particularly thorny issues you worked through to a satisfying conclusion—or didn’t. The idea of reflection is really process-oriented rather than resultsoriented, and by that I mean that the process of reflection will, by

The Way to Do Is to Begin 35 

virtue of its very nature, provide insights which you will be able to use to influence practice, understanding, teaching, and so on. We reflect while we are doing and while we are being. As mentioned previously, Schön’s concept of “reflection-inaction” or “reflection-on-action” was further analyzed by Connelly and Clandinin, who made a clear distinction between the two phrases Schön had used somewhat interchangeably.3 They define “reflectionin-action” as thinking that occurs while one is engaged in the action or activity, and they define “reflection-on-action” as reflection after an action has been completed. It has been argued that everyone, par­ ticu­ larly educators of every kind, are constantly involved in reflection-in-action because we are constantly called upon to make decisions and respond to situations as they happen. When I think of myself in the classroom, both teaching information literacy sessions and being the embedded librarian in a class, I realize how I am not only making decisions minute by minute, but I am also responding to the stimuli around me. For instance, I am very tuned in to student body language and am sensitive to it. Moreover, many students have no idea that the person standing at the front of the class can hear most of the discussions going on among the class. I have shifted my lesson plans in response to these reactions. I have made those decisions, often, in a split second. I remember one particular session that I did for a freshman English class. I enthusiastically greeted everyone and then began my lesson. It was a “lively” class and I have to admit that I was a bit intimidated by the noise in the class, something the professor turned a blind eye (and ear) to. One student in the class said, “Oh, God, not again!” It stopped me in my tracks. I asked him what the problem was. He said that this was the third library session he’d had this week and he didn’t think he could listen to it again. The class laughed, a bit nervously at first, then a bit louder. I sympathized, but told them that reinforcing what they had already “learned” would do no harm. Clearly, they did not feel the same way. I got through the session, but was admittedly rattled. When I got back to my office, I had all manner of misgivings: I had been too cheerful, I hadn’t looked like I meant “business,” I had allowed the class to get out of hand, and ultimately I felt ashamed because I did not cover all of the material

36  CHAPTER 4

I set out to cover. I especially burned with shame over how the professor in the class may have perceived me. I feared that it would happen again. I needed to write it all out in my reflective journal. I needed to be able to perceive first the situation and then me in it without the delusions or distortions that are often used as defense mechanisms. I had to face the fact that my natural shyness and soft-spoken voice made me feel very intimidated in front of a class—and that the students, no doubt, perceived this. There were things that I had to resolve within myself and then apply to my classroom practice. I will admit it was painful. But reflection without honesty is not reflection. Being open to our own experiences is the main prerequisite of being a reflective practitioner. We can observe ourselves in two ways: as outside of ourselves, dispassionately as we might observe someone else, or embodied, with mind and heart connected. The shame that I felt when I reflected on my experience in the classroom that day was very much embodied—I felt that shame as a burning in my cheeks, along with an almost faint feeling—and then as a headache. That was my visceral and initial response. As I began my reflection, I noted all of these things. I had to lay it all out to be able to make sense of it. It was not until I did that that I could look at the incident, the situation, a bit more objectively and dispassionately. Thought and action become united. York-Barr et al. assert that “reflective practices can also bridge gaps between what we say (our espoused theory) and what we do. Bridging this gap is at the heart of integrity and authenticity.”4

FINAL THOUGHTS Reflection is an activity learned while doing. It is a highly personal activity that holds great potential for insight, transformation, understanding, and ultimately action. Understanding without change and action without understanding are not transformative. Reflection encourages action and change, which pave the way for building a foundation of practice. Just begin right where you are.

The Way to Do Is to Begin 37 

Strategies ll

Recognize the liberating nature of self-reflection, of writing.

ll

Give yourself permission to begin.

ll

Allow the process to be messy on the page.

ll

Set aside a regular time to reflect, which will encourage regularity.

ll

If the idea of reflection in a holistic sense seems daunting, begin with a scenario, a question, and a particular problem to explore.

ll

Be honest. Reflection is not for public consumption. This fact alone should encourage honesty toward one’s self and one’s practice.

ll

While any method of reflective writing is better than no method at all, I am a strong advocate of writing in a physical journal as opposed to an electronic journal. The very action of moving pen across paper encourages the excavation of thoughts because it takes time to write, thus giving us time to ruminate. The act of flipping pages back and forth also allows us to see, in a very real way, the progression of reflection.

NOTES

1. Donald A. Schön, Educating the Reflective Practitioner: Toward a New Design for Teaching and Learning in the Professions (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1987). 2. Timothy S. O’Connell and Janet E. Dyment, Theory into Practice: Unlocking the Power and the Potential of Reflective Journals (Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 2013). 3. Donald A. Schön, The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action (New York: Basic Books, 1983). 4. Jennifer York-Barr, William A. Sommers, Gail S. Ghere, and Jo Montie, eds., Reflective Practice to Improve Schools: An Action Guide for Educators (Newbury Park, CA: Corwin, 2005).

5 The Cycle of Reflection Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakes. —C. G. JUNG

W

ith the advent of critical pedagogy in librarianship, the added dimension of reflection necessitates that the librarian be a more conscious practitioner in all aspects of our teaching and of our work. The increasing number of daily distractions we are subject to do not create the right mindset or the right environment for thoughtful reflection. We are task-oriented, resultsdriven, and with current budgetary restrictions always in place, we are forced to make decisions on data and tangible quantities—how many library sessions, how many one-on-one sessions, how many reference questions, books checked out, e-books downloaded, and so on. The list is only limited by the imagination. We are told that “metrics” are all-important—if you can measure it, you can control it. But can you?

39 

40  CHAPTER 5

Paradoxically, we need the time to reflect more than ever. Problems will occur and conundrums will present themselves with alarming regularity—a consistent part of our everyday life. Since most of us normally act out of habit, a sort of rote learning and acting out of our everyday practices, to really take stock of a situation requires that we take an honest look at ourselves and our problems. The tendency is to invent excuses and rationalizations in order to continue doing what we have been doing, because to dismantle the fragile house of cards, particularly when we least expect having to do so, leaves us with the fear that it could all come tumbling down. One of the reasons problems are so difficult to solve is simply because we seek to solve the difficult issue at hand without any thought or analysis. We skip steps. Most crucially, we skip the thinking step and sell ourselves short by looking for quick answers—the easy way out. Because thinking takes time and a dedication to the process, and for long-term versus short-term solutions, we would all like to skip that step. So much can be “solved” in the short term—we brush the dust off our hands and congratulate ourselves on having gotten through the day, only to have the problem or issue arise again and again.

THE CYCLE OF REFLECTION The cycle of reflection often begins with a problem, a keen perception, or a particular uncertainty. When we focus on a particularly troubling or difficult experience, a problem becomes clearer. This clarity, as both the heart and mind begin to see, creates both a path and a desire for further exploration in order to more fully understand and dissect the issue. During this period of time, one will begin to seek and then analyze more information in an effort to solve the problem. In the final stage, a reconceptualization of the problem takes place and experimentation with possible solutions begins to occur. As soon as questioning begins, the door is open to further inquiry, the beginning of a new learning process with the potential for tangible change. This cycle of reflection is very different from seeking to find a solution as soon as a problem presents itself. As I will show further

The Cycle of Reflection 41 

along in this book, that is the tendency of many students—to entirely skip, either consciously or unconsciously, the cycle of reflection and seek a solution to a problem that they simply do not understand in the first place. This in turn causes a lack of confidence in their own abilities, along with a fair amount of frustration, and emotions which, when indulged in any way, begin to feed upon themselves, making things worse, almost ensuring that finding a way out of the difficulty will not or cannot be found. This is largely a perception problem that becomes all too real. Schön uses the metaphor of the swampy lowlands to describe where we often find ourselves in professional practice.1 This swampy place is wide and flat and we cannot see very far in any direction. We can situate ourselves just enough to know where we are at any moment in time. In the classroom we rely on our habitual practice, what we know, the skills that we have built up over time and the strategies that have worked in certain situations. But what we need now, in the very moment we are in, is different from all of the other situations that have preceded it—because teaching is dynamic and fluid, not static. We wade in our hip boots through the swamp and we do the best that we can, in the moment. We try something, fail, and then try again. We often espouse theories of particular actions or practices. For instance, I have always said how important I think it is to “check in” with a class before I begin teaching. I believe that it is a most excellent practice to “take the temperature of the class”—if they are inattentive, angry-looking, yawning, and so on, and if you talk to them, they will often tell you why. I tell everyone that “knowing is half the battle.” But while I strongly believe that this small act is very important in setting a tone of attentiveness and care in the classroom, I myself have not done this each time I have stepped into a classroom, for any number of reasons, including lack of time or fatigue. This is a perfect example of an “espoused theory.” In addition to espoused theories, things we believe to be good practice, but which we have not yet put into use or are not consistent with, there are our “theories in use.” This is what we actually enact in our practice, the way we think on our feet, the way we act in the moment drawing on our past experience or what feels right at the time. This involves an element

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of tacit knowing—the conversation that we often have unconsciously with ourselves. Reflection is what connects the dots in our practice. It is intentional by its very characteristics, and is conscious in its seeking, asking, and knowing.

THE REFLEXIVE LOOP The reflexive loop is just what it sounds like; a circular process that, like the proverbial carnival game, “goes round and round and round—where it will stop, nobody knows.” When wielded properly, it becomes a tool for our reflective practice. But when allowed to go unchecked, it can become a never-ending cycle of self-justification. Argyris states that we are selective about our observations, that our beliefs often go untested and are self-generated.2 We pick and choose what we will focus on to the exclusion of other data. The use of the reflexive loop should involve a process of deep exploration and the desire for what Larrivee claims is integral to the process of becoming a reflective practitioner: authenticity.3 She states: Authenticity is a product of becoming a reflective practitioner. As teachers become more aware of the beliefs and assumptions that drive them, they become aware of the dissonance between what they say and what they do. With that awareness comes the capacity to change and become more authentic. To be authentic begins with being honest with yourself.

Larrivee goes on to list the ten attributes of authentic teachers as those who have integrity, self-assurance, and trust in their own abilities: Authentic teachers . . .

1. Walk their talk 2. Know and trust who they are 3. Are aware of both their strengths and weaknesses 4. Say what’s on their mind without blame or judgment 5. Experience and display their emotions 6. Are clear about their motives 7. Challenge others’ inauthenticity

The Cycle of Reflection 43 

8. Are not afraid of being wrong 9. Admit their mistakes and try to correct them 10. Are always learning and changing This seems to be a daunting list at first sight, but in fact these traits are attainable through self-reflective practice. I had always thought that I was an authentic person until I became an academic librarian in the classroom, where the agenda was almost always driven by someone other than me, right down to when, how, why, and what I was supposed to instruct a particular class in. Not infrequently I was used as a substitute for a professor who was going to be out of town on a conference or vacation. In many instances I was scheduled for the dreaded one-shot session that, as I have written about earlier, was one which went against what I believed was helpful. Often, I was asked to come to a class in which I was expected to teach a session for which an assignment had not yet been given— and when I would approach the professor about this, I was invariably told that it was the only time in the semester that I could be fit in. There are so many other scenarios that both my colleagues and I have endured, and probably those of you reading this have your own to recount. This kind of usurping of our professional role (that is the only way that I can think of it) can take its toll. I’ve had colleagues who believed that you could not in any way, shape, or form challenge the professor on his expectations, even if this passivity meant doing the opposite of what you felt was sound pedagogical and professional practice. This troubled me to such a degree that I felt that I would rather not go into the classroom if it meant denying my authentic professional self and being able to enact what I feel is best for the classroom. I formulated scenarios in which I would leave the academic environment that I loved for something more solitary—like cataloging, where I could work in a little bubble and not have my professional integrity challenged on a nearly daily basis. Most of us working as librarians in academia know what this feels like. But being a reflective person has helped me to begin the difficult process of excavating how and when I gave up my agency and authenticity. I began speaking to my colleagues about challenging the out-of-touch

44  CHAPTER 5

expectations that were placed on us by professors. I expected to be patted on the back for this fearlessness of mine, but instead I confronted others who were unsure of how to move forward. The path of least resistance often seems like a comfortable place to be. On this path there are no conflicts and the status quo is reliably and firmly in place. There is also no movement forward, no momentum, and a nearly scandalous lack of teaching opportunities for the professional librarian and a lack of learning opportunities for our students. This was one problem that I reflected on quite a bit. Because I was not able to be my best self in the classroom and teach what I felt was both timely and worthwhile, I began to question everything about my practice. At first, I would just spin my wheels about it. A problem or an issue often seems quite clear at first sight, but once we begin to interrogate the issues behind what we believe to be the problem, the view may become murky. This is because we are not only dealing with the problem or issue at hand, but also with all of our emotions attached to it. So for instance, in my case, I was not only confused and upset by not being able to teach what I felt was important in my own way—a situation that I felt was directly detrimental to the students—but I had the attendant emotions of anger and embarrassment over the issue. I had to separate the two in order to begin to see things more clearly. How could it have been good for the students for me to absent myself from the classroom, prizing my ego over their needs? I did not think of that at first—which perfectly exemplifies the need for reflection. But in fact, I began interrogating myself: How did it help students for me to simply refuse to give instruction in their classroom? What would it accomplish? Were my own professional desires so rigid and ego-based that I thought that it could only be done my way? Committing these questions and the answers to these questions to paper is an important step in being able to see how our thinking occurs in stages, and how being honest with ourselves can open up great windows of clarity. Often, we simply want to solve the problem, but while that is ultimately the goal, what we are really seeking is clarity and understanding. Looking for an answer right away simply overlooks and denies the cycle of reflection.

The Cycle of Reflection 45 

ANALYSIS After I identified what I thought was the main problem, I began to analyze it as best as I could, leaving out my emotions. This meant leaving my bruised feelings and my fears of seeming inadequate in the eyes of others behind. It is easy to focus on emotions that serve only to obscure concrete problems that can be changed, but all problems have an emotional element—that cannot be denied, just as feelings cannot be denied. But it did help to separate the two, initially. I identified my commitment to students, and how that was really the most important thing to me. One of the things that bothered me so much was that students were going to be short-changed by my skimping on content and timing, and this just did not make sense to me. But now, upon beginning to reflect, I had something that I could reasonably work with. I could see the research process quite clearly. I aimed for it to be holistic, not compartmentalized into boxes of topic, databases, and searching. I needed time to talk about the conceptualization of a subject or an issue, since I strongly believed (and still do) that the problems that students have with research are not research problems per se, but instead are thinking and conceptualization problems. What I have noticed is that professors want me to teach in a lab; that if I do not show the students the “tools” of the trade right away, then I will fail them. But I saw things very, very differently. I wanted to give the students in the class a forum to admit, as most of us do when we are starting a project, what they didn’t know, and then, by extension, to assure them that it is okay to not know what you don’t know—at least at first. This point in the reflective process is also a good time to be able to dialogue with others. This type of “crowd sourcing,” to use a contemporary term, is important. Others can give valuable input into your issue and help you to see it from various angles and viewpoints. And it is a plus when someone is not trying to be objective in their discussions with us: we want their opinions, we want to know what is true for them in their own experiences and to use those experiences as a sort of counterbalance to our own, providing some fertile ground

46  CHAPTER 5

for constructive dialogue to take root and flourish. This is the type of dialogue that is rooted in experience—yours, mine, and ours. Each of us speaks about what we know. This dialogue is not so much to seek advice, but rather to gather opinions. Our work, our professional practice, and our values are our baseline, and changing how we are in our work is not something easily affected by someone who is critical of us. Dialogue must resonate with the persistent “why” for it to be of value. I remember a time when I felt as though I could not possibly be on the correct path in the way I handled reference or teaching in the classroom because, for a time, my colleagues not only did not understand my path, but they also simply did not agree with it. I would express myself at meetings and then shrink at the feedback or resistance I regularly encountered about my practice. I had convictions, but I allowed others to discourage me. When I began employing my own reflexive loop as a tool for progress, referring back to my own experience and writing about it where I could begin to concretize things, I was able to speak more eloquently about my practice, be more open about the problems I was encountering, and engage my colleagues in more fruitful discussions without the fear I had previously had. We do not have to agree with another’s assessment so much that we hold others’ opinions in higher regard than our own—that we totally abandon what feels true to us—but we can carefully consider what is offered to us. It seems to be a very human quality to harbor resistance to advice, or to play “devil’s advocate”—even when we actively seek that advice. In the movie Good Will Hunting, Matt Damon’s character states, with a lot of wisdom, “Truth is a hard apple to throw and a hard apple to catch.” This is a particularly difficult aspect of reflection: raw honesty with ourselves and from others. But without it, the reflexive loop would be the proverbial exercise in futility. There would literally be no point to it. We must listen, take it all into account, and then act on what feels right and true for us.

ACTION It should not in any way be concluded that reflection is merely a passive practice. Action will occur as a result of reflection, and this is

The Cycle of Reflection 47 

the ultimate goal. We need to reflect in order to enact real change in our practice, but going through the cycle that will lead us to experimentation and change comes about through a sort of discernment, a word most generally used in religious parlance, where one contemplates whether or not one has what it takes for a particular vocation or for seeking spiritual understanding. I use the word discernment in the broad sense to mean a concerted and definitive focus on an issue or problem. Once you have engaged in the persistent “why,” leading to a cascade of thoughts that beget a whole series of whys, your questions join hands with your intentional reflective self and seek either experimentation or solution. More than likely the next step, now that we have a clearer vision of the road in front of us, is that we change course—we are no longer acting or responding in a rote way, but have changed our practice. Is this a solution? That is something that we cannot know until we have tried it—until we have tried something different from what we were previously doing. The swampy lowlands are always there; we find ourselves there each time we encounter a different group of students or are asked to teach another aspect or focus of information literacy, for instance. We are not supposed to wish never to be in the swamp again—because we will be—but instead we can know that when we find ourselves there, we have tools to be able to deal with the situation.

POSSIBLE PITFALLS While not officially part of the reflexive cycle, I would be remiss if I did not mention the resistance that some busy professionals have toward engaging with reflective practice and some of the possible reasons for that resistance. The inconvenient paradox here is quite simply that the busier we are, the more we need reflective practice. The busier we are, however, the more resistant we may be to reflection, as well. I have worked with colleagues who have resented even the mention of the practice around a discussion table, usually by telling me that I have an advantage since I am “naturally reflective.” My response is always the same: we are all reflective to a degree, though some of us are simply more intentional about it. My nature may be more reflective, but I still have to work at the practice of reflection.

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Gillie Bolton provides a list of some of the most common reasons for resistance to reflection:4 ll ll ll ll

ll ll

Inexperience at imagining another’s experience Not knowing how to create a dynamic reflective narrative Fearing incompetence, fearing ridicule Tiredness, overwork, lack of time, too many other things to do Lack of motivation Too painful and revealing

While in certain organizational settings the practice of reflection could be perceived as too personal, a threat, or something subject to critical or negative evaluation by others. I am mainly concerned here with the individual librarian who willingly undertakes reflection as a way of understanding and improving upon one’s own personal practice. All of Bolton’s points are valid, though they can be overcome. Reflection is a demanding practice, to say the least, so it is helpful to have one’s heart follow one’s mind in order to be successful with your efforts. If your resistance is very strong, you will have to acknowledge this—which is actually part of reflection! One of my biggest limitations to reflection is not resistance to the practice itself, but simply time in which I have cleared a space not only on my daily calendar, but in my head, too. Time is not the only requirement—we have to be mentally ready to be able to look hard and deep at the thing that is hardest to face. The responsibility inherent in reflection is that once you have shined a light on practice, you cannot, with good conscience, go back to the way things were before. And really, that is the whole point. It is possible that the act of reflection can open up a Pandora’s box of vulnerabilities and insecurities, but the important thing to remember is to stay with yourself and stay with your practice once you have begun. Writing through the uncomfortable feelings and observations that arise initially will give you something to work with. But do not be surprised if one question or problem leads you to another and then another. You will be taking the very first steps in building a knowledge base for practice while at the same time

The Cycle of Reflection 49 

you experience the learning and growing that are essential for every librarian in the classroom.

FINAL THOUGHTS While reflection is one of the characteristics that makes us human (everyone reflects!), what distinguishes reflective practice is intentionality and consistency. If the practice feels risky, it is because in its very essence it is. It becomes a new way of seeing and then eventually of doing, which takes time, patience, and in some instances, courage. It enhances our knowledge of ourselves and how we are in our society. And while it is something that originates with us, its positive effects influence, in a very tangible way, our entire environment: ourselves and our students and by extension, the world around us.

Strategies ll

Examine your reasons for wanting to reflect.

ll

Recognize that on any given day it may feel like a chore.

ll

Decide on a method for yourself: alone, with a colleague, or in a group.

ll

Be honest with yourself (if working alone) and honest with others (if in a group).

ll

Give thought to where and how you will reflect in order to make a habit of the practice. Your office, a coffee shop, your home? Your laptop, your phone, a bound paper journal?

ll

Resist the urge to censor yourself. First efforts often reveal so much and are a “clearing of the throat” of sorts. Allow whatever needs to come to the surface to do so. You may have a thought or a concern about a student or a colleague or a particular class come to the surface. Pull that thread to see where it may lead. Somewhere? Great! Nowhere? Keep going!

ll

As clichéd as it sounds, trust in and have patience with the process.

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NOTES

1. Donald A. Schön, Educating the Reflective Practitioner: Toward a New Design for Teaching and Learning in the Professions (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1987). 2. Chris Argyris and Donald A. Schön, Theory in Practice: Increasing Professional Effectiveness (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1974). 3. Barbara Larrivee, Authentic Classroom Management: Creating a Learning Community and Building Reflective Practice (Boston: Pearson Allyn and Bacon, 2005). 4. Gillie Bolton, Reflective Practice: Writing and Professional Development (London: Sage, 2010).

6 Using the Journal in Reflection Writing in a journal each day, with a structured, strategic process, allows you to direct your focus to what you did accomplish, what you’re grateful for, and what you are committed to doing better tomorrow. Thus you more deeply enjoy your journey each day, feel good about any forward progress you made, and use a heightened level of clarity to accelerate your results. —HAL ELROD

WHY THE JOURNAL? Both with colleagues and students, I am a huge proponent of the journal. It is like a gospel that I preach. It is not a stretch to say that its use is essential, and in fact critical, to the reflective process. If there was no place in which to record our thoughts, fears, and ideas, we would never be able to see our processes clearly enough to understand and improve on them. Instead, we would be caught in a cycle of muddled and obsessive thoughts about issues and problems that never become understood, let alone resolved in any meaningful way. Since, as I have stated before, reflection is an intentional practice, one of the tools that we use, with intention, is the journal. It is not just my imagination that makes it feel as though life is going at a breakneck pace. Our days are full of more responsibilities, 51 

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tasks, teaching, projects, research, office hours, and so on than ever before. Multitasking, the term often used to show how we can do many things well at the same time, is, at its core, a lie. Multitasking is the enemy of thoughtful and considerate practice in anything that we do, simply because we are not meant to or wired to function in this way. How many times have you tried to have a conversation with someone while they incessantly checked their phone? Or walked into a meeting where people were angry and ill-prepared, bemoaning the “meetings are useless” refrain? We have too many things to do and not enough time to do it. Busyness has become a badge of honor to some, but to be able to function in this way requires that one does not stop, at least not very often. Time to reflect will not present itself to you. In order to reflect, you must make the time. And given our busy professional lives, it behooves us to do this so that we are not constantly responding to stimuli and issues, but instead are developing a sound and meaningful practice by working with our experiences. The journal is the perfect repository for this. Moreover, if you keep a bound paper journal it can go with you wherever you go, so that writing and reflection can happen spontaneously as you grab small chunks of time here and there. In these instances you may only have time to jot down a few notes, but those notes will serve as a springboard for thought later on. I am concerned with the written journal rather than an electronic one, primarily because I believe that the very act of writing, of moving the pen or pencil across a page, not only stimulates ideas but also slows them down just enough in the time it takes to write them so that they are fuller and more fleshed out. Many countries around the world are moving in the direction of eliminating the learning of cursive (longhand) writing in schools. As a librarian and a writer, this appalls me on several levels, one of them being that it will be difficult for future generations to read historical documents. As a writer, I know the value of the meditative and generative quality of pen and paper. With all of that said, if one prefers to keep an electronic journal, by all means, an electronic journal it is! Reflection, however it is recorded, is always better than no reflection at all.

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EXPRESSIONS OF EXPERIENCE We learn from within our experiences and, further, in the expression of those experiences—and the journal aids us in doing that. The educator Jennifer Moon has named several of the purposes of keeping a journal:1 ll

ll

ll

ll

ll

ll

ll ll

ll

To deepen the quality of learning in the form of critical thinking or developing a questioning attitude To enable learners to understand their own learning process To increase active involvement in learning and personal ownership of learning To enhance professional practice or the professional self in practice To enhance the personal valuing of the self toward self-empowerment To enhance creativity by making better use of intuitive understanding To free up writing and the representation of learning To provide an alternative “voice” for those not good at expressing themselves To foster reflective and creative interaction in a group

When we undertake reflective practice, we do so with the mind of a learner. In our workaday lives we are expected to uphold the impression of the consummate professional, preferably one who is highly confident and has all of the answers. I myself began my career with the fear that I was expected to know everything, and have answers right at the tip of my tongue or, if I didn’t, I knew exactly where to find them. But there is no profession that I can think of, save perhaps a surgeon, in which you are not allowed at least a little ignorance and to be able to look back on experience and try to figure things out from there. These are the conditions in which we keep a journal. We have accepted that we can learn from an experience instead of persistently defending a practice we have always done simply because

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we have always done it that way. For instance, several times I have heard people complain about a student or a colleague, giving reason after reason for why this person was wrong in that particular situation and then staunchly defending their assessment of the situation. Interestingly, this is a sort of perverted reflection, where the person is most definitely reflecting, particularly in the telling of the experience, but instead of dissecting it and identifying patterns in order to aid in understanding, the person recounts every word of the incident in order to receive validation, rather than achieving understanding and giving constructive feedback. Years ago I remember a friend of mine who was struggling in her marriage. Every other day she complained about her husband, about what he did and didn’t do. I felt sorry for her, especially when the marriage finally ended. About six months after the divorce, when she was on her own, I remember expressing my relief to her that her suffering in the marriage was over. She replied, “Wow. This might be hard for you to believe, but a lot of what I thought were his problems were really mine—I just never had time to think about it.” As professionals in the classroom, we too are equipped with amazing powers of rationalization—a coping strategy that prevents us from learning, growing, and taking our real situation into account. Self-knowledge becomes one of the most valuable by-products of reflection, leading to a heightened awareness and understanding of one’s self and one’s teaching, and the journal is a living and fluid document of the self. Some of the criticism of this type of self-knowledge achieved through the keeping of a reflective journal is that it seems like navel-gazing, self-centered and time-consuming—time better spent in actual educational pursuits that will benefit students in more and better ways. But I would answer that type of criticism with a question: aren’t the self and its thoughts, feelings, and practices worthy of such introspection and reflection? In the library I am fond of saying (as any of my colleagues could tell you) that we, as professionals—not the books, the building, or the computers—are the best and most valued resource that our students have, so why would we not look after ourselves and try to understand ourselves?

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Madeleine Grumet articulates this best: “any writing and reading of our lives presents us with a challenge that is at the heart of every educational experience: making sense of our lives in the world.”2

JOURNALING TECHNIQUES I am a voracious and inveterate journal keeper. It has sustained me like no other practice has or I doubt ever will. I am not sure if I was “born to it” as some have suggested, but I do know that I always, without exception, feel better doing it and having done it. There are a variety of ways that you as a professional can benefit from keeping a journal for reflective practice. While one of the main ways of keeping a journal is writing in narrative form, there are certainly others that are successfully employed by many people. The point is not to limit yourself. I would encourage the use of narrative writing at least some of the time, but be innovative. Ask yourself how best you can reflect. The possibilities include dialoguing with yourself, starting with a trigger issue or problem, drawing, or poetry. I have also used collage in my journal, though not alone; I have used it to accompany narrative. At one point in time I was feeling very flighty, not grounded, and very unsure of myself. I have always loved birds and everything about them. After making one particularly painful entry in my reflection journal, I decided to make a collage of birds. As I was cutting into magazines and juxtaposing the birds on the page, it came to me that birds were the perfect metaphor for what I’d been feeling. I had been comparing myself to more seasoned librarians and feeling “flighty and bird-brained.” But I read over the words that I’d written and looked at the birds I’d chosen as accompaniment: they had keen, clear eyes, strong wings, and, moreover, they could “rise above.” I saw possibility for myself. I wasn’t there yet, but I was on the way to becoming. The metaphor was totally unforced and affected me powerfully. You will notice when you begin the reflection/writing process how metaphor will present itself. This is not coincidence, but instead an instance of heart and mind working together, synchronized. This is not magic, not divine—but instead it is the result of your work, the

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time and diligence that you put into this practice. Choosing a variety of techniques will make the reflective journal uniquely yours and will, in all likelihood, make it feel less like a chore, less like the kind of work you are doing during the day.

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS OR FREEWRITING Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way advocates a practice called the “morning pages.”3 This consists of writing three consecutive pages of whatever happens to come to your mind. I will stretch this a bit to say that this technique can be used at any time, though Cameron’s theory is a sound one: that writing, in longhand, three consecutive pages, first thing in the morning, of whatever comes into your mind is a sort of cleansing, and a preparation for what may come later. She considers this a way of clearing your heart and mind of your preoccupations. I call it “taking out the trash.” When I wake up in the morning, I am overcome with all of the things that need to be done that day, particularly my workday, which involves reference work, one-on-one student research appointments, and teaching. I usually wake with a heaviness that many of us working people feel, particularly before that first cup of coffee. I don’t always do morning pages, but when I do, I have a steaming cup of something hot right beside me and I begin. In my morning pages I will usually reflect on the residue left from the day before, often airing misgivings: the report I failed to write, the reference desk shift I missed, my frustration over technology not working in one of the classrooms, the mess on my desk that I have not had time to straighten up. Occasionally I will ask myself a big question such as, why can’t I get it together? Cameron suggests that when we are writing our morning pages (or our afternoon or evening pages as the case may be), we should not stop. We should not take our pen off the page. And if we run out of things to write, we scribble: I have run out of things to write, over and over until something comes to mind. This kind of writing is what I like to call propulsive—the very act of writing, the regularity of the exercise begets more writing, more clarity. The benefits that the habit of writing produces for both the writer and the writing have been well

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documented over the years, and there is little that I can add to that except to say that I can attest to its power. Just to exemplify how messy, often nonsensical, and distorted a freewriting exercise can be, Peter Elbow offers us this:4 I think I’ll write what’s on my mind, but the only thing on my mind right now is what to write for ten minutes. I’ve never done this before and I’m not prepared in any way— the sky is cloudy today, how’s that? now I’m afraid I won’t be able to think of what to write when I get to the end of the sentence—well, here I am at the end of the sentence— here I am again, again, again, again, at least I’m still writing—Now I ask is there some reason to be happy that I’m still writing—ah yes! Here comes the question again— What am I getting out of this? What point is there in it? It’s almost obscene to always ask it but I seem to question everything that way and I was gonna say something else pertaining to that but I got so busy writing down the first part that I forgot what I was leading into. This is kind of fun oh don’t stop writing—cars and trucks speeding by somewhere out the window, pens clittering across peoples’ papers. The sky is still cloudy—is it symbolic that I should be mentioning it? Huh? I dunno. Maybe I should try colors, blue, red, dirty words—wait a minute—no can’t do that, orange, yellow, arm tired, green pink violet magenta lavender red brown black green—now I can’t think of any more colors—just about done—relief? maybe.

As you can see, this piece is all over the place. The punctuation is irregular, as is the grammar, and at least one word probably would not be found in an English dictionary, but this is freewriting in its truest sense: raw and unedited. The point is not to strive for perfect prose (far from it), with eloquent and graceful sentences chock-full of insight—that comes eventually. But instead, it is a good swipe of what is littering the mind at the time. Far from being a waste of time, something we are all concerned about in a society that almost always values product over process, this very process primes the pump, you might say, for more writing, just as a vocal soloist might sing scales

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or clear the throat before a big performance. But here is the good news: reflection and reflective practice are not about performance at all. Reflective practice is not for show, it will not (usually) be evaluated, or shared without your permission among others. It is expressly for you, for your edification, your growth, your insight, your purposes. Retrospectively, the freewriting that you do can reveal your preoccupations at any given point in time. Preoccupations take up a lot of space in our brains and can impede clear thought and forward momentum. Being able to freewrite about what is on our minds creates some space for the important issues that we can intentionally target as we move along in the process. Looking back into the journal is almost always a revelation: what might have worried and preoccupied you a month or so ago is now not even on your radar. It shows the ebb and flow of our lives. If you have gone through a particularly confusing, dislocating, or troubling time, you can see evidence in your writing that you have, indeed, moved through it and come out the other side.

DIALOGUE Using dialogue in reflection is a great way to put to use the many “whys” that make up the practice. This conversation we have with ourselves is an incredibly powerful technique to get at the very essence of a problem. If reflection is often initiated by the uneasy feeling that something is not right, a feeling of inadequacy, or an incident, then explicitly asking a question, articulating what exactly it is you want to know, and then answering yourself is an extremely valuable technique in order to “see” what you really think and how you feel. This is a conversation that you have with yourself, by your­self; however, some helpful variations might include writing a dialogue in which you converse with someone else, though you, of course, will be writing both sides. This reflection technique requires honesty and provides both insight and circumspection, requiring you to see an issue or a problem from different sides. It is a technique that I have returned to time and time again because it helped me to step out of my own thoughts in order to imagine what another person might be thinking or feeling. Reiterating the goal of reflection,

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action, in one form or another, is what we are aiming for. To keep us from recycling our thoughts and feelings, running in place, sometimes requires that we do this “processing” with a different point of view. Of course, another form of the dialogue would be reflecting in a group or with another person, such as a trusted colleague, where respect and honesty would be the main requirements. I would suggest, first, that someone feel comfortable with the process of reflection alone. Reflection in groups can feel threatening and can silence the voice for those who have not been initiated into the practice. It is better to gain solid footing on your own, first.

LISTS The use of lists in reflective practice is a great technique for those who feel short on words, and for those who need to get ideas down in representative words. I have used lists when I did not have the time or energy that I needed to write my thoughts out. Sometimes I have returned to the list to flesh out those initial thoughts and sometimes I have simply let that list represent what and how I was thinking at that moment in time. There is no judgment in reflection, therefore there is no need for guilt, or the idea that an entry is not “inspiring” or “enough.” Here is a list from my reflective journal in 2012, when my colleagues and I were weighing whether or not to eliminate the reference desk in order to go to a one-on-one consultation model. I was able to see things both ways, though I was leaning towards elimination. We had some highly engaging and often heated discussions about this change, with the group being slightly in favor of keeping the desk. I had ideas that I could not adequately express, for some reason, and felt great frustration over it: Eliminate Reference Desk ll ll ll ll ll

Old model Demeaning to sit all day at a desk and unjam staplers Too passive People miss their reference shifts all the time Where is the pedagogy in staffing the reference desk?!

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ll

ll ll ll

Why do people want to hold on to this? What are they afraid of? Why can’t we just try it for a bit? Are people threatened by change? Why???? I feel so exposed sitting at that desk

Keep Reference Desk ll ll ll ll ll ll

Change takes time and energy We will have to socialize this change Easier to keep doing what we have always done Won’t have to meet so much resistance Won’t have to fear failure Won’t have to discuss this at reference meetings anymore!

The lists I made look pretty simple, to be sure, but the frustration and fatigue over the issue were not. The very act of making the lists helped me to literally “see” what it was that I was feeling. It was a time of exhaustion for all of us, a time of change in our library, and many of us could not conceive of more change. My desire to be reflective is always strong, but the energy level wanes. Lists are a very viable way to not only vary the reflective routine, but to still reflect when time in your day is hard to find. By the way, we eventually made the switch to a one-on-one consultation model that is incredibly successful and we no longer look back.

DRAWING For those among us who are more visual and less loquacious on the page, drawing can be a great reflective technique in addition to other reflective strategies. Some people keep strictly visual diaries or journals, in which most of what is expressed is done in line drawings, pastels, watercolors, pencil, and so on. One of the most impressive and inspiring examples of this kind of journaling that I have ever seen is Frida Kahlo’s diary—itself a work of art.5 In her diary, which was not called “reflective” at the time, but is a perfect example of the form, Kahlo writes and draws and paints about her painful life, both

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literally and figuratively in the most honest and sometimes shocking of ways: I wish I could do whatever I liked behind the curtain of “madness.” Then: I’d arrange flowers, all day long, I’d paint; pain, love and tenderness, I would laugh as much as I feel like at the stupidity of others, and they would all say: “Poor thing, she’s crazy!” (Above all I would laugh at my own stupidity.) I would build my world, which while I lived, would be in agreement with all the worlds. The day, or the hour, or the minute that I lived would be mine and everyone else’s—my madness would not be an escape from “reality.”

While I cannot reproduce the pages of her diary, here is an example of a passage that is highly emotive and self-aware. She paired her words with images in full and authentic expression of herself. I strongly believe that her ability to narrate her own life and to work out her many problems, both physically and with her difficult and tempestuous relationship with Diego Rivera, both of which caused her much emotional turmoil, helped her to remain in “reality,” and to never succumb to the madness for which she longed. I think that in this interdisciplinary world that we dwell in, it is important to both seek knowledge and be inspired by others in various fields. Techniques can be borrowed from any number of creative fields in order to reflect. While some may scoff at the inclusion of drawings or poetry in a book about reflective practice for librarians, they are wrong. To get beyond the predominant “technical rationality” in research in particular and academia in general, we have to open ourselves up to all that is available to us and avail ourselves of the wisdom and inspiration found there. One last word on drawing: no experience needed!

POETRY Using poetry in reflective practice is a way to use words to formulate and conceptualize experience and feelings. Since the distillation of ideas is the hallmark of poetry, words are carefully chosen and

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arranged on the page. There is no limit to how one can express one’s feelings using all of the forms of poetry that one knows about. In fact, just like drawing, no knowledge or experience of writing poetry is required. The reflective journal for personal purposes has no rules other than honesty and consistency. Sometimes I will advise someone who has not written poetry before but is eager to use it in the journal to try writing haiku and prose poetry. Haiku has a very basic 5-7-5-syllable structure, which can provide a very terse, though evocative, image of experience. Prose poetry, written in block form, looks like a paragraph, but is language distilled and to the point, and it affords a bit more room for expansive ideas and thoughts that need to be expressed.

METAPHOR Right on the heels of poetry is a good place to talk about metaphor in reflective practice and writing. It is often said that language shapes our perception of reality and that we live by metaphor. We use metaphors to imbue our language with fullness, with dimension, to startle and, in some cases, subdue; metaphor is what Lakoff and Johnson call a rhetorical flourish; that “our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature” and inextricable from our everyday lives.6 So how does this translate into writing reflectively in the journal? One way is to try to conceptualize your literal and figurative place in your library or organization and describe it by comparing it to something else. For instance, I once attended a workshop on information literacy that I had really been looking forward to. I took my seat in a large room full of round tables ready to dig in and participate. Instead, what transpired, much to my dismay, was a full three hours of alternately being talked at and having my and everyone else’s ideas shot down in, if not exactly an aggressive way, one that did not inspire willing participation. I left the workshop first feeling let down, like it was a waste of time, and then feeling angry because, well, it was a waste of time. The next day a colleague asked me how it went. I blurted out “It was just like boot camp!” This workshop had been important to me because I had been working very hard on my information literacy

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strategies and critical pedagogy and was eager to share a few things. I had not consciously thought that the workshop was like boot camp while I was sitting there, but prompted by my colleague’s question, my mouth said what my subconscious had been thinking all along. I did not formulate my answer to embrace metaphor, it just happened. When I wrote about the workshop in my reflective journal, I used the metaphor of boot camp to write about how frustrated I felt at the workshop, how I had been looking for a forum to express ideas, but those running it were not interested—basically, they just ran us through some paces. You can start with the image of a problem, a person, or a workplace and work from that metaphor. Is your workplace tense, like a pressure cooker? A colleague with a bad temper like Mount Vesuvius? A staff member who is cold and calculating like an automaton? A former colleague used to call the first day of any given semester a “crazy soup.” I never knew exactly what he meant, but I could get an idea. It is fascinating to see how we all think in metaphors. Stevens and Cooper cite the following ways that metaphors can be used in professional life:7 ll

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To better understand your organization or yourself as a professional To understand different perspectives about a project To develop creative responses to challenging problems at work To look at something from a different point of view

Using metaphors in reflective writing can go a long way in learning about your organization and about yourself. You are bound only by your own imagination.

NARRATIVE Narrative is my personal method of reflection, though I have used all of the techniques described in this chapter. I find flow in narrative, and using narrative increases my critical thinking and reflective capabilities. When I am writing narrative I am in the moment, focused and intentional. The parts of my reflective journal that have helped me the most have been the fully fleshed-out accounts, with textured

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specifics, that in retrospect aid in my learning and understanding. By writing narratives I can more fully understand what I had been thinking or feeling at the time and I can note how I grappled with or transcended an experience or a problem. I can also learn if there is still much work to do. This learning from the reflective journal is just as important as the process of keeping one. Mason calls this “the digesting of experience”: writing, contemplating, learning from, and then acting on our experiences.8 There are several characteristics that are specific to narrative writing, among them orientation, the triggering problem or complication, (possible) resolution, and action. As an embedded librarian, I am consistently working toward improving my practice in the classroom, something that I feel will be ongoing and never-ending. While most of my reflective writing takes place after the fact (reflection-on-action) I will often write in the midst of a class—by jotting down notes, student comments, and so on. I will often orient my narrative by placing the journal entry into the context in which I am writing. I will often (though not always) note the date, time, class, and even the weather. I also note how I am feeling that day: hopeful, tired, angry, bewildered, anxious, and so on. I do this so that when I attempt to learn retrospectively from what I have written, I know that any given factor could have the potential to influence my perception of my own or my students’ actions and behavior. Here is an example from my reflective journal from November 2014: I feel like everyone is simply holding on by their fingernails for the Thanksgiving break. When I look around, the faces in front of me are variously bored, tired, or holding tissues under runny noses. Everyone seems to have a travel cup of something hot. Coffee? Tea? If it is caffeine, it does not seem to be helping. The collective reaction to my research presentation today was, by the look on their faces, not a success. I don’t blame them. I felt underwhelmed giving them information that I feel I have repeated over and over again. And yet, they still seem to be struggling. I felt myself faltering a bit in the delivery. I tried to make things interactive—I threw out a lot of questions, attempted to start a dialogue. Bless the student

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who threw me a bone. It is difficult for me not to try to be animated in class. I feel like today I may have tried way too hard. When you are not the main professor in class, the one who assigns a grade, you can be made to feel incidental. But I question myself. Is it them or is it me? Dr._____ told me after class that the students need to get into the lab (?!). The last session there seemed to be a waste of time. So many of them had already stockpiled research they still have not made their way through, and I cringe thinking that I need to take them through the steps to pile even more on—making them feel more anxious than they already are. I am not sure what made her think that would help. It is too late in the semester anyway. I feel really anxious about this, but before I approach her about it, I need to think it through. I need to trust my instincts on this. But I need her to agree, too. I need to think about what is best for the students and then assert that.

Narrative writing is evocative. In this particular entry in my reflective journal you can pick up on feelings of frustration, mental and physical fatigue (even if I have not stated those emotions explicitly), and a bit of cloudy thinking in which I am not sure what can be done to alleviate the problem of the students being unengaged. Noting the time (before Thanksgiving break) in retrospect helps me to consider how timing may have been affecting both my students and me not as an excuse, but instead as a sort of mitigating factor. The faces that I see in September are not the battle-worn faces of the seniors trying to complete their theses that I see in November. And we professionals are not at all immune to the Sturm und Drang that most students seem to be susceptible to in the latter part of the semester. I use an example from my own reflective journal not as a template or as a prototype, but simply as an example of what reflective writing might or could look like. In fact, if you dig into the literature, there is no end to the different facets of reflective writing you can find. Some of it is quite complicated and technical, but in my own view, reflective writing should be intuitive, intentional, and engage both the mind and heart. By contrast, when we make such a holistic practice prescriptive, with complicated do’s, don’ts, and theories,

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reflective practice becomes a complicated tool, in the technical ra­ tionalist tradition. Schön, in The Reflective Practitioner, critiques tech­nical rationality for this very reason, since it seeks to separate theory from practice, and relegates the practitioner to nothing more than a technician who abdicates thought to theories and procedures. Ghaye cites several issues with such technical rationality succinctly: that the “ends or products of deduction are rarely fixed . . . we have to question the usefulness of knowledge that is produced out of the context in which it is applied.” 9 He further states, “the assumption that teaching problems can be solved just by applying someone else’s knowledge to one’s own practice is simplistic, and devalues the art and skillfulness of teaching.”

FINAL THOUGHTS For me, the reflective journal is the crown jewel of reflective practice. It is a portable laboratory of sorts, a mini-retreat and spa for the mind, a valued conversation with the self in a noisy world. Attard says that writing reflectively about a particular experience is sometimes easier than talking about it, which in and of itself can attest to the reflective journal being a “safe” place in which to express one’s thoughts and feelings in an intentional and therefore constructive way. He further asserts:10 But if narrative writing promotes reflection, and keeping a journal builds up a habit of writing, then keeping such a journal also promotes a habit of being reflective; and this makes keeping a journal of great professional value. Also, human experience and human thought can be so complex, chaotic and disorganized at times that writing narratives as entries into my journal was an effective way of giving some order to my thoughts and reflections.

Reflective practice and journaling require a willingness and commitment to honesty and change. Virginia Woolf famously stated, “The habit of writing thus for my own eye only is good practice. It loosens the ligaments.”11 And one can hardly argue with her success.

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Strategies ll

When deciding to use the journal for reflection, understand that it is a commitment of sorts. In order to grow and change, the reflective journal should be kept with a measure of regularity in order to be helpful.

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Purchase a journal that you will enjoy writing in. This is not as frivolous as it seems. Your thoughts and reflections are worthy of a bound journal that will be a pleasure to open.

ll

If you feel more inclined to use a computer, which may be a more convenient or familiar tool, consider, at least for a time, using both writing and typing on a computer: the physical act of writing your thoughts actually promotes more crystallized thinking, which in turn encourages more writing.

ll

Do not limit yourself to strict narrative, but instead, engage in a variety of techniques to be able to express yourself.

ll

Consider sharing the journal for feedback if you feel comfortable doing so, but keep in mind that this is not a requirement for the process. What may be more appropriate is taking an issue or triggering incident that you have written about in the journal to a friend or a colleague for feedback or discussion. Then, as part of further reflection, write about the conversation. Do you agree or disagree? Were you offered another perspective to consider?

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Create a ritual for writing in the journal. I like to write at my desk first thing in the morning. Later, in the evening, a cup of tea is beside me as I write again. Often my perspective is different after a long day than it is in the morning. Create a situation for yourself in which you will feel comfortable and look forward to writing in the journal.

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Bear in mind that the reflective journal is not a diary, at least not in the sense that we think of one where we may complain about our day, reveal desires, fret about our children, and so on. For the reflective journal to serve its purpose in improving our professional practice, it must be more focused and specific than a diary.

ll

You will reap the rewards of your journal in direct relation to how honest, specific, and assiduous you are in writing it.

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NOTES

1. Jennifer A. Moon, Reflection in Learning and Professional Development: Theory and Practice (New York: Routledge, 2013). 2. Madeleine R. Grumet, “Retrospective: Autobiography and the Analysis of Educational Experience,” Cambridge Journal of Education 20, no. 3 (1990): 321–25. 3. Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way (London: Penguin, 2002). 4. Peter Elbow, Writing without Teachers (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1998). 5. Frida Kahlo and Sarah M. Lowe, The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate SelfPortrait (London: Bloomsbury, 1995). 6. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008). 7. Dannelle D. Stevens and Joanne E. Cooper, Journal Keeping: How to Use Reflective Writing for Effective Learning, Teaching, Professional Insight, and Positive Change (Sterling, VA: Stylus, 2009). 8. John Mason, Researching Your Own Practice: The Discipline of Noticing (New York: Routledge, 2002). 9. Tony Ghaye, Teaching and Learning through Reflective Practice: A Practical Guide for Positive Action (New York: Routledge, 2010). 10. K. Attard, “The Role of Narrative Writing in Improving Professional Practice,” Educational Action Research 20, no. 1 (2012): 161–75. 11. Virginia Woolf and Leonard Woolf, A Writer’s Diary: Being Extracts from the Diary of Virginia Woolf (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003).

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Reflection That Accentuates the Positive So there was a fire inside me. And that fire inside you, it can be turned into a negative form or a positive form. And I gradually realized that I had this fire and that it had to be used in a positive way. —JOHN NEWCOMBE

A

s an academic who writes across many genres, I have at­ tended my fair share of workshops over the years. While the prevailing wisdom is to deliver the good news, in the form of positive remarks, first in order to soften the blow for what will inevitably come next in the form of “constructive criticism,” we brace ourselves for what we often dread, but feel, in our heart of hearts, will be the most valuable to us. Faults will inevitably be found, particularly when they are being looked for. We are conditioned, in education, to look for and then learn from our mistakes. In fact, I have spent several chapters in validating that theory. Mistakes and honest reflections on our shortcomings and problem areas are an opportunity for clarity and improved practice, but might there be something we can learn (and build upon) from what we already do quite well, or even something we excel at? Reflection that accentuates the positive 69 

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is a good focus for both professionals and students for very similar reasons. Ghaye puts forth a theory of positive reflection that can be a game-changer for those who suffer doubts and trials in their practice and who avoid reflection, fearing that uncovering the deeper layers of perceived failure will be a detriment rather than a learning experience for them.1 Positivity is certainly an aspect of reflection that has been all but ignored in the many theories presented on the subject. As I begin to segue into reflective practice with students, presenting a theory of positive reflection provides a balance to the practice in general and one that is a useful way of approaching (reluctant) students with the practice of reflection in particular. It is important to note that this positive spin on reflection is just another aspect of reflection, one that puts the practice in balance. The context is different, since it dwells on one’s strengths and building on and expanding those strengths. This aspect of reflection yields a fuller and more holistic approach overall, and is also an excellent way of initiating students into the practice. Just as I have asserted that it is difficult (and not recommended) for a professional to assign reflection to students if that professional has no knowledge of the practice, so too do I believe that in order to expect our students to reflect from a position of strength, we too must be knowledgeable on how that is done. For many it will not be intuitive, and it may even seem to be a bit “pie-in-the-sky” to some, but when understood, positive reflection can prove to be extremely valuable. This is a practice in which we recognize our strengths; in fact, we awaken to them intentionally, because we will be looking for them. This exemplifies being true to who we are in whatever context we may find ourselves. The way we see ourselves and the attributes that contribute to our view of ourselves make up what Roberts et al. have termed a “portrait” of ourselves that is both “explicit and that changes over time.”2 Furthermore, they assert, “whether implicit or explicit, stable or changing, this portrait serves as both an anchor and a beacon, a personal touchstone of who we are and a guide for who we can become. We call this portrait the ‘reflected best self.’”

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REFLECTION AND FEELING GOOD There can be no doubt that we all like to feel good in general, and we librarians particularly like to feel good about our performance in the classroom. We also like to be thought well of by others—that we are strong, capable, intelligent, flexible, and so on. It is also true that positive thoughts beget more positive thoughts and thus influence our actions—the way we treat ourselves and the way in which we treat others, too. Fredrickson and Joiner propose that “positive emotions broaden attention and cognition,” thus “enabling flexible and creative thinking” as well as “coping with stress and adversity.”3 What is interesting about the technique of positive reflection is that it will come naturally to some who would much rather find and write about all of the things that they are doing well. I have said that this would be a good place to start with students simply because it is a “strength-building” exercise, and many people would feel more excited about the prospect of writing about their strengths. I used to worry that students would inflate their strengths given that in a Facebook culture they are stars of their own lives and that they would not be able to take the steps needed to grow and improve. I do encounter my fair share of that—students who overestimate their abilities in research, keyword searching, synthesizing information in their papers, and so on—but even that can be overcome in gradations. The foundation of starting a reflective practice beginning with the positive, “can-do” items allows the students to realize that they have, indeed, some solid ground to stand on. It allows students to realize that their perceived weaknesses are not fatal, because they have strengths to both balance them and help in correcting their deficits. The advice my mother used to give me as a sullen teenager, “It’s just as easy to focus on the positive as the negative!” has some wisdom that I can appreciate now, and which I couldn’t when it was repeated to me over and over in my callow youth. Our actions, and in fact our world, are shaped largely by our thoughts. When presenting guided reflection to students in the classroom, it is helpful to have a guide. Tony Ghaye produced ten questions that he used with a group

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in a project funded by the European Union to strengthen vocational and guidance worker education. These questions are simple, provide a baseline, and are very transferable to any situation or profession. I chose to itemize these questions exactly the way Ghaye has since I find them extremely helpful. While Ghaye provides these questions in a table, with space for a response to be written, I feel that tables inhibit the kind of expansiveness that reflection calls for.4 One way to use this list in the classroom would be to guide the students with the questions one at a time, rather than providing them all at once. One or two questions at a time will allow for more thoughtful responses and will discourage students from looking ahead and anticipating what they will write next, rather than staying in the moment and truly reflecting. ll ll ll

ll

ll

ll

ll

ll

ll

A major strength of mine is . . . When I get to use this strength I am specifically . . . When I am doing an activity that strengthens (not weakens) me I FEEL . . . When I am doing an activity that strengthens (not weakens) me I THINK . . . When I am doing an activity that strengthens (not weakens) me I WANT TO . . . What FEEDBACK, if any, have you received about your strengths? What needs to change to enable you to use your strengths more often? What needs to change to enable those you work with to use their strengths more often? How could you measure/track how much you use your strengths?

What one can easily see is that these questions are cleverly designed to clearly begin with strengths and then slowly and almost imperceptibly slide into what I call the “constructive zone,” the place where, having established that bedrock of strength, one can then begin to focus and channel positive change. These statements and questions encourage and facilitate awareness of one’s self, alone, and then within the environment the person wishes to focus his or her change on.

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In guided reflection in the classroom, and perhaps with myself as well, I would expand the questions, specifically, for instance, the first one. Stating a major strength is a good place to start, but I would ask “why?” What is it about this strength? It is helpful to provide an example, with specific details, which helps to exemplify the particular strength alluded to, further concretizing it in the reflective practitioner’s mind, and making it an example that will model other successful experiences in professional practice. Occasionally, the positive can arise from a less than positive experience. For those of us who have worked hard on improvement, starting with what might be hard to realize about ourselves and moving forward, there are experiences that, in fact, may look like a deficit but are actually opportunities and positive experiences in and of themselves. The way we frame our experiences has a lot to do with this. For instance, as the liaison to the English Department, I do sessions in several different classes for many different professors. Since I personally do not believe that seeing a class only once (the oneshot session) has a whole lot of value, I always plan on and negotiate with professors to commit to two sessions, and more if possible and necessary. In a class on interpreting literature, I encountered sixteen students whom I would be meeting during five sessions, which has since become standard for that class, much to my delight. A passage from my reflective journal in 2013: Three classes in with these students and I am feeling like I have not made much headway. Dr.____ told me that more than a few of them had their heads in the clouds, the stereotypical English majors, who’d rather creep around in the stacks checking indices than learning how to search databases. I get that, I really do, but they are required to find a combination of sources for the annotated bibliography and seem unable or unwilling to grasp the concept of the keyword search—odd, and quite tiring. But they are a nice bunch of students—a bit quirky in the way that I always seem to notice that certain groups of students occasionally will be. It’s just who they are. A bit on the quiet side. I relaxed a bit this last class—maybe I shouldn’t

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have—whatever. I just wanted to engage them. I know them, but don’t really know them yet and they seem polite, in that formal kind of a way—which is better than all-out rebellious or resentful, of my presence in their class, but it means that I still haven’t broken through. I can always connect with a student. THAT I feel confident doing. So I spent 45 minutes basically talking and engaging them without trying too hard to cover material. That scaffold I was carefully building kind of came down today. Because despite my “agenda,” all of my “should’s” I am teaching students, my first concern—not necessarily the material I have on an agenda (I am going to choose to view the situation this way: it is the intentionality I have been striving for—well, here it is). We hung out. We did a round robin of ideas. I talked to them and they talked to each other. A few of them paired up. I flipped the regular format. I wasn’t going to go “workshop” style until next week, but I needed to respond to the temperature of the room—to the students in front of me. I watched my lesson plans fly out the window, as if they had a set of wings. Dr.____ seemed okay with it, mainly because it showed a level of spirit, of energy that this class just wasn’t exuding. So what I gather is that some of them, being pretty bookish, are also somewhat shy. I can wholly relate to that. And so I tell them. Since I came to the second half of the class, I finish things up. I tell them (again) that I am available for a one-on-one session. That they do not need to have a direction they are going in to come and see me. As they file out, some don’t make eye contact—they just leave. But some smile, and linger in order to chat a bit. One girl tells me she likes my earrings. “Are they carnelian?” she asks. I tell her they are and she tells me how she loves stones. Three stay to ask me when they can meet with me. I am good with students. And even though there are other things I am not good at (okay, a lot of things) I really am good with students. Having been an extremely shy student myself, I so appreciated a teacher who would go out of their way to understand that.

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Today, I had the opportunity to play that role for my students. So I have sacrificed some content in order to build up some solid group dynamics and some confidence. So perhaps with a bit of that barrier broken down, in the next session they may be more receptive to what I am saying, because they just might be more receptive to me. Sharing that I was an English major and have a master’s in English and the fact that I am a shy personality might have been the key. I saw them respond. My neck muscles are starting to relax. I think I can call this a defining turning point with this group.

I remember this incident so well, which is why finding the passage was not that difficult, but this is not representative of the way I usually reflect on my experiences in the classroom. I have italicized the statements that show very key and very specific instances where I can be positive about an experience that I had begun thinking about in a negative way. When I began the passage, I was ready to chalk that particular session up as a loss—something that still troubles me deeply when it happens, though thankfully not very often. But reflection as a tool, as a regular practice, has gotten me to the place where I have the ability and the insight to look beyond the obvious facts (students were noncommunicative, etc.) and discern why and then move on with a different strategy. This is flexibility in action, but it is flexibility that has grown out of regular practice. In addition, I returned several times to the journal entries while I did sessions in that class to chart the progress I was making in synthesizing the newly formed group dynamics and my own individual relationship with each student, and with the information literacy content they needed to know. Once again, deferring to Ghaye, he states the importance of thinking “toward strengths”:5 When thinking about improving what you do, with and for others, you may need to change (or at least challenge) the view that asking deficit-type questions is the best way, under the circumstances, to begin such a process. Deficit-type questions are about what went wrong rather than what went right. They are problems rather

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than achievements, failures rather than successes. They are essentially about the kinds of things you feel you want to get rid of, to eliminate from your work, to fix. To answer them can require a considerable investment in human resources, all focused on removing things or at least reducing their influence and impact. If we are not careful, an obsession with problems quickly becomes the problem! When we focus on problems, we begin to construct a world in which problems are central; they become the dominant realities that burden us every day. We can develop a tendency toward the positive in our reflection even if our initial feelings or observations about, for instance a classroom session, were not initially positive ones. I am, by nature, rather positive, so that muscle is somewhat developed in my practice, but for those who are not there yet, or only halfway there, you can turn a reflective insight that does not start out as one into one.

Again, Ghaye acknowledges the very subtle but perceptible shift in reflective practice that can lead us in a more positive direction:6 If we ask questions about successes and fulfillment, then we grow in this direction. There are many kinds of questions and each one serves a different purpose. What-type questions usually ask for knowledge and information—for example, “What are you good at doing?,” “What have you achieved today?,” “What do you love about your job?” How-type questions are usually associated with steps, methods and solutions—for example, “How can I,” “How do I?” “How should I?” Why-type questions are also important to ask, because they are linked with giving reasons for doing (or not doing) something.

The basis of all sound reflective practice can be said to lie not only in the observation of our experiences but in the questioning of those experiences as well. We can frame those questions in ways that do not blame or indict our own feelings or practices, but instead lead us to greater insight and possibility. I am probably like many others in

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that when I am filled with positive emotions, I feel that I can take on anything. Love is a positive emotion, to say the least, and when, for instance, we feel that we are loved, we not only feel a greater capacity to return that love, but we feel as though everything is rosier than it might normally be—and that by extension, we can do anything! Fredrickson notes:7 Positive emotions signal optimal functioning, but this is far from their whole story . . . positive emotions also produce optimal functioning, not just within the present, pleasant moment, but over the long term as well. The bottom-line message is that people should cultivate positive emotions in themselves and those around them.

FINAL THOUGHTS This chapter on cultivating positivity in reflective practice should not in any way negate or be seen as a contradiction of the more traditional aspects of reflective practice as highlighted in the previous chapters, but instead, it should serve to complement and balance them. The two different approaches should be seen as different aspects of reflection with the same outcome: greater insight into our ways of being in order to expand and improve in a myriad of ways. In much the same way that we reflect, by extension our students will tend to do the same. When we guide them in reflection, we will have firsthand knowledge of the kind of power inherent in a positive stance. This positive stance does not ensure that everything will turn out perfectly, and it should not delude us into thinking there is no room for improvement. Rather, we can resolve to be optimistic for growth and change.

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Strategies ll

Be realistic with positivity. Does that sound like a contradiction? It isn’t. It just means that sometimes something positive will be very evident, and sometimes it won’t. The pursuit of a positive aspect of yourself can take a depressing turn if something does not present itself immediately. Begin to write.

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Reframe an incident or an aspect of yourself in a positive light. In the example from my journal presented in this chapter, I started out by being both perplexed and dismayed that my students seemed withdrawn and were not grasping the content I was ready to deliver, until I consciously redirected my focus to the strategy of winning them over by simply engaging with them, aside from the content I was so intent on delivering. While writing reflectively in my journal, I gave myself credit by saying “I am good with students.” This is not egotistical. This is honesty, which benefits me immediately. It gave me an emotional “boost” and allowed me to continue in a positive vein.

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Use questions to “jolt” positive emotions and positive reflection by asking them with a slant toward the positive: How was I more confident today than I was yesterday? What was the breakthrough I had with that theory? How have I improved in front of the class from three years ago? What aspect of my teaching seemed to resonate the most with students today?

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It will not always be the case that we are able to focus on strength in our reflective practice. That is simply the nature of reflection. But you can commit to trying to find one positive aspect in anything that you are writing about during any reflection that you do. The positive will sometimes be chosen over your often-grave misgivings over your own shortcomings, but trust that if you can find one positive thing, a seed will have been planted. Water it and watch it grow.

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NOTES

1. Tony Ghaye, Teaching and Learning through Reflective Practice: A Practical Guide for Positive Action (New York: Routledge, 2011). 2. Laura Morgan Roberts, Jane E. Dutton, Gretchen M. Spreitzer, Emily D. Heaphy, and Robert E. Quinn, “Composing the Reflected Best-Self Portrait: Building Pathways for Becoming Extraordinary in Work Organizations,” Academy of Management Review 30, no. 4 (2005): 712–36. 3. Barbara L. Fredrickson and Thomas Joiner, “Positive Emotions Trigger Upward Spirals toward Emotional Well-Being,” Psychological Science 13, no. 2 (2002): 172–75. 4. Ghaye, Teaching and Learning through Reflective Practice, 69. 5. Ibid., 9. 6. Ibid., 10. 7. Barbara L. Fredrickson, “The Broaden-and-Build Theory of Positive Emotions,” Philosophical Transactions-Royal Society of London, Series b, Biological Sciences (2004): 1367–78.

8 Reflective Practice with Colleagues Individual commitment to a group effort— that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work. —VINCE LOMBARDI

W

e sit around a faux wood grain table. Someone gets up to adjust the blinds, letting the sun in. We engage in small talk until someone calls the “meeting” to order. We all have the same printed article in front of us, chosen by one of us, to discuss together as a group of librarians. We call this group the “Journal Club,” a name by no means original, but perfectly descriptive. I noted the orange and yellow highlights on the pages around the table, the notes scribbled in the margins and between lines. My own copy is heavily marked, emphatically underlined, and, I must admit, coffee-stained. We are a working group here. As librarians, our days are filled with teaching, reference, and one-on-one meetings in addition to the various departments we have responsibility for. Some days we are ships that pass in the night, particularly in the fall semester, when the ramp-up can be a challenge, 81 

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timewise. We decided as a group, some time ago, that a way we could discuss theory and practice would be to come together and do just that on a regular basis. The colleague who suggested the article (given out a week earlier) starts the meeting by asking us to throw out some initial impressions of the article. We are lukewarm about this one. One colleague bemoans the fact that it seems to be all theory—nothing practical to implement. She asks the group, “What would be your action steps?” I jump in with an attempt to slow things down. I like theory. It provides a certain amount of possibility for me. It shows me the way things could be, and gives me a framework for thinking about something. “Can we just discuss?” I ask. She nods her head, the sun catching her glossy curls. Someone mock groans, “Ah, action steps!” We murmur, laugh, begin the real conversation, and get down to work. We challenge each other. For instance, someone might say, “Why does what this article proposes intimidate you?” Or, “How can you envision adopting this practice in our library?” We attempt to answer these questions. Sometimes one of us falters. Every time we lend our voices to the conversation, we begin to see more clarification of our own views and the views of those around the table. Sometimes we argue, though in constructive and good-natured ways. I like to joke that I don’t like confrontation, but I am not afraid of it. But the truth is, it takes some courage to share your ideas with a group, even if that group is made up of your trusted and respected colleagues. Is this reflective practice? It is. When we reflect together, we have esprit de corps, and we understand that reflection on our practice, both together and alone, is an added value to our teaching. We are also invested in the success of each other. We would be different professionals without our shared practice; less deep, more reactionary, more habitual, less confident. Laura Servage asserts:1 It is not enough to focus on student learning. Teachers need to have conversations about the meanings behind what they do. The opportunity to explore and sometimes debate the philosophies behind our actions generates the sort of creativity and momentum that is critical . . . When

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we marginalize this process or foreclose on it entirely by focusing collaboration solely on technical work, professional learning communities may be reduced to “performance training sects.”

In common parlance, the act of reflecting together “keeps us honest.” But why is that important? Cunliffe cites that becoming reflective means, in what she calls “practical terms,” “examining critically the assumptions underlying our actions and the impact of those actions.”2 Those are two of the most important reasons to reflect in a group. While up until now I have focused nearly exclusively on reflection with one’s self, I am working on my belief that just as one must know and practice reflection in order to be able to assign and expect it of our students, we should have a solid grasp of the principles of reflection before we bring it to the group. Some people reading this might initially dismiss it by saying, “It just sounds like a meeting, and we do that all the time.” Meetings by their very nature are necessary—they are the way in which working groups of all kinds disseminate information and plan. But when a group like ours meets, it is with both the explicit and implicit intention that we will improve our practice. This can happen in a variety of ways, none of them particularly linear. We can discuss and challenge our own and our colleagues’ beliefs; we can stay at the level of theory; we can share our practices and experiences; we can set out a strategy for experimentation; and we can (and do) support one another. The difference is that for something to be reflective it must be intentional. Conscious practice is intentional. I visualize my colleagues entering the arena ready and willing to discuss, reflect, challenge, and interrogate. We do not call this our “reflective practice group”—but what we do is certainly to reflect. In the group we can grapple with long-held beliefs and challenge assumptions. Mezirow, considered the founding father of transformative learning as a concept, writes about how crucial this is for adult learning in all contexts, and how reflection can, in fact, trigger this transformation:3 Much of what we learn involves making new interpretations that enable us to elaborate, further differentiate, and

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reinforce our long-established frames of reference or to create new meaning schemes. Perhaps even more central to adult learning than ela­­borating established meaning schemes is the process of reflecting back on prior learning to determine whether what we have learned is justified under present cir­cumstances.

In other words, reflection paves the way for deep understanding in the form of transformative learning. As we teach, we must also think of ourselves as learners, in and among our students and colleagues. Mezirow goes on to stress the times in which we live and how change happens to us rapidly, as we constantly try to accommodate that change. Theories in teaching are not static—they change, grow, and are continuously modified by emerging theories, experimentation, and practice. In groups, we can challenge existing overarching structures and our place within and under them. Reflection, together or alone, is the bridge between theory and practice. I remember, when I was in library school, how sure I felt about what I was learning. As an example, I perceived myself to be quite prepared for a career as an academic librarian upon graduating from my program. But, in fact, it was easy for me to feel that way—all of the courses that were required of me for the degree were laid out in a very logical way; I only needed to apply myself to my studies (which I did). My goal was to excel. From government documents, to cataloging, managing databases, and so on, I thought I had it covered—until I didn’t. I felt a bit too eager until I was out in the open, without my textbooks to hide behind. My good grades were of no importance anymore. No longer in the classroom as a student, I was behind the reference desk, and in front of the classroom doing information literacy sessions and otherwise struggling to develop my own theories and practice (praxis). There I realized, though of course intellectually I knew, the stark difference between theory and practice. And as a reflective personality, as I have already mentioned, my practice, such as it was, demanded a reflective element. But our theory can be reflected upon as well. Reflection, as I hope I have made clear by this point, almost always demands balance. Jay

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asserts that “reflection as problem solving and frame analysis can help resolve explicit and implicit problems.”4 She further writes: Reflection on theory is a means by which teachers can use their judgment and experience to render abstract ideas more practical, personal and meaningful . . . Reflection can be viewed as a process by which a teacher can try on a theory, consider its meaning and consequences in a particular context, and experiment with the application in practice.

COLLABORATION Not many of us learn or operate in a total vacuum, devoid of human contact. As professionals, we are a part of the whole and are connected, in one way or another, to those people and systems around us. As much as we would all love days in which we did not have to interact with a tense boss, a dismissive colleague, or inattentive students, all of these people and the contexts in which we find them are a necessary challenge to our ideas and practices. My and my colleagues’ journal club brings us all together in the spirit of what Henderson calls collegial inquiry, which is a deliberate and intentional engagement with colleagues with the specific intention of improving upon practice and problem solving—together.5 He distinguishes this from congeniality, which is the friendly bantering that might be done, for example, before a meeting—playful bantering about significant others, and so on, though I would add that congeniality among colleagues certainly aids in the efficacy and productiveness of collegial inquiry. The reflective element comes when a problem, situation, or a thorny practice is presented by someone and the group—the “hive mind,” as some would call it—weighs in, usually in the form of questioning, which helps the person presenting the issue to see it from different angles and to use reframing for clarity. Osterman and Kottkamp have developed a credo for reflective practice, validating not only reflection as a practice, but also the feedback that is often important for professional growth and full collaboration:6

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1. Everyone needs professional growth opportunities. 2. All professionals want to improve. 3. All professionals can learn. 4. People want to change. 5. People need and want information about their own performance. All professionals are capable of assuming responsibility for their own professional growth and development. 6. Collaboration enriches professional development. Reflective practice with colleagues is a catalyst for development. It can be a humbling experience, to be sure, and one in which we are challenged to interrogate our own truths, our own way of being. It can be the difference between compartmentalizing the “work self” from the “personal self” and instead integrates our belief system. This is a gradual process, one that takes place over time with assiduous work. We do the work alone and together. One of the reasons why I have reiterated that reflection is an intentional practice, particularly in a professional setting, is because if, as a group, you are not committed to improvement and change, the conversation can seem either provocative, accusatory, or in some cases, condescending. Personally, I have had an experience with this. Years ago I worked with a colleague who I felt was always questioning me in a slow sort of overly considerate way—which some might have interpreted as condescending. We disagreed on a few professional points and discussed them often. I shrugged it off for quite some time until one evening shift after a particular irritating day and with my patience wearing thin, I asked him, rather exasperated, why he always questioned me when we had a conversation. “Can I just give you my opinion without having to defend it all the time?” I said, shrill even to my own ears. His eyes widened slightly behind his thick glasses. “I’m not sure what you mean,” he responded, looking taken aback and genuinely confused. I persisted. “I always feel like you are interrogating me somehow,” I said, my face flushed. He apologized and laughed, still looking a bit confused. The evening dragged on while we avoided one another. We closed the library together and went our separate ways in the parking lot.

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I had not meant to lash out, but my professional conversations with him always seemed to involve requests from him for clarification of some kind: why, how, when, and so on. I let it go until he mentioned it to me a week later on a slow evening shift. He explained to me that before he became a librarian, he’d been a schoolteacher in one of Philadelphia’s most notorious inner-city public high schools. I was not at all sure where he was going with this but I listened. He explained that it was easy to get burnt out—in fact, he did, which is why he decided to become a librarian. He explained that he was a reflective teacher, admittedly more out of a coping mechanism (initially) than anything else, and that there were other teachers who were doing the same thing, alone, and then they used reflection together. The group changed over time until one by one someone retired, or sought a different career as he had. The hallmarks of the group, he explained, were questions that each of them would ask the person who presented a problem, or, as he explained, often in his case, an “incident.” “There were many in that school,” he said with a quick laugh. Finally, I understood what he was getting at. He’d noticed me struggling a bit in the job, getting irritated with things that were part and parcel of libraries, complaining a bit, finding excuses for things and reasons for persisting in a job that made me unhappy. He was incredibly perceptive. In fact, what bothered me so much about his questioning was that it forced me to face situations that I would have rather have brushed off. Reflective though I have always claimed to be, at that time, I must have felt that it was easier to complain, to make certain issues the fault of others, rather than seek answers in myself, in my own practice. He was using the questions as a way of helping me concretize how and why I felt certain ways in certain professional situations. When I joked with him, saying, “I didn’t know you cared so much,” he responded, “Well, that’s what professionals do for each other.” I really believe that if he had approached me and asked me if I would be interested in engaging in reflective practice with him, I would have been prepared (mostly) for what the process entailed. Intentionality, or what Booth correctly describes as “metacognitive, meaning that it involves thinking about your own thinking,” is an inextricable part of reflection.7 I think it is safe to say that without it, what you may have are some observations,

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some anecdotes, and some reasonably good conversations, but you will not have reflection. Don’t proceed without it. .

THE QUESTIONS AND CONVERSATION There are many ways of encouraging colleagues and using questions in reflective practice. What does the framing and reframing of a problem look like in a question? What could we (gently) ask a colleague or a friend in order to get them thinking in a constructive and productive way, a way that would put them in touch with their inner truth, beyond defending an outdated belief system or a deeply ingrained habit? Brown supplies a long list of questions that resonated deeply with me, though I realize they may not appeal to everyone.8 I list a sampling here to give an example of what kind of questions can initiate and support reflective thinking and learning: ll ll ll

ll ll ll ll

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What are you noticing? What surprises you? What’s hardest for you? What if it were easy? What have you historically done in similar situations? Has that worked for you? What approach would be its opposite? What limits would you like to break through? What if you were letting yourself off too easy? What would your best self want you to do? If there were a part of your own wisdom that you didn’t want to hear, what would it be saying to you? And why is it so hard to listen to? What data are you seeing, and what story are you telling yourself? What other data is present? What other story might you tell yourself?

Ghaye asserts that “the quality of reflective conversation is related to the kinds of questions we may ask.”9 Further, he suggests that “deficit-based questions can lead to deficit-based conversations,” and so on. How we frame the questions, to a lesser or greater extent, frames the conversations. It is helpful to take notes during reflective sessions, in the same way that I suggested you might take notes while teaching a class—just

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quick jots that can serve as handy prompts to jump-start the writing of your narrative. You can do this right after the conversation in order to fully flesh out the experience. When you write about the conversation, some things will come back to you with great clarity, while others will be lost, though they may be recalled at a later time. Use what you can, working with what you have from strength. Your writings will not only help to clarify your thoughts, but will also serve as a bridge of sorts to further conversations. Observations, feelings, and thoughts all beget more of the same. Booth calls this process of observation and recording “gleaning,” a process that “grows out of a willingness to become an active and interested sponge, and involves four elements: observation, documentation, integration and acknowledgment,” and one that she points out “encourages an attitude of constant curiosity.”10 This curiosity is an essential aspect of reflection both alone and with others. Perhaps Heidi Jacobs says it best:11 The dialogues that we have surrounding information literacy instruction strive to find a balance between the daily and the visionary, the local and the global, the practices and the theories, the ideal and the possible. One of the ways we can begin to do this in our daily teaching lives is to work toward creating habits of mind that prioritize reflective discussions about what it is that we are doing when we “do” information literacy. This means thinking about pedagogy and talking about how we might work toward making the global local, the visionary concrete, the theoretical predictable, and perhaps the ideal possible.

FINAL THOUGHTS Alone, I only know what I know: my little repository of ideas and experiences, devoid of feedback, conversation, and necessary challenges to my ideas, my ways of thinking, and my comfortable habits. When coming together as colleagues, friends, and others on the path, we build our knowledge base, enlarge our worldview, and can begin to think about what might be possible. If we don’t feel uncomfortable

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having our ideas and practices challenged, we probably aren’t doing it right. This is something I preach to my students all the time in the English thesis class in which I am embedded: “It will challenge you and make you squirm. Look it squarely in the eye—you will be better for it!” I can say that in my own experience reflective practice is one of the best forms of collaboration available to us; the potential for professional growth is just one aspect that any actively curious and engaged library professional would welcome. Judy Brown, in A Leader’s Guide to Reflective Practice, states this so beautifully: Consider that it is possible to emerge from the conversation refreshed, wondering, curious and surprised. Expect that our time together can provide for renewal, refreshment, helpful perspectives on the work at hand. Our work is not about more “to-do” but rather more effortless ways to do that which we must do.

Strategies ll

Socialize the idea of reflective practice among colleagues by suggesting current books or literature on the topic. Offer rationales to those who may not be sure or who may have fear of disclosure, which can be a very real issue. Many people, even educators, are not certain what exactly the practice entails.

ll

People are often reluctant, understandably, to add one more meeting to an already full schedule. Consider other meetings where you might take some time in order to reflect. Perhaps a regular reference meeting can share time committed to reflection? Once-a-month brown bag lunches with colleagues, maybe outside, weather allowing?

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Begin with a dilemma, a problem, a controversy of practice, or some common struggle. Our journal club began simply because all of us felt the need to further integrate theory and practice. We were not always sure of how each of us attempted to do this. We all threw out some ideas and then each of us contributed an article we thought worthy of discussion. Not only did we develop an

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interesting collection of research articles, but it turned into intentional reflective practice in two ways: the articles chosen directly reflected an area we wished to explore collectively, comparing and contrasting it with strategies or practice we already do. And we come together and learn surprising and enlightening things about how someone else is delivering information literacy in the classroom. In this way we build our knowledge base collectively. ll

Listen and contribute. We all have something to say, but we also all have something to learn. As I have stressed in this book how crucial it is to strike a balance between reflection and action within ourselves, we must strike a similar balance in the group between listening to another’s thoughts, feelings, ideas, and strategies and knowing when to contribute.

ll

Acknowledge one another’s ideas as well, even if and especially if you do not agree with them. I remember once putting forth a few opinions on an idea that I felt strongly about. I was met with silence. Those in the room heard me just fine, but either did not agree with me or were not interested in my ideas. A simple nod of the head or a “thank you for that” would have made a world of difference. My attendance unfortunately stopped and my confidence corroded.

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Respect one another’s ideas. This, unfortunately, will not be obvious to some. When we are challenged, the urge to strike back may prove to be irresistible. Trust me, I know. But to lash out serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever and will be counterproductive to the trust that is essential in reflective practice.

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Allow group dynamics to unfold. Some participants will not be as open as others. Be prepared to encounter defensiveness, confusion, rationalization, bewilderment, fear, and a host of other emotions and behaviors when people are faced with the uncertain and the unfamiliar.

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Be fearless. As librarian educators, we are stereotypically seen as having all the answers. We don’t. It is funny to think that we could. We don’t have to pretend among colleagues. It is easy to forget that we too are learners.

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Strive for authenticity. Reflection entails an opening up, honesty, and curiosity. We can do all of these things while being exactly who we are. We do not need to pretend to know more than we do, or hide what we do not. We can stand firm in our intention for further and deeper understanding.

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Keep in balance. A simple formula to remember: action needs reflection and reflection requires action.

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Enjoy the process!

NOTES

1. Laura Servage, “Making Space for Critical Reflection in Professional Learning Communities,” Education Canada 47, no. 1 (2007): 14–17. 2. Ann L. Cunliffe, “On Becoming a Critically Reflexive Practitioner,” Journal of Management Education 28, no. 4 (2004): 407–26. 3. Jack Mezirow, “How Critical Reflection Triggers Transformative Learning,” in Fostering Critical Reflection in Adulthood: A Guide to Transformative and Emancipatory Learning (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1990), 20. 4. Joelle K. Jay, “Untying the Knots: Examining the Complexities of Reflective Practice” (1999), paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (Washington, DC, February 24–27, 1999). 5. James George Henderson, Reflective Teaching: Professional Artistry through Inquiry (Upper Saddleville, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2001). 6. Karen F. Osterman and Robert B. Kottkamp, Reflective Practice for Educators: Professional Development to Improve Student Learning (Newbury Park, CA: Corwin, 2004). 7. Char Booth, Reflective Teaching, Effective Learning: Instructional Literacy for Library Educators (Chicago: American Library Association, 2011). 8. Judy Brown, A Leader’s Guide to Reflective Practice (Bloomington, IN: Trafford, 2007). 9. Tony Ghaye, Teaching and Learning through Reflective Practice: A Practical Guide for Positive Action (New York: Routledge, 2010). 10. Booth, Reflective Teaching, Effective Learning, 26. 11. Heidi L. M. Jacobs, “Information Literacy and Reflective Pedagogical Praxis,” Journal of Academic Librarianship 34, no. 3 (2008): 256–62.

9 Reflection in the Classroom Long dormant in education, the natural capacity for contemplation balances and enriches the analytic. It has the potential to enhance the performance, character and the depth of the student’s experience. —TOBIN HART

U

p until now, I have focused on reflection for the librarian. This was, of course, very strategic. As I have mentioned before, in many instances, reflection has been little more than a buzz­ word tossed around by many educators and others without a solid under­standing of its importance and power, as well as little or no knowledge of possible techniques. As one librarian said to me in exas­peration, though sincere in his statement, “Reflection is just thinking!” This is someone who has told me that he attempts to use reflection in his class. He admitted he found little time or value in reflection for himself. “If I don’t know what I am doing by now, I shouldn’t be doing it,” he told me one day. This shocked me, though I suppose it shouldn’t have. I remain firm in my assertion that reflection should not be assigned unless educators understand how it works and are practitioners of 93 

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reflection themselves. Strong speaks of the increased confidence, the fostering of more positive learning environments, and, on average, the higher achievement among the students of educators who are themselves reflective practitioners.1 Furthermore, educators who focus on reflection and decision-making processes “consolidate and refine the justifications and inspirations that guide [their] educational work.”2 Now, with a good grounding in practice, we can move along to initiating reflection in the classroom. Admittedly, one of the frustrations of being librarian educators is that we rarely get the opportunity for extended periods of time with a particular class; we rarely get to know students, and are rarely able to see the arc of their improvement. The nature of the teaching that most of us do is essential, though it is often seen as auxiliary to the main focus of the class. We are fortunate to meet students in a class more than twice. If we are very persistent with professors (and I am a big proponent of this), we can do more. I have been fortunate as an embedded librarian in a senior English thesis class each fall semester, in which I am present in every class, allowing me to be able to integrate reflection as seamlessly as possible both in the class and in assignments. Having the amazing opportunity to do this in a class, during an entire semester, inspired me to figure out ways in which I could introduce reflection in my other information literacy sessions, even in small ways.

RESISTANCE TO REFLECTION It seems that in the past few years, the keeping of journals in the classroom has become a popular technique used by educators, and particularly, as I have observed, in the humanities. I have had students tell me that they have had to keep several journals at a time in a variety of classes. Conceivably, a student may be enrolled in five classes and in three of them may be required to keep a journal. The by-product of this could be learning to “write to the professor” by students recording what they think is expected of them, or what is worse, rejecting the practice out of hand. Russell writes of individuals who “invented experiences simply in order to complete

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an assignment quickly.” This is not at all surprising, as I have had students tell me the same thing regarding journals they were asked to keep in other classes. While journals are the easiest to assign and perhaps the method first thought of when thinking about reflection, there are other reflective techniques that require different aspects of reflection. The journal is just one and not always a very practical exercise for librarians to assign, given our quick appearances during any given semester. Students tend to roll their eyes or cringe at the prospect of keeping a journal, but rather than simply stubbornness, their concerns are real. If reflection has the potential to be intimidating and threatening to us as professionals, one can imagine how students might feel being asked to engage in a practice that may make them feel as though they are left with few or no defenses. Reflection that is graded is even more of a threat because students fear that their thoughts and ideas will be under scrutiny, and that they will be judged or penalized for their honesty, especially if that honesty reveals deficiencies, which it eventually will. Keeping a journal is a lot to ask of students, who often do not have stable perceptions of themselves and are prone to self-doubt. So how do we, as librarian educators, use reflection with our students? We use and assign it with creativity and sensitivity. When we use reflection, it should not be an add-on, not an afterthought, and certainly not because it is a fad. We need to figure out how we will use reflection as pedagogy, rather than simply activity, in order for the practice to have meaning. In my case, I feel as though every technique that I use in the classroom ideally will have “transferable” potential, meaning that what we do in class will (hopefully) be useful enough so that students might use the technique beyond one class and into another. While I want students to understand what reflection is and how it can help them, I learned the hard way that talking about reflection too much would both bore and intimidate students. A few years ago, before giving students an in-class reflective writing prompt, I indulged in a rather long and embarrassing (as I allow myself now to remember) prelude about how important it is to know ourselves, to take the pulse of where we are—and I used the words reflection and

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reflective several times. I heard audible sighs, saw looks exchanged between a few students, and more than a few eye rolls, though those were not as bad as the students who looked as though I was trying to sell them a used car: they’d heard it all before. As Russell suggests, I now talk far less about reflection (I try very hard not to overuse the word with students) and do more to simply integrate reflection into my teaching, much in the way a mother might try to disguise the taste of medicine to a child.3 I am also painfully cognizant of the fact that reflection for most of those in the culture of college students today is nearly anathema. Reflection can be slow, demands full attention, is thoughtful, and is largely devoid of any bells and whistles. Young adults, immersed in technology in a way that those of us with the most active imaginations could not have foreseen even fifteen years ago, find it boring, pointless, and not at all sexy. There are no flashing images, no catchy sound effects, no buttons to push or keyboard functions to use. We cannot halt technological progress (and few of us would want to), but we can offer what we have to students not in contrast to what they are used to, but in addition to the way they usually do things. Understanding the culture of our students helps to understand why reflection is difficult. To wit, with a Facebook or Instagram account, you can be the bright and shining star in your very own life! You can reveal only the best sides of yourself, inspiring jealousy or admiration of your social life, your friends, and your achievements. Reflection calls what one thinks one knows into question. And we have to learn how to be that honest. We have to teach reflection to students in a way that hopefully makes reflection a habit of mind. Many students will have had little or no experience with reflection in the classroom. Reflection will develop intuition and insight given time and patience, but it is often a challenge to get students to participate wholeheartedly enough to be able to see those kinds of results. It also requires that students take control of their learning— as opposed to the current, predominant model of knowledge coming from the authority in the room. When reflection works, practice happens before theory, and students begin to trust their own perceptions and take an active part in their own learning.

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WRITING, SEARCHING, AND RESEARCH LOGS Some time ago, after years of information literacy sessions in a variety of classes, I began to realize that the difficulty the majority of students I’d encountered had with research was not exactly research itself, but rather the way they thought of research. I have my own theory of the difficulties that I have observed countless times as one of perception, rather than technique. While it may not be popular for a librarian to say this (I ask your forgiveness in advance), it is not all that difficult to search a database; keywords notwithstanding, one can find something on a subject with a rudimentary search. Now, I understand that finding just the right article or information takes more finesse, but I am not going that far yet. Typically, a student will choose a subject and begin the process of narrowing down to a topic. Once they have this topic, they will begin to search Google (usually the first choice) and then article databases. I have watched the mounting frustration of students pounding away at the keyboard. When asked, students will inevitably tell me that they can’t find anything on their topic. And so they change their topic, instead of persisting in their search. Watching this, I felt a growing suspicion that the way I was presenting research was ill-conceived to say the least. This is how I came to my “hands-off” approach—a total deemphasis of using tools (at least initially) in the research process. Instead, I encouraged students to think about their topics, and not to be so rigid—their thinking may take them down arterial routes that they should follow eagerly and with great expectation, for what they might find may light a spark of curiosity, that burning urge to know. I urged flexibility in their thinking. I consistently encourage writing for inquiry—writing down their thoughts about why they are interested in a certain topic, how they became interested in it, what they hoped to find out, and what they may already know about the topic at hand. This type of writing can be done in real time, right in the classroom. My experience is that most professors will not see this type of exercise as the librarian’s domain, and admittedly there is precious little time in the classroom in which to do this, but it can

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be a good fifteen minutes of activity that can jump-start the thinking that is essential to beginning research. Depending on how many sessions I will have with any particular class, I prefer to guide the students through the writing exercise during the first session and save searching the databases (and other sources) for the second session, though it should happen in close proximity to the first, usually in the same week. When I encounter the class again, I introduce the students to databases and keyword searches. This most often occurs in a computer lab, and I conduct it more like a workshop than an actual class. I encourage cross-talking, calling out, and helping each other with search concepts. The students, with their writing from the previous class right next to them, begin searching the databases, though I require an extra step from them. I have a bit of a good-natured shtick that I do in the classroom which almost always elicits laughs. I do an imitation of a student searching databases, which consists of furious typing, literally pounding on the keys, a roll of the eyes, and a scrunch of the face, while I proclaim in an irritated voice, “Oh my GOD, this library has, like, literally NOTHING!” What I don’t tell students is that the little comedy routine that I do is very much based on my observations of students over the years. It is a composite of sorts, which exemplifies the way many students approach the databases and how they quickly become frustrated by what they cannot find. They search in what I call a “circular” way—a process that basically takes them nowhere fast. They randomly try search terms while switching between databases, a process designed to confound and frustrate. The research log usually helps students to avoid this circular searching by requiring them to write down where they are searching, the search terms they are using, and whether or not the search either yielded results or netted them potentially better search terms. They keep track of searches that came up empty, which helps them to avoid using those terms over again, and thus avoid the “going nowhere fast” scenario. I also introduce students to abstracts and databases such as Academic Search Premier, which will give them subject terms, something they often do not pay attention to unless they are shown explicitly that they exist.

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Is this reflection? Some might not think so, but I would argue that it most definitely is. It is a deliberate attention to process, which also involves guided writing, and both questioning and answering oneself about the research at hand. It provides very tangible evidence of the non-linearity of the research process, which validates their experience of feeling “all over the place.” It is a very metacognitive process, and one that I encourage them to make a part of their research process for any class. While I have had some students resist the exercise (librarians aren’t supposed to make them actually work!), once they begin, they almost always find it helpful. With the opportunity for only one class in which searching databases is the primary concern of the professor in the class, you can blend your chosen techniques. I feel strongly that the introduction of some element of reflection is certainly better than none at all.

CONCEPT MAPS The use of concept maps in the classroom is usually well received by students. The ability to organize and map out thoughts without narrative, especially at the start of the research process, is very attractive. I use a very simple graphic that I give the students to fill out. Concept maps are ideal for initial brainstorming, connecting new concepts with old ones, communicating ideas and information, and concretizing students’ thoughts. The technique also encourages higher levels of cognitive performance, as one concept leads to another and so on. The only caveat is that while the concept map is a most excellent strategy to jump-start thinking, it will change. Occasionally a student will want to hold on to those first ideas, because they are something, and filling in those circles may have been a struggle. But like other strategies, the concept map is a propulsive technique, a generator of ideas and concepts. So I like to call it a starting point at least initially, and then encourage them to fill out new maps as their ideas and concepts shift and change, as they inevitably will. Concept maps are also evaluative. I will often make copies of the filled-in maps in order to see in what direction each individual student is going; this helps me to see how they are thinking, and what

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kind of connections they are making. It also allows me to see, early on, who might be having difficulty conceptualizing constructively in any direction, though admittedly this is rare. The concept map is a tangible artifact of the cognitive process, a metacognitive activity that puts the research process into perspective and encourages further ideas. I assure students that I copy the maps in order to gain a further understanding of how I can position myself to help them better, not to disparage their thought processes. Concept maps encourage reflection because they can be accessed many times, and the ideas and concepts expressed in them can be further expanded upon.

IN-CLASS WRITING I always try to do an in-class writing exercise with students. This writing has value because I do not ask them to turn it in and it is not graded. In-class writing, with a prompt that I provide, helps students to make sense of their own thinking processes and catalyzes their ability to begin or sustain their research processes. In-class writing has the potential to show students how their learning can be selfdirected, because they focus and reflect on both strengths and weaknesses within themselves. In-class writing exercises are sometimes prompted by issues among the students that I feel can be best addressed by the students having a conversation with themselves, while at other times in-class writing is my way of jump-starting an aspect of the research process. For instance, in a first-year seminar class, I looked around the room at a group of faces that looked rather clueless—and nervous about it. Usually, I will try to have a conversation in the class, and solicit answers from students who are usually hesitant at first. But with this class, I took a different approach, one that I thought they might respond better to and feel more comfortable with. The level of research in students’ freshman year in college is often vastly different from the research that they were expected to do in high school. As a kind of baseline question, I asked the students in this class what kind of resources their high school libraries had had. I received a variety of answers, among them private schools whose

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resources seemed to rival our university library, charter school students who “borrowed” the resources from a nearby public school, and a homeschooled student whose public library in her small town was all she had access to. I recognized the challenges, and how uneven the playing field often was. And that does not even take into account their various confidence levels. I asked them to take out their notebooks or a piece of paper. I then asked them to focus on their problem specifically by asking a series of simple questions, one by one, giving them time to write. ll ll ll

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Where are you stuck? What is making you uncomfortable? What do you need to know that you currently do not know? How do you think you can get there? What do you see as your biggest challenge with this project?

I ask, but do not require, students to share their writing with the class. Some are eager to do so. Some will express how confident they actually feel with the process, while others will express anger and frustration. This kind of writing encourages students to name and describe the problem when otherwise they might just feel frustration at what they don’t know and can’t figure out. I had a colleague challenge me on the use of this kind of reflection in a class of freshmen, for instance, since what I seemed to be requiring them to do is “thinking of a higher order.” I rejected the idea. In fact, research of any kind might well be said to require “thinking of a higher order,” but, of course, we require them to do it anyway. We teach and model reflection in the very same way in which we teach them to do research. Anytime we can get to the heart of the matter with our students, prodding them to look within themselves for understandings of their difficulties as well as their strengths, we are teaching them a simple strategy of self-awareness, and teaching and nurturing in them the habit of a reflective life.

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SHORT ESSAYS AS A MODEL OF REFLECTION To get students to think and write in ways that are reflective, it is good to show them exactly what reflection looks like. Modeling reflection with writing that is short yet relatable helps students to conceive of the kind of writing that they themselves are capable of. I assigned my senior English thesis class Barbara Kingsolver’s essay “In Case You Ever Want to Go Home Again.”4 It is a lovely, poignant, and highly readable essay in which Kingsolver, an outcast throughout nearly her entire childhood and young adulthood, re­ flects on meeting someone from her past when she returned to her home town for a reading from her newly published book. In the essay Kingsolver travels back and forth in time. She states with brutal honesty, “It’s relevant and slightly vengeful to confess here that I was not a hit in school, socially speaking,” and then expresses with more than a little surprise: “And now look. The boys who’d once fled howling from her cooties were now lined up for my autograph.” She poignantly concludes, “I can recall every sight, sound, minute of that day. Every open, generous face.” Furthermore, Kingsolver states the role of writing, and while she never uses the word reflection, it is certainly implied as a strategy that helped her to get by: And I gained a lot of things from my rocky school years: a fierce wish to look inside of people. An aptitude for listening. The habit of my own company. The companionship of keeping a diary, in which I gossiped, fantasized and invented myself. From the vantage point of the underdog, the one who can’t be what others desire but who might still learn to chart her own hopes.

The essay is highly relatable to students because they can see evidence of what reflection looks like and how all of our lives, despite the fact that they may seem very ordinary, have depths to plumb, things to say, and ways of being. Students then feel emboldened to use reflection to answer some questions I assign them:

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Reflect on yourself as a scholar-in-training, a student researcher, a writer, and the steps that led you to where you are today: a senior English major, on the cusp of a new life. Reflect on one aspect of your life as a learner, and how it might have influenced the student, the learner you are today. Some questions you might want to consider: ll

What did I learn?

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How did I learn it?

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Who taught it to me?

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How has it helped me?

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How does that learning experience influence how I learn today?

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What do I do with what I have learned? How do I build upon it?

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What words best describe how it feels to “know”?

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Try writing this reflection backward!

Another way to expand this assignment would be to have students write a short “autobiography of learning” in which they basically do the same as the example above, only in a fuller and more expanded version. While I integrated and implemented several reflective strategies in the class I was embedded in, this exercise most resonated with students, because I believe the example that I gave was interesting, short, emotional, and relatable. It is a perfect example of how reflection can help us to reframe and understand who and how we are both in retrospect and in the present. I love this quote from Louise DeSalvo, which echoes sentiments valuable to the reflective learner:5 When we begin a new project, as embryonic or unsatisfactory as our early work may seem, we’re readying ourselves for the deeper work that comes later. We learn about ourselves as writers. We establish our work’s foundation. We permit ourselves to play and explore. We commit or recommit—to working steadily and purposefully.

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While I understand that not everyone will be able to implement such an exercise or assignment in class, any modified version might work as well. These are the types of exercises that may be possible when we can conceive of and arrange a more frequent presence in a class. This may entail proposing this to the faculty we work for, many of whom want our help in the class, but have no idea exactly what is possible beyond the technical aspects of database searching and the finding of books in stacks, for instance. This implies a further and deeper partnership of teaching, which is unlikely in most of the sessions we do, but is good and valuable in those in which we can.

BLOGS The first time I tried using blogs I was afraid that the students in the class would feel that it was overload: that in the midst of attempting to write a senior thesis as well as to (re)learn theory, asking them to reflect further and more deeply could be the undoing of some. The professor teaching the class, a lovely woman who I enjoy working with, felt that it was an important assignment and allowed me free rein to try to get the students to reflect. I reasoned with myself that the assignment would have to be designed to be of explicit and particular use to them moving forward. I settled on using the blog feature of our learning management system (Blackboard). I felt that every other week might not put too much pressure on them, but would be just enough to guide them through the process. They were or all would soon be in over their heads with research, immersed in their chosen texts and grappling not only with theory, but with their self-confidence; few of them felt equal to the task. One tearful student who came to me told me it would take a miracle to “pull this off.” I’d received comments like this in other semesters with my thesis students, so I had a good idea of how I wanted to use the blog: ll

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Each student could and should be able to read each other’s posts. Students were free to comment on each other’s posts, but it was not required and a response to someone else did not earn extra points.

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ll

ll

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A minimum of five small paragraphs was required in order to be able to fully answer the question. Students were free to express their feelings and opinions, but proper English punctuation and sentence structure were required. Honesty was required.

The professor in the class was satisfied with the requirements and urged me to give her the entire list of questions so that she could load them into Blackboard and have them released every other week. For me, the importance of this entire exercise was the students’ reflection on what was currently happening in the class, with their research, and so on. This meant that the questions that I posted for the students to respond to would need to arise organically from whatever was going on in class that particular week; otherwise, my preplanned questions would not be relevant, and would be out of step with the current situation in the class. About the third week of class, all of the students were digging into their chosen texts. If a book was new to them, they had the anxi­ ety of trying to fully understand it. If they had read the book before (the majority of students), then they were reading it again. The professor in the class made a distinction between reading and a close reading, and the latter was required of them. Here are my blog questions for that week: ll

ll

ll

ll

Sum up what you believe to be the main message or point of your literary text. Isolate a passage (please post this passage) in which something especially cogent reveals itself to you in a way that helps you to understand the text as a whole. While I understand you may not have read the entire book yet, find a passage within the pages you have read so far. This does not have to be a particularly dramatic or action-filled moment; in fact, many important themes in literature are expressed in quiet and understated ways. Explain how and why this passage helps you to better understand the theme of the book as a whole. Identify a possible direction you could take in your research.

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This exercise was prompted by students voicing concerns about “missing the important things in the text,” or simply not understanding how to explore or identify the major cruxes in the text. The exercise helped prepare them to choose a topic and begin the research process. It is important to me to understand that as a librarian educator I am teaching students—not necessarily material, which means that I must be both proactive and responsive to students’ informational and educational needs. In fact, reflective teaching means attention to student needs and helping them in the metacognitive process. On the student evaluations I received, twenty-six students out of thirtyone found the blog the single most useful tool in the class. The blog helped them not only to reflect on their process and to correct wrong-headed thinking or approaches, but to gain confidence from what they were doing right, too. This was particularly gratifying to me because there were, quite frankly, some very vocal complaints about doing any number of activities that did not seem directly involved in writing the thesis. At the end of the course, the students had the benefit of the holistic view of the class and how the different reflective strategies kept them in touch with themselves. The blog is perhaps ideal for the questions that we pose to students in order to get them to reflect, and for questions that arise from the context of the class itself. There are any number of reflection guides that include questions that can be asked, and I have used them as a guideline, but have opted to use a more personal and relevant approach in order to excavate deeper meaning. Absolutely essential in this process is giving students’ reflective responses sincere and timely feedback. Feedback that arrives too long after a written reflection is submitted loses its relevance. The student has already moved on. I try to respond as quickly as I can. It is in this way that we show the students that we understand what they are saying, that we can identify points in which we can intervene with more targeted instruction or advice, and we can provide validation and encouragement. Moreover, we can follow up with a further line of questioning in our one-on-one meetings with students, which continue the reflection process and require further clarification of thoughts on the part of the student.

Reflection in the Classroom 107 

PROBLEM-SOLVING REFLECTION One of the reasons reflection is such a valuable pedagogical tool is because through observation and questioning we can name a problem, issue, or triggering scenario and work through it. Most librarians would agree with the assertion that college-age students may be facile with technology, but that does not necessarily translate into the ability to do research. As I mentioned before, this is both because they have difficulty actually pinpointing where it is they are stuck and, when they do identify the problem, they spend time and energy trying to solve it before they attempt to understand it. I give my students at all levels who are writing research papers of any kind a simple questionnaire that helps to isolate and focus on the issue at hand: 1. State the problem as best as you can with the research, the writing, or both. 2. What is the hoped-for outcome or objective? 3. What specific strategies did you implement? 4. What results (good or bad) did you see? 5. Assess your strategies and the outcome as it now stands. 6. How do you feel about your progress (or not)?

PRE/POST (SELF)-ASSESSMENT Pre- and post-assessments are valuable for several reasons. At the outset, asking a student, for instance, what their relationship to research is, and whether they have any anticipated problems or mental blocks, allows the student to express their perceived shortcomings in a confidential way. The pre-assessment is valuable to me because it provides a baseline that addresses each student’s concern, helping me to formulate both in-class instruction as well as where I will target the help I give in a one-on-one session. Post-assessment is often a revelation to a student and provides benchmark evidence of difficulties they have overcome. I ask students to look at the copies of their pre-assessment forms when writing their post-assessment paragraphs. Looking back is a valuable

108  CHAPTER 9

tool in confidence-building—they can see the improvement they’ve made and know that the same can be achieved in other courses, in the writing of other research papers and assignments.

SELF-EVALUATION The common default in most writing and research classrooms is the tried-and-true peer review. Students love digging into someone else’s paper with a red pen. It is always so easy to point out someone else’s mistakes and make suggestions for improvements in another’s paper, but so difficult to find fault in one’s own. Self-evaluation of one’s own work provides the opportunity for the students to look critically at themselves and learn how to evaluate their own work. The following questions will elicit answers not only about the mechanics of the paper itself, but the writing process as well: 1. How long did it take to complete this paper? 2. What are the strengths of this paper? 3. What are the weaknesses of this paper? 4. What was the most challenging aspect of writing this paper? Why? 5. What was the easiest or most enjoyable part of this paper to write? Why? 6. How does this version of your paper compare in content with a previous draft? Included in the self-assessment sheet can be a formatting checklist, though what I am more concerned with is attention to the metacognitive process. It is good to refer students to a writing or tutoring center that can help with mechanics.

RESEARCH PARTNERS I have witnessed how well pairing students up in the classroom can help students with their research goals. They can help each other cycle through ideas, provide invaluable feedback during the peerreview process, and serve as a sounding board for frustrations and

Reflection in the Classroom 109 

fears. Integrating the research partners as often as possible in the classroom builds a dynamic between the two who will learn to build knowledge through conversation, and by challenging and bolstering one another’s ideas. It moves the research process from that of a student alone in a silo to one within the shared realm of camaraderie, ideas, and valuable feedback.

FINAL THOUGHTS I have touched upon a few among many types of strategies that li­brar­ians can potentially introduce in either their instruction sessions or their embedded classrooms. Collaboration with teaching faculty is not only essential but desirable—otherwise, the librarian and professor are working at cross-purposes, which is confusing and counterproductive for student learning. The learning strategies introduced by the librarian in a class should have their intent clearly explained. Students come to class with their own fears and insecurities. We need to engage them with respect and care. I have tried to present strategies that can en­gage students and encourage them to be reflective while at the same time helping them to improve and reach their goals in ways that will resonate in present and future learning. I consistently strive for a holistic approach in the classroom, one in which the work that I do as the librarian educator encourages reflection but is also, of course, in line with the goals of the professor in the class. When we collaborate in this, there is the great potential for connections that perhaps either one of us alone just might not have been able to achieve. Kind et al. express this in a way that certainly resonates with me and should resonate with us all:6 Education is longing for a deeper, more connected, more inclusive, and more aware way of knowing. One that connects heart and hand and head and does not slit knowledge into dualities of thought and being, mind and body, emotion and intellect, but resonates with a wholeness and fullness that engages every part of one’s being.

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Strategies ll

Implementing reflection strategies in either instruction sessions or the embedded classroom requires full cooperation and collaboration with the teaching faculty in the class. Ask first; never assume.

ll

If any of the strategies that I have proposed (or any others you can conceive of) appeal to you, flesh out how they might work within the structure of the planned instruction session(s). Occasionally, reflection may not be a good fit because of time, faculty resistance, or educational outcomes that are unclear, ill-conceived, or nonexistent.

ll

Reflection should add something to the learning experience, but it should never be an “add-on.” If you feel that you would like to implement instruction in a class, even in a very casual way, formulate learning goals and the opportunity (and time) for feedback.

ll

Think about how you might model reflection. One way would be to participate in the reflection activity with your students. If you are asking them to reflect in class on a certain aspect of research, write something and then share it with them.

ll

Students may resist an activity in which they remain in the dark about how they might benefit from it. Assignments or exercises given by librarians are often not taken seriously because of our infrequent or brief appearances in instruction sessions, which is good to bear in mind. Exercises or assignments in which you cannot “close the circle” of interaction may not work.

ll

Does the professor in the class require at least a single one-onone session with you? If so, you can follow up on the exercise when you encounter a student during an appointment, and provide feedback.

Reflection in the Classroom 111  NOTES

1. James H. Strong, Qualities of Effective Teachers (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2007). 2. James George Henderson, ed., Reflective Teaching: The Study of Your Constructivist Practices (New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 1996). 3. Tom Russell, “Can Reflective Practice Be Taught?” Reflective Practice 6, no. 2 (2005): 199–204. 4. Barbara Kingsolver, “In Case You Ever Want to Go Home Again,” in High Tide in Tucson (New York: Harper Collins, 1995), 35–45. 5. Louise DeSalvo, The Art of Slow Writing: Reflections on Time, Craft, and Creativity (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2014). 6. Sylvia Kind, Rita L. Irwin, Kit Grauer, and Alex De Cosson, “Medicine Wheel Imag(in)ings: Exploring Holistic Curriculum Perspectives,” Art Education 58, no. 5 (2005): 33–38.

10 Professional Autobiographical Reflection Without the ability to think about yourself, to reflect on your life, there’s really no awareness, no consciousness. Consciousness doesn’t come automatically; it comes through being alive, awake, curious, and often furious. —MAXINE GREENE

I

have long felt that librarianship is a calling for me. It is more than a job, much more than simply a love of books (as everyone assumes), more than even a career, but instead it is a way of life. We live in a world in which the way we think about work and the way we do or don’t dedicate our lives to it changes over time. How many of us are lucky enough to say that we love what we do, that our work does not feel like work? I have engaged in this conversation so many times with so many people. I used to feel guilty about loving my work, about not grumbling about Monday morning as is normal in our society, because everyone hates Mondays, right? No, not really. Not me. And so I began to think deeply about what it is that I loved about librarianship. Why should I feel guilty about not grumbling about Monday when we’re gathered around the proverbial water cooler? Why, in fact, do I consider it a calling? 113 

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While I have revealed earlier in this book that I have always been a reflective person in other areas of my life, reflection on my praxis, on my career and its balance (or not) in my life was something that I wanted to do, something I wanted to understand deeply. And since reflection often is initiated because of a triggering event or problem, at this point you might be asking yourself, in my case, what exactly was that event since the picture seems rosy so far? Perhaps the triggering moment for me came while I was overseas a few years ago. I had been responding each day to my e-mail. I would answer student questions as I received them, I responded to meeting requests when they came in, I contributed my two cents to group e-mails among my colleagues, and so on. Upon my return, more than a few of my colleagues expressed dismay and incredulity that I was online at all while I was on vacation. And I in turn expressed incredulity at their incredulity! Why wouldn’t I be? The anticipated response was tossed right back into my lap, where it stayed. And I had no good reply. I was entitled to my vacation time. No one, in fact, expected me to respond to e-mails or otherwise be concerned about anything at all while I was away. I had no pressing items that could not wait until I returned stateside. Still, I answered most e-mails received and I remained otherwise interested in all that was going on back in the library. What troubled me was why my attentiveness was even mentioned. I felt resentful: why did it matter to them? I grew up in a household with an extremely strong work ethic. I watched my father, who never finished high school because his Italian immigrant father thought that he would be more useful to the family in the short term and to himself in the long term if he learned a trade and went to work. My father, the dutiful eldest son, did just that. My father would come home from one job and head out to another. My mother likes to tell about how in the early days of their marriage they barely saw each other, because my father maintained three jobs for many years. I witnessed his hard work in moving up from blue-collar jobs to a white-collar upper-level management career in the pharmaceutical industry, at a time when that was still possible without a degree. I spent the majority of my time with my father, especially in the small front yard of our home that he kept pristine with the most

Professional Autobiographical Reflection 115 

beautiful flowers and greenest grass of anyone in our busy industrial neighborhood. As clichéd as it sounds, I must be truthful and say that I never heard him complain about work. Not once. He was (and still is!) a very involved father (and my mother would agree, a husband!) who not only shouldered his responsibilities but took pride and felt joy in his work. He instilled that in me. I had always kept a journal, but I decided to begin another one for the sole purpose of discerning my attitude toward work—in essence my chosen career and work ethic. Was I, as a friend suggested cautiously, perhaps dissatisfied with my life, and work was serving as an escape valve? I didn’t consciously think this was true and the suggestion irked me. I was happy doing what I loved! Why was that such a bad thing?

REFLECTION Admittedly, while I find much of Michel Foucault’s writing inscrutable, this observation of his resonates deeply with me: “Thought is freedom in relation to what one does, the motion by which one detaches oneself from it, establishes it as an object, and reflects upon it as a problem.”1 Yes. In fact, the entire reason for writing this book has been to do just that: to illuminate reflective practice as a pedagogical tool that benefits both ourselves as professionals and, by obvious extension, our students as well. Now I want to explain how and why that has been instrumental in understanding who I am as a person within my profession: my praxis. Pop psychology is like fashion: prone to fads and ever-changing. A strategy touted to cope with work, home, or relationship issues could change tomorrow. As a panacea for the “workaholic” culture, we were advised in the popular media to “compartmentalize” our lives into neat little boxes that we could, with ease, scoot ourselves in and out of, like flipping a switch. We were warned about the boundaries of our work selves and our personal selves blurring, of destroying families and relationships. We were nothing more than hamsters on the wheel. It would have been easy for me to buy into all of this rhetoric because the advice of the experts is, well, advice from experts. But no one knows me like I know me, and the last time I looked, the self that appeared at my university library each morning

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was the same person who went home, wrote poetry, watched Britcoms, walked my beloved dog, and ate big Sunday dinners with my family. I began writing about this—a lot. So, my triggering question was one that was very blunt. I began with five words in my reflective journal: “I want to understand something,” a question that I aimed to figure out, knowing that deep understanding would take time, but I was hoping that it would not take too much time. And if I had to change, I would change, I assured myself, knowing that reflection should lead to action. I was ready. While I might have considered every now and then that my work ethic might be a bit different from others’, I never perceived it as a problem until someone suggested to me that maybe it was. How well did I know myself, and why hadn’t I ever considered that possibility before? Maybe because I was happy, for the most part, and did not perceive a problem. I asked myself a series of questions that, as I realize now is quite natural, started in one place, but ended in another. They may strike you as questions we all have at one time or another, struck as we are by someone’s impression of us, or the way we compare ourselves to others. I would say the difference is that I worked through them using reflection. Here are just a few: ll ll ll ll ll ll

What is wrong with me? Why am I different? Do I need to be needed? Do I like being useful? Why can’t I take a break like everyone else? What am I trying to prove?

As you can see, the above questions are not only very specific, but they are also very accusatory and negative. Later I would come to understand that there was value in that because eventually the answers to the first and last question were both the same: “nothing.” I uncovered a few things about myself. I love the quotidian; the workweek has a comforting hum to it, it makes me smile. I love my profession. Students mean the world to me, and I love working with them. I love teaching for discovery. I enjoy collaboration with colleagues and other faculty. I took Maxine Greene’s words to heart, and

Professional Autobiographical Reflection 117 

found some validation there: “It is my view that persons are more likely to ask their own questions and seek their own transcendence when they feel themselves grounded in their personal histories, their lived experiences.”2 Was every day perfect? Hardly. Were all of my ideas given the golden seal of approval? Absolutely not. Were the students I encountered all courteous, curious, and motivated? I wish. I moved through the process of writing as steadily as the time would allow, and since I am conditioned to write, this was not as difficult as it might be for some people. I was deliberate and committed. My trajectory as a librarian was an interesting one. I had worked as a paraprofessional in a public library system for fifteen years and loved it. When the opportunity arose for a position in an academic library, I heard the clarion call. I enrolled in library school and felt an excitement of possibility. As a passionate proponent of social justice and critical pedagogy, I found some very good literature within the profession to help in my formation. I was finding my way, attempting to do the hard work and largely moving forward, but not always. The point was to engage in reflection with an open heart, in an intentional and assiduous way. My reflections revealed an explicit, tacit knowing about myself: that I eschew compartmentalizing, that I was desperately seeking integration rather than segregation. Now, I am not advocating that taking a much-deserved vacation requires that one remain totally plugged in at all times, or that our weekends should be filled with what we are attending to Monday through Friday on the job. Not at all. But what I found through reflection was that I felt better when I was somewhat connected because it was uniquely me, the way I operate. It was my truth. I further reflected on whether or not my work ethic was sustainable over the long term, and once again I examined my reasons to make sure that I was not, for instance, making myself “indispensable” out of a false sense of fear—the common affliction of never doing enough, never committing enough, never, in fact, being enough. Furthermore, I reflected on issues that did arise from not taking enough time to kick back, or feeling like I had to be immediately responsive to e-mails, phone messages, and so on before I had time to be thoughtful about a situation or a request at hand. Henderson calls

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reflection on our teaching a “calling.”3 Further, he states that this aspect of reflection is “to contemplate the personal issues of motivation that are germane to the practice of educational constructivism.” This intrigued me greatly. To that end, I discovered Henderson’s 4C scaffolding, which “provides metacognitive guidance for the critical guidance of constructivist practices.”4 These four “virtues” provided the framework that helped me to reflect more consciously on the same areas that were integral to my role as a librarian educator. They are: Calling. Henderson makes the point that most educators see their

work as a calling rather than just a job they report to each day. This distinction is an extremely important one to make and one that goes hand in hand with a strong work ethic. The ethic of care is integral to teaching. I would add to care, “witnessing to students,” which means being attentive, engaging in meaningful dialogue, and helping them with their own efforts toward reflection not just as a learning strategy, but as a life strategy as well. Caring means educating as well as listening to fears and perceived deficits, and facilitating and encouraging students toward better understanding with all of the strategies we have at hand. It may be as simple as closing the circle of a research consultation by e-mailing a student a day or two afterwards, asking how things are going and if there is anything else they might need; and then reminding them that you are there when they need you.

Caring.

Creativity. When

Henderson speaks of creativity, he refers to the educator’s flexibility, imagination, and intuition. Ask yourself what your teaching would look like if we allowed ourselves to be creative in the classroom. If we let our students do the same? If our classrooms or sessions were noisy, decentered, student-driven? Reflection on past and current practices can help us discover what might be possible. How often have we asserted or rationalized our practices simply because change was too much work, and too scary? If I am not doing what I have always done, what would that look like? When we reflect, we are more likely

Centered.

Professional Autobiographical Reflection 119 

to be centered because we know ourselves. We will not be like willow branches bending or reacting to every perceived criticism. We can be who we are, because who we are, in the classroom, in the library, in our skin is true and authentic, because we have made a considerable investment in ourselves. We follow our own instincts, but within the framework of sound foundational practices. Because I consider my practice both reflective and constructivist in nature, this framework works well for me. I would encourage others to find their own way of being. For me, reflection is such a part of the fabric of my professional practice that I do not think I could (or would want to) function without it. While it can be an uncomfortable and painful process at times, requiring an honesty with ourselves that we are often frightened of (with reason), the rewards are evident: a more authentic and integrated self. Through my years of reflection, I have discovered that for me, an integrated self is a better self. But this is my truth, and my experience. Your truth can and probably will be very different. I blend my reflection with readings from others who have walked the path and have exemplified in the words they left behind the trials of being authentic. There are precedents for the practice. While there are many who will dismiss reflection (and I am aware of the controversies), they are usually centered on quantifiable assessments, something I chose not to focus on in this book since others have treated it in more depth than I care to. My answer is that it is difficult to quantify what can be expressed either by ourselves or by our students. For me, reflection has disrupted my “certainty” narrative—the one in which everything is fine, and what I am doing is as it should be; this is the kind of thinking that severely limits what can and should be possible. Margery Williams’s Velveteen Rabbit is a favorite of mine because of its basic truth about how authenticity and becoming “real” happens:5 “Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long

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time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.” “Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit. “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.” “Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?” “It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.” My story is not finished because reflection is a process that has no end; with regular practice, it becomes an inextricable part of a healthy and informed professional and personal life. We practice reflection. We engage both mind and heart. Reflective practice aims to integrate the scattered parts of ourselves that can interrupt our personal potential and, at the same time, stifle our potential to help others in the classroom. Reflective practice shows us to ourselves, reveals and brings to light those aspects of our professional lives that are best dealt with once they have been articulated. The process is just as important as arrival—and I would attest, even more! NOTES

1. Michel Foucault, The Foucault Reader (New York: Pantheon, 1984). 2. Maxine Greene, Landscapes of Learning (New York: Teachers College Press, 1978). 3. James George Henderson, ed., Reflective Teaching: The Study of Your Con­struc­ tivist Practices (New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 1996). 4. Ibid., 159. 5. Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit; or, How Toys Become Real (Pioneer Drama Service, 1926).

Index

A academic librarians. See librarian educators academic theory, field courses and, 33 action in reflection cycle, 46–47 reflection-in and -on, 24, 35 activity, Dewey on, 10, 23 analysis, in reflection cycle, 45–46 Argyris, Chris, 3, 42 The Artist’s Way (Cameron), 56 Ashe, Arthur, 29 assessments, student, 107–108 Attard, K., 66 authenticity, 27, 36, 42–43, 92, 119–120 awareness metacognitive, 16–17 questions for, 72, 101, 116

B blogs, as reflective writing, 104–106 Bolton, Gillie, 48 Booth, Char, 87, 89 Brookfield, Stephen D., 6 Brown, Judy, 88, 90

C calling, education as, 118 Cameron, Julia, 56 caring, as professional ethic, 118 centeredness, as professional ethic, 118–119

Clandinin, D. Jean, 24, 35 classroom writing exercises, 100–101 collaboration, in reflective practice, 18, 81–92 collegial inquiry, 85 concept maps, 99–100 conditional knowledge, 17 Connelly, F. Michael, 24, 35 constructive zone, 72 Cooper, Joanne E., 63 creativity, as professional ethic, 118 crises, as motivators, 25–26 Cunliffe, Ann L., 83

D Damon, Matt, 46 dance and stance, 6–7 database searching, 97–99 declarative knowledge, 16–17 deficit-based questions, 75–76, 88 DeSalvo, Louise, 103 Dewey, John, 1, 9–10, 23 dialogue, during reflective process, 32, 45–46, 58–59 diaries vs. journals, 67 discernment, of issues, 47 drawing, as reflective technique, 60–61 Dyment, Janet E., 33

E Einstein, Albert, 21 Elbow, Peter, 57 121 

122 Index

Elrod, Hal, 51 embedded practice, benefits of, 94 emotions, positive, 71, 77–78 espoused theories, 41 essays, as models, 102–104 experiences bifurcation of, xii–xiii expressions of, 53–55 framing of, 73–78 learning from, 10, 64 openness to, 8, 36 expressions of experience, 53–55

F false consciousness, 25 fear and resistance, 6, 13–15, 26, 29–31, 47–48, 94–96, 110 feedback, timely, 106 feelings, positive, 71, 77–78 Foucault, Michel, 115 4C scaffolding, 118–119 framing of experiences, 73–78 Fredrickson, Barbara L., 71, 77 freewriting, 56–58

G Gee, Michael A., 24 Ghaye, Tony, 66, 70, 71–72, 75–76, 88 gleaning, 89 Good Will Hunting, 46 Greene, Maxine, 113, 116–117 group discussion, 33–34, 81–83, 90–91 group dynamics, 33, 75, 91 Grumet, Madeleine R., 55 guided reflection, 71–73

H haiku, as reflective writing, 62 Hart, Tobin, 93 Henderson, James George, 85, 117–118 honesty and truth, 25, 37, 46, 49, 92, 119

I “In Case You Ever Want to Go Home Again” (Kingsolver), 102 in-class writing exercises, 100–101 information literacy sessions

examples, 4–6, 35–36, 73–75 limits of one-shot sessions, 5–7, 43, 73 professors’ attitudes on, 4–5, 18, 43–44, 94 instructional odysseys, Gee on, 24 intentionality, 21–28, 51, 83, 87–88

J Jacobs, Heidi, 89 Jay, Joelle K., 84–85 Johns, Christopher, 25 Johnson, Mark, 62 Joiner, Thomas, 71 Journal Club, 81–82, 85, 90–91 journals and journaling vs. diaries, 67 examples, 5–6, 57, 59–60, 61, 64–65, 73–75 handwritten vs. typed, 8, 18, 37, 52, 67 techniques for, 55–67 types of entries in, 33 value of, 24, 51–55 Jung, C. G., 39

K Kahlo, Frida, 60–61 keyword searches, 97–99 Kind, Sylvia, 109 Kingsolver, Barbara, 102 knowledge, metacognitive, 16–17 Kottkamp, Robert B., 85–86

L Lakoff, George, 62 Larrivee, Barbara, 7, 42–43 A Leader’s Guide to Reflective Practice (Brown), 90 learning, transformative, 9, 83–84 librarian educators classroom techniques for, 97–110 frustrations of, 22, 43–44, 94 group discussion with, 33–34, 81–83, 90–91 necessity of being reflective themselves, xiii, 13–19, 93–94 resistance and fear in, 6, 14–15, 26, 29–30, 47–48

Index 123  stance and dance of, 6–7 virtues for, 118–119 See also information literacy sessions; teachers librarianship, as a calling, 113, 118 lists, as reflective writing, 59–60 logs, research, 98 Lombardi, Vince, 81 love, as positive emotion, 77

pre-assessment, 107 preoccupations, 27–28, 34, 56, 58 problem-solving, 7, 8–9, 85, 107 procedural knowledge, 17 professional growth and development, 33, 85–86, 90 propulsive writing, 56–57, 99–100 prose poetry, as reflective writing, 62

M

questioning the status quo, 7, 9 questions for awareness, 72, 101, 116 for collaborative reflection, 88 for positive reflection, 72, 76, 78 to prevent hyper-focus, 28 for strength-building, 72, 76 for students, 101, 103, 105, 107, 108

Manjusvara, xiv Mason, John, 64 meetings, with colleagues, 18, 22, 33–34, 81–83, 90 metacognitive awareness, 16–17 metaphors, in reflective writing, 55–56, 62–63 metrics, focus on, 39 Mezirow, Jack, 9, 83–84 mindful practice. See reflective practice mindfulness, Johns on, 25 modeling, of reflection, 16, 19, 102–104, 110 Moon, Jennifer A., 53 morning pages, 56–57 multitasking, lie of, 52

N narrative writing, 55, 63–66 navel-gazing, label of, 10, 32, 54 Newcombe, John, 69

O observation, gleaning and, 89 O’Connell, Timothy S., 33 one-shot sessions, limits of, 5–7, 43, 73 Osterman, Karen F., 85–86

P passivity, perception of, 10–11 pedagogy, reflection as, xi–xiv, 9, 21–22, 95 place, connection to, 33 poetry, as reflective writing, 61–62 positive emotions, 71, 77–78 positivity, cultivating, 69–78 post-assessment, 107–108

Q

R rationality, technical, xii, 11, 30–31, 61, 66 real, becoming, 119–120 Reale, Michelle journal entries, 5–6, 64–65, 73–75 professional autobiographical reflection, 113–120 reflection defined, 2–3 Dewey on, 1, 9–10, 23 intentionality in, 21–28, 51, 83, 87–88 as pedagogy, xi–xiv, 9, 21–22, 95 as a tool, xiii, 1–2, 75, 107, 115 reflection-in-action, 24, 35 reflection-on-action, 24, 35 reflective practice collaboration in, 18, 81–92 cycle of, 40–49 getting started in, 29–37 Ghaye on, 66, 70, 71–72, 75–76, 88 as intentional practice, 21–28, 51, 83, 87–88 making time for, 7–8, 19, 27, 37, 90 positivity in, 69–78 problem-solving in, 7, 8–9, 85, 107 resistance to, 13–15, 26, 29–31, 47–48, 94–96, 110 Schön on, 24, 30, 35, 41, 66

124 Index

reflective practice (cont.) strategies for, 18–19, 27–28, 37, 49, 78, 90–92, 110 with students, 93–110 three processes of, 7–9 The Reflective Practitioner (Schön), 66 reflexive loop, 3, 42–44, 46 reframing of experiences, 73–78 research, assisting students with, 31, 45, 64–65, 97–109 resistance and fear, 6, 13–15, 26, 29–31, 47–48, 94–96, 110 rhetorical flourish, metaphor as, 62 Richardson, Laurel, xi Roberts, Laura Morgan, 70 Russell, Tom, 94–96

S Schön, Donald A., 24, 30, 35, 41, 66 Schraw, Gregory, 16–17 searches, keyword, 97–99 self-assessment, 107–108 self-knowledge, as by-product, 54–55 sense of place, 33 Servage, Laura, 82–83 short essays, as models, 102–104 stance and dance, 6–7 status quo, questioning of, 7, 9 Stevens, Dannelle D., 63 stream of consciousness, 56–58 strengths, focusing on, 70–78 Strong, James H., 94 students guided reflection for, 71–73 partnering of, 108–109 research instruction with, 31, 45, 64–65, 97–109

resistance and fear in, 13–14, 26, 31, 94–96, 110 techniques for teaching reflection to, 97–110 swampy lowlands metaphor, 41

T teachers authenticity in, 42–43 classroom techniques for, 97–110 as learners, 31, 53–54, 84 necessity of being reflective themselves, xiii, 13–19, 93–94 resistance and fear in, 6, 14–15, 26, 29–30, 47–48 See also librarian educators technical rationality, xii, 11, 30–31, 61, 66 theories-in-use, 41–42 thinking vs. reflecting, 2, 22–24 time, setting aside, 7–8, 27, 37, 67 transformative learning, 9, 83–84 truth and honesty, 25, 37, 46, 49, 92, 119

V The Velveteen Rabbit (Williams), 119–120 visual journals, 60–61

W Williams, Margery, 119–120 Woolf, Virginia, 66 Wordsworth, William, 13 work ethic, reflection on, 114–118 writing techniques, 55–67

Y York-Barr, Jennifer, 36