Often at the end of the writing workshop I invite my students to reflect on how they got themselves started writing that day. What was hard? What came easy? This year when I said: Writers, will you join me on the carpet for a little bit of reflection, one student asked: “Why? Are we in trouble?” I was taken aback but I realized that for many kids, reflection is something they do when they’ve messed up.
When I was an instructional coach, sometimes I would invite teachers to reflect on student performance data. I would ask: “What do you think contributed to your students’ mastery of this particular skill?”, “Why do you think they are still striving to learn that concept?” More often than not, the answer would be something outside of the teacher’s control. “They came knowing that,” or “They came in pretty ‘high’”, “Well, those are my ‘low’ babies, so I wasn’t surprised by their performance.” I think as teachers we also become defensive when asked to reflect, especially when it’s around data which we know is not a complete picture of our teaching and our students’ learning.
But why are we afraid of reflection? Why are we afraid to bring ourselves to account each day? Perhaps we associate reflection with thinking only about what we have done wrong. But reflection is not only about focusing on mistakes. It’s also about recognizing our breakthroughs and making a plan for our next steps. Reflection is the catalyst for growth. We go out there, try something. We come back. We think about what we did, why we did it, how we did it and we analyze what we learned. What was challenging? What seemed to work? What got us a little closer to our goal? And then we make a plan to move forward. Without reflection we become stagnant, we lose hope, we give up.
John Dewey said: “We do not learn from experience . . .We learn from reflecting on experience.” When I run into a wall, it is true that the pain motivates me to avoid a similar experience but it’s the reflection that teaches me to watch where I’m going and not be distracted by my phone.
How do we shed these fears and embrace reflection in all parts of our lives, including our teaching life? How do we create a culture of reflection?
A culture of reflection requires humility - humility to speak of our challenges and our success with honesty in order to add to the collective knowledge of the community. Humility opens the doors to learning. Learning requires us to admit we don’t know all the answers.
A culture of reflection feeds on hope - hope is the manifestation of the belief that every day we wake up a little more experienced, a little more knowledgeable about the world, even when we are not consciously aware of it. Reflection brings that awareness to the forefront of our minds. Hope allows us to learn from our experiences and build resilience to try again and again.
A culture of reflection requires community. It is true that we can and should reflect on our own and for our own personal growth. But our work is formed and informed by the work of others. We are more open to reflection and learning if we belong to a community that nurtures the capacity to synthesize learning from successes as well as challenges. A reflective community sees mistakes as opportunities to learn, fosters a level of trust that allows members to be vulnerable with each other, and has a vision that motivates and inspires everyone to contribute.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of reflection in building autonomy and mastery in my fourth grade writers. Teaching Writers to Reflect by Ann Elrod Witney,Colleen McCracken and Deana Washell has given me concrete strategies for teaching reflection to my young writers. But I know that the best way to teach them is by example. I try to practice humility when I tell them how a lesson didn’t go as I expected and what I learned from that. I share my whys and my hows for each lesson. I constantly remind them and myself that tomorrow is a new day and a new opportunity to learn a little bit more. And I try to create a community of writers that celebrates every writer’s successes, is safe enough for everyone to talk about their challenges and is brave enough to show up the next day and try again.
When I was an instructional coach, sometimes I would invite teachers to reflect on student performance data. I would ask: “What do you think contributed to your students’ mastery of this particular skill?”, “Why do you think they are still striving to learn that concept?” More often than not, the answer would be something outside of the teacher’s control. “They came knowing that,” or “They came in pretty ‘high’”, “Well, those are my ‘low’ babies, so I wasn’t surprised by their performance.” I think as teachers we also become defensive when asked to reflect, especially when it’s around data which we know is not a complete picture of our teaching and our students’ learning.
But why are we afraid of reflection? Why are we afraid to bring ourselves to account each day? Perhaps we associate reflection with thinking only about what we have done wrong. But reflection is not only about focusing on mistakes. It’s also about recognizing our breakthroughs and making a plan for our next steps. Reflection is the catalyst for growth. We go out there, try something. We come back. We think about what we did, why we did it, how we did it and we analyze what we learned. What was challenging? What seemed to work? What got us a little closer to our goal? And then we make a plan to move forward. Without reflection we become stagnant, we lose hope, we give up.
John Dewey said: “We do not learn from experience . . .We learn from reflecting on experience.” When I run into a wall, it is true that the pain motivates me to avoid a similar experience but it’s the reflection that teaches me to watch where I’m going and not be distracted by my phone.
How do we shed these fears and embrace reflection in all parts of our lives, including our teaching life? How do we create a culture of reflection?
A culture of reflection requires humility - humility to speak of our challenges and our success with honesty in order to add to the collective knowledge of the community. Humility opens the doors to learning. Learning requires us to admit we don’t know all the answers.
A culture of reflection feeds on hope - hope is the manifestation of the belief that every day we wake up a little more experienced, a little more knowledgeable about the world, even when we are not consciously aware of it. Reflection brings that awareness to the forefront of our minds. Hope allows us to learn from our experiences and build resilience to try again and again.
A culture of reflection requires community. It is true that we can and should reflect on our own and for our own personal growth. But our work is formed and informed by the work of others. We are more open to reflection and learning if we belong to a community that nurtures the capacity to synthesize learning from successes as well as challenges. A reflective community sees mistakes as opportunities to learn, fosters a level of trust that allows members to be vulnerable with each other, and has a vision that motivates and inspires everyone to contribute.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of reflection in building autonomy and mastery in my fourth grade writers. Teaching Writers to Reflect by Ann Elrod Witney,Colleen McCracken and Deana Washell has given me concrete strategies for teaching reflection to my young writers. But I know that the best way to teach them is by example. I try to practice humility when I tell them how a lesson didn’t go as I expected and what I learned from that. I share my whys and my hows for each lesson. I constantly remind them and myself that tomorrow is a new day and a new opportunity to learn a little bit more. And I try to create a community of writers that celebrates every writer’s successes, is safe enough for everyone to talk about their challenges and is brave enough to show up the next day and try again.
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