KYLENELSON

            In Carol Rodger’s article Defining Reflection: Another Look at John Dewey and Reflective Thinking, she states what it takes to be a critical reflective thinker, according to John Dewey, and what teachers need to do in order to fully take advantage of what reflective thinking can do for both themselves and their students.  In the article she outlines four essential criteria for reflective thinkers: 1. It must be a meaning-making process 2. It is systematic and rigorous, with its roots in scientific inquiry 3. It needs to happen in community 4. It requires attitudes that value the growth of others and ourselves. Rodgers states, “Dewey reminds us that reflection is a complex, rigorous, intellectual, and emotional enterprise that takes time to do well.” This sentence caused me tension as I began to wonder about my own reflection as a practitioner.

            In Roger’s outlined first step, reflection must be a meaning-making process from an experience. According to Dewey, an experience must involve interaction between the self and another person, the material world, the natural world, an idea, or whatever constitutes the environment at hand. Through interactions with the world, states Rodger, we both change it and are changed by it. As teachers we have many experiences daily that may prompt us to being this step in the reflection process. The environment we interact with may be our classes, our students, our administrators, or even educational policy.  As teachers when we seek meaning from our interactions with these environments and from there we pursue connections and relationships between them to find a solution to our tension. From these connections, Rodgers states, a theory may grow.

            In the second criterion, Rodgers states that reflection is a systematic and rigorous way of thinking. Rodger also states “reflection requires that the thinker draw on past experiences, ‘image-ing’ other events that are similar to or different from the experiences being inquired into.” One must be open to potential meanings of an experience, and from these experiences, we may draw connections to others that provide growth in our thoughts. We learners we “have a yearning for balance, that in turn drives [us] to do something to resolve it - namely start the process on inquiry, or reflection.” Rodgers outlines this process of inquiry or reflection into six phases, which mirror the scientific method. First, our interactions with our environment cause us to question, then we use prior experiences to generate meanings, followed by naming the problem/question. From there we take time to examine possible explanations, which in turn leads to a hypothesis for testing. “Through this process reflection comes full circle, the testing becomes the next experiences, and experiment and experiences become synonymous.

            Reflection in community is the third criterion Rodgers states for critical reflection. She states that by expression our thoughts with others reveal both the strengths and holes in our own thoughts. The benefits of doing so give affirmation to one’s own experience, the ability to see things from a new perspective, and receiving the support to engage in the process of inquiry. As Rodger’s states, “no teacher outgrows the need for other perspectives and new experiences.”

            The last criterion is reflection as a set of attitudes. Rodger outlines four attitudes in this criterion: whole-heartedness, directness, open-mindedness, and responsibility. These four attitudes “compromise the essential constituents of what Dewey called readiness to engage in reflection.” Away from these attitudes, other emotions may direct the course on inquiry. If we let other strong emotions in the course of inquiry, we may only see what reinforces those premises.

            I mentioned before that the article caused me tension in my own understanding of where I am in my reflection process. In my classroom, I am put into situations where I am interacting with different “environments” daily: my students, my PLC, the administration, the implementation of testing. The list could go on and on.  I often times feel I have a reaction rather than a response, as Rodgers mentions in his article. However, I don’t know where I am on the “scale” of reflection. Rodger states, “an expert spontaneous interpretation may be much wiser than a novice’s considered response.” I wouldn’t consider myself an expert with only 3 years of classroom experience, but I do feel I am somewhere above novice. Perhaps my “reactions” over “response” are normal based on my previous experiences with those environments and having already gone through the reflection process.  

            In my mind, I never really thought that I go though the “scientific process” when confronted with new experiences. However, I suppose I do. When working with my PLCs, we discuss problems that arise in our classes and try to talk out solutions that have worked in other scenarios. These conversations and interactions directly reflect criterion two and three of Rodger’s article. However, I feel that one aspect I need to work on in order to become better at reflecting is the last criterion: reflection as a set of attitudes. Often times I feel it can be easy to get discouraged or upset at new experiences which can impede finding a positive solution to a negative situation.

             Overall, I found the article to very eye-opening to myself as a reflective practitioner. I realize that if I want to be able to meet the needs of my class and individual students, I need to dig deeper to better understand my experiences; as Rodger said “thinking to learn.” It is important to practice reflecting as I move forward in my career. Only then can I “encourage students to confront thoughtfully the phenomena of their world.”