Reflective narratives

In the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful.

 24 February 2015.

February is supposed to be the hottest and less windy month in Cape Town but its lekker windy - canopies blowing off in the night and tango-ing with washing. And then it’s filling in grids and writing reports and I am thankful I keep reflective journals, Alhamdulilah.

I started off just keeping a diary many years ago - at the end of the day or class I write up my thoughts and so on and it takes a narrative form with some doodles that tries to be graphics (just kidding). I also wrote profusely to make sense of my life. Now I have a fancy name for it. A reflective narrative where I start the reflective process by determining the aim of writing in order to guide me. Am I writing to comment on personal behaviour of students and to what end? Is it a statement of observations of this personal behaviour and participation? What can I do to structure the course better, for it to be more interesting and relevant to the participants in their everyday.

It started off with just writing notes about events and learnings and light bulb moments to becoming more descriptive and finally to more deeper writings in which I could interrogate my thoughts in a more profound way. 

I find it particularly useful when I introduce new strategies such as dividing a group of about 60 students into groups of 15. Here I can observe and engage in giving voice to the quieter students and encouraging the confident ones to learn to listen and respect others opinions too. Sometimes it gives me a better idea of a student that would generally be quiet in a more rambunctious class, so I will go through my reflective entries to find the session that I observed and enjoyed while everyone takes a chance to speak out.

Sometimes in order to introduce the leadership class to formal theory and new information I make use of many different kinds of methodology such as showing them video skits, reviewing a current movie, and so on. Utilising my reflective notes allows me observe and note their receptiveness to new knowledge and different ways to make meaning of it. And I can add little light bulbs moments in my narrative text such: “must show them TEDex – The barefoot college.” “Or check what movies are current and interesting for class discussion”.

Occasionally the narrative poses a jamboree of ideas that need sorting out in my head, when I express those sortings on paper, I realise that I have learnt something completely new that needs deeper reflection and discussion with my colleagues and maybe further input.

All of this allows us to tweak our courses all of the time so it is relevant to the group of participants of a particular course at a particular time. It is useful also to stay on course while observing what happens in the fabric of the course continuously reflecting and modifying and improving. It is so helpful for discussion in meetings with tutors and other lecturers and in reports and as a great research tool.

So why reflective writing? My underlying intention of reflective writing is for the purpose of my learning to teach better; to develop learning course materials better and although it is relatively subjective it is to benefit those whom I teach. I think that writing narratives come to me naturally – I love telling stories. But my learning /teaching narratives are about sorting out ideas, an awareness of all of the role-players in a particular discourse and a means to make meaning.

This blog started out as just a narrative about the goings on in Schaapkraal and our projects at iLABS. I started sharing some personal things connected to the gardens – the cats, birthdays, cooking, carving, seeds, etc and it has been immensely valuable to me as a reflective narrative about planting organically while of course also honing my photography skills and hoping to inspire others to live a bit more mindfully and plant food. As I post I realise in three weeks it will be a year’s writing – 125 blogs and 5000 pageviews later Alhamdulilah. Shukran everyone, have a fabulous day!



the first strawberries

spinach for Ramadhan cooking



Weeding



Plant food and start writing reflective journals/narratives/diaries

Yasmine

ps. I don't have much comments but the pageviews are currently at 5008 and the favourites according to stats are:


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Now let me know what your favourite blog was!!!