Reflections or double vision?
If the unreflective life is not worth living, everyone ‐ not only teachers ‐ should welcome any promoting of reflective thinking. This is the activity of applying organised thinking, post‐event, in order to secure more effective learning. It applies as much to the closed personality type (I’m just that type of person), as to the teacher (learning is what students do, not me). This book clearly advances reflective thinking, and glints with promise and adventure, the logo “representing the happy union of courage and learning”.
However, it is a taxing read, and though there are 44 activities for use with virtually any group of teachers, there are significant obstacles for any user. It is as if the inevitable pain of learning experienced in genuinely reflective practice, is mirrored here. Initial problems spring from the loose definition of reflective thinking as the process of making informed and logical decisions, then assessing the consequences of those decisions. This process, the authors claim, is required for effective teaching. How reflective thinkers can avoid mere solipsism, enclosing circularity, or learning the wrong things, or soaking in the spray of indulgence, are only implicitly addressed in the exercises. The purpose of reflection as a tool for continuous change could be made more explicit.
Part of the problem is the authors’ three levels of reflective thinking. These are:
- 1
technical rationality: the practitioner has minimal schema to solve problems, achieving non‐problematic objectives, with no deliberation on context;
- 2
contextual mode: the practitioner can look at alternative practice, clarify underlying assumptions, question practice based on increased pedagogical knowledge and skills;
- 3
dialectical mode: the highest level, critical reflectivity which deals with questioning of moral and ethical issues directly or indirectly related to teaching practice.
The highest level, confusedly, seem because of the more apparently complex “topics”. Tackling thinking with these tools, is like having to shovel smoke with a pitchfork. The categories inevitably overlap and raise more questions. Would a practitioner of the first level be competent at all? Are their limitations precisely because they cannot reflect, using alternative practice or questioning (abilities from other levels)? Is reflective thinking also critical thinking? If so, how are essential features of critical thinking based on purpose, values and change addressed? Can reflective thinking shortchange effectiveness without an explicit critical dimension?
There are many useful classroom ideas here for any group of learners, not just teachers, and the text will reward those who sustain pursuit. As the authors suggest, a reflective thinker needs to be able to function at all the so‐called levels. However, effective learning is a far messier process with its shortcuts, absences, frustrations and apparent cul‐de‐sacs. The model here can end in ceregrating: logic assumed as a sole lubricant for effective learning. At times creative thinking is also needed to extend trapped thinking, to stir the gin in the imagination. Also, the independent, critical thinker will need not only a reflective ability but muscles, will and imagination.
