I have found that while writing my journal, it was impossible to stick to one method, for various reasons: time restraints; mood; pace of the day; other key events.
When I say 'other key events', I am referring to the classroom situation where there are 30 children 6 of which have behavioural problems. This means, that when I have managed to reflect on an event another one has started before I have even had the chance to digest what has happened or even managed to acknowledge how I felt about it. This has frequently been the case, so when it comes to 'reflecting on action' (Schon 1987) I have struggled to separate the events to fully reflect.
During the school day, we have started practising mindfulness with the children and doing short yoga videos to calm them down and give them a 'brain break'. This is something I was looking into at the start of the year. I am really bad at allowing my mind to worry about past events and what is to come in the future. I do this knowing I should be enjoying every moment as it comes. I have noticed, that when I am in the present moment, my professional practice is alot stronger. This should not come as a surprise to me really, it has, however, opened my eyes to the importance of being mindful. Whilst practising mindfulness it was interesting to watch the children reflect on how they felt afterwards or during the lesson. Some were shocked at how calm it made them feel, others couldn't understand the importance of it. As with everything it was a learning curve and one both me and the class teacher thought was successful and should be something we try to develop.
Looking through my diary, I have used: description; initial reflection; lists; evaluation and aspects of another view. However, these were not separated onto different days as originally planned. Looking back on my journal it became apparent that different event throughout the day warranted different methods, depending on how I felt and reacted to them. In other words, how important and how much reflection I felt was necessary to help me develop my practice.
Certain events would spark ideas of how to improve or activities that would be good for future lessons. In these events I would simply list ideas on whatever I could get my hands on. At the start of the journal writing process I found gaps, where I hadn't managed to put down on paper the events and my opinions. To try and fix this, I have now started carrying post it notes in my pocket so I can jot things down and then stick them where appropriate when I have time.
I chose more descriptive techniques for larger events that effected parts or some of my day, that way, when reflecting, I could really delve into what my thoughts were and therefore reflect more effectively.
Something quite random I noticed was how my handwriting seemed to be affected due to the nature of the event. High stress levels showed more erratic writing and random thoughts rolling out, then contradicting that entirely were events I was happy with my practice were a lot neater.
Diagrams/ graphs and charts did not appeal to me for reflective use on past or current events but have helped me alot with planning for future events. This is something I will endeavour to develop into my practice.
Journal writing had helped my professional practice immensely but it is still something I need to work on. Mainly, finding the time, we all have the same 24 hours in the day. I just need to find that 10 minutes even if it is to simply summarise an event or the day into positives and negatives. The days I do the journal writing I am so much calmer and it is easier to leave work problems at work and home problems at home as I have reflected on them, therefore associating each feeling with an event and the opportunity to plan to rectify any mistakes and solidify any achievements.
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