The Story Of the Long walk Up - How we are Becoming reflective practitioners.

 

If you are not reflecting on your practice then you may be in danger of falling into the status of 'being' rather than 'becoming' a skillful guide for your learners (see article What is a 'good teacher? 'https://the-long-walk-up.blogspot.com/2023/04/what-is-good-teacher.html ). Therefore, I see the need to be a reflective person is just not simply a useful tool for a guide, it is an essential part of the praxis of guiding others.

Reflection takes many forms and each becomes part of who a person is, for it to be effective, reflection has to be authentic, which is increasingly difficult in a world that regularly demands that everything must be evidenced and formatted via specific frameworks.

The need to evidence reflective processes can interrupt the flow of ones mind as it naturally engages in thoughtful contemplation of the 'journey so far' and future visioning for shaping the path forwards. Perhaps in this sense reflection is less about selecting, evidencing and completing a formal process and more about the self-awareness one needs to recognize opportunities to pause and take stock of the world.

This can be a challenge in modern practice with the ever increasing demands on your time. Therefore, the best way I can think of to help any person to create these moments for themselves is to share my own reflections on this matter in the hope that others can take some idea's forward and shape a meaningful and restorative reflective praxis for themselves .

My reflective practice is born from my environment, at our school we have our playing fields down on a lower part of the site. These can be accessed via a network of paths that crisscross through a wooded area or down a steep grassy embankment, often you will see the children scurrying down these paths to eagerly access their PE lessons, they jump, shuffle duck and dive to quickly descend onto the games pitches.

However, there is one other route, the path less traveled by students can often be the greatest affordance for teachers to pause, rest and contemplate future direction, we call this route 'the long walk up'. This path is wide enough for 4 companions to walk side by side, its pathed in gravel and meanders through an historical woodland, taking a gentle curve past a gate which opens up to a large grassy field, often an opportune moment to stand and place events within the context of the vastness of nature. The walk in total takes between 5 and 10 minutes depending on the pace required to process each experience beforehand.

The top of the path meets with the changing rooms where we will often be reunited with students who are catching their breath after dashing up the various alternative routes up to the main school site. Here is where both student and teacher meet again ready for the next journey the day has install.

For us reflection is a praxis, like learning, that needs to be embodied. Moving the body helps to move the currents of thought in the mind and for as long as humans have walked the earth, they have engaged in journeys of movement to become immersed in deep thought and contemplation.

The combination of moving forward one step at a time, surrounded in nature helps to create a sense of traveling forward in ones journey of becoming. Equally walking in nature often results in natural pauses in movement, perhaps to catch ones breath or often to take in the richness of the environment that is surrounding. These pauses tend to coincide with realizations, the emergence of new idea's or significant moments spring into mind from the events just past. During these pauses in travel we breath, discuss and listen until we are ready to take the next steps in re-integrating these experiences into the way forward, that might be laying down a way-point to guide future journeys or re-searching the environment for the next way-point to guide us foreword on this particular path.

Reflecting In correspondence with others...

Often reflection is a practice that can be enhanced by our correspondence with others, a key aspect of reflection being to 'challenge' our own assumptions, of-course these not readily known to us without the guidance of our attention to bring them into our awareness. This can often be an exposing experience and during the long walk there lies the opportunity to create a unique path forward together, the pace, the direction, the rhythm of every step and the moments of pause in movement.

These are all a correspondence between walking companions, there is no leader, its a joining of curious wonderers or way-finders who are committed to this route, in this there is a feeling inherent safety and companionship, to journey forward together and to support one and another to see the full landscape of experience, including the hidden assumptions about each other's own paths thus far. Without awareness of these assumptions, there is no becoming, new paths forward are lost and one will remain on the familiar known route, where their is little or no new growth. The frequency of travelers, who do not take the time to reflect, to notice and to search for new routes leaves no room for restoration and generation of new way to emerge.

For me this long walk up as become a meaningful analogy for all my reflective practices. Reflection needs to be about moving forward, informed by the past but most importantly you need to be afforded the space, to be present in every step. So hold this praxis dearly and endeavor to always take the 'long walk' in preparation for, or after any new experience.

This is not always at school, in all area's of my life, walking has become an important part of my identity and my praxis of becoming reflective person, I will often go for long walks in nature. Accompanied by only by my own thoughts, guided and energized by my environment. One step, each breath, every heart beat part of my embodied practice of reflection. part of who I am becoming.