Personal Reflection

Reflection as defined by the Oxford English dictionary (1993) means ‘idea arising in the mind’ and mind means ‘seat of consciousness, thought, volition, and feeling’.   It seems therefore that reflection, in an every day term is about thinking that involves volition and feeling, therefore reflection is very personal as we are all unique individuals.  

So, if reflection is thinking why are we being assessed on it, and how can it be assessed as surely we all think differently.   Are reflective framework models, an aid to help me think or an aid to help the assessor’s asses me?   Am I being cynical or is cynicism accurate observation?   Have we forgotten how to think?   Are we living in an age where the pace of life is so fast that people don’t have time to think any more?   Is that why reflection is now being incorporated into curriculums or is it to enhance learning and the forming of concepts and connections?   Is it to make me realise what my own ideas are, and which are somebody else’s?   Or is it as King and Kitchener (1994 cited Moon 2001, p.8) propose to challenge my learning and thereby improve my cognitive ability?



At first I thought that reflection was a complicated issue, but then I learnt that it was about thinking.   When I first received this assignment I ‘thought’ that I would really enjoy it, as I would be able to be creative but whilst reflecting during the action of compiling my portfolio, and researching for my reflective essay, I have become resentful, not because I am resistant to change but because I feel that it is intrusive and a little patronising to give me somebody else’s model or recipe of how to think.   It seems that Moon (2001, p.16) would agree with me as she suggests



Are students told to reflect when actually they will simply follow a recipe (e.g. set questions; strict adherence to the Kolb cycle (Kolb, 1984))?



Do students own their reflections as children own their play?   From my personal experience I would beg to...