![\"\"](\"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Josette-Leblanc1-150x150.jpg\")
The beauty of questioning is that it helps you look deeper into yourself. Questions ask you to investigate, to doubt, to grow, and to change. Questions help you learn to see.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The beauty of questioning is that it helps you look deeper into yourself. Questions ask you to investigate, to doubt, to grow, and to change. Questions help you learn to see.<\/p>\n
But some people don\u2019t want to see. For some people, there is no beauty in this concept at all. Questioning is unpleasant and scary, and something to be avoided. Questions may ask us to admit we\u2019re wrong or bring light to the fact that we made a mistake. It is much safer to hold on to beliefs and usual ways of doing than it is to change.<\/p>\n
Part of the desire to avoid questions comes from the fear of being judged by others and by the self. \u00a0This is something I have struggled with as a teacher and as a trainer.\u00a0 When I was a new teacher I\u2019d sometimes tell myself I wasn\u2019t good enough, and that shouldn\u2019t be an English teacher. As a teacher trainer, I often hear in-service teachers talk about themselves in the same way. They also talk about the fear of being judged by their colleagues. In Korea, English teachers must compete against each other to gain professional points. School administrators observe lessons in a way that is more focused on finding out who has the most dynamic class than on helping teachers improve. If a teacher comes from such a space, then any question asked will understandably feel like a judgment.<\/p>\n
But these questions are so important! If I don\u2019t question, I risk getting stuck in the world of judgments. In that world, I can\u2019t make room for new possibilities. I become blind to my students\u2019 creative potential or even my own. Without these questions I may not see that making a small change could have a huge impact (see John Fanselow<\/a>). I limit myself to a narrow view of the world.<\/p>\n So how can we wake up to being curious about our teaching and ourselves without giving in to the fear of judgment?<\/p>\n Description.<\/p>\n Take a step back and ask yourself what happened. What did you see? What did you hear? What did you feel? Don\u2019t interpret. Just imagine you are watching a scene on TV. Just describe the moment. Write it in a journal or share it with someone. Stay with the description and don\u2019t interpret\u2026just yet.<\/p>\n When we deal with observed facts, it is harder to get defensive. It\u2019s just something that happened instead of an attack.<\/p>\n \u201cThe highest form of human intelligence is to observe yourself without judgment.\u201d \u2013 J. Krishnamurti<\/strong><\/p>\n This is the first point I learned in my conflict resolution studies (see Nonviolent Communication<\/a>). Creating the separation between observation and interpretation increases the chances that the person I am talking to, who can also include myself, will be open to listening to what I have to say next.<\/p>\n From this place of non-defensiveness I\u2019m ready for questions. I\u2019m ready to get curious and explore in the ways John Fanselow<\/a> wrote about in his last iTDi blog post, Breaking Rules.\u00a0 I start to look into the \u201cwhy\u201d and generate as many explanations as possible. I expand the possibilities of this \u201cwhy\u201d to my students, the context, the content, the environment, and the relationships in between. I imagine and interpret what may have happened during the moment I\u2019m looking into. From here I can chose a new point of departure for my next experience.<\/p>\n From description to interpretation to your next plan of action: this is a process you can go through on your own via your blog or a reflective journal, or it\u2019s a process you can go through with your reflective community (see my blog post, Our Reflective Community<\/a>). Whatever medium I choose, through this process of reflection, I learn to see myself.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Connect with Josette and other iTDi Associates, Mentors, and Faculty by joining iTDi Community. Sign Up For A Free iTDi Account<\/a> to create your profile and get immediate access to our social forums and trial lessons from our English For Teachers<\/a> and Teacher Development<\/a> courses.<\/p>\n Questions on The Reflective Journey \u00a0— Josette LeBlanc The beauty of questioning is that it helps you look deeper into yourself. Questions ask you to investigate, to doubt, to grow, and to change. Questions help you learn to see. But some people don\u2019t want to see. For some people, there is no beauty in … Continue reading Learning to See – Josette<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-learning-to-see"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Josette-describe.png\")
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