{"id":6664,"date":"2018-12-23T08:01:00","date_gmt":"2018-12-23T08:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/?p=6664"},"modified":"2018-12-23T08:01:00","modified_gmt":"2018-12-23T08:01:00","slug":"reflecting-on-2018-experiences-emotions-and-events","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/2018\/12\/23\/reflecting-on-2018-experiences-emotions-and-events\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflecting on 2018: Experiences, Emotions, and Events"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\"PeterReflecting on 2018: Experiences, Emotions, and Events<\/h3>\n

by Peter Brereton<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

The first few weeks of 2018 found me spending every waking hour hunched over my laptop in a cramped study in the Hiroshima countryside with only a small oil heater for company. Putting the finishing touches on my MA dissertation, I vowed that my aim for the rest of the year would be to continue the momentum I had built up during that time. Now, as the year draws to a close, it feels appropriate to pause for reflection; return to experiences, attend to emotions, and mull over events (Boud, Keogh & Walker, 1985), with the aim of clarifying in our own minds what we\u2019ve learned and how we\u2019ve developed. This post is my attempt to do so.<\/p>\n

The swing of the pendulum<\/b><\/p>\n

When it comes to my vow to myself, I feel I have been as good as my word: this year has seen me present at five conferences and have three articles published, with three more (including my first book chapter) in press and a further three at various stages of development. Reflecting on this, however, it is interesting to note that the main achievements I can immediately point to are academic in nature, rather than directly related to my roles as an academic manager, teacher trainer, or teacher. This seems characteristic of my entire year, and while it has improved my understanding of research and my writing ability, developed my awareness of literature in some key areas (e.g. teacher training, teacher demotivation, and reflective practice), and almost certainly boosted my employability in the Japanese higher education context, I feel\u00a0it\u00a0has had limited impact on my actual working practices.<\/p>\n

Indeed, this year, perhaps for the first time, my teaching has very much taken a back seat. As an academic manager, my time in the classroom is limited and I usually view teaching as a welcome (occasionally unwelcome) escape from my management duties. However, looking back, I am surprised and slightly disappointed with myself that I have carried out no classroom research or formal reflection on my classroom practices this year, focusing instead on aspects of my academic development.\u00a0There is no doubt in my mind that I am not a manager who teaches but rather a teacher who manages and, on reflection, I feel the pendulum has swung too far away from my classroom practices. I intend to return to my roots next year and am already making plans to reach a better equilibrium between the classroom and the office.<\/p>\n

Alone, together<\/b><\/p>\n

As part of this reflection, I have been thinking a lot about my experiences at conferences this year.\u00a0Some\u00a0were\u00a0great experiences (ExcitELT, I\u2019m looking at\u00a0you), most\u00a0were\u00a0good, but there\u00a0were\u00a0one or two that I haven\u2019t enjoyed.\u00a0While I almost always leave with a few ideas to take away and reflect upon, I am no longer as inspired by conferences as I once was and have begun to approach these wonderfully social occasions with a sense of apprehension.<\/p>\n

This has led me to question my own aims when attending conferences.\u00a0In a recent Twitter discussion<\/a>, it was suggested that organisers often hold as their main objective the ability for participants to walk away with \u201cactivities you can use tomorrow in class.\u201d While I do occasionally get one or two ideas that I can adapt and adopt into my teaching, this is not something I explicitly seek out; indeed, most sessions I visit seem to be more research- or theory-based than practical. I do, however, enjoy attending presentations, and even when I make the occasional error in session selection, this often allows me some quality time to be alone with my thoughts, unimpeded by the distraction of emails, messages, and notifications.<\/p>\n

Most people I\u2019ve asked about the appeal of conferences say they value the chance to network, but I don\u2019t feel like I\u2019ve had this opportunity much at conferences. Upon arrival, it often seems like everyone already know each other, with many attendees huddled together in small groups, presenting a very physical boundary to others. I understand people\u2019s enthusiasm to catch up with friends who they may not often see, and I certainly do not mean to criticise anyone, but to a relative newcomer such as myself this can make some conferences appear quite cliquey.<\/p>\n

Meeting like-minded people, discussing teaching, and sharing experiences are all things I genuinely enjoy but I guess I just feel like a bit of an outsider sometimes. This is perhaps partly of my own making; I do acknowledge that I do not often initiate conversations with others at conferences. On the rare occasions when I have done so, I have had some extremely meaningful conversations which stand out as highlights of my year, long after the memories of the various presentations have faded.\u00a0Interestingly, some of the best connections I\u00a0made this year at conferences\u00a0were actually\u00a0with current colleagues. Perhaps being able to skip the small talk and having the time and opportunity to talk to people on a deeper level allowed me to develop these relationships, which have become very important to me on both professional and personal levels. I have no doubt conference-going can be extremely rewarding, yet to get the most out of the experience I feel I need to clarify in my own mind my purpose for attending and decide how I will approach any events I go along to in 2019.<\/p>\n

Not looking at what we have to do, but what we have done<\/b><\/p>\n

This year I have\u00a0certainly become better at taking on challenges which appear, carrying out research, applying to present, and writing up papers at every opportunity.\u00a0The\u00a0enjoyment\u00a0and\u00a0professional satisfaction\u00a0I derive from doing these things is a relatively new source of motivation for me, but I feel this has caused my priorities in terms of work-life balance\u00a0to become\u00a0misplaced. Returning from the long summer break, I was unable to tell my rejuvenated and re-energised colleagues of\u00a0any\u00a0news aside from the fact that I\u2019d written two papers and prepared a presentation for an upcoming conference.\u00a0At a\u00a0reflective practice meeting\u00a0soon after, my workload was praised by some, who expressed what sounded like guilt or regret that they didn\u2019t \u201cdo more.\u201d Pressure from modern society often means that\u00a0we\u00a0equate busy to good and free time to bad, but\u00a0I feel that I have\u00a0pushed\u00a0the\u00a0boundaries\u00a0of\u00a0how much\u00a0I should take on and so I intend to scale back on things next year. I have dedicated insufficient time to reflection, focusing too heavily on\u00a0what I have to do<\/i>, rather than\u00a0what I<\/i>\u00a0have done<\/i>.\u00a0This year has left me with little time to pause for breath, let alone to reflect.\u00a0I have realised more than ever that,\u00a0in order to be an effective reflective practitioner,\u00a0I\u00a0need\u00a0boredom, freedom,\u00a0and time spent alone.<\/p>\n

Looking forward<\/b><\/p>\n

As the publications roll in next\u00a0year, I\u2019m sure I\u00a0will\u00a0feel that my\u00a0endeavours\u00a0in academia\u00a0this year have\u00a0paid off. It\u2019s not all about publications though, and I certainly haven\u2019t spent enough time\u00a0consciously\u00a0reflecting\u00a0on\u00a0my teaching and managing practices. I feel I need to re-learn to sit still sometimes and allow myself to get bored again. Next year I intend to take a step back,\u00a0reevaluate\u00a0my priorities, and get involved only in projects I am really passionate about. I may have had a certain fear of missing out this year, but I\u00a0have also learned that sometimes it\u2019s okay to say no. Having sufficient time for reflection is important and\u00a0dedicating\u00a0time to writing this post has been very therapeutic.<\/p>\n

The end of a year is always a perfect time to look back on the highlights and the lowlights, the achievements and challenges of the past\u00a0twelve\u00a0months, and to look forward to the upcoming year. Thanks to this post, I feel I\u2019ve been able to do this. I encourage my colleagues around the world to do likewise.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor last year’s words belong to last year’s language<\/i><\/p>\n

And next year’s words await another voice.\u201d\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

T.S. Eliot<\/p>\n

References<\/b><\/p>\n

Boud, D., Keogh, R. & Walker, D. (1985). Promoting reflection in learning: A model. In D. Boud, R. Keogh & D. Walker (Eds.).\u00a0Reflection: Turning experience into learning\u00a0<\/i>(pp.18-40) London, UK: Routledge Falmer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reflecting on 2018: Experiences, Emotions, and Events by Peter Brereton   The first few weeks of 2018 found me spending every waking hour hunched over my laptop in a cramped study in the Hiroshima countryside with only a small oil heater for company. Putting the finishing touches on my MA dissertation, I vowed that my … Continue reading Reflecting on 2018: Experiences, Emotions, and Events<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":0,"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":[130],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-highlights-2018"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6664","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\/110"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6664\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}