Every Day Reflective Practice
Reflective Practice can be effectively incorporated into every aspect of your life. You can use it to improve areas of your social, personal, health (nutrition and fitness), career, financial, and even your spiritual practice. Our days are so packed and pressed with constant response to stimuli. There is not much of our time that is free from some sort of response to something outside of self. So, what opportunities do you have to review, reflect, consider, revise, and adjust accordingly? If you are like most of us, you are probably exhausted at the end of your day. Then, you arise to a new morning—a new day, full from yesterday. Soon, there comes a time where you explode, or want to. Some of us have those quiet explosions where we simply withdraw into ourselves, sad and exhausted. Others, may react in a negative way to others in our speech or actions. As a former educator of 30 years, I found that I was often overwhelmed as wife, mother, educator, mentor, and more. I soon began to feel empty, and was simply robotic in my actions.
Absentmindedly, I began writing notes and journaling to relieve some of the stress and release the million ideas in my mind. Writing was always my go-to when all else failed. As I began to review my day, I started with my classroom and lessons. I set a “better” routine that streamlined everything. I responded to my lessons at the end of the day, on their effectiveness (related to student learning), “return on investment”, and depth. I soon began to incorporate lesson studies into my practice. It is a practice where educator review lessons, plans, and projects over a set period of time. They then assess the student-learning data using various tools and resources. The plans are then adjusted, revised, or affirmed and implemented long-term. That is just a short-take on the lesson study practice—a form of reflective practice in education.
At home, I begin planning healthier meals to the chagrin of my family. I intentionally planned out our meals,and shopped for bulk items. I introduced meal planning and healthy eating habits.I began to notice that the allergies and occasional hive outbreaks began to slow in their occurrences. Soon, there were nearly no allergic outbreaks. I became focused in our planning and food selections, even introducing almond milk and smoothies. I transitioned the family into eating more vegetables, towards going vegetarian. That did not last with any of them. My husband remained only with the almond milk, and eliminated milk from his diet. My kids say man made it to the top of the food chain, and they are not climbing back down. However, I have been vegetarian since 2008—except for seafood. It was my best decision, ever!
Soon, I began to share ideas and strategies with other educators and friends. I improved and refined my reflective practice, over the years. Now, I have several books that incorporate reflective practice in various areas. I am not perfect or a superwoman in my reflective practice, however. I am often readjusting and revising areas of my life, ongoing. I am human, and subject to error. I am okay with that, as all living things grow. I adopted the adage of: practice makes better. …and, yes, my life has been better, after the intentional use of reflective practice.
