Draft RoL titles

I woke up this moring feeling a lot of  tension physically  despite having a reasonable amount of sleep last night. I was really flat and bad-tempered.  The feelings were a sense of feeling 'lack' and and not being able to move forward in a more positive light.  To change that feeling  I had to have a change in perspective to unblock this feeling so did some stretching.    I felt a lot blockage in energy terms and I wanted a way to release physically to clear my head and dispel the negative chatter about feeling so tense and hopeless.  Underneath the surface  there was a lot to express but didn't know how. I needed to develop my vocabulary in physical as wel as writing terms and understand!.

Thinking about and writing my first draft RoL is by my own definition painful and extremely uncomfortable.  I've been feeling quite blocked about it in my head and surprisingly (or not) in my body physically.  A sort of resistance to change or stage fright to commit to paper my thoughts and words about areas of learning in my life that has led me to make choices and has meaning. I think it is about learning a new vocabluary from dancing to writing which I am struggling with and how to critically assess it.  I read a short while ago Adesola's blog about 'drafts' posted months ago (March 2012) where she said that the process of writing is learning and she relates it to learning a new dance sequence and what our minds and body goes through in the actual process of learning a new step: putting the steps in some kind of logical sequence so that we know how to process the new information:  how you organise the steps (in your mind and how to translate it in movement terms) and for me who learns kineaesthetically how my muscle memorises steps  and where I am in the space create signposts or triggers for learning something new in my body. If the vocabulary is unfamilier I try to find a new way of understanding this new dance language in terms of what the sequence actually is and seeing if there is another angel to approach learning it (i.e. do I look at the whole phrase and or do I look at a particular detail or is the accompanying music/rhythmn a factor in learning for me?).  I also found out that  I get afraid of doing the step 'wrong' and if by doing it wrong I have failed.  By contrast when I teach my young students a new exercise or dance sequence I always tell them there is no right or wrong way, its all about learning! So the question to myself is why can't I apply that mantra to myself?

Anyway back to the draft titles. Despite the painful and uncomfortable feeling of attempting to write, I've been collating evidence to support the claim and found an old box of evidence (books, documents etc). The more I read the more I felt queasey, and the more I uncovered about myself and how I learn, the more I am frightened or amazed but how to write it all down! There was also the quesion about now that I have the information to hand what do I focs on - it really felt like peeling an onion -  layers and layers but what layer to focus on?  I've also been writing some notes as a way to find a beginning and organise what to focus on. The notes were unconnected and depicted the mess of my mind what it was trying to process.  On a recent bus journey into town to do some errands I had this rumble of thoughts in my mind and whilst the rhytymn of the bus drew  my attention away from the jumble of my mind a thought popped into my head and asked the question "Apart from the experiences of the past to document and describe your learning experience...what was the process of learning for you? what are you trying to say? what did you learn? what is the question asking of you?'  I decided when I got back home later  to write at length whatever came into my mind and the writing became a series of streams of consciousness whether connected or not around the topic I wish to write.  It was good because for a start I am beginning to organise and  clear out the rubble and what's left hopefully will answer the question. Hopefully the draft title will evolve more fully.  That's the stage I'm at and later I will revisit what I wrote and organise it.  The bottom line for me is my fear of writing and the act of writing and learning a new vocabulary or style will help me to address my fear.  By facing my fear and going through the uncomfortable feeling I hope will give me courage to write some more.   It made me also think about teaching - in order to be a good teacher I have to go through a process of some bad teaching to find out and learn from the experiences to eventually become competent and good at what I do.

RoL and developing areas of learning

For the last few days I've been mulling over the Review of Learning handbook and also the introductory handbook that accompanies it.  Lots of things have been flying in and out of my head as to how I'm going to navigate this and importantly apply MA critical thinking skills.  There are so many areas to cover in the handbook that I panicked myself unnecessarily . For many years I've viewed my life as one long Bachelor of Arts degree in Life  through a plethora of experiences but have I actually learnt anything through experiences and choices I've made? Have I moved on or stayed the same?  I'm sure I have but how to capture them and make meaning through writing and analysing.  With these thoughts in mind I've been trying to unlock my review and learning and ask what that really means for me.  Is it about looking at a small area of my life  and finding out  the learning and knowledge potential gained  and how it has impacted on me now and how deeper should I then go?  I always had this slight fear of going in too deep in case I find something that I didn't like about myself or otherwise and can't come back - a bit like jumping off a cliff - there's no other choice but to go down - fall deeper from a great height of experience and get to the heart of what it is I want to find out. My learning is something like and investigation by  detection following a line of enquiry solving a mystery - to get to the truth? of me?

For the areas of development and identifying the titles emanating from my CV I realised that in order for me to understand more clearly how to investigate and look more closely I draw on an area I like to do which engages a sense of learning and investigation particularly if some concepts are a little  complex to understand.  The area for me is cooking.  For me there is something about experimenting and playing with different textures of food, smells, flavours, tastes that when combined helps me understand how to learn something and engage my sense of learning.  Cooking for me like dancing creates a meaningful experience  I like to combine flavours and textures and  cooking processes see what change has occurred, or how a raw ingredient changes its meaning and purpose! It might not mean much to other fellow MAPPers but my aha! moment is looking at each of my area of learning from my CV and in each area analise the ingredients, cook it and see what has occurred or in the case of a stew  I made last week, reduce it down and see what's left!

My First Blog and thoughts about my Induction day

Finally posting my first thoughts on this post.  Navigating my way around this new way of learning, reflecting and writing is dragging me finally into the 21st Century! 

It was really good to meet up with staff and the new cohort for the first year of the MAPP programme.  I liked the interaction very much as it was relaxed and informative and the debates coming out of our diverse experiences to date yet common themes emerging gave me a really good sense of what's to come.  How I am going to navigate this learning journey I honestly don't know.  I imagine that I have a good idea but I am sure it will be challenged on all fronts and perhaps change along the way. 

As a first exercise to get blogging it was certainly a journey for me to set this up and I think I'll get there in the end!  I am quite intimitated by technology and jokingly would rather communicate via pigeon or in person! I am always amazed that I have to consult my son on all things technological and especially when it involves the use of a computer and all things social media via the web.  As a parent I was and still am his educator for many years  and now he is my educator especially in this technologically fast paced environment.  I think he'll be proud of me especially since I didn't have to call him for a  tutorial of how to set this up!  May the learning begin!