2a: Reflective Practise

When I read that Module 1, Part 2 of the BAPP course, ‘The Reflective Practitioner’ involved keeping a journal, I was more than delighted! I used to always keep a diary or a journal from a very young age but stopped before I left high school. I clearly remember writing almost anything and everything in my diary; what I had done on particular days, things that happened in and out of school but mostly I wrote about how I felt. For me, being able to freely express my feelings and thoughts privately was the best part of having a diary. Unfortunately, I have done very little of it over the last couple of years, but I have always enjoyed writing and still thoroughly enjoy it to this day, whenever I get a chance to. This part of the course involves the use of reflective practice, writing and learning so I am more than excited to getting stuck into this task and to see the end product.

Looking at my old diaries now, I feel this huge wave of nostalgia hit me as I refresh my memory of key moments in my life that have occurred, some things I had even forgotten about! I never realised how much and how often I used to write in my diaries until reading them back to myself now. Remembering how much I loved it is making me consider starting a personal journal again, especially as I embark on a new career, university degree and have graduated from college. Reading over previous entries from many years ago, I can’t believe how much I have changed, although one thing is for sure; I still write today in a same or similar style which I find quite interesting to see. I clearly developed an interest in a particular style that I loved to write in. I feel that being able to write absolutely anything you like in a journal as an exercise for reflective practise is a good routine to have.

Although I say I have not written a diary for a few years, I suddenly remembered the Summer of 2014. I volunteered at Boomtown Festival, in Winchester, with 2 of my friends. Before going we decided we would each get a notepad and make a 'Boomtown diary', which we wrote in whenever we had a spare chance to then compare and read altogether at the end of the week. We were there for at least 4 days so would have had plenty to write about, especially as we were working so would have the professional experience of volunteering to write about, as well as the party experience when we were not on our shifts! I haven't looked back at this diary for over half a year so I think it will be amazing, (and hilariously funny), to re-read it, purely for the good memories but also to see how I wrote the entries while lounging in a messy tent on a field pretty much in the middle of nowhere! 

After going through Reader 2, although I am still feeling a bit swamped and a little overwhelmed by it all, I have a much better understanding. I decided to research the different theories that were mentioned in the Reader, and found that I fall into Howard Gardner’s theory; the idea that people are intelligent in a number of different ways. From my research I found I fell into a couple of his theories, but more in depth, two of them.

1. Bodily-kinesthetic and

2. Interpersonal

Interpersonal intelligence is the ability to understand, interact and communicate well with other people. People with this intelligence have sensitivity to others’ moods, are able to have multiple perspectives and understand others’ feelings or motives.

Having been dancing for most of my life, I was not surprised to fall into the bodily-kinesthetic category. This intelligence involves a keen sense of body awareness and a sense of timing. They communicate and learn through body language, whether this be taught through physical activity, role-play, acting out, or using tools or equipment for hands-on learning. As I started dance from a young age, I obviously found using bodily-kinesthetic intelligence helped me to build strength and knowledge as a dancer. As this was the most natural way of learning for me, I began to adapt it and try to use it in other situations, mostly when I was learning in school. Creating acrostic-like poems/formulas, made-up phrases and new words as well as acting them out became my quickest and easiest method of learning and still is today.

So with all of this in mind, including the online session, I came up with some ideas to help me write my reflective journal. They are as follows;

·         What happened? / What did I do that day?

·         How did it go? / What could I have done differently? / Why did things go well/wrong?

·         How did I deal with the situation.

I will use these as a starting point that allows me to structure and expand on them when applying them to my dance rehearsals, weekend job and my personal life.