[Welcome. You have landed on my embryonic web-site, and my first attempt at a blog. Not sure what will emerge, except that it will feature reflective practice, and my reflection on some of the outcomes from my practice over the years, if not decades. I expect it will also include some wondering about my interior journeying – my inside-goings-on – and the associated trajectory into my becoming, and the associated beyonding. I offer this in the spirit of ‘leadership as service – for good, in love, with a smile’ and with the intention of ‘evolving the we’ – that you and I and others might come to constitute. Welcome. Well-come. Well-beings. Well-becoming. Ian Wight, September, 2016]
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Out-comings + In-goings : Reflective Praxis
I reflect; therefore, I am – becoming – coming-into-being
I embrace inquiry – in-quiry – about my in-going am-ness
I am curious about the in-goings in my out-comings
I wonder about the in-comings from others’ out-goings
Reflecting on my knowing+doing+being+becoming
In pursuit of overstanding, of reflective praxis-in-action.
In my retirement-cum-refirement I am noticing my passion for transformative professional learning. I seem to want to try cultivating a field of sorts – for this to better take root, and thrive. I am up for casting some seeds, and doing some gardening. What will feed me? What might feed others?
The gardening seems to feature a particular form of practice – reflective practice, reflection practice, reflection-in-action, transformative reflection. I’d like to try my hand at such gardening… wondering what I might be able to grow and develop: practice, growing into praxis; reflection, developing into contemplation.
Consummate professionals are exquisite reflective practitioners. Their practice is always subjected to reflection, as a matter of course – ‘of course’ – always. It becomes the object of their attention, and the subject of their intention. When such reflection attains the quality of discernment, the outlines of a new form of practitioner, and – potentially – a new form of professional, begins to emerge.
More than having a practice, they are distinguished by their praxis. Their reflection deepens into contemplation. Their discernment ranges deep and wide – potentially tapping the spiritual. Their praxis is a form of spirit-in-action.
They are, I discern, meta-professionals in-the-making; more than merely modern professionals, they also harken back to rehabilitate aspects of the terrain of the original, primal, professionals – while ranging beyond the post-modern. This is the kind of raucous, riotous, rambunctious garden that I’d like to cultivate. Some produce for those with a taste for evolving their professionalism beyond the status quo.
More pragmatically – if not practically – I am hoping to be of some service to those interested in exercising their ‘inner reflective practitioner’ – in effect giving it a good ‘work-out’, and bringing a smile to the spirit of Donald Schon. For now I am representing this as an effort to better ‘overstand’ our ‘out-comings and in-goings’ – meshing our under-standing, inner-standing and outer-standing. This might also involve actively exploring ‘the why in our how’, as well as ‘the who’ – i.e. the inner professional-selves at work – in ‘our why’. We might even get at our prof-essence, if we can condition the soil – and our souls – well enough.
[Ian Wight, September 14, 2015]