The+Self+&+teaching

**Reflective practice in teaching**
Reflective practice has emerged in recent decades as an important feature of teaching in higher education (Watkins, 1998, p. 20). The origin of contemporary engagement with reflective practice is generally attributed to the work of Schön (1987) who advocated its use to ameliorate the dissonance that often resulted between the instrumental, technical knowledge of the practitioner and their experience in the real world, the latter being described as a “swampy lowland [wherein] lie the problems of greatest human concern” (p. 3). The contemporary literature is replete with references on the importance of reflective practice to the practitioner. For example, Prosser and Trigwell (1998) stated that “good teaching involves reflection on the processes and consequences of teaching” (p. 254). Ramsden (2003) said that it was “a necessary condition for improving teaching” (p. 8). The Teaching and Educational Development Institute characterised reflective practice as a hallmark of effective university teaching, where the lecturer, through critical self-analysis, is engaged in a progressive cycle of planning, action, observation, and reflection to improve their teaching (TEDI, 2005b). This page focuses on the work of Patricia Cranton (2001) to help us think about how to gain a deeper understanding our Selves. Whilst the reflective process that underpins Cranton’s (2001) thesis deals more with personal and cultural values than knowledge and skills associated with teaching practice, it nevertheless complements reflection on teaching practice by providing lecturers with the opportunity to understand more about themselves. This, in association with reflection on teaching practice, provides a sound base for both the personal and professional development of individual lecturers.

**Deconstructing the Self**
The Self is commonly used to express existential and phenomenological themes in social science disciplines, particularly in philosophy, sociology, psychology, and education. It is also frequently encountered in discussions about identity, self-identity, and culture. For Cranton (2001), the Self indicates a person’s “basic nature, preferences, values, and the power of past experiences” (p. vii). An understanding of the Self can empower individuals to make informed choices based on who they really are which, in turn, can free them from “the constraints of uncritically assimilated values, assumptions, and social norms [of] the herd” (Cranton, 2001, p. vii). The objective of Cranton’s (2001) work is to encourage lecturers to reflect on the relationship between their personal value system and their culture in a bid to better understand their own worldview, or //Weltanschauung//. This process interprets culture in terms of Pedersen’s (1988) observation that "Culture is not a vague or exotic label attached to faraway persons or places, but a personal orientation to each decision, behaviour, and action in our lives (p. vii) … culture, like a network of traits, is located within the person. Like traits, culture provides a flexible disposition toward one or another perspective that changes from time to time, situation to situation, and person to person. Although a person’s culture can be known in part, there are core elements of our culture that are not known even to ourselves." (Pedersen, 1988, p. xi)

Cranton’s (2001) work leads readers through a number of exercises designed to help them reflect on, deconstruct, critically analyse, and then transform (reconstruct) their personal value system. The first step is for individuals to ask themselves, "Who am I, really?" This question provides a mechanism to reflect on the constitution of the Self in terms of who they are, what they do, and what they value. This reflection on the content of the Self can be achieved, for example, by listing ten nouns or phrases that define the Self and then asking how it was that the person came to see the Self that way. This, in turn, is followed by an exploration of why each noun or phrase is important to the person (Cranton, 2001). After this, they can ask why they see themselves as such; why they do the things they do; and why they value certain things over others. This is referred to as process reflection and it leads people to question the premises that underwrite their definition of Self. It is a more critical approach than mere reflection (Cranton, 2001). Cranton (2001) believes that the overall process by which people come to understand themselves is grounded in psychological type preferences and depends on how much their sense of Self is derived from the four functions of experience (sense), vision (intuition), logical choice (thinking), and values (feeling). To determine this, Cranton (2001) presents an exercise which constructs a picture of a person as either introverted or extraverted in terms of sensing, intuition, thinking, and feeling (pp. 10-11) which people use to reflect on the nature of the composite Self and consider how they came to have such preferences and whether they are a useful way of thinking about their Self and their place in the social world.

Cranton (2001) also believes that a person’s experience plays an extremely important role in determining their values and how they see the world: "the way we make meaning out of experiences determines our //habitual expectations// and our //habits of mind// – our assumptions, beliefs, values, and perspectives" (p. 15, emphasis in original). Again, interactive exercises are utilised to contemplate major experiences and ask why they came to be significant and why they are important to the person at all (Cranton, 2001). With regard to values that influence behaviour and other aspects of the Self, Cranton (2001) says that many are "unquestioned or sometimes not even articulated. We take them for granted, and often they have been uncritically assimilated" (p. 21). Examples of such values are presented in the following table:

//Source.//Cranton (2001, p. 23).
 * Examples of values**
 * **Personal values:** ||  ||   ||
 * Knowledge || Independence || Love ||
 * Meaning || Trust || Openness ||
 * Courage || Integrity || Comfort ||
 * Adventure || Inner peace || Equality ||
 * Happiness || Pleasure || Relationships ||
 * Self-esteem || Compassion || Religion ||
 * Honesty || Beauty || Possessions ||
 * Self-actualization || Development || Empowerment ||
 * **Professional values:** ||  ||   ||
 * Security || Autonomy || Effectiveness ||
 * Job satisfaction || Achievement || Money ||
 * Being with others || Success || Recognition ||
 * Expertise || Responsibility || Cooperation ||
 * Stability || Competence || Power ||
 * Quality || Authority || Being liked ||
 * Social change || Growth || Learning ||

Once again, Cranton (2001) offers interactive exercises as a way for people to make their values explicit. After listing ten cherished values, they are then asked to reflect on how they came to have such values, before working through a series of questions about why each value is important.

Thus far, this page has concentrated on outlining the sort of reflective processes that are promoted by Cranton (2001) for teachers in higher education to have a better appreciation of who they are as individuals, why they see the world the way they do, and the role that social forces have played in helping to construct their personal identity or Self. This is important from the point of view of understanding how individuals who are self-aware and self-accepting might be able to better comprehend, accept, and work with cultural Others, a key requirement of the Profile and, according to Liddicoat (2003), interculturality (p. 19). Cranton’s (2001) work encourages individuals to take a step back from how they view their place in the world and interrogate why it is so. This process is potentially transformative in the sense that it can provide new ways of looking out through looking in. It is the acquisition of a heightened knowledge of what is 'outside' by more deeply knowing what is 'inside' and is perhaps the fundamental activity that Said (1995) would promote as being critical to understanding Otherness. The various self-assessment tasks outlined by Cranton (2001) would be valuable exercises in any professional development setting which sought to assist lecturers to internationalise their personal and professional outlooks.

**Reconstructing the Self to be an authentic teacher in higher education**
Cranton (2001) notes there are many entries in the literature on what constitutes good teaching and that anyone who tried to meet the many requirements of the multitude of views would fall perilously short of fulfilling them. They could, however, become better teachers by being true (authentic, genuine) to themselves. Cranton’s (2001) advice is for a person to focus on the "teacher within" (p. 47) (the Self) rather than try to be the "teacher without" (p. 50) that is represented by all other teachers and various approaches to teaching (for example, those based on behavioural psychology, humanism, John Dewey’s functionalism, Kolb’s experiential learning, or Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences in the classroom). A person would be inauthentic if they were to ignore their Self and instead try to mould their idea of good teaching on a multitude of different teachers and teaching approaches:

"The authentic teacher understands who she [sic] is as a teacher, works well and clearly with her own style, and continues to reflect on her practice, grow, and develop (p. 36) [and] we each, individually, find our own place within these perspectives through questioning, contemplation, and reflection on our basic nature, preferences, experience, and values." (Cranton, 2001, p. 41)

Another important observation in Cranton’s (2001) work is that authenticity implies the merging of the Self and the teacher. This expectation is implicit to the Profile. Cranton’s (2001) description of "Self as teacher, teacher as Self" (p. 43) indicates a whole-of-person approach to both teaching and living. Cranton (2001) believes that the teacher as a person defines the teaching and learning experience. Good teaching and learning is not achieved if the teacher simply plays the role of good teacher during work hours. This view distinguishes between what Suits (1978) calls native and proprietary parts. The former is a person’s real-life role whilst the latter is playing a part. The native part conveys no misinformation about one’s identity, whereas the proprietary part, whilst not necessarily perceived by others as conveying misinformation, entails dislocation between the Self and the part that is played. As Patterson (1973) puts it, "the genuine teacher is, then, not using a method or a technique as something outside himself [sic], for his methods or techniques are an integral part of himself" (p. 103). The Self as teacher, teacher as Self is an expression of authenticity that allows individuals to genuinely engage with others in teaching and in life in general (Cranton, 2001). Critical reflection and critical self-reflection are important mechanisms by which individuals can remain aware of the context in which they live and work. Finally, whilst Cranton’s (2001) work does not explicitly mention intercultural engagement, this possibility is nevertheless supported: "Authentic expression leads to further self-understanding as we encounter people and situations at odds with our Self." (Cranton, 2001, p. 114)


 * References**

Cranton, P. (2001). //Becoming an authentic teacher in higher education//. Malabar: Krieger Publishing Company.

Liddicoat, A. (2003). Internationalisation as a concept in higher education: Perspectives from policy. In A. Liddicoat, S. Eisenchlas & S. Trevaskes (Eds.), //Australian perspectives on internationalising education// (pp. 13-26). Melbourne: Language Australia Ltd.

Pedersen, P. (1988). //A handbook for developing multicultural awareness//. Alexandria: American Association for Counseling and Development.

Prosser, M., & Trigwell, K. (1998). Teaching in higher education. In B. Dart & G. Boulton-Lewis (Eds.), //Teaching and learning in higher education// pp. 250-268). Camberwell: ACER Press.

Ramsden, P. (2003). //Learning to teach in higher education// (2nd ed.). London: RoutledgeFalmer.

Said, E. (1995). //Orientalism; Western conceptions of the Orient//. London: Penguin Books.

Schön, D. (1987). //Educating the reflective practitioner//. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Suits, B. (1978). //The grasshopper: Games, life and utopia//. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press.

TEDI (Teaching and Educational Development Institute). (2005b). //Reflective practice and the action learning cycle//. Retrieved 15 April, 2005, from []

Watkins, D. (1998a). A cross-cultural look at perceptions of good teaching: Asia and the West. In J. Forest (Ed.), //University teaching: international perspectives// (pp. 19-34). New York: Garland Publishing, Inc.