Reflecting on reflection: improving teachers' readiness to facilitate participatory learning with young children

This paper explores whether teacher’s habits and assumptions about their practice can be enhanced by Continued Professional Development through nurturing self-awareness of lived experiences. Within the paper a practical understanding of critical reflection as a process is explored and particular attention is given to Moon’s (2008) assertion that one person cannot make another person reflect. Reflection as a process is re-evaluated through the application of Theory U and the axiom that reflection needs to start with the self. The paper’s central argument is that at the heart of critical reflection is the need for embodied readiness. Without such openness as the first step, critical reflection is misinterpreted. The main outcome of the study was the development of ‘9 R’s of Reflection’, a practical framework which enabled critical reflection to become part of teachers’ day to day practice enabling them to focus positively on the challenges they faced within the applied educational setting. The findings of the study demonstrate that the ‘9 R’s’ broke down sites of conflict between the desire to follow children’s interests and the pressure to conform to the technical demands that dominate modern education so that the teachers changed their habits and become better at participatory teaching