Congratulations

on completing your first year of teaching! At the end of the first year, new teachers often describe the year as a roller coaster ride (McIntosch, Steele & Wolfe, 2006). Does the graphic below look anything like your first year felt? If it did, then you would be in a reflective state right now. What have you learned? What will you do the same, and what will you do differently next year?

Recollective reflection (Van Manen, 1991) is an integral part of teaching. According to the Phases of the First Year Teacher graphic (Moir, 1990) reflection generally occurs in the last few weeks prior to the first few weeks concluding the school year. Closure is an important time for teachers. It provides an opportunity to recreate goals for both your students and yourself. The people who develop are those who love to learn, who seek new challenges, who enjoy intellectual stimulating environments, who are reflective, who make plans and set goals, who take risks, who see themselves in the large social contexts of history and institutions and broad cultural trends, who take responsibility for themselves and their environs (Rest, 1986, pp.174-5). To continue your learning, it is important for you to take a critical look at what your first year to make sense of past experiences and thus gain insights into the meaning o the experiences we have with children (Van Manen, 1991, p. 101).

Van Manen contends that there are three other types of reflection: anticipatory, active or interactive, and mindfulness reflection. Anticipatory reflection generally starts to happen in July when school supplies go on sale. You begin to consider the possibilities of a new year. What will you do differently? How will you make that happen? What goals do you have for yourself and for your students the second time around? It is this time that you are able to determine a strategy, and make plans in a deliberate, organized manner that will prepare you for the school year. Active or interactive reflection is what I would consider cogent decision making under competing demands. This happens all day, every minute of everyday, especially for teachers. It allows you to evaluate a situation with a quick inventory of outcomes running through your head, and to make a decision on the spot. I believe that this is the type of reflection that makes choosing what to have for dinner a difficult decision for teachers at the end of the day. What to eat is really not that important. The fact that you are famished is what is most important at that moment. If you have made many difficult decisions on demand all day, it makes the dinner decision seem trivial. You might be annoyed by the triviality of the question, What should we have for dinner. It is important for you to remain as mindful in your interactions outside of your school day as you are during your school day. People who do not teach, generally do not understand how exhausting it can be to remain cogent and mindful when so many student, colleagues, administrators and tasks are competing for your attention. Mindfulness is that space a teacher enters when she/he embodies the role of the teacher. It is a knowing of yourself where you suspend all judgment, listen with intent, see the student and the situation and respond in a manner that is in the childs best interest in a

thoughtful, intentional and mindful manner. There is no time for reflection as the teaching or interaction is occurring, but it is the mindfulness that distinguishes the interaction of tactful pedagogues from other forms described as interactive reflection (ibid, 1991, p. 101) My wish for you next year is for you to be able to find that space where living the pedagogical moment is a total personal response to thoughtful action in a particular situation. Thoughtful action differs from reflective action in that it is thinkingly attentive (mindful) to what it does without reflectively distancing itself from the situation by considering or experimenting with possible alternatives and consequences of the action (reflective) (ibid, p.109 parenthesis my addition). While pedagogical tact is my wish for you, it is not something that comes during the second year of teaching for most. For some teachers may truly never arrive. To be pedagogically tactful you must start with the relationships you have with others students and colleagues. Van Mannen suggests a mindful orientation rather than observable behaviors, and describes tact as evident as a holding back, as an openness to the childs experience, as attunement to subjectivity, as subtle influence, as situational confidence, and as an improvisational gift. As you enter the anticipatory reflective phase this summer, ask yourself: What are you bringing to your classroom what was missing last year? What strategies will you employ to ensure you are learning about your content and how to teach it? How will you incorporate the experiences you bring to the classroom with those your students bring? How will you reinvent yourself over the summer? I realize I have given you much to think about, and please do take some time to reflect, rejuvenate and reinvent. Again, congratulations on completing your first year of teaching. It is quite an accomplishment.