Reflection
I am currently sitting at the Purple Onion rather than traipsing about the country because I decided that I would rather use this time (spring break) for reflection than vacating. I've always realized the importance of making time for reflection, but, once again, it has come up as part of the theory of organizing I'm studying, and that's great. There, they make a distinction between evaluation, which happens directly after an action and is focused on the practicalities of organizing, and reflection, which is a time set aside to consider the moral foundations and implications of action. I think the process of reflection is much underused in our culture today in general, and in education specifically. It's pretty clear that children aren't given the time to reflect in grade school, and that school in fact makes every attempt to quell their innate curiosity. But "higher" education is supposed to encourage critical thought. In most cases it doesn't. I never understood what I was doing in undergrad, why I was there, subject to the torture of using my mind the way others wanted me to use it. Whenever I tried to escape to some other life path than college, I was pushed back in. In grad school it's even worse. Some disciplines have competition among students that discourages them from working through problems together or questioning the process of their training. Others, like mine, are focused on preparation for professional life, and hence all extra time that could be used for reflection the second year is spent desperately job-hunting, so as to have some income before the student loan grace period ends. It's ironic that American culture doesn't give people time to reflect because they have to be in action all the time, yet when it comes to the few deep beliefs that we do have, we're to apathetic to act on them. Maybe not. Maybe we just don't have any deep beliefs because we haven't had the time to think about what we believe. In any case, community organizers are encouraged to follow the steps of research, action, reflection. Time for reflection needs to be set aside as part of the structure of the organization (or one's own life, or institution... what would this look like in schools?), or it won't happen.