As one can tell from the intermittent blog posts this year, I have been challenged to get my thoughts in writing and digitally share them with others. Part of the struggle may be the feeling that every post needs to be my Magnus Opus as opposed to informed thoughts on issues surrounding inquiry-based learning as part of school culture. The self-judgment I bring to the process perpetuates the emotional block to writing that happens when I don't feel as though a post measures up. Recently, in another context, I was listening to a podcast about self-judgment and self-assessment. With the word judgment a defining piece of the first hyphenate, this may seem like it's simply a matter of considering the definition of each word to understand the differences.
In my experience, however, the line is not always that clearly drawn. Self-judgment is negative self-talk and perpetuates a feeling of failure for the person who is reflecting on their work or even just that day. Instead of asking ourselves upon reflection what went right, we typically begin a reflection time with what went wrong as we ask "what would I do differently," implying that our writing or our work for that day wasn't quite good enough. Self-assessment, on the other hand, is honest and curious. It starts with what went right and leads to many more questions. True self-assessment and reflection can help you think ahead about your next day's goals. It encourages you to think differently about the next steps while committing to doing what you say you will do. We ask students to self-reflect as part of any inquiry process. Shouldn't we also be encouraging them to self-assess and develop habits of honesty, curiosity, and accountability to self?
I was reading another post in which the author stated that many writers of blogs and other shared digital writing feel that their efforts go unread. Well, I realized a while ago that most of my writing on this blog is for me to get ideas and thoughts about our culture of inquiry out of my head and onto ¨paper¨ as it were. I'm not counting on huge numbers of readers. One of the key statements was that posts need to be published routinely so even if you have only one other reader, they will know when to look for the next installment. When months or weeks go by and nothing appears, the small audience you may have cultivated will drift away. There is also value in the discipline of publishing regularly. Therefore, as part of my self-assessment as a writer of this blog, my plan is to keep things simple, be honest and curious during reflection and commit to the discipline and habits of mind that will have me writing and publishing in a timely way: until the next self-assessment.
