Sending and receiving messages

This is probably one of my more obscure wonderings, mainly for my own benefit. If you persevere with reading this, well done you!

Reflection on Reflective Practice

Our training at work has been going very well, and the team constantly amaze and impress me with the depth of their thinking and their willingness to consider new ideas - or re-consider older ideas. There is many things that I really like about my work, but the two hours we spend together every week are very special, and I really treasure this time.

Every week every participant is asked to set aside 30 minutes to reflect on what they have learnt: Reflective practice is something I believe in deeply, and yet I have struggled to put my reflections down for the last few weeks.

I look for an image that represents reflection for every week of our training

This blog used to be my reflection tool, and I used to be very open and honest about my experiences. Over the years I have felt more constraint in what I think I should say on there - will it reflect on my organisation, will it reflect on the people I work with?

I have been thinking about turning the blog private; however, one of the reasons for starting to blog was this idea that content educators engage with needs to be created in order to be consumed; if I only ever consume, what do I contribute? Who do I leave to do all the creating? Will these voices be diverse and representative of everyone?

With this, I am back to a public rather than a private blog; but actually, does a reflection need to be recorded anyway, could I just reflect in my head?

I think that for me, many thoughts and ideas float through my head all the time, and they easily can get lost. I have learnt that for me to fully understand something, I have to look at it from different perspectives, have to talk different options through. For some of my mahi, I find it really easy to talk through ideas and thoughts, especially with my team (who are all absolutely amazing btw!). When it is about this training, I know I can talk things through with them, but as participants in the training, I feel it is unfair when I burden them with the why and the how while they are also working on the what (in addition to all their other work). Right now, I have not found that critical buddy yet who I can chew these particular thoughts and ideas over with, the person who keeps me accountable.

After going around a long-winded pathway, I'm somewhat back where I started - back with reflecting on a public blog; did I just need to convince my head of what my heart (or my gut?) already knew? Anyone else have similar experiences?

Reflection on our / my understanding of our Aotearoa New Zealand's Histories

In the fourth week of our training, we focused on our collective understanding of the histories we tell at Waitangi. Like most if not all culture and heritage organisations, the stories we tell in our exhibitions has been carefully curated, and collectively our group have a thorough knowledge of the stories represented across the Grounds. 

What stood out the most

Once we started putting these stories onto a timeline, if became clear to us that we have some time periods with lots of stories to tell, and others where we collectively know much less, namely the time before documented European arrival to Aotearoa.

The question posed was does this matter, and collectively we decided that yes, it does matter: When we run workshops about Te Tiriti, we want to represent both treaty partners, so hītorī Māori is vitally important. Hand in hand with this goes the use of te reo Māori, and using kupu Māori with confidence (discussion about the difference between rangatira and ariki).

We also want to be through and have a great level of expertise, and while that does not mean that every facilitator has to know everything, collectively, across the team, thorough knowledge is very important: If a participant has a very specific question, we can assure them that we will check back with a colleague and then get back to them.

Finally, no matter where else our participants learn about Te Tiriti, if our exhibitions and interpretations miss some of the information we regard as important for workshop participants, then we want to incorporate some of these during the workshop.

In addition, what stood out to me was the discussions during and after the session, about the way we interact with our histories and why. When I put the session together, I didn't realise how deep the discussions would go, how much of an impact it might have.

Immediate impact on my practice

• Yesterday I planned a follow-up session, so we can further explore our stories.
• I noted down several changes we could already incorporate into our Te Tiriti workshops.
• In conversation about the webinars we run, I am considering what changes we might want to make, within the limited time frame.

Impact on my future practice

• I will look for help so I can learn some of the pepeha that relate to our stories at Waitangi.
• I will review how I tell our stories: Where are the gaps in my kōrero, and what is the best way to fill these?
• I hope to have more conversations with colleagues who know much more about hītorī Māori than I, opening up a dialogue where stories might be shared (when time and place are right) - maybe even the start of an oral history collection?
• I feel privileged that I have been part of interpretive conversations at Waitangi in the past, and I hope that my voice will be considered in future interpretations, too.

Reflective Practice

We started a new professional learning programme at work, with the aim of creating a team of professional learning facilitators. Part of the programme is to develop reflective practice, using a reflective journal. While it has been a few years, I had really enjoyed using this blog as platform for reflection, therefore I will give this another try.