About my Journal...
(This is an excerpt from my first entry in my study journal ...)
Today I am starting my Journal. I woke up this morning wide awake and right away I started processing what I read yesterday, and excitedly started going over in my mind how I have come to the realisation that there is great value in writing this journal. I find learning can be like an epiphany sometimes, where something that a few hours before or a day before was unknown or unimportant to you suddenly becomes very important, has a lot of value, becomes very obvoius and you start to think 'how did I not see this before ?' How did I work effectively without this awareness before, and already what comes to mind is Kolb's 'Learning Cycle' that I read about in the handbook yesterday where "we recognise we have started to 'learn', or notice we have something missing from our knowledge set." And although I would have resorted in the past to the exercise of writing things down to process stuff and by that I mean not necessarily only to do with my practice, but, even in my persoanl life and other things. When I did the wrtinig things down 'thing', I did not at the time fully appreciate the value of what I was doing and did not exactly understand that I was doing it for a valid reason. I never really stopped to think why I would write things down, and at the time it felt better when I did that, so I did.
As I lay in bed this morning, for a few minutes, knowing that I was going to start this, I began to put some thoughts together, as to how I was going to do this. I grabbed a piece of paper and started scribbling down some ideas and as it happens with learning, a little push starts the thought processes, which in turn kick off more thought processes and suddenly what seems a status quo on the outside, becomes a hive of activity on a mental level. As I worked with these ideas I came to the realization that concretizing my mental processeses by writing about them will very obviously help me in various ways. Writing about stuff helps me digest, organize and compartamentilize and helps me make sense of what those thought processes mean to me. It helps me understand better what is actually taking place in my thought processes and the changes that might be taking place in those very thought processes as I am thinking of them, as well as understanding or changing or adapting my persepective on whatever it may be.Because am writing it down, it gives me the oppportunity to reflect and discover what exactly I am learning and whilst doing so inevitabely triggering off further questions and/or spurring me to want to deepen my understanding of what I am learning, once again reminding me of "Kolb's cycle...on-going with one point in the learning cycle leading to the next " This process sets me off on a very exciting journey of self-discovery as I start to make sense of the material and its significance, especially when applying it to myself and my context and my practice.
Putting some more thought to it, I came to an appreciation, that the exercise of writing things down, has a soothing and cathartic effect, because while I am writing things down, I am processing what I am learning, in some cases changing or adapting my perspective on things and get them it out of my system, by reproducing them in my way, in relation to my being, my past experiences and my practice. In that way, I can 'rest' because it is there, expressed tangibly in black and white. Then rather than having to sort out the thoughts in my head, because they are written, I can see and understand clearly exaclty what I am thinking, because it is right there in front of me and I can erase and correct as much as I need to, so that as accurately as possible, I am able to present and relay exactly what I am thinking. It is also beneficial to write things down in my journal, because apart from concretizing my thought processes, it also pyschologically helps me feel more in control and more grounded, and since I see it written in front of me in the form of text, it can help me define what I am learning, which will help me feel like 'I own it', and as a result, will make me feel more empowered and on top of things in my studies.
Another benfit from writing the journal, is that if I need to read it and/or refer to it later on, I can revisit what my thought processes were regarding the subject matter and read what I was thinking of or working on in that particular moment in time. In that way, the journal is a quick and easy reference to it. I now see the value of recording the thought processes and all the changes that take place in them over time, in this course, as it enables me to fully understand and appreciate the learning process I am going through. It is also an interesting way of recording how my thought processes are developing and changing.It is also a very effective way to observe how my thought processe are being affected and influenced as time goes by, as I gradually am exposed to the various journals and books from the course materials, as well as from the interactions with the tutors, the cohort and the blogs, it will be interesting some time in the future to look back and analyze and study how the process of change took place within me and how the inner workings of the process, evolved in way to manifest themselves in my new improved self and as a result in my practice.
(This is an excerpt from my first entry in my study journal ...)
Today I am starting my Journal. I woke up this morning wide awake and right away I started processing what I read yesterday, and excitedly started going over in my mind how I have come to the realisation that there is great value in writing this journal. I find learning can be like an epiphany sometimes, where something that a few hours before or a day before was unknown or unimportant to you suddenly becomes very important, has a lot of value, becomes very obvoius and you start to think 'how did I not see this before ?' How did I work effectively without this awareness before, and already what comes to mind is Kolb's 'Learning Cycle' that I read about in the handbook yesterday where "we recognise we have started to 'learn', or notice we have something missing from our knowledge set." And although I would have resorted in the past to the exercise of writing things down to process stuff and by that I mean not necessarily only to do with my practice, but, even in my persoanl life and other things. When I did the wrtinig things down 'thing', I did not at the time fully appreciate the value of what I was doing and did not exactly understand that I was doing it for a valid reason. I never really stopped to think why I would write things down, and at the time it felt better when I did that, so I did.
As I lay in bed this morning, for a few minutes, knowing that I was going to start this, I began to put some thoughts together, as to how I was going to do this. I grabbed a piece of paper and started scribbling down some ideas and as it happens with learning, a little push starts the thought processes, which in turn kick off more thought processes and suddenly what seems a status quo on the outside, becomes a hive of activity on a mental level. As I worked with these ideas I came to the realization that concretizing my mental processeses by writing about them will very obviously help me in various ways. Writing about stuff helps me digest, organize and compartamentilize and helps me make sense of what those thought processes mean to me. It helps me understand better what is actually taking place in my thought processes and the changes that might be taking place in those very thought processes as I am thinking of them, as well as understanding or changing or adapting my persepective on whatever it may be.Because am writing it down, it gives me the oppportunity to reflect and discover what exactly I am learning and whilst doing so inevitabely triggering off further questions and/or spurring me to want to deepen my understanding of what I am learning, once again reminding me of "Kolb's cycle...on-going with one point in the learning cycle leading to the next " This process sets me off on a very exciting journey of self-discovery as I start to make sense of the material and its significance, especially when applying it to myself and my context and my practice.
Putting some more thought to it, I came to an appreciation, that the exercise of writing things down, has a soothing and cathartic effect, because while I am writing things down, I am processing what I am learning, in some cases changing or adapting my perspective on things and get them it out of my system, by reproducing them in my way, in relation to my being, my past experiences and my practice. In that way, I can 'rest' because it is there, expressed tangibly in black and white. Then rather than having to sort out the thoughts in my head, because they are written, I can see and understand clearly exaclty what I am thinking, because it is right there in front of me and I can erase and correct as much as I need to, so that as accurately as possible, I am able to present and relay exactly what I am thinking. It is also beneficial to write things down in my journal, because apart from concretizing my thought processes, it also pyschologically helps me feel more in control and more grounded, and since I see it written in front of me in the form of text, it can help me define what I am learning, which will help me feel like 'I own it', and as a result, will make me feel more empowered and on top of things in my studies.
Another benfit from writing the journal, is that if I need to read it and/or refer to it later on, I can revisit what my thought processes were regarding the subject matter and read what I was thinking of or working on in that particular moment in time. In that way, the journal is a quick and easy reference to it. I now see the value of recording the thought processes and all the changes that take place in them over time, in this course, as it enables me to fully understand and appreciate the learning process I am going through. It is also an interesting way of recording how my thought processes are developing and changing.It is also a very effective way to observe how my thought processe are being affected and influenced as time goes by, as I gradually am exposed to the various journals and books from the course materials, as well as from the interactions with the tutors, the cohort and the blogs, it will be interesting some time in the future to look back and analyze and study how the process of change took place within me and how the inner workings of the process, evolved in way to manifest themselves in my new improved self and as a result in my practice.
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