ABSTRACT
Schön, it will be recalled, in arguing his case for knowing-in-action, proposed that convergence of meaning involves three essential features: it takes place in the context of the attempt to (in our case) teach, it makes use of actions as well as words, and it depends on reciprocal reflection-inaction (Schön 1987a, pp.100-101). It has been argued in this book, however, that when attention is focussed on the theory of meaning and the account of language presupposed by Schön’s epistemology, difficulties with Schön’s account are revealed and that Schön’s notion of reflection-in-action is redundant in accounting for convergence of meaning. Having reinterpreted the notion of reflection-in-action, we have seen in the previous chapter that reflection (when reinterpreted) is possible within a language-game after at least some convergence of meaning has been achieved as a way of developing understanding and adapting to new circumstances, contexts in which asking questions, giving reasons, making the normally implicit explicit, and so on, can be helpful. We also noted previously that there is value in such reinterpreted reflection for experienced teachers and tutors as well as for beginning teachers, and in a variety of contexts. I can think of no better term to describe such behaviour than critical practice. Here, following Tomlinson, the use of the term ‘critical’ is not intended to ‘signal anything particularly negative’ (Tomlinson 1995, p.3); rather, we may hope that a critical practitioner will be able to ‘offer reasons and justifications’ in a variety of contexts as appropriate (Tomlinson 1995, p.3) and,
158by having a relatively clear idea of why and what … [they are] about, … make it easier to review … ways of working and to develop improvements (Tomlinson 1995, p.3).
