ABSTRACT
Teachers are asked to practise critical self-reflection in learning and practicum by using reflection models such as Bain, Ballantyne, Mills, and Lester’s (2002) 5Rs framework for reflection; Gibbs’s (1998) reflective cycle; Johns’s (2000) model for structured reflection; Kolb’s (1984) model of experiential learning; and Rolfe, Freshwater, and Jasper’s (2001) What Model. By using a model, teachers are required to demonstrate their capacity to make effective use of knowledge and skills. A critical problem here is that the models incline towards self-exclusive and problem-focused strategies. In practicum, written outcomes of critical self-reflection on teaching practice are used as evidence to ensure teachers’ acquisition of required skills and knowledge – that is, intellectuality-driven generalisation of individuals’ experiences into other situations. In my professional experience of teacher education and professional development for teachers, I have also observed that teachers’ reflections of themselves remain unknown or unexplored, and reflective processes undermine values and beliefs challenged by others. In other words, such self-exclusiveness in self-reflection involves the exclusion of interculturality and new individuality. A reflective process is used under a particular metaphysical assumption that can prevent teachers from shifting from one sense of self-construal to another. Nevertheless, I acknowledge the productivity of such self-reflection. For example, a problem-focused approach can turn our emotional and relational responses to a matter into motivational energy as a self-sufficiency guide towards a pre-set goal, which benefits us in terms of an expansion of knowledge about given educational systems. In intercultural contexts, however, such a reflective process can result in unintentional othering when teachers are unaware of how their selves and other selves are shaped by cultural frameworks, how the underlying values affect the quality of intercultural interaction, what outcomes the interaction brings about, and, practically, how they can equally participate in intercultural interaction.
