Residency Journal - Day 2

1. Identify personal insights, moments of critical questioning, and comments or ideas from today’s workshop that have impacted you.

I realized today how much I lack in creative thinking, and I truly do not question many assumptions handed down from society. I really have to work hard and focus on depth, asking questions of the articles I read, becoming more critical of what I hear and what assumptions I have made to draw conclusions. I need to look at the assignments like the deconstructing an article assignment as a learning tool, and this will require a great deal of practice.
I learned about the author’s authority, and the references to voice and ‘priviledged’ voice in the article. A prividedged voice stems from someone we consider in our society to be higher up the social ladder such as celebrities. However, this can be relative to the people we are comparing. A business man may be more priviledged than a musician. They are in the capacity to be heard more by others around them.
Regarding the article I chose, there is the possibility the author was plugging for a job, there is the possiblility that he is criticizing someone in particular rather than an administration. There is also the possibility that he considers himself a priviledged voice and knows better than others. Why did he publish this article in the New York Times with his credentials?


2. Describe why these insights, questions, and ideas are important to you. What effect do they have and what dilemmas, questions, or possibilities do they raise? How do these issues affect the clarity, order, confusion, or chaos of your thinking?

I noticed that when I do not understand a concept, idea, or aspect of an assignment, even if I research it, it helps if I talk it out so that I can use the learning experience and do well on the assignments. I also realize that I will not be successful in this program if I cannot analyze and be critical of others’ assumptions and conclusions because everything is relative to personal biases and conclusions always change. I believe that if I can get in and spend more time reading, analyzing, and practicing with my critical and creative thinking skills, I will be much more successful and fulfill the requirements of the scholar-practicioner-leader model. I believe that this again, adds to my confusion, but provides a pathway to clarity.



3. What issues, questions, and dilemmas are you going to explore further? Why and how? How will your actions influence who you are and how you relate to others? What relational nets can you construct to continue this process of reflective and critical learning?


I really need to practice critical thinking and creative thinking. Dr. Deb gave me an example of her bag of oddities and how if she needs to get creative or if she is struggling with explaining something or moving on with some aspect of her writing, she pulls something out of the bag and with the knowledge that the thing she pulls out somehow contains the answer to her question. She also mentioned playing with children and allowing them to lead. Do not stifle them and their creativity. Allow them to ask why, within reason of course.
I believe these actions will help me to become a free-thinker, and discard many of the assumptions I have paved the way of my development. I will question others’ assumptions a little more and probably allow my family and my peers to question me a little bit more. I will continue on with this process by spending extra time thinking about the articles I am reading and how the DQ’s relate to assignments, and also how authority and credentials are relative based on the situation.