OK, here's a bit more

Introduction:
Reflection is an activity and process that defines our age. We are encouraged as professionals, as humans, as people, as individuals, as families to reflect upon our lives and our goals and to consider the range of choices that we have made and the actions that resulted from those choices which, so the idea goes, have led us to where we are now. It then follows from this idea that the very process that led us to an understanding of our current position, needs and wants can help us to ‘move forward’ and work towards achieving our future personal and professional goals.
Throughout this there is the implicit (and indeed sometimes explicit) embedded message that an individual is the sum total of their choices and decisions and that the individual almost single handedly has the power to change any aspects of themselves or their lives that they deem undesirable, disappointing, not satisfying or indeed painful. I have to state at this point that my experiences both personally and professionally to this point lead me to conclude that individuals do not possess this limitless power (except in certain circumstances) and that for me a great deal of contemporary obsession with self reflection is indeed just another layer of control and performance.
In this work I shall be attempting to understand how I got to where I am now and to posit a potential plan as to future options that might assist me in getting to where I want to go. I shall do this with the aid of Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle and Learning Styles Inventory in relation to my own experiences. I selected Kolb, since for me the process has always been a straight line and not a cycle and it has therefore been interesting to try to view my development cyclically and to see how I have resisted doing so up until now and whether or not this has perhaps contributed to my long standing stagnation. Furthermore, I shall attempt to consider the work of Erving Goffman and his performance theory and underline the tensions within me as I seek to reconcile my needs and wants and my perceived lack of power. For me, Goffmans’ theories underline a serious barrier to any self power resulting in praxis.
Having considered these theories I shall then look at their application in key periods of my life and also their potential usefulness or otherwise in terms of affecting a seismic shift in my thinking and affording me some degree of control over my future.
Personal Reflection
Contemporary society is awash with opportunities for individuals and groups (and here I refer to groups as comprising of two or more people such as spouses, work colleagues, friends etc) to not only reflect upon their lives but also to consider their own personality types and traits. While many would consider some of the tests as found in trashy magazines, web sites and online communities as either harmless or just fun it is important to note the undercurrent of predestination that acts to secure the re-enforcement of existing ideals – accurate or otherwise. People have a need to feel good about themselves and our mass media society feeds the view that this is an accepted state and offers us consumer goods, self help, fun tests and counselling to assist in learning to feel good about ourselves. I might argue that this is little more than a coded message that allows people to accept their lot by simply placing a suitable veneer upon it that fits with the individual’s existing self perception. This Forer effect underpins the ‘fun’ personality tests that I have attempted online as well as the more ‘serious’ psychometric testing models and the self reflective theories and models that I have come into contact with. Essentially, the tests and their results are so broad and general that there is something in there for everyone and with the right language anyone can reasonably assimilate the results as referring to them independently!
Goffman suggests a dramaturgical analysis of human interaction (particularly face to face) where individuals perform roles using settings, appearance and manner to ‘control’ another person’s impression about them. In turn the person being interacted with attempts to gather information about the performer through communication that is either ‘given’ (usually through language) or ‘given off’ (non direct communication that may or may not be within the performer’s conscious control). For Goffman, this interaction occurs in what he terms the ‘front region’. The ‘back region’ or backstage is an area where the performer can shed their role out of view of the audience. It is also interesting how positive these personalities or learning styles always are and the net effect of this re-enforcement is the ideal of the powerful individual. That with some relatively minor changes you can make significant differences to who you are and the life you lead. Why for example, is there no mention of ‘laziness’, ‘greed’, ‘aggressiveness’ and so on? Would such frankness undermine existing power and social structures? Would such frankness threaten the coherence and power of the front region as outlined by Goffman? Having taken a series of these tests through the early part of this unit it became clear to me that their reflective value was virtually zero in as much as I could choose to interpret such generalisations in any way I chose. Furthermore, we are all to a greater or lesser degree sophisticated enough to know what goes on ‘backstage’. This knowledge of the back region actually feeds our need to end up with a positive re-affirmation of our uniqueness and individual wonder. Thus we quickly engage in a conspiratorial performance that involves being more actively selective about the answers we choose or give and modify our responses to attempt to guarantee an outcome that tells us how amazing we are. In the ‘digital age’ of online interaction Goffman’s theatre metaphor still has value. We may not be interacting face to face but we still perform roles or adopt a given role.
My first experience with psychometric testing occurred at my second interview for the post of lecturer in Multimedia. The test was administered half way through the day in between the first and second stage interviews by a senior HR official. Throughout it was clear that the official was uncomfortable and lacking in experience about the test.
The questions were once again general and the performance dictated a set series of responses. At this stage it was clear that the definition of the performance and the situation was actively yet unspoken being agreed by both parties and a certain degree of ‘tact’ was being employed to gloss over the fact that we both already knew the answers that I would give. However, Goffman implies a certain degree of active consent or agreement in situ – not necessarily explicitly since we as humans live by inference. Yet this ‘consensual agreement’ already existed, long before I even applied for the job. It was predestined that should I want the job that this ‘veneer of consensus’ would be adhered to as a given. Where in this process was my active agreement, the single act of conscious power that allowed me to choose to accept the definition of the performance? Yes, I could have walked out or not applied in the first place but then the job would not have been an option. Hence the idea that we can affect change through the power of the individual is not quite what it seems. Goffman suggests that when we acquire a new position we might not be told exactly how to do our ‘act’ but may instead just receive some cues, hints and stage directions. It is then assumed that we already have a repetoire of bits ad pieces of performances that we can subsequently use in a new setting. However, if this is the case then given how personality and psychometric tests invite skewed or outright false responses it undermines an individual’s ability to learn and develop through active self reflection. It implies that there are already roles in place that we can do little more than accept. It also implies the existence of stage directors and begs the question, “How do I become a stage director?”!
In terms of Kolb, this presents difficulties at the reflecting through observation stage and hampers the forming of abstract concepts since it relies of an individual being willing to accept the adoption of predetermined roles.
However, the interviewer appeard to not be experienced enough to interpret what I ‘gave out’ and what I ‘gave off’. Hence her ability to check the validity of my performance was severely compromised and this was nonetheless accepted. Just as psychometric tests aim to check the validity of a performance by juxtaposing responses against the performance it alters the relationship of the performer and audience when that ability is not exercised or possible.
In this sense, while Goffman would argue that I was qualified or authorised to perform and that both parties were consenting to the performance it was clear o me that I found the situation dishonest and utterly without value. For example in response to a question such as “Do you consider yourself to be a team player?” would anyone really respond with “No. I really don’t like working with other people and would prefer not to have to deal with them”? However, it must be said that I had complete and total belief in my performance and the answers I gave were immediate, honest and accurate.
It can thus be argued that to have gotten the job I would have to have fitted a preset range of criteria that included personality types and traits that were considered essential to perpetuating the show that the performers within the organisation put on. As Goffman himself suggest, a team of performers are more likely to select as new team mates those who present themselves as being trustable enough to perform ‘properly’.
Despite ticking all the boxes, I failed to get the position at this, the second time of asking and this major event in my life has resulted in a staggering shift in my personality and approach to the world around me. To get the job I would have had to have engaged in ‘deceit’ and ’feigning’ in Goffman terms and this I found objectionable. If, as Goffman suggests, society expects moral character, that an individual ought to be what he claims to be then what of euphemisms such as ‘tailoring your responses’, ‘hiding your deficiencies’ or ‘making the most of your strong points’?
Kolb
David A Kolb’s experiential learning theory model based upon the work of Dewey and Lewin follows a four part cyclic arrangement where each part represents a stage in reflective personal and professional development. Kolb’s work is heavily influenced by the earlier work of Carl Gustav Jung. Kolb’s work has become popular in education circles and also in organisational structures in terms of staff development policies. There are contrasting views on the meanings for experiential learning but I will for the purposes of this paper refer to it as learning through personal reflection upon everyday experience in a setting not sponsored by an establishment.
According to Kolb (1984, 38) "Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience"
Experiential learning proponents might suggest that learning is best conceived as a process, not in terms of outcomes but I now know that I have always seen learning in a straight line on a personal level rather than as an ongoing cycle ie that you begin as a child with nothing and gradually acquire knowledge and experience as you grow which then affords you great control, comfort, satisfaction, achievement and status. In my blog, I refer to my formative years and the early formation of a linear ‘action plan’ or ‘script’ through my interaction with my parents, educators, the media and to a lesser degree my peers. This ‘script’ was quite simply; BA, MA, PhD, Success – with success being measured in terms of affluence, power and achievement. While in essence this type of plan provides a clutter free approach to development it does nothing to allow for any reflective practice or indeed for the re-integration (or feedback) back into the script of experiential learning. In other words, there is no opportunity to reflect and change the script and hence it could be argued that in many ways I was the architect of my own downfall.
Again however, Kolb’s cycle seems like a closed system in another way as there is little opportunity for the actions of others to impinge upon the cycle. Goffman might suggest that the agreed definitions of the performance suggest that individuals can change from disbelievers to believers and vice versa and that such changes in approach are triggered through experiential learning. This does not though take into account the power of ‘others’ to control the range of potential outcomes afforded to individuals in any given setting. For example, countless sections of society feel disempowered, embattled and ‘kept down’. Can we really be asking ourselves to believe that they are all somehow unable to reflect upon their plight or that they are forever poor performers and therefore relegated to passive audiences or even backstage staff?
As an AS, learning for me is far more formalised and problematic in terms of self-reflection. Self reflection happens in me constantly but in two distinct ways; firstly the cyclic response to external stimulus i.e. what other people say or do and secondly an entirely closed internal world where reflection tends to re-enforce existing ideas and behaviour patterns. I will expand upon this subject later on.
Kolb’s cycle can be identified in four stages:
Concrete Experience: Learning from specific experiences and relating to people. A difficulty arises here in terms of verifying the ‘concreteness’ of any given experience and avoiding misreading. Furthermore if our dealings with others is based upon performances then is relating to people more about acquiring a wider portfolio of preset performances from which to draw from in our future social interactions? If experiences are misread then surely that invites major subsequent amplification of the misreading through the cycle and affects the ability of the individual to make sense of the experience and affect future change in new situations?
Observation and Experience: Observing before making a judgment. Here too there is the opportunity for misreading to be fed into the cycle. In the absence of ‘concrete’ information, or the inability of the individual to ‘infer’ according to the structures of any given society or the inability or unwillingness of the individual to accept a given performance or audience role, can accurate or meaningful judgements be made? It is also worth noting that such models are always deemed positive and helpful from the outset. Labels such as ‘negative’, ‘non-constructive’ or just plain ‘uncooperative’ await those that might suggest that there isn’t a possible positive outcome. Too often individuals undergoing this cyclic process of reflection are under pressure to conform or indeed accept a bad situation since the generally accepted view is that if it didn’t help you then you were obviously doing it wrong or not willing to give it a chance!
Forming Abstract Concepts: this is the point at which a form of generalisation takes place where an individual is able to understand or ‘see’ a general principle that can potentially be applied to a variety of situations or experiences rather than seeing each experience in isolation. Again if misreading occurs then the generalisation could result in dangerous generalisations being accepted. Goffman argues that society requires that matters are what they appear to be but clearly a cynical acceptance that they are not allows for generalisations that can be used to exploit situations for personal gain.
Testing in New Situations: this refers to the ability to get things done by influencing people and events. However, it seems that the key to achieving praxis is in becoming a better and more accomplished performer.
For Kolb, the learning process can and often does begin at any of the four stages and he claims that ‘ideally’ a person is involved in all four stages through the learning process – although this is not a process that we undertake explicitly. Indeed it has resonance with feedback theories in cybernetics and it may be argued that Kolb’s theory is an abstract form of biological theory.
Kolb identifies four learning styles stating that people naturally prefer or identify with a single learning style. This LSI is underpinned by three stages – acquisition, specialisation and Integration - in our development and our ability to move through the cycle improves as we move through the stages in our development.
For Kolb the learning styles are a product of two pairs of variables or choices that we make. These are:
Concrete Experience: Feeling v Abstract conceptualisation: Thinking
Active Experimentation: Doing v Reflective Observation: Watching
In other words we choose our approach to the task (through our processing continuum) or experience ('grasping the experience') and at the same time we choose how to emotionally transform the experience into something meaningful and useful (via our perception continuum)
But do we really consciously make these choices?
The four learning styles (LSI) are Diverging (feeling and watching – CE/RO), Assimilating (watching and thinking – AC/RO), Converging (doing and thinking – AC/AE) and Accommodating (doing and feeling – CE/AE).
It is important to note that Kolb does not define learning styles as absolutes but as tendencies and accepts that individuals may be able to change learning styles. Nevertheless, the thrust is that we prefer some learning style behaviours to others at any given period of our development. One of the most crucial roadblocks to my development appears to be my need to have someone ‘validate’ it. I feel the need to use ‘accepted’ analysis in order to gain validation and acceptance – i.e. I constantly need someone to tell me I’m doing things right. As an AS I need a smile everyday, I need a hug everyday and I need to be told that I am ok everyday.
Jung's 'Extraversion/Introversion' dialectical dimension here
My Experience
My current predicament about my future has had a long period of gestation but there are a number of relatively recent triggers that I want to focus on for this text. They can be summarised as follows:
The failure to get the post of Head of Design at UWN
My diagnosis for AS
A continual eradication of autonomy, respect, value and creativity at my current workplace
Looking at the first trigger it is still somewhat of a mystery to me as to how I actually became a lecturer rather than a practitioner. As a second generation Asian with a very strict orthodox upbringing it is certainly evident that drummed into me from an early age some occupations carried more gravitas and worth than others – teaching was among these although certainly not in the top half of desirable careers. Kolb might suggest that the acquisition phase of my development had led me to acquire a set of values, morals and ideas that were from the outset confused, coming as they did from a hybrid Indian-English environment and being mediated through an (as yet unidentified) AS faculty. My formative years led to a belief in the role of teachers as vessels or translators of knowledge in the same sense that in some tribal cultures the elders hold wisdom and knowledge that is then orally passed down to the next generation. The idea that ‘everyone’ has a valid point of view is one that I have always found difficult to accept. After all if everyone is special then no one is. History is littered with unbalanced equations where a great idea is weighed down by the views of those that owing to their inability to comprehend or their desire to oppress seek to nullify its effects. When I was borne, being smart, hard working and creative was desirable. By the time I was 20 it was ‘way uncool’.
The education ‘scenes’ in the script I mentioned earlier seems now to have been a classic and bizarre misreading in a Lacanian sense. I had immense hopes for my undergraduate study but this turned out to be a complete disappointment and one of the biggest regrets of my career. I was actually offered a research post combining an MA and paid teaching on the postgraduate programme at UWN immediately but so disillusioned was I after my undergraduate experience and the organisation itself that I turned it down.
The feeling for me was that the workplace could not possibly be any worse than the education setting. In this sense it could be argued that my approach to the decisions about staying in education was clearly based upon the feeling extreme of the processing continuum of Kolb’s model in that the way I felt about my experiences governed my approach to decision making in the light of those experiences. Furthermore, experiential learning proponents might argue I rationalised the meaning of my experience and made it useful through feeling and thus allowed myself to justify my decisions. In another sense one could argue that a nascent world view was being formed here based upon a misreading of the experience and that misreading was then amplified through the cycle and resulting in generalisations that ultimately were not personally useful or even accurate. For example, as a result of my experience I was convinced that all education was now a lie based upon elaborate performances.
Goffman would argue here that I could be classified either as ‘knocker’ or ‘wiseguy’ or perhaps more charitably a renegade, in that I was determined to protect my belief system and was happy to take a moral stand arguing that it was better to be true to the ideals of the role than to the performers who falsely present themselves in it. Curiously Goffman might also refer to me as a ‘deviant’ who is ‘said to let the side down’! Certainly in my experience of lecturers they had the necessary equipment of their performance roles but it became evident to me that they were simply not qualified or authorised to perform that role. Yet here they were. The same could be said of my experiences with managers at UWN. I had difficulty reconciling the fact that the only thing that mattered was ‘looking the part’. As Goffman suggests, “Similarly executives often project an air of competency and general grasp of the situation, blinding themselves and others to the fact that they hold their jobs partly because they look like executives, not because they can work like executives.”
However, the above statement raises again the concern of whether or not these models, tests and theories actually have any real significance and furthermore whether or not celebrated theories and models have any higher value than generally accepted wisdom or oft maligned systems such as horoscopes or the “R U love matched” text in options for teenagers on digital music television channels.
On a more serious note, the recent catastrophe in the banking sector which mirrors financial struggle in the education sector is the result of decisions made by performers who agree not to give the game away as it were. Given the distress, heartbreak and loss this has caused can we really afford to be so complacent about the people who we authorise to perform key roles?
I set about trying to gain work by contacting companies, talking to establishments and advertising my work on the nascent web platform and pushed the benefits of my multimedia ideas. This was one of the most disenfranchising periods of my life and the result of rejection after rejection was a decision to take up a part time teaching job – at UWN of all places - simply to pay the rent. Was I simply not an adept performer? Or was it more that some of the paraphernalia of my performances were so outlandish and new that the definition of those interactions could never achieve a ‘veneer of consensus’?
Hence I ended up in teaching!
Using Kolb it becomes evident that my experiences of ‘selling my wares’ to virtually everyone that I could gain access to (including everyone from estate agents, to educators, to doctors to plumbers to car manufacturers, to television stations to shopping malls) were not positive and through a process this time of thinking rather than feeling it allowed me to form a generalisation that the experience was based upon my being ahead of my time in some respects and not understanding the relatively conservative nature of society and the non deterministic processes by which new technology or ideas are absorbed and adopted. Through reflective observation it became possible for me to ascertain that to get to the stage of active experimentation I needed to allow some of the newer technology that multimedia involved to become more widespread. Equally, in order to exploit the future I would need to remain relevant and up to date in terms of skills and needed access to the appropriate technology and the means to continue learning. I was thus now operating firmly in the specialisation period of my development according to Kolb but the cyclic model of reflective practice was one that I was willingly employing. My experiential feedback into the cycle was still tainted by misreading and the general anger and bitterness that this naturally engenders. Thus I learned a great deal in terms of self skilling on all of the latest technological innovations but in total isolation and still slavishly following the original ‘script’ while trying to jump directly from the BA scene to the Success scene. Hence the logical choice was to ‘go back to college’ but as a staff member this time and not a student since my previous generalisations about my experiences there applied to student status. Furthermore as one of Goffman’s renegades it afforded me a mechanism for feeding my ego and satisfying the need to be different and special – I would be the one member of staff who was really authorised to perform the role and I would be true to my ideals and not any given agenda or group of people!
Using Maslow’s hierarchy of needs at this stage it was clear that I was operating to fulfil only the most basic physiological and safety needs in terms of a roof, food, clothing and employment while all the time craving the more advanced needs. These basic needs also led me to take up another part time teaching job at Coleg Gwent, the local FE college. Maslow might further suggest that my craving for external respect and glory masked a deep rooted insecurity and lack of self esteem that once again underpinned my relunctance to self reflect and feelings of powerlessness.
My initial experiences of teaching were positive by and large but here there was a tension in Goffman terms. Goffman argues that in any team situation such as the one with a team of staff and a team of students there must be an assurance that no individual will be allowed to join both team and audience in any given setting. While each of us may according to Goffman perform different roles in different social environments and may even be our own audience, in a team performance each member has the power to disrupt the performance and thus there is a forced reliance on each team member to ensure that the show is not given away. Equally, if one member makes a mistake then others must cover up for them.
As a lecturer I was aware of my role and the fact that I belonged to a performing team of staff but my resistance to the idea of performing and protecting the performer at all costs meant that I habitually straddled both performance team and audience. While this stance afforded me a great deal of respect and affection among my students it created an enormous amount of tension among my colleagues. In hindsight, this duality essentially sealed my fate since if a team is concerned primarily with maintaining a particular line they will select as team mates those who can be trusted to perform ‘properly’. The issue of trust here is a key one since there is the ideal of trust that is often sacrificed in favour of a trust in compliance and conformity.
In truth, I did not reflect in depth upon my removal from UWN as it was easy enough to jump straight through to the generalisation stage and suggest that since this was the scene of my dissatisfaction as a student it was thus inevitable that the same general rules would apply to me again. It re-enforced in me the idea that there were those with power and those without and the society within which I existed served to do nothing more than protect that power structure at all costs. In Kolb’s concrete experience stage It is the relating to people that I have found increasingly difficult, as I have gotten older and had an increasing number of ‘specific’ experiences. Throughout my life my reflection on my experiences has led to the concept of ‘human interference, in all things. That is, that whatever happens, happens because of the actions and decisions of another – another with more power than those affected by the incidents and events. This concept then not only fed into my subsequent active experimentation in new situations (although for me nothing could therefore ever be ‘new’ since it was predetermined by those already with power) but also insulated me from the idea that all learning is re-learning. A process to draw out my beliefs and ideas so that they can be examined, tested, and integrated with new, more refined ideas was simply in my view not possible.
Thus despite the fact that I had made a great many personal and financial sacrifies to build ‘something great’ at UWN only to find it demolished and my work ‘acquired’ by others I slavishly returned to the script and attempted exactly the same thing at Coleg Gwent. The self reflection process was limited and the generalisation above allowed me to attribute my failure to the actions and decisions of others. This generalisation was ironically e-enforced by my first line manager at Coleg Gwent who showed immense faith, trust and respect for me and my abilities and views. I was given essentially a free hand to create what I stood for and this for me was an actualisation of self in a narrow sense. It also re-enforced the idea that the amended ‘script’ with the missing scenes was now back on track. The feelings of powerlessness, invisibility and worthlessness remained and it is sometimes sobering to think that I have spent an immense amount of time and effort trying to build a physical representation of me that cannot be ignored, moved, affected or destroyed. My four proposals for a ‘High Energy Magic” building are nothing more than proposals for a 100 foot tall ‘Raj’.
With the forced retirement and subsequent passing of my line manager I lost a mentor and a friend. It is through a process of reflection that I now understand that this is something I have always sought and have continued to try to replace – unsuccessfully. The need to have someone tell you that you are special has never really been something that I have questioned until much later.
In 2005 I was diagnosed with AS.
Experiential Learning also requires the resolution of conflicts between dialectically opposed modes of adaptation to the world. This is a key issue for me and in my own experience I now ‘feel’ far more about the world than I ‘act’. It is also interesting that I now see the world as being distinct from me – separate, other, hostile. This is in no small way a facet of AS but my current belief system cannot be attributed solely to this – especially since this mode of thinking is for me less than 20 years old.
While some might argue that learning results from synergetic transactions between the person and the environment, the nature of these transactions is for me still a source of much confusion and distress and the level of consent and relative power structures appear also to be not clear. Have I really actively chosen to undertake a series of actions, choices and decisions that have led me to a point in my life diametrically opposed to any sense f my original aims and goals? How is it actually possible for an individual to do everything that takes them away from their goals? It is here that perhaps a closer examination of Freire, Goffman and Foucault might help.