TUTORIAL PAPER TEMPLATE

ID of Student: Michael Mc Mahon, G00383574

Article/Reading: Brookfield, Chapter 1, What it Means to be a Critically Reflective Teacher (1995
edition)

1. CONCISE SUMMARY OF READING

Chapter one of Brokkfields book, which discusses the meaning of being a critically reflective teacher, starts off
by first stating the aims of teaching. Teaching to make the world around us a better place and how our teaching
may encourage the students to also create a better place but its difficult. These difficulties are from teachers
themselves believing their actions are doing good but are being perceived as burdensome and forceful.
Brookfield continues to talk about innocent teaching where teachers believe they are aware of their teaching, but
this is unaffected. This is where the critical reflectiveness comes into play to help teachers make a real
difference in the world we all live.

Brookfield goes on to explain how to acknowledge critical reflections we must first recognise the reflective
process which includes hunting assumptions. He explains the definition of hunting assumptions as the take-for-
granted beliefs. From here he names three types of assumptions; paradigmatic, prescriptive, and casual. Looking
at each paradigmatic assumptions are best described as the frame on which we believe or assume the world
works around us. Paradigmatic assumptions are hard to believe and takes time to reflect on. Brookfield uses a
good example in his book (Brookfield, 1995) that he once assumed “…that adults are self-directed learners…”.
When these assumptions are changed it can cause an upset in lives. Prescriptive assumptions refer to our beliefs
about what should to happen in a particular situation, assumptions on what good practice should look like.
Causal assumptions are presumptions about how particular aspects of the world work and under what conditions
they can be changed. Brookfield explain how hunting assumptions without any reflections is to give examples of
what would happen. An example he gave is visiting small groups after giving them a task. As it can be a form of
assessment it can also make students untrusting of their work and they may only show effort in their work while
you visit the group. Another example is longer working teachers know better than new teachers. He explains, if
reflected on, this isn’t the case as the experienced teacher could be performing their practicing for years and
believes it is the correct way, but a new teacher may have a more beneficial practice to help the students reach
full potential.

As Brookfield on about what makes a reflection critical, he explains how a reflection may not be critical, but
this does not make it irrelevant. What makes a reflection critical is to recognise how power can distort education
processes and to question assumptions that seem to make life easier but work against our interests. Brookfield
moves onto power and how it can invade and disrupt the educational process as well as giving examples. These
examples include The Circle where instead of rows students are sat in a circle giving the students a chance to be
heard. It has its negatives though as confident students will succeed in this set up while struggling students,
educationally and mentally, may fear the circle and not want to participate. Another example is The Mandated
Confession which involves student journals, portfolios, and logs. While it is positive for students to express
themselves and their work, personal dramatic stories which are included can cause students without a dramatic

© ATU Dept. of Creative Education 2023-2024

 life event to believe they will not get on well and end up creating one.

The next section Brookfield looks at is to reveal hegemonic assumptions. These assumptions are what we think
are for our best but in the long run are designed against us. He expresses how teachers believe the assumptions
are good for them but really effect groups with little regard for teachers health. He continues to give examples of
hegemonic assumptions with detail. An example of these is Teaching as a Vocation, where teacher accept the
job as a vocation while they work endlessly with no complaints. This shows vocation as a hegemonic
assumption of teachers working hard at their job.

As Brookfield come near the end he ask why is critical reflection important? Giving six reasons with
explanations to each, he states it is important as it helps us take inform action, helps us develop rational for
practice, helps us avoid self-laceration, grounds us emotionally, enlivens our classroom, and increases
democratic classrooms. He finally concludes that critical reflections are essentially ideological and has moral
foundations.

2. CRITICAL REFLECTION

I found this paper very informal. While reading through the chapter, I found myself realising how much more to
critical reflection there is than I knew. It was a paper that, as a teacher, was very relatable. I found myself
reading the examples for the different sections and reflecting on my time in the classroom and how I felt after
relating to some of the examples Brookfield used. The structure of chapter I believe was laid out in a way that
will keep readers reading as they ask themselves why critical thinking is important. Once they near the end they
have a better understanding and can relate to previous text in the chapter while reading the importance of critical
reflection as there is a linking back. The structure of the text encapsulates readers wanting them to find out more
and more, this is important as Docherty and Smith express in their article on structuring a paper (Docherty &
Smith, 1999), they state “Structure is the most difficult part of writing… A strong structure also allows readers
to know where to look for particular information….”

I personally found the information on assumptions and the different types very interesting. Before ever reading
this text, I believed I had a good understanding of what an assumption is, something I believed but had no
evidence to prove it. Reading about the different types really opens my eyes and makes me think about the
assumptions I have in more detail, deciding what type they might be. It got me really interested in looking into it
more and finding different articles about assumptions. In a number of them they refer back to Brookfield and his
book. An article ‘Why Critical Reflection Is Anything But Optional’ (Zacharias, 2021) by Zacharias really
interested me as he stated they were all as one “These assumptions, while presented separately here, are
interconnected.” He gives a theoretical example to prove his case before stating “These assumptions I hold are
not necessarily wrong, but without awareness and examination, they can be problematic.” He then shares a
personal story which showed that different people with different backgrounds have different assumptions.
Zacharias also discusses assumption awareness as well as provide critical questions to uncover your
assumptions which I found interesting.

As much as I did like this text and reading it and absorbing the information, it was a struggle to read. There were
many challenging words that I did not recognise and needed to look them up to get an understanding. This
pulled me away from the text and at times, I would lose my focus on the text. For readers who may suffer from
learning difficulties, such a dyslexia, could cause a lot of problems for the reader. There is dyslexic teacher out
in the world who could use this text to really understand the meaning of critical reflection but to do so there may
need to be adjustments made. Simplifying the text is an obvious way of helping this problem. Some words may
not be able to be simplified but a brief intext explanation may help readers or another suggestion is having a key
box at the end with challenging words in it at the end of the text that can be identified with a star sign’*.’ The
key box could be an area where the definition of the word could be found. In my opinion, this is the only
problem I found with this text.

While reading the section on ‘Critical Reflection as the Illumination of Power,’ I found it really interesting and a

© ATU Dept. of Creative Education 2023-2024

 real learning on the different methods that Brookfield discusses. As I have used some of these practices it was
eye-opening to see how much more I could reflect on it. One that I used is ‘The Teacher as a Fly on the Wall.’
Looking back at my own practice, I assumed that it was a good practice to do but having read more about it and
looking back at it maybe I could have completed a better reflection on the practice. It was interesting to have a
point on how the students feel with the teacher checking in on small groups and it is something I will definitely
be considering preparing for when I use that practice again. Another practice that caught my eye was the
‘Mandated Confession.’ It looked into student journals, portfolios, and logs. This is a big part in my subjects and
in both, students have to create portfolios. It was interesting to acknowledge how students may feel when
preparing their portfolios and the actions I need to take in ensuring and modelling “ … a rejection of the belief
that the more sensation the revelation, the better the grade” as said by Brookfield (Brookfield, 1995) in his book.

After reading this text I feel, in future, when preparing my practice, I will look into the practice before hand at
critical reflections already available on the practice, keep note of how the practice went and perform my own
critical reflection following the practice. This text has thought me more about critical reflections and the
importance on why we need to reflect on our practices. As Walkington, Christensen, and Kock states in their
article ‘Developing critical reflection as a part of teaching training and teaching practice’(Walkington et al.,
2001),

“Just as the student needs to reflect to learn, so does the teacher to teach. Transferring knowledge isn't
sufficient, only critical reflection about the initiated learning process can assure the transferred
knowledge is transformed into deep learning.”

They state that as teachers we need to critically reflect to ensure the reflected knowledge is changed to deep
learning. I feel this links with Brookfield’s text as it is clear he shows deep critical reflection into the practices
he explained about and how he has learnt from them. I will be following in his steps with my practices in the
future.

I found this paper to be very formal and beneficial to read. It is a passage of text I will look back on to ensure I
know what critical reflection to teachers mean and why we conduct critical reflections. I would recommend this
text to other teachers as I know it will help them in the critical reflections.

3. LIST OF REFERENCES

References
o Brookfield, Stephen. (1995). Becoming a critically reflective teacher. Jossey-bass.
o Docherty, M., & Smith, R. (1999). The case for structuring the discussion of scientific papers.
BMJ, 318(7193), 1224–1225. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.318.7193.1224
o Walkington, J., Christensen, H.P. and Kock, H. (2001) ‘Developing critical reflection as a part
of teaching training and teaching practice’, European Journal of Engineering Education,
26(4), pp. 343–350. doi:10.1080/03433790110068242
o Zacharias, T. (2021) ‘Why Critical Reflection Is Anything But Optional’, Think About It: Why
Examining Your Assumptions Is Critical To Intentional Practice [Preprint].

© ATU Dept. of Creative Education 2023-2024