There has been a really thought-provoking thread in the definitions forum - bearing the title 'The mask of reflection. Which face am I to wear today?'
Obviously, if and when we are reflecting, we are thinking about who we are and how we are perceived by others. Lionel in his post writes about this as follows:
For me, at this time, the definition of reflective learning revolves around the symbolic interaction of front and back stage. Reflection is a social attribute, by definition it involves at least two, even if those two are only the I and the me, where the I is the mask I show to others and the me is how others see my mask. The reflection comes as the desire to modify that mask, the concept of me and I as a series of morphing masks, balancing and learning what comes from one into another.
I interpret this to mean that the face I am presenting at any one time, depends on the context. So for example, my mother would not be interested in knowing that I am interested in reflective learning, so I don't present this face to her. For her, because I love her, I am the caring, loving daughter, trying to be whatever it is that will make her happy in her old age.
However, I think there is a limit to the extent to which we can adopt masks and I'm not sure that I believe that we are always wearing one - or maybe I believe that there is a definitive 'Jenny' mask, one that is most like the real me and one that I mostly wear.
I have a clear memory of once meeting someone who I found impossible to recognise. She was a Brazilian, married to an Englishman and their life involved travelling around working in different countries in the world. She had become so adept at adapting to her situation that I really had no sense of who she was. She seemed to have no identity.
I would hope that the metaphor of adoping masks wouldn't lead to this. I would like to think that even if I recognise that in certain situations I adopt certain masks, I still have a sense of who I am, however fragile or misguided this sense might be.
(030309) I'm still not sure that I fully understood the original post.
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