I have now completed my tenth academic year teaching full-time at York St John University. It has been immensely fulfilling, even given the range of challenges I have encountered. Looking back at a previous post from nine years ago, I thought it would be interesting to continue the reflective conversation.

Musings are meaningful. As you may have noticed, it has been a long time since I’ve posted one of these musings. Looking at the type of thing that I’ve written about, however, it strikes me that these various thoughts have found their way into my teaching rather than this website. Rather than splintering off from my ‘real work’, these topics have been trialled, workshopped, and refined in my teaching. The ones with the real sticking power become integrated into the course either at a micro-level (an example in class, for example) or at a macro-level (something in the curriculum). Unfortunately, that means that this section of the website has collected some cobwebs. I’m hoping to rectify that soon!
Reflective practice is everywhere – if you mean it to be. I don’t think I appreciated until this job how many reflective cycles can be nested within each other. There are opportunities to adapt on many levels, from the very small (task to task in a session) to the small (session to session) to the medium (semester to semester) to the large (year to year) to the very large (revalidation to revalidation*). That being said, it can be very easy to slip into the familiar grooves of non-reflective practice. It takes a large amount of energy to purposefully evaluate and adapt; sometimes, you need to keep heading in a trajectory simply to rest, even if that trajectory isn’t optimal.
There are no ‘normal’ years. When I started working at the university I presumed that after the first few years things would settle down and become consistent. Nothing could be further from the truth. Every year there has been something to react to, whether that’s a change in the academic staff I work alongside, different modules to teach, new opportunities for collaboration and events, new job roles and responsibilities, or a global pandemic. My colleague Morag Galloway and I have discussed our shared desire for at least one ‘calm’ year where more things remain consistent than changing. Perhaps this is linked to our musical training – practising our instruments to achieve regular, anticipatable outcomes from them?
Paperwork begets more paperwork. There are always forms to fill out, and in some cases forms to fill out to verify you have completed other forms.
Higher Education is a catalyst for intense change. Yes, an ostensibly large part of my role involves delivery and assessment of knowledge. The more fundamental learning that takes place, however, is that around students’ personal identities and place in the world. More often than not, I have ended up supporting people as they navigate these big ideas through musicking. What I find equally fascinating and challenging is the unforeseeable nature of students’ growth. Each student’s journey is deeply personal and even they don’t know how they well change through their degree. Supporting them through this process can be rewarding, but I’ve had to draw on cognitive, social, and emotional resources that I haven’t anticipated to do so. Viewing students’ progress as a holistic endeavour has become an underlying tenet of my teaching; thus, my role as teacher and co-learner should be holistic as well.

*If you haven’t encountered that word, a revalidation is like a software update for a course in higher education in the UK. Some revalidations are minor updates (e.g. 2.4 to 2.5) where you might make some tweaks to modules but otherwise keep them the same. Some revalidations are major updates (2.5 to 3.0) where you might change the combination of modules or the entire structure of the course.