Going Global
Learning from Stand + Stare and re-imagining the diary project
One really interesting aspect of Going Global was the opportunity to work with Lucy Kelly, Barney Heywood and Debs Hoy and to explore possible synergies between inter-cultural online dialogues and creative new ideas to promote diary keeping that they generously shared with us on our project.
We offer a brief introduction to their work here, providing links to web-sites and blogs should you wish to know more about them; before outlining the ways in which our work intersected and finally sharing resources we developed together, accessed through the links provided.
Re-imagining the diary is a project which seeks to reclaim the loaded notion of keeping a journal regularly (Kelly et al, 2020) and promotes its use in a transformed alternative form to support the wellbeing of twenty-first-century teachers. The ‘Toolkit’ moves beyond the traditional diary format, reimagining it into a multi-modal, playful and creative space, where participants are encouraged to try out a range of reflective activities moving beyond the traditional mode of writing.
To support that sense of playfulness and creativity, the ‘Toolkit’ also includes ‘Transition’ and ‘Reflection’ phases:
- Before the main activity of diary composition itself, participants use a spinner/dice to decide on a mindfulness practice – such as drinking a hot beverage slowly or listening to a favourite piece of music – as a means of encouraging a suitably reflective state of mind conducive to thinking.
- During: the teachers undertake the reflective activity they have chosen
- Afterwards: in the ‘Reflection’ stage, post diary composition, invites participants to reflect on what they would like to do with the main activity – share, archive, use or destroy – in order to question the audience and purpose of the diary and, perhaps, to let go of any prior expectations.
Re-imagining the diary is a project which seeks to reclaim the loaded notion of keeping a journal regularly.
We tried out some of these activities in Going Global sessions, reflected on them and developed the activities you can now access which were further adapted, based on our experiences of having trialled them. For example, we agreed, having used them once and in the light of Going Global participants’ feedback, that the original activities we devised needed to be simplified to be used within the sessions themselves. Also, that being practical was important, hence the idea of using a series of cards and chunking the original activities up.
In an ideal world, our resources would be tactile and going forwards, post-pandemic we are interested in exploring that idea further. However, limited in what we can offer people at the current time, our gift is the materials themselves and the creative solutions they offer as open access, web-based materials.
Please See Lucy Kelly’s blog for more specific information and Stand+Stare for general background on their work which develops innovative and beautifully-crafted ways to share stories that combine digital and physical experiences.
Resources
Reflection Gems: Going Global activity cards (PDF, 103kB)
Reflective Practice as a Space for Critical Reflection (Powerpoint, 784kB)
Publications
- KELLY, L., HUXFORD, G. and KELLY, C. (2020) ‘In Our Daily Struggles’: Diaries as a Tool for Teacher Well-being. Life Writing, pp. 1-16 (published online). DOI: 10.1080/14484528.2020.1763232.