'White Moments'
After chatting with a family member this morning, I've identified that I'm allowing myself to feel a little overwhelmed with the scale and depth of MA study, and noticing some self doubt creeping in. I seem to be going over a series of distracting thoughts at the moment; have I got the study skills for university-level work based learning? Can I manage dedicated study time alongside my work commitments? Where do I start with the recommended reading? Why am I doubting my ability to tackle this new challenge?
I was grateful to have these questions repeated back to me over the phone, and hear and identify that ultimately I'm lacking in confidence and I'm experiencing this having a knock on effect to the way in which I'm approaching this learning journey. I think we all can identify that having a lack of confidence can impact our sense of well being, and it's encouraged me to think more deeply about how I perceive the impact of confidence (or lack of in this case) and it's involvement in my learning process.
What do we mean when we talk about confidence?
How does confidence impact the way in which I learn?
How does our understanding of confidence play a part in our professional roles? As a dance teacher, have I felt this way before, and what do I perceive the factors affecting it are?
Is it a similar picture for the young people I teach? What do they need to feel confident in their lifelong learning?
Norman and Hyland talk about the role of confidence in lifelong learning in their online journal article, specifically the perceived role of confidence to a group of student teachers. (Norman et al,. 2003) They suggest that confidence has cognitive, emotional (affective), and performance components and a lack of confidence can manifest self criticism, self-doubt and perceived feelings of anxiousness, nervousness and feeling tense, uncomfortable and insecure. On the other hand, growing confidence can enable you to adapt to new situations quicker, take on more responsibility, engage more fully in the learning process, enjoy learning, be more relaxed, be more motivated, and interact more easily with others.
I am realising that for me, a lack of confidence in a work based situation can mean my creativity, productivity and overall performance is negatively affected. This can mean prolonging making decisions, a tendency to avoid difficult tasks, stilted communication when interacting with others, difficulty in thinking more conceptually around lesson content and less able to adapt to the changing environment within the dance studio.
I would be curious to know whether any of my peers on their MAPP journey could identify where they feel at their most confident, and what they have learnt about confidence within their own professional practice.
So, in taking some small steps to move forward, I am going to look back over the blogs my peers have written and identify key texts that others have found useful and set aside time to read and digest the information alongside my developing AOL's. (Perhaps 'confidence' is one of them). I'm also going to pick back up a book I read a number of years ago which has some straight talking around the themes of self-belief, confidence and 'white moments', the moments where you are performing at your best. (Mack & Casstevens, 2001). I hope collectively we experience many 'white moments' along this MAPP journey.
Norman, M. & Hyland, T. (2003) 'The Role of Confidence in Lifelong Learning', Education: Journal Articles. Paper 7.
Mack, G. & Casstevens, D. (2001) Mind Gym An Athlete's Guide to Inner Excellence. USA: McGraw Hill, pp 4-5
I was grateful to have these questions repeated back to me over the phone, and hear and identify that ultimately I'm lacking in confidence and I'm experiencing this having a knock on effect to the way in which I'm approaching this learning journey. I think we all can identify that having a lack of confidence can impact our sense of well being, and it's encouraged me to think more deeply about how I perceive the impact of confidence (or lack of in this case) and it's involvement in my learning process.
What do we mean when we talk about confidence?
How does confidence impact the way in which I learn?
How does our understanding of confidence play a part in our professional roles? As a dance teacher, have I felt this way before, and what do I perceive the factors affecting it are?
Is it a similar picture for the young people I teach? What do they need to feel confident in their lifelong learning?
Norman and Hyland talk about the role of confidence in lifelong learning in their online journal article, specifically the perceived role of confidence to a group of student teachers. (Norman et al,. 2003) They suggest that confidence has cognitive, emotional (affective), and performance components and a lack of confidence can manifest self criticism, self-doubt and perceived feelings of anxiousness, nervousness and feeling tense, uncomfortable and insecure. On the other hand, growing confidence can enable you to adapt to new situations quicker, take on more responsibility, engage more fully in the learning process, enjoy learning, be more relaxed, be more motivated, and interact more easily with others.
I am realising that for me, a lack of confidence in a work based situation can mean my creativity, productivity and overall performance is negatively affected. This can mean prolonging making decisions, a tendency to avoid difficult tasks, stilted communication when interacting with others, difficulty in thinking more conceptually around lesson content and less able to adapt to the changing environment within the dance studio.
I would be curious to know whether any of my peers on their MAPP journey could identify where they feel at their most confident, and what they have learnt about confidence within their own professional practice.
So, in taking some small steps to move forward, I am going to look back over the blogs my peers have written and identify key texts that others have found useful and set aside time to read and digest the information alongside my developing AOL's. (Perhaps 'confidence' is one of them). I'm also going to pick back up a book I read a number of years ago which has some straight talking around the themes of self-belief, confidence and 'white moments', the moments where you are performing at your best. (Mack & Casstevens, 2001). I hope collectively we experience many 'white moments' along this MAPP journey.
Norman, M. & Hyland, T. (2003) 'The Role of Confidence in Lifelong Learning', Education: Journal Articles. Paper 7.
Mack, G. & Casstevens, D. (2001) Mind Gym An Athlete's Guide to Inner Excellence. USA: McGraw Hill, pp 4-5
Hi Sophie, just reading this now off the back of the comment you made on my blog - I'm also really interested and can identify with the issue of confidence (and lack of) in both myself (as person / practitioner) and in my practice. People I work with would say I'm a pessimist but I like to think of myself more as a realist. I'll have to look into what you've referenced by Norman and Hyland and their study into the impact of confidence on output of practice, think it has quite a close link to what I've been reading in the Moon about emotion and emotional intelligence.
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