The Meaning Depends: Learning about Me and My Learning

Abstract

This reflective paper discusses aspects of my personal development as an adult learner. Though that development is reflected in my practice as an adult educator, I do not explore those implications in the paper. Instead, I grapple with what is means to make meaning, to determine how I know what I think I know (Taylor, Marienau, & Fiddler, 2000). I explore the tension for me between external authority and self-authorship, between dualistic and dialectical thinking, and between a single and multiple identities. I provide examples of the power of reflection and reflective writing for making meaning. constructivist view of meaning making is implicit in my reflections. I explore the embedded assumption of self-agency in this view and question whether I can really escape the sociocultural filters as I choose who I want to be. I conclude with a celebration of my development to date and a determination to keep on learning! I Thought I Became a Dialectic Thinker I wrote an analysis of my learning perspective in February 2007 using a lifespan approach in a knowledge paper for an adult education class. The title was A Progression From Dualist to Dialectic. I wrote about my original perspective that there was one truth from the fight authority and my development to authoring my own truths and commitments. I used the following two personal experiences to illustrate my perspective transformation, what Kegan (1994) would call development of a self-authored mind from a socialized mind. Mrs. Brendle, my third grade teacher, told me the correct English was, Are coming to dinner? not Are coming to dinner? I remember that I told Mrs. Brendle she had to be wrong because my Dad always said yous. Up to this point, I believed what my parents told me, and I believed my teachers. This is the first time that I remember the two authorities in my life were telling me something different. Which one was the true authority? I understood at that time that there was only one right answer. I had to choose one or the other way of speaking, but I could not choose one or the other person. I needed to please both, so I said you at school and yous at home. It was not until I studied German in high school that I understood the language issue came from my Pennsylvania Dutch culture. My daughter was born when I was 27. I had to figure out how to care for this life. Her father had some ideas; my mother told me one thing; my mother-in-law told me another; my neighbor gave me advice; I read Dr. Spock. When I did something different from the most recent advice offered, someone was always saying, Well, I guess my way was not good enough. I had to be the mother; I had to make a decision. I could not wait for a certain answer, if there was one to figure out. I had to do something. I quickly learned that my decision was crucial: it depended on the context; it depended on the child; it depended on what I decided was the most important thing to accomplish at the time. I created my own role of mother. It included not losing who I was before I was a mother. I gave up the idea that there was some ultimate truth out there for me to discover about parenting and just did the best I could as I understood it. In reflecting on this, I remember this as my first really adult thinking, creating my own meaning and troth from the multitude of authoritative voices, not making a dialectical either/or choice. Not Yet Arrived! I took the Kolb inventory in another adult education class, and the results did not show me as a strong reflective observer. The professor for this class had indicated that reflective observation was critical for dissertation-quality work. I struggled with this in my learning journal. I thought I was good at this, but now it seems I am not, so I have to talk to my professor about this. In this conversation with my professor, her question to me was, How about disagreeing with the results? …