Teacher reflection as a research method: using phenomenology to reflect on classroom events

ABSTRACT

Arguing that teacher reflection on events as a research method is necessary for naming unrecognized values and moral responsibility that have informed current practice, I apply phenomenological reflection to an event with a child from my own classroom experience, recorded through autoethnographic writing, to show how the significance of this revealed itself in its latency, bringing into nearness the originary and eidetic insights of this lived pedagogical encounter. I do this utilizing two insight cultivators – ‘essential a posteriori’ (the ‘too late’), and responsive contact. This type of autobiographical reflection is important for teachers because what is remembered, while often present in the form of fragmentary and unconnected scenes, informs educators in terms of who they are now, that is, who they have become.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher reflection
• autobiographical incidents
• evential phenomenology
• latency
• Claude Romano

Introduction

Teachers’ professional judgement is the result of reflection on, and interpretation of, pedagogical encounters and events considered in relation to context, professional relationships, and previous experience. While complex, such reflection enables teachers to improve their self-understanding and influence positive student outcomes (Cole et al. 2022), change and improve their own practice (Tay et al. 2023), and to name unrecognized values and moral responsibility that have informed their current practice (Tripp 2011). Such notions position teacher reflection on events as an important and necessary research method.

As someone who has engaged with the phenomenological method to inquire into the sensitivities and lived experiences of others (Hyde 2020, 2023, Hyde and Joseph 2023, Hyde and Rouse 2023), I wonder whether phenomenological reflection, through autoethnographic recall of events, might serve as an effective method of teacher reflection. I wonder whether this method might allow teachers to realize the significance of pedagogical encounters not so much in their actualization – as factual happenings – but as events that are perhaps best considered and studied after a period of time has passed, that is ‘after the fact’, in their latency.

Drawing on Claude Romano’s notion of evential phenomenology, I argue that pedagogical encounters can, and should, be appropriately reflected on and studied by teachers as events, the significance of which may not always be immediately apparent but are rather gauged sometime after the event. I argue that such pedagogical encounters require from teachers refection on their meaning and significance, and that evential phenomenology provides an innovative means by which to achieve this aim, and so contribute to their professional judgement.

After briefly surveying the literature on teacher experiences and the way in which teacher reflection has been theorized, I explore the notion of evential phenomenology (Romano 2009, 2015). I then apply phenomenological reflection to an autoethnographic recall of a pedagogical encounter from my own classroom experience with a child (over 30 years ago now) to show how the significance of this event revealed itself in its latency, bringing into nearness the originary, and eidetic insights of this lived encounter. I do this by utilizing two insight cultivators – sources gathered from philosophic phenomenology that assist in stimulating creative insights and understanding with respect to the phenomenon under investigation (van Manen 2014, 324). These are an ‘essential a posteriori’ – the ‘too late’ (Claude Romano) and responsive contact (Max van Manen). I conclude by re-affirming that reflection is important for teachers because what is remembered, albeit in the form of fragmentary and unconnected scenes, informs educators in terms of who they have become.

This paper makes an important contribution to the use of the phenomenological method for teacher reflection. Previous submissions to this journal have utilized various phenomenological approaches in educational inquiry, such Husserlian phenomenology (Creely 2018) to approach education inquiry about learning, Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) (Guihen 2020) to explore the career experiences of women deputy headteachers, hermeneutics (Walshaw and Duncan 2015) as a resource for understanding empathy in online learning environment. However, none appear to have detailed the use of phenomenology as a method for teacher reflection. This paper, therefore, makes a unique contribution in proposing the phenomenological method to assist teachers to name unrecognized values and moral responsibility that have informed current practice and have, as a result, contributed to teacher’ professional judgement.

Literature review

Much of the literature on teacher experiences, and the effects of such experience, is focussed on increasing teacher effectiveness in relation to student learning outcomes and academic performance (e.g. Hargreaves and Fullan 2012, Podolsky et al. 2019), or the way in which teacher judgments impact on students’ academic development (e.g. Bergold et al. 2023, Marsh et al. 2008). It is also focussed on the relationship between the quality of teaching and the teaching experiences of classroom practitioners (Gore et al. 2024) as well as teacher enthusiasm on student motivation and experiences (e.g. Harris and Rosenthal 2005, Feldman 2007, Marsh 2008, Frenzel et al. 2019).

However, there is a growing body of literature exploring the impact of teacher reflection on experience and the effects this has on teacher critical development and self-efficacy. For instance, the work of Cole et al. (2022) show that the practices, attitudes, and skills reflective teachers implement improve their understanding of the teacher-self. Impedovo and Malik (2016) consider the influence of a ‘research attitude’ on supporting reflective practice for professional development among teachers, showing that while reflective practices may differ among teachers, the reflective process is a continuous one of learning from experience. Teachers who engage in reflective practices remain life-long learners throughout their careers and may become more capable problem solvers (see also Butville et al. 2021). Richards et al. (2022) propose that autobiography, as a form of reflection, can be a powerful tool in helping teachers more deeply reflect on their prior socialization experiences, which may help them to better understand and be willing to critique their personal belief structures. Philip-Clark and Grieshaber (2024) highlight the importance of identifying the objectives of teacher critical reflection and the significant role that social collaboration plays in such reflection (see also Benade 2015). Teachers need to be supported, respected, and afforded a voice in the collaborative team if teacher reflection is to be effective.

Bird (2014) argues that maintaining a focus on changing teacher practice through self-reflection and developing teacher self-efficacy is more effective than attempting to measure teacher quality and performance. She argues that teachers with robust efficacy beliefs are more likely to engage in professional learning opportunities, and hence, develop, expand, and enrich their practice. Effective pedagogy rubrics, reflective questioning drawing on cognitive conflict, and the higher order taxonomy of questions are examples of tools that can be employed by teachers to empower them to reflect on their practice.

Since a growing body of literature is exploring the impact of teacher reflection on experience and the effects this has on teacher critical developments and self-efficacy, it is necessary to briefly theorize the notion of teacher reflection.

Teacher reflection

Dewey (1933) is a key theorist of reflection insofar as it relates to personal learning. Dewey highlighted that reflection in the context of learning is not just the passive recall of events but is rather a deliberate and active process. It is an ‘active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it, and further conclusions to which it leads’ (118). He believed that reflection could be useful for making sense of situations or events that are puzzling or difficult to explain. Reflection for learning should consist of recalling an event and then posing questions to explore why things happened in a particular way, and what possible actions could have produced a different outcome.

Schön (1983) further developed Dewey’s work, linking reflection more closely to professional practice. Schön maintained that by using reflection, practitioners can make explicit hidden, or tacit, knowledge. This knowledge is the theory that underpins what practitioners often do by instinct. Further, this new understanding can help practitioners improve their practice and become increasingly expert at what they do. He identified two types of reflection. The first, reflection on action, is undertaken retrospectively. The second, reflection in action, is essentially ‘thinking on your feet’. He also proposed that repeated reflecting on action can help practitioners to build upon previous experiences and scenarios, leading to the creation of an extensive repertoire of rehearsed interventions. When new or unexpected situations occur in practice, this repertoire enables the teacher to respond rapidly and instinctively in an appropriate manner.

Boud et al. (1985) assert that the various emotions associated with an event must be considered if reflection is to be a valid way of learning. They also argue that emotions can influence the way in which an individual recalls an event. Strong emotions may distort the way an event is interpreted or indeed what part of an event is concentrated upon during reflection. They outline three stages of the reflective process. The first involves returning to the experience – recollecting what has taken place and noting one’s own reaction to what has occurred, especially the feelings evoked during the experience. The second involves attending to those feelings, drawing attention to the role that feelings play in experiential learning and what individuals need to be able to do to manage their own reflective activities. The third involves re-evaluating the experience, appropriating new information gained from reflection in a personal way so that it might lead to changed behaviour and a commitment to act in a particular way. By ignoring the impact of emotion, learning from reflection may be an incomplete process.

Maintaining that teachers’ professional judgement is largely the result of reflection and interpretation, Tripp (2011) refers to ‘critical incidences’, which broadly denote events or situations marking significant turning points or changes in the lives of those who experience them. In detailing autobiographical incidences, he notes that such occurrences can be problematic as they are ‘mere fragments, minute samples of the complex plethora of everything that actually occurred’ (98). Nonetheless, he argues that such discontinuous accounts hold within them the possibility of being directly relevant to a teacher’s current practice. Although they are recovered by a process of introspection, the temporal difference does not invalidate the analysis, but rather strengthens it, suggesting a continuous and coherent emergence of an idea toward which one has been working. Therefore, Tripp maintains that a constant re-visiting and re-working of the incident results in the possibility of naming unrecognized values and moral responsibility that have informed current practice. Thus, all analysis of autobiographical incidences is provisional. Re-working the incident enables the teacher to aim for less conclusions and instead explore hypotheses and viewpoints that are always emergent, revisable and open to further interpretation. Far from being and endpoint, the analysis of such critical incidences ‘should constitute departure points for our reflection and understanding’ (111).

van Manen (2015) maintains that reflection is strongly implied in the meaning of pedagogy, which, by definition ‘signifies that teaching is done in an intentional manner that constantly distinguishes what is good or most appropriate from what is bad or inappropriate for this child or those children in particular circumstances’ (50). Specifically, he argues this can be achieved by applying phenomenological reflection in the pedagogical lifeworld. That is, teachers need to develop a ‘phenomenological reflectivity’ that assists them to understand the lived meanings of certain phenomenon (experience) in classroom life. This reflectivity, he argues, can be ‘honed by becoming aware of phenomenological methods for determining and describing experiential meaning’ (225). van Manen goes on to write, phenomenological understanding,

inheres in the sense and sensuality of our embodied being in practical actions, in encounters with others, and in the ways that our bodies are responsive to the things of our world, and to the situations and relations in which we find ourselves. (2015, 190)

Others have similarly advocated for applying phenomenological reflection in relation to pedagogy, including Mortari (2015), who maintains that phenomenology makes possible a depth of analysis in the reflective activity, Bollnow (1989) who argues that the quality of the pedagogic relation involves a reflective sense of the good, a sense of the meaning of being human, and a sense of hope for the personal becoming of the child, and Lippitz (1986) who asserts that an autobiographical interpretation is important because that which is remembered, while often present in the form of fragmentary and unconnected scenes, informs the educator in terms of who they are now, that is, who they have become.

Theoretical framework

In his seminal text, Event and World, Claude Romano (2009) argues that some phenomena are best-studied events. He coins the term advenant, the evential, to describe what occurs when an event is considered meaningful. Romano (2015) conceives of events as being phenomenologically originary. They pertain not so much to actuality, but rather to possibility, to ‘possibilization’ (51). For instance, two friends may arrange to meet over coffee. This is the event as factum – an actuality, or something that happens. However, while having coffee, the two friends may discuss things in a meaningful way that leaves them profoundly moved, the significance of which may only be understood afterwards, when ‘the event of an encounter has already happened, has already reconfigured all our possibilities and worlds’ (Romano 2009, 123).

This gives rise to an important notion in Romano’s (2009, 2015) writing – that of latency. While a genuine encounter, or event, cannot be reduced to its actualization as a fact, its significance remains latent, such that ‘we are never contemporary with it and never realize it until later, “too late” … when the event of an encounter has already happened’ (2009, 123). The significance does not become apparent until much later, such that it’s meaning ‘only gives its itself in an essential a posteriori – a “transcendental” a posteriori’ (Romano 2015, 62). Nietzsche (1886) wrote, ‘the greatest events … make themselves understood later; the generations contemporary with these events do not live them, but pass by them’ (285). As latent, events are full of possibilities, and there is a sense in which people cannot truly experience an event until after it has taken place.

None of this is to deny the factuality of the event. The event itself – the meeting of a friend for coffee in the example above – is a fact in time and place. Two people actually meet at a designated time and in an agreed upon place. However, the memory of this event has latency and may have effects that are realized only after the event itself has taken place in its factuality. Hence, when events are studied in their latency, one is afforded the opportunity of reflecting on the experience that has been evoked through the occurrence – the factuality – of the event.

The latent realization of the significance of an event, for a person, may happen quite suddenly, like an epiphany, reflecting something of Heidegger’s (1982) notion of aletheia (άλήϑϵια), as meaning disclosure, unconcealment, and openness that can occur dramatically like a sudden flash of light. Alternatively, the significance of an event may occur almost ‘without one’s being conscious of them … nothing remarkable or dramatic about it, but takes place slowly and imperceptibly’ (Romano 2015, 62). It is only once they have been realized – that they have happened – that they may truly become events.

Whether the significance of the event is revealed suddenly or over time, reflection upon it may yield the experience of the event as either positive or negative for an individual, and therefore its latency could be positive or negative. For a teacher, then, this latency could be negative and have an adverse effect. However, Romano (2015) would maintain that reflection on a negative event, such as a mourning or an illness, can, over time, and after-the-fact, result in retrospection which, while painful, nonetheless results in beneficial and positive change. It ‘illuminates that context [in which the event occurred] with a new meaning’ (220).

Methodology

The method utilized consists of an autoethnographic recall of an event. Autoethnography is a research method that uses, in this instance, my own personal experiences (‘auto’) to describe and interpret (‘graphy’) these experiences and practices (‘ethno’) (Adams, Ellis and Holman Jones 2017). Autoethnographical writing aims to show ‘people in the process of figuring out what to do, how to live, and the meaning of their struggles’ (Bochner and Ellis 2006, 111).

My autoethnographical writing (the data) took the form of a phenomenological text (below) composed from a pedagogical encounter from my own classroom experience with a child (over 30 years ago now), the significance of which was only later understood in the latency of this event. The event transformed me and opened up new possibilities to me. It was, to use Tripp’s (2011) terminology, a ‘critical incident’ that shaped the type I teacher I was to become. The critical incident itself was a fact in time and place. But it was only in studying this event in its latency, that its significance became clear. In the phenomenological text below I have, to use van Manen’s (2019) words, attempted to use ‘creative and expressive (evocative) languages and sensibilities to capture what is primal and mature, pathic and cognitive … conceptual and inceptual, propositional and poetic’ (915). It is hoped that this text, and the reflection on it that follows, brings into nearness the originary, and the eidetic insights of this lived pedagogical encounter, highlighting the possibilities that this type of phenomenological refection hold for classroom practitioners.

Findings

It had been raining all day. Although I was in my second year of teaching and had experienced the ‘wet weather’ programs that operated in schools, I still hadn’t quite gotten used to the stale odour of half-eaten lunches and sweat that permeated the classroom on such days when the students had not been outside at all. Irritability filled the air. There was a particular irascibility that had seeped under the skin of both the students and me. By the afternoon, we were all restless, querulous, and short-tempered with each other. ‘Will this day ever come to an end?’ I thought almost despairingly. I loved teaching, but I couldn't endure this for much longer. I wondered whether this experience might be easier for those who taught older students (probably not!) – but with eight-year-old children who longed for the fresh air of the playground and the boisterous activity typical of the sandpit and climbing equipment, this was challenging! My initial teacher education training had warned me it would be so. But it is one thing to explore the theoretical concepts in a lecture or seminar, and quite another to experience it first-hand.

I glanced up at the clock, and a cautious smile grew on my face. Although the time had seemed to slow down in a sluggish temporal drift, it was now almost home-time, and soon I would be left alone to open the windows, let some air in, and set about planning tomorrow’s activities.

I asked the students to begin packing away their work and to get their school bags. They smiled excitedly – they knew their school day was almost over. The bell sounded and I began to dismiss the students. Ironic, I thought. Now that they were beginning to head out of the classroom, I had begun to feel more than a little ashamed of my eagerness to get rid of them. They each looked up and smiled as they said goodbye to me before leaving the room.

And then came Loretta.

Loretta was a vivacious and enthusiastic student. I got on well with her. Usually. Although she could be very, very talkative. And having been cooped up inside all day, with no outlet, she had indeed been extremely chatty – to the point where I had, in my own frustration and irritability, scolded her quite severely. ‘Enough talking!’ I had said. ‘Get on with your work!’ I had demanded. Reasonable requests, as far as maintaining order and discipline in the classroom goes. But it was the way I had said these things. I was snarly, and perhaps should have been more tempered in my attempts to maintain order – after all, you catch flies with honey, not vinegar. But in my flustered state, I had been in no frame of mind to recall the psychology I had learnt in my initial teacher education.

Loretta looked up at me with her big eyes. And there was a moment. My eyes looked directly into hers. I saw her not a student, but as a child – as someone who needed my pedagogical care. I couldn’t look away. She smiled. I gulped. Feeling quite remorseful (and utterly exposed), I said, quite genuinely, ‘I am sorry that I was a little short-tempered with you today’. I felt better for having said that. But it was what came next that astounded me. Still smiling, Loretta looked directly into my eyes and said, quite sincerely, ‘That is perfectly alright’. And with her school bag over her shoulder, she skipped off happily out of the classroom and down the corridor.

What had just happened? I was forgiven by an eight-year-old child. And I felt forgiven – as though the weight of the wet and rainy day had been lifted from my shoulders. But I left school that day thinking little more about this encounter … and now some 30 years later, I cannot help recollecting this event, and the significance that it may have held for me.

Below, I engage in a phenomenological reflection on this text guided by Romano’s notion of the advenant, the evential. I draw on two ‘insight cultivators’ – sources gleaned from philosophic phenomenological that help to stimulate creative insights and understanding (van Manen 2014). These are an ‘essential a posteriori’ – the ‘too late’ (Claude Romano), and responsive contact (Max van Manen).

An ‘essential a posteriori’ – the ‘too late’

A key understanding in Romano’s (2015) work is the notion of the a posteriori – the belief that an idea does not exist in one’s mind prior to experience. For Romano, an event can only be experienced ‘after the fact’ (62) because in an event, from a phenomenological point of view, there is a fundamental tension between the present of its emergence, and the delay with which the event declares itself. Therefore, ‘we cannot experience it [the event] as such until it has already taken place’ (63).

As a pedagogical encounter, forgiveness was not something that I had ever previously contemplated, at least, not with me as the one admitting fault. I can recall countless occasions on which I may have been owed an apology, or on which I might have ‘dispensed’ forgiveness to students when they said they were sorry for acting in particular ways. But this encounter was different. I was the one admitting fault to a student, saying that I was sorry. In other words, I could experience forgiveness from a student – from the other. This was an idea that was foreign to me. It really didn’t exist in my mind prior to this particular experience. And it was only upon reflection on this event, after-the-fact, that through retrospection, the significance began to dawn on me – slowly and imperceptibly at first. I came to understand that I didn’t realize its significance until later, ‘too late’, when this event had already happened. The meaning of this event gave itself as an a posteriori.

The realization of this pedagogical encounter, as an event, did leave me profoundly moved, and it did serve to reconfigure my possibilities and worlds (Romano 2009). Effectively, it radically altered the way that I interact pedagogically with my students in my practice. From that moment I began to exercise a particular type of pedagogical love, or care, for my students in my professional judgement, and I was able to name this unrecognized value – pedagogical care – as one that has informed (and continues to inform) my current practice. The Dutch and German language equivalents for the term ‘care’ are zorgen and sorge respectively, both of which have a very different felt understanding to the English term ‘care’ (van Manen 2015). These terms connote worry or being burdened by worry. Zorgen means to care for another ‘in a worrying kind of manner that is not carefree’ (221). But in this sense, worrying is a positive sensibility. For a person to have zorgen for another means that they will act in the best interests of the other. In other words, the deeper human meaning of caring connotes and ethical demand – a caring responsibility on the part of the one doing the caring. This type of pedagogical care formed my caring responsibility as a teacher, and found its expression in the environment, or atmosphere of the classroom space that I was challenged to create. A posteriori, I now see that naming this value informed my professional judgement. In my practice I now seek to establish a pedagogical atmosphere of comfort and care in which students feel ‘at home’ and in which each might come to experience her or his own uniqueness as a ‘who’, rather than a ‘what’. In my practice I attempt to create an atmosphere such that I as a teacher would see and recognize my students, who in turn, would see and recognize me. I would recognize in my students, the otherness of the other.

Responsive contact

Responsive contact occurs when, as educators, we experience our own uniqueness and singularity in our encounter with another (van Manen 2015). For a teacher, this might be the moment when she or he experiences the child’s otherness, the child’s mystery, and face. A moment of responsive contact might be experienced when, for instance, a teacher sees and is moved by the depth, by the mystery, or vulnerability of the child. Importantly, responsive contact ignites a feeling of responsiveness and responsibility on the part of the teacher, such that the teacher is compelled to act in some way for the good of the child.

Such responsive contact occurred in my encounter with Loretta. I was moved by Loretta’s straightforward and simple statement, ‘That is perfectly alright’, in response to my acknowledgement of fault. In that moment, through those few simple words, there was a sense in which I made contact with Loretta, (or perhaps it was she who made contact with me) and we experienced ‘in-touchness’ (van Manen 2015). I felt as though I had really ‘seen’ Loretta. This was the type of pedagogical contact in which I as the teacher was ‘in touch’ with Loretta, and we both experienced a mutual touch that was encouraging and respectful. I remember that, following this event, there were times (many in fact!) when Loretta would become very talkative when it was inappropriate, and I would turn to her and say, ‘Loretta, you really are a chatterbox, aren’t you!’ and offer a smile and perhaps a wink. She would smile back. She got it! We both understood. In reflection, I was weaving a moment of in-touchness into the pedagogical relation I had with her. Such moments had special significance for both of us over the weeks and months that followed. They represent the relational responsivity of the pedagogic encounter. Not only did Loretta feel seen and acknowledged, but I as her teacher also apperceived a unique and complex experience of contact and recognition. I experienced my own uniqueness and singularity – I was a teacher who could not only forgive students, but I could be forgiven by children. Of course, other teachers may have already come to this realization, but for me this was the event that brought home to me this salient (and gradual) realization. This happened to me. I was the one who experience the upheaval, and who was overwhelmed by this event, such that I was transformed by it, and begun to understand myself in a new way as one who could be forgiven, as well as one who forgives.

In this form of contact, I experienced simultaneously a touching of the other and the untouchability of the other. Other is what always eludes me, remaining ungraspable. Other makes connection close and yet, at the same time, quite separate. I met this child, Loretta, in all her otherness, her alterity, in all her willingness to forgive – unconditionally. The pedagogical encounter of other had touched me deeply. It was, to use Romano’s (2015) phrase, the upheaval of my very world. It was full of possibilization and overwhelmed me for a time. But while I felt a certain closeness with this child, I also felt a certain separateness, an untouchability, making Loretta something of an enigma. Yet it was both this sense of separateness (of untouchability) and connection that compelled me to act with pedagogical care. This was my relational responsivity to this pedagogical encounter. My acting with pedagogical care, with zorgen, was ‘oriented to that which is in the best interests or “good” of this child’ (van Manen 2015, 38).

As a result of such responsive contact, my practice has changed. I have learnt not to be ‘too hard on myself’. I have learnt to forgive myself my for my own shortcomings and misconceptions in the same way that Lorreta had forgiven me. In other words, because I had experienced genuine and unconditional forgiveness, I am now able to draw on this in my own practice and forgive myself for moments of unwarranted harshness towards students, and occurrences of irritability. And I was able to learn from these, trying to ensure that I avoid, where possible, those instances in my classroom practice.

Discussion

The impact of phenomenological reflection through autoethnographic writing on recalled events – and specifically recalled critical incidents (Tripp 2011) – has had a positive effect on my own development and sense of self-efficacy (Cole et al. 2022). It has assisted me to introspectively question the meaning of particular events that I deemed to be significant (such as the one outlined above), to reflect on what I had learned as the result of those events, and to implement changes into my practice, in this particular case, the intentional inclusion of pedagogical love, and permission to forgive myself as I had been forgiven by a student. Further, the engagement in reflective practices has contributed to me being a life-long learner, particularly in relation to the importance and necessity of accepting forgiveness from others, including my own students, and may have also enabled me to become a more capable problem solver (Impedovo and Malik 2016, Butville et al. 2021).

Given the significant role that social collaboration plays in teacher reflection (Benade 2015, Philip-Clark and Grieshaber 2024) it would have been valuable for me to have been a part of a collaborative team to support and challenge my reflection. In the mid-80s when I began my teaching career, such forms of collaboration were, in my experience, rare despite some growing rhetoric advocating the importance of teachers reflecting together on their practice. Teachers need to be supported, respected, and afforded a voice in the collaborative team if teacher reflection is to be effective. While I was fortunate in being able to find my own voice and sense of self-efficacy through the use of phenomenological reflection, many teachers – especially those who are new to, or just entering the profession – require the supportive structures that are afforded by teacher collaboration. These structures may more effectively scaffold the necessary arrangements that are conducive to authentic teacher reflection, enabling them to identity critical incidences that have occurred in their practice, and to use these as departure points for reflection and understanding (Tripp 2011).

Conclusion

Romano’s notion of evential phenomenology does provide a useful and innovative lens through which pedagogical encounters in classrooms can be appropriately reflected on and studied by teachers as events, the significance of which may remain latent for a time. The reflections on my pedagogical encounter above, modest as they are, make a contribution to the method of teacher reflection, showing how phenomenological reflection may be usefully employed by teachers to ascertain the significance of their own pedagogical encounters.

In recalling such an event, I do need to be mindful that my memory of it consists of ‘mere fragments, minute samples of the complex plethora of everything that actually occurred’ (Tripp 2011, 98). Nonetheless, and as Brown and Reavey (2014) maintain, it is the relationship between the content and contexts of memories that renders them as significant, and that while certain memories frame particular experiences, they remain essential for those who express them. This memory thus remains significant and essential for me as a teacher.

The type of event, reflected upon by me is not unique. These types of events are abundant in the daily activities of classroom teachers, meaning that the advenant is potentially ever-present and always giving itself to practitioners in their lived experience. However, the key to recognizing the significance of such possibilizing events – albeit in their latency – is the skill of reflection. I say ‘skill’ because the neoliberal education agenda and the demands it places upon teachers has for quite some time now constrained reflective practice (Sulzer and Dunn 2019). What often passes as ‘reflection’ in the current educational climate has often been reduced to the technical act of gauging teacher effectiveness as opposed to the rich and potentially meaning-giving contemplations about learners and learning in which our sometimes taken-for-granted assumptions are exposed and challenged.

The significance of the event I have presented above was revealed to me only in its latency – after-the-fact. To study an event in its latency – and this is the important point for classroom teachers – does not mean that one necessarily needs to draw on philosophical phenomenology in order to do so. While it is true that I have engaged with some key phenomenological thinkers, one does not need to be a professional philosopher to possess the tactful ability to reflect on pedagogical encounters, and to perhaps writes accounts of these. There are only three essential questions that need to be asked to guide such reflection (and indeed these are the ones that I have effectively drawn on above):

• What happened (the event)?

• What was made possible in this event? and

• How has this event subsequently affected my pedagogical practice and how has it changed me as a teacher?

These questions provoke reflection on pedagogical encounters that may have taken place. In probing for the way in which the event may have presented new possibilities for practice, these questions also reflect the something of the essence of Romano’s notion of evential phenomenology.

Importantly too, the reflection undertaken by me above is provisional. As Tripp (2011) maintains, the recall of such autobiographical incidences should constitute a departure point for reflection and understanding. They should not be considered as endpoints. My analysis and refection should, then, be provisional, ever emergent, ‘revisable and open to transformation’ (111). In this way, I can facilitate a process to arrive at my professional judgement and name unrecognized values that inform my current practice.

To recognize and reflect on an event, and to realize the potential it has to transform and reconfigure new possibilities (cf. Romano 2015) requires skill, tact, sensibility and sensitivity. Hence, the ‘skill’ of teacher reflection is one that needs to be recovered, ‘taught’ and practiced because that which is remembered, albeit often present in the form of fragmentary and unconnected scenes, informs the educator in terms of who they are now, that is, who they have become.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).