[LIT] Reflection--what does it mean

[Beverly Maddox]

I saw this in today's Public Education network newsletter--it caught
my attention because, altho I use the term as freely as anyone else,
I've never been sure others (especially students) understand what I
mean.  This year I try to follow us my directions to "write a
reflection" with explanations like "Think about something you've read
or experienced and write down your thoughts".  The article made me
defensive at first.  If you have a few minutes, take a look at the
article and reflect on it....: 

EDUCATORS BEGIN REFLECTING ON THEIR REFLECTIONS "Reflection" as both
word and action may be the trendiest trend in all of education.
Education students learn how to be reflective teachers in education
school. Then, in their own classrooms, they ask their students to
write reflections on what they have read. After class, the teachers do
reflections on their own lessons. Principals, administrators, other
staff members -- all are increasingly urged or even required to engage
in reflection. And what, a lay person might well ask, does reflection
mean? A reasonable definition would be "thinking about what you're
doing," as Professor David F. Labaree, puts it with welcome and
all-too-rare clarity. It means pausing to take stock in a journal of
how you felt about the short story you just read or figuring out why
the lesson you just taught faltered halfway through. "'Reflection' is
a loosey-goosey term that sounds deep enough to be acceptable for the
image that ed schools want to convey," said Sandra Stotsky, an
education consultant. "It's a substitute for real good, useful, hard
words that used to be prevalent in talking about teacher's work --
critique, evaluation, analysis," she said. "'Evaluation' sounds like
there are actually some criteria involved. Whereas if you 'reflect,'
it sounds psychologically deep and relativistic." The more lucid
advocates of reflection make the case that it helps students face,
understand and correct flaws in their writing. In the form of journals
or notebooks, reflection also affords students the chance to respond
to works they have read and, in the process, to feel some sense of
capability as writers. The better education courses have aspiring
teachers reflect while watching videos of themselves delivering
lessons. But such concrete applications often feel lost amid the
numbing invocations of reflection, reports Samuel Freedman.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/education/30education.html