As I work to finish up my last assignments of the Spring 2022 semester, I have finally arrived at the final stop on this journey of exploration that I’ve taken with this eighth entry.
For several of the explorations I’ve done on this journey, I’ve tried to purposefully push myself outside of my comfort zone by exploring areas that I don’t know very well. This final week, I want to push myself outside of my comfort zone by doing something that is actually well within my comfort zone but that I don’t frequently share publicly: creative writing.
Lesson #1: Even that which is comfortable can help break your own barriers.
No, really, take a moment right now, before you continue on with reading this post, to think about this question. Who are you?
I think about this question a lot. I’ve reflected on my multiple and ever-changing roles on this blog before (here, here, and here recently).
I’ve been thinking a lot about autoethnography, which feels like a logical progression of my identity as a researcher. I’ve always been reflective, and the main theme of this blog has been reflecting and learning from my own experiences. My goal in these posts has always been equal parts learning for myself and sharing what I’ve experienced so that anyone who happens to read this blog might learn from my experiences too. Marshall et al. (2022) define autoethnography as “a reflexive approach to understanding the human condition through critical and engaged analysis of one’s own experiences” (p. 30). I believe that, in an informal way, this is what I’m trying to do with this blog.
In a recent discussion board in my qualitative inquiry class, the idea of autoethnography being vain or self-indulgent was raised. Perhaps it is self-indulgent to study oneself, but if we don’t, who will? I’ve learned so many lessons through studying myself in the writing of each post on this website. The best example to come to mind was in my recent post about having COVID over Christmas. In that post, I wrote:
Wow. I won’t lie, I started this with the intention of pointing out how unproductive I was over break, and how coming down with COVID derailed my whole two weeks of getting ahead, but honestly… seeing it written out like that, maybe it was good that my plans got derailed.
Through the action of self-reflection and of writing about myself, I learned a lesson that I needed in that moment. Maybe it’s vain of me to think that my experiences or my blog can impact others, but I hope that maybe someone else who read that post was able to also learn something about themselves and about the benefits of taking breaks, whether they’re planned or unexpected.
Mrs. Hebert's Classroom 