How can a mirror be a metaphor for a learning community?
If you look straight into it, what do you see? You see yourself. Your only focus is the details of your face. Your self image is constructed. You will notice that the mirror also reverses your image, so your perspective of self is somewhat skewed.
Next, walk around with the mirror facing the ceiling. What do you see? Your perspective changes. How you walk around the room is determined by a new reality. Even though your image may be visible, your world has opened up. You are better informed of your space and your actions are determined by its parameters. You may discover things about your environment that are new and interesting – or challenging. Reposition yourself and use the mirror to focus on others around you. Keep your image in the mirror. See how your face becomes part of a larger focus. Now move anywhere to enlarge your picture. Try to include the entire room and its people in your view. Your own image may become a barrier to seeing the larger picture. You choose not to include it in your line of vision. Its all about the big picture. Finally, combine your mirror with someone else. How does the image change? Does your view become infinite?
The mirror metaphor provides us with an understanding that learning communities are complex. A wonderful binary opposition of self/other presents itself (the individual member/community as a whole). We see a struggle between the contribution of self and the loss of it within the context of a community. Along the continuum there are many offerings of understanding that depend on how the self or the other is perceived, accepted or even forgotten. Is there a place somewhere in between where both the self and the other work together to create equity and wholeness for both? Laura Servage concludes her article “Making Space for Critical Reflection in Professional Learning Communities” with a statement that highlights both the importance of individual reflection and corporate validation in the context of community. We need to make space somewhere along the mirror continuum for both:
“In our present era of accountability, there is a real and justifiable temptation to use collaboration to focus strictly upon instrumental goals that have an immediate impact on classroom practices. However, without some time and reflection devoted to why we do what we do, a sustainable culture of collaboration is unlikely to emerge. In our experiences with our students, it was dialogue about the tough questions – the perennial problems of education – that sent so many of our own students roaring back into their schools, imagining the possible, and ready to innovate with their students and colleagues. Sustaining change momentum, it seems, has much to do with keeping both hope and urgency alive in our work. To do so may require only the simple opportunity to connect, through open-ended reflective dialogue, with our own diverse but generally well-intentioned beliefs and understandings about what it means to educate students.”