Personal lives and professional practice: working with memoir to facilitate rationality and justice in our work

My inspiration for this paper arose at the third Carfax international conference, Reflection as a catalyst for change, through two different papers presented to the conference: Margaret Ledwith's paper that told her mother's life story, and Robert Grossman's paper on Perry's stages of intellectual and ethical development. For me, the connection between these papers lay in their resonance with my approach to reflection and practice in professional development and learning. In this article, I address working with memoir to identify how this process awakens our sensibilities, linking life story with moral development and the process of coming to know and learn. I will explain how the process of reflection was undertaken and address how this approach can facilitate the way reflection is taught and most meaningfully learned in a professional development context. I will point to the benefits this approach can facilitate, by indicating albeit briefly, the impact this approach has had on others, their work and my role as a tutor. I suggest this approach to reflection can facilitate renewed professional identities and practice improvement that is driven by a desire to bring rationality and justice to our work.