Capturing the Nuance: There Is More to What Happened

Capturing the Nuance: There Is More to What Happened 

For the last one decade, I have been writing on reflectivediary.com. What began perhaps as an attempt to make sense of my own experiences has slowly become an integral part of how I understand life. Interestingly, my PhD too was rooted in children’s reflections on their lived realities and how these reflections could be brought into the teaching and learning of social science. In my everyday life, reflection through daily journaling has become an almost essential ritual. I write not merely to remember what happened, but to understand what happened. There is a difference.

Now, as a teacher educator, much of my research revolves around another form of reflection—the reflective journals of student teachers. I often read their journal entries and discuss them with them. These journals tell us much more than whether a student teacher enjoyed a particular class or found a lesson difficult. If read carefully, they offer a window into the lived reality of teaching-learning in a school, and, more importantly, into the gradual making of a teacher. One of the many aspects of reflection that I often discuss with my student teachers is the ability to capture the nuance. It is perhaps one of the most difficult things to learn. We often write what happened, but rarely pause to notice what was happening underneath it.

A student teacher may write, “I woke up in the morning, got ready and reached school on time.” There is nothing factually wrong with this sentence. But it tells us very little. It records an event without allowing us to enter the experience.

Now imagine the same morning being written differently. 

“I woke up this morning to the sound of my alarm, already tired because I had been working on my lesson plan till late last night. The fear of being scolded by the principal was somewhere at the back of my mind, so I hurried through getting ready. When I went to comb my hair, I realised that the comb was not there. I share it with my siblings, and finding it would have taken time, so I left home without combing my hair. At the bus stand, I noticed there were unusually many people waiting. It was only then that I realised the drivers were on strike. The anxiety of reaching school late began to grow. I called a friend who usually rides to school on his scooty, hoping I could go with him, but he had already left. I felt helpless. I could already imagine the words I would hear for being late. Finally, an overcrowded bus arrived. I somehow managed to get in. Many elderly and physically weaker people could not. I reached school forty-five minutes late.”

This is still a description. But it is a description that has begun to notice. Reflection begins when we ask: Why did I experience the morning in this way? What was I afraid of? Why did the fear of the principal occupy so much space in my mind? Why did I consider my lateness a personal failure when the delay was also shaped by a public transport strike? Why did I notice that many people could not board the bus? What does my experience tell me about the everyday vulnerabilities of people who depend on public transport? And perhaps, most importantly, what did I learn about myself that morning?

This is where I believe reflective writing becomes powerful. It is not simply about writing more. It is about seeing more. Life is full of such nuances. A classroom that appears noisy may actually be a classroom where children are excited, confused, restless or trying to be heard. A child who does not participate may not necessarily be disinterested. A teacher who appears impatient may be carrying an anxiety that is invisible to the observer. The lesson that seems to have “failed” may contain moments of learning that we did not notice. Perhaps reflection is, therefore, an exercise in slowing down. To look again at something we thought we had already seen. To move beyond the obvious and ask what lies underneath. Overexposure to a situation can sometimes make us stop noticing its details. We begin to see patterns, but lose the particularities. And perhaps that is why I continue to write. Writing helps me pause. It helps me notice. It helps me capture the nuance. And sometimes, in capturing the nuance of an ordinary day, we discover that there was nothing ordinary about it after all.