I dont know what to make of my last supervision meeting, a mere 90 minutes ago. Was it a good or bad experience? What does it mean when you come away thinking...oh my goodness what just happened here, shortly followed by being overcome with panic that you dont really know what you are doing! Maybe it wasnt that negative, just loads of critical, direct, challenging questions thrown at me. One realisation that surfaced was the fact that I'm probably constructing my conceptual frame in a very restrictive manner and its not helping my thinking or the articulation of my central argument. The other really glarring, but probably self-evident realisation is that I have a serious amount of work ahead of me.
Interestingly, both supervisor reassured me that I would get through the probation - that the draft I submitted and was reviewed at our meeting today would probably get me through - but that isnt really point is it? The draft in its current form isnt going to help me develop my next line of thinking as I move beyond the narrow requirements of the probation report. So it makes sense to ensure that the report fulfills more than these narrow requirements and that means I need to do the hard conceptual work required.
Before the supervision meeting I was thinking I should back-track a bit from what I said yesterday about the process being all mighty. I realise I wasnt factored into the equation - I described the process as something rather devoid of the influence of agency and I wanted to set that right. BUT my supervision today brought it all home for me again; how the process - in this instance, my supervisors asking those uncomfortable questions - was again responsible to pushing me forward, forcing me to reconsider, reformulate, restate. I guess for the process to do its work, I only need to be open to it.
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