Notes on: Hill, C. (2017) More-than-reflective-practice: Becoming a diffractive practitioner. Teacher Learning and Professional Development 2 (1) pp 1--17 Dave Harris Teacher education has been dominated by a notion of reflective practice in Schön, Brookfield or Mezirow. They have encouraged 'intentionality, criticality and innovation' and have seen teachers as change agents (1). However, it is predominantly cognitive, located in the mind of the practitioner and her experience. There are differences between critical and uncritical forms, though. There is a link with Dewey on experiential learning. This also assumes pre-existing and independent subjects and objects, and requires logical analysis of cause and effect — this is what learning from experience means. There is a similarity to scientific experiment [although 'with the intentional goal of transforming the situation']. In reflection–in–action, thinking and acting are collapsed together, while reflection–on–action provides an extended opportunity for reflection, producing 'an ongoing and cyclical process'. No one has ever suggested that teachers should be unreflective. However, there might be 'other metaphors' as in Barad, where reflection is a mirroring of reality, while diffraction 'as a metaphor for inquiry involves attending to difference'. Something 'ontologically new' is created, unlike the inductive circles of reflection. [Then the origin of diffraction and examples of it are explored, including Haraway] Agential realist ontology offers 'a reality that is continuously re-/constituted through material entanglements' (2), and forms of knowledge are also forms of reality, as in particle-wave duality. Entanglements lead to intra-action, as a matter of '"mutual constitution of entangled agencies"' (quoting Barad, Hill page 3). Instead of static representations of a pre-existing reality, we now focus on the  'fluid and ever evolving process of world making', not uncovering pre-existing facts, but looking at interferences and differences that are enacted. The two methods should not be seen 'as binary opposites', however, and apparently Barad 2014 acknowledges that. Bozalek and Zembylas also referred to both continuities and breaks. This is an attempt to apply diffraction to her practice as an educator, to 'embody becoming–diffractive'. We can see how this has been done in other studies, hence her literature review, but 'viewed as a diffractive apparatus… Establishing, collapsing and interfering with boundaries'. So far, diffraction has followed the conventional division and appeared as research rather than practice [including Taguchi and Mazzei]. Educational practitioners have been relatively neglected, although there are a few publications on both [listed page 3]. The most common form involves reading insights through one another to illuminate differences, not interpretation, not asking what things mean, but rather how they work. Some diffractive analyses employ different theoretical lenses, some involve reading data. Both attempt to open up analysis and challenge the usual 'objective reflections'of classic research [classics mentioned including Lenz Taguchi on Eric — Hill says that her diffractive reading 'produce defects that exceeded the data' {I'll say} and also extended and transformed her understanding of power relations]. Some writers have explored diffraction from the perspective of the practitioner [useful list on 4] and again this helps to 'reconfigure boundaries between theory and practice, interfere with unjust practices, and establish new ways of thinking' [ Spector is specifically cited here  -- 2015 Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy  58(6) 447--50 — apparently she established a pedagogy to encourage student teachers to do diffractive reading and diffractive composing. Spector says she is interested in '"pedagogies that materialise moment to moment"' and she wants students to materialise responsibility]. Other configurations are possible, for example where 'both researchers and practitioners participate in knowledge making practices', (5) as Brookfield says. Different forms of diffractive analysis might be identified — reading or experimentation with the diffractive apparatus — 'any material arrangement designed investigate [sic] the relationship between matter and meaning', One experiment used particular iPad apps which allow kids to count, add and subtract, through gesture and touch [well -- switching the machine]  — apparently, this illustrated '"nonhuman power and performativity"', and non-/human entanglements — 'number materialised in the indeterminate and emergent ways, entangled in a process of becoming that involved human and nonhuman entities'. Another experiment used diffractive methods in an exercise to ask students to engage in theoretical reflection. Here, what 'would have previously been interpreted as student deficiencies' was addressed as 'challenges, frustration, and silences'. The experimenters constantly asked themselves what responses meant and what else might be taking place, other discussions students were engaged in — 'material practice' which could be 'viewed as a diffractive apparatus, which produce multiple divergent subjectivities'. Apparently, the researchers themselves 'do not describe it as such'. This is 'akin (in some ways)' (6) to Schön, similar to reflection-in-action where practitioners interact with other bodies. Diffractive reading could be seen as 'similar to reflection–on-action'. However diffraction 'focuses attention on the intra-action within the assemblage' and reflection 'has already produced the agential cut' in separating out a practitioner. Because we are talking about 'material configurations of reality', however, rather than abstract theories or ideas, we are doing 'onto–epistemological material practices'. Apparently these exercises have generated insight, but the implications are not usually extended into educational practice, becoming an educator, but there are potentials for professional learning. We can think of three accounts [provided by her]of 'becoming diffractive as practitioner'. We have to stabilise them first. In 'becoming – with the world' we examine self and others in practice, with a relational focus. Usually, there is an attempt to create 'convergence between inner and outer worlds', 'a resonance between the practitioners framing of the situation and the situation itself' (7). Schön talks about different situations in practice — psychotherapy, or architecture which impose particular visions. Unexpected outcomes can force reframings in a '"co-creative dance"' [someone else] between '"mind and the given cosmos"'. Relationality is also the key to diffraction, but there are different ontological assumptions [summarised again — reflection is individualistic, discrete entities and so on rather than 'open systems with fluid boundaries', shared agency, boundary making practices as unfolding or cutting].  Phenomena and subjectivities are both formed by intra-action, and there are different implications for practitioners — they do not operate on stable structures which can be changed, but join in flows. They also look at more than human entanglements and differences, rather than cause-and-effect relationships. 'Bodymind sensibilities' are engaged as in Taguchi, and we flow 'within educative assemblages, becoming–with the world', enacting 'one of many potential realities' As an example, she encountered something unexpected when she took students to the beach 'to engage with different materials than those typically found in classrooms'.  they collected various materials to contribute to a 'beach weaving'. However they also found a wounded bird which 'held much energy' for them (8). Reflective practitioners might see this only as a distraction, but diffractive practitioners see the wounded bird entering into an assemblage, 'creating an interference pattern that reconfigures the assignment'.  [Most teachers just take advantage of surprises-- no need for Baradian baggage] The question then becomes 'who or what is becoming?' and how bodies enter assemblages. The boundaries between human and nonhuman 'are collapsed'[really — the wounded bird discussed its own treatment?] The whole intra-action 'produce[d] enacting care in the face of hopelessness' and this obviously affected the subjectivity of the teacher learners. Everyone entered 'a stance of becoming–with others' as they met pedagogical encounters halfway and disrupted the binaries of teacher and student. [Great for moralbuilding among students -- what happened to the bird I wonder]. In 'displacing and diffracting the selves who teach', conceptions of the practitioner as inside, producing teaching and learning is challenged. In the old days, educators did autobiographical enquiry to examine the influences on their work through reflection. But this puts the person of the teacher 'at the very centre of the educative endeavour' (8-9). In diffraction, the teacher is herself materially constituted through intra-action as distinctions between subjects and objects disappear. Current practice urges teachers to develop a stable self reflecting professional identity, although others have always emphasised a '"true," "authentic," "real" and "undivided" self' (9), stressing integrity, holism, and life affirmation. Hill likes autobiographical enquiry as the key to transformative pedagogy, and fears that this will not be acknowledged sufficiently in the search to abandon essentialist selves. Braidotti on nomadic subjectivity might help. 'Multiple subjectivities [can be developed] without foregoing the powerful grounding that can result from embracing specific personal/professional identities' — because nomads also need stable bases for their identity even while they do 'rhizomatic traversing across boundaries'. Occasional 'pedagogical camps' might help the practitioner cope with difference and interference. She has been disrupting her own notion of a teaching self, by using a particular approach — 'utilising the "interview to the double"'. A practitioner instructs someone else, the double, to do the practitioner's job. You imagine a typical day and typical actions to help the double pass without being detected. What results is 'a rich complex diffractive account of practice, in which attention is paid to differences and how practitioner identities are materially constituted' (10). Multiple identities are possible, but singular ones are focused in action [exactly — missed by Barad]. She's been experimenting with this method with her students and this has helped them see how professional selves are constituted and differences made possible, 'creating possibilities for diffraction and interference'. She describes this in some experimental writing, citing Richardson, on how to instruct a double on dealing with a student who has 'not met the expectations' of an assignment. [What follows is her writing it all down]:  It is important to smile and appear calm, mask disappointment and concern, sit alongside the student, listen to the student and invite their story, withhold judgement. The assessor has a responsibility to the University in the profession 'to uphold standards' however and her colleagues will be cross if failing students are allowed to proceed. The point is to try and 'catalyse change' and ask what students need to hear and what needs to be done, even though this might be difficult. This shows how identities are materially produced, including things like facial expression and bodily position, restricted emotions, the choice between appearing as professional, as a gatekeeper or as litigious [enforcing the learning contract], or an empath. This recognises inherent multiplicity within professional roles and allows the exercise of imagination for different possibilities. 'Diffracting different identities through each other' can also lead to the collapse of [apparently natural] boundaries between them and realising how these identities are generated or collapsed. Overall, the exercise can 'produce new realities and subjectivities for students and teachers' (11) [They realise it's only a game. Reminds me of the old exercise where you take new teachers and ask them to teach, and then ask why they've turned out to be such authoritarian bastards]. We see that a variety of professional selves are possible traversing the world in particular 'patterns of diffraction and entanglement' [entanglement just means an awareness of the social relations between people? Diffraction just means the old process of thinking about which of your selves is really functional or natural?] In 'embracing difference, interference, and spaces – in – between' we can focus on how theory can disrupt as well as enhance practice. She asks practitioners to choose communities of scholarship or distant friends 'that mirror their beliefs or values'. They can often try out various theories. Brookfield's reflective practice encourages this move away from habitual ways of knowing and doing, but diffractive practice 'produces new phenomena and new subjectivities' and new possibilities through 'multiplicity, difference and divergences'. Difference is seen as more affirmative, as something to do with creativity, not just the opposite to sameness. This is a 'deleuzian conception of difference' and it helps us break down binaries. In her own example, practitioners 'invite theory with distinct philosophical underpinnings into the site of practice' but to illustrate difference and produce interference. She is also a parent and finds overlap with a teaching role. Tension grew in her own family over children quarrelling which produced 'negative emotions, raised voices, and at times physical altercations and fragmented relationships'. She tried out both 'self-regulation theory and new materiality theory'. (12) The first one is used in schools to optimise mental states and develop prosocial behaviour, dealing with stress through various 'cognitive, biological and emotional systems'. This was not successful, however so she tried agential realist ontology. She first read an account of a quarrel in self-regulation theory and then through new materiality. Her own practice to remove children who instigate conflict only produced frustration and discord. Experimental writing helped — the account was described 'through the lens of each theory' and she worked on her bodymind sensibilities, attending to 'tension among events, theories, self and methods'. She then developed 'continuous iterative processes of re/reading texts through one another' and experimented diffractively with the kids to reconfigure their reality. She realised that in self-regulation theory, individuals are seen as discrete identities with particular agencies, and what we need is a technology of the self to produce self-regulation. For example in 'hyperarousal', brains become dominated by fight or flight, and individuals need to 'retain their humanity' [old reptile brain stuff?], reassert their 'rational minds'. A balance needs to be restored between 'biological, emotional, cognitive, social and prosocial domains '. Entanglement must be sorted out. In new materiality theory, agency and responsibility is distributed throughout the entanglement, and includes objects like toys and computers. Individuals are no longer absolutely responsible for nasty words or actions, although they are also more limited in their agency. Diffractive reading of the two shows how different phenomena and realities were produced, with different implications for agency and responsibility, as well as failure blame or guilt. This helped her move away from individuals toward 'attributing blame and responsibility at the site of contact' (13) — for example bowls or toys 'were interrogated, assigned blame, and asked to apologise to victims'. This diffused negative emotions and tensions. However, this was still 'not really a diffractive analysis'— difference was positive, but theories were still hierarchically ordered. She also worried that new materiality had only 'provided a different way to understand and respond to conflict… [And] that my children would not be popular with others if they blamed physical altercations solely on things'. So she really read the two theories through each other again this time looking for 'overlap and interference' not just tensions, and this produced 'something new – a phenomenon I refer to as relational regulation'. Indeterminate matter at all levels, biological, individual and macro interacts 'to produce subjectivities, phenomena, and realities'. Regulation is distributed across a relational field. Equilibria arises when 'human and nonhuman entities co-constitute in harmonious ways'. We now have relational regulation, shared among family members and also nonhuman entities. There is only a partial form of accountability that does not threaten collectivity. This produces kindness and understanding and 'more affirming identities'. We can move away from the metaphor of teachers 'as independent bricoleurs' and look instead at disrupting boundaries, creating openings and seeing how opposing paradigms interfere with one another. We need to be constantly on the move, however. Her account so far is only a resting place and she will continue to unfold and morph. She does think that diffractive methods create openings for new understandings and new ways of becoming a practitioner. They are materially constituted and come to matter themselves. They invite 'continuous (re)configuration of life in schools' instead of constantly 'reproducing "the Sacred Image of Same"' [quoting Haraway]. We can illuminate power relations in their entanglements, and we can help reconfigure the world as becoming. 'Diffraction is a method for making a difference' (14) and this article shows how to move beyond reflective practice into new territories. [Does a lot of useful work. Shifts the blame and responsibility off individual teachers or parents, and defuses tensions and hostilities in favour of kindness after understanding, and openness. Talks up progressive practice, especially pursuing learning opportunities rather than fixed assignments etc. Not hostile to theory-- but rather pragmatic about it (eg keep the autobiographical bits from reflection which you like) . Demonstrates paralogy in moving on from Schön at last] back to social theory