1.
The Self: Why We Need
To Include Inquiry into
Self in Professional
Development
Seminar 18/10/18

2.
The Self in the
Professional
Development
Framework
Domain 1: Personal Development: The
self in Teaching & Learning
This involves looking at our:
Values, Emotions, Perspectives,
Approaches to Learning
Journey/Autobiography

3.
Does the self matter?
The self impacts on all the
complexity in our thought, action,
emotion, beliefs
Notion that Self Matters
Notion that Self Impacts
The self matters in our work as
Library Staff who teach

4.
Reflection on our humanity
That we are HUMAN
That being Human
MATTERS
That being “Human”
needs to include
light/shadow
Every bit of Self
involved in and in
service to Work
Control over
our humanity

5.
Denial of humanity in our
work
Machine Model of Being
Brought about by HEI adopting new public
management principles
A denial of humanity
What it means to be
‘at work’

6.
New Public Management
(NPM)
Hood associates a number of
doctrines with NPM. These include
a focus on the measurement of
performance, a search for
efficiency and effectiveness, shift
to competition, cost cutting and
greater discipline in expenditure.
(Hood, 1991, 4-5)

7.
What has NPM done to
our work?“The value of what is produced per hour
worked, is slowing across the rich world
– despite the constant measurement of
employee performance and
intensification of work routines that
makes more and more jobs barely
tolerable.”(Beckett, 2018, np)
“Stress … an overwhelming ‘to-do’ list …
[and] long hours sitting at a desk are
beginning to be seen by medical
authorities as akin to smoking.” (Beckett,
2018, np)
Can Work be ‘Fun’ and ‘Of Service’?

8.
Even in HEIs &
Libraries“Many academics are simply unable to cope with
increased workloads and university strategies that
force them to be both dynamic teachers and
energetic researchers, but with no time to actually
do either role well.”(Christie, 2018)
“When we look at studies of academic stress, we are
struck by how many apparently diverse situations
identified as sources of stress are actually about lack
of time.”(Berg and Seebar, 2013, 2)
“Working as a librarian has been traditionally
considered a non-stressful profession; however, the
role of librarians has changed and expanded, as they
are no longer viewed only as keepers of library
collections.” (Petek, 2017, 128)

9.
What’s the Cost?
“He probably just doesn’t have enough
time.... He’s probably too busy attending
meetings, and preparing budgets, and
making staff assessments, and doing all the
other things that professors have to do
nowadays instead of thinking”
(Berg and Seebar, 2013, 2)
When we are so busy what are we missing?

10.
Why Do We Need to Include
the Self ?
“The administrative university is concerned
above-all with efficiency, a corporate value
which results in a time crunch, making
those of us subjected to it feel powerless.
So, talking about professors’ stress is
not self-indulgent; not talking about individual
professors plays into the corporate model.”
(Berg and Seebar, 2013, 4)

11.
Why Do We Need to Include
the Self ?
Because we have to be more than just ‘busy’
and more than just ‘compliant’
We need tools, approaches and prompts to
allow us to return to what actually matters.

12.
When Are We Asked About
Self?
Job Descriptions/Recruitment/On-going
Development
– We rarely mention personal qualities
– We rarely address values, feelings, thinking
It is not necessarily included in professional
Development.

13.
What’s the Cost?
We have no reason to
act in a values based/connected/whole
human way
Not allowed to be ‘human’ – Wrong/Right,
Know everything/Learning, Machine/Human,
Unit/Whole
Identity – Who I am? Who am I serving? What Do I
really care about?
Not having “ground” in our work.

14.
How Can We Include the
Self?
• Values Inquiry
• Why did we become Library Staff?-Biography and
library philosophy statements
• Capturing the experience through Reflection
• Accepting the Choices we have made
• Taking responsibility for our own sense of self.

15.
Approaches to
Including the Self
Action Research
– I am a researcher
– What I do is worthy of inquiry
– I can Inquire into my practice
Mc Niff states “ Action research is a term which refers to a practical
way of looking at your own work to check that it is as you would
like it to be. Because action research is done by you, the
practitioner, it is often referred to as practitioner based research;
and because it involves you thinking about and reflecting on your
work, it can also be called a form of self-reflective practice.”
(Mc Niff, 1997, 6)
Reflection: revisiting our experience, actively inquiring,
persistent exploration and wondering about our work

16.
L Emerging tools to think
of self
• Values Inquiry
• Journey & Self Audit
• Reflection & Diary
• Library Philosophy statements.

17.
Challenges of Including the
Self
Discomfort with our identity
Discombobulation
Courage needed to truly look at self
Now what?

18.
Benefits of Including the
Self
Promoting Leadership
Values Based Action
Self Efficacy

19.
Leadership
“People call for leadership because they feel unable to
do the difficult and challenging work of thinking about
how to move forward together” – (Sinclair, 2007, xii)
It helps us find our role in our service of what we value and want to
dedicate our time to
To take our place as teachers and educators
To address inequalities
To be ethical
To care for scholarship, scholarly record
To be critical
To place the human at the center

20.
Self Efficacy
An empowered state of action and
being. Its presence and its
strength relates to personal
practices of learning, affirmation
or not, and our sense of how we
and our practice is valued.

21.
What is my professional
identity?
“Craftsmanship names an
enduring, basic human impulse,
the desire to do a job well for its
own sake.”
Richard Sennett

22.
Conclusion
There is a need to to include the study of self in the PDF.
Due to NPM in universities a machine model of being has come
into being due to focus on results that leads to a lack of time to
focus on what matters how
We can deal with the self through action research and tools
created by the PDF.
Doing this can lead to us gaining benefits in leadership and self-
efficacy

23.
Bibliography
Berg, M. and Seebar, B. K. (2013). The slow professor: Challenging the culture of speed in the
academy. Transformative Dialogues: Teaching and Learning Journal, 6(3), 1-7.
Beckett, A. ( 2018). Post-work: the radical idea of a world without jobs. The Guardian
[online], Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jan/19/post-work-the-
radical-idea-of-a-world-without-jobs.
Birch. T. (2015). A model for reflective practice in libraries . [PowerPoint] Available from:
http://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/librarian_pubs/25 [Accessed 17 August 2018].
Christie, S. (2018). Don’t pity stressed students too much –
academics have it worse. Times Higher Education [online], Available
from: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/dont-pity-stressed-students-too-much-
academics-have-it-worse#survey-answer. [accessed 13 August 2018]
Fleming, P. (2017). The death of homo economicus: Work, debt and the myth of endless
accumulation. London: Pluto Press.
Hood, C. (1991). A public management for all seasons? Public Administration, 69(1), 3-19.
McNiff, J. (2002). Action research for professional development: Concise advice for new
action researchers. Dorset: September Books.
Petek, M. (2018). Stress among reference library staff in academic and public libraries.
Reference Services Review, 46(1), 128-145.
Sinclair A. (2007). Leadership for the disillusioned: Moving beyond myths and heroes to
leading that liberates. Crows Nest: Allen and Urwin.
Beckett, A. ( 2018). Post-work: the radical idea of a world without jobs. The Guardian
[online], Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jan/19/post-work-the-
radical-idea-of-a-world-without-jobs. [Accessed 17 August 2018]

24.
Thank You