P.S. or post script is something that you put at the end of something, not the start. It is an after thought. It is something that wasn’t important enough to be included in the main body of what you are writing, but you think at the end that you still ought to mention it, just in case. It is even relegated to a place beyond your signature; as if you are unsure about even putting your name to it.
This is how I start this blog, by considering it as a post script. I have often written my views about ‘things’ on facebook that are perhaps too long for social media and friends have said to me ‘set up a blog’ instead. I feel for them. I think they probably read what I say out of loyalty rather than interest, but some of these postings have also developed into interesting interactions which I have found useful and stimulating.
Social Media likes to be ‘of the now’; to be the script and not the post-script. It encourages me to map ‘where I am now’, both geographically or in terms of mood. However, I tend to be more reflective and write about yesterday or ‘earlier’ and I’m not sure that’s the way to use it. You see, I am a bit of a ponderer. I like to ruminate, cogitate, and contemplate. Things don’t necessarily make sense to me immediately, but, after a bit of thinking about it, they do. Or, at least, they do ‘a bit more’. I want to record something after it has happened rather than when I’m there.
A couple of years ago I did a teaching course (the HE version of a PG teaching qualification) and I was introduced to the Kolb learning cycle. Kolb suggests that knowledge is created through “the transformation of experience”. His learning cycle suggests that people have an experience, reflect on it, come up with new thoughts or ideas, which they then try out. The trying out of a new idea is in itself a new experience and so the cycle starts again. This made sense to me, as did his thoughts about learning styles. Although I feel that people can exhibit a range of learning styles, rather than being defined by one, I was interested to assess myself as an observer (/ feeler). I think I am.
Therefore, I find myself watching things, thinking about them and trying to make sense of them. A blog is a way of putting a voice to all this… a way of shaping and testing my musings and a way of seeing if anyone thinks the same way.
Therefore this blog will be my musings on things I have experienced or perhaps observed, but I should also confess to the nature of the lens through which I view the world. I see the world through my eyes, of course, and make sense of them inside my head and I am different from anyone else. We all are! However I am happy for people to understand something of where my world view has come from, so they can forgive for what they might perceive of as ignorance.
Therefore, I openly acknowledge that I am a white male, born in the late 1960s to parents who both went on to study for Psychology degrees at the Open University. My family are liberally-minded and spent many years supporting people they considered as “less fortunate” than themselves. I also went on to study Theatre at University, ran a theatre company for almost twenty years and became an academic teaching and researching in the fields of Applied Theatre and Performance. I was also brought up in Essex and spent countless hours and far too much money following West Ham United. I am interested in many things, but in particular the arts, politics, sport and especially football, but if I write about any of these things I will do so as a Performance academic. I see ‘performance’ all around us. It is how I see the world.
Finally, my hopes… I hope I feel the muse (at least once a month), I hope I make some sense and I hope you enjoy reading it.
Ashley (Sheffield, feeling apprehensive)
P.S. there’s some stuff I have written in the past, which I am going to post on here too.
P.P.S. I’ve also written quite a few ‘scripts’ and so can think of the period post-script to be the time just before the production. It’s the moment before the next of Kolb’s “concrete experiences”
P.S. 