This reading is a small extract from John Mason’s Researching Your Own Practice: The Discipline of Noticing (2002), and it was basically about, you guessed it, noticing. There were a few ‘try these soon’s littered throughout the text, some of which I thought would actually be fun to do. So I tried one.

On page 32, it says to “write down a short statement of something that you believe passionately. Now adopt a declaiming stance, and assert your statement out loud” (John Mason, 2002, Researching your own practice: The discipline of noticing). So I went to my brother’s room, where he was in deep focus on whatever he was working on, grabbed a chair, and sat down with my elbows resting on my knees. As he stared at me with mild confusion, I assertively announced “in my opinion, ducks should have the same basic voting rights as humans”. I NOTICED his slightly annoyed expression.

Now, the next part says to “adopt a defensive or apologetic stance, and make the same assertion” (John Mason, 2002, Researching your own practice: The discipline of noticing). So I did in response to his annoyance, and I repeated, “in my opinion, ducks should have the same basic voting rights as humans”. In this case, I NOTICED that he just completely gave up with me, and continued with his work.

So, if there is one thing to take from all this, it’s that different tones or stances can drastically change the likelihood of you getting beaten up. And I learned this from noticing.