Learning through writing. Training diaries and the development of experiential knowledge

Abstract

In this article we present the experience of counselling to students during their training (practicum) in the degrees in Social Education (Universities of Malaga and Almeria) and Early Childhood Education (University of Valencia). The meaning that we have given to and directed this counselling practice, rests in our conception of the education profession as a personal profession. This necessarily leads to the revision of the theoretical knowledge that we usually employ in initial training, tending to promote the development of experiential knowledge. In turn, this approach is supported by the need to consider education as experience, so that initial training should be able to develop in students those abilities necessary in order to think in relation to the experience, from a reflexive pedagogical approach. In the article we present the use of training diaries, focusing on the epistemological and educational possibilities of writing. We pay attention to the account of the educational experience by analyzing the intricacies of the support we have provided to the students. The article ends with a series of findings that, formulated as tensions, express the difficulties that our students face in relation to writing, which are related to questions such as: the tendency to produce flat writing (with little indepth), the difficulty of accepting the uncertainty which they face, the urgency to resolve situations, or the enormous professional problem of not knowing how to consider themselves in relation with others.