It's like dancing diamonds: Finding meaning in the stories we tell

We came together for 90 minutes as part of an IOL webinar to explore what our anecdotes of ‘best practice’ might reveal about our profession. We were all sorts – educators, instructors, coaches, youth workers, health workers – an interesting bunch but a challenging start from which to find consensus with so many different activities, clients, environments and purposes. Yet there it was, amongst the stories we shared with each other about ‘examples of our best practice’ appeared several common threads in most and sometimes all the stories – the importance of reflection, autonomy, awareness, nature connection, creativity and, the standout theme, adaptability. So, we got stuck in to examining what the stories could tell us. Here’s what we came up with.