Four Critical Lenses

According to Rushton and Suter (2012), Brookfield categorised assumptions into paradigmatic, prescriptive and causal. The most difficult assumption to uncover is paradigmatic assumptions. These types of assumptions are “the structuring assumption we use to order the world into different categories” (Rushton and Suter, 2012, p.31). Usually we don't even remember them as assumptions, even after they've been indicated to us. Prescriptive assumptions are “what we think ought to happen in a given situation” (ibid., p.31). They are based on paradigmatic assumptions. Causal assumption are “the relation between cause and effect” (ibid., p.31).
In order to challenge these assumptions, Brookfield developed four critical lenses. He claims that reflection
It is based on Dewey’s reflection model and consists of two phases. The first phase is reflection-in-action in which a person, here a teacher, suddenly comes across a unique and confusing situation in his/her class. In this spot the teacher should “think on his/her feet, being spontaneous, creative and unique” (Rushton and Suter, 2012, p.27). A teacher’s previous experience, knowledge, skills and understanding (Tummons, 2007) play an important role in this phase. Hillier (2005) claims that this type of knowledge can be considered intrinsic and part of our unconscious competence. The second phase is considered as the most important and conscious part of reflection (Hillier, 2005). Reflection-on-action happens after the event. In this phase a teacher reflects on his/her experience by thinking critically about what happened and why it happened. The result of reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action is knowing-in-action that teachers use to develop ideas for further practice (Rushton and Suter, 2012; Hillier, 2005). Although Schon’s work influenced teacher education and was popular among professionals, Newman (1999 cited in Hillier, 2005, p.18) argued that “a better alternative to describe reflective practice is critical practice where practitioners can adopt the different social contexts in which they find