This field study report recounts an action research project undertaken by an elementary school teacher to reflect on her practice as a teacher. After a review of the literature on using reflection for personal and professional growth, the ethnographic methodology employed in the study is discussed. The teacher action-researcher took 117 pages of field notes between September and December 1992 while teaching a class of 31 third- and fourth-graders. Twenty specific field journal entries are reproduced and discussed. The study helped the teacher to develop (1) a personal philosophy, (2) knowledge of the relationship between her personal philosophy and educational philosophy, (3) an understanding of the emergence of a teaching metaphor, and (4) a change in classroom action toward more student-centered activities. (Contains 20 references.) (MDM)