I have been looking into appreciative inquiry as a method (or should that be a methodology?) suited to my SIP. Catherine very kindly pointed toward Appreciative Inquiry at our last tutorial, suggesting that it might be of interest. It is indeed thought-provoking.
I am still reading about Appreciative Inquiry, but it already feels useful to my interests. My SIP will involve a group online discussion with my Performance Program colleagues relating to how our academic and technical teams interact in support of our students. I am interested in making this a positive interaction (of course) and am aware that there is the potential to get mired in negativity if our discussion starts to focus on what is lacking or the problems facing us. Appreciative Inquiry (AI) seeks to avoid this pitfall that is a potential in any organisational discussion by consistantly focussing on the positive in order to move forward in a positive direction.
I think that the notion of focussing on group successes and positive interaction in order to move forward toward more success seems really valid. Equally, I do find the AI critique of other change strategies including Action research as dwelling on problem solving and defecit-based thinking quite provocative. I do think most strategies have similar goals which relate to positive change. The real question is how to get to that positive change. I intuitively connect with the idea that positive interaction and positive thinking will tend more to positive change.
Propoents of AI are quite clear that if people are going to say that they are using the technique, that they should follow it completely. This involves quite a specific set of protocols. Certain interview techniques. I am more interested in the general principles of AI, so I am planning to make it clear that I am taking inspiration from the broad ideas of AI but not actually engaging in an Appreciative Inquiry study.
So, I have embarked on the odyssey that is the SIP. I must confess that I find it all overwhelming. Starting with making a choice of subject, and deciding on how focussed the inquiry should be. Next reading into methodology, the rich range of possibilities for exploring a subject. Thinking about the overall project structure. Who do I talk to? what questions to ask,? how to evaluate the results? will there be enough time for it all?
As well as wanting to address a subject which is directly part of my work at CSM I also want to explore methods which are outside of more traditional investigation techniques. Working in the Performance program, and being a creative myself, I am interested in engaging in evaluative and communicative methods which reflect our practice. These might be less literal and explanatory and more esoteric and emotive. I am interested in seeing if I can develop a meaningful dialogue with my colleagues regarding the important and practical issue of how we work together using the lingua-franca of live art rather than relying on standard intellectual discussion. Is this possible? Is it useful? Am I experienced enough to attempt it? Will I be able to evaluate this in a meaningful way? ( I’m a technician after all, shouldn’t I be attempting something more pragmatic?)
The Performance program at CSM consists of 7 courses that use a number of performance spaces and workshop facilities to make work. These courses are very much practice based and I as a technical practitioner very much work on a practical basis. As such I wanted to create an artefact and to effect change on a practical level
As an older White man, I am very much the traditional stereotype of a technician. My team at CSM in the performance Program is more widely diverse, including women, men, people with differing racial/ethnic backgrounds, nationalities and declared sexualities. This is important, as we support a group of students who are very diverse themselves. Despite this diversity, we do tend to have a quality in common in our team which presents a wall of authority. We have also, intentionally or not, managed to keep ourselves somewhat sequestered and aloof from many of the students who we are there to support. This aloofness is due to a number of different factors including our roles managing the health and safety of spaces, our sense of institutional propriety, a feeling that we have to step back as there are so many students to support. We can’t afford to get too involved with any one student or we will be “overwhelmed”.
The result of this aloofness is that we find only the most gregarious and self-confident students are coming to seek our support. This is a point where my positionality is colouring my analysis of this situation. I say “gregarious and self-confident students” but actually I think that these are the students with the most privilege. They tend overwhelmingly to be white middle-class and have an already secure knowledge of the performance methodologies that we teach. If they are international students they tend to be educated in the Western-European tradition and speak fluent English. What are the barriers which keep some students from accessing our support? Why are some students comfortable with coming into our technical space to talk with us and ask for advice and guidance? Is this purely about communication of information, about certain students being more interested in Theatre, or is there something else at work? The fact that students seem to need to be white, upper-middle class, familiar with Western Performance tradition and fluent in English in order to approach us for support should be setting off alarm bells. I am concerned that our technical provision is mired in an “institutional Whiteliness” (Tate and Page 2018) That is alienating many students, in particular students of colour.
The entrance to the “backstage” areas for the performance program are our “dominion” we have our offices there. It is also where we keep much of our equipment and tools as well as having a workshop space. If students wish to see us in person then they either have to contact us via email or they have to enter “our world”. First of all it is a bit of a challenge to find “our world”. It is at the far end of the building, down a turning corridor. Our main door has a sign on it which starts with the words “Students Stop” This was put up to clarify to students that this is not the correct door to get in to the theatre during the pandemic , but I suspect it has another effect. To discourage students from coming in at all. Other signs and stickers on the doors and walls contain stern warnings and strict instructions in the name of health and safety.
“Diversity… is like having a big welcome sign in neon saying everybody welcome”. Melodie Holliday- LCC Foundation Course Design Tutor
(Lutterod, 2016)
I propose an artefact for my technical area which would evaluate and re-imagine the signage and immediate atmosphere which ushers students into our backstage area. This artefact will not only provide some clarity regarding our location and the fact that we are available for support, but it will also present our team as an open, diverse accessible group and our spaces as “Safe spaces” for all of our students. Upon developing this idea and these concerns I chose to consult my technical team. The team has been broadly supportive of this idea and do (to a certain extent) recognise that we present a formidable presence when looked upon by students. There is a little bit of defensiveness when it is suggested that we might not be as available to all students equally. I think that it is difficult to recognise that I (we) might be part of an atmosphere of subtle institutional bias/racism even if we as individuals work hard to be far from that. One colleague was able to poll a few students and came back with the concerning news that there was an impression that our team should not be “bothered” with student queries unless we were specifically working with them as part of a defined project. This kind of misinformation is exactly what I would hope to counteract by making a more explicit offer to the students.
After gathering some student opinion as well as opinions and ideas from colleagues I have begun designing a “Picture Sticker” which will go up on the wall at four strategic points in the Performance program area. This “Picture Sticker” will be an A2 sized poster featuring a range of information designed to connect our team with the students. These include: an invitation statement, positive photos of the team, personal team statements, offer texts stating how we are ready to support student work and create a safe space for all students, and finally, specific maps showing where we work.
The photos of our team are particularly important. They are an opportunity for us to present ourselves as accessible to the students. We will be smiling and relaxed. We will present ourselves visually as the diverse team that we are. It is important that students can see that we have a racial/ethnic and gender diversity within our team. It is also important that students can see that our technical co-ordinator and leader of our team is black and of Caribbean descent. It is valuable that students have a range of people with whom they can identify. I also hope to include photos of the many freelance technicians who work with us, and the students, on a regular basis.
Each of our team will be invited to write a short personal statement saying who they are what they do and what is important to them. This will be an opportunity for students to gain a small insight into the individual skills and personalities of our team. It is my hope that these statements will be a bit quirky and light-hearted. Perhaps we will each offer our favourite artist or film. The goal of this is to humanize our team.
A larger text on the poster will be an open invitation to connect with us, an explanation of our role in the performance program and the importance of our support work with students. There will be a clarification of the ways in which students can access our support as it is clear that different students favour different means of accessing support.
The maps at the bottom of the poster are important as they specifically provide an invitation into our working spaces (which are the students working spaces too). This explicit presentation of the location of these spaces will hopefully add a sense of entitlement for all students to enter these spaces.
In the process of considering and developing this artefact I have had the opportunity to think about what we should aspire to regarding our technical spaces. I think that a primary goal should be to make these spaces “safe spaces”. I refer to the policy created by Shades of Noir when talking about a safe space. “…providing an inclusive and supportive space for all attendees… free from intimidation or harassment…” (SON 2017) This should be our baseline, as indeed it should be throughout the university. The fact is that we have to work at this. We have to cultivate a culture of inclusion, constantly checking ourselves and our privilege to ensure that no-one is being excluded from the “Safe Space”.
I am also specifically interested in ensuring that a more diverse group of students start to access our support as a matter of course. I suspect that my position as a white, male, heterosexual, middle-aged, European will mean that I have a difficulty recognising the best pathways for a more diverse range of students and particularly students of colour to reach our safe space. I will need to do some consulting with colleagues and students better placed to see these pathways. Nevertheless, I am convinced that I should not let my positionality paralyse me for fear of “overstepping” or doing the wrong thing. I do believe that my past experiences of being an immigrant and having struggled with being outside the mainstream society has given me some insight into what some students may be going through in their time at university. This is a time for action and I believe that I have an obligation to take action as well as to consult and make space for others to do so.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Shades of Noir Website, “WHY DOES RACE MATTER IN THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT?” DMAW16, May 9, 2016
Sherrid, E ,(2016) “The Room of Silence,” (Film) , in collaboration with co-producers Olivia Stephens, Utē Petit, and Chantal Feitosa, and the organizing efforts of the student group Black Artists and Designers.” The Room of Silence
I find the SON website particularly notable for its huge scope. There is so much! The richness of this resource changes the way that it might be used in my mind. This is a library, an alternative library, with a specific progressive remit, to present a range of new and less heard voices in a dynamic and provocative format. Rather than presenting this to students as a particular narrow resource I would rather make this a standard go-to resource for any inquiry. “I should see what’s on SON about ……..”.
I am reminded of Yinka Shonibare’s work “the British Library” installation which contains thousands of books featuring names and voices of immigrants to Britain who have shaped the cultural fabric. Among other things, this work seems to remind us that there is a whole catalogue of cultural influences that needs to be a part of the establishment as they are crucially relevant to contemporary British life. It seems that SON is doing something similar
Reading into the website I dug into the photography section. There is an interesting article entitled “the Shirley Card” by Shannyce Adamson discussing the bias built into color photography processing of different skin tones. The Shirley cards were reference photos used to achieve pleasing skin tones by adjusting equipment. White faces were used for years until relatively recently and the result is a bias toward naturalistic white skin tones in photographic and video equipment. More contemporary reference cards feature black, brown and white faces enabling and encouraging better callibration for all skin tones.
I feel that the intellectual/creative resources that we access need to have a more balanced cultural reference like the modern “Shirley Cards”. SON is playing a part in doing that.
A Pedagogy of Social Justice Education: Social Identity Theory, Intersectionality, and Empowerment
Aaron J. Hahn Tapper
This portion of a chapter mentions some of the bedrock concepts of Social justice education.
I was particularly interested in the “Contact Hypothesis” and “Social Identity Theory” as these seem to relate specifically to the development of inclusive learning environments. I thought particularly of the contact hypothesis regarding a student from this past term who seemed creatively inspired and energised but completely isolated from her peers. I had the sense that she was from a very different socioeconomic and educational background. Despite some effort on my part she seemed unwilling or uninterested in collaborating. I feel that this isolation restricted the students educational benefit as she did not have the enrichment that comes from peer learning and had to rely only on herself. I wonder if I should have done more to encourage the student to connect with peers but I felt that I would have been overstepping in my role as a technician. Also as an older white middle-class man perhaps I could not understand the stresses and anxieties that may have been keeping her working on her own.
Josephine Kwhali’s Witness Video reinforces what we have learned about critical race theory. Her evident frustration seems to be telling us that there is something more going on here than unconscious bias. She implies that this really is about wilful ignorance rather than something beyond the conscious control of people like me who have the jobs, money, power, and education.
Retention and attainment in the disciplines :Art and Design
Terry Finnegan and Aisha Richards
A revealing presentation of (somewhat dated) statistics related to retention and attainment particularly related to marginalized groups. I would be curious to know more about the effect on attainment that poverty has. Although, there is a brief mention of the attainment differencial between first quintile socioeconomic group and others but it would be interesting to have a more detailed breakdown. Also would be interesting to hear about intersectional effects of race and socioeconomic group. I can’t help but feel that UAL has a bit of a blind spot when it comes to poverty. It doesn’t seem to be very high on the agenda when speaking about inclusion.
As an older White man, I am very much the traditional stereotype of a technician. My team at CSM in the Performance Program is more widely diverse, including men, women, people with differing racial/ethnic backgrounds and declared sexualities. This is important, as we support a group of students who are very diverse themselves. Despite this diversity, we do tend to have a quality in common in our team which presents a wall of authority.
What are the barriers which keep some students from accessing our support? Why are some students comfortable with coming into our technical space to talk with us and ask for advice and guidance? Is this purely about communication of information, about certain students being more interested in Theatre, or is there something else at work? The entrance to the “backstage” areas for the performance program are our “dominion” we have our offices there. It is also where we keep much of our equipment and tools as well as having a workshop space. If students wish to see us in person then they either have to contact us via email or they have to enter “our world”. First of all it is a bit of a challenge to find “our world”. It is at the far end of the building, down a turning corridor. Our main door has a sign on it which starts with the words “Students Stop” This was put up to clarify to students that this is not the correct door to get in to the theatre during the pandemic , but I suspect it has another effect. To discourage students from coming in at all. I propose an artefact for my technical area which would evaluate and re-imagine the signage and immediate atmosphere which ushers students into our backstage area.
I believe that this artefact would be much more than a simple clarification of our location in the building. I have the impression that, despite our best attempts personally, our technical team can be intimidating to students. A big part of this is our intimidating location and the unconscious messages of authority which that location imposes. The concern is that students who are made to feel less confident, and perhaps feel less “permission” to enter and ask for support, will be discouraged from doing so. The concern is that non-white or non-British students would be particularly affected due to language/vocabulary and cultural differences connected with the traditions of performance presented by the program. Of course, it is the students who have the most questions and who are the least familiar with the workings of western/UK performance practice that are the ones who might most benefit from our support. An entrance atmosphere that encourages students might really help to break down any intimidation.
Current resources I have engaged with for this
Whiteness in Higher Education, Andre Willman,
Shades of Noir Publication. Peek a boo we see you: Whiteness. Available at
Friere, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the oppressed. London: Continuum.
Gladwell, M. (2008) Outliers:The Story of Success, New York, Little-Brown and Co.
I find that this website deals with faith in a largely academic and conceptual way. I am a technician so interact on a more practical, physical level with students and ,as such, I feel I would have a hard time integrating this material into my work with students. However, there are students who choose to create work with content related to faith and issues surrounding Faith. The website could be a useful source of information to which to refer them.
I liked the pragmatism of the “Pen Portraits” case study. Angela Drisdale Gordon’s down-to-earth and open approach to discussions of faith with her students appeals to me. I can imagine having informal discussions with students regarding faith-related content of their work. The simple acknowledgement of the content as a legitimate area for discussion with a technician would perhaps help to insure that it is taken as an acceptable topic in an art-school context and among peers.
I do feel that while the esoteric content of the website is valuable, that it would be useful to have some slightly more pragmatic content. Perhaps a section related to the challenges of combining Faith and arts education as a student. Just last week I witnessed a student who was struggling to balance his intense course commitments with his commitment to observe Ramadan. Exploration of this kind of issue would be positive for students and staff alike.
‘Religion in Britain: Challenges for Higher Education.’ – Modood and Calhoun
Interesting to learn how the relationship with faith in young people varies quite dramatically dependent on cultural background. This has real implications with how we relate to our students and the varying views of faith that they might have. Also, interested how secularism from country to country does vary, even among western European countries. For example, France has a much more stringent separation between church and state than Britain.
Both authors bring up the topic of “religious literacy”. I think that this is a valuable term for us as educators. I believe that we all need to develop a “religious literacy” in order to engage with students on topics of Faith in their work, and indeed even related to pastoral issues.
Lecture – Kwame Anthony Appiah: Mistaken Identities
I was quite intimidated by the fierce intellectualism exhibited in Kwame Anthony Appiah’s lecture, by him and also by the questioners he engaged with. Perhaps it is actually hearing someone speak this way rather than seeing it in writing, but this mode of thought and expression feels very different from my own, and from the way that I interact with my students. That aside, I found that the lecture was a compelling expression of Appiahs belief that Faith is a flexible, ever changing phenomenon. He downplays any notion of Faith being fixed and permanent. Even when discussing fundementalism he observes that fundamentalist movements appear from nowhere as new movements but paradoxically attach themselves to historical dogma. His suggestion seems to be that Faith is constantly shifting and that everything is negotiable and changeable dependant on the society of the moment. Ultimately this feels like a message of hope, that our sometimes tense negotiation with multiple faiths will somehow work out in the end.
Aalimah’s case study
One aspect of this really caught my attention. This was the fact that Aalimah’s artwork and the subsequent criticism of it had become a personal criticism of her identity. This is complex. Students often choose to use elements of their own identity as subjects of their artwork. I expect it is part of being a young artist and finding your voice. This will inevitably mean that when their work is critically evaluated, by peers and tutors, that this will very much feel like a personal critique.
How do we responsibly facilitate critique of work dealing with people’s identity?
I really liked OPTION 1 as a set of exercises to establish a positive critical framework with a class group
A really fascinating film about the work of artist Christine Sun Kim. She makes sound art and is hearing impaired. The film shows her working process creating visualised sonic environments. She explores and expresses ideas connected with sound by making the sound detectable visually or tactilely. This seems to be an essay in grasping that which might seem unreachable, making visible that which is hidden. The film also speaks of the way that artistic inquiry subverts the norm and allows us to find new ways to express notions which might seem inexpressible.
This artwork seems directly related to Christine Sun Kim’s identity. It raises a question regarding how artists who are part of a minority culture may feel implicit pressure to speak about their identity, to be its representatives. It seems that there is a danger that this is the expectation for artists who are part of minority groups. As educators I feel that we need to tread the line carefully between empowering students to discuss their identity while making sure that students don’t feel an expectation that their identity has to be the primary source of their work.
Understanding Visual Impairments-Claudette Davis Bonnick.
Davis Bonnick is a Lecturer in garment cutting at LCF. She embarked on a project to explore the possibility of making garment cutting accessible to students with visual impairments. Through a research project she found that it was indeed possible to do this with only some relatively straightforward adaptations for the students. This suggests some really exciting opportunities giving access to visually impaired students in Fashion. Also, I imagine, it could challenge the ways in which we produce and consume fashion
This made me think about how we are so visually oriented in much of the practice at UAL. The performance program, where I work, is certainly heavily dependent on visual work. So many of the ways we ask student to create, communicate and interact are visual. But then I realise that there is also lots of potential for providing access for visually impaired students, and indeed for opening up avenues for performance and design for Performance that are not so visually oriented. I imagine that the policy now would be to make adjustments to our delivery to accommodate partially sighted students in order to facilitate their learning. The problem with this is that the opportunities/adjustments have to already be installed in order to attract students in the first place. We would need to make the investment of time and money into creating properly accessible curricula in advance. Why would a student wish to venture into a situation that was not prepared for them, hoping that proper accommodations would be made and opportunities provided?
Khairani Barokka’s article regarding the challenges of touring her performance while dealing with chronic pain provoked some thoughts. In particular I was struck by how she insisted that her performances were accessible to a wide range of audiences. Text versions of the show easily accessible for D/deaf audiences and wheelchair accessible. She enforced this rigorously and made a point of prioritizing this accessibility. While this is great, and indeed an example to the wider performance community, it does make me think how I tend to see this kind of inclusion in performances limited to performances by disabled performers or specifically targeted toward a disabled audience. When will we see inclusive practice as a standard in all public arts events? Shouldn’t this start In the Arts University?
Within my technical team at CSM we are producing video records of student acting work as an outcome during the pandemic. A family member of one of the acting students is hearing impaired and in order to give this person access to the video, it will be subtitled. This is positive, however, it is an exception, not a standard. In fact, we are told that the acting agents, who are primary viewers of these acting “showreels” would be “put off” by subtitling. Wouldn’t it be better if the influencers and power figures in a cultural industry ,like these acting agents, would demand inclusive content rather than be “put off” by it?
How do I/we start to change these attitudes and ways of working that are so embedded? I realize now that I let things slip by without realizing that they need to be challenged.
I very much wanted to honour the assignment of using an object in the exercise and decided on use of our screen as I knew that we would all have one in front of us. It occured to me that an exercise based around our screens could give us the opportunity to spend some time analyzing and discussing the ways in which our screens mediate our lives at the moment. The hope was that we might all gain some insight into our thoughts about online life from each other. I decided to test a technique, reflective drawing, which would encourage us to slow down and engage in a different mode of thinking. I was hoping that this would prime us for a discussion centred around our screens, the use of them, online learning and anything else related to our new dependence on screen-based interaction. For me this was also a chance to push myself in a new direction regarding teaching. I wanted to present an activity where I was not in control of the outcome.
So, Learning outcomes for group: -Learn a new skill, technique- Reflective drawing -examination of the meaning of screen-based, mediated existence.
Learning outcome for me: -presentation of session with open outcome
PLANNING
I felt it was important to clearly introduce and frame the drawing exercise so allocated one third of the time to an introduction and presentation of the ideas behind reflective drawing. I also used this time to mention that the objective of the exercise was to prime us for a discussion about our online, screen-based existence.
The drawing itself was assigned one third of the time. I was curious if this would work as it is a completely silent activity and was concerned that this would seem odd in the online environment. My hope was that the preparatory presentation would make people feel all right about this.
Finally, There was one third of the session set aside for discussion. I decided to first ask people to contribute non-verbally to a padlet and then to use that to focus further group discussion. This was the part where I had no specific structure other than a few prompt questions at the ready to get things going.
THE SESSION
I repeated the session as in the initial session the group ran out of time and I ended up having only half the time required to complete the exercise and feedback. I discuss the shortened session in my previous post “Timing is Everything”. For this post I will only discuss the complete session that I offered.
My introduction went well and the powerpoint presentation felt concise while clearly explaining the drawing task. I felt that the participants were well primed for the task. I was able to give the full time drawing (seven minutes) and this felt fine as we had all agreed to be visible on screen thereby having a visual connection even though we were silent. When the drawing time ended I shared the link to a prepared padlet and invited people to share immediate comments on the experience. This seemed somewhat stilted and not particularly successful. I am unfamiliar with the notion of online discussion and therefore perhaps was to impatient with it. I soon began to add my own contributions to the padlet in attempt to encourage other comments. In the end there were only two participant comments on the padlet. Both referring to the quality of the drawing experience. I then decided to move to the verbal discussion. The conversation seemed to revolved around people’s experience of the drawing session and the relaxed state that it provoked. This was pleasing, however I was hoping that the discussion would evolve to the broader topic of our thoughts on online life. I prompted this and there were a few comments but we ran out of time.
FEEDBACK
Participant experience was generally positive and colleagues were interested in the technique I had presented, feeling that this could be useful in their practice as well. They felt that the exercise was clearly laid out to them , however they mentioned that I perhaps should have explicitly let people know that they did not need to present their drawings at the end. This would have helped to alleviate any inhibitions that they may have had. This makes sense in the context of Reflective Drawing as a relaxing or meditative experience.
Regarding the discussion of online life and screen-based existence, I had to specifically request feedback on how this went, or why it did not go too far. The insightful conclusion was that this was mainly down to time, and in fact that the seeds had been planted for the group to think about the subject. Perhaps the subject would benefit from revisiting at a later session or asking students to reflect on their own, post-session. This is encouraging and reminded me that all the learning does not necessarily have to be done in the moment or at the group event. I was reminded again how important time is in the gestation of ideas.
In conclusion, I am pleased to have been able to create an experience which seemed to work for the participants. On reflection, It may have been better to simplify the expectations of the session in order to more fully explore the practice of Reflective Drawing. The additional discussion objective was interesting and relevant but probably required more time.
We had been asked to prepare a twenty minute microteaching session and then to be prepared to receive ten minutes of feedback from our colleagues.
Time was on my mind from the beginning of preparation for this exercise. I budgeted 6-7 minutes for introduction and explanation of the task, then 6 minutes for the actual drawing. This left around seven minutes for the discussion period. This was the open period with no structure other than several seed questions which I had prepared to get conversation going. I was asked to be the last to present. As a consequence of this, there were only 15 minutes remaining in the session by the time my turn arrived. I decided to reduce the time on everything in order to attempt to fit it all in. I rushed through the intro and then reduced the drawing session from 6 minutes to 3 or 4. This left about 6 minutes for discussion then time was up. Colleagues kindly agreed to stay for 5 minutes of so after to give feedback.
A simple restriction of timing had completely transformed the session for both the participants and myself. My carefully planned, and rehearsed, session became an exercise in improvisation. What should I keep? what can I omit? From feedback it was clear that I had not succeeded in priming everyone for the task. There was some confusion as to how they were to engage in the reflective drawing. This affected the outcome, and discussion after was focussed on understanding the task after-the-fact rather than reflecting on the broader issues which I had hoped to address.
This rather disappointing experience reminded me of a day last term when our technical team had been asked to organise a two day workshop experience for students in our theatre space. The first day consisted of sharing skills and facilities of the space with students and the second day was to be a creative opportunity, utilising these skills to create a piece of work in the space collaboratively. The first day proceeded well and the students left, primed and energized with the idea of creating work the next day. When they arrived on day two we quickly discovered that there was a scheduling conflict and that we would only have half of the day to make the work. After this last minute change we decided that the only course of action was to proceed with a truncated schedule. We squeezed the day’s activity into half a day. We managed to create a product, but it involved all action and little thought. Minimum time for reflection and no time to analyze, revise, refine develop after the initial attempt at creation.
In both of these teaching events, I plowed on, making the best of it. I have seen this happen with many other people as well. I suppose it could be seen as a fact-of-life in the teaching world. Schedules will inevitably be undermined by events beyond our control. I am sure, however, that plowing on and squeezing the lesson into a time period that is too small is not necessarily the best solution. I suspect it requires a speedy and complete rethink. Not easy to do in the moment with a class of expectant students sitting there. I suspect that it is better to revise expectations rather than attempting to “shoehorn” everything originally planned into a shortened session.
I am pleased to say that I had the opportunity to try my microteach again with the full time allowance. But that is for the next blog entry.
I have found that throughout the first weeks of this course I have framed my experience through the lens of a technician…. because I am one. I have found myself looking at the range of subjects discussed in relation to my job. Almost all of the subject matter is directly applicable, but sometimes I find myself raising thorny questions related to my role and how it connects to what we are discussing… or doesn’t.
I have been pleased and interested to find that many of my colleagues on the PG Cert are technicians at UAL. I find this really encouraging as it suggests that many feel what I feel: that technicians are an integral part of the pedagogical environment at UAL. That we are more than part of the educational backdrop or “facilities” of the institution but that we are actually a crucial active component in the learning and teaching environment. This sentiment is echoed in Clare Sams’ survey of technicians’ views at UAL (Spark, Vol 1 / Issue 2 (2016) pp. 62-69)
Now the less inspiring part. Despite the fact that most if not all technical colleagues feel that their educational role is central to what they do, it is not well recognised institutionally. It is not officially recognised as part of the job. These are all of the verbs in my job description related to my role: support, assist, help realise, work with, be responsible, maintain, supervise, ensure. Conspicuously absent are words like teach, instruct, engage, inspire, provoke, challenge. Now I am sure job descriptions differ and that some may certainly mention instruction and demonstration as part of a technical role, I would be very surprised to hear that any technical job description referred to “teaching”. That is reserved for academic staff.
At CSM the management structure for the technicians is completely separate from the academic staff. Two systems functioning side-by-side, ideally in perfect harmony, but in practicality two groups doing their own thing with their own priorities and own understanding of what students need. How can two separately managed groups hope to efficiently work together to provide a consistent educational experience for students? In my experience they find it difficult as they end up having different priorities, schedules, and interrupted communication.
The Upstairs-Downstairs phenomenon. I use this phrase to describe different roles of technical staff and academic staff at CSM. It refers to 19th century upper class child-rearing which saw parents as often disengaged from children’s everyday life, offering mainly broad moral and social guidance and financial support. The everyday intimacy of parenting would be carried out by the servants who would end up forming close familial bonds with their charges. I see the technical staff in my program as those servants/surrogate parents. The parental aspect of the staff student relationship is often rewarding for both parties and that is a role I happily embrace when it is appropriate. I am less happy with being cast in the role of servant, and I do feel that there is a subtle implication that this is our role. This feeling is engendered through the separate management structure and our being largely excluded from direct participation in shaping and understanding course curricula. It feels that there is an assumption that we don’t really need to know what the pedagogical plan is, we just need to stand by, ready to assist.
