During my conflicted feelings about the marking process it occurred to me that I didn’t actually know what marking would look like this year, post emergency pandemic mode. What things had changed forever? What were they planning to bring back?
I realised the best way to do this was to ask the course leader. We ended up having a 10 min phone call where I asked questions, listened and then adapted further questions on the spot depending on the answers. Turns out they are still unsure what they are doing for the marking process this year- and are still in talks about it.
Course Leaders want to revert to an in-person students verbal presentation of work. This includes performers wearing items that were made. They are also pushing for final builds/makes to be submitted to look at in person, not just digitally- for the make up students this also means submitting their production moulds (not to be marked on!! but just so that they cannot make any prosthetic appliances for their assessment between deadline and presentation).
They will submit a digital logbook of 25 pages and final images or a film in conjunction.
Apparently there has been push back from higher up because of the administrative organisation required to facilitate artefact hand ins and face to face presentations with models etc. They want to revert to purely digital submission.
I find pure digital submission problematic on a 3D practical skills, making based course.
Vikki brought my attention to Tracey’s work around negotiated assessment/meta assessment. I reached out to her via Instagram and we swapped emails and arranged a zoom meeting. We had a really interesting chat for about 45mins.
Notes from my notebook pre and during chat
I’m not very good at listening, talking and writing so my notes are very sketchy and all over the place…but at least I remembered what we talked about!
We had a very interesting chat about her project and how she went about it. She implemented a student centered marking process for yr1 and yr2 students, where students and staff marked work together, and agreed a final mark together. Students were allowed to bring one representative with them (could be a peer or another staff member), and interestingly they did frequently request technicians to be present as their representative. They did so because they felt technical staff were able to advocate for them and perhaps use more complex language and terminology to describe thier work, which also helped them learn. She said this had a very positive effect on the students as they were essentially coached on the marking process through those 2 years and by the time it came to third year they knew what to expect and there was a lot less upset about final degree marks. This was done in person, face to face. This was really good to hear, this was a tried and tested way forward as to what technical involvement could look like. It seems so far away from what the Performance students do…especially during COVID.
I spoke about my struggle with my question. The more I thought about it the more I was thinking that I don’t agree with the marking policies and procedures the department uses…so why would I want to be involved in something that didn’t align with my teaching beliefs. I talked about the lack of humanity involved in a digital log book submission, and the lack of face to face feedback (as opposed to written). She suggested I read ‘Reclaiming conversations in a digital age’. I found this YouTube talk of the authors which was more accessible for me. I’m struggling to read at the moment.
I really felt a conflict, and questioned what I was doing. Do I want to ask this question any more?
Tracey encouraged me not to accept the norm and to turn it around and flip it. To do the same with my question. I talked about the authentic trace of the making process, and how I feel there is a loss of value placed on that- and that’s one of my motivations for adding in the technical voice to marking- especially since log book submissions were digitised and page numbers becoming more and more limited by submission size, and technicians are the most student facing teachers. In fact in some cases their only contact with academics was online. I find that problematic. Why shouldn’t these technical spaces be assessed? But then would that change the authentic relationship and safe-space between tech staff and students? The no-judgement area into a judgment area? The trust we have with students is something I love about my job the most. I’m still searching for my question.
We finished up the conversation by talking about methods. I talked about a staff survey and student focus group. She suggested a focus group with all staff and students present, because i’m interested in the richness of what happens in these spaces when they come together- I’m interested in transparency, and creating a community of practice rather than segregation. I talked about my idea of bringing an artefact and she suggested prompt words and giving participants things to draw with. So much food for thought.
Post Chat
I’m thinking about my question a lot. I’m starting to re-jig it based on some of the interesting things that came up in our conversation. Things I’m trying out:
What can academia learn from the technical space?
What can academics learn about student engagement in technical spaces, and how should participation in these valuable spaces be assessed?
Re-claiming the technical space: Are we losing the authentic trace of making in the marking process?
It was really great to hear everyone’s ideas and where they were going with their action research. I found it really inspiring. The variety of subjects and approaches to them were great insights. I think sometimes you can get a bit of tunnel vision with what you are doing, because you don’t often get to see what goes on in other departments. In my group there are topics around care and slowing down practice, and how ‘digital immigrants’ learn digital skills.
I had many questions about moving forward and some things were cleared up for me.
I can be the moderator of the focus group if I do know the students, I will just need to be clear about my positionality and make explicit my practitioner/researcher role.
It is ok to use incentives- a £10 voucher is the norm for the university.
I need to be clear about the elicitation of my methods. What am I doing and why am I doing it? What do I want to find out? I want to understand different experiences of a topic, so its about finding out the most suitable way for me to do that and the reasons why its the most suitable. Its still a bit of a jumble at the moment I can see benefits of different ways…am I biting off more than I can chew? Its hard to focus such a big topic down.
I realised that if I asking should technicians be involved in the marking process- I need to be clear about what that involvement may look like. This is stumping me a bit though because I also want to know what other people might think technical involvement in the marking process might look like, and if I define what I think it might look like will that steer the process too much?
One of my colleagues talked about using a scale to chart where people think they sit on it. Maybe I could create an involvement scale in a more general way. I’m interested in knowing what technicians feel they could bring to the process and what they would be comfortable doing.
I am also interested in the idea of transparency as I think there is a lack of it between technicians and academics because of the hierarchy and the separate way the departments are run. I was thinking that if I do create separate questionnaires for both techs and academics that they would have access to both, so they could see what both parties were being asked.
I asked about relevant material around marking as there’s so much out there and I have spent a lot of time looking for articles that speak to what I’m thinking but not finding much. Vikki suggested un-grading which I will look into.
I want to create some kind of tool for staff (and students) that will track students technical journey. Particularly in their 3rd year where this is crucial to how they progress and create their final outcome.
All the teaching staff (and by this I mean Course Leaders, Visiting Lecturers, Visiting Practitioners, Technicians) and the students rarely get in a room together. Yet we are all working towards the same goal. Technical performance staff do the lions share of supporting and making final pieces with students, but other staff still have input. We are all sort of working blindly to what other staff have conversed, suggested and encouraged students to do- the only record we have is the students version of this. Unless we schedule meetings about this but everyone is so busy it is hard to find the time. Sometimes this can be fraught with misunderstandings of feedback and feelings of too many conflicting opinions. It would be good to have a central place for main important decisions/topics/lines of inquiry/timeline etc. that everyone has access to, besides students personal log books. With the digitisation of them too, I find students showing me them less and less, I have to request to see them, and often they are completed on reflection at assessment deadline rather than along the way.
Traditionally the academics use tutorial log sheets, but nothing like this exists for technical staff. This is a pretty archaic process, students and staff lose the slips, they are forgotten to be filled out in the first place and scribbled on paper, handwritten items have accessibility issues. There is also a big cumbersome folder with students final designs in it that we can look on, but this too can be evolving, and its separate to any tutorial log sheets. I’m interested in all staff being able to have an authentic trace of students progress and not just rely on students to relay this to us. It will also form a useful record for us as technical staff to look back and see what students have achieved as we often have only our memories of what students have done and not final products. I believe keeping some kind of digital record of this will help us to analyse further what we do and how we do it, and could also be used in teaching future students.
The digital record would include agreed design images, technical spec drawings, a working timeline/plan of action, things to try and test, resources suggested, final make pathway. I’m not too sure on the format of this or where it will be accessibly stored as yet. I’d like to chat with management and pair up with the Media Lab on this.
I realise this is yet more ‘digital paperwork’ to keep on top of, but I think if we got used to this way of working it could be really beneficial. The main goal is CONSISTENCY of modes of operating for staff and students.
During lockdown I started to use a padlet to keep track of tutorials and keep everyone on the same page. It was definitely a useful tool for me. It meant that even if I wasn’t involved in the marking process, markers could refer to this if need be.
Future thinking I would also like to carry out my SIP project on a much larger scale, get many more opinions/experiences/feedback and perhaps even trial out new ways of working with technical input into assessment.
Jean McNiff’s Action Research for Professional Development
I found this guide very easy to read and really informative. It neatly broke down what Action research is. The main thing I need to consider is that action research is a self reflective process, a tool to evaluate your teaching and improve your work.
..the need for justice and democracy, the right of all people to speak and be heard, the right of each individual to show how and why they have given extra attention to their learning in order to improve their work, the deep need to experience truth and beauty in our personal and professional lives.
Jean McNiff
Those words really spoke to me. I feel like those things are at the heart of what I want to explore. I don’t want to accept the hierarchical norms that the university presents me with. They don’t serve me well, I don’t think the technical voice is valued enough. If the hierarchies don’t serve me well, it probably means that they don’t serve students well either. As identity and personality comes into so much of what we do as educators, it cant help affect both our personal and professional lives, it helps me see a greater purpose to what I am doing, it validates my thought process and motivations.
Action Research is looking at your own work and examining it- is it as you would like it to be?
Its open ended
Its developmental, it doesn’t need to solve everything
Idea -> following through -> seeing how it goes -> checking it’s in line with your wishes
Reading this made the daunting process of research that little bit more accessible. I need to keep reminding myself of these principles when I find myself down rabbit holes of reading and scattered ideas.
Converse, J. M., & Presser, S. (1986). Survey questions. SAGE Publications, Inc. https://www.doi.org/10.4135/9781412986045
I read this excerpt about creating survey questionnaires. It was actually quite a difficult read. I naively didn’t realise how much work went into creating surveys and the formulations of questions. It sort of stalled my progress… I’m an over thinker anyway and so acutely aware of how little time I have to do this project, it kind of freaked me out how much thought needs to go into a question and just how much can go wrong! I had started to jot down questions off the top of my head…I will keep refining and test them out/get feedback from a member of my team.
Positives of using a survey:
Flexibility of participation- can do at a time that suits the recipient
If done well can be coded easily and make getting results easier
Can get a lot of data once set up
Can give clear and specific research answers
Negatives:
Pre-testing phase can mean long set up time
Room for misinterpretation/misunderstandings- no opportunity to clarify
Order and variation can influence outcome of survey
Post Session Thoughts
I need to be aware of why I would want to use a survey, what do I want to do with the findings. Do I want to use it as a tool to measure something in a numerical way? Probably not. I’m more interested in language and words/phrases that may come up and the nuances of experience.
However I do like the idea that I could use the networks that I am already part of, that are quite wide reaching and accessible to potentially gauge opinions- and a survey could be a good way to do that. If I was to use this method, I would not want to use this method alone. I want to ask students, and I feel like they are survey-d out. Just generally speaking to my YR2 students in the classroom they said they are tired of all the surveys the university sends out, there are so many and wouldn’t really be inspired to do any more. This lead me to think that students may not be very responsive to another survey. I’m beginning to think something like a focus group could be more suitable.
For the staff survey I’m looking into what survey platforms are best- survey monkey, office 365 survey, survio. I need to choose the most accessible one so that I don’t waste time figuring out how to use them. I have not carried out a survey like this before.
Vaughn et al. (2013) Why Use Focus Group Interviews in Educational and Psychological Research? In: Focus Group Interviews in Education and Psychology, Sage Publications
Focus groups seem to be a really good way to bring people together and find out more about their experiences. From the text there are 5 main advantages to using a focus group :
All encourage discussion and lead to more genuine responses. Focus groups are also a good way of getting answers to questions in a relatively short space of time.
However, there are some pitfalls to keep in mind…
They can be tricky to organise, setting a time and date that is suitable for everyone. Finding and setting up a room with the right ambiance so that you minimise the power etc. Do you moderate yourself or do you not? If I do moderate and the students know me is that a bad thing? We will already have an established rapport so surely that is a positive thing, but then will that relationship interfere. If I make it explicit that I am positioned as a researcher in the room, not as a technician etc.- will this be enough to counterbalance that?
How is it possible to stay a neutral facilitator- how does your positionality not always come into it? Do you use incentives for subjects to participate? If you do, how do you negate performativity because of the incentives? How do you stop participants from feeling peer pressure and speaking up if they have other views to the majority.
I’m a bit nervous about a lack of experience in facilitating these kinds of things. I suppose active listening will be key, and recognising when and if the conversation needs a stimulus and when to sit back. My nightmare would be that I get all the students in the room and no-one says much! To combat this I was thinking of asking them to bring an image of work that has already been assessed and asking them to start by talking about their experience of that, then from that facilitate further exploration of the topics I hope to cover. I also have the fall back position of asking about the resource I want to make that could feed into the marking process. Getting the student perspective on that is valuable. But maybe I’m trying to cram in too much?
I started to mark students work (summatively) for the first time during the summer. Having two hats, a technical and an academic one, and the ease of which I switched between them really got the old cogs turning. It kept bringing me back to one question:
Why are technicians not included in the marking process?
This was the catalyst to the start of my SIP. I wanted to find answers to this question. Doing both roles I could really see how the experience of each was feeding into my marking process. My face to face contact time with the students in the studios watching them work, the informal chats, the formative assessments as a Technician. Then the more formal ‘group crits’ and 1 to 1s as an academic. All adding up to much fuller picture of students progress, rather than just relying on what they submit for assessment. I don’t think I would have been so comfortable marking the work had I not had as full a picture as I had, thanks to both roles.
It also got me thinking about the purpose and focus of marking. How valued are these technical spaces where the lions share of the work is physically made? Where do they come into the marking process? Is there enough focus on the journey as well as the end product? Where is the humanity in the marking process?
The more I thought about it the more I realised I was coming at the question with a rather biased mind set. I was starting with a negative. I needed to turn the question around and open it up a bit. I cant decide the answer to the question before I have asked it. Trying to think more subjectively about the subject, I changed the question:
Should technicians be involved in the marking process?
I started thinking how can I find this out. I knew straight away that I wanted to include the voices of Academic staff, Technical staff and students within this study as I feel they are key sources to grappling with the question and their variety of views will hopefully build depth and credibility to my question. Still unsure as to how I will go about asking them.
I am interested in a more cohesive and transparent teaching approach, a learning community where academics and technical expertise are equally valued, which will ultimately benefit students. In my thoughts I keep returning to some themes: role of the technician and academic, the hierarchies within HE and the division/disparity between those departments and how they are run within the university as separate groups.
Trigger warning: this blog post contains topics of racism, white supremacy and white fragility
It is important to contextualise this blog post through my own positionality. I am a white person who has been brought up middle class (though my grandparents and parents were not) and I have inherited many privileges through the establishment of white culture as the powerful norm in this westernised society in which I live and operate. I am on an ongoing, life-long journey, I face my own white fragility, fear, pride, and shame towards my own ignorance about how much racism continues to dominate our society. I constantly have to check my own bias/ assumptions, and my privilege and experience will at points be a limiting factor in comprehending this. However, it is through this uneasy journey I begin to grasp my complicity, listening to marginalised voices, find ways to be accountable, become an ally, and realise that small accessible changes can contribute to big changes. I am continually exposing and interrogating more aspects of my privilege as I de-center ‘white culture’ and educate myself further, creating a deeper understanding through study of the oppressive structures within society and education and pedagogies of social justice.
‘Any classroom that employs a holistic model of learning will also be a place where teachers grow, and are empowered by the process. That empowerment cannot happen if we refuse to be vulnerable while encouraging students to take risks.’ (Hooks, 1994, p21)
Shades of Noir Resources
The shades resources have been invaluable in evolving my understanding of racism within myself/society/education, intersectionality, social justice pedagogy, my own positionality and where it sits within this. I will continue to use these rich resources, refer to them within my own practice and direct students to them. The creative database has also been of huge help to spotlight artists of colour and act as an additional catalyst for creating more diverse references for myself and students.
My continual engagement with these resources will help to keep my knowledge current, will continually build my confidence, and give me more language to articulate myself and facilitate others to have difficult and complex conversations with both staff and students. It is refreshing to see such stimulating student and graduate work that within the Shades publications and sites, and is a great point of reference. All too often as a technician I see the journey of making the artwork but not the joy of the finished article, so this is a great resource for looking at examples of alumni and artists work.
Through the crative database I found the artist Rayvenn. Their practice explores the digital hybridity of sculpture following the affirmation of media, exploring the nuances of identity that pivot between hyper-visibility and invisibility, offering (re-)imagined collective perspective. (SoN, Creative Database, Rayvenn Shaleigha D’clark) This conceptual work paired with the technical making side of the work, which is directly relevant to our processes used on the course, is a great reference point for me to direct students to and discuss with them.
Rayvenn Shaleigha D’clark, Mixed Media
I also looked at a review of the workshop given by Dr. Gurnham Singh, CBE on How to facilitate open discussions about racism, implicit bias and stereotypes in the workshop setting by Rayvenn Shaleigha D’Clark. They say:
‘In my opinion, it boils down to an issue of acceptance, as workshops such as this shows that there is learning to be done on all sides as there remains an important (cultural) exchange that needs to happen; where we all learn from one another – and together – about the myriad of ways we can help to tackle racism, implicit bias stereotypes and much more within the institution.
We all must accept that we have a role to play, and that there is a lot of learning to be fostered on both sides.’
I really identify with these words, especially acceptance, and also respect. Cultural exchange enriches everyone’s lives and world views. I totally agree that everyone needs to be accountable to contribute to this work within their own levels of influence and realise the level of critical questioning needed to move forward. I think it is the collaborative nature of teaching and both learning from and with staff and students that will be the success of dismantling the oppressive structures within the institution. Having said that this does not negate the institutions responsibility to do more- why do we all not receive Dr. Gurnham Singhs workshop?
A Pedagogy of Social Justice Education: Social Identity Theory, Intersectionality and Empowerment, Aaron J Hahn Tapper
This journal examines the considerations of social justice education alongside the observation of power dynamics in social groups within classrooms.
Social Justice Education is hard to define as it has no single meaning or use, however the journal suggests one understanding is that it ‘explicitly recognizes the disparities in social opportunities, resources and long-term outcomes among marginalized groups’ (p. 412) The article goes on to examine the way it manifests itself through ideology and application.
Social Identity is a person’s sense of who they are based on their group membership(s). Tajfel (1979) proposed that the groups (e.g. social class, family etc.) which people belonged to were an important source of pride and self-esteem. Groups give us a sense of social identity: a sense of belonging to the social world. Tajfel and Turner (1979) suggested that there are three cognitive processes involved in evaluating others as “us” or “them”. These are: social categorisation>social identification>social comparison. It helps me to understand this in terms of forming group dynamics, but it is also important to consider peoples assumptions when they attempt to categorise traits in order to group themselves and others.
Social Identity Theory (SIT) suggests that, ‘intergroup encounters’ within education must be approached in and around students’ ‘larger social identities.’ This is significant due to the objectives and practice of an inclusive pedagogy inspired by Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (2006). Freire explains the importance of thinking critically and “the role that identity plays in the shaping and implementation of education. One of his most important arguments is that students’ identities need to be taken into account in all educational settings.”(p.414)
SIT presents a significant problem with groups preferring ‘their own’ at the expense of ‘the Other’: “social identities are one of the primary criteria through which power is enacted” (p. 418)
It reminded me of this quote:
‘Dominator culture has tried to keep us all afraid, to make us choose safety instead of risk, sameness instead of diversity. Moving through that fear, finding out what connects us, revelling in our differences; this is the process that brings us closer, that gives us a world of shared values, of meaningful community.’ (Hooks, 2003, p197)
In the classroom, ways to push through ‘Dominator culture’ could take the form of:
Considering group dynamics when forming groups in classrooms
Acknowledging that systems of oppression will appear inside the classroom as well as outside when facilitating group activities, and in my interactions with students
Embedding resources that discuss identity and social justice
Critically evaluate resources and make sure they are diverse, featuring artists from a variety of positionalities
Embodying compassionate pedagogy by modelling empathy, acceptance, love and respect in the classroom
Retention and attainment in the disciplines: Art and Design, Finnigan and Richards
This paper was an extremely informative read and highlighted many important explanations for a 33% attainment upper degree awarding gap between white students and Black British Caribbean and Black British African students. It also highlighted the need for more nuanced raw data for the full range of achievement levels to further understand retention and attainment.
Obstacles to achievement were identified as:
A lack of cultural capital within institutions- arts education being both ‘conservative, repetitive and exclusive and ‘Euro-centric, racist and imperialist’
Relationships with course tutors and the (e)quality of feedback coupled with a misalignment of students’ expectations transitioning from a school setting to a university setting
The perception that tutors preferences directly affect grades, a lack of encouragement to explore personal identity and the departure of original ideas to conform to that of the tutors forming a dis-association with their practice
A lack of diversity within teaching staff leading to a lack of diverse perspectives and role models
While I cannot address all these obstacles in my teaching role, I can:
‘take a more inclusive approach to the curriculum by identifying more diverse reading lists and key visual references and more inclusive pedagogies, review and/or audit the inclusion of embedded diversity and student-centred learning in the curriculum and create greater opportunities for students to have a sense of ownership over their environment’ (Finnigan and Richards, 2015, p. 19)
Examples of this within my lessons are widening the scope of the references I refer to in my workshops and 1 to 1s with students. Instead of giving students objects to work on within the workshops I deliver, I invite students to bring in things that interest them (if they want to) to open discussion and learn more about students’ backgrounds and interests and create a more collaborative working space. Within my painting class I cover a spectrum of skin tones (before I took over the class only lighter skin tones were demonstrated by the teacher) and I started to create a diverse image bank for references. I continue to seek opportunities to give students grater agency within the workshops we do together and invite their valuable feedback as to how we can do better. During my conversations with students to try and eliminate inequality within formative feedback, I analyse and evaluate from a technical point of view what they have done or what they want to do, I try and be very specific and pinpoint processes with my observations. I question the students whether I have interpreted this correctly and ask them to explain their/the process back to me and if this was their intention, to check we are both on the same page. If it is something they wish to make in the future, we discuss different methodologies and construct a plan of action/timeline together in a collaborative manner. If it is something they have already made, we discuss the success of the process, I ask the students to reflect on what they did and what might improve their work going forward? What worked well, what did not and what the reason for that might be? I suggest possible routes of enquiry, try to include a range of references/resources, and processes to move the work forward to the next stage. I try to be aware of creating a delicate balance of providing enough information to keep students engaged to stimulate discussion and self-reflection, whilst leaving room for autonomy. If a student presents me with a topic I am unfamiliar with I take time to research it in order to have richer discussions in the future.
Room of Silence
What stands out to me is the importance of classrooms being safe spaces, and a need for compassionate pedagogy. What these students have experienced is horrible and can have such a detrimental effect on their work, grades and their education as a whole. I remember when I was at art school the academic tutors held so much power, and because art is such a subjective subject, if they did not like/get your work they were totally discouraging and that was 16 years ago without discussing any issues dealing with social justice or race. I also remember crits being difficult spaces to really be open and the fear of saying something that someone may not like or not even feeling like I had the vocabulary to discuss my own work, never mind anyone else’s. We received absolutely no coaching on the ‘crit-space’. Given that this still is a widespread issue across UAL (as evidenced in the many case studies on SoN) this is something that is still missing within arts education, especially with regards to race, identity, understanding privilege and power.
It reflects Finnigan and Richards findings on attainment, where ‘If there were no real spaces to explore identity within their work, this could cause confusion and separation from the work’ and ‘Art and Design educators need to be aware of the power they have in encouraging or discouraging their students to develop their own practice’(Finnigan and Richards, 2015, p8)
I believe this is something that should be developed and delivered via training for all staff and students. For students this could take the shape of both staff and students co-creating rules for safe crit spaces at the beginning of each year, with the understanding that any staff present were there to facilitate and not make negative judgment about work. Social justice education embedded within the curriculum would also help facilitate student and staff confidence to have this discourse. For staff it could be made mandatory that everyone must complete the inclusive teaching and learning course (or a form of it), the engagement with Shades resources around their material on creating safe spaces and training on how to facilitate challenging conversations.
As a member of technical teaching staff I am acutely aware of the internal hierarchy of UAL, we are all often reminded we are not ‘academics’ but ‘support staff’, and as such do not make many important decisions that can create big changes- on who is offered a place on to the course, curriculum content, marking etc. and are left out of a lot of important meetings and communications, ‘othered’ from the academic team. Sometimes I feel a bit powerless to make change and feel a bit disconnected to statistics within the institution as they only seem to deal with the ‘academic’ and ‘student’ experience. Having said that I feel very lucky that as technical staff, in my experience, students tend to be very open and happy to discuss their work, aspects of their identity and personal life outside the studios, and this increases with amount of time spent with students who come into the studios each year. Perhaps this is because as we do not mark their work, we are seen to hold less power and are therefore more approachable/relatable as there is less fear of judgment. However, the key to students engaging with the course and attending the studios in the first place is establishing that trust from the beginning. Within my own work I can practice compassionate pedagogy by:
staying present and being authentic
listening with curiosity and an openness to learning with and from students
communicating back to students to check my understanding of what they are communicating to me
creating/seeking connections and validating others experiences by recognising my own privileges and power
fostering all students sense of belonging throughout their university experience
challenging persistent binaries within education/social structures and silence/a lack of contribution towards this/the risks of inaction
Whiteness and un-conscious bias
Josephine Kwhali clearly points out that institutions have made ‘conscious’ efforts to make steps towards equality for women in the workplace (however only to benefit white middle-class women), even if the gender bias was ‘un-conscious’. She leaves us questioning, is it possible to be ‘un-conscious’ but ‘consciously’ take actions? Therefore why are we still where we are in society?
I found myself reflecting on our seminar and listening to Shirley Anne Tate speak about un-conscious bias and who benefits from being un-conscious. How un-conscious bias is a palatable word for racism, with a no-blame message.
I remember doing the ‘Breaking Bias’ training when I started at UAL, and that it was a new addition to staff training. I remember doing it alongside fire safety training and it very much felt like a box ticking assignment for your PRA. I remember feeling confused and wondering how on earth this was supposed to combat bias or assumptions from a very diluted, short-lived task. I feel ashamed that my thoughts never ventured further, I did not sit with, speak about or question my discomfort. Perhaps it was because I was a new member of staff and didn’t feel comfortable challenging the institution, perhaps I didn’t feel qualified, perhaps because it was easier to say nothing. I appreciate now that my silence is complicity within a racist society/institution.
I failed to examine the language and unpack its problematic nature. Listening to Professor Tait and Josephine Kwhali has made me realise that I need to be so much more critical with the status-quo and interrogate, and not just accept, without question, and be more present about the structures and policies within the institution, as well as daily life too.
I realise how the term ‘un-conscious bias’ forgets institutional racism, as well as white supremacy and actually prevents anti-racist work being done because it promotes an active un-knowing and perpetuates white fragility within our institution. It keeps the structures of oppression firmly in place, benefiting those who fit into that system, under the guise of appearing to do something about it.
Both women highlight the need for normative white/eurocentric disruption. How can we teach students to be critical thinkers when the institution is not?
Throughout this course I have realised that small actions can make all the difference, and that through critical reflection on what we teach, why we teach it, what voices are heard, and what voices are missing are small changes for me to make that can have a big impact on the students I work with.
Kwhali’s words really stuck with me:
‘What else do we have to do, say, write about, talk about, present on in order for supposedly intelligent people who are educating the next generation (…) to get any degree of consciousness’
Progress is painfully slow, and while we wait for the institution to become conscious, both academic and technical staff must work together to take collective agency in our teaching work to overcome barriers.
I found this talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie about the danger of a single story, very thought provoking. She takes us through a journey of her education and how her life experiences shaped her views and how her own assumptions and the assumptions of others affected her. It is a stark reminder of the importance of thinking against the grain, de-colonising thinking, and how assumptions and positionality affect our views.
I have also enjoyed UAL blog on de-colonising the curriculum, and have recently joined the Technical Decolonisation Networkwithin LCF where we meet every other week to discuss topics around de-colonising the curriculum, chat and connect over this and think about how to feed this into our practice. It is really inspiring to hear from a whole body of technical staff over all of LCF and hearing the group’s thoughts and concrete examples of practice. It also helps keep us accountable and keeps the conversations going.
This unit has given me the knowledge, language and confidence to contribute to these meaningful discussions and carry them on into the classroom. I am incredibly grateful to have been able to participate and experience this course. I am incredibly grateful for the emotional labour undertaken by staff to create/run this course and all of the SoN resources. The shift in my thinking has been transformational, the tools I have gained have been invaluable for carrying on this important work.
Bibliography
Hooks, Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope, Routledge, 2003
To create a resource/bank of reference material that deals with bodies in performance from a more diverse lens.
Inspired by the shades resources, it made me reflect on how bodies in our performance course are treated and discussed within the context of film/theatre/moving image. It exposed gaps in my own knowledge, and how this is discussed with our students on the course.
Candoco Dance film – Meet Jemima in this short excerpt of Unspoken Spoken, our new film directed and choreographed by Fin Walker.
I found this piece by Candoco dance theatre so inspiring on so many levels, not being constrained by expectations and also touching upon Firere’s ‘banking-model’ of education.
Why?
I feel that this is something that could be challenged more in the performance curriculum. I think there is still a dominance of bodies from a ‘normative’, Eurocentric gaze.
My aim is to create an online resource where I could create more diverse references of people working within the performance areas to stimulate critical thought around the social constructs of identities, which could be used as a discussion and enquiry point for both staff and students.
My hope would be that both staff and students would add to this resource. Whilst doing some research I realised that as a course there is not much transparency about exactly what is covered in the classroom, especially between academic and technical delivery. My hope is that this resource will open doors to conversation between staff members and create a more collaborative way of working within the department, a way of sharing good practice and go some way to bridging the gap between academic and technical delivery.
How?
The aim is to create a file-sharing document which references a diverse spectrum of bodies in performance, using an online platform, to which all students and staff from the course can contribute to.
The goal of this artefact/intervention is to shift the scope of the references and discussion points, allowing access for a more inclusive perspective. Additionally my hope is that students will consider the power of their own practice in relation to these resources, as they are the future of the industry. This resource would sit on moodle, be accessible to all staff and students on the performance to access and use.
This resource could also hopefully complement/feed into the already brilliant shades resource hosted on Diago: https://www.shadesofnoir.org.uk/education/diigo-database/ by adding to the performance section.
On this journey I will be considering my own positionality and how this effects the creation of this resource, and the challenges that it will lead to- what biases and behaviors do I need to address? As this will be a digital resource I will consider in/equity of digital accessibility, digital literacy and digital ex/inclusion across different intersectional experiences. I will also explore how my intervention could lead to a sustainable approach of embedding critical resources within your teaching space/delivery as a team and what challenges that may bring.
It was great to be directed to the Religion, belief and faith identities in learning and teaching UAL site. I have never come across it before, and it is a great collection or resources which I will keep referring back to. There is so much I want to read!
The two articles around depictions of religion in art captured my attention. As a young child I spent many an hour staring at religious effigies and wondering. I was also drawn to these because this is a topic that is sometimes taken on by our performance students, particularly the Hair, Make-Up and Prosthetics students. Both articles ‘The Ground Breaking Artists Challenging Religion Through Art’ and ‘Does Modern Art Hate Religion?’ discuss they ways in which religion has been perceived and handled by modern artists. They explain there has been a tendency from artists to lean away from embracing the church and work that depicts a favourable view of religious imagery. Instead there has been a trend of making critical work around religion in a sometimes “disrespectful and subversive fashion” (Sooke, 2014). It made me reflect on some of the student’s work I have seen in the making (as technicians we do not have input into design from a conceptual manner, we facilitate the making side once this has been agreed with by a tutor) and their feelings of a need to be provocative, controversial, challenging or critical with regards to many subjects, religion being one of them- which is also often the case in the art world out with the university too. There is a friction in this kind of exploration, and a definite challenge in HE, freedom of speech/censorship against the rights of those to whom offence may be caused because of their belief systems. To me it highlights a need for awareness of other perspectives in both staff and students, which can be easily missed in a so called ‘liberal arts’ setting where everyone does not share the same views. It also highlights a need for the creation and instigation of safe spaces that promote respectful conversations around religion. I believe there needs to be more of an onus put on the makers of the work to think about the wider context of the work and its place in the world. This would also include the encouragement of the use of trigger warnings embedded in University Practice, something I have yet to see out with the IT&L Unit.
Images displayed in main thoroughfare in D- Block Corridors without trigger warning
In both articles it was satisfying to see the other side of religion and the art world being represented- “less critical art” (Sooke, 2014) which challenges not their own views, but other assumptions of their faith they have encountered. For example Soorya Grahams ‘Bra’ or Giulia Marchis ‘Call her Fatima’.
Soorya Grahams, Bra
I was thinking of how I could facilitate the student voice more and consider resources with regards to faith. I sometimes find this challenging, as technicians we do not have much input on the critical thinking conceptual side of the course. However, I found the Pen Portraits case study a useful idea to think about. As teaching staff we need to find ways to make students comfortable to explore all intersectional areas of their being, including discussion on their backgrounds and belief systems (if they want to), and when they do they will be met with support and encouragement. I liked the idea of the drawing ice breaker and suggested questions, which could be used at various points throughout the year. It is good to be mindful of the types of questions posed around this, and the need to respect protected characteristics. It also highlights the intersectionality of faith and how a binary approach cannot be taken to it. We will deal with faith and other aspects of identity in a more progressive way and treat it as something that belongs in education, as opposed to something that is independent of education.
The case study series on Faith from SoN again re-enforced the importance of creating and facilitating safe learning spaces. I must be mindful that when discussions around faith do occur they are happening respectfully and any discriminatory behaviour is confronted and dealt with appropriately. I found the ‘Options’ in the case study book particularly useful. I think that the ‘Set Rules at Induction’ should be something that the whole performance department adheres to and I am not sure that it is currently embedded? It has made me re-think the technical inductions that we do for Yr1 students, and how and where we could fit this in. What students’ display of their work and how they display it in the studios for example could also be addressed.
In Religion in Britian, Religion as a Public Good Calhoun discusses, as Modood expresses, that religion is not only a private matter but a public one too. They believe supressing religion to a private matter is fundamentally restrictive. With the growing popularity of ‘secularism’ many persist in thinking that religion should be a separate, private matter. But Calhoun argues that remnants of Christian public symbolism are everywhere, and that Britain allows more space for some religions over others, and separation of state and church is selectively applied.
“In a pluralist society, public religious engagement could support the exploration of major issues, as indeed it does to some extent in the UK with regard to the nature of contemporary capitalism and the legitimacy of extreme inequality” (Calhoun, 2015)
I can see now how the intersection of religion is not simply a private matter, it completely permeates society, and a secular state, or university, does not exist and cannot exist. Even within ‘secularism’ there is not an agreed form of ‘secularism’ that fits all.
This followed nicely onto Religion and Knowledge of Religion in the UK where Calhoun talks about universities needing ‘religious literacy’ meaning that staff and students should have a better understanding of the way religion has figured in the history of Britain (and the world) and how it relates to the current social climate and policies, and knowledge of different religions. I wondered what the university is doing about this? I realise the resources that we have been pointed to on this course goes some way towards this but not everyone in the university is engaging with this. How can the University do more? There are also the University Chaplains, but it made me wonder are the diverse religious voices represented in other ways, and do the students find the support and connection they need?
“Even when delivered in entirely secular ways, this (engagement in student’s extracurricular lives) is still often termed ‘pastoral care’ in UK universities, chaplains are important to it, and academics offer less than they once did.”
I agree and disagree with this. While there is more pressure on everyone due to increasing numbers, technical staff seem to always be missed out of facts and figures or not considered at all, only ‘academic’ staff. Although we do not officially provide pastoral care, but because we do spend so much time with students and get to know them well, they do confide in us and we are constantly unofficially giving pastoral care, it takes over a large part of our work, and this is never taken into consideration. We are advised to pass students onto course leaders, but it does not always feel comfortable doing this as I am not always satisfied the situation will be resolved in doing so. How can the university do more?
Kwame Anthony Appiah’s lecture on Creed was an interesting listen. He puts forward the case that religious identity, has relatively little to do with creed, and hence scripture, for people who belong to a faith, real substance comes from the art of practicing that belief- how they enact those beliefs and who they do it with. He suggests that the interpretation is important, and religion is transformed through history, it is how it survives- it becomes re-interpreted in re-understood for what is relevant to present day. He gives the example of the contested place of women in Islam, and how sometimes the interpretation of this faith does restrict women’s freedom and power but other interpretations do not- Bangladesh and Pakistan have had more female prime ministers, and a larger percentage of women in their legislatures than the US. This really hit home for me the importance of not making any assumptions around religion or faith, even when people identify as ‘secular’ as everything is so open to one’s own interpretation…a little bit like the subjective nature of one’s own art practice.
I would say I do not have an assigned religion (although I was brought up as a catholic), but do practice some of my own spiritual rituals, not necessarily connected to any particular faith. I read an interesting article called ‘Do humans have a religion instinct?’ about how religion/faith emerged from an evolutionary process out of necessity for us to become more social beings, and that many of the rituals associated with religion (song, dance, bending in prayer etc.) are activators of the endorphin system- which I felt reflected nicely what Calhoun was saying about religion for the public good, and how society and it cannot be separated. Appiah’s lecture on Creed got me thinking about the history and future of religion and I will read ‘Tomorrows Gods: What is the Future of Religion?’
