Onward and upward!
Conclusion
Doing this academic research has been illuminating! A lot of hard work in an already busy period which increased my stress level but a fascinating journey nevertheless that taught me a lot on many aspects of my lecture and my practice. I had never done academic research before and I had never had deep, meaningful and constructive feedback from students on my lectures either. So, this SIP has clearly taken me outside of my comfort zone but it has also giving me an opportunity to study my own work and to find improvements on both my lecture and my own practice.
Inspired by these finding I have also reflected on my practice and on how I could make my own work more inclusive and effective. For example, I have realised the importance of graphics to ease the learning process for all. I have tested different pedagogies, realised their potential and I will reuse them. I have learnt not to pack jam my lecture of too much information that I will not have the time to go through and I have learnt to time better my lectures. My understanding of the importance of peer to peer communication has been enhanced and I will prioritise a safe space in my lectures for these conversations. My critical thinking and analysis have gained in sophistication and my overall understanding of teaching and the learning process have increased exponentially.
There is also an interesting aspect that has emerged from the research of the lecture: it is the different teacher/ students’ relationship I observed. Indeed, both at the beginning of the lecture and of the focus group, I purposely blurred the relationship by letting them know that as biases were all around us they had already a good knowledge of some of the topics and that I would learn from them and from their feedback. During the focus group, I highlighted that there was no teacher or students in the session but a group of people who were brainstorming. It seems that breaking the mould of the normal teacher/students’ relationship had a liberating effect on how the students interacted with me. They seemed to have been more relaxed, more open to talk about their feelings and experiences and more critical as I wasn’t perceived as the person that had all the knowledge. I do realise that a research would be necessary to confirm this intuition but my instincts were very strong specifically during the focus group and I do believe that there is a truth to this even though I can’t prove it for now.
Finally, I would like to address a comment that was made in the Padlet feedback page and that I haven’t addressed yet as I felt it was too specific to be included in the research. Indeed, one of the students mentioned that in China the gender bias is the reverse than in Europe and 70% of the TV crew are female. I was surprised by this comment because it went against everything I know about Chinese TV & Film crew. Indeed, the main activity of my company Beaucoup Films, is to provide film services to foreign production companies who wish to film in the UK and in Europe. My main clients are Chinese and Indian. I have 20 years of experience filming with Chinese crew and I have never witnessed a 70% female crew, ever. I also know for having researched it that the gender gap in labour force participation and pay has widened in China in the last 10 years[1]. At first, I thought that this comment could be the result of male fragility but decided to investigate to make sure. After the focus group was finished, I related the comment to the group and ask them what they thought. A Chinese female student replied that the imbalance wasn’t so much in the number of female and male crew but in the role that they had. She went on to explain that directors and all the camera department crew would be male with very rare exceptions and the production department would be mainly female crew which is exactly what I have experienced. In all these years working with Chinese crew, I’ve worked with only 2 female directors and never saw a woman in the camera crew. What was interesting is that the male student wanted to be a producer and the female student wanted to be a director. So I took this opportunity to demonstrate how damaging gender gap was for all of us and how it could crush talent and ambitions. I also thought that I would include this comment in my next lecture to emphasise the impact of gender gap on people’s career.
In conclusion, doing the self-initiated project and going through PG Cert has been a challenging yet rewarding experience. It has allowed me to understand better my practice, different pedagogies and the learning process. I now feel much more confident in my teaching and in my understanding of High Education. I’m looking forward to carrying on implementing these new skills and knowledge in my lectures and I am grateful to all teachers and peers that have made this experience very special indeed!
[1] Zang, E. and Huang, T. (2020) Gender Discrimination at Work Is Dragging China’s Growth. Peterson Institute for International Economics. Available at: https://www.piie.com/blogs/china-economic-watch/gender-discrimination-work-dragging-chinas-growth. (Accessed on 6th January 2022)
Field Notes – SIP Workshop 3
This workshop came as a saviour to me. I had done my focus group a couple of weeks before the workshop and I was lost with the amount of data, not really knowing what to do with it. I could sense some themes coming out of all these points of views but it was just a gut feeling rather than something I could demonstrate.
Understanding the analytical filtering of primary and secondary data started to lift the blurring fog on my data. Semiotic analysis was interesting to study but ultimately didn’t really apply to my research.
The data poetry was a total revelation and a very useful one too! Doing the exercise on Jordan transcript during the workshop made me realise that this was the best way to analyse and extract meaningful point of views. Saying that, I was surprised that the data poem that each group ended with was somewhat different, extracting different meaning from the transcript. What was important was to stay true and rigorous to the meaning and the intention of the data to create an honest and relevant explanatory narrative.
Working in groups on the thematic coding had the effect of a bright new light on my data!
I could finally see a way of making sense of the data by classifying them in different research themes. This is when I realised that my research question had 3 main themes in order to extract improvements: the content of the lecture, the pedagogies and the learning outcomes. It became obvious that I needed to classify the data following these themes.
I was delighted at the end of the workshop and couldn’t wait to put my new knowledge into practice. It also allowed me to have a good understanding of what I was doing for the first time!
Field Notes – SIP Workshop 2
The workshop started by a recap of Action Research and then moved on to the action research cycle. Adding our actions on Miro allowed me to understand better the different phases of action research and how to implement them.
Messy Work, Meshwork and Meh Work:
I have to say that learning that mess was an important factor of action research was liberating to me. At the time, I had done the 121 interview and the students’ Padlet feedback and I was preparing the focus group. I could sense that a lot of different point of views had already been expressed and I was feeling a bit overwhelmed with all these different ways of thinking. I wasn’t quite sure where all this would lead and didn’t have a grasp on how to make sense of the data.
One sentence from Cook’s study[1] (2009) really resonated with me:
“In research, having multiple viewpoints, where each new view and theory is a springboard for further reflection, is an important way of finding new ways of seeing.”
I also very much enjoyed the Meshwork idea that space is actively created rather than something out there to be discovered. I was also interested in the notion that meshwork allows for dynamism and change which is what I wanted for my research. I could relate to this concept as I was researching the lecture that I had created but also was interested in the connection difference between Meshwork and Network.
The Meh work section highlighted 2 different approaches: the Modernist, which deals with the matter of fact and the Design, which deal with the matter of concern. The Design approach resonated better with me as it touched on an aspect of the research that was very important. Why does it matter to me? Why did I wanted to do a lecture on the bias in the film industry and researched it? The answer to these questions resides in the ethic of the research. It was important to me because I had been the recipient of these biases throughout my working experience and I wanted to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
Learning to review efficiently and thoroughly an article to extract all the purposes, questions, information, inferences, concepts, assumptions, implications and point of views allowed me to be much more efficient in my reading. I took the habit of making notes and references which greatly helped when writing the research.
What I found difficult to get my head around was the referencing. I do not know if it is because I am dyslexic but it took me quite a while to identify the different referencing methods and to apply this new knowledge to my research.
Sampling was interesting to know about, but ultimately was irrelevant to my research as my sampling was random amongst the population of MA Film students that participated to the lecture.
The data collection tools swap shop was fascinating and was only slightly hindered by the fact that not everybody was ready for the exercise. Saying that, it allowed for a peer to peer exchange of ideas and concepts that was useful to all. The very first information I extracted from this session was the difficulty in elaborating questions. The syntax, the clarity, the order of the questions were all important factors that would help getting relevant and informative data. It was a great help to hear other people’s questions and to see the difference between the intention of the person asking the question and how actually it is received and perceived by a participant. Being able to be in turn an interviewer and an interviewee allowed me to understand the complexity of questioning and the importance of its accuracy.
We also look into our data collection methods and this was a bit more reassuring as I had planned (without fully realising it) quite few different ways of getting data. It is actually one of my peers in my group that highlighted that I would end up with a lot of data considering that I wanted to do a Padlet feedback after the lecture, a 121 interview, a focus group and a questionnaire. I have to say that I hadn’t thought of the volume of data I would get and this peer’s reflection made me realised that I had no idea how to deal with all the data I would get.
Thankfully Workshop 3 will be all about data analysis…
[1] Cook,T. (2009) The purpose of mess in action research: building rigour though a messy turn, Educational Action Research, 17:2, 277-291
After the lecture field notes
Critical analysis of The Bias of the Film Industry lecture
Content:
- Good start with the breakdown of the lecture at the very beginning. I feel it set up straight away the topic and how we are going to study it.
- Good introduction: brainstorm and the non-existence of the usual teacher/ students’ relationship in this lecture as biases are in everybody’s life and everybody knows about them. Encouraged dialogue from the beginning. “Netiquette” and “What do bias means?” are good, necessary and clear.
- Whack or Woke? Voting on film clips to assess if they are Whack or Woke. Access to films with Padlet page. Chose to do that as it is too bad quality when screening the films to the students through my screen from Collaborate.
- Asked an open question to a student prompted by a text from him in the chat box to start the conversation: good
- 1st clip: I gave my point of view too quickly and should have asked for other students’ point of view. I was surprised that some students had voted Woke for Love The Neighbour and I should have investigate straight away. I realised my mistake and explained that there was no right or wrong and we were brainstorming but I couldn’t get anybody who voted Woke to speak. A student reinforced the Whack vote with an interesting point.
- 2nd Clip: I realised that I was going to run out of time if I wanted to show all the clips that I had planned. I chose to cut the number of clips and jumped few to finish on time. Saying that my priority was students discussing the clips so it was good that they did and that it took more time than I thought.
- Rest of the clips went well but I would have selected different clips if I had known that I wouldn’t show all of them. Select 4 clips for the next lecture with 2 other clips as a backup.
- Workforce: went well. Data shows clearly the gender gap. Maybe introduce other countries to show this is international not just UK?
- Balance of power: slightly trickier to evidence but seems to have hit the mark
- Good conclusion: positive note to end the lecture. It felt really important to end on a bright light as I wanted to give them a message of hope rather than of doom and gloom.
- Overall lecture went well no backlash and everybody was on board – respectful and safe conversations.
- Lots of interesting comments. I can’t wait to analyse them!
- Students were engaged and happy to have this lecture. Many feedbacks highlighting the importance of approaching such topics.
- Students opened up to their own experiences and interacted but the conversations could have been more engaged as there was a chore of 8 to 10 students only who mainly talked. Need to rethink group conversations.
- The online factor is important to highlight. Indeed, it took quite a bit of time for everybody to see the clips and come back to the main window. I had done a Padlet page with a timeline to make it easier to follow but still it took a lot of time. Also, I think that this lecture begs for human connections through the conversations and this is harder to obtain online than in presence.
Pedagogies:
- Inclusive teaching & learning pedagogy: Netiquette[1] was clear and set well the values of the lecture.
- Object learning pedagogy[2]: students engaged well with this pedagogy and from the Padlet feedback it seems that the film clips helped the students to understand the concept of representation. The game of voting for Whack or Woke was also a good way to make them engage with the topic in a fun way.
- Critical thinking pedagogy[3]: By asking them to vote Whack or Woke I wanted to highlight the need for critical thinking as I knew there will be opposing views. Voting declined when they realised that it wasn’t clear cut which seems to show that they were critically analysing the clips BUT there should have been a “I’m not sure” button to reflect those who weren’t sure. Peers to peers’ conversations were also a way of enhancing critical thinking. I’m sure I can find a way of improving these conversations so that everybody participates.
Learning outcome:
- I think they now have a better understanding of their industry. From the Padlet feedback few were surprised by the wide gender gap in the workforce and many were happy to discuss such topics and felt that it was important to have a lecture that exposed honestly bias in their industry. Few expressed verbally during the lecture how important this lecture was for them.
- From the voting for Whack or Woke and the Padlet feedback it seems that the learning outcome for critical thinking has been reach to some degree.
- The understanding of concepts & values is harder to assess at this stage and will need deeper research.
Self-critical analysis:
Although I started the lecture a bit nervous, I managed to relax after a couple of minutes and then thoroughly enjoyed teaching the lecture. I am pleased that I managed to cut down the number of clips and keep the lecture on track with no disruption to the lecture. Saying that, I do realise that this was an oversight that I need to address as I wasn’t realistic in the time it would take to see, think and discuss the film clips.
What I think I could have done better is to investigate more all points of views before giving my own. Specifically at the beginning, I was too quick in agreeing with a specific point of view when I should have explored other students’ views.
I realised my mistake during the lecture and tried and mainly succeeded in exploring all avenues before giving my own views. Still need to work on this.
Overall, I am delighted to have taught this lecture. It was well received by the students and I could see during the lecture that they were eager to learn from it and to speak about these topics. There are some improvements that I can already see such as the “I’m not sure” button when voting or the need to improve conversations but I also know that there must be quite few other improvements that I do not see yet. I cannot wait to start the research on the lecture and the students’ feedback.
[1] Shade of Noir https://shadesofnoir.org.uk
[2] Dr K. Hardie. (2015) Wow: The power of Objects in Object-Based Learning and Teaching. HEA
[3] Freire P. (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Myra Ramos ed. New York: Continuum
Thoughts on my SIP and Workshop 1
I decided on the topic of my SIP before the summer when I wanted to create my new lecture The Bias of the Film Industry. When working on the lecture, I realised that a study would be necessary in order to assess if the learning outcomes were reached and if the lecture needed improvements.
During the summer, I pitched the concept of the lecture to friends, family and colleagues to gage the interest on such topic and had numerous conversations about biases. I also read bell hooks’ book Reel to Real: Race, Class and Sex at the Movies1. I had encountered bell hooks during the L&T unit through her books; All About Love and Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. At the time, I really engaged with her critical analysis of societal bias and her theory of engaged pedagogy. When researching for books about bias in the film industry, a simple Google search on “racism in the film industry” gave me a list of books to read. Reel To Real was part of the list. Knowing the great ability of the author to analyse biases and their impact on individual and her subversive spirit, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it.
Reading her book allowed me to get a more sophisticated critical analysis on the racial, gender and class representation in cinema and on the power and effect that movies have on individuals. Two concepts that were to become an important part of the lecture. My reading list didn’t stopped at bell hooks (See Lecture Bibliography in Workflow) and I also watched many films such as Disclosure2.
In September, I started to work on the structure and content of the lecture and all too soon it was time for our first SIP lecture.
I have to say that it was quite a shock to realise the complexity of academic research. From formulating a precise research question to structuring a focus action plan and analysing data in order to implement results; the task seemed voluminous and the time given to achieve it seemed short.
The SIP lecture was a great help to focus my attention and my readings.
I really enjoyed the philosophical aspect of academic research and indeed my research is fully in line with my educational and moral values.
Reading McNiff allowed me to understand the methodology of an action research. I realised that I needed to study how to interview, how to formulate interview questions and how to collect and analyse data. I also needed to find a strategy and design a structure for the overall research.
A lot of reading and work ahead but for now, the lecture is scheduled in a few days’ time and I need to concentrate on it.
I am equally exited at the prospect of lecturing this subject and nervous. I am aware of the sensitive nature of the lecture and I am concerned with possible emotional backlash and students being triggered by the lecture’s topics. To be ready for this I have read many papers on the challenge of having courageous conversations in an educational context thanks to Shade of Noir’s website.
I am also pleased to do the lecture as it will mean that I will be able to start my study. Apart from the fact that much of my brain is busy with the lecture, I do not feel that I can concentrate my efforts on my research until the lecture is done.
- b. hooks. (1996) Reel to Real: Race, Class and Sex at the Movies. Routledge
- Disclosure: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8637504/?ref_=fn_al_tt_20
Social justice, intersectionality and representation in the film industry
One of the great gifts of film is its capacity to connect audiences to other people’s points of view, cultures and identities. Film’s ability to create these dialogues is incredibly powerful and allows an audience to gain an understanding of the world, of different intersectionality and of societal bias.
Unfortunately, the film industry is still riddled with racist, misogynistic, ageing and ableist bias both onscreen and in its creative, production and institutional workforce. Indeed, in 2020 in the US, women comprised only 21% of all directors, writers, producers, executive producers, editors, and cinematographers working on the top 100 grossing films, up from 20% in 2019[1] and in the UK, people of colour (POC) represented only 23% of on-screen representation, themes and narratives and 24% of the creative leadership and project teams in 2020[2].
As a queer female filmmaker from a multi ethnic background, I have been the recipient of bias for most of my life.
As a production tutor for BA film practice and MA Film at LCC, I teach film production to many international students with a vast array of different identities, cultural and socio-economic backgrounds and religions. With this paper, I reflect on the process that lead me to decide to create a lecture that would approach the concepts of social justice and inclusivity and the lack of it in the film industry. I will also analyse the structure and pedagogies the lecture will use as well as the reactions of my peers and my students when I officially proposed to teach this lecture in the next academic year. It is entitled,’ Inclusivity in scriptwriting, casting, creative vision and film production: the bias of the film industry and the importance of representation’.
Encouraging the understanding and the awareness of inclusivity and representation in films and in the film industry seems paramount to ensure that the next generation of filmmakers is diverse and competent in their work ethic and in their creative vision and in the realisation of their projects. It is also important that as a place of education, the university is at the forefront of inclusive pedagogy and anti-discrimination policies when teaching.
In my couple of years teaching I have come to realise that the emphasis is on “how to make a film” creatively and technically. We also have lectures that discuss the ‘what to film’, and ‘which emphasis on the structure and technics of scriptwriting’, but there are no lectures that approach bias in scriptwriting, casting, creative vision and film production. Similarly, the lack of diversity in the workforce and the importance of onscreen representation of different intersectionality in the film industry and in students’ films are not addressed.
I remember vividly an occasion in class where I had to point out to my students that all the characters that they had created in their scripts were young, beautiful, able bodied and mainly white. This specific incident sparked my interest in inclusive teaching & learning pedagogy and, working my way through the inclusive teaching & learning unit, made me realised that I could create an intervention, a lecture, that would tackle the problem and hopefully create allies and activists in the next generation of filmmakers.
Thinking further, I established the structure of the lecture and the different pedagogies and concepts that it will use and teach.
To insure a respectful and safe session, the lecture will start with an inclusive ‘Teaching & learning’[3] pedagogy through SoN’s Netiquette[4] that it will be adapted if the lecture is not online. The concept of intersectionality and inclusivity will be developed using the object-based learning[5] pedagogy which will help us scrutinise different examples of bias in the film industry using extracts of films, surveys and games. For example, an anonymous survey of the students’ identities would be an engaging way to introduce concepts of diversity and intersectionality. An emphasis will be put on the richness that inclusivity can bring into the University experience, the film industry and society. Initiatives such as the Bechdel-Wallace test[6] will be highlighted as well as the BFI’s ‘Race and Ethnicity in the UK Film Industry’[7] report which highlights the under-representation of women and POC both on screen and in the creative workforce.
Another interaction could be the introduction of POC film professional who would lecture about his/her/their journey in the film industry as an ethnic minority/woman/disabled person. The lecture will be at all times respectful, safe and deep in terms of the themes approached but fun and light in terms of how these concepts will be studied.
Finally, once bias is demonstrated and different concepts are clarified, we would engage in critical pedagogy[8]through group discussions. Questioning the normative narrative in films, the representation of POC in the film industry, discussing the filmmaker’s moral responsibility, the need for education and self-growth and finding ways of combating and exposing injustices. These would be some of the topics approached.
The learning outcomes would be multiple and encompass an understanding of the concept of inclusivity, social justice, intersectionality, diversity, awareness of film industry bias and the importance of self-growth, and activism. The success of the lecture would be measured in the diversity of the themes approached in the students’ films and characters, their work ethic and in a follow up, feedback and a survey that will also be used to improve the lecture if/when necessary.
I foresee that this lecture will be three hours long, split in two equal parts: half put to the inclusive learning & teaching concepts and the second half for the discussion with a break in between to assimilate the concepts previously approached.
It will be delivered in the first term of the academic year, before the students start writing their scripts so that their diversity competency has a maximum impact on their creative vision and their interaction with each other’s work.
Once I had formulated more clearly my proposed lecture I suggested it to the MA Film course leader who was both enthusiastic and apologetic for not thinking about it before (see Appendix 1). This reaction suggested to me that this lecture would also be beneficial to the tutors and the staff as 2/3 of my colleagues in MA Film are white males. I will also make sure I’ll invite all tutors to the lecture.
I understand that white fragility is a potential backlash of the lecture and I have researched how to have courageous conversations in the workshop setting through SoN’s website[9] and its’ courageous conversation toolkit[10].
I am very grateful that I have received the enthusiastic support of our Dean Zey Suka-Bill who has asked to identify the needed resources in order for the lecture to go forward and is interested in its possible integration into all BAs & MAs being delivered by LCC Screen department (see Appendix 2). I am also grateful for the support of my colleagues and Course Leader who has planned extra hours for the lecture next year and will participate.
Encouraged by the enthusiasm of my peers, I contacted the MA Film students and asked them for their feedback and ideas on the lecture. I received enthusiastic emails from my students who are all very interested in the subject matter and would be eager to have a lecture that addresses these issues (see below for extract and in the Appendix 3 for full email).
Quote, “I actually would have loved to have this module in this year. I think it’s super interesting and I definitely think you should introduce it. The film industry is so dominated by white men and I think it’d be incredibly insightful to get a view of other directors/producers/writers or anything like that from a minorities perspective’, “These lectures for the following cohort sound great. I would have been interested in receiving this lecture as anything it seems like essential learning for the new generation of filmmakers, sounds really good. Questioning difference and inclusivity in film from educational stage is important as this is one of the lectures that may stay with students for the rest of their careers.”
It is clear that there is a real need for a lecture that will approach concepts of diversity, inclusivity, representation and intersectionality in the film industry. Both students and staff realise the importance of studying these concepts in order to applying them to their creative visions in their work environment and hopefully in their lives too.
Creating allies and increasing the awareness of individual, moral responsibilities as well as the ones of the filmmakers is the goal of this lecture.
I very much look forward to teaching this lecture. I am delighted to finally have a tool that allows me to educate a new generation of filmmakers to bias so that we will have a chance to make the societal changes that we aspire to.
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[1] M. M. Lauzen, PhD. 2021. The Celluloid Ceiling: Behind-the-Scenes Employment of Women on the Top U.S. Films of 2020. Center for the Study of Women in Television & Film. P1
[2] Dr C. j. Nwonka (2020) Race and Ethnicity in the UK Film Industry: an analysis of the BFI Diversity Standards. The London School of Economics and Political Science. P7
[3] Shades of Noir (2020), Inclusive Practice: Alchemy – Transformation in Social Justice Teaching
[4] Shades of Noir (2020), Netiquette. https://www.shadesofnoir.org.uk/education/digital-learning/
[5] Dr K. Hardie. 2015 Wow: The power of Objects in Object-Based Learning and Teaching. HEA.
[6] The Bechdel-Wallace Test: http://bechdeltestfest.com/about/
[7] Dr C. j. Nwonka (2020) Race and Ethnicity in the UK Film Industry: an Analysis of the BFI Diversity Standards. The London School of Economics and Political Science
[8] Freire P. (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Myra Ramos ed. New York: Continuum
[9] Shade of Noir (2020). Dr G. Singh. How To Facilitate Open Discussions About Racism, Implicit Bias And Stereotypes In The Workshop Setting.
[10] Shade of Noir (2020), Courageous Conversation Toolkit. https://atctools.org/toolkit_tool/courageous-conversations-toolkit/
Bibliography:
Dr C. j. Nwonka (2020) Race and Ethnicity in the UK Film Industry: an analysis of the BFI Diversity Standards. The London School of Economics and Political Science
https://www.bfi.org.uk/industry-data-insights/reports/diversity-reports
M. M. Lauzen, PhD. 2021. The Celluloid Ceiling: Behind-the-Scenes Employment of Women on the Top U.S. Films of 2020. Center for the Study of Women in Television & Film
https://womenintvfilm.sdsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/2020_Celluloid_Ceiling_Report.pdf
Bechdel-Wallace test: http://bechdeltestfest.com/about/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechdel_test
Crenshaw, K. (1994) ‘Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics’Living with Contradictions. 1st edn. Routledge,
Freire P. (2013) Paulo Freire’s Blunt Challenge to Anthropology: Create a Pedagogy of the Opressed for Your Times
Freire P. (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Myra Ramos ed. New York: Continuum.
Hooks, B. (2014) Teaching to Transgress. Taylor & Francis.
Dr K. Hardie. 2015 Wow: The power of objects in object-based learning and teaching. HEA.
Richards, A. and Finnigan, T. (2015) Embedding equality and diversity in the curriculum: An art and Design practitioner’s guide . York: Higher Education Academy.
Ferlazzo L (2020). Responding to a Colleague Who Makes a Racist Comment. Education Week
Shades of Noir (2020), Courageous Conversation Toolkit.
https://atctools.org/toolkit_tool/courageous-conversations-toolkit/
Shades of Noir (2019), How To Facilitate Open Discussions About Racism, Implicit Bias and Stereotypes in the Workshop Setting by Dr. Singh G. CBE.
Shades of Noir (2020), Inclusive Practice: Alchemy – Transformation in Social Justice Teaching
Shade of Noir (2018) Discourse: The Power of Language and Communication
Shade of Noir (2017) Safe Spaces: What Are They, and Why They Matter?
Shade of Noir (2016) Intersectional Safety In The Classroom
Shade of Noir (2017) Intersectional Film
Shade of Noir (2020) The Inclusive Practice Unit
Shade of Noir (2019) Reflecting on Inclusive Teaching and Learning Unit in Higher Education
Appendix 1:
Appendix 2:
Appendix 3:
Race
Shade of Noir: Shades of Noir
How could you apply the resources to your own teaching practice?
This site has everything to support staff and students with an array of resources to dig into from pedagogy to case studies, a creative database and programs such as “Teaching Within”. The aim of the site is to develop an awareness of the existence of injustice in our society and to develop social justice theory and pedagogy. It also gives clear framework, guidance and support for staff and students.
I will use SoN’s resources as a source of information to facilitate critical conversation with students and staff and to refer a student if/when necessary. I will also do my own research (cultural & references) in order to better engaged with social justice in my class and to expand the diversity of the films references I give in my lectures.
I am also planning on doing a lecture about inclusivity in the film industry. I will use SoN’s as my main source of information and approach concepts such as netiquette, identity, intersectionality and representation. I will also include the pedagogy of ‘teaching people how to think not what to think’[1] and critical pedagogy.[2]
How could you integrate the research/work your students do on this subject into your teaching/professional practice?
As our students write their own script I will strongly encouraged them to develop their identity in order to find their own voice and creativity. I will also encourage responsible conversations about the issues highlighted in their work and give guidance and feedback that are honest, fair, respectful and empathic.
I will create a safe place to discuss these issues where conversations will be respectful and constructive. I am acutely aware of the importance of the language used in a conversation and I will make sure to speak slowly and clearly with uncomplicated language.
The aim of these conversations will be to encourage self-growth, open-mildness and awareness.
Can you cite examples?
Many of my students write script dealing with different themes encompassing racism, homophobia, mental health, religion and disability. These themes are discussed during script writing session with the relevant tutor and I now include in my lectures space to discuss further these issues with the students.
Representation is also an important aspect that I promote. I will highlight the importance of having actors that have a diverse ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, ability, faith, economic and social background.
I will also integrate the notion of individual responsibility and the need for the next generation of filmmaker to be aware of and to denounce the lack of social justice in their industry, their craft and potentially in the film they create.
Hahn Tapper (2013) ‘A pedagogy of social justice education: social identity, theory and intersectionality’, Pp. 411- 417
This journal examines the different aspects of social justice education. It highlights the importance of including social identity in all implementation of education as discussed by P. Freire[3]. It shows the importance of students and teachers engaging in critical reflexion, living a communal experience where the students are leading and the teachers are guiding.
The journal also explores power dynamic in social groups in HE.
Social Identity Theory (SIT) argues that social identity underpins intergroup behavior (as oppose to interpersonal behaviour). It focuses on social context as the key determinant of self-definition and behaviour. It is said that people are the product of their environment and will behave as such reproducing status quos such as the fear of the other.
Knowing that race is a social construction, with significant social consequences[4], it seems that education and the awareness of one’s interpersonal behaviour are key to challenge the perception of people of colour’s social identity. For a real societal change, intergroup relation needs to evolve to a fair and just power dynamic.
Ted talk video “Witness Unconscious Bias”. Josephine Kwhali
Quite few reflexions spark from watching Josephine Kwhali’s Ted Talk video “Witness Unconscious Bias”. The first one is the importance of being aware of the nurtured aspect of racism. Nobody is born racist. There is also no such thing as unconscious bias. Today everybody is aware of racism and unconscious bias cannot be the feel-good medicine for a bruise white fragility.
Institutional racism in High Education is linked to white privilege and therefore conscious decisions were/ are made in order to maintain a power dynamic that is to their benefit. It is the responsibility of each of us to be conscious of the injustice and to act upon it when confronted to us.
Another reflection that emerge from Kwali’s words is the white fragility and the white denial that allows the status quo. A look at today ‘s American politics and the debate around critical race theory is enough to show us a flagrant example of white anxiety and white denial.
‘Retention and attainment in the disciplines: Art and Design’ Finnigan and Richards 2016.
The attainment gap between black students who gain an upper degree and white students is of 33%. This journal explores how curricula, culture, pedagogy and practice influence and affect the learning and success of people of colour in High Education.
For example, it shows that the process of selection not only need to take in consideration how class works as a barrier, but also how socioeconomic privilege works to thicken and complicate the barriers of age, disability, gender, race and sexuality[5].
It highlights how Art & Design pedagogies are paramount for the engagement and retention of students of colour. Indeed, students should be encouraged to explore their own identity in their work and should be supported creatively and emotionally. Art and Design educators need to be aware of the power of their feedback and should be encouraging and knowledgeable of other cultural background.
The journal also shows that Art education has been described as Eurocentric, racist and imperialist and a curriculum reform and a social change are now necessary for an Inclusive Teaching & Learning in HE.[6]
Finally, it points out that ethnic diversity among staff is important for both Black and White students, as it provides positive role models, as well as a range of perspectives that enrich learning and demonstrates an institution’s commitment to diversity.
“That racist measures are not only retained, but actually extended, suggests that policy makers have decided (tacitly, if not explicitly) to place race equity at the margins – thereby retaining race injustice at the centre.”[7]
Additional Resources
‘Room of Silence’ from Rhode Island School of Design
The very first impression I have when watching this documentary is that students of different ethnicity are craving talking about race, racism and relationship between different races in their arts.
Instead of meeting this need with support, guidance and feedback it is disregarded by a white normative curriculum and teachers that do not want to approach these issues either because they do not know how to or do not want to.
White fragility, white denial and white guilt, all play a part in the way the issues are dealt with. From a student words: “I don’t think that responsible analysis and criticism and discussion on the issues of identities and so forth should be something that you can opt out of.”[8] Indeed, it is an individual responsibility that needs to be addressed and educated.
Bibliography:
Shades of Noir website. Shades of Noir
Freire P. (2006) Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
Hahn Tapper (2013) ‘A pedagogy of social justice education: social identity,
Theory, intersectionality and empowerment’
Ted talk video “Witness Unconscious Bias”. Josephine Kwhali
‘Room of Silence’ from Rhode Island School of Design
‘Retention and attainment in the disciplines: Art and Design’ Finnigan and
Richards 2016.
Privilege and Oppression in Counselor Education: An Intersectionality Framework
C. D. Chan, D. Cor, M. P. Band. 2018. Counselor Education Faculty Publications and
Presentations Counselor Education
Students’ Experience of Identity and Attainment at UAL
Final year 4 report of a longitudinal study for the University of the Arts London. 2017
Education Policy as an Act of White Supremacy: Whiteness, Critical Race Theory and Education Reform. D. Gillborn. Educational Foundations & Policy Studies – Institute of Education
[1] Shades of Noir website. Teaching Within 1:2016 – 17. Carole Morrison.
[2] Freire P. (2006) Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
[3] Freire P. (2006) Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
[4] Dhruvarajan 2000
[5] Bhagat and O’Neil 2011a
[6] Hatton 2015
[7] D. Gillborn. Education Policy as an Act of White Supremacy: Whiteness, Critical Race Theory and Education Reform. Institute of Education
[8] ‘Room of Silence’ from Rhode Island School of Design 12:48 – 12:59
Artefact
Lecture: Inclusivity in scriptwriting, casting, creative vision and film production: the bias of the film industry and the importance of representation
One of the great gifts of film is its capacity to connect audiences to other people’s point of view, culture and identities. Film’s ability to create these dialogues is incredibly powerful and allows an audience to gain an understanding of the world, of different intersectionality and of societal bias.
Teaching film production to students from all over the world and with a vast array of different identities requires a good understanding of inclusive learning and teaching from staff and students.
Thinking of inclusivity in the curriculum made me realise that the emphasis of our teaching is on the “how to make a film” creatively and technically but there is no lecture that approach bias in scriptwriting, casting, creative vision and film production or that highlight the importance of the representation of different intersectionality in students’ films.
I want to create this lecture by using different pedagogies such as:
- inclusive teaching & learning[1] (Netiquette, concept of intersectionality & identity)
- object based learning[2] through extract of films, games and survey,
- critical pedagogy[3] through questioning the normative narrative in films,
- students centred through group discussions.
This lecture would be delivered in the first term, before the students start writing their scripts in order to have a maximum impact on their creative vision and so that they become diversity competent.
I have suggested this new workshop to Ray Kilby the course leader of MA Film who was enthusiastic and has planned extra hours for this lecture next year. I have also received the support of our Dean Zey Suka-Bill for a possible integration in the Screen department (see Appendix).
Appendix:
Bibliographie:
Crenshaw, K. (1994) ‘Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics’Living with Contradictions. 1st edn. Routledge,
Freire P. (2013) Paulo Freire’s Blunt Challenge to Anthropology: Create a Pedagogy of the Opressed for Your Times
Freire P. (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Myra Ramos ed. New York: Continuum.
Hooks, B. (2014) Teaching to Transgress. Taylor & Francis.
Dr K. Hardie. 2015 Wow: The power of objects in object-based learning and teaching. HEA.
Richards, A. and Finnigan, T. (2015) Embedding equality and diversity in the curriculum: An art and design practitioner’s guide . York: Higher Education Academy.
Ferlazzo L (2020). Responding to a Colleague Who Makes a Racist Comment. Education Week
Shades of Noir (2020), Inclusive Practice: Alchemy – Transformation in Social Justice Teaching
https://issuu.com/shadesofnoir/docs/inclusivepractice
Shades of Noir (2019), How To Facilitate Open Discussions About Racism, Implicit Bias and Stereotypes in the Workshop Setting by Dr. Singh G. CBE.
Shade of Noir (2018) Discourse: The Power of Language and Communication
https://issuu.com/shadesofnoir/docs/discourse-_the_power_of_language_an
Shade of Noir (2017) Safe Spaces: What Are They, and Why They Matter?
https://shadesofnoir.org.uk/safe-spaces-what-are-they-and-why-they-matter/
Shade of Noir (2016) Intersectional Safety In The Classroom
https://shadesofnoir.org.uk/intersectional-safety-in-the-classroom/
Shade of Noir (2017) Intersectional Film
https://shadesofnoir.org.uk/intersectional-film/
Shade of Noir (2020) The Inclusive Practice Unit
https://shadesofnoir.org.uk/the-inclusive-practice-unit/
Shade of Noir (2019) Reflecting on Inclusive Teaching and Learning Unit in Higher Education
https://shadesofnoir.org.uk/reflecting-on-inclusive-teaching-and-learning-unit/
[1] Shades of Noir (2020), Inclusive Practice: Alchemy – Transformation in Social Justice Teaching
[2] Dr K. Hardie. 2015 Wow: The power of objects in object-based learning and teaching. HEA.
[3] Freire P. (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Myra Ramos ed. New York: Continuum
Faith
Religion, Belief and Faith Identities in Learning and Teaching – UAL website
I had never seen the UAL website Religion, belief and faith identities in learning and teaching before. I wasn’t aware that it existed and to be honest I had never thought of religion as an important matter for Higher Education.
This UAL website enlightened me and I now realise that if religion is not an important factor in my life it is not true for a fair percentage of the population and therefor for a good proportion of my students. Indeed, UAL chaplain Mark Dean reveals in the Shade of Noir’s interview[1] that a UAL survey shows that 50% of UAL students identify as religious and of those who don’t, only a small minority identify as atheist. Similarly, when we look at the data of the Global Religious Landscape Worldwide All Population[2] it is clear to see that the number of people identifying as religious has increased for all religions in the last 10 years.
The website also questions the interaction between art and religion throughout history and the way this relationship can be incorporated in teaching practice. It shows different publications such as OOMK which emphasis on the expression of religious women in general and Muslim women in particular. It seems though that not many religions were covered and as it represents the students’ work one can wonder as to why the publication is not more representative of the different students’ religious identities.
The website also contains many case studies. One of them is Veil by Sara Shamsavari. Her work is about the celebration of Muslim women who wear the veil in different styles in order to express their individual identities. It is a vibrant example of the relation between art and religion which in turn shows the importance of highlighting prejudice and perception against the reality of cultural expression.
Reflecting on religion in order to make sure that my teaching is respectful and aware of it is paramount. It is also important because religion has shaped the identities of religious and to a lesser extend non-religious students. It is part of their intersectionality.
How could you apply the resources to your own practice?
The very first application for my own practice is that I now will be able to refer my students to this website and to its numerous case studies. I will also encourage my students to approach the theme of religion in their work and to reflect on the plurality of religion, its impact on society and its importance on people’s life.
Throughout this Inclusive Teaching & Learning in Higher Education unit I have come to realise that I need to be more influential in the themes and casting chosen by my students for their films. I used to say that as a production tutor my role was to make sure that the students could realise their ideas and I didn’t think that I should discuss and challenge when necessary their creative vision. Today, through discussions and by referencing films engaging with different topics such as race, gender, sexuality, disability, faith and culture, I want to expand the students’ visions so that they embrace and represent all kind of themes, topics and point of views. I will of course always respect their vision but my guidance will not stop at just production matters and will now encompass societal, creative and spiritual point of view. I am therefore working on creating a new workshop that would challenge bias in scriptwriting, the creation of film drama and casting.
How could you integrate the research/work your students do on this subject into your teaching/professional practice? Can you cite examples?
Reflecting on religion made me realise that I might have been insensitive to one of my students’ religious identity. Indeed, he wrote a script about two parents who come to the UK from India to bury their grown-up son who died after a racist encounter. Although I was very empathic with the themes of racist and of bereavement I failed to understand the religious aspect of it. Indeed, he wanted a scene where the parents would burn a big painting made by their son by the beach. I saw that shot as a health and safety hazard that would not be authorised by the British authorities and failed to perceive the religious aspect of it.
I now see that the true meaning of this shot is a religious parable as Hindus regard an open-air cremation as the most auspicious way to release the soul from the body in order to be reincarnated. Working together, we have already found ways of achieving a safe and secure shot (albeit on a smaller scale and using CGI) and I will discuss with him his true intentions and will make sure to apologies for my lack of understanding and sensibility.
I extracted few lessons from this experience. The first one is that I need to be aware of my own bias and be more sensitive of all religious aspects with my students. I also need to be more informed and to learn about different religions so that I can understand better my students’ intersectionalities.
Religion in Britain: Challenges for Higher Education
Chapters studied:
Religion and knowledge of religion in UK Universities
Religion and dissent in universities
Religion as a public good
The first aspect of religion that I have learnt while reading these articles is the increase in religious concerns either for a better inclusion of religion in public life or the opposite. Indeed, it seems that the secular aspect of Western societies is today put in question while a growing part of the population refute religion in itself. We can see these growing tendencies in countries such as France, Turkey, Poland, Ireland or America to name just a few.
Being non-religious, I also hardly never had thought about the presence of a Chaplain in most universities in the UK and was totally ignorant of how that presence is financed. I realised that although chaplains seem to be “leaders of multi-faith dialogues and communities” it is fair to say that in the UK they are mainly Anglican and other faiths are often represented through them but not by them. Dialogue is indeed welcome but representation is also necessary.
To me religion is about freedom. Freedom to have a faith and to practice this faith, freedom not to have a faith and not to belong to a religious community. Religion is also a very personal matter as it implies that an individual makes a choice. A choice to believe in specific creeds, a choice to life one’s life following these set of beliefs and of course a choice not to believe.
It seems that what we are lacking the most when we think of religion in our societies is the lack of respect of that freedom of choice and conversation should be more about education in order to respect all faiths and non-faith rather than being about the inclusion of religion in our public life. Indeed, when one calculates the number of churches, mosques, temples and other religious building that there is in the UK one realises that religion is very present in our everyday lives. Having religion represented in the decision-making process of our daily life would only be beneficial if all religions and non-believers were represented which in the end would only be a representation of humanity. The reality that we are experiencing today is that only one set of beliefs is over powering all others which in turn creates an exclusive society obeying to a very narrow set of religious rules.
As the French writer and philosopher Voltaire said “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to death your right to say it”, similarly I do not believe in a faith, but I will defend one’s right to believe in a god.
Shade of Noir: Case study
It is clear to see that religious expression is today more diverse and visible than it used to be. In one hand this is a positive change as it shows a better inclusivity in society but unfortunately this doesn’t mean necessarily a better respect of the right to have a faith that is different than the accepted norm and so therefor visibility can also mean being targeted.
Religious extremism and societal amalgams have been the base for the verbal and physical aggressions’ increase seen in our society today. As in many cases, education, honesty, representation, courage and a sincere desire for self-growth are the remedies to this deplorable situation. All of these tools for better understanding, respect and inclusion do not belong to a specific religion. They belong to humanity and society at large needs to do a better use of them.
Kwame Anthony Appiah: Mistaken Identities
Before lessening to Kwane Anthony Appiah’s lecture, I had always thought of religion as a fix set of beliefs that one had to adhere to cognitively in order to put them in practice in everyday life. I became an atheist when I started questioning these set of beliefs specifically when looking at them through the prism of women equality and homosexuality.
Although I fully respect the right to have a faith and the desire to belong to a religious community, I feel that religion today is still relying on outdated scriptures in order to justify and maintain a patriarchal ideology. Kwane Anthony Appiah’s lecture made me realise that these set of beliefs have evolved throughout history and are still evolving today albeit rather slowly.
There is also a certain bias that only religion can make you a better person and that following a specific set of beliefs is the only way to reach a stage of purity, sanctity or enlightenment. An example of this bias can be seen in a question that was asked by a gentleman (an expert in religious identity) after the lecture. His question can be summarised as such: what kind of things fills the hole that atheists and non-believers have as they do not believe in a religion? Rightly, Kwame Anthony Appiah’s response was that he was sceptical of the existence of this hole.
What Kwame Anthony Appiah made me understand is that emphasising on religious community rather than on religion is indeed an attractive proposition to counter these restrictive beliefs and bias.
UPDATE: FRIDAY 28TH MAY
I have met why my student who wanted a shot of a fire by the beach during a production workshop. I asked him what this shot meant to him and he replied that it was a parable for Hindu religious tradition and an important aspect for his film and to him. I explained that I had realised the true meaning of his shot after our last encounter and I apologised for not being sensitive to it at the time. His body language expressed surprise. We talk again about creative ways of achieving his vision and agreed on ways of doing it. The conversation was more meaningful and there was a new bond between us. Unspoken but real. At the end of the session he thanked me for understanding him and I thank him for teaching me how to be a better teacher.
[1] Higher Power: Religion, Faith, Spirituality & Belief. Shade of Noir. Dec 2017 P 24 & 25
[2] Higher Power: Religion, Faith, Spirituality & Belief. Shade of Noir. Dec 2017 P18 & 19
Bibliography:
UAL (2008), Religion, Belief and Faith Identities in Learning and Teaching. https://religiousliteracy.myblog.arts.ac.uk/
Calhoun, C. and Modood, T. (2015), Religion in Britain: Challenges for Higher Education. Leadership Foundation. http://www.tariqmodood.com/uploads/1/2/3/9/12392325/6379_lfhe_stimulus_paper_-_modood_calhoun_32pp.pdf
Kwame, A.A (2016), The Reith Lectures: Mistaken Identity series, Creed.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07z43ds
Shades of Noir (2017), The Little Book of Big Case Studies.
Shades of Noir (2018), Higher Power: Religion, Faith, Spirituality & Belief
https://issuu.com/shadesofnoir/docs/higher_power
Shade of Noir (2017). Queer Bodies.
https://issuu.com/shadesofnoir/docs/queer_bodies_online
One Of My Kind – OOMK Zine
Shamsavari S. Website
https://www.sarashamsavari.com/londonveil#1
Ferlazzo L (2020). Responding to a Colleague Who Makes a Racist Comment. Education Week
Turnbull H. (2013) Inclusion, Exclusion, Illusion and Collusion. TEDx Talks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdV8OpXhl2g&ab_channel=TEDxTalksTEDxTalksVerified
Black O. (2016) Are You One of Us? What Behavioural Science Reveals on Inclusion. TEDx Talks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOlynlKPR-8&ab_channel=TEDxTalksTEDxTalksVerified
The portrayal of disability in film. Hope Cunningham. LCC UK
1- How could you apply the resources to your own teaching practice?
It is clear to me that’s proposing films as a reference to students that portray disability positively and that take in consideration intersectionality in their portrayal is paramount.
Similarly, I also want to push my students to broaden the spectrum of the characters they create for their scripts. Indeed, I remember vividly a course in MA film where we, as tutors had to highlight to students that all the characters they had created for their scripts where young, beautiful and able bodies characters. Most of them were also white.
Highlighting the importance of positive representation to students is important if we want the next generation of filmmakers not to make the mistakes that were done before and to change societal perception of disability.
As Vilissa Thompson mentions in her interview with Sarah Blahovec “lack of representation really affects one’s self esteem and one’s ability to connect with all of their identities. It affects their ability to feel like they’re not alone and feel included in their disabled identity, in their “of color” identity, in their other identities they have.”[1] Lack of representation brings a lack of belonging and relevance. It isolates part of the population and place them on the fringe of society.
2- How could you integrate the research/ work your students do on this subject into your teaching/ professional practice?
Reading this article made me realise that I am not aware of any course that deal with this matter or any study my students are doing in order to tackle the subject.
Although these last years there has been a push to decolonise the curriculum, I have not seen or read anything that tackle the under representation of characters with disability in the curriculum let alone black disabled characters.
There is still a lot to be done to extend the curriculum so that it represents the diversity of our society. I will make sure that I reference to my students a variety of different films made by directors coming from all over the world and that deal with matters that include racism, sexism and disability. I will use these examples to make them realise the importance of being open to different identities, cultures and faith and the role they could play in making our societies more inclusive and open to intersectionality.
3- Can you cite examples?
There are many problems with the way the film industry deals with disability.
- Representation: In films it is often the case that a character who is disable is portrayed as a villain, a creep or as somebody who has not much to say. The disable character is never the main character. Rain Man is one of the very few films that I have seen where the story revolves around a disable character and it is interesting to notice that when the story does revolve around a disable character, that character is almost always white.
- Often disable characters will be played by able body actors or actresses who have not experienced disability discrimination and ableism. This also true for LGBTQ+ characters.
- There are very few disable people working in the film industry which regard (without openly saying it) disability as a burden that could potentially have a negative impact on the efficiency of production. When I started working in the film industry I used to hide my dyslexia as I knew it could have an impact on my employability.
Example:
Harriet (2019): the extraordinary tale of Harriet Tubman’s escape from slavery and transformation into one of America’s greatest heroes, whose courage, ingenuity and tenacity freed hundreds of slaves and changed the course of history.
Hollywood executives investigated for quite a while the possibility of transforming the character of Harriet Tubman into a white character played by a white actress. It is only once white actresses refused to play the part that Hollywood executives realised that there might be a problem in their approach. The film took seven years to be made.
Furthermore, Harriet Tubman used to suffer from hallucinations and seizures (most probably due to a head trauma in her youth) but she never got recognised or honoured as a disability activist. The film does mention her hallucinations but never portray her as a disable person.
[1] S. Blahovec. Confronting the Whitewashing Of Disability: Interview with #DisabilityTooWhite Creator Vilissa Thompson. Huffpost. Dec 2017
At the cafe…
Strange times made this online cafe a great space to meet fellow PG Certers!
Reflexions
I really enjoyed going through the Teaching & Learning unit. It allowed me to expend exponentially my understanding of teaching and showed me that there are different pedagogic approaches to teaching. My vision of teaching now embraces other ways of communicating a knowledge through games, objects, group discussions or any activity that can be used as a catalyst for learning. I have a better understanding of my role as a teacher, as a facilitator and of the flow of energy/ creativity /learning /love circulating back and forth in a teacher/learner relationship. I am more aware of my teaching context and more importantly of the learning context of my students. I feel that by having integrated the knowledge gain during this first PG Cert trimester I now teach with more confidence, empathy and passion. I also lessen and see better.
Another area where my comprehension has grown is the learning experience. As a dyslexic I am fully aware that my learning experience is paramount for retaining and accessing learnt knowledge. I always thought this was due to dyslexia and had never realised to what extend this was also true of everybody else. I am fascinated by the learning experience and what impact it can have on the acquisition and retention of knowledge. I love the idea that the learning experience if enjoyable and memorable can become a catalyst for learning, in other words how one learnt is paramount to the understanding of one’s learning.
I have met and conversed with a wonderful and diverse group of peers who were in the same PG Cert boat than me! Their fascinating insights and the sharing of different experiences and feedback gave me an incredible source of tips, ideas, support and many learning experiences. It also made me more confident by realising that I now have the pedagogic tools and frame of mind to always look into my own teaching with the aim to improve the learner’s experience, the learner/teacher relation and the learning outcome.
And finally, I really enjoyed being taught using the very same pedagogic methods than the course teaches. It allowed for a very pleasant and instructive unit where the impact of these pedagogic methods on the learning outcome was demonstrated by us to us!
Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
15th March 2021 – Microteaching
- Reflexions on OBL
In order to produce a 20 minutes microteaching session, we were asked to refer to Wow: The power of objects in object-based learning and teaching by Dr K. Hardie. 11/2015. HEA.
Through diverse case studies, Dr K. Hardie shows that OBL (Object Based Learning) offers the possibility of active learning by engaging students visually, tactually as well as by searching into their own experiences and feelings. The learning experience become in itself a memorable experience which enhance engagement and the learning process.
OBL practice also aims to ensure student centred learning. The teacher becomes a facilitator and the objects are carefully chosen to become powerful catalysts for learning. For this activity, I wanted to fully embrace the challenge of teaching using object-based learning and to step out of my comfort zone to create a lecture on a topic I didn’t teach.
I first had the idea of doing a lecture on origami when I had a ligament restoration surgery on my thumb and was researching ways of re-educating my thumb. I discovered that origami is a pleasant activity and a therapeutic tool for hand re-education. Searching further I realised that the underlaid benefices of origami were multiple and were related in many publications by experts on the subject such as Dr Antonio Alberto de Armos who specialises in rehabilitation through paper folding or a myriad of academics as seen in the “A Bibliography of Origami in Education and Therapy” in the Further Reading section of my Lesson Plan.
My surgeon (specialised in hand and arm surgery) didn’t know about origami and its benefits. We had a fascinating conversation where (with insight) I pitched him my idea for Microteaching and origami for his patients. After that conversation, I decided to teach origami as an educational and therapeutic tool for my Microteaching session.
Working on my lesson plan using an object base learning approach lead me to two pedagogical approach:
- The activity: creating the object in origami would enable students to engage with the object and learn by doing which enhance experimental and active learning.
- The student led session: by asking learners to engage with their feelings and emotions while creating the origami frog in order to discuss in a group discussion once the object is completed.
Through the group discussion I will facilitate a critical analysis of origami’s impact on the learners’ well-being and emotions. Based on their answers, I will ask them to deduct the therapeutic benefits of origami, letting the learner learn from their own experience and by sharing and collaborating with their peers.
I will finalise the lecture by suggesting that origami can be practiced alone or in group and can increase well-being feelings, reduce stress and anxiety and improve consciousness of the here and now and by referring to my further reading section.
By sharing my own experience of origami, I am hoping to ensure a good engagement and a sense of belonging. The overall experience would insure a good learning experience and a meaningful learning outcome.
2. Peers Microteaching Feedback:
Well timed for 20 minutes exercise, great pace of explanation.
Step by step instructions were really enjoyable and helped focus on a single activity.
Really clear instructions
The pace fit with the mood and intention to highlight health and well-being benefits. Good interaction and checking in with participants throughout.
Origami – not just a surface level appreciation as demonstrated by your personal journey
Good bond going on, sharing personal journey was effective for encouraging others to engage and go for it.
3. Reflexions on Peers feedback and OBL activity:
Microteaching an OBL activity with my peers was definitively an interesting challenge as it required to scrutinise a lesson plan, its aims and learning outcomes with this specific pedagogic approach in mind.
I had specifically chosen a frog as the object we would achieve as it is a simple origami that takes only 7 minutes to make. I allocated 3 extra minutes for the making of the origami frog (10 minutes in total) to take in consideration a pace that would allow all students to follow the different folding without getting lost. I am pleased to see that one of the feedbacks is the appreciation of the pace that allowed engagement from the students and the time to immerse in the activity connected to their feelings. Indeed, only one peer got confused towards the end of the demonstration which was easily rectify by repeating the last two folding.
I had also planned to talk about the educational benefits of Origami while doing the frog. It took more than 10 minutes for the frog to be made by everybody and while doing it I felt that going through the educational benefits of Origami would have disturbed the flow and pace of doing the origami. I realised then that the students needed time to feel focused, peaceful and in the moment. So, I talked about the educational benefit of origami once the frog was finished and I was sure I had their full attention. Unfortunately, the consequence of this was that the group discussion had to be slightly shorter than the 10 minutes I had originally envisaged.
Still, the group discussion was engaged, positive and informative. Thanks to the words used by the students to describe their feelings while doing the frog; anticipation, absorbed, mindful, taking time, purposeful, positive experience, I was able to finalise the lecture, a couple of minutes late, by enumerating the areas where origami is used as a therapeutic tool. Idealistically I would have liked the students to guess these areas but lack of time made me improvised a shorter end to my lecture.
From the feedback, it seems that the group enjoyed origami and engaged with the activity and the group discussion. They brainstormed and realised that they had experienced a sense of fun, of satisfaction while being focused on the moment and the folding. They enjoyed the clear link between the task and the explanations and they gained a better understanding of origami’s educational and therapeutic benefits.
It is also interesting to notice that sharing my personal journey was an important factor for students to engaged as I had hoped. Indeed, a feedback mentions the bond created by sharing my story and other verbal feedback (please see video) expressed the feeling of wanting to be a better student to succeed with me in this activity!
Looking back, I would allow more time for the making of the object and for the learner to really experiment with it. It would have increased the perception of the feelings that the activity sparks and the group conversation would have potentially been more insightful and engaged. The topic of my lesson could have been just about the therapeutic aspect of origami’s benefice. It seems that by trying to put too much information in my lecture I didn’t optimised a learning experience that could have been more insightful.
I really enjoyed teaching origami’s benefits with an OBL approach and thanks to my peers feedback I also was able to revisite my lecture in the view to improve it. I also enjoyed the teaching of my peers such as Alejandro’s “Facing The Blank Page” (a quick way to learn to draw), Jo’s introduction to lighting, Jon’s introduction to encoding and Olivia’s introduction to design. It gave me many new ideas on how to teach with a different approach and pedagogy.
1st March 2021 – Theme of the session: Feedback
- Coping with the lack of feedback
Videos studied:
“Performing to an invisible audience” Video by Hattie Walker & Helen King (UWE/2020)
Very interesting and helpful video which gives tips, dos & don’t and ideas to teachers operating in an online environment. Contributors to the video come from different background from teachers, to performers and signers and to academic such as Dr Helen King (UWE).
The first idea shared in the video is the concept of connecting to an audience through the flow of energy that goes back and forth from teacher to audience and vice versa.
Energy out = from teacher to audience
Energy in = from audience to teacher
The second idea is the concept of looking at teaching as an engaging performance for an audience.
Tips include:
- Awareness of breathing, pacing and smiling
- Embrace the awkwardness and silence.
- Don’t overthink.
- Look at the camera and not the screen
- Focus, engage, be passionate and enjoy!
- Know really well your subject matter
- Talk to the audience that you imagine behind the screen
- Give the same attention to your audience as if in a face to face situation
- Lecture note: in bullet point for a quick and easy read. If possible at eye level.
- Watch your lecture’s video and see what can be improved. Do not judge.
- be kind to yourself. Do not look for perfection and remember the humanity of teachers and students
My thoughts & Experience:
I would add few tips to the list:
- Have fun and use humour as a tool to connect and interact
- Un-share your screen and return to main screen when a discussion sparks to encourage engagement and interaction
- Be energetic. Stand up if necessary
There are some really useful tips in the video that I have incorporated in my lectures and tutorials ever since watching it:
- Looking at the camera, not the screen.
- Re-visiting a video of my lecture. It was indeed very useful to look at my teaching with the aim to improve it.
- The notion of performing and doing a show to increase audience engagement and increase the memorability and interest of the learning experience not just the learning
- The importance of soft skills such as smile, energy and passion
- Silence & awkwardness: create authorised and planned silence – My PG Cert blog 8th January
Reflexion on knowing well your subject matter:
I teach film production which requires a wide panel of knowledge and skills. As a producer, it is impossible to know everything as each situation requires a specific knowledge either local (specific region or country), technical (filming with plane, boat, animals etc) or topical (needing to know the speed of the human body’s decomposition as it was relevant to unravelled the mystery of murders for a thriller! (true story!)). So, I often say to my students that the greatness of a producer doesn’t reside in knowing everything (which is impossible) but reside in the capacity to find the needed information either by contacting somebody who would know or knowing where to look.
Reflexion on bullet point:
I am a great believer of bullet points for lecture notes but also as a way of working. It helps with clarity, organisation and allow for a quick and easy read that can be very useful when teaching or needing to have a global view. I created this lecture report using bullet points to illustrate how beneficial bullet points are!
Responding to Feedback
Document studied:
Macfarlane B. Teaching with Integrity: The ethics of higher education practice. Routledge. 2004.
Case study: Pr Stephanie Rae, teaches Research Methods to postgraduate students together with research in Health Sciences. We see her reaction when evaluating the students’ feedback on her teaching. Indeed, some feedbacks raise concerns about a new way of assessing (peers 2 peers assessment) that she had implemented recently. She becomes defensive and dismissive when reflecting on the feedbacks and her attitude as a teacher. She then observes a colleague’s lecture who has a very different style of teaching (engaged & political) and realised that students’ engagement is higher in this lecture than in hers.
Which aspects of Stephanie’s teaching practice appear to be the most fertile for development?
Stephanie is open to change and some of her teaching practice are fertile for development such as:
- Reading list: reassess and update to less theoretical reading. Case studies seems appropriate to answer to students’ needs.
- Mindset & attitude: Stephany would need to be more interested and passionate about teaching (and not just focusing on research), and direct her energy in being more engaging and loving towards her students. She could also be more student- centric, empathic and attentive to their needs and interest.
- Assessment process: introducing a session specifically to explain the assessment process and not just rely on the course handbook would help greatly in students’ understanding. Similarly, explaining the aims and benefit of peers 2 peers’ assessment and brainstorming with students to adapt the assessment process would help with students’ frustration.
- Research: Integrate her research into her teaching by maybe involving students. Inviting students’ contribution could be a great way to develop students engagement.
What could Stephanie do to move past her defensive response?
It is clear when reading the case study that Stephanie has a good knowledge of a subject but a poor mindset and attitude toward teaching and students which have an important impact on her teaching practice. In order to improve her mindset and move past her defensive response, she needs to analyse her attitude towards teaching and her students. Indeed, she sees her research as her “real work” and teaching as something compulsory that she doesn’t seems to enjoy. Similarly, she is only too happy to see “the back of the postgraduate” and is at time dismissive of her students. It is interesting to notice that she is surprised to realise that her students don’t engage with her teaching when she doesn’t engage with them as a teacher. This tend to demonstrates the importance of the energy flow going from teacher to students and vice versa. It also reinforces the importance of developing her soft skills such as passion, empathy, caring and open communication.
Are there any interesting questions or problems that this case study raises for you?
One of the questions that this case study raised for me was the question of spoon-feeding. We discussed spoon-feeding during the session and I will talk about this specific topic when relating my observation on the session.
The importance of analysing one’s own work in the view to develop one’s teaching pedagogy and content without judgement or bias. I remember being very nervous when being observed by a PG Cert peer while teaching. Through this case study I have realised that the fear of being judged was the determinant factor for being nervous. Having a kind attitude towards your own or somebody’s work while critically exploring all aspects of teaching with the sole aim to improve and develop different pedagogies is the best way to avoid being defensive and to embrace improvement.
I was quite shock by the way Stephanie was dismissive of students, making assumption on their motivation. Not only this attitude shows a clear lack of empathy it also highlights the importance of understanding students’ needs as well as taking students’ environment and background into consideration. It also begs the question: if your students are not motivated what can you do to increase their motivation and therefor their engagement and learning experience? Communication, student centric teaching, soft skills and a critical analysis of all feedback would possibly be the best tools to increase motivation.
Finally, I was also interested in charisma and to explore further this notion I read “The Impact Of Charismatic (Inspirational) Teachers in Building Positive Relationship with Their Students” by Gurra Qardaku N. European Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies. 2019.
Charismatic teachers’ qualities: empathetic, emotionally intelligent, authentic, understand their students, respond to their needs, promote respect and mutual sympathy, and adapt lessons to the needs of individual students. They also have positive relationship with all students that they cultivate and nurture for a good understanding of each other’s. They display care and concern for students (Archer 2004). They create safe spaces for students to contribute and to make mistakes. They use humor to create a positive climate, support classroom management, and promote student engagement and enthusiasm. They show awareness of the lives and interests of students in the classroom and beyond and support their goals and ambitions.
The importance of charismatic teachers:
- Lack of feelings of caring of teachers against to students paralyzes learning.
- The path to the student’s mind is through the gain of his heart.
- Four essential qualities are primary in defining the ability to learn: an innate curiosity, an integrated mind, an ability to benefit from correction, and a good relationship with teacher.
- Students perceive a number of factors in their charismatic teachers, principally, Personal Empathy, Personal Intensity and Intellectual Challenge. (Archer 2004, f.30)
How much of our students’ experience is about us, anyway?
Case study: Kimmy
Kimmy is an independent and motivated student who feels that her needs are not met by her teachers. She questions the notion of quantity of teaching as oppose to quality of teaching that correspond to her needs. She is eager for the teacher to adapt the teaching experience to her capability. What she really wanted Lyndsay to hear is “let me learn the way I want in the pace that I want”
Case study: Dilesh
Dilesh didn’t managed to get a place at Slade and he is studying at Central St Martins instead. It seems that this has an impact on how he perceives his learning experience. He is motivated and eager to communicate with other fellow students that are not in his cohort in the view to collaborate on a project. He relates his frustration at not being able to communicate with other students due to the fact that the University doesn’t facilitate such flexibility on campus. He feels that his needs are not met by the university and lack a sense of integration and belonging.
1st March: Session notes
Performativity (J L Austin): Doing something rather than simply reporting or describing
- locution (the words spoken)
- illocutionary force ( attempting to do)
- perlocutionary effect (the effect/impact the speaker has on the listener)
Getting them to think:
- Set out some questions and ask students to brainstorm and contribute (possibly on Padlet)
- Questions to consider in small breakout groups
- Ask them to share things they are not sure about
- Encourage critical analysis
- Research and case studies
- Link teaching content to the real world and their industry
- Consider silence as a learning place
Spoon- feeding as a way to build curiosity and interest?
During the session we separated in small group to choose and discuss a specific topic. As mentioned earlier on my group decided to brainstorm about spoon-feeding.
Below is our Padlet brainstorm:
We agreed that there was pros and cons about spoon-feeding lectures ahead of lectures. Indeed, spoon-feeding can be beneficial for international students who will have more time to prepare. It is also beneficial to share documents or ask specific questions ahead of the lecture that will make the students think about the theme of the session. The danger of spoon-feeding is that it can potentially disengaged students. Spoon-feeding can therefore be positive depending a which document is posted at which stage of the lecture.
Scaffolding: define specific tasks with specific deadlines.
“When you incorporate scaffolding in the classroom you become more of a mentor and facilitator of knowledge rather than the dominant content expert. This teaching style provide the incentive for students to take a more active role in their own learning”.
Tip grabbed during group brainstorming:
Robert Toniolo Wood: starts the class with written questions relating to the coming lecture on the Collaborate Blackboard so that they start thinking about it while waiting for everybody to log in.
Other topics research by other groups:
- Student feedback: Do you have to like to be a good teacher
- How best to enable teaching development? Methods to engage which bring an opportunity to take responsibility for their own learning. Allowing time to think about ideas. Know students’ aspirations and needs. Get feedback. Have fun. Relevance of course content for assessment and real world.
- Why are we teachers? Attitude towards teaching i.e. Stephanie. Embracing pedagogy in phase with students’ need.
- Format & space for feedback: feedbacks need to be more holistic and not necessarily on paper and anonymous. Bias of Stephanie reviewing her own feedback. Feedback empower students and bring a constructive feeling of investment.
- Feedback is a gift, an opportunity to understand each other
Further reading:
“Moody Bitches” by Dr Julie Holland
“Tanks For The Feedback” by Douglas Stone
“Empathy” by Roman Krznaric
“Difficult conversation” by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton & Sheila Heen
A great definition of education spotted in a student’s assessment.
“The course tutors and the UAL staff have given me a loving and professional environment to support my thoughts and helped me to develop them.”
15th February 2021 – Theme of the session: Love
Documents studied:
Bell Hooks. 2000. All About Love. HarperCollins, New York.
Laura D’Olimpio. 2019 Ethics of Care (Webpage & video)
As the quote from my MA Film student shows (post above), love is a vital part of teaching.
As such, it is important to research what is love, its impact in our lives and its past and present dynamic. To do so, we were asked to read Bell Hooks’ book: All About Love.
In her book Bell Hooks relates the difficulty in finding a definition of love that would satisfied her until she found Scott Peck’s definition. To him, love is “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s or another’s spiritual growth” (Bell Hooks. 2000. All About Love. P4). Indeed, love is a transformative force for all who experienced it as it allows an in-depth, open-hearted and caring relation as well as a sense of belonging with a person or a group of people. And thanks to this inclusive and unbiased definition it is clear to see that love is a paramount affective aspect of the learner-teacher relationship.
Reading further it was interesting to notice that although love is universal, it is never the less still perceived and defined in a patriarchal way which is the reason why Bell Hooks had so much difficulties in finding an unbiased definition of love. Indeed, in a patriarchal society, young males are told from a very young age to withhold emotions and feelings and therefore to lie and conceal aspects of their being in order to keep control and power over women. And as the psychotherapist Harriet Lerner mentions in The Dance of Deception “women are encouraged by sexist socialization to pretend and manipulate, to lie as a way to please” (Bell Hooks. 2000. All About Love. P33). Both genders are therefore nurtured into a false understanding and perception of love. Male expect to receive love and women long for the love they do not receive. Unfortunately, as Bell Hooks mentions “few writers, male or female, talk about the impact of patriarchy, the way in which male domination of women and children stands in the way of love.” (Bell Hooks. 2000. All About Love. PXXIV).
It will take exposing and breaking patriarchy’s morale and power, and promoting an equitable and trustful relation between gender, for love to flourish in our lives the way we all need it to.
One of the authors who expose patriarchal morale is Laura D’Olimpio in her book The Ethics of Care.
In the article studied, D’Olimpio explores two male centric moral theories: deontology and utilitarianism. Although both theories are based on a different interpretation of why an action is right or wrong, they both require that the person who decides to do the action alienate himself or herself from their emotions and feelings. In opposition, ethic of care also called feminist ethic disagree with the opposition between reason and emotion and prone decision-making to be based on relationships with people (known or unknown), their environment and background stories. This way the decision maker is in touch with his/her emotions, connected to others and the moral decision is therefore made by someone who cares.
In order to understand better the ethics of care it is important to study its origin. The video does so by comparing two different authors and psychologists: Carol Gilligan (In a Different Voice. (Harvard University Press, 1982) and Lawrence Kohlberg’s work. Gilligan suggests that making a moral judgment based on concrete human relations, responsibility and care is not necessarily a lower stage of moral judgment than to consider principles such as reason, rights and rules. Similarly, Nel Nodding argues that past ethical theories where too male orientated by emphasising on law, justice and reason (seeing as intrinsic male values) and should have instead focus more on female values such as responsibility of care, connection to others, justice and responsiveness. She also asserts that using relationship between people as the basis for moral ethics has more value than following inconsistent set of moral.
Therefore, Ethic of Care is based on listening attentively, free from bias (conscious or unconscious) and stereotypes, using intersectionality as a tool for the moral decision making and emotions such as caring and compassion as moral ethics
D’Olimpio finalises the article by exploring the stereotype that links woman to caring role such as education and nursing. One cannot help wondering though, that if by calling ethics of care, feminist ethic D’Olimpio doesn’t help perpetuating the stereotype of care being the attributes of woman.
Vocabulary:
Deontology: normative ethical theory advocating that the morality of an action should be based on whether that action itself is right or wrong under a series of rules, rather than based on the consequences of the action.
Utilitarianism: ethical theory stipulating that an action (or type of action) is right if it tends to promote happiness or pleasure and wrong if it tends to produce unhappiness or pain—not just for the performer of the action but also for everyone else affected by it.
Intersectionality: an analytical framework for understanding how aspects of a person’s social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege. Examples of these aspects are gender, caste, sex, race, class, sexuality, religion, disability, physical appearance, and height. Intersectionality identifies multiple factors of advantage and disadvantage. These intersecting and overlapping social identities may be both empowering and oppressing.
Reference to explore:
Elizabeth Barriet Browning’s poetry
Scott Peck The Road Less Traveled and Beyond: Spiritual Growth in an Age of Anxiety (Simon & Schuster, 1997)
Carol Gilligan In a Different Voice (Harvard University Press, 1982)
Reflexion:
Nurture Vs Nature:
Reflecting on Nurture Vs Nature made me think of Naomi Alderman’s book “The Power” that I have read recently (Naomi Alderman. 2016. The Power. Penguin. Winner of The Women’s Prize For Fiction).
The premise behind Naomi Alderman’s The Power is both simple and a paradigm-shift. Indeed, the storyline follows some teenage girls around the globe and in a world similar to our own, who discover that they can harness enormous electrical power with a flick of their fingers. This power is generated by a specially adapted muscle named the “skein”, and by using it women can inflict enormous pain, even death, upon anyone they touch. Before long, the patriarchal status quo is subverted beyond recognition and men are left behind by an evolutionary process that they cannot comprehend nor replicate or control, while women forge a new world in which a shift in gender dynamics facilitates not only physical dominance, but also immense social and political power. The fundamental premise that power is power, and is thus a corrupting influence regardless of which gender wields it, gives the book a dark tone to which some readers and critics have objected.
The skein is a metaphor for as well as an inversion of male privilege. And like male privilege, it quickly becomes the norm. Half way through the story, the new power dynamic is already established and women don’t need to heighten their power or even use it anymore; the power itself no longer needs to be displayed: it just is, like an oppressive background norm. Patriarchy in reverse and in a nutshell.
And by describing men as utterly vulnerable, physically and psychologically Alderman forces the reader, male or otherwise, to reflect in an uncomfortable and vivid way on the value of nurture against nature. She also is critiquing the idea that men and women are inherently different, that men are naturally more violent or brutal or sexually aggressive and women are somehow more passive, gentle or kind.
It is important to also question the structures and institutions that enable male privilege which means reflecting on and challenging the treatment of women in our own society and the insidious means by which gender privileges and inequality become normalised.
By inversing the world as we know it and the norms we accept, Alderman makes clear that the only “power” necessary to challenge abuse is empathy and caring.
How does ethic of care and love relate to universities and to my teaching methods and pedagogy?
Once again, I really enjoyed the last session as it gave me and confirmed many ideas that I am going to incorporate or reinforced in my future lectures such as:
- Inclusive wording that emphasis the feeling of belonging
- Give guidance with respect for their ideas and feelings
- Ask open questions to assess their needs and interest
- Listen carefully and note body language (if possible) for clue on how they feel and how well they understood the learning outcome
- Stay online for a while after an online lecture in order to allow for students to talk to me about anything they wish to (as it used to be possible when lecturing at LCC)
- Create a Collaborate space just for students so they can meet there to communicate & collaborate – Strongly encourage WhatsApp group for the whole cohort.
- Address their fear of exposing themselves (by answering a question or just talking) use sentence like “there is no right or wrong answer, we are brainstorming”
- Embracing failure and allowing for mistakes
- Offer different activities in lectures such as games, quizzes, group discussions
- Treat them as professionals and let them learn on the job as much as possible
- Encourage teamwork and constructive and loving critical analysis
- Demonstrating the importance of what they are learning for their future career (increase engagement)
- Make sure content is clear, academic jargon free (for students who have English as a second language), meaningful and relevant
- Teacher / student relationship should be caring, trustful, respectful, nurturing, emancipating and empowering.
- Use humour as a mean to reduce barriers and distance and to increase engagement and interaction
- Create a space of trust so that students feel safe when expressing themselves
- Being aware of social economic differences and their environment when in the online classroom
- Universities have a moral relationship with students and therefore a duty of care.
Monica Vilhauer – Gadamer’s Ethics of Play
Note: I am posting this reflection with a bit of delay as I had a ligament restoration surgery on one of my thumbs recently and was unable to type for few weeks.
Reading this chapter of Monica Vilhauer’s book “Gadamer’s Ethics of Play” built on the ideas of German philosopher Gardener, was a challenge for me. I struggled at times with the vocabulary and some of the meaning but after a while and once the jargon was cleared with the help of a dictionary, it all made sense and I started to really enjoyed it.
In her book, Vilhauer argues that artwork and spectator are engaged ‘in a continuous to and fro play of presentation and recognition in which meaning is communicated and a shared understanding of some subject matter take place’(Vilhauer, 2010, P31). That is to say that “arts must be understood as part of an event in which meaning is communicated and a shared understanding is reach” (Vilhauer, 2010, P31).
This make full sense to me as it is exactly how I classify films as a filmmaker. Indeed, I have always thought that they are two kinds of films: the ones that entertain and the ones that are artful and have a meaning. In the first category I would put all the films that’s have a basic storyline and hardly no messages that is to say most of the action films, hero films and all other kinds of entertainment films. This kind of films do not appeal to me as I find them boring and shallow. On the other hand, art films are very often crafted skilfully with the aim to share in-depth feelings and emotions. The storyline also “talks” to the audience and shares an understanding of life and of the world we are living or that has been. It is impossible for me to watch this kind of films without being touched and transformed by the experience. Similarly, as a filmmaker I do not want to create films that don’t invite the audience onto a reflective pathway, as sharing emotions and meaningful insights is the aim of my creative endeavour. I had never thought of it as playing but thinking of it in a deeper more philosophical way it is true that this back and forth exchange of knowledge has a lot to do with playing. Gardiner explains that “Play is fundamentally something larger than the individual player or his mental states; it is a pattern of movements that services the players and is something to which both players belong” (Vilhauer, 2010, P32). Indeed, learning is a form of play.
Experiencing this new understanding of play made me think of a conversation I had quite a while back when my daughter was just three and started school (French curriculum starts at three years old). I remembered that my daughter’s teacher explained to me that kids were learning how to write with a specific game. Indeed, the teacher would make them do and play with the shadow of a rabbit made with their hands. Once the kids had mastered the art of “rabbit shadow making” while playing, the teacher would place a pen in their hands and would move onto the next stage: learning how to write. The hand movement of making a “rabbit shadow” and writing being surprisingly enough extremely similar! It is also interesting to note that in this example the process of learning is not conscious which makes it even more powerful and interesting.
So how can this new understanding of play be integrated in my teaching in order to favour the learning process?
It seems to me that the best way to apply this new understanding is to incorporate as much as possible in my lectures, games, quizzes and any other ludic activities. Allegory, metaphor, puns and humour can also be considered as a game with words and should therefore also be used. It is also interesting to notice that the use of games in a classroom could potentially have other implications than just helping the learning process. Possible benefits could be: reducing barriers and distance between teachers and students and increasing interaction and engagement. Games are therefore a great tool for pedagogy.
Guardian article: Has Covid broken Universities?
Interesting article about the changing context of High Education due to Covid that relates to James Wisdom’s lecture . “The pandemic has exposed the impact of 20 years of turning higher education into a marketplace and students into increasingly dissatisfied customers”
18th January Session
For this session we needed to present a 5 minutes talk to introduce ourselves, our teaching context and share some thoughts about pedagogy. I misunderstood the task and reflected upon the learning I had extracted from my reading of the two texts we had to read and reflect upon for the session (Gloria Dall’Alba and John Holmwood). I wasn’t the only person who had misunderstood the brief and Frederico was kind enough to reassure us all that “different is good too!”.
It was interesting and refreshing to hear the different paths each one of us took to arrive to this PG Cert course. These feelings were reinforced in the following session when we discussed in small groups our understanding of the texts within our teaching and learning context. Our group started by realising that none of us had an academic background which was clearly a relief to all. Thanks to this newly found commune ground we embarked into a fascinating conversation about pedagogy as a teacher and a learner today but also as most probably one of the reasons as to why none of us had engaged with academic teaching in our younger age.
During the conversation we realised that we had highlighted the same sentences from the texts (sentences in my Teaching Context Presentation). “If you are not learning while you are teaching then you are not teaching” was one of the sentences that had been highlighted the most amongst the group. Reading that line was a relief as it showed me that what I was doing instinctively was necessary and expected. Indeed, as a teacher I have many times reflected on my teaching and realised that I could improve it by modifying certain aspects such as better visualisation of the lecture (use of graphics and images), use of inclusive vocabulary to improve teacher/learner model or promoting peer to peer’s collaboration and communication etc. The time allocated to the group conversation went very quickly and we resumed the session.
Reflecting on the session, it is interesting to see that the way we were taught was solely based on the principles that we were taught. By this I mean that the pedagogy used during the session (openness and inclusivity, peer to peer’s collaboration and communication in groups etc.) fully reflected the pedagogic principals that Gloria Dall’Alba advocates in her text. I therefore thanks Frederico for letting me learn and my peers for such a great insight.