Crimson O’Shea
During the presentation, I enjoyed your explanation of how colour could be used emotively within fashion design. I thought it was a good way to look speculatively at how this is viewed, experimented with within other aspects of art and design. The painting by Chris Ofili although it was demonstrably used to denote the use of colour in design, I thought that it could be used to also link to the historical depth of the use of colours for e.g (blue – Picasso’s blue period). Trying to get students to think about the historical use of colour and trans culturally the relevance within art practise, how designers have used artwork as a source of inspiration; examining the political, cultural movements in history. I also thought about how artworks become the basis of inspired art movements within the culture such as Solange’s Visual, the audio album ” A Seat at the Table” and the link to Lynette Yidom Aboakye paintings. It would be a good way to bridge the gap of how art, fashion and sub-culture are cohesively linked.
Alice Wilson
The readings on Affective Pedagogy was a good introduction into the educational stances on love within higher education. I understand completely your frustration on the language and it’s use or non- use, commonplace within higher education. I thought that the readings taught us to be more understanding and emphatic to students as we have no real sense of their backgrounds and their transition to higher education.
The Harney S &Molten reading I thought it touched a lot more on how within university marginalised and disenfranchised communities of students have no agency, how this can be used as a tool to challenge and make sure that teaching is inclusive. I think looking at our positionality, unconscious bias’s is incredibly integral to making these changes, ensuring that each students voice is heard. Once we examine how we came to those biases we can then examine how we formed these biases and then provide a space for deeper more critical thinking and awareness.
Yves Salmon
https://teachingdocphoto.myblog.arts.ac.uk
It’s challenging when you’re presented with large volume of texts and it has academic language that makes it harder to decipher what the author is trying to say. I’ve really enjoyed listening to your contributions about your academic experiences during the tutorials, you have such a beautiful way of storytelling and it translates really well.
I read that the transition to online teaching made you question your teaching practise and I think that your delivery and your compassion and how you relate to your peers is evident in the way your able to contextualise your practise, experiences and the reading. The photojournalist course you study sounds incredibly interesting and I think your a valuable asset to the course; although you may have not come through a traditional route of education I find that sometimes worldly experience supersedes academics who may be out of touch culturally and socially.
Megan Pickering
The reading on reflexivity is incredibly important when looking at conscious and unconscious biases institutionally in higher education.
“Reflexivity can make us aware of asymmetrical or exploitative relationships but it can’t remove them”
I think that over the last year with the black lives matter movement and especially with the hate crime against Asian people it has been particularly interesting having conversations, viewing how individuals have interacted with particular movements. One of things that has been challenging is this skewed understanding on alliances and the expectation of a transactional partnership and how people have seen these movements as trends rather than focusing on the human rights and equality aspect of enacting social change. There is a book by American sociologist, journalist called Journalist John Howard Griffin, ” Black Like Me” which I found particuairly intresting, using fieldwork and a reflexivity when looking at structural ineqalities.
Hey Tracy! Your blog is so thoughtful and really informative.
I found your point here about the problems with people seeing movements as a trend really important. I have been thinking about this more now the Inclusive Teaching & Learning unit has started. I’ve been reading Pedagogy Of The Oppressed, the copy I have is the 50th addition and in the introduction by Donaldo Macedo he states:
‘The insidious process of decoupling critical discourse and action legitimizes not “walking the talk”… (‘progressive’ academics) claim to be anti-racist while turning antiracism into a lifeless cliche that does not provide pedagogical spaces to critique white supremacist ideologies. In this process, their progressive stance are often co-opted, mobilized only to the degree that they denounce racism at the level of written critical discourse, all the while reaping privileges from the cemented institutional racism which they, willfully, refuse to acknowledge and engage in action to dismantle.’ (p6)
I found this quote really thought provoking and thought you might be interested in it too, if you haven’t read it already! It also reminded me of you Microteaching, as you did created a pedagogical space to critique white supremacy. I haven’t heard of ‘Black Like Me’ before, I will look it up.
Thanks,
Megan