Inclusive Practice Blog task 3

Race

Shades Of Noir

How could you apply the resources to your own teaching practice?

There’s a massive amount of useful resources in Shades Of Noir that could be used in teaching, however the Diigo database felt like the one that could be most accessible to students and produce the type of active discussion that could benefit all students. It can be embedded within different units and referred back to so that students become familiar with it and begin using it themselves. In terms of a resource that could benefit teaching and planning, the Diversity Questionnaire is something I will be using to develop curriculum. In particular the section on whitewashed curriculum, as in sound art there is a prevalence of white male composers and sound artists who are heavily written about, to the detriment of the canon showing a depth of culture through diverse representation.

How could you integrate the research/work your students do on this subject into your teaching/professional practice?

I will be asking students to research artists they feel are overlooked in the current curriculum and develop the curriculum based on this and my own research, this has already happened to some extent and I feel empowered by this research to make this an explicit aim within my teaching. I will be using a resource called “avant card top trumps”, it’s a card game of composers and I’ll create blank cards for students to complete.

A Pedagogy of Social Justice Education: Social Identity Theory, Intersectionality, and Empowerment, p411-417

Aaron J. Hahn Tapper

“A teacher needs to create experiences with, and not for, students, integrating their experiences and voices into the educational experience itself” (Freire 2006).“

I have been trying to do some of what has been contained in the chapter on Freire for years, but I have not had the legacy within which to situate it, and learning about Freire has given me a new sense of drive to continue exploring this further, not as an ideal but as a core to the curriculum. Part of this will be to develop a project on enabling students to explore and have their voices heard for the action research project next term.

“Most educational milieus solidify patterns of inequality, ultimately reinforcing and regenerating domination. A common way this happens is through the banking system of teaching, where educators try to “deposit” a set amount of information into students’ minds (Freire 2006, 109). Such a form of education fails its students because, among other reasons, it does not take into account their realities, their “situation in the world,” especially in terms of social status (Freire 2006, 96).”

I found this really interesting, and it seems to correlate with the woes of teaching higher education becoming more of a commodity. On a superficial level this could be because we are charging more fees now and therefore the expectations have changed, however the complex and less convenient possibility is that perhaps we are creating this in our “banking” system of teaching, which is then modelled by students as a commodity they can purchase, if it is all equivalent to a monetized system of value, exchange and withdrawal. Taking into account their realities, their situation, is an inherent part of facilitating learning with differentiation. Navigating their identities is a more complex undertaking, but if this starts with accepting and supporting their different realities, which are shaped by their identities, then we can begin to bridge the attainment gaps.

The question I am left with after reading this article is: to what extent is trauma, both generational trauma and individual trauma, taken into account when working with the model of social identity theory? Whilst the qualitative properties of interpersonal and intergroup behaviours are studied, there does not seem to be a way for the generational trauma and individual trauma to be qualitatively studied. The idea of providing such a study is problematic in that by portraying trauma there are many ethical concerns. I have no doubt that within the teaching and learning environments the organization runs, with a focus on social activism, they must acknowledge, support and potentially explore this. This trauma could be a cause of intergroup conflict, and ignoring it could escalate intergroup conflict.

Witness: unconscious Bias, Josephine Kwhali

Kwhali points out that the idea of unconscious bias is based on a premise of privilege that means an education on bias is necessary, due to a lack of life experience. Therefore, the privileged are being afforded a further privilege of the ‘get out clause’ of unconscious bias. All the advice I could find online about harassment due to a protected characteristic (ACAS, Shades Of Noir, Citizens Advice) highlights that the intention is not the point, the impact is. So why is there still a focus on whether it is unconscious or conscious, it is bias either way.

‘Retention and attainment in the disciplines: Art and Design’ Finnigan and Richards 2016.

“we will refer to those communities associated with the terms and acronyms Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) or Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) as ‘people of colour’. This is a term predominantly used in the North Americas, however: The term ‘people of colour’, although it lacks some precise conceptual clarity, has a political connotation similar to the term “Black” in the British context; the term is used to protest against stigmatising people with pigmentation that is different from the pigmentation of the dominate groups. For this reason I favour the label ‘people of colour’. Race is a social construction, with significant social consequences. (Dhruvarajan 2000, p. 166)”

This is a really important distinction to make, and I will be using this section of the text to suggest we dispense with using BAME when discussing students or working with them. I believe this is seen as a derogatory acronym, possibly from police origin, and I have been trying to use POC wherever possible. This text has reinforced this aim, and I will be pushing for this across the courses I teach on.

“5.2.1 Case study 3: ‘Tell Us About It’ (UAL) Our work is not merely to share information but to share in the intellectual and spiritual growth of our students. (hooks 1994, p. 13).”

“The pieces can be used in interactive ways in workshops for students and staff and the haptic approach leads to deep reflection and questioning.”

The lack of data on students is a big issue, for example, as a Lecturer I have no data on my students prior to teaching them, other than ISAs. This means that ocular bias has more chance of becoming a factor when Lecturers are working with what they see when a teaching session has already started. However, there is also a risk of privacy and boas if data is shared, and GDPR is designed to safeguard protected characteristics amongst other concerns. This case study shows another possible way to incorporate the identities of students into teaching (Freire) without disclosure. tell us about it allows us to gain the views of students and important information about their experience to inform our teaching and planning. This means we can enhance the experience of students to allow them to reach their full potential with fewer obstacles, in as far as we have the ability to remove these in our planning and delivery. I find the idea of working with the haptic very interesting, as this offers a creative avenue for exploration where students will be able to embody their identity through creative work.

My one concern for these case studies is that the feedback cycle produces change for the next cohort, and I am interested in how we can implement changes at a faster rate for students while they are studying. The creative potential in projects such as tell us about it show a possible path to this, and I will often use a juncture in the creative trajectory to give pause and prompt discussion as to how students can incorporate their identities into their work. However, this feedback cycle still relies on filtration back into curriculum, without defined pathways for this to happen. What defined pathways for faster implementation exist, beyond the committee meetings?

Shades Of Noir: Peekaboo We See You: Whiteness – key terms and I am Drowning, p112-113

How could you apply the resources to your own teaching practice?

When looking through the resource, I was struck by the poem “I Am Drowning”, by an anonymous PhD student at UAL. It is a stark poem, that shows the reality of institutional racism and marginalisation, and the risk of internalisation of this. I will be using this resource as a discussion prompt to allow students to engage with the experience of marginalisation via someone else’s lived experience. This allows students without that lived experience to gain insight and allows students with a similar experience to gain awareness that their experiences are valid, shared and they have the option to discuss it from the observer view or offer their own parallels. I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to read it out, as I am white and I would be voicing the lived experience of a person of colour, so I will ask students to read it and try to read it in the voice of the writer, before we discuss it. I will also be applying the key terms to my teaching practice by sharing it in planning meetings so we can discuss the terms we are all using.

How could you integrate the research/work your students do on this subject into your teaching/professional practice?

I will be using examples of good practice where students have addressed terms or issues of marginalisation within their creative work, to encourage students to explore this more. For example, a student created an alternate language based on games design for VR worlds, and a soundscape that incorporated this language, and during this process she reflected on her own internalisation of racism, and the epiphany she had about it. Another student created an audio paper about pirate radio and the importance of it to their cultural identity, which they narrated in a performative mode as if it was a pirate radio show, which I will show as an example of how students can bring their own cultural identity into this theory unit.

You can see my comments on related blog posts here and here.