Month: February 2021

We introduced ourselves to our ‘tutor group’ almost a whole month ago and although it feels like I’m reflecting on it after a long period, these are a few things that stayed with me that I’ve been thinking about.

Perhaps the first was the surprise at how nervous I felt introducing myself to my peers. I was well and truly back in the shoes of being a student, my voice wavering, my palms sweaty. And I wasn’t even in the same room, I was presenting to a computer screen, I had done run sessions with dozens of students in the past so why was I so nervous? Suddenly all the conversations I was having with my own students who are currently suffering from anxiety and lack of confidence to present to a group, were applicable to me and I found myself trying to listen to my own advice! Be prepared, practice beforehand, have notes to prompt you etc.

Nerves aside, I introduced my professional and academic practice with the group. My role at CSM in the large part involves teaching and pastoral care for Year 1 Textile and Jewellery Design students. Some of the other initiatives I’ve undertaken are community building, developing online pedagogy (through my involvement with the Dean’s Online Learning Group who’ve met once a month since the start of the pandemic) and Decolonising the curriculum.

I work closely with the Programme Director to organise various events and opportunities to discuss ‘race’ and ‘decoloniality’ for the staff team as well as for students in a non-hierarchical way. One of the events was a series of Programme wide talks called Material Bias for the Jewellery, Textiles, Material Futures and Biodesign students. These can be watched here.

I also shared a resource I found particularly useful to understand what Decolonising means in the context of Design. Anoushka Khandwala’s ‘What does it mean to Decolonise Design?’ clarifies our understanding of terms like ‘diversity’ and ‘decolonising’, which are often wrongly substituted for one another. Khandwala also provides a good reading list to understand Decolonising further.

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My colleague Ocean’s presentation stayed with me, she described her teaching practice as ‘gentle’, much like herself. She explained her practice so eloquently, I found myself wanting to be her student for the really interesting themes she spoke about, but more for the manner in which she presented them. In the past I have always thought that bringing ‘energy’ to the classroom is one of the most important factors, getting students engaged through sheer energetic enthusiasm. After this session, I realised that quietness and compassion, pace and tone are equally important. Especially as we teach through this pandemic, I feel like a certain measure of gentleness and empathy are hugely important attributes that everyone needs in their teaching toolkit, I certainly will be more aware and bring them into my own practice as only enthusiasm will not be enough.

UPDATE: Read more about this on a separate blogpost where I discuss love, empathy and charisma and if they’re important in a teaching practice?

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I’m really enjoying some of the teaching methodologies that my tutors are using to deliver the course. The pre-reading tasks bring focus to the discussions in the breakout groups and help to ease the awkwardness of meeting new peers online. The tutors facilitate the sessions expertly by giving specific instructions of what to discuss based on the readings, so even if you have previous knowledge the tasks are specifically about texts that have been sent to all of us, so that’s a bit of a leveller.

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Something we have discussed from day 1 is how urgent it is to decolonise the curriculum and bringing in more diverse opinions. So why are all the texts that we have been sent so far from a white / western perspective? I know it’s early days but I have found myself wondering what were the teaching philosophies of Tagore’s Kala Bhavan at Santiniketan? Rabindranath Tagore was an Indian poet, educator, painter and mathematician who founded an experimental and progressive school, Santiniketan in 1901. The art school, Kala Bhavan was founded in 1919, ‘born out of the need to rehabilitate Indian culture after the demoralising impact of British rule.’ (A.Dasgupta, Life at Santiniketan) Sounds like Tagore was a century ahead of all the conversations we are currently having about decolonising education. Shouldn’t we be reading about more diverse academic practices from around the world? Is this something we will only address in the Inclusive teaching and learning elective? Hopefully not.

UPDATE: I guess this is where Intersectionality and Decoloniality come in. Whilst I accept the texts shared with us have been diverse from the point of view of including non-white perspectives, they have still mostly been through the ‘western’ lens. I appreciate we are in a British HE system and hence, they are relevant in this case. However, as we pride ourselves to be truly an international university, further barriers need to be broken down. I am a non-white POC, but I also come from a post colonial country where the system of education greatly differs from the west. I believe we have much to learn from one another.