So, when I started the Pg.Cert., I was like 80% of my students and half read the instructions of the preparatory readings. Instead of reading the two required papers, I ended up reading seven. While some of them were interesting, I must admit that others were not as engaging. Moving forward, I think I’ll focus on the topics that interest me the most, rather than trying to reflect on each paper.
So, the first one I read was “The Design Critique and the Moral Goods of Studio Pedagogy” (McDonald, Michela, 2019) A concept that was really interesting for me in this paper was the moral ecology of the design studio. I did a little bit more research and distilling of it.
I like how it can be defined as the environment of moral and ethical values, practices, and relationships that shape and define the experience of instructors and students in design studio settings. Also, how it mentions that the studio is not just a physical space or a pedagogical method but a rich and dynamic ecosystem where various “moral goods” are perused. Even though I must admit that I’m not sure how I can generate that studio environment outside a physical space within my teaching practice. At the end of this month, I’ll start tutoring on an international project between UAL and a university in Korea, so there won’t be a physical studio space, and I think it can be a good opportunity to see how the reflections on this can improve the “moral ecology” for the students in both countries.
In the paper “Teaching Practices for Creative Practitioners” (Orr, Shreeve, 2017, p.4) Fiona Peterson, an Australian academic Associate Professor, mentions that “the studio has become or is becoming a metaphor for the approaches to thinking and practising with pervade design pedagogies”. From this, I love the idea of how the studio is more about thinking and hands-on work rather than a space. It embodies a mindset focused on thinking and hands-on work. I believe studios can serve as safe spaces for experimentation, exploration, and critical thinking, allowing both students and tutors to challenge one another effectively.
In that same paper another thing that I found interesting, was that one of the most common teaching practices is passing down your own knowledge. This becomes a skill-based approach which is more or less “show and tell” and expects students to perform at the same standard. I agree with this, but it also made me reflect on it the paper “Disaggregating the Black Student Experience” (Broadhead, Whittaker, 2022, p.9) mentions a text by Professor Justin Reich where he argues that schools and colleges are the most conservative social institutions because teachers instruct the way they were thought. This can lead to discrimination and prejudices being maintained and taught unconsciously from generation to generation. I haven’t had the time to read the full paper by Professor Reich, but I want to make some because it interested me a lot, how usually colleges are perceived as the educators of the future of humanity, and the more “advanced” in this kind of matters, but at the end of the day, the system is tripping with its own feet.
This last paper was really interesting for me, and I got really engaged with it. I´ve always been drawn to social justice and I´ve been doing more research about it with the other papers and recourses provided by the tutors during the workshop 1 presentation and in Moodle. I don´t think I can get all my thoughts and notes down, because I’ve plenty. But I have to say that this paper was very engaging because I’ve always felt that when UAL talks about discrimination, decolonisation, equality, etc. it’s only focusing on the black population, and maybe the Asian a little bit too. While all the other ethics are just forgotten or put in the same box. I am Latina and I’ve never felt represented at UAL, not as a student, or now as staff. This is why I agree with this paper on saying that inequalities are masked by homogenising social groups.
Then, the paper and all the reflections on social justice in and outside of UAL made me go down a rabbit hole of being a migrant, Latina, and a woman and LGBT and and and and…. That at the end made me remember what Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie says in her book “We Should All Be Feminists” (Adichie, 2014) on how when you are part of different minority groups you feel the need to fight for them all. Paraphrasing her, she mentions that if you are a black woman and you fight only for women’s rights you are perceived in the community as not being black enough, and the other way around. So, in the end, I just feel is super trying to belong to different minorities and have the need to fight for justice in all of them, at the same time.
I know the picture is not fully related to what I wrote in the post, but It was a little bit of how I felt while the discussion of the papers did a turn on how challenging they were for the majority of the people, rather than on the content itself.
References
McDonald, J.K. and Michela, E., 2019. The design critique and the moral goods of studio pedagogy. Design Studies, 62, pp.1-35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2019.02.001.
Orr, S. and Shreeve, A., 2017. Art and Design Pedagogy in Higher Education: Knowledge, Values and Ambiguity in the Creative Curriculum. Milton: Taylor & Francis Group. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central [Accessed 1 January 2024].
Broadhead, S. and Whittaker, R., 2022. Disaggregating the Black Student Experience. In: S. Broadhead (ed.) Access and Widening Participation in Arts Higher Education: Practice and Research. Cham: Springer, pp. 51–68. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97450-3_3.
Adichie, C.N., 2014. We Should All Be Feminists. London: Fourth Estate.