Often I find myself drawn to stories of progression and challenges. You will often find me enjoying a Podcast where a creative, entrepreneur or life coach expresses their journey to achieving what they have and the trials and tribulations that they had to overcome to get to the place of understanding unlocking inspirational motivation within me to push forward to achieve my best. Generally, I find this calming and motivating in my own pursuits. I found the resource on the Shades of Noir site to motivate in a similar way.
I looked at ‘Imposter syndrome’ by Wu, Ellen (2021) ‘Imposter Syndrome’, shadesofnoir.co.uk. In this post, Ellen discusses Imposter Syndrome and the social and cultural learned behaviors that may lead to it. I chose to reflect on this as amongst the student body I have found that many of the students may enter the start of their Higher Education journeys with apprehension and even more so amongst underrepresented student bodies who may not see themselves reflected in the institution. With a feeling of unworthiness or self-doubt and slowly descending into believing the journey ahead is an impossible challenge. I feel this and many of the resources on SoN could be used as tools in object-based learning or in curating discussion safe spaces and encouraging critical conversations within teaching spaces in a holistic approach to teaching. In doing this students are able to express themselves and any apprehension or doubts they may have at a point in their journey and ways they may relate to the pieces of writing which are very insightful and empowering and discover ways as a group that they can overcome their challenges.
Through my action research finding, I found that representation within the curriculum and higher education was a consideration that came up throughout. How do we safeguard the learning experience for all students at UAL? Considering the socio-economic backgrounds or cultural backgrounds of all students entering higher education. The young student who has strong skills and ideas however faces daily challenges due to socio-economics and class. Or the one black student amongst a cohort of majority European colleagues or international Asian student colleagues in a new country without familiar settings of family or friends. How do we engage them and make them feel as though their voices are also welcome and as relevant within this space? Considering my own positionality as a Black Male who studied at UAL I was lucky enough to have technical staff and a design tutor of colour from a similar Afro Caribbean background to myself in my foundation year which help in settling my imposter syndrome a little as they provided space for me entering HE to engage with them when needed. As well as my technical pattern-cutting tutor Leonora who provided space and time to meet and work with me on a level where I was able to understand and question while existing in a cohort that didn’t look like me I often questioned whether I was making the right choices for my future as was this representative of the industry I was working so hard to enter? With this said I still felt pressure to conform to western references in developing my ideas out of nervousness for lack of understanding. Representation is important not only within the Academic staff but within the way we learn, reference and research. This allows students to connect more with their work through cultural experience and in turn, allows space for curiosity and new ideas. This can be best supported through object-based learning.
Students’ research and work could be integrated into my teaching practice through presenting these as for example resources of ways in which students have approached tasks previously. These could be used alongside other creative practitioners’ work to both inform and inspire students. My teaching practice is heavily experimental and technical based. I have been keen to see students relate their work back to their own positionality and cultural experiences drawing into these aspects to curate works that are more inspired, diverse, and representative rather than imitations of workshops or technical classes they had attended during the term.