I have responded to the following resources in more depth in their own individual blogposts, and will try my best here to summarise my reflection from each below.
The common theme in each of my reflections focuses on taking action in beliefs and making time to have more conversations.
The Reith Lectures: Kwame Anthony Appiah – Mistaken Identities – Creed – (Click here for full blogpost)
Throughout the recording there were several things Kwame said that really resonated with me, which I frantically tried to type down as I was listening. First was:
Religion has 3 dimensions:
What you do – practice / Who you do it with – community/fellowship / A body of beliefs
Often there is more on an emphasis placed on the beliefs over everything else.
Orthodox – confirming to beliefs, attitudes or modes of conduct in relation to the creeds of religion.
Orthopraxy – the belief that the right action is as important as religious faith.
And later said…
If we think of creedal identities in terms of mutable practices and communities rather sets than sets of immutable beliefs, religion becomes more verb than noun and the identity is revealed as an activity not a thing, and it’s the nature of activities to bring change.
Both of these points got be thinking about the word action, and I started to reflect on conversations we had in previous sessions based on SoN case studies, where racist acts had taken place, and nobody took action. Having a belief is one thing; believing that something is right or wrong is great and all but without acting on that belief – do you really believe it? I can believe I am not racist, but without taking action on that belief and acting on it to become anti-racist – that belief isn’t just and is just a guise for racism.
While its important to consider race, and I inevitably will always come back to it due to the nature of inclusion and intersectionality; this blogpost is focused on faith. So how can I take more action to ensure I am inclusive of faith in my practice?
Religion in Britain: Challenges for Higher Education – (Click here for full blogpost)
There is a paragraph within a section titled ‘Religion and dissent in Universities’ that speaks on sexuality and gender as concerns exacerbated by religious intolerance. This is not really something I have ever considered before in my teaching career, as it’s something I haven not come across – or at least not something that has been brought to my attention.
I identify as a gay man myself, and having worked in the fashion industry there are a lot of gay people, people that identify as non-binary, trans people; and usually those who are not, are allies, used to being surrounded by the LGBTQIA+ community and embracing of them. I now teach on a fashion design course, at one of the UK’s leading universities based in London; an incredibly diverse and multicultural city. For me when a student identifies as non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, I understand and respect that. When a student tells me they identify as trans or are transitioning, I am elated and excited for them as well as aware of the struggles they may be going through. I don’t think twice when a student tells me they are gay, lesbian or bisexual – it’s my everyday.
After reading this I’m realising that’s not the case for everyone. In many religions, condemnation of homosexuality is prominent. Anything that may not align with a particular religions views on a traditional family or traditional values, could be seen as unsettling. As well as students that may have had a religious upbringing or continue to practice a religion that share these views, there are also students we have that are moving to London for the first time from small towns. Places and countries that aren’t as multicultural or as accepting of different sexualities and genders, places where being gay is illegal.
It’s got me thinking, although I haven’t experienced it and hope I never will, do any of my students feel uncomfortable or unsettled by my or any of my other students sexuality or gender because of their religious or personal beliefs?
Shades of Noir: Terms of Reference on Faith – Alia Youssef – (Click here for full blogpost)
Reading this article has reminded me how important it is to take the time to get to know my students, to have conversations and learn about them. What do they like? What is important to them? How do they want to communicate themselves and their work to the world?
Often as a sample room tutor my sessions are jam packed with skill delivery. I focus a lot of my time of making sure my students have the technical skills to create the garments they want to make, but I don’t give myself (or them for that matter) the time and space to have conversations to learn about each other. When you understand who your students are as individuals, what makes them tick, what’s important to them and what they want to communicate with their voice; the more you can adapt your teaching to support and nurture them as individuals.
See comments on other posts on this topic here, here and here.
Hi James,
your reflection on balancing being a sample room tutor and delivering jam-packed skill delivery sessions with getting to know students individually really resonated with me, as that is my experience as well.
I find that it takes me a lot longer to get to know students than me design counterpart, as they get to have one-to-one conversations about student’s projects and where they are coming from right from the start of a unit. Meanwhile, we are delivering the same content to the whole group, and while we then get to go around and check in on each student, we don’t necessarily get to talk about their projects/interests in as much depth.
We are on the same team, and as you know this year for PTCT I trialled printing examples of the technique covered in a session and asking students to choose the one they would like to explore, and I feel like this helped me start conversations about their interests, so it helped me get to know them a bit better earlier in the process. Still, this worked better for more confident/talkative students, and less well for the shy/less confident ones..
This is something that would be nice to explore with the rest of our team over the summer planning – how can we build in more space for conversations within sample room sessions?
Hi James,
Another fascinating post.
I too was interested in the idea of religion/belief/faith as praxis as raised by Appiah, and similarly to your account, I have felt the need to be much more active in my anti-racist efforts. Whether that is calling out racist remarks from tutors or engaging friends or family in debate with regards to their beliefs. This has been an uncomfortable process where I have often felt strange after debates, but glad that I had them.
Another point in relation to this and as a result of conversations I have had is that, I think I believe that, whereas before I might have labeled a person who makes a racist remark as a ‘Racist/Ableist/Anti(religious group)’ themselves. I don’t think this is necessarily a useful practice. Though the individual might hold racist beliefs, I do not beleive labelling them a ‘Racist’ is a useful exercise. I do, however, think it is important to say, ‘what you just said is a racist remark’ and I think this separation can help us to have conversations about race, belief and disability in a more open and constructive manner.
I absolutley believe that racism, ableism and derogatory comments regarding religion and all other protected characteristics should be called out. I am interested in how discussions around these comments take place, similarly to the article with the tutor who recognised he had not defended a tutor who suffered racist abuse (I forget the article now, but it’s in SoN) – I think the manner of questioning from the tutor who experienced the racism was spot on, questioning the tutor on how they acted, asking them to examine and reflect upon this decision/indecision rather than calling them a name. I think questions are harder to deflect away from.
I think Appiah’s commentary also links well with Freya’s discussion of a shifting belief praxis dependant on where she has lived. Beliefs are picked up and mould over time and change depending on our environment, which is why I think it is important to consistently evaluate our positionalities as they are complex and ever-changing, as are the response to them.
This is also why I think your commentary on your sexuality is so interesting in relation to the student group you work with. I think it is important how you have identified homosexuality as commonplace in your workplace, and how that is very much a positive thing, whilst at the same time analysing how this may be challenging for students from other cultures who may have differing opinions towards sexuality/gender. I will be interested to hear how you navigate this group dynamic in future sessions alongside the delivery of practical activities.
I too, feel the struggle of balancing EDI discussions in relation to the delivery of practical information. I’ve been thinking about this in relation to my artefact for my life drawing classes. I think I will use questions such as ‘who practices life drawing’, ‘how is life drawing practiced by different social groups’ etc. when demonstrating techniques or discussing histories/approaches, I hope that this will help me to focus my research on increasingly diverse reference material.
Best,
Joe
Hi James
it was good to read your honest and thoughtfull reflections on being a tutor running a busy technical studio, how time is an issue in regards to getting to know your students better
“Reading this article has reminded me how important it is to take the time to get to know my students, to have conversations and learn about them. What do they like? What is important to them? How do they want to communicate themselves and their work to the world?”
They are such important questions to raise as in the more students are known to us, the more input and assistance we can provide for them as individuals; having done my peer observation with you in your class I wholly appreciate that it is a real challenge for you to ‘get to know’ students when, after demonstrating techniques, students need help in how to apply those techniques successfully to their garments leaving no time, it seems, to get to know the students in a deeper sense
I’ve just read a paper on ‘Teaching Race with a Gendered Edge’ (in extended resources, and seriously long!) that gave a suggestion of how to get students more known to one another,
“work in pairs or in small groups to write each other’s educational biographies. Include important parts of your family histories.”
I teach Moving Image so there’s plenty of time to incorporate something like this in my classes. It’s probably way too involved for your class considering you are teaching technical skills, but maybe something like that could be integrated?
Mostly I have felt moved to read your honest reflections; it’s easy to feel that people don’t care about race and racism but i feel you honestly do
I’m glad I’ve done the IPU, I think it’s been invaluable
Hi James,
this is an interesting read. I agree with your point on the importance of taking time to get to know our students. It is increasingly hard to do with teaching workloads and student numbers. This does seem like the more compassionate and open approach, the alternative being to try to encompass all faiths, covering all areas. This seems like a daunting task and one for a large number of policy makers to collaborate on rather than the lived experience of one lecturer. It also risks the dilution and compression of important and specific issues on faith under generic assumptions and applications. Your approach is a great one in my opinion, as it reaches out, offering support, as one individual to another. It an important reminder that this is fundamentally what treaching should be about. Thanks James!