This report considers the retention and attainment of diverse students within the field of Arts and Design. This resource also includes intervention to bring change in students’ experience as it is evident that students from different backgrounds tend to ‘become more or less vulnerable to withdrawal and low attainment.’ (Finigan and Richards, 2016) This report includes case studies which are examples of intervention/ activities to enhance and transform the curriculum, pedagogy and student experiences.
The report shows us the facts – the difference in attainment gap between students. For example; the attainment gap of 33% between Black British Caribbean, Black British African in comparison to White students (Woodfield 2014, pp. 63-4).
Through reading the text, I couldn’t help but reflect on my own first year of university. Certainty, understanding the curriculum and belonging was very much needed in this new higher education environment – which honestly took a long time for me to adjust into. According to Sabri (2015), students follow their tutor’s guidance or produce work that doesn’t resonate with them if their ideas don’t meet the tutor’s aesthetic.
I understand this feeling – how much I wanted to create work that could meet my tutor’s idea/ aesthetic just so that I would get ‘good grades’. This made me realise the key role and responsibility of a tutor, as well as the curriculum. It is important to nourish and support the student’s personal practice, as well as think of approaches that welcome their narratives/ voices (e.g. sense of belonging in the classroom, forming good rapport with students, etc)
I also believe it is important to decolonise the curriculum in order to tackle the attainment gap.
“Art education has generally been conservative, repetitive and exclusive. Art education theorists have even described art education as Eurocentric, racist and imperialist and have called for curriculum reform and social change.” (Hatton 2015, p. 3)
We need to understand who are our students. We know that we have a wide student body, so our education also needs to translate that; there is no ‘one fits all’. Students want to be able to resonate with what they create and see themselves being represented.
The Tell Us About It (TUABI) mentioned on the read is an intervention that I am familiar with. The intervention was designed to ‘explore the narratives and learning experiences of final year students from diverse backgrounds studying within the Art and Design discipline who have succeeded at a high level.’ (Finnigan and Richards, 2016). Having been a part of Shades of Noir team, I was able to conduct interviews with the contributors, in which I learned about their journey, their challenges and their own self-reflection as a student of colour. The first interview/ conversation with Demelza Woodbridge was very meaningful to me – I could resonate with what Woodbridge was sharing:
“I found it really difficult being a student of colour; from dealing with micro-aggressions to having knowledge presented to you by people and from people that don’t look like you. To find strategies to get on, to not let that get in the way of your learning is really hard. To get by you have to kind of almost inhabit two bodies in some way. You have the ‘student body’ and then your ‘personal body’.
Why should you be separated?
Other students don’t have to separate themselves like that.”
(Woodbridge, 2020)
TUABI enabled student voices to be heard and preserved. The archive enabled deep self-reflection, contributors (and the viewers) to consider positionality and recognise the importance of their voices/ narratives. This is something I have been practising to input in my own teaching context. I believe it important to consider fostering belonging in the classroom where students from different backgrounds come together in one space. It is essential to recognise the importance of student voices and how this can enhance students’ experience/ performance.
This resource questions the attainment gap and the strategies to bridge that gap. As mentioned in the report and above, if we actively decolonise the curriculum, focus on staff development and have an inclusive student-centred learning/ teaching will be transformational in students’ learning experience.
Reference:
Freire, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London: Continuum
Shades of noir. (2020) Inclusive Practice: Alchemy – Transformation in Social Justice Teaching. Available at: https://shadesofnoir.org.uk/journals/inclusive-practice
What you say about belonging and students following their tutor’s guidance in the production work that to try and meet the tutor’s aesthetic, also resonates in some way with my experiences as a queer disabled student on my BA. I’ve been more conscious of this lately, and observed some of it happening within the students I work with, where students are trying to establish a sense of belonging within the institution through making work to try and fit an aesthetic value which is not their own. The insight which this Unit is giving me, is enabling me to see this in relation to my teaching practice, and I’m more actively trying to facilitate belonging amongst students. I didn’t realise you’d worked on the Shades of Noir resources – I’ve found them so valuable. The Tell us about yourself interviews, amongst other resources have opened up my thinking about my white privilege, alongside an awareness of different student experiences, which has led me to be much more active in recognising the importance of and facilitating student voices. I’ve found myself regularly returning to a question Rahul asked in the first session I attended on PGCert, ‘Who are your students?’
Apologies that this is a late in the day comment….one thing I feel I would have liked to have done more proactively during this unit is to engage in conversations with my peers. The process of navigating this unit has led me to think a lot about time, and energies, in relation to inclusive practices and teaching…