Very interesting 1st session on the PGCERT Academic Practice in Art, Design and Communication!

I was impressed by the variety of experience we all have and the context which we are teaching in. In fact the word teaching feels much too structured and rigid. Perhaps experience or even knowledge sharing would work best. I could stretch it to educating, but this feels much too imposing to the style I feel I have when interacting with students…more reflection on this is required from my part I think.

Everyone shared some very interesting articles and images, which were triggered by their background and practice as opposed to some theory of pedagogy, which would have made it much too standardised. I found this very inspiring and eye opening. My background as a students, growing up in Italy, is very old fashioned and traditional: one would read the history of everything and learn from theorists. Expressing one’s opinion was never allowed let alone drawing from practitioners’ experiences.

A quote that resonated a lot from one of the presentations was:

“Artists drew on their own experience as creative practitioners to instigate a learning process” (Pringle, 2009).

This feels like a collision of ideas that inspire and kindle learning: an approach I find would help sediment learning a lot deeper than receiving education in the passive manner I was used to.

That said, possibly because it’s in my imprinting, I am still interested in the history of everything as I feel it helps me put what I learn into context. Then I can move on and question it to hopefully understand alternatives, a way forward.

I found inspiring our discussion on diversity and on inclusivity as well as compassionate pedagogy. I don’t know much about pedagogy in general and realising how much I have been looking at it from a single, white European, perspective makes me feel very ignorant and yet I look forward to expanding my point of view and learning different teaching styles to fulfil diverse learning needs.

Another aspect that I thought was particularly interesting and a bit of a chicken and egg dilemma is the question about whether education affects and can change the industry or the industry dictates how future practitioner should be trained…

I look forward to the sessions ahead and to try and find some answers to these questions although I have a feeling I’ll only be able to scratch the surface of this huge subject and that more questions will arise first.

Bibliography

Pringle, E. (2009) The Artist as Educator: Examining Relationships between Art Practice and Pedagogy in the Gallery Context In: Tate Papers no.11 [Online]. At: https://www.tate.org.uk/research/tate-papers/11/artist-as-educator-examining-relationships-between-art-practice-and-pedagogy-in-gallery-context (Accessed on 10.01.22)