Month: May 2023

Faith

  • Calhoun, C. and Modood, T. (2015) Religion in Britain: Challenges for higher education. London: Leadership Foundation for Higher Education.
Image by Chuk Yong from Pixabay

I’ve focused on the following three headings: Multiculturalism, Religion and dissent in universities and Religion as a public good. 

Reading ‘Religion in Britain: Challenges for Higher Education’ has challenged my opinion that religion is a private matter. Being an atheist and not participating in religious ceremonies since turning 16, I am very distanced from believe and religion. The text was a reminder that religion provides a vital inspiration to many people in defining and discussing what should be counted as public good. This means that “attempts to exclude it [religion] from the public sphere are intrinsically repressive to it; toleration of private belief is not a substitute.” (p.19)  

Another important take out for me was reading how activities that cross religious boundaries can be beneficial for integration of the students. What does it mean for my practice? I am not sure yet. Definitely something for me to explore and think about further. 

The text touches upon a very important aspects of faith and religion that can be (or are) intolerant. Especially issues surrounding sex and gender can be problematic.  “Discussion of different ‘non-binary’ sexual and gender identities is growing on universities campuses” (p.17) and this can be liberating for some students, but unsettling for others. I will investigate further how as teachers we can we support our students (and each other) when dealing with some of the above issues.  

  • Shades of Noir (2017) ‘Interview with Bridgett Crutchfield’, in R. Mundair et. al (eds) Higher power: religion, faith, spirituality & belief. London: Shades of Noir. p.32-33. 
Shades of Noir (2017) p.33

The images in this article have got my undivided attention. They are so powerful and expressing my issue with many religions in regards how they perceive women. Bridgett’s answers to SoN questions were very short and expressed her strong opinions. I found it refreshing. I come from ‘old school’ academia and find it difficult to deviate from staying neutral in my teaching and writing. I find it liberating to go through my PgCert reading list and learning more and more about how our opinions matter and can be used in teaching.

It reminded me of Freire’s writing: “Education as the practice of freedom—as opposed to education as the practice of domination—denies that man is abstract, isolated, independent, and unattached to the world; it also denies that the world exists as a reality apart from people. Authentic reflection considers neither abstract man nor the world without people, but people in their relations with the world.”  (2000, p. 81) 

Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b080twcz

I am a bit overwhelmed by amount of information and a depth of this lecture.  

Two things I am taking away from it now are: 

  1. Understanding that religion does not consist mainly of a body of believes but of practice and community (what do religious people do and who do they do it with). 
  2. Understanding that religious doctrine can be driven by practice not as commonly thought the other way round. It means that religion can change and evolve.  Women rabbis and priests can serve as example of such changes.  

At the end of the lecture there was one question from the public that resonated with me a lot. Is there anything that as educators we could do to help address fundamentalism? Can we educate people so they can move from truth fallacy, sectarian way of thinking towards doubt and fluidity of thinking?   It reminded me of critical pedagogy and importance of a dialogue in it – how we cannot enter a dialogue with each other in absence of doubt. (Freire, 2000, p.39) I think we cannot start this dialogue without foregoing an authoritarian outlook in teacher-student relationship. However, it does not mean undermining teacher’s authority as knowledge expert – as this could mean that a teacher “allows their classroom to be governed by the authoritarian power of the educational system” (Keer, 2016, p.69)

References:

Freire, P. (2000) Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum.

Keer, G. (2016) ‘Barriers to critical pedagogy in information literacy teaching’, in K. McElroy and N. Pagowsky (eds) Critical library pedagogy handbook. Chicago, Illinois: Association of College and Research Libraries. pp.65-74.

Disability

Photo by Darrel Und: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photography-of-people-connecting-their-fingers-1023828/

For this blog I chose to reflect on 3 resources from our recommended reading:

Checking the UAL disability pages was a great exercise to inform myself on what is available to our staff and students in terms of the university support.  I found some information on our websites that I didn’t know or forgot about. I am in a process of creating a short skill share session for our library staff regarding what I have just learnt. I want to improve (or remind our staff of) what we know, so we can support our users better. Students know that there always is someone they can talk to and/or ask questions in the UAL libraries (with our information desks staff 9am-10pm during the term time) and it will be good to have up to date information available to them. 

 The second and third resource are both interviews.

First one is with Vilissa Thompson  #DisabilityTooWhite hashtag creator and the second is with Rebekah Ubuntu, a multidisciplinary sound artist and university lecturer. I found them both very inspiring and interesting, especially as they both talked a lot about intersectionality of their lived experience.  

Vilissa taught me a lot about what it means to be an ally. It was a reminder of how important it is that my voice of a white and able-bodied person does not power over the group of people I want to be an ally for.  

Rebekah’s text gripped my attention from the first few words. I love how creative they were in interviewing themselves. I found Rebekah’s statement summing up their positionality, when they say that we are all of our coexisting identities all of the time, especially important. I think it is crucial to all of us to keep this statement in mind when we interact with our students (or colleagues) to enable a meaningful dialogue between ourselves.  

Both interviews made me think about my positionality and biases that I may have. They strengthen my desire to learn more about different people and their experiences.  This will be very helpful in my professional live where I meet and support staff and students that come from very diverse backgrounds. This inspired me to start looking at how I can enrich our library resources, so they can represent or teach more about disabled people of colour.  

Reflections on other resources on disability that I engaged with:

  1. Film by Christine Sun Kim

For me this film is about art and our experience of it through senses. Christine’s art is all encompassing. I was transfixed by her performance and creativity. Being deaf person working with sound she made me question some assumptions I might have made about people with hearing impairment. It definitely was an unexpected element of the film that Christine works with sound. Her art made me pause and look at my experience of the world from a different perspective.

It made me think of a role of surprise and unexpected in learning and teaching. How less conventional material can help starting discussion and prompt changes in our thinking. In terms of my practice, I think that working with zines and artists’ books gives me an opportunity to incorporate a subject of disability into teaching. I will research what is being published on or by disabled artists at the moment and enrich our collections, so it be used in object based learning sessions.

2. Barokka (Okka), K. (2017) ‘Deaf-accessibility for spoonies: lessons from touring Eve and Mary Are Having Coffee while chronically ill’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 22(3), pp. 387-392. doi: 10.1080/13569783.2017.1324778. 

Khairani Barokka (fragment of a photograph) Available at: https://rimbundahan.org/khairani-barokka/ (Accessed: 15 May 2023)

“Pain hides in plain sight. This assumption, that what another feels they perceive confirms absolutely: you are not in pain, is not unfamiliar to anyone who lives with chronic pain, lives the exact opposite truth. Yet the shock of distance, of misunderstandings from human beings so close to our bodies, to the truth as we inhabit it in our bodies, can be something else entirely.” (p. 387) 

“As I imagine is the case for most, the sheer impossibility of human communication is why we attempt to bridge it anyway, by writing, speaking, creating, by existing ingroups, by sustaining ourselves for the attempt to bridge gaps.” (p. 388) 

These two quotes resonated with me the most. Having lived with a medical condition that flares up for a few days each month and causes pain for at least a week each time, I could relate to the author of the article very well. I am a very energetic, generally fit person and it is very easy for others to dismiss my pain when I am ill. On many occasions I heard comments how I do not look ill and was met with disbelieve when needed to leave work or class, because I was in too much pain.

How both this reading and my personal experience can be used/incorporated in my practice? It definitely made me more aware of hidden disabilities and inclined to listen carefully when students or colleagues talk about not feeling their best.

When designing or delivering the sessions I make sure to make space for questions and breaks, so whoever needs a breather does not need to ask for it. I design tasks and activities in the sessions with different levels of engagement. I always communicate that I do not expect everyone to do all the tasks and leave the students a freedom to make a choice.