Tommy Ramsay's blog

I have enjoyed the ARP overall and am grateful to have been part of it. I have felt mega pushed for time which has been a shame as there has been so much interesting material that has been on offer and that I have come across in my research.

The process of the ARP has allowed me to clarify my position as a facilitator. I began the PGCert with a similar position and ideology that I find myself in, the difference now is that I have had the opportunity to be part of a community of teachers going through the PGCert and I have really valued the conversations in the workshops between students and tutors. In addition to this, the opportunity to read from thinkers and writers has been a real treat. I had for example never read bell hooks, Paulo Freire, Sara Ahmed or Kimberle Crenshaw. This has really to my awareness and given me extra motivation and guidance for my teaching.

This course has also coincided with a period of personal upheaval and also personal growth. During this time I have really valued the support and care of my closest friends on the PGCE. The teachings of NVC and Marshall Rosenberg have been a natural alignment with my way of thinking and have added to both my journey as a person and as a facilitator and formed a key part of my intervention.

I am grateful for the opportunity to study the PGCert and look forward to continuing my journey in education and as a teacher and feel committed and motivated to do so.

Adams, Tony E., Carolyn Ellis, and Stacy Holman Jones. ‘Autoethnography’. In The International Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods, edited by Jörg Matthes, Christine S. Davis, and Robert F. Potter, 1st ed., 1–11. Wiley, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118901731.iecrm0011. 

Ahmed, Sara. Living a Feminist Life. Durham: Duke University Press, 2017. 

Aziz, Razia, Feminism and the challenge of racism: Deviance or Difference. Black British Feminism: A Reader: accessed from on 7 December 2024: https://books.google.co.uk/booksid=GdSqaz6NBMIC&pg=PA70&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false 

Baumard, Phillipe, Tacit knowledge in organizations (London, Sage Publications), 1999 

Bury, James. Non‐Hierarchical Learning: Sharing Knowledge, Power and Outcomes, https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/153536466.pdf, accessed on 27/12/2024 

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DiAngelo, Robin. White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, Penguin Books, 2019 

Ellis, Carolyn S., and Arthur P. Bochner. ‘Analyzing Analytic Autoethnography: An Autopsy’. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 35, no. 4 (August 2006): 429–49. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891241606286979. 

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Foucault, M. The subject and power (Afterword), in: H. L. Dreyfus & P. Rainbow (Eds) Michel Foucault: beyond structuralism and hermeneutics (2^nd edn) Chicago University Press, 1983 

Girardin, McKayla. ‘What Is Qualitative Research? Methods and Examples’. Forage, 12 April 2023. https://www.theforage.com/blog/skills/what-is-qualitative-research. 

Goleman, Daniel. Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ. London, UK: Bantam Books, 1995 

Graham, Joe. ‘Time Taken and Time Told: Serial Drawing as the Becoming of Now’. Drawing: Research, Theory, Practice 1, no. 1 (1 January 2016): 59–78. https://doi.org/10.1386/drtp.1.1.59_1. 

Hill, Louise and Hussain, Maria. Creating a ‘sense of belonging’ for international students through intercultural Personal Tutoring: https://www.ukat.ac.uk/community/ukat-blog/posts/2021/february/creating-a-sense-of-belonging-for-international-students-through-intercultural-personal-tutoring, accessed 2 January 2025 

Hughes, Dean. ‘Roger Ackling: Stillness as a Drawing Method’. Drawing: Research, Theory, Practice 9, no. 1 (1 April 2024): 55–73. https://doi.org/10.1386/drtp_00128_1. 

Jokela, Timo, and Maria Huhmarniemi. ‘Art-Based Action Research in the Development Work of Arts and Art Education’, n.d. 

Mäkelä, Maarit, and Teija Löytönen. ‘Rethinking Materialities in Higher Education’. Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education 16, no. 2 (1 October 2017): 241–58. https://doi.org/10.1386/adch.16.2.241_1. 

Crenshaw, Kimberle. ‘Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color’, n.d., Stanford Law Press, 1991

Murphy, Regina, Francis Ward, Una McCabe, Michael Flannery, Andrea Cleary, Hsiao-Ping Hsu, and Eileen Brennan. ‘Recasting Embodied and Relational Teaching in the Arts: Teacher Educators Reflect on the Potential of Digital Learning’. Irish Educational Studies 41, no. 1 (2 January 2022): 213–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/03323315.2021.2022525. 

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Rosenberg, Marshal. Non-violent communication: A language of life (2nd ed.). Encinitas, CA: Puddle Dancer Press, 2003 

Rosenberg, Marshall. Non-Violent Communication Training: Authority: Respect vs Fear, https://open.spotify.com/show/3jPpnalv97b9ky9BB5DCAA, 3 February 2020, first accessed on: 10 November 

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The following is a list of my finding from ARP project broken down into the intervention categories, experimental drawings and NVC communication

Experimental drawing project findings:

The experimental drawings have enabled students to feel more comfortable with their work being less representationally accurate. This exercise is based in the physical process of drawing but contains within it the shift in thinking that I am hoping to offer students. This is a shift away from their work being made to a standard that is judged by external factors such as accuracy and instead towards their own self connection and observational feelings towards their work.

My selection of the objects themselves is important, the objects must have some ambiguity to them when held blindly e.g. not be a pinecone.

Of the 4 experimental drawings that students make in the warm up tasks, they have always preferred the 3 experimental drawings where they have had the limitations in place over the traditional observational drawing they do in the warm up.

Students have often used the techniques such as drawing with their eyes shut or without looking down in their other work as a way to obtain a difference in line or to move through a section of working they were stuck in. This has shown me that they value these learnings and are open to and confident enough in them to incorporate them in their work that is not the warm up drawings.

NVC communication project findings:

The implications of the NVC intervention are more tangential. I feel that from the conversations that I have with students and the feedback that there has been a clear shift in how we communicate. These shifts have allowed students their own feelings when observing their work. ​This has also helped them to be more in control of their learning and making.

In addition to this, I have found reconnecting with the framework of NVC has really helped me to navigate difficult and demanding relationships in my personal life. NVC has enabled me to create more space for others but also to have less self-judgement and more self empathy. It is a model of thinking that I will continue to use.

Overall project findings

The combination of the technical and cognitive shifts from the experimental drawings has worked alongside the NVC communication to help students to work with more self-awareness and to make work with more engagement and confidence.

Why NVC?

I believe that person-centred approach could help facilitate positive and connected relationships with students. Non-violent communication (NVC) was chosen because of its potential to enhance my own empathy, interpersonal communication skills, as well as create the conditions for less judgemental language when discussing work.

NVC Fundamentals

The honest connection and expression of one’s feelings and needs, as well as being able to connect empathetically when listening to the feelings and needs of others.

The four primary steps that are part of NVC’s teaching model are observations, feelings, needs, and requests.

Step 1: Observations

Step 2: Feelings

Step 3: Needs

Step 4: Requests

Observations

Need to be free of judgement. Intrinsic to this, is that an observation is made without adding one’s own interpretation into the mix. For an example, a student started using oil paint for the first time and was very self critical. In the first few sessions, she would say, I am so bad at oil painting. In the second session, we were able to change this from an evaluation to an observation I have not used oil paint very much before. It is a simple, but significant shift in how she talked to herself.

Feelings

Feelings must be expressed as feelings, not as emotional states or thoughts or judgements. Feelings are not I think this is not very good. In NVC language, this would translate to I think this is not very good because I want it to have more colour/texture/time spent working on it etc.

Needs

This is what is behind the feeling. NVC is based around all people sharing universal needs. In addition to this, self ownership and connection to these needs is important, Rosenberg states:

“others can be the stimulus for our feelings, they are not the cause”1

Rosenberg states one of the fundamental principles in NVC is a literacy and access to ours and others feelings: “In the second step, attention is given towards the feelings that are being experienced in any given moment” 2

Requests

Are communicated clearly, they are specific, they are present actions, they include what I want, Would you work on the banana in the still life drawing for longer rather than general, future tense, or behavioural you need to work harder on this piece. In summary, if I think that a student in not making work that is as good as it can be, I can formulate this as a questions, I would say:

Could you tell me what is keeping you from connecting with this drawing more?

One of my students struggled with this in particular, and I would received in reply either a No or a I don’t know. This is not the end of the conversation, it is the start and if the relationship has been formed limiting the hierarchical student-teacher dynamics, it should be the start of a compassionate and empathetic conversation. As Rosenberg states:

“affective sharing between the self and other, self-other awareness and mental flexibility to adopt the subjective perspective of the other, and also regulatory processes” 3

This requires a literacy in hearing the needs behind the expression of feelings from others.

• helping students connect with their intrinsic motivations for learning, rather than extrinsic motivators such as reward or punishment. ​
• Moving away from power over to a power share and away from verbal feedback on student work being good or bad onto asking questions which help students to come to their own conclusions. ​

Communicating in NVC

I applied NVC communication in my conversations with students. For example an NVC based conversation could go as follows:​

Observation: I noticed that you stopped working on this section of your drawing ​

Feeling: Are you feeling frustrated​

Need: because you would like to have figured out a solution by now?  ​

Request: Would you like some help with that problem?  ​

This way of communicating shows empathy and also asks the student if they would like help

Marshall Rosenberg says “Power-Over leads to punishment and violence. Power-With leads to compassion and understanding, and to learning motivated by reverence for life rather than fear, guilt, shame, or anger.” 4

Empathy

NVC requires empathy for others but also for one’s self. It requires us to be aware of and connected to the needs of others as well ourselves. Rosenberg says:

“making choices motivated by our desire to contribute to life rather than out of fear, guilt, shame, duty or obligation” 5

For me there is a correlation between the emotional intelligence needed in NVC and teaching and making art. NVC helps to create intrapersonal intelligence which allows us to communicate with one another on a deeper level as Gardener puts it:

It is the intelligence we use when we try to understand other people’s feelings, life situations, ways of thinking or when we empathize with them. ​6

Emotional Intelligence

Daniel Goleman’s work where he identifies five aspects of emotional intelligence. These are:

• knowledge of one’s emotions and having the capability to express them;
• recognition of emotions in others;
• the ability to self-monitor and regulate emotion;
• being able to motivate oneself and others; and
• having the necessary social skills to implement these aspects in real life 7

This is where NVC comes in again, in increasing and giving strategies to manage and raise awareness of one’s emotional states.

Flow State

Daniel Goleman states in Emotional Intelligence “more than 100 different research studies made on over 36,000 individuals show that anxious students generally receive lower test grades. Worrying simply decreases mental capacities which are necessary for the execution of an intellectual task and the transfer of information; if we are preoccupied with failures, our concentration, which oversees helping to form an answer, decreases.”8  ​

NVC and Emotional Intelligence are simple things that can be learned but they have the potential to have a profound impact on how we navigate relationships inside and outside of education. Within education, simplifying things, if we can connect with students empathetically, we can create the space for students to trust us, to connect with themselves and together we can build the conditions for personal and embodied inquiry through our thinking and our making.

References:

1. Marshal Rosenberg, Non-violent communication: A language of life (2nd ed.). Encinitas, CA: PuddleDancer Press, 2003
2. Marshal Rosenberg, Non-violent communication: A language of life (2nd ed.). Encinitas, CA: PuddleDancer Press, 2003
3. Marshal Rosenberg, Life-enriching education: Non-violent communication helps schools improve performance, reduce conflict, and enhance relationships, Encinitas, CA: PuddleDancer Press, 2004
4. Marshal Rosenberg, Non-violent communication: A language of life (2nd ed.). Encinitas, CA: PuddleDancer Press, 2003
5. Marshal Rosenberg, Non-violent communication: A language of life (2nd ed.). Encinitas, CA: PuddleDancer Press, 2003
6. Daniel Goleman, Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ. London, UK: Bantam Books, 1995
7. Daniel Goleman, Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ. London, UK: Bantam Books, 1995
8. Daniel Goleman, Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ. London, UK: Bantam Books, 1995

The below contains my 2 Likert scale responses from my students. One of the Likert Scales is in relation to intervention one: the experimental drawings. The second Likert Scale is in response to the second intervention: the NVC communication techniques that I attempted to implement throughout the ARP.

Following that is the email questionnaire responses from another student which gives more of an overall feedback on both of the intervention methods used.

Likert Survey Scales

Likert Scale Responses: Experimental Drawings: Student Y

Student Y has come from an education background in China but is also currently studying on Foundation at a UK College. They took the questions home with them and returned the following lesson with their responses. As the student is over 18, verbal agreement for the Likert survey results to be used in the ARP was given. They scored their responses to the above questions as follows:  

For one of my data gathering research methods, I used a Likert scale and asked the student to score their responses from 1 to 5 with 1 being strongly disagree and 5 being strongly agree on the following questions:

	Rating from 1 – 5 with 1 being strongly disagree and 5 being strongly agree	1	2	3	4	5
A	I have found the experimental drawings to be a new way of working?				X
B	I understand the thinking behind why we are doing the experimental drawings?					X
C	I have found the experimental drawings to be generative in new ways of thinking about making my work?					X
D	I have found the techniques used in the experimental drawings to be useful in making my work?				X
E	This way of working has opened new things for my work?					X

I feel pleased with these responses to the questions from student Y. I believe that the student has also got a lot more confident and comfortable in making the experimental drawings, having initially seen them as a bit silly and not useful for their main concern which is generating a portfolio to get onto a UAL BA Fine Art course. I feel that the student has been surprised by some of these exercises and that their experimental drawings have improved alongside their other work. I also feel that the changes in thinking towards the experimental drawing has helped the student to take a less results-oriented outcome and to see that sometimes in order to get from A to B, it can help to try out a few different options. 

Below are some examples of the experimental drawings by student Y. Drawing 1 is the blind drawing, drawing 2 is holding the object above the eye line and not looking down at the page whilst drawing, drawing 3 is the traditional observational drawing, drawing 4 is the drawing from memory. Each drawing is five minutes long.

Likert Scale Responses: NVC communication technique with student B

For one of my data gathering research methods, I used a Likert scale and asked the student to score their responses from 1 to 5 with 1 being strongly disagree and 5 being strongly agree on the following questions: 

Student B has come from an education background in England but is also currently studying on Foundation at a UK College. They took the questions home with them and returned the following week with their responses. As the student is over 18, verbal agreement for the Likert survey results to be used in the ARP was given. They scored their responses to the above questions as follows: 

	Rating from 1 – 5 with 1 being strongly disagree and 5 being strongly agree	1	2	3	4	5
A	Did you feel empathetically supported in your studies?					X
B	Do you feel that I made observations rather than judgements when discussing your work?				X
C	Do you feel more connected to your work by being asked how you felt about your own work?					X
D	Did you feel more motivated by being asked what you felt about your work rather than being told by me?				X
E	Has this way of communicating opened new things for your work?					X

I feel pleased with these responses to the questions from student B. I feel that one of the most important aspects of teaching is holding empathetic space for a student. In fact, I think it is very important to be able to do this in all of life.

In combination with the experimental drawings, the NVC communication technique allowed me to help student B feel less performance anxiety and self judgement when making work. The student was able after several sessions to recognise when they were making work that was of a higher quality than the initial work they made. This self realisation allowed student B to be much freer and more open to their own creative impulses which was seen in a new desire to work with and on different materials. This has led to a less results-oriented outcome and allowed the student to work in a more free and joyful way.

Email Interview with student J

For one of my research and data gathering methods, I asked a student a few questions regarding how they are finding the sessions that we are having. Student J was the most happy to do this. The sessions with student J began in September, are one to one, are weekly and last for 6 hours. This student in particular has the most natural talent of the four students whom I work with regularly and has taken most seamlessly to the student led method of teaching that I am offering.

Student J has not done a Foundation course, in our sessions we are working towards building a portfolio for BA application. So far the projects have been built around working through an array of still life set ups. These still life set ups and the style they are painted are linked to particular artists such Pieter Claesz, Giorgio Morandi, Patrick Caulfield, Gang Zhao, Hilary Pecis and others. The idea here is that the students contextual and technical knowledge is built at the same time.

At the start of each session, we do the experimental warm up drawings. Student J has always enjoyed these and often will use some of the techniques in these drawings in her paintings or other work to obtain a different type of line or mark.

Student J is over the age of 18, was advised of the PGCert scenario and signed the requisite consent forms.

Email Questions:

T: How did you find the experimental drawing warmups at the start of sessions? Did they influence the observational drawing that you made afterwards? ​

J:The first session of experimental drawings was challenging, but by the next session I found them to be a fun and interesting experiences. I often choose to use the experimental dawing techniques in my paintings as well if I am a little stuck or unsure how to make something.​

T: How do you feel being asked to learn by looking?  ​

J: It helped me to feel connected to what I was making, and I was able to work for a much longer time on each work. Being asked to look more meant was more to work with in each still life painting and drawing that I made which I really enjoyed.​

T: Looking at your drawings and your work, do you feel your work has changed with this way of looking and making?​

J: I feel much more confident with my work, and in these sessions, I have made my best work so far. I think this is because I am thinking about how to describe each object that I make rather than judging how well I am copying it. I enjoy working this way too and I feel more responsible for my own work!​

Analysis

I am aware that student J would be likely to give me positive feedback as they are a nice person, but nonetheless, I am really pleased with the responses. Most of all, I am really pleased that student J has found this way of looking and making to extend the time that they can spend making. I know from my own studio practice, that what I want most is to be able to work on a painting for a long time, to be able to keep going into it and have an extended enquiry with the making process.

Student J does have the most “natural” talent as a maker and also comes from a family with an artist, so is the most predisposed to being open to a less instructional way of working. Nonetheless it is very pleasing for me to receive feedback that shows that the student is feeling more confident with their work and also enjoying the process of making in this way.

In Non-Hierarchical Learning James Bury puts forward how teachers can relate to students as collaborators allowing for “cumulative development” 1 where a task can be more easily accomplished working together rather than by an individual.

Visual representations of traditional education, contemporary education, and non‐hierarchical learning ​

This image illustrates the different approaches between traditional education, contemporary education, and non‐hierarchical learning. Instead of the teacher being in control as in traditional education, or being perceived as an outsider of the group, power must be transferred so that each person is an equal contributor to the learning process within the group.

Bury states:

In non‐hierarchical learning, it is suggested that students should be given equal responsibility for their learning outcomes. Furthermore, it is posited that increases in achievement should be measured through personal progress, where individual achievement is not judged against other students, but in relation to past performances. This approach could allow students to develop a desire for deeper understanding and gain satisfaction from perseverance and success in difficult tasks.​ 2

Bury states that every student has the potential to succeed and that each and every student has the right to be provided with the opportunity to reach their full potential. Bury states that the key to this is that each student must be treated equally that classrooms and teaching must be structured in a collaborative, non-hierarchical way. Working in this way fosters shared objectives and that this allows students to join forces, multiplying their individual capacities to each their own and shared goals

References:

All quotes from: Bury, James. Non‐Hierarchical Learning: Sharing Knowledge, Power and Outcomes, https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/153536466.pdf, accessed on 27/12/2024 

One of the key questions I have had during the ARP is to what extent is technical instruction useful to student development in drawing and painting? Or can students gain technical accuracy by experimenting and looking instead of technical instruction?​

One of the ways I encountered the differences between teacher led learning and student led learning, was with students who were used to learning through step by step technical instruction.

In my first lesson with one student, we set up a Magritte inspired composition with a still life and a background of the sky and discussed in in various ways and when the student came to put paint on canvas, they paused and asked: “How do I paint the sky”?

I was slightly stumped at first! The idea of not being able to put paint down to paint a sky go from there was something I had not considered. With this student, we went outside and looked at the sky for 10 minutes. We then stayed outside and made 5 drawings of the sky in different mediums. We then went back inside and closed out eyes and drew the sky.

In other scenarios, with still life set ups, we used common organic and man made objects for these works. In these instance, I found a really important point for my own teaching methodology. I came upon the difference between what I am calling “filling in” and “looking”. This is where the thinking and physical memory of the experimental warm up drawings came back into play.

During the ARP, I have asked students to learn through experimentation and through really trying to access what they are working with by looking and observing the still life set ups rather than filling in their drawing with predetermined ideas of what they thought the object such as an apple look like.​ The difference between looking and filling in is a key part to the methodology behind what I am offering to my students.

I wanted students to become conscious of when they were drawing what they “knew” an object to look like within their mind, I referred to this as filing in. What I hoped was that helping students to be aware of this, would allow for them to reconnect with the objects and get back to looking at the object and drawing what they saw. No two apples are the same. I believe that through the process of looking students are able to find their own hand which holds their own languages to register what they see.

And more importantly, this places a responsibility on them to connect with what they are making and to be in charge of their own work.​

I have been reading Parker Palmer’s The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life (Jossey-Bass, 2007). In the opening chapter Palmer discusses the complexities of being a teacher and how rewarding the role can be as well as how hard it can be also.

One of the things he discusses is how he can at times feel a “transparent sham”1. I feel the two words keenly. As someone who has come to teaching as a second or third career, I do not have the experience of some of my colleagues, in addition to this, I am often younger or around the same age as the students on the UAL short courses that I run. This combined with trying to teach in a less instructional and didactic way can feel challenging and I can start to wonder if my validity is being pondered by students. When this happens, I do feel transparent. It feels as though I am a transparent sham. In these moment, I try to remain open to what students are needing from me (be a it a more instructive way of learning or a boost in confidence etc) and I also try to hold my own truths and beliefs.

Within the ARP project focus of teaching at Sunny Arts, my initial awkwardness at asking students to operate outside of their comfort zones, transferred to the students, this was gone once we had gotten to know one another. Perhaps with new students, the experimental drawings could be introduced in session 3 or 4 ​

Palmer breaks teaching down into these parts:

First, the subjects we teach are as large and complex as life, so our knowledge of them is always flawed and partial. No matter how we devote ourselves to reading and research, teaching requires a command of content that always eludes our grasp. Second, the students we teach are larger than life and even more complex. To see them clearly and see them whole, and respond to them wisely in the moment, requires a fusion of Freud and Solomon that few of us achieve. 2

Palmer here is saying that teaching is not merely a recital of knowledge or material required to answer exam questions, it is instead a transaction between people that it requires wisdom and insight into others as well as ourselves:

But there is another reason for these complexities: we teach who we are. Teaching, like any truly human activity, emerges from one’s inwardness, for better or worse. As I teach, I project the condition of my soul onto my students, my subject, and our way of being together. The entanglements I experience in the classroom are often no more or less than the convolutions of my inner life. Viewed from this angle, teaching holds a mirror to the soul. If I am willing to look in that mirror, and not run from what I see, I have a chance to gain self-knowledge—and knowing myself is as crucial to good teaching as knowing my students and my subject. 3

I believe this to be true. I would perhaps say it in different terms, I would say that I feel being grounded in one’s self makes a difference to how we communicate. I know that when I feel grounded, I communicate in a way that is more confident and therefore clearer and easier to access for students. I think this is crucial when asking students to step outside of their comfort zone. In the evening drop in classes I teach at City Academy, I am often working with new students who do not made work regularly. Asking them to try experimental things or be less concerned with the representational outcome of a work can feel like a risk to them. It can feel exposing. I believe in these situations it is important for the student that my belief in what I am asking is steadfast. I believe it allows them to be held in this moment when they feel they are in an unknown place.

Palmer attributes the ability to know students with self-knowledge:

In fact, knowing my students and my subject depends heavily on self-knowledge. When I do not know myself, I cannot know who my students are. I will see them through a glass darkly, in the shadows of my unexamined life—and when I cannot see them clearly I cannot teach them well. When I do not know myself, I cannot know my subject—not at the deepest levels of embodied, personal meaning. I will know it only abstractly, from a distance, a congeries of concepts as far removed from the world as I am from personal truth. 4

The term embodied is one that interests me as this is one of things I am concerned with in both my teaching practice, in my work as an artist, in my life in general and it is one of the things I most want my students to be able to access. To know one self, is something that gives us access to our own truth, when we speak our truth it can allow others to connect with us. When we can access an embodied way of being, we can make work that speaks our truth. When our work speaks our truth it has the greatest chance of connecting with other people. I think one of the fundamental human needs is connection.

In the following chapter Teaching Beyond Technique, Palmer says:

The techniques I have mastered do not disappear, but neither do they suffice. Face to face with my students, only one resource is at my immediate command: my identity, my selfhood, my sense of this “I” who teaches—without which I have no sense of the “Thou” who learns. Here is a secret hidden in plain sight: good teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher. 5

Fundamentally an engaged teacher, offers up to others a way to journey through life, they offer students a way of being in the world. For me being an artist is a way of journeying through life. An art practice is a container for how we see the world around us and what we wish to say about it. It also holds the values which I use to guide me in my life. Being an artist offers the luxury of a language that we can use to communicate and speak in ways that we are not always able do with words. This is a pretty powerful thing. It is something that I respect and want to share with others.

In every class I teach, my ability to connect with my students, and to connect them with the subject, depends less on the methods I use than on the degree to which I know and trust my selfhood—and am willing to make it available and vulnerable in the service of learning.6

I believe that connection is the key, when I am grounded or connected with myself, I am able to connect to the subject I am teaching, with my students, so that students can learn to weave a world for themselves. 

References:

1. Patrick Palmer, The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life, Jossey-Bass, 2007, page 15
2. Patrick Palmer, The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life, Jossey-Bass, 2007, page 30
3. Patrick Palmer, The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life, Jossey-Bass, 2007, page 45
4. Patrick Palmer, The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life, Jossey-Bass, 2007, page 68
5. Patrick Palmer, The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life, Jossey-Bass, 2007, page 97
6. Patrick Palmer, The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life, Jossey-Bass, 2007, page 130

This text considers some of the challenges encountered then teaching online, in particular the feeling of disembodiment and the shared sensory challenges for students and for teachers that this format entails. I run online courses for students so this is something that is of pertinence and interest for my teaching.

One of the main implications of teaching online is the change of sensory experience and the removal of a shared space with the sounds and smells of the studio are replaced by the cooperate jingles of your chosen online meeting platform:

“The absence of other sensory experiences of touch, taste and smell in the institutional context, related to materials such as musical instruments or art equipment added further to the abstract and disembodied quality of the teaching and learning experience.”

Page 217

The text seeks to answer 3 main questions in relation to online teaching:

(1) How can artistic/embodied/relational teaching in a real environment be maximised in the digital environment?

I think this the fundamental challenge that online teaching presents. With teaching painting and drawing, I find that online teaching necessitates a very different level of organisation. Firstly, I have put increasing emphasis on the need to plan and other up exercises and material suggestions to students with plenty of notice in order for them to be able to make in the moment. The chief difficulty I have found with online teaching as opposed to in person teaching is that it can curb creative instinct, as a teacher, I really value being able to offer up additional material options from a store room to encourage students to experiment. 

In addition to this, I have always found the disembodied nature of online teaching requires but also covers up a lot of the preparatory work involved in providing lesson material, often I will only turn my camera on at the start time or students will log in late or appear without the camera turned on. I really like the following idea from this text:

“As a lecturer in visual art, Michael chose to turn on his own camera before a lecture to allow students to observe how the preparation of materials works. Eileen, a philosopher, noted the importance of ‘setting the scene for a lecture’ and observing how the students respond to the invitation regarding what has been set out before them.”

Page 217

This is something that I will try out in future online courses that I run. I think this is a really simple and clever device to show students that online learning is not an excuse to engage less, I think it shows the importance of preparation and of showing up. 

(2) What can we learn from critiquing our own successes and failures to inform our future teaching?

In my online teaching experience I have found that there is more temptation to fill the space with speaking, which comes from an instinct of feeling less connected and less secure in my own teaching in this environment. I have managed to become more settled in this mode of teaching and to recognise and let this feeling float by when it comes up. As noted by the authors in this text: 

“Developing mutual trust and confidence as teacher and learner transcends the online environment. As teacher educators, we gradually grew to understand that being mute and invisible could enable the learner to achieve higher levels of engagement with cognitive elements”

Page 218

(3) How might our learning recast possibilities for arts curricula and inform teacher education pedagogies through digital modes of teaching and learning?

One of the possibilities of online teaching is the openness it can provide, it has the potential to open up another space where we can access resources and learning in a different mode of being. For example, learning something technical from in person teaching has multiple layers built into it, person to person dynamics, the presuure of performance on the tutor, the pressure felt by students to support this process and a myriad of underlying factors such as this. Using prepared videos of technical demonstration in online teaching allows for a lessening of this factor and allows both teacher and student to sit outside of this space and engage with it in less complicated way.

“In many cases there were online examples of teaching a particular concept from genuine classroom contexts. I … would have relied on ‘still’ images or our own retelling or a classroom re-enactment/experience. But ironically, because of wanting to make the experience as vivid as possible, we sourced these online clips. They were all very realistic, authentic experiences and so rich in learning. In that regard, the students noticed different things from the practices in the classrooms, whether it was a teacher’s instruction, or the pupils’ responses, or unintended responses. It also helped to clarify the teaching objective. “ (Regina, transcript, spring 2021)

I found this text to be a positive and interesting read that provide some new ideas on how to make the experience more embodied useful for my own online teaching.

References:

1. Regina Murphy, Francis Ward, Una McCabe, Michael Flannery, Andrea Cleary, Hsiao-Ping Hsu & Eileen Brennan (2022) Recasting embodied and relational teaching in the arts: teacher educators reflect on the potential of digital learning, Irish Educational Studies, 41:1, 213-224, DOI: 10.1080/03323315.2021.2022525, page 217
2. Regina Murphy, Francis Ward, Una McCabe, Michael Flannery, Andrea Cleary, Hsiao-Ping Hsu & Eileen Brennan (2022) Recasting embodied and relational teaching in the arts: teacher educators reflect on the potential of digital learning, Irish Educational Studies, 41:1, 213-224, DOI: 10.1080/03323315.2021.2022525, page 217
3. Regina Murphy, Francis Ward, Una McCabe, Michael Flannery, Andrea Cleary, Hsiao-Ping Hsu & Eileen Brennan (2022) Recasting embodied and relational teaching in the arts: teacher educators reflect on the potential of digital learning, Irish Educational Studies, 41:1, 213-224, DOI: 10.1080/03323315.2021.2022525, page 218