Teaching isn’t something I’ve found the most natural thing to do. I definitely fell into it by accident. The result, almost a decade later, was that I wouldn’t want to do anything else. However, it took many years to learn to retain any kind of calm outwardly exterior when inside I’m terrified. I still get enormous shakes meeting whole new cohorts of excited first year students. Perhaps I’m desperate to come across as likeable, approachable and knowledgable. The shakes go by session 2.
Collaborate Ultra isn’t always the easiest platform; in the first introductory session with Lindsay in December I was teamed up for an initial ‘getting to know you’ exercise with someone who promptly left the session with tech problems – no working mic, no working camera. I had a conversation with myself instead.
However, there is a terrific mix of people in the tutor group, from all wonderful backgrounds. There is so much experience in the room, which I am excited about getting to delve into. While we can’t all go to the pub after the session, I hope that we get to meet, socially, somewhere online.
For the amount of speaking I do each day, I was surprised to find out how terrified my voice came across when it came to the presentations. I feel less qualified as a student to be able to talk about my findings, I guess, for fear of getting the tone or meaning of the reading wrong. In the field of theatre production, there are very binary outcomes – you’ll know instantly if you got it wrong. I’m sure I’m to be told that there is no right or wrong when it comes to interpreting readings – that’s what forms debates and discussions – but I don’t want to come across as not getting a basic grasp. I think I just need to relax into the process of learning and relax into the notion that I can’t always get things right.
So, this is me. I’m effectively a project manager for theatre and performances. I turn theatre design ideas into something practical by ways of working out feasibility, ensuring things comply with health and safety, writing more than enough schedules that nobody reads and by occasionally threatening unruly participants with various bit of sound equipment and a piccolo. I am an experienced multi-skilled theatre technician and stage manager. I gave up working on shows many years ago due to ill health, so I changed my career path into production management. The teaching came from working with students at UCL (where I was employed before coming to UAL), who I worked with on informally teaching about stagecraft and production management.
There is a lot of freedom at UAL to teach whatever path is required, as long as an overall outcome is met, which is usually ‘put on a production’. So I do this by treating my students as professionals, putting them through the stages of work they would find in industry. This gives them confidence and purpose. They come back and ask for more challenges. They learn the different theatre languages by immersing themselves into the practical world of making performances.
This is why the following Spark journal entry appealed to me:
I am drawn to learning about methods of integrating professional practice into academic units – not just leaving it to the technicians to facilitate – because it stresses the importance that it should be recognised alongside the traditional content. More and more, students want to see the value for money from their course, paying extremely high fees has the expectation that jobs will come out of a result of having a degree, also reflecting on the value for money aspect with annual feedback surveys. I hope that the students on the course that have been written about in the article receive parity from industry professionals, and that students have been appropriately trained in how to communicate effectively.
Once our initial presentations were complete (I was super impressed with some of the graphics!), we were put in teams to talk about the two articles we had read and prepared for. There didn’t seem to be enough time to talk about them – every point someone made allowed a useful and relevant springboard into another observation from another student. The Dell’Alba text was explored, the Holmwood text wasn’t. There was real experience and passion behind everyone’s observations, with this amazing range of industry and teaching experience in the group. I think we’re all very polite at this stage and not quite at the debating stage, or perhaps we’re all in agreement with each other.
I hope to explore the Holmwood text at another time – linking sociology with pedagogy is an important aspect. It’s not a good place to be blind to different backgrounds, but instead to understand, celebrate and commemorate events related to the individual. Let the individual tell their story. While I wish for a true meritocracy, it’s far from existing.
I enjoyed the group question of “why do we teach?”. It’s empowering. It’s terrifying. It’s the joy in the back and forth of meaty discussions. Students might hang on your every word. Student write things down that I say and try to memorise it. Sometimes I don’t even know what I’m about to say. I’m also prone to going off on tangents, but mainly because I love the field I teach, with its many related interesting topics, leaping from point to point. I do wish I was more structured, but I tried very hard to deliver a more structured session at the start of the academic year, and it was as dull as dishwater. What I aim to do, however, is teach the rules in order to enable the students to break the rules. I strive for parity in giving everyone the same level of attention, questioning, and feedback. Sometimes it’s tough when not everyone speaks or contributes. Why do students come to my sessions to not contribute?
Although at the moment I run technical sessions weekly (online only), these aren’t seen as compulsory, so there is no punishment for non-attendance. The students that have stuck with me through the development of sessions have regularly contributed feedback – and they are not afraid of giving feedback either – which means I can adapt the sessions quicker while still expecting the same outcome, which is to advance their understanding of theatre languages. There is so much more to look into with language and communication, and I’m excited to explore this with the fellow students.
References
Hanceri, E. (2016). Finding your place: Preparing creative students for industry. Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal, [online] 1(2), pp.98–101. Available at: https://sparkjournal.arts.ac.uk/index.php/spark/article/view/12 [Accessed 16 May 2021].
Dall’Alba, G. 2005. Improving teaching: Enhancing ways of being university teachers. Higher Education Research & Development, 24 (4), pp. 361–372
Holmwood, J. 2018. Race and the Neoliberal University. In Bhambra, G. K., Gebrial, D. and Nişancıoğlu, K. (eds.) Decolonising the University. London: Pluto Press, pp. 37-52.