Author: Stephen Barrett

Blog Task 1

Intersectionality

The three video interviews present examples of how intersectionality affects individuals in different ways: 

Paralympian Ade Adepitan talks about his intersecting identity of race and disability and how events such as the death of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement created a “crossroads for humanity”. This opportunity, with global public awareness of race and discrimination at a high point to bring about change in how society “gives people opportunities to shine”. He argues that “society is what holds us back” and that accessibility to opportunities, equipment, coaching and platforms then people from marginalised communities will succeed. He also talked about how progress has been made, but this can be token measures that perhaps play lip-service to the idea of equality and access but there is still systemic racism and discrimination around disability that is ingrained in society and easy to disguise in places such as employment opportunities. The interviewer also mentioned how, by making a space on public transport for disabled people, this becomes a form of segregation as disabled people are still treated differently to the rest of society, labelled, put in a special placed.

Christine Sun Kim spoke about her arts practice and her intersectional identity as a deaf mother and how government polices in Germany have enabled her to have an arts practice. Free childcare and affordable living costs mean she has time and space to practice as an artist – the “benefits of a government that supports its citizens”. Something that is much more difficult in the US for example, where her friends and family live. Through her work Christine has raised awareness within the hearing world for the deaf community and she talks about the importance of scale, that “scale equals visibility, that has the ability to shape social norms”. Her aim is for “deaf lives to be in your mind and be part of what we consider acceptable”. 

In the third video, Chay Brown, a trans man with mental health difficulties, spoke about his intersecting identity being somewhat hidden as a cis passing man with disabilities that are not immediately obvious, and he has a lot of privileges. It’s important therefore to consider that disabilities can be hidden or not immediately obvious. His mental health difficulties meant that he found the subtleties of non-verbal communication, particularly with the gay community, difficult to understand, leading to challenging situations that caused more anxiety for him. Some really important things he said were about providing all aspects of accessibility as the norm: accessible venues for wheelchairs, but also accessible toilets, closed captioning, etc. Importantly, he said that people should be asked what their access needs are, creating ‘person-centred’ environments, putting people with lived experiences of disabilities in charge of making decisions will result in more empathetic decisions and understanding of needs, that there should be budgets for accessibility. An important point he made towards the end was about giving people a forum to talk about their needs and that this will empower others to come forward and take about their needs, therefore normalising the situation. 

There were several common themes I picked up on in each of the interviews, these were to do with making accessibility the norm and not something to be done under special measures for those with disabilities as this can create a new kind of segregation and not result in inclusion.

This will be a challenge for society as there is ingrained systemic discrimination in society. Government policies can play a huge determining factor here as adequate funding for facilities, equipment, financial support, etc will result those from marginalised communities being able to shine.

In my own teaching context, considerations for students with disabilities have included sign language translators for deaf students, accessible text files, captioning for videos and audio files for students with learning difficulties and ISAs detailing specific learning circumstances for students. 

Case Study 2

Planning and teaching for effective learning

Contextual Background

Typography is a fundamental aspect of the majority of contemporary visual communications, but is often perceived by students as a niche subject, overtly technical, rule-based and mysterious. This can become a barrier to learning and often students’ initial, unsatisfying interactions with the subject can leave them frustrated and deterred from exploring the subject further.

Evaluation

So far I have utilised a combination of existing projects and workshop activities and devised a series of new teaching materials and workshops that provide technical and theoretical knowledge that enable students to understand, explore and utilise fundamental aspects of typography in their own work. These include: object-based learning, workshops using analogue mark-making tools to design typefaces, and tasks that explore key concepts such as grids, systems and hierarchy, coupled with software demonstrations which enable the students to make detailed typographic decisions using industry-standard tools. These seem to have been successful in terms of highlighting key aspects of the subject that the students can then take forward in their work.

Moving Forwards

Threshold concepts
Crucial to the success of teaching typography could be found by identifying the “threshold concepts” of the subject, the “transformed way of understanding, or interpreting, or viewing something without which the learner cannot progress” (Land, 2005, p.53). Land’s research suggests that if threshold concepts are not fully grasped, “a more serious outcome is that students become frustrated, lose confidence and give up that particular course.” (Land, 2005, p.55)

Tacit Knowledge
Turning “tacit knowledge” (Polanyi, 1958), such as aesthetic sensibility, into explicit knowledge is also a challenge. A strategy for this might be to break down the idea of typographic aesthetics into constituent elements of explicit knowledge, eg balance of figure/ground, harmony, composition. These can be discussed in pre-task presentations, by showing examples, and in formative feedback sessions. 

Reflective Space
Building in time for reflection, to provide what David Clutterbuck refers to as “time to focus on thinking, understanding and learning, instead of doing” (Clutterbuck, 1998. p.15), could also be useful. Clutterbuck talks about three levels of reflection being required: “personal quiet thinking time on one’s own; dyadic (one-to-one); and as a group or team” (Clutterbuck, 1998. p.15). By designating space and designing activities that promote personal, dyadic and group reflection, this could enable “subconscious thinking they [students] have already done now has an opportunity to surface”. (Clutterbuck, 1998. p.15).

Object-based learning and workshops
The letterpress workshop provides tangible ways to engage with and therefore understand typographic concepts. The physicality of ‘building a page’ forces student to engage with and make decisions about fonts and spacing material. This process also encourages diligence and care of typographic details. The relative slowness of the activity also provides a quiet space for concentration and reflection. Clutterbuck’s ideas of creating a “reflective space”, include “For others, it can be a repetitious activity (for example, jogging, ironing, driving a familiar route home)”. The activity of typesetting in letterpress could provide this. Recent CSM lecturer Rose Gordon also spoke about the “Ritual of typesetting” (Nordin, 2024) being a space to focus on the words and how best to design them.

Play
My PgCert colleague Flo Meredith’s playful and engaging microteaching session demonstrated that play, performance and fun could be successful ways to engage students in learning. A group activity, such as language-based game could be an interesting way to employ this technique.

References

Clutterbuck, D. (1998). Learning Alliances: Tapping into Talent. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development

Land, R. ‘Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (3)*: implications for course design and evaluation’, Rust, C (ed) (2005) Improving Student Learning Diversity and Inclusivity. Oxford: Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development.

Nordin, R. (2024). Social – ‘Research based – Ritual’, MU001174: Unit 10: Communities of Practice, Central Saint Martins, 15 March

Polanyi, Michael. 2002 [1958]. Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. London: Routledge. 

“Attempting to liberate the oppressed without their reflective participation in the act of liberation is to treat them as objects that must be saved from a burning building.”

Freire, P. (2014). Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition, p.46, New York: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Case Study 3

Assessing learning and exchanging feedback

Contextual Background

Due to constraints of time and large student numbers on BAGCD at CSM, we utilise peer feedback as a method of formative feedback. This has lots of exciting potential in terms of utilising the viewpoints of our diverse student demographic, but also has challenges such as  meeting students’ expectations for tutor guidance, and providing meaningful and well-informed feedback that will help students progress.

Evaluation

Current strategies include small group discussions, audience testing of prototypes, using prompts/questions to guide feedback, anonymous feedback (both written notes and via Padlet), both of which avoid social barriers associated with verbal feedback. Group pin-up sessions allow the whole group to learn from seeing and hearing the feedback of others – useful if there are commonalities across student feedback. We have also equipped students with ‘tools for appraising’ typographic work through workshop activities and these seem to have greatly helped in equipping students with the knowledge and theories they can apply when giving feedback to others.

Moving Forwards

As Kate Brooks states in her essay ‘‘Could do Better?’: students’ critique of written feedback’, “Tutors need to become facilitators of the learning process rather than gatekeepers of knowledge, and students need more encouragement to reflect on their own learning journeys.” (Brooks, 2008).

Considering the purpose of feedback and how it can be useful to students in developing their work, we can use formative feedback as part of the design process, rather than at the point of hand-in, we can enable students to improve their work, make refinements and make informed decisions about their choices. This is particularly important in typography, where subtle refinements, can accumulatively make a big difference to the overall readability, aesthetics and effectiveness of their designs.

This past term I have brought in external partners from The Royal Mint as part of a 5-week industry focussed coin design project. One session was dedicated to industry feedback from the Head of Art Direction from the mint. Providing students with experienced technical and conceptual feedback, considering alternative stakeholders such as client and mainstream audience, which the students don’t always consider as they don’t regularly engage with these stakeholders in their projects.

There is an opportunity to employ role playing techniques in peer feedback sessions for our unit 3 sessions. The students are designing a book cover and inside pages for a paperback of short stories. My proposal is to ask them to choose a stakeholder: author, editor, publisher, marketing team, etc and assume this role in the critique session. With some prompts to consider, this will hopefully enable them to critique each other’s designs from a range of perspectives. 

As Yu-Hui Ching found in her research into role playing at Boise State University, USA: “it was found that the role-play strategy alleviated cognitive challenges of peer feedback, made the activity more engaging, and relieved the affective barriers of providing peer feedback” (Ching, 2014, p.301)

Feedback should be to constructive and balance positive aspects (give students confidence to proceed) and highlight suggested improvements (and explain improvements should be seen as positive as they help students learn and improve). Feedback can help a student to learn but also give them confidence to proceed, providing what Celine Condorelli and Gavin Wade refer to as: “those things that encourage, give comfort, approval and solace […] assists, articulates, champions, and endorses; for what stands behind, frames, presents, maintains, and strenghtens.” (Condorelli, Wade, 2009, p.6).

References

Brooks, K. (2008). ‘‘Could do better?’ Students’ critique of written feedback’. Networks, 5

Ching, Y.H. (2014). ‘Exploring the Impact of Role-Playing on Peer Feedback in an Online Case-Based Learning Activity’. International review of research in open and distance learning, 15(3). https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1033051.pdf (accessed 15 March 2024)

Condorelli, C. & Wade, G (2009). Support Structures. London: Sternberg Press

Case Study 1

Knowing and responding to your students’ diverse needs

Contextual Background

I teach typography on the BA Graphic Communication Design programme at Central Saint Martins. International cohort with a variety of interests, abilities and prior educational experiences. Students are from a wide range of social, economic, cultural and ethnic backgrounds. This is both a key attribute and challenge of teaching. 

Evaluation

Students are exploring a wide-range of subject / disciplinary areas relating to graphic design and range from generalists, exploring many aspects of the subject, to specialists, who might be focusing on one aspect of graphic design. We have also seen a rise in students without the experience of a foundation course and our diverse international cohort means there is rich potential in exploring the subject with a decolonial approach. The specific challenges are concerned with engaging students with typography where it might not be their primary interest, providing fundamental skills whilst also allowing more advanced students to develop, and to encourage and nurture a decolonial approach to the subject.

Moving forwards

The diversity of student interests and abilities has been met so far by providing a variety of learning activities that engage students in different ways: from reading materials, visual references, class presentations, and my online ‘Typetorial’ video series, to more hands-on activities such as calligraphy exercises and object-based learning. We have also developed a ‘media agnostic’ typography project in unit 2, allowing students to respond with any media/method so that they can bring their own disciplinary interests and approaches in solving a typographic project.

These approaches could be further strengthened by identifying the ‘threshold concepts’ of typography, which could inform the design of a series of sessions, tasks, activities, projects that incorporate these concepts. (Land, 2005, p.53). 

Further work could be undertaken in terms of decolonizing the curriculum. Typography is a subject that is taught from a Eurocentric perspective and I’m aware of giving feedback / guiding students from a position of ‘Epistemic Totality’. It’s important that we can work towards Achille Joseph Mbembe‘s idea of the ‘Pluriversity’ (Mbembe, 2016) if we are to fully support our students develop a range of approaches to the subject.

I believe there is a need to balance some of the more objective teaching, supported by cognitive science relating to how humans read, and how this informs how we design texts considering readability, with an openness to discussing approaches to typography from other cultures and traditions.

This could be a particularly useful approach for the students’ Critical Reports in Unit 10, where they design their own research paper. This will hopefully surface a range of exciting typographic approaches relating to individual research projects. 

In my upcoming ‘Designing your critical report’ lecture/presentation I can show a more diverse range of typographic examples and also ask the students to submit a selection of publication/typographic design references for discussion. By utilising an object-based learning approach, we can discuss different approaches to typography and how they relate to content, from a range of cultural contexts. This could help to promote discussion and criticism, as bell hooks describes, from ‘various intellectual locations and standpoints if we are to transform art practices in ways that interrogate, challenge, and alter in a lasting way politics of domination.’ (hooks, 1995, p.105).

References

Land, R. ‘Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (3)*: implications for course design and evaluation’, Rust, C (ed) (2005) Improving Student Learning Diversity and Inclusivity. Oxford: Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development.

Mbembe, A.J. (2016) ‘Decolonizing the university: new directions’, Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 15(1), pp.29–45. 
https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1474022215618513.

hooks, b. (1995). ‘Talking art as the spirit moves us’, in Art on my mind: visual politics. New York: The New Press

Threshold Concepts

In Ray Land’s essay ‘Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (3)*: implications for course design and evaluation’ he talks about Threshold Concepts as:

‘Within all subject areas there seem to be particular concepts that can be considered as akin to a portal, opening up a new and previously inaccessible way of thinking about something. A threshold concept represents a transformed way of understanding, or interpreting, or viewing something without which the learner cannot progress.’ (Land, 2005, p.53).

Land also refers to threshold concepts as ‘defined as concepts that bind a subject together, being fundamental to ways of thinking and practising in that discipline.’ (Land, 2005, p.54).

This is really interesting as a methodology for breaking down a subject/discipline, in my case typography, into its key ideas/concepts, the fundamental aspects that help a student understand and practise typography. I feel that this is something I have approached in teaching, as a way for me to prioritise what to teach and understanding more about the theory of threshold concepts could help me to do this more successfully. I particularly liked the idea of a threshold concept being akin to a portal, a really interesting way to describe it, a door that opens into new worlds of understanding.

Crucial to the use of threshold concepts seems to be identifying what these would be for my subject and how these specific concepts can help a student progress and unlock new areas of learning.

‘Students who have not yet internalised a threshold concept have little option but to attempt to learn new ideas in a more fragmented fashion. On acquiring a threshold concept a student is able to transform their use of the ideas of a subject because they are now able to integrate them in their thinking.’ (Land, 2005, p.54).

This suggests that threshold concepts can act like building blocks, and aid progression through learning about a particular subject, rather than learning in a fragmented fashion. This implies that a coherent and progressive structure is important in teaching.

The essay also talks about the integrative aspect being particularly difficult for students who are studying a specialism as part of their degree, as the students may not think of themselves as learners of the specialism and therefore may find it more difficult to grasp these threshold concepts and successfully integrate them into their practice. This may have particular relevance to my teaching as I’m teaching a specialism, typography, to group of students who are often more generalist, studying graphic design and associated disciplines.

‘Threshold concepts are inherently problematic for learners because they demand an integration of ideas and this requires the student to accept a transformation of their own understanding’. (Land, 2005, p.54).

Land talks about an in-between state resulting if this transformation doesn’t totally take place: ‘One outcome is that students present a partial, limited or superficial understanding of the concept to be learned which we have characterised as a form of ‘mimicry’. ’A more serious outcome is that students become frustrated, lose confidence and give up that particular course.’ (Land, 2005, p.55).

This perhaps explains how typography in particular can be frustrating and off-putting for many students, leading to them rejecting the subject and failing to interact further with it.

In the conclusion, Land talks about the task for course developers being to identify the barriers to knowledge and redesign activities and sequences of teaching through the use of ‘scaffolding’, the provision of support materials, etc that will ‘provide the necessary shift in perspective that might permit further personal development’ (Land, 2005, p.63). Importance of removing obstacles to learning, to free up various ways that a student will be able to be ‘empowered to move’. (Land, 2005, p.63).

As Land says: ‘The significance of the framework provided by threshold concepts lies, we feel, in its explanatory potential to locate troublesome aspects of disciplinary knowledge within transitions across conceptual thresholds and hence to assist teachers in identifying appropriate ways of modifying or redesigning curricula to enable their students to negotiate such transitions more successfully.’ (Land, 2005, p.63)

Bibliography

Land, R. ‘Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (3)*: implications for course design and evaluation’, Rust, C (ed) (2005) Improving Student Learning Diversity and Inclusivity. Oxford: Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development.

Aphorisms

During this workshop we were given a list of aphorisms on education. Some powerful quotes here about the nature, purpose and potential of educational institutions to enact societal change.

I particularly responded to number 6: ‘The purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows’, which I later found out was by Sydney J. Harris, the American journalist, drama critic, teacher, and lecturer. This is a beautiful and poetic metaphor for how education can turn the viewpoint of students outwards, to the world, rather than inwards, to themselves and the institution.

Decolonising the Library

‘Thus coloniality survives colonialism. It is maintained alive in books, in the criteria for academic performance, in cultural patterns, in common sense, in the self-image of peoples, in aspirations of self, and in so many other aspects of our modern experience. In a way, as modern subjects we breathe coloniality all the time and everyday.”
(Maldonado-Torres, 2007, p.243).

Decolonising the curriculum is a prevalent topic in universities today, and as academics we feel a responsibility to our students, to the design industry, and to the wider global society to play a role in contributing to this action.

Jess Crilly’s essay ‘Decolonising the library: a theoretical explanation’ has helped me understand the differences in meaning of the term decolonisation and related terms decoloniality, eurocentricity, epistemic totality, and pluriversity, so that I can begin to approach how I can play a role in deconlosing the curriculum through the way I teach, show references, critique and discuss art and design.

Crilly’s essay talks about coloniality living on beyond the period when a colonial power withdraws from its former colonies, that “coloniality refers to the long-standing impacts and ongoing structures of power that came about through colonialism” and “coloniality describes an ongoing present that is pervasive in all aspects of lived experience.”

This suggests we are living within the bias of our colonial past and these biases still affect the way we talk about subjects, the knowledge we have, how we perceive good/bad work, etc. These are, as bell hooks says, the “biases that blind and bind” (hooks, 1995, p.102).

Eurocentricity
‘A perspective of knowledge whose systematic formation began in Western Europe before the middle of the seventeenth century, although its roots are without doubt much older […]. It does not refer to all the modes of knowledge or all Europeans and all epochs. It is instead a specific rationality or perspective of knowledge that was made globally hegemonic, colonizing and overcoming other previous or different conceptual formations as much in Europe as the rest of the world.’ (Quijano and Ennis, 2000, p.549)

My classes, like many other in Europe and US, teach typography from a Eurocentric perspective, tracing the origins of latin typefaces back to writing styles in Europe, the use of the broad-edge pen, Roman inscriptions, Gutenberg’s type and printing press, 42-line bible, etc, to book typefaces, and beyond.

We are already aware of this perspective, so not totally blinded and binded by it, as hooks would say, but teach from this perspective, even if we acknowledge origins of movable type elsewhere in the world and other scripts.

The next steps are working harder to move towards the ‘pluriversity’ approach as advocated by Mignolo and Mbembe, acknowledging and understanding the existence of other traditions and systems. 

This essay really helped shape my understanding of decoloniality and opened my eyes to the true meaning. My previous understanding was that decolonising the curriculum / university / library could be achieved by diversifying our references. But the essay explains that:

Decoloniality
Is the “movement to counter, or the struggle against coloniality” (Crilly, 2019, p.3). “Infers an active undoing, deconstructing, or delinking from coloniality”. “In the library or archive, this is different to the process of diversifying collections or ensuring that multiple narratives are represented.” (Crilly, 2019, p.4).

In the conclusion, Crilly quotes Brian Rosenblum: ‘The academic library has a particular relationship to the university, as a site for the collection, production and consumption of knowledge, validating some narratives and excluding others. It can be characterised as both a site that replicates hegemonic power structures but also as a site of resistance and change, including in relation to decoloniality’. (Rosenblum, 2015).

This idea of the library as a site of resistance and change is inspiring, particularly as, by extension, this refers to the use of reading lists and references that we give to students in our teaching.

Glossary

Colonialisation
‘The action of settling among and establishing control over the indigenous people of an area’ (OED, 2019).

Decolonisation
‘Withdrawal from its former colonies of a colonial power: the acquisition of political or economic independence by such colonies’ (OED, 2019).

Epistemic totality
‘A characteristic of Eurocentric knowledge. Systems that presume to describe the whole of human knowledge, overriding existing knowledge and systems of belief. This occurred through the colonisation of non-European languages and oral traditions, relegating them to the status of primitive and irrelevant to modern life.’ (Crilly, 2019, p.3).

Pluriversity
An alternative to epistemic totality. Mignolo and Mbembe advocate the concept of epistemic pluriversity. This is the co-existence of different epistemic traditions and systems. Mbembe describes pluriversity as: ‘a process of knowledge production that is open to epistemic diversity. It is a process that does not necessarily abandon the notion of universal knowledge for humanity, but which embraces it via a horizontal strategy of openness to dialogue among different epistemic traditions.’ (Mbembe, 2016, p.37, italics by Mbembe)

Bibliography

Crilly, J. (2019). ‘Decolonising the library: a theoretical exploration’, Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal, 4(1), pp.6-15

hooks, b. (1995). ‘Talking art as the spirit moves us’, in Art on my mind: visual politics. New York: The New Press

Maldono-Torres, N. (2007) ‘On the coloniality of being: contributions to the development of a concept’, Cultural Studies, 21(2/3), pp.240–270. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380601162548.

Mbembe, A.J. (2016) ‘Decolonizing the university: new directions’, Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 15(1), pp.29–45. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1474022215618513.

Oxford English Dictionary (2019) Cited by Kennedy, D. (2016) Decolonization: a very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p.2.

Quijano, A. and Ennis, M. (2000) ‘Coloniality of power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America’, Nepantla: Views from the South, 1(3), pp.533–580. Available at: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/23906#info_wrap (Accessed: 20 March 2024).

Rosenblum, B. (2015) ‘Decolonizing libraries (extended abstract)’, Brian Rosenblum, 1 February. Available at: http://www.librarycamp.co.uk/2015/03/decolonizing-libraries-extended.html/ (Accessed: 20 March 2024).

Letterform Archive

The Letterform Archive is a collection of over 100,000 items related to lettering, typography, calligraphy, and graphic design, spanning thousands of years of history. Based in San Francisco, with a selection of artefacts accessible online. This is an exciting learning tool for object-based learning, relating to typography.

#object-based learning #archives