Sunday 16 May 2010
Friday 26 March 2010
Thursday 25 March 2010
Sunday 7 March 2010
Sunday 28 February 2010
Saturday 27 February 2010
Locus of control . . .
In fact one of the best assignments from last year was a 10-minute film with the student talking to camera about her life, and where she wanted to go, making reference to some of the theoretical tools that helped gain an insight into what she needed to do.
The above is what I'm trying to do but getting bogged down once again with the 'making reference to some of the theoretical tools' bit. The stuff I've done so far sound like some of my blog posts and while I'm ok with the fact here and there that I am going against some of the theories, I get worried that I'm not being explicit enough and end up adding a chunk of 5 minutes of theory to every single point!
What I'm trying to aim for is a 10 minute piece that articulates, my hopes, my fears, my strengths, my weaknesses, my prejudices and my beliefs. The fact that I recognise Goffman at work everywhere but I am uncomfortable with it as it does nothing to question the legitimacy of our structures and feels to me like deceiving, inveigling and obfuscating. The fact that I recognise that my attributions (weiner) have been mostly external and that I need to re-centre the locus of control with me and me alone. I also don't want to negate my experiences. I know for example that some things that I have experienced really have been entirely out of my control. The fact that I have become victim to a state of learned helplessness which masks my cognitive dissonance. The fact that I want my sense of awe, wonder, passion and intensity back.
That's what I want my 10 minute piece to be about.
I have the first 3 lines down and the very last line done - and I'm back at work tomorrow!
Monday 22 February 2010
Up the Hill Backwards . . . It'll be all right . . .
Having failed to get a handle on doing this top down I've decided to scratch everything and start from the bottom by thinking about possible goals that could find their way into an action plan. I've added some audio this effect - just click on the title.
Sunday 21 February 2010
SWOT Analysis
I've been a bit down about this assignment and feel disconnected from it. In an effort to make sense of things I've decided to go back to the start and begin with a simple SWOT analysis. Click on each image for a full size view
In Image Form:
In Image Form:
Thursday 18 February 2010
OK, here's a bit more
Introduction:
Reflection is an activity and process that defines our age. We are encouraged as professionals, as humans, as people, as individuals, as families to reflect upon our lives and our goals and to consider the range of choices that we have made and the actions that resulted from those choices which, so the idea goes, have led us to where we are now. It then follows from this idea that the very process that led us to an understanding of our current position, needs and wants can help us to ‘move forward’ and work towards achieving our future personal and professional goals.
Throughout this there is the implicit (and indeed sometimes explicit) embedded message that an individual is the sum total of their choices and decisions and that the individual almost single handedly has the power to change any aspects of themselves or their lives that they deem undesirable, disappointing, not satisfying or indeed painful. I have to state at this point that my experiences both personally and professionally to this point lead me to conclude that individuals do not possess this limitless power (except in certain circumstances) and that for me a great deal of contemporary obsession with self reflection is indeed just another layer of control and performance.
In this work I shall be attempting to understand how I got to where I am now and to posit a potential plan as to future options that might assist me in getting to where I want to go. I shall do this with the aid of Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle and Learning Styles Inventory in relation to my own experiences. I selected Kolb, since for me the process has always been a straight line and not a cycle and it has therefore been interesting to try to view my development cyclically and to see how I have resisted doing so up until now and whether or not this has perhaps contributed to my long standing stagnation. Furthermore, I shall attempt to consider the work of Erving Goffman and his performance theory and underline the tensions within me as I seek to reconcile my needs and wants and my perceived lack of power. For me, Goffmans’ theories underline a serious barrier to any self power resulting in praxis.
Having considered these theories I shall then look at their application in key periods of my life and also their potential usefulness or otherwise in terms of affecting a seismic shift in my thinking and affording me some degree of control over my future.
Personal Reflection
Contemporary society is awash with opportunities for individuals and groups (and here I refer to groups as comprising of two or more people such as spouses, work colleagues, friends etc) to not only reflect upon their lives but also to consider their own personality types and traits. While many would consider some of the tests as found in trashy magazines, web sites and online communities as either harmless or just fun it is important to note the undercurrent of predestination that acts to secure the re-enforcement of existing ideals – accurate or otherwise. People have a need to feel good about themselves and our mass media society feeds the view that this is an accepted state and offers us consumer goods, self help, fun tests and counselling to assist in learning to feel good about ourselves. I might argue that this is little more than a coded message that allows people to accept their lot by simply placing a suitable veneer upon it that fits with the individual’s existing self perception. This Forer effect underpins the ‘fun’ personality tests that I have attempted online as well as the more ‘serious’ psychometric testing models and the self reflective theories and models that I have come into contact with. Essentially, the tests and their results are so broad and general that there is something in there for everyone and with the right language anyone can reasonably assimilate the results as referring to them independently!
Goffman suggests a dramaturgical analysis of human interaction (particularly face to face) where individuals perform roles using settings, appearance and manner to ‘control’ another person’s impression about them. In turn the person being interacted with attempts to gather information about the performer through communication that is either ‘given’ (usually through language) or ‘given off’ (non direct communication that may or may not be within the performer’s conscious control). For Goffman, this interaction occurs in what he terms the ‘front region’. The ‘back region’ or backstage is an area where the performer can shed their role out of view of the audience. It is also interesting how positive these personalities or learning styles always are and the net effect of this re-enforcement is the ideal of the powerful individual. That with some relatively minor changes you can make significant differences to who you are and the life you lead. Why for example, is there no mention of ‘laziness’, ‘greed’, ‘aggressiveness’ and so on? Would such frankness undermine existing power and social structures? Would such frankness threaten the coherence and power of the front region as outlined by Goffman? Having taken a series of these tests through the early part of this unit it became clear to me that their reflective value was virtually zero in as much as I could choose to interpret such generalisations in any way I chose. Furthermore, we are all to a greater or lesser degree sophisticated enough to know what goes on ‘backstage’. This knowledge of the back region actually feeds our need to end up with a positive re-affirmation of our uniqueness and individual wonder. Thus we quickly engage in a conspiratorial performance that involves being more actively selective about the answers we choose or give and modify our responses to attempt to guarantee an outcome that tells us how amazing we are. In the ‘digital age’ of online interaction Goffman’s theatre metaphor still has value. We may not be interacting face to face but we still perform roles or adopt a given role.
My first experience with psychometric testing occurred at my second interview for the post of lecturer in Multimedia. The test was administered half way through the day in between the first and second stage interviews by a senior HR official. Throughout it was clear that the official was uncomfortable and lacking in experience about the test.
The questions were once again general and the performance dictated a set series of responses. At this stage it was clear that the definition of the performance and the situation was actively yet unspoken being agreed by both parties and a certain degree of ‘tact’ was being employed to gloss over the fact that we both already knew the answers that I would give. However, Goffman implies a certain degree of active consent or agreement in situ – not necessarily explicitly since we as humans live by inference. Yet this ‘consensual agreement’ already existed, long before I even applied for the job. It was predestined that should I want the job that this ‘veneer of consensus’ would be adhered to as a given. Where in this process was my active agreement, the single act of conscious power that allowed me to choose to accept the definition of the performance? Yes, I could have walked out or not applied in the first place but then the job would not have been an option. Hence the idea that we can affect change through the power of the individual is not quite what it seems. Goffman suggests that when we acquire a new position we might not be told exactly how to do our ‘act’ but may instead just receive some cues, hints and stage directions. It is then assumed that we already have a repetoire of bits ad pieces of performances that we can subsequently use in a new setting. However, if this is the case then given how personality and psychometric tests invite skewed or outright false responses it undermines an individual’s ability to learn and develop through active self reflection. It implies that there are already roles in place that we can do little more than accept. It also implies the existence of stage directors and begs the question, “How do I become a stage director?”!
In terms of Kolb, this presents difficulties at the reflecting through observation stage and hampers the forming of abstract concepts since it relies of an individual being willing to accept the adoption of predetermined roles.
However, the interviewer appeard to not be experienced enough to interpret what I ‘gave out’ and what I ‘gave off’. Hence her ability to check the validity of my performance was severely compromised and this was nonetheless accepted. Just as psychometric tests aim to check the validity of a performance by juxtaposing responses against the performance it alters the relationship of the performer and audience when that ability is not exercised or possible.
In this sense, while Goffman would argue that I was qualified or authorised to perform and that both parties were consenting to the performance it was clear o me that I found the situation dishonest and utterly without value. For example in response to a question such as “Do you consider yourself to be a team player?” would anyone really respond with “No. I really don’t like working with other people and would prefer not to have to deal with them”? However, it must be said that I had complete and total belief in my performance and the answers I gave were immediate, honest and accurate.
It can thus be argued that to have gotten the job I would have to have fitted a preset range of criteria that included personality types and traits that were considered essential to perpetuating the show that the performers within the organisation put on. As Goffman himself suggest, a team of performers are more likely to select as new team mates those who present themselves as being trustable enough to perform ‘properly’.
Despite ticking all the boxes, I failed to get the position at this, the second time of asking and this major event in my life has resulted in a staggering shift in my personality and approach to the world around me. To get the job I would have had to have engaged in ‘deceit’ and ’feigning’ in Goffman terms and this I found objectionable. If, as Goffman suggests, society expects moral character, that an individual ought to be what he claims to be then what of euphemisms such as ‘tailoring your responses’, ‘hiding your deficiencies’ or ‘making the most of your strong points’?
Kolb
David A Kolb’s experiential learning theory model based upon the work of Dewey and Lewin follows a four part cyclic arrangement where each part represents a stage in reflective personal and professional development. Kolb’s work is heavily influenced by the earlier work of Carl Gustav Jung. Kolb’s work has become popular in education circles and also in organisational structures in terms of staff development policies. There are contrasting views on the meanings for experiential learning but I will for the purposes of this paper refer to it as learning through personal reflection upon everyday experience in a setting not sponsored by an establishment.
According to Kolb (1984, 38) "Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience"
Experiential learning proponents might suggest that learning is best conceived as a process, not in terms of outcomes but I now know that I have always seen learning in a straight line on a personal level rather than as an ongoing cycle ie that you begin as a child with nothing and gradually acquire knowledge and experience as you grow which then affords you great control, comfort, satisfaction, achievement and status. In my blog, I refer to my formative years and the early formation of a linear ‘action plan’ or ‘script’ through my interaction with my parents, educators, the media and to a lesser degree my peers. This ‘script’ was quite simply; BA, MA, PhD, Success – with success being measured in terms of affluence, power and achievement. While in essence this type of plan provides a clutter free approach to development it does nothing to allow for any reflective practice or indeed for the re-integration (or feedback) back into the script of experiential learning. In other words, there is no opportunity to reflect and change the script and hence it could be argued that in many ways I was the architect of my own downfall.
Again however, Kolb’s cycle seems like a closed system in another way as there is little opportunity for the actions of others to impinge upon the cycle. Goffman might suggest that the agreed definitions of the performance suggest that individuals can change from disbelievers to believers and vice versa and that such changes in approach are triggered through experiential learning. This does not though take into account the power of ‘others’ to control the range of potential outcomes afforded to individuals in any given setting. For example, countless sections of society feel disempowered, embattled and ‘kept down’. Can we really be asking ourselves to believe that they are all somehow unable to reflect upon their plight or that they are forever poor performers and therefore relegated to passive audiences or even backstage staff?
As an AS, learning for me is far more formalised and problematic in terms of self-reflection. Self reflection happens in me constantly but in two distinct ways; firstly the cyclic response to external stimulus i.e. what other people say or do and secondly an entirely closed internal world where reflection tends to re-enforce existing ideas and behaviour patterns. I will expand upon this subject later on.
Kolb’s cycle can be identified in four stages:
Concrete Experience: Learning from specific experiences and relating to people. A difficulty arises here in terms of verifying the ‘concreteness’ of any given experience and avoiding misreading. Furthermore if our dealings with others is based upon performances then is relating to people more about acquiring a wider portfolio of preset performances from which to draw from in our future social interactions? If experiences are misread then surely that invites major subsequent amplification of the misreading through the cycle and affects the ability of the individual to make sense of the experience and affect future change in new situations?
Observation and Experience: Observing before making a judgment. Here too there is the opportunity for misreading to be fed into the cycle. In the absence of ‘concrete’ information, or the inability of the individual to ‘infer’ according to the structures of any given society or the inability or unwillingness of the individual to accept a given performance or audience role, can accurate or meaningful judgements be made? It is also worth noting that such models are always deemed positive and helpful from the outset. Labels such as ‘negative’, ‘non-constructive’ or just plain ‘uncooperative’ await those that might suggest that there isn’t a possible positive outcome. Too often individuals undergoing this cyclic process of reflection are under pressure to conform or indeed accept a bad situation since the generally accepted view is that if it didn’t help you then you were obviously doing it wrong or not willing to give it a chance!
Forming Abstract Concepts: this is the point at which a form of generalisation takes place where an individual is able to understand or ‘see’ a general principle that can potentially be applied to a variety of situations or experiences rather than seeing each experience in isolation. Again if misreading occurs then the generalisation could result in dangerous generalisations being accepted. Goffman argues that society requires that matters are what they appear to be but clearly a cynical acceptance that they are not allows for generalisations that can be used to exploit situations for personal gain.
Testing in New Situations: this refers to the ability to get things done by influencing people and events. However, it seems that the key to achieving praxis is in becoming a better and more accomplished performer.
For Kolb, the learning process can and often does begin at any of the four stages and he claims that ‘ideally’ a person is involved in all four stages through the learning process – although this is not a process that we undertake explicitly. Indeed it has resonance with feedback theories in cybernetics and it may be argued that Kolb’s theory is an abstract form of biological theory.
Kolb identifies four learning styles stating that people naturally prefer or identify with a single learning style. This LSI is underpinned by three stages – acquisition, specialisation and Integration - in our development and our ability to move through the cycle improves as we move through the stages in our development.
For Kolb the learning styles are a product of two pairs of variables or choices that we make. These are:
Concrete Experience: Feeling v Abstract conceptualisation: Thinking
Active Experimentation: Doing v Reflective Observation: Watching
In other words we choose our approach to the task (through our processing continuum) or experience ('grasping the experience') and at the same time we choose how to emotionally transform the experience into something meaningful and useful (via our perception continuum)
But do we really consciously make these choices?
The four learning styles (LSI) are Diverging (feeling and watching – CE/RO), Assimilating (watching and thinking – AC/RO), Converging (doing and thinking – AC/AE) and Accommodating (doing and feeling – CE/AE).
It is important to note that Kolb does not define learning styles as absolutes but as tendencies and accepts that individuals may be able to change learning styles. Nevertheless, the thrust is that we prefer some learning style behaviours to others at any given period of our development. One of the most crucial roadblocks to my development appears to be my need to have someone ‘validate’ it. I feel the need to use ‘accepted’ analysis in order to gain validation and acceptance – i.e. I constantly need someone to tell me I’m doing things right. As an AS I need a smile everyday, I need a hug everyday and I need to be told that I am ok everyday.
Jung's 'Extraversion/Introversion' dialectical dimension here
My Experience
My current predicament about my future has had a long period of gestation but there are a number of relatively recent triggers that I want to focus on for this text. They can be summarised as follows:
The failure to get the post of Head of Design at UWN
My diagnosis for AS
A continual eradication of autonomy, respect, value and creativity at my current workplace
Looking at the first trigger it is still somewhat of a mystery to me as to how I actually became a lecturer rather than a practitioner. As a second generation Asian with a very strict orthodox upbringing it is certainly evident that drummed into me from an early age some occupations carried more gravitas and worth than others – teaching was among these although certainly not in the top half of desirable careers. Kolb might suggest that the acquisition phase of my development had led me to acquire a set of values, morals and ideas that were from the outset confused, coming as they did from a hybrid Indian-English environment and being mediated through an (as yet unidentified) AS faculty. My formative years led to a belief in the role of teachers as vessels or translators of knowledge in the same sense that in some tribal cultures the elders hold wisdom and knowledge that is then orally passed down to the next generation. The idea that ‘everyone’ has a valid point of view is one that I have always found difficult to accept. After all if everyone is special then no one is. History is littered with unbalanced equations where a great idea is weighed down by the views of those that owing to their inability to comprehend or their desire to oppress seek to nullify its effects. When I was borne, being smart, hard working and creative was desirable. By the time I was 20 it was ‘way uncool’.
The education ‘scenes’ in the script I mentioned earlier seems now to have been a classic and bizarre misreading in a Lacanian sense. I had immense hopes for my undergraduate study but this turned out to be a complete disappointment and one of the biggest regrets of my career. I was actually offered a research post combining an MA and paid teaching on the postgraduate programme at UWN immediately but so disillusioned was I after my undergraduate experience and the organisation itself that I turned it down.
The feeling for me was that the workplace could not possibly be any worse than the education setting. In this sense it could be argued that my approach to the decisions about staying in education was clearly based upon the feeling extreme of the processing continuum of Kolb’s model in that the way I felt about my experiences governed my approach to decision making in the light of those experiences. Furthermore, experiential learning proponents might argue I rationalised the meaning of my experience and made it useful through feeling and thus allowed myself to justify my decisions. In another sense one could argue that a nascent world view was being formed here based upon a misreading of the experience and that misreading was then amplified through the cycle and resulting in generalisations that ultimately were not personally useful or even accurate. For example, as a result of my experience I was convinced that all education was now a lie based upon elaborate performances.
Goffman would argue here that I could be classified either as ‘knocker’ or ‘wiseguy’ or perhaps more charitably a renegade, in that I was determined to protect my belief system and was happy to take a moral stand arguing that it was better to be true to the ideals of the role than to the performers who falsely present themselves in it. Curiously Goffman might also refer to me as a ‘deviant’ who is ‘said to let the side down’! Certainly in my experience of lecturers they had the necessary equipment of their performance roles but it became evident to me that they were simply not qualified or authorised to perform that role. Yet here they were. The same could be said of my experiences with managers at UWN. I had difficulty reconciling the fact that the only thing that mattered was ‘looking the part’. As Goffman suggests, “Similarly executives often project an air of competency and general grasp of the situation, blinding themselves and others to the fact that they hold their jobs partly because they look like executives, not because they can work like executives.”
However, the above statement raises again the concern of whether or not these models, tests and theories actually have any real significance and furthermore whether or not celebrated theories and models have any higher value than generally accepted wisdom or oft maligned systems such as horoscopes or the “R U love matched” text in options for teenagers on digital music television channels.
On a more serious note, the recent catastrophe in the banking sector which mirrors financial struggle in the education sector is the result of decisions made by performers who agree not to give the game away as it were. Given the distress, heartbreak and loss this has caused can we really afford to be so complacent about the people who we authorise to perform key roles?
I set about trying to gain work by contacting companies, talking to establishments and advertising my work on the nascent web platform and pushed the benefits of my multimedia ideas. This was one of the most disenfranchising periods of my life and the result of rejection after rejection was a decision to take up a part time teaching job – at UWN of all places - simply to pay the rent. Was I simply not an adept performer? Or was it more that some of the paraphernalia of my performances were so outlandish and new that the definition of those interactions could never achieve a ‘veneer of consensus’?
Hence I ended up in teaching!
Using Kolb it becomes evident that my experiences of ‘selling my wares’ to virtually everyone that I could gain access to (including everyone from estate agents, to educators, to doctors to plumbers to car manufacturers, to television stations to shopping malls) were not positive and through a process this time of thinking rather than feeling it allowed me to form a generalisation that the experience was based upon my being ahead of my time in some respects and not understanding the relatively conservative nature of society and the non deterministic processes by which new technology or ideas are absorbed and adopted. Through reflective observation it became possible for me to ascertain that to get to the stage of active experimentation I needed to allow some of the newer technology that multimedia involved to become more widespread. Equally, in order to exploit the future I would need to remain relevant and up to date in terms of skills and needed access to the appropriate technology and the means to continue learning. I was thus now operating firmly in the specialisation period of my development according to Kolb but the cyclic model of reflective practice was one that I was willingly employing. My experiential feedback into the cycle was still tainted by misreading and the general anger and bitterness that this naturally engenders. Thus I learned a great deal in terms of self skilling on all of the latest technological innovations but in total isolation and still slavishly following the original ‘script’ while trying to jump directly from the BA scene to the Success scene. Hence the logical choice was to ‘go back to college’ but as a staff member this time and not a student since my previous generalisations about my experiences there applied to student status. Furthermore as one of Goffman’s renegades it afforded me a mechanism for feeding my ego and satisfying the need to be different and special – I would be the one member of staff who was really authorised to perform the role and I would be true to my ideals and not any given agenda or group of people!
Using Maslow’s hierarchy of needs at this stage it was clear that I was operating to fulfil only the most basic physiological and safety needs in terms of a roof, food, clothing and employment while all the time craving the more advanced needs. These basic needs also led me to take up another part time teaching job at Coleg Gwent, the local FE college. Maslow might further suggest that my craving for external respect and glory masked a deep rooted insecurity and lack of self esteem that once again underpinned my relunctance to self reflect and feelings of powerlessness.
My initial experiences of teaching were positive by and large but here there was a tension in Goffman terms. Goffman argues that in any team situation such as the one with a team of staff and a team of students there must be an assurance that no individual will be allowed to join both team and audience in any given setting. While each of us may according to Goffman perform different roles in different social environments and may even be our own audience, in a team performance each member has the power to disrupt the performance and thus there is a forced reliance on each team member to ensure that the show is not given away. Equally, if one member makes a mistake then others must cover up for them.
As a lecturer I was aware of my role and the fact that I belonged to a performing team of staff but my resistance to the idea of performing and protecting the performer at all costs meant that I habitually straddled both performance team and audience. While this stance afforded me a great deal of respect and affection among my students it created an enormous amount of tension among my colleagues. In hindsight, this duality essentially sealed my fate since if a team is concerned primarily with maintaining a particular line they will select as team mates those who can be trusted to perform ‘properly’. The issue of trust here is a key one since there is the ideal of trust that is often sacrificed in favour of a trust in compliance and conformity.
In truth, I did not reflect in depth upon my removal from UWN as it was easy enough to jump straight through to the generalisation stage and suggest that since this was the scene of my dissatisfaction as a student it was thus inevitable that the same general rules would apply to me again. It re-enforced in me the idea that there were those with power and those without and the society within which I existed served to do nothing more than protect that power structure at all costs. In Kolb’s concrete experience stage It is the relating to people that I have found increasingly difficult, as I have gotten older and had an increasing number of ‘specific’ experiences. Throughout my life my reflection on my experiences has led to the concept of ‘human interference, in all things. That is, that whatever happens, happens because of the actions and decisions of another – another with more power than those affected by the incidents and events. This concept then not only fed into my subsequent active experimentation in new situations (although for me nothing could therefore ever be ‘new’ since it was predetermined by those already with power) but also insulated me from the idea that all learning is re-learning. A process to draw out my beliefs and ideas so that they can be examined, tested, and integrated with new, more refined ideas was simply in my view not possible.
Thus despite the fact that I had made a great many personal and financial sacrifies to build ‘something great’ at UWN only to find it demolished and my work ‘acquired’ by others I slavishly returned to the script and attempted exactly the same thing at Coleg Gwent. The self reflection process was limited and the generalisation above allowed me to attribute my failure to the actions and decisions of others. This generalisation was ironically e-enforced by my first line manager at Coleg Gwent who showed immense faith, trust and respect for me and my abilities and views. I was given essentially a free hand to create what I stood for and this for me was an actualisation of self in a narrow sense. It also re-enforced the idea that the amended ‘script’ with the missing scenes was now back on track. The feelings of powerlessness, invisibility and worthlessness remained and it is sometimes sobering to think that I have spent an immense amount of time and effort trying to build a physical representation of me that cannot be ignored, moved, affected or destroyed. My four proposals for a ‘High Energy Magic” building are nothing more than proposals for a 100 foot tall ‘Raj’.
With the forced retirement and subsequent passing of my line manager I lost a mentor and a friend. It is through a process of reflection that I now understand that this is something I have always sought and have continued to try to replace – unsuccessfully. The need to have someone tell you that you are special has never really been something that I have questioned until much later.
In 2005 I was diagnosed with AS.
Experiential Learning also requires the resolution of conflicts between dialectically opposed modes of adaptation to the world. This is a key issue for me and in my own experience I now ‘feel’ far more about the world than I ‘act’. It is also interesting that I now see the world as being distinct from me – separate, other, hostile. This is in no small way a facet of AS but my current belief system cannot be attributed solely to this – especially since this mode of thinking is for me less than 20 years old.
While some might argue that learning results from synergetic transactions between the person and the environment, the nature of these transactions is for me still a source of much confusion and distress and the level of consent and relative power structures appear also to be not clear. Have I really actively chosen to undertake a series of actions, choices and decisions that have led me to a point in my life diametrically opposed to any sense f my original aims and goals? How is it actually possible for an individual to do everything that takes them away from their goals? It is here that perhaps a closer examination of Freire, Goffman and Foucault might help.
Reflection is an activity and process that defines our age. We are encouraged as professionals, as humans, as people, as individuals, as families to reflect upon our lives and our goals and to consider the range of choices that we have made and the actions that resulted from those choices which, so the idea goes, have led us to where we are now. It then follows from this idea that the very process that led us to an understanding of our current position, needs and wants can help us to ‘move forward’ and work towards achieving our future personal and professional goals.
Throughout this there is the implicit (and indeed sometimes explicit) embedded message that an individual is the sum total of their choices and decisions and that the individual almost single handedly has the power to change any aspects of themselves or their lives that they deem undesirable, disappointing, not satisfying or indeed painful. I have to state at this point that my experiences both personally and professionally to this point lead me to conclude that individuals do not possess this limitless power (except in certain circumstances) and that for me a great deal of contemporary obsession with self reflection is indeed just another layer of control and performance.
In this work I shall be attempting to understand how I got to where I am now and to posit a potential plan as to future options that might assist me in getting to where I want to go. I shall do this with the aid of Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle and Learning Styles Inventory in relation to my own experiences. I selected Kolb, since for me the process has always been a straight line and not a cycle and it has therefore been interesting to try to view my development cyclically and to see how I have resisted doing so up until now and whether or not this has perhaps contributed to my long standing stagnation. Furthermore, I shall attempt to consider the work of Erving Goffman and his performance theory and underline the tensions within me as I seek to reconcile my needs and wants and my perceived lack of power. For me, Goffmans’ theories underline a serious barrier to any self power resulting in praxis.
Having considered these theories I shall then look at their application in key periods of my life and also their potential usefulness or otherwise in terms of affecting a seismic shift in my thinking and affording me some degree of control over my future.
Personal Reflection
Contemporary society is awash with opportunities for individuals and groups (and here I refer to groups as comprising of two or more people such as spouses, work colleagues, friends etc) to not only reflect upon their lives but also to consider their own personality types and traits. While many would consider some of the tests as found in trashy magazines, web sites and online communities as either harmless or just fun it is important to note the undercurrent of predestination that acts to secure the re-enforcement of existing ideals – accurate or otherwise. People have a need to feel good about themselves and our mass media society feeds the view that this is an accepted state and offers us consumer goods, self help, fun tests and counselling to assist in learning to feel good about ourselves. I might argue that this is little more than a coded message that allows people to accept their lot by simply placing a suitable veneer upon it that fits with the individual’s existing self perception. This Forer effect underpins the ‘fun’ personality tests that I have attempted online as well as the more ‘serious’ psychometric testing models and the self reflective theories and models that I have come into contact with. Essentially, the tests and their results are so broad and general that there is something in there for everyone and with the right language anyone can reasonably assimilate the results as referring to them independently!
Goffman suggests a dramaturgical analysis of human interaction (particularly face to face) where individuals perform roles using settings, appearance and manner to ‘control’ another person’s impression about them. In turn the person being interacted with attempts to gather information about the performer through communication that is either ‘given’ (usually through language) or ‘given off’ (non direct communication that may or may not be within the performer’s conscious control). For Goffman, this interaction occurs in what he terms the ‘front region’. The ‘back region’ or backstage is an area where the performer can shed their role out of view of the audience. It is also interesting how positive these personalities or learning styles always are and the net effect of this re-enforcement is the ideal of the powerful individual. That with some relatively minor changes you can make significant differences to who you are and the life you lead. Why for example, is there no mention of ‘laziness’, ‘greed’, ‘aggressiveness’ and so on? Would such frankness undermine existing power and social structures? Would such frankness threaten the coherence and power of the front region as outlined by Goffman? Having taken a series of these tests through the early part of this unit it became clear to me that their reflective value was virtually zero in as much as I could choose to interpret such generalisations in any way I chose. Furthermore, we are all to a greater or lesser degree sophisticated enough to know what goes on ‘backstage’. This knowledge of the back region actually feeds our need to end up with a positive re-affirmation of our uniqueness and individual wonder. Thus we quickly engage in a conspiratorial performance that involves being more actively selective about the answers we choose or give and modify our responses to attempt to guarantee an outcome that tells us how amazing we are. In the ‘digital age’ of online interaction Goffman’s theatre metaphor still has value. We may not be interacting face to face but we still perform roles or adopt a given role.
My first experience with psychometric testing occurred at my second interview for the post of lecturer in Multimedia. The test was administered half way through the day in between the first and second stage interviews by a senior HR official. Throughout it was clear that the official was uncomfortable and lacking in experience about the test.
The questions were once again general and the performance dictated a set series of responses. At this stage it was clear that the definition of the performance and the situation was actively yet unspoken being agreed by both parties and a certain degree of ‘tact’ was being employed to gloss over the fact that we both already knew the answers that I would give. However, Goffman implies a certain degree of active consent or agreement in situ – not necessarily explicitly since we as humans live by inference. Yet this ‘consensual agreement’ already existed, long before I even applied for the job. It was predestined that should I want the job that this ‘veneer of consensus’ would be adhered to as a given. Where in this process was my active agreement, the single act of conscious power that allowed me to choose to accept the definition of the performance? Yes, I could have walked out or not applied in the first place but then the job would not have been an option. Hence the idea that we can affect change through the power of the individual is not quite what it seems. Goffman suggests that when we acquire a new position we might not be told exactly how to do our ‘act’ but may instead just receive some cues, hints and stage directions. It is then assumed that we already have a repetoire of bits ad pieces of performances that we can subsequently use in a new setting. However, if this is the case then given how personality and psychometric tests invite skewed or outright false responses it undermines an individual’s ability to learn and develop through active self reflection. It implies that there are already roles in place that we can do little more than accept. It also implies the existence of stage directors and begs the question, “How do I become a stage director?”!
In terms of Kolb, this presents difficulties at the reflecting through observation stage and hampers the forming of abstract concepts since it relies of an individual being willing to accept the adoption of predetermined roles.
However, the interviewer appeard to not be experienced enough to interpret what I ‘gave out’ and what I ‘gave off’. Hence her ability to check the validity of my performance was severely compromised and this was nonetheless accepted. Just as psychometric tests aim to check the validity of a performance by juxtaposing responses against the performance it alters the relationship of the performer and audience when that ability is not exercised or possible.
In this sense, while Goffman would argue that I was qualified or authorised to perform and that both parties were consenting to the performance it was clear o me that I found the situation dishonest and utterly without value. For example in response to a question such as “Do you consider yourself to be a team player?” would anyone really respond with “No. I really don’t like working with other people and would prefer not to have to deal with them”? However, it must be said that I had complete and total belief in my performance and the answers I gave were immediate, honest and accurate.
It can thus be argued that to have gotten the job I would have to have fitted a preset range of criteria that included personality types and traits that were considered essential to perpetuating the show that the performers within the organisation put on. As Goffman himself suggest, a team of performers are more likely to select as new team mates those who present themselves as being trustable enough to perform ‘properly’.
Despite ticking all the boxes, I failed to get the position at this, the second time of asking and this major event in my life has resulted in a staggering shift in my personality and approach to the world around me. To get the job I would have had to have engaged in ‘deceit’ and ’feigning’ in Goffman terms and this I found objectionable. If, as Goffman suggests, society expects moral character, that an individual ought to be what he claims to be then what of euphemisms such as ‘tailoring your responses’, ‘hiding your deficiencies’ or ‘making the most of your strong points’?
Kolb
David A Kolb’s experiential learning theory model based upon the work of Dewey and Lewin follows a four part cyclic arrangement where each part represents a stage in reflective personal and professional development. Kolb’s work is heavily influenced by the earlier work of Carl Gustav Jung. Kolb’s work has become popular in education circles and also in organisational structures in terms of staff development policies. There are contrasting views on the meanings for experiential learning but I will for the purposes of this paper refer to it as learning through personal reflection upon everyday experience in a setting not sponsored by an establishment.
According to Kolb (1984, 38) "Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience"
Experiential learning proponents might suggest that learning is best conceived as a process, not in terms of outcomes but I now know that I have always seen learning in a straight line on a personal level rather than as an ongoing cycle ie that you begin as a child with nothing and gradually acquire knowledge and experience as you grow which then affords you great control, comfort, satisfaction, achievement and status. In my blog, I refer to my formative years and the early formation of a linear ‘action plan’ or ‘script’ through my interaction with my parents, educators, the media and to a lesser degree my peers. This ‘script’ was quite simply; BA, MA, PhD, Success – with success being measured in terms of affluence, power and achievement. While in essence this type of plan provides a clutter free approach to development it does nothing to allow for any reflective practice or indeed for the re-integration (or feedback) back into the script of experiential learning. In other words, there is no opportunity to reflect and change the script and hence it could be argued that in many ways I was the architect of my own downfall.
Again however, Kolb’s cycle seems like a closed system in another way as there is little opportunity for the actions of others to impinge upon the cycle. Goffman might suggest that the agreed definitions of the performance suggest that individuals can change from disbelievers to believers and vice versa and that such changes in approach are triggered through experiential learning. This does not though take into account the power of ‘others’ to control the range of potential outcomes afforded to individuals in any given setting. For example, countless sections of society feel disempowered, embattled and ‘kept down’. Can we really be asking ourselves to believe that they are all somehow unable to reflect upon their plight or that they are forever poor performers and therefore relegated to passive audiences or even backstage staff?
As an AS, learning for me is far more formalised and problematic in terms of self-reflection. Self reflection happens in me constantly but in two distinct ways; firstly the cyclic response to external stimulus i.e. what other people say or do and secondly an entirely closed internal world where reflection tends to re-enforce existing ideas and behaviour patterns. I will expand upon this subject later on.
Kolb’s cycle can be identified in four stages:
Concrete Experience: Learning from specific experiences and relating to people. A difficulty arises here in terms of verifying the ‘concreteness’ of any given experience and avoiding misreading. Furthermore if our dealings with others is based upon performances then is relating to people more about acquiring a wider portfolio of preset performances from which to draw from in our future social interactions? If experiences are misread then surely that invites major subsequent amplification of the misreading through the cycle and affects the ability of the individual to make sense of the experience and affect future change in new situations?
Observation and Experience: Observing before making a judgment. Here too there is the opportunity for misreading to be fed into the cycle. In the absence of ‘concrete’ information, or the inability of the individual to ‘infer’ according to the structures of any given society or the inability or unwillingness of the individual to accept a given performance or audience role, can accurate or meaningful judgements be made? It is also worth noting that such models are always deemed positive and helpful from the outset. Labels such as ‘negative’, ‘non-constructive’ or just plain ‘uncooperative’ await those that might suggest that there isn’t a possible positive outcome. Too often individuals undergoing this cyclic process of reflection are under pressure to conform or indeed accept a bad situation since the generally accepted view is that if it didn’t help you then you were obviously doing it wrong or not willing to give it a chance!
Forming Abstract Concepts: this is the point at which a form of generalisation takes place where an individual is able to understand or ‘see’ a general principle that can potentially be applied to a variety of situations or experiences rather than seeing each experience in isolation. Again if misreading occurs then the generalisation could result in dangerous generalisations being accepted. Goffman argues that society requires that matters are what they appear to be but clearly a cynical acceptance that they are not allows for generalisations that can be used to exploit situations for personal gain.
Testing in New Situations: this refers to the ability to get things done by influencing people and events. However, it seems that the key to achieving praxis is in becoming a better and more accomplished performer.
For Kolb, the learning process can and often does begin at any of the four stages and he claims that ‘ideally’ a person is involved in all four stages through the learning process – although this is not a process that we undertake explicitly. Indeed it has resonance with feedback theories in cybernetics and it may be argued that Kolb’s theory is an abstract form of biological theory.
Kolb identifies four learning styles stating that people naturally prefer or identify with a single learning style. This LSI is underpinned by three stages – acquisition, specialisation and Integration - in our development and our ability to move through the cycle improves as we move through the stages in our development.
For Kolb the learning styles are a product of two pairs of variables or choices that we make. These are:
Concrete Experience: Feeling v Abstract conceptualisation: Thinking
Active Experimentation: Doing v Reflective Observation: Watching
In other words we choose our approach to the task (through our processing continuum) or experience ('grasping the experience') and at the same time we choose how to emotionally transform the experience into something meaningful and useful (via our perception continuum)
But do we really consciously make these choices?
The four learning styles (LSI) are Diverging (feeling and watching – CE/RO), Assimilating (watching and thinking – AC/RO), Converging (doing and thinking – AC/AE) and Accommodating (doing and feeling – CE/AE).
It is important to note that Kolb does not define learning styles as absolutes but as tendencies and accepts that individuals may be able to change learning styles. Nevertheless, the thrust is that we prefer some learning style behaviours to others at any given period of our development. One of the most crucial roadblocks to my development appears to be my need to have someone ‘validate’ it. I feel the need to use ‘accepted’ analysis in order to gain validation and acceptance – i.e. I constantly need someone to tell me I’m doing things right. As an AS I need a smile everyday, I need a hug everyday and I need to be told that I am ok everyday.
Jung's 'Extraversion/Introversion' dialectical dimension here
My Experience
My current predicament about my future has had a long period of gestation but there are a number of relatively recent triggers that I want to focus on for this text. They can be summarised as follows:
The failure to get the post of Head of Design at UWN
My diagnosis for AS
A continual eradication of autonomy, respect, value and creativity at my current workplace
Looking at the first trigger it is still somewhat of a mystery to me as to how I actually became a lecturer rather than a practitioner. As a second generation Asian with a very strict orthodox upbringing it is certainly evident that drummed into me from an early age some occupations carried more gravitas and worth than others – teaching was among these although certainly not in the top half of desirable careers. Kolb might suggest that the acquisition phase of my development had led me to acquire a set of values, morals and ideas that were from the outset confused, coming as they did from a hybrid Indian-English environment and being mediated through an (as yet unidentified) AS faculty. My formative years led to a belief in the role of teachers as vessels or translators of knowledge in the same sense that in some tribal cultures the elders hold wisdom and knowledge that is then orally passed down to the next generation. The idea that ‘everyone’ has a valid point of view is one that I have always found difficult to accept. After all if everyone is special then no one is. History is littered with unbalanced equations where a great idea is weighed down by the views of those that owing to their inability to comprehend or their desire to oppress seek to nullify its effects. When I was borne, being smart, hard working and creative was desirable. By the time I was 20 it was ‘way uncool’.
The education ‘scenes’ in the script I mentioned earlier seems now to have been a classic and bizarre misreading in a Lacanian sense. I had immense hopes for my undergraduate study but this turned out to be a complete disappointment and one of the biggest regrets of my career. I was actually offered a research post combining an MA and paid teaching on the postgraduate programme at UWN immediately but so disillusioned was I after my undergraduate experience and the organisation itself that I turned it down.
The feeling for me was that the workplace could not possibly be any worse than the education setting. In this sense it could be argued that my approach to the decisions about staying in education was clearly based upon the feeling extreme of the processing continuum of Kolb’s model in that the way I felt about my experiences governed my approach to decision making in the light of those experiences. Furthermore, experiential learning proponents might argue I rationalised the meaning of my experience and made it useful through feeling and thus allowed myself to justify my decisions. In another sense one could argue that a nascent world view was being formed here based upon a misreading of the experience and that misreading was then amplified through the cycle and resulting in generalisations that ultimately were not personally useful or even accurate. For example, as a result of my experience I was convinced that all education was now a lie based upon elaborate performances.
Goffman would argue here that I could be classified either as ‘knocker’ or ‘wiseguy’ or perhaps more charitably a renegade, in that I was determined to protect my belief system and was happy to take a moral stand arguing that it was better to be true to the ideals of the role than to the performers who falsely present themselves in it. Curiously Goffman might also refer to me as a ‘deviant’ who is ‘said to let the side down’! Certainly in my experience of lecturers they had the necessary equipment of their performance roles but it became evident to me that they were simply not qualified or authorised to perform that role. Yet here they were. The same could be said of my experiences with managers at UWN. I had difficulty reconciling the fact that the only thing that mattered was ‘looking the part’. As Goffman suggests, “Similarly executives often project an air of competency and general grasp of the situation, blinding themselves and others to the fact that they hold their jobs partly because they look like executives, not because they can work like executives.”
However, the above statement raises again the concern of whether or not these models, tests and theories actually have any real significance and furthermore whether or not celebrated theories and models have any higher value than generally accepted wisdom or oft maligned systems such as horoscopes or the “R U love matched” text in options for teenagers on digital music television channels.
On a more serious note, the recent catastrophe in the banking sector which mirrors financial struggle in the education sector is the result of decisions made by performers who agree not to give the game away as it were. Given the distress, heartbreak and loss this has caused can we really afford to be so complacent about the people who we authorise to perform key roles?
I set about trying to gain work by contacting companies, talking to establishments and advertising my work on the nascent web platform and pushed the benefits of my multimedia ideas. This was one of the most disenfranchising periods of my life and the result of rejection after rejection was a decision to take up a part time teaching job – at UWN of all places - simply to pay the rent. Was I simply not an adept performer? Or was it more that some of the paraphernalia of my performances were so outlandish and new that the definition of those interactions could never achieve a ‘veneer of consensus’?
Hence I ended up in teaching!
Using Kolb it becomes evident that my experiences of ‘selling my wares’ to virtually everyone that I could gain access to (including everyone from estate agents, to educators, to doctors to plumbers to car manufacturers, to television stations to shopping malls) were not positive and through a process this time of thinking rather than feeling it allowed me to form a generalisation that the experience was based upon my being ahead of my time in some respects and not understanding the relatively conservative nature of society and the non deterministic processes by which new technology or ideas are absorbed and adopted. Through reflective observation it became possible for me to ascertain that to get to the stage of active experimentation I needed to allow some of the newer technology that multimedia involved to become more widespread. Equally, in order to exploit the future I would need to remain relevant and up to date in terms of skills and needed access to the appropriate technology and the means to continue learning. I was thus now operating firmly in the specialisation period of my development according to Kolb but the cyclic model of reflective practice was one that I was willingly employing. My experiential feedback into the cycle was still tainted by misreading and the general anger and bitterness that this naturally engenders. Thus I learned a great deal in terms of self skilling on all of the latest technological innovations but in total isolation and still slavishly following the original ‘script’ while trying to jump directly from the BA scene to the Success scene. Hence the logical choice was to ‘go back to college’ but as a staff member this time and not a student since my previous generalisations about my experiences there applied to student status. Furthermore as one of Goffman’s renegades it afforded me a mechanism for feeding my ego and satisfying the need to be different and special – I would be the one member of staff who was really authorised to perform the role and I would be true to my ideals and not any given agenda or group of people!
Using Maslow’s hierarchy of needs at this stage it was clear that I was operating to fulfil only the most basic physiological and safety needs in terms of a roof, food, clothing and employment while all the time craving the more advanced needs. These basic needs also led me to take up another part time teaching job at Coleg Gwent, the local FE college. Maslow might further suggest that my craving for external respect and glory masked a deep rooted insecurity and lack of self esteem that once again underpinned my relunctance to self reflect and feelings of powerlessness.
My initial experiences of teaching were positive by and large but here there was a tension in Goffman terms. Goffman argues that in any team situation such as the one with a team of staff and a team of students there must be an assurance that no individual will be allowed to join both team and audience in any given setting. While each of us may according to Goffman perform different roles in different social environments and may even be our own audience, in a team performance each member has the power to disrupt the performance and thus there is a forced reliance on each team member to ensure that the show is not given away. Equally, if one member makes a mistake then others must cover up for them.
As a lecturer I was aware of my role and the fact that I belonged to a performing team of staff but my resistance to the idea of performing and protecting the performer at all costs meant that I habitually straddled both performance team and audience. While this stance afforded me a great deal of respect and affection among my students it created an enormous amount of tension among my colleagues. In hindsight, this duality essentially sealed my fate since if a team is concerned primarily with maintaining a particular line they will select as team mates those who can be trusted to perform ‘properly’. The issue of trust here is a key one since there is the ideal of trust that is often sacrificed in favour of a trust in compliance and conformity.
In truth, I did not reflect in depth upon my removal from UWN as it was easy enough to jump straight through to the generalisation stage and suggest that since this was the scene of my dissatisfaction as a student it was thus inevitable that the same general rules would apply to me again. It re-enforced in me the idea that there were those with power and those without and the society within which I existed served to do nothing more than protect that power structure at all costs. In Kolb’s concrete experience stage It is the relating to people that I have found increasingly difficult, as I have gotten older and had an increasing number of ‘specific’ experiences. Throughout my life my reflection on my experiences has led to the concept of ‘human interference, in all things. That is, that whatever happens, happens because of the actions and decisions of another – another with more power than those affected by the incidents and events. This concept then not only fed into my subsequent active experimentation in new situations (although for me nothing could therefore ever be ‘new’ since it was predetermined by those already with power) but also insulated me from the idea that all learning is re-learning. A process to draw out my beliefs and ideas so that they can be examined, tested, and integrated with new, more refined ideas was simply in my view not possible.
Thus despite the fact that I had made a great many personal and financial sacrifies to build ‘something great’ at UWN only to find it demolished and my work ‘acquired’ by others I slavishly returned to the script and attempted exactly the same thing at Coleg Gwent. The self reflection process was limited and the generalisation above allowed me to attribute my failure to the actions and decisions of others. This generalisation was ironically e-enforced by my first line manager at Coleg Gwent who showed immense faith, trust and respect for me and my abilities and views. I was given essentially a free hand to create what I stood for and this for me was an actualisation of self in a narrow sense. It also re-enforced the idea that the amended ‘script’ with the missing scenes was now back on track. The feelings of powerlessness, invisibility and worthlessness remained and it is sometimes sobering to think that I have spent an immense amount of time and effort trying to build a physical representation of me that cannot be ignored, moved, affected or destroyed. My four proposals for a ‘High Energy Magic” building are nothing more than proposals for a 100 foot tall ‘Raj’.
With the forced retirement and subsequent passing of my line manager I lost a mentor and a friend. It is through a process of reflection that I now understand that this is something I have always sought and have continued to try to replace – unsuccessfully. The need to have someone tell you that you are special has never really been something that I have questioned until much later.
In 2005 I was diagnosed with AS.
Experiential Learning also requires the resolution of conflicts between dialectically opposed modes of adaptation to the world. This is a key issue for me and in my own experience I now ‘feel’ far more about the world than I ‘act’. It is also interesting that I now see the world as being distinct from me – separate, other, hostile. This is in no small way a facet of AS but my current belief system cannot be attributed solely to this – especially since this mode of thinking is for me less than 20 years old.
While some might argue that learning results from synergetic transactions between the person and the environment, the nature of these transactions is for me still a source of much confusion and distress and the level of consent and relative power structures appear also to be not clear. Have I really actively chosen to undertake a series of actions, choices and decisions that have led me to a point in my life diametrically opposed to any sense f my original aims and goals? How is it actually possible for an individual to do everything that takes them away from their goals? It is here that perhaps a closer examination of Freire, Goffman and Foucault might help.
Wednesday 17 February 2010
Another follow on bit
Add to the last bit:
Using Kolb it becomes evident that my experiences of ‘selling my wares’ to virtually everyone that I could gain access to (including everyone from estate agents, to educators, to doctors to plumbers to car manufacturers, to television stations to shopping malls) were not positive and through a process this time of thinking rather than feeling it allowed me to form a generalisation that the experience was based upon my being ahead of my time in some respects and not understanding the relatively conservative nature of society and the non deterministic processes by which new technology or ideas are absorbed and adopted. Through reflective observation it became possible for me to ascertain that to get to the stage of active experimentation I needed to allow some of the newer technology that multimedia involved to become more widespread. Equally, in order to exploit the future I would need to remain relevant and up to date in terms of skills and needed access to the appropriate technology and the means to continue learning. Hence the logical choice was to ‘go back to college’ but as a staff member this time and not a student since my previous generalisations about my experiences there applied to student status. Furthermore as one of Goffman’s renegades it afforded me a mechanism for feeding my ego and satisfying the need to be different and special – I would be the one member of staff who was really authorised to perform the role and I would be true to my ideals and not any given agenda or group of people!
Using Kolb it becomes evident that my experiences of ‘selling my wares’ to virtually everyone that I could gain access to (including everyone from estate agents, to educators, to doctors to plumbers to car manufacturers, to television stations to shopping malls) were not positive and through a process this time of thinking rather than feeling it allowed me to form a generalisation that the experience was based upon my being ahead of my time in some respects and not understanding the relatively conservative nature of society and the non deterministic processes by which new technology or ideas are absorbed and adopted. Through reflective observation it became possible for me to ascertain that to get to the stage of active experimentation I needed to allow some of the newer technology that multimedia involved to become more widespread. Equally, in order to exploit the future I would need to remain relevant and up to date in terms of skills and needed access to the appropriate technology and the means to continue learning. Hence the logical choice was to ‘go back to college’ but as a staff member this time and not a student since my previous generalisations about my experiences there applied to student status. Furthermore as one of Goffman’s renegades it afforded me a mechanism for feeding my ego and satisfying the need to be different and special – I would be the one member of staff who was really authorised to perform the role and I would be true to my ideals and not any given agenda or group of people!
An added on bit
This bit is meant to follow the previous post:
My Experience
My current predicament about my future has had a long period of gestation but there are a number of relatively recent triggers that I want to focus on for this text. They can be summarised as follows:
The failure to get the post of Head of Design at UWN
A disastrous period as Academic Leader at my current workplace
A continual eradication of autonomy, respect, value and creativity at my current workplace
Looking at the first trigger it is still somewhat of a mystery to me as to how I actually became a lecturer rather than a practitioner. As a second generation Asian with a very strict orthodox upbringing it is certainly evident that drummed into me from an early age some occupations carried more gravitas and worth than others – teaching was among these although certainly not in the top half of desirable careers. I had immense hopes for my undergraduate study but this turned out to be a complete disappointment and one of the biggest regrets of my career. I was actually offered a research post combining an MA and paid teaching on the postgraduate programme at UWN immediately but so disillusioned was I after my undergraduate experience and the organisation itself that I turned it down.
The feeling for me was that the workplace could not possibly be any worse than the education setting. In this sense it could be argued that my approach to the decisions about staying in education was clearly based upon the feeling extreme of the processing continuum of Kolb’s model in that the way I felt about my experiences governed my approach to decision making in the light of those experiences. Furthermore, experiential learning proponents might argue I rationalised the meaning of my experience and made it useful through feeling and thus allowed myself to justify my decisions. In another sense one could argue that a nascent world view was being formed here based upon a misreading of the experience and that misreading was then amplified through the cycle and resulting in generalisations that ultimately were not personally useful or even accurate. For example, as a result of my experience I was convinced that all education was now a lie based upon elaborate performances.
Goffman would argue here that I could be classified either as ‘knocker’ or ‘wiseguy’ or perhaps more charitably a renegade, in that I was determined to protect my belief system and was happy to take a moral stand arguing that it was better to be true to the ideals of the role than to the performers who falsely present themselves in it. Curiously Goffman might also refer to me as a ‘deviant’ who is ‘said to let the side down’! Certainly in my experience of lecturers they had the necessary equipment of their performance roles but it became evident to me that they were simply not qualified or authorised to perform that role. Yet here they were. The same could be said of my experiences with managers at UWN. I had difficulty reconciling the fact that the only thing that mattered was ‘looking the part’. As Goffman suggests, “Similarly executives often project an air of competency and general grasp of the situation, blinding themselves and others to the fact that they hold their jobs partly because they look like executives, not because they can work like executives.”
However, the above statement raises again the concern of whether or not these models, tests and theories actually have any real significance and furthermore whether or not celebrated theories and models have any higher value than generally accepted wisdom or oft maligned systems such as horoscopes or the “R U love matched” text in options for teenagers on digital music television channels.
On a more serious note, the recent catastrophe in the banking sector which mirrors financial struggle in the education sector is the result of decisions made by performers who agree not to give the game away as it were. Given the distress, heartbreak and loss this has caused can we really afford to be so complacent about the people who we authorise to perform key roles?
I set about trying to gain work by contacting companies, talking to establishments and advertising my work on the nascent web platform and pushed the benefits of my multimedia ideas. This was one of the most soul destroying periods of my life and the result of rejection after rejection was a decision to take up a part time teaching job – at UWN of all places - simply to pay the rent. Was I simply not an adept performer? Or was it more that some of the paraphernalia of my performances were so outlandish and new that the definition of those interactions could never achieve a ‘veneer of consensus’?
Hence I ended up in teaching!
My Experience
My current predicament about my future has had a long period of gestation but there are a number of relatively recent triggers that I want to focus on for this text. They can be summarised as follows:
The failure to get the post of Head of Design at UWN
A disastrous period as Academic Leader at my current workplace
A continual eradication of autonomy, respect, value and creativity at my current workplace
Looking at the first trigger it is still somewhat of a mystery to me as to how I actually became a lecturer rather than a practitioner. As a second generation Asian with a very strict orthodox upbringing it is certainly evident that drummed into me from an early age some occupations carried more gravitas and worth than others – teaching was among these although certainly not in the top half of desirable careers. I had immense hopes for my undergraduate study but this turned out to be a complete disappointment and one of the biggest regrets of my career. I was actually offered a research post combining an MA and paid teaching on the postgraduate programme at UWN immediately but so disillusioned was I after my undergraduate experience and the organisation itself that I turned it down.
The feeling for me was that the workplace could not possibly be any worse than the education setting. In this sense it could be argued that my approach to the decisions about staying in education was clearly based upon the feeling extreme of the processing continuum of Kolb’s model in that the way I felt about my experiences governed my approach to decision making in the light of those experiences. Furthermore, experiential learning proponents might argue I rationalised the meaning of my experience and made it useful through feeling and thus allowed myself to justify my decisions. In another sense one could argue that a nascent world view was being formed here based upon a misreading of the experience and that misreading was then amplified through the cycle and resulting in generalisations that ultimately were not personally useful or even accurate. For example, as a result of my experience I was convinced that all education was now a lie based upon elaborate performances.
Goffman would argue here that I could be classified either as ‘knocker’ or ‘wiseguy’ or perhaps more charitably a renegade, in that I was determined to protect my belief system and was happy to take a moral stand arguing that it was better to be true to the ideals of the role than to the performers who falsely present themselves in it. Curiously Goffman might also refer to me as a ‘deviant’ who is ‘said to let the side down’! Certainly in my experience of lecturers they had the necessary equipment of their performance roles but it became evident to me that they were simply not qualified or authorised to perform that role. Yet here they were. The same could be said of my experiences with managers at UWN. I had difficulty reconciling the fact that the only thing that mattered was ‘looking the part’. As Goffman suggests, “Similarly executives often project an air of competency and general grasp of the situation, blinding themselves and others to the fact that they hold their jobs partly because they look like executives, not because they can work like executives.”
However, the above statement raises again the concern of whether or not these models, tests and theories actually have any real significance and furthermore whether or not celebrated theories and models have any higher value than generally accepted wisdom or oft maligned systems such as horoscopes or the “R U love matched” text in options for teenagers on digital music television channels.
On a more serious note, the recent catastrophe in the banking sector which mirrors financial struggle in the education sector is the result of decisions made by performers who agree not to give the game away as it were. Given the distress, heartbreak and loss this has caused can we really afford to be so complacent about the people who we authorise to perform key roles?
I set about trying to gain work by contacting companies, talking to establishments and advertising my work on the nascent web platform and pushed the benefits of my multimedia ideas. This was one of the most soul destroying periods of my life and the result of rejection after rejection was a decision to take up a part time teaching job – at UWN of all places - simply to pay the rent. Was I simply not an adept performer? Or was it more that some of the paraphernalia of my performances were so outlandish and new that the definition of those interactions could never achieve a ‘veneer of consensus’?
Hence I ended up in teaching!
Another waste of time
Introduction:
Reflection is an activity and process that defines our age. We are encouraged as professionals, as humans, as people, as individuals, as families to reflect upon our lives and our goals and to consider the range of choices that we have made and the actions that resulted from those choices which, so the idea goes, have led us to where we are now. It then follows from this idea that the very process that led us to an understanding of our current position, needs and wants can help us to ‘move forward’ and work towards achieving our future personal and professional goals.
Throughout this there is the implicit (and indeed sometimes explicit) embedded message that an individual is the sum total of their choices and decisions and that the individual almost single headedly has the power to change any aspects of themselves or their lives that they deem undesirable, disappointing, not satisfying or indeed painful. I have to state at this point that I am of the opinion that individuals do not possess this limitless power (except in certain circumstances) and that for me a great deal of contemporary obsession with self reflection is indeed just another layer of control and performance.
In this work I shall be attempting to understand how I got to where I am now and to posit a potential plan as to future options that might assist me in getting to where I want to go. I shall do this through an analysis of Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle and Learning Styles Inventory in relation to my own experiences. I selected Kolb, since for me the process has always been a straight line and not a cycle and it has therefore been interesting to try to view my development cyclically and to see how I have resisted doing so up until now and whether or not this has perhaps contributed to my current long standing stagnation. Furthermore, I shall attempt to consider the work of Erving Goffman and his performance theory and underline the tensions within me as I seek to reconcile my needs and wants and my perceived lack of power. For me, Goffmans’ theories underline a serious barrier to any self power resulting in praxis.
Having considered these theories I shall then look at their application in key periods of my life and also their potential usefulness or otherwise in terms of affecting a seismic shift in my thinking and affording me some degree of control over my future.
Personal Reflection
Contemporary society is awash with opportunities for individuals and groups (and here I refer to groups as comprising of two or more people such as spouses, work colleagues, friends etc) to not only reflect upon their lives but also to consider their own personality types and traits. While many would consider some of the tests as found in trashy magazines, web sites and online communities as either harmless or helpful it is important to note the undercurrent of predestination that acts to secure the re-enforcement of existing ideals – accurate or otherwise. People have a need to feel good about themselves and our mass media society feeds the view that this is an accepted state and offers us consumer goods, self help, tests and counselling to assist in learning to feel good about ourselves. I might argue at this point than this is little more than a coded message that allows people to accept their lot by simply placing a suitable veneer upon it that fits with the individual’s existing self perception. This Forer effect underpins the ‘fun’ personality tests that I have attempted online as well as the more ‘serious’ psychometric testing models and the self reflective theories and models that I have come into contact with. Essentially, the tests and their results are so broad and general that there is something in there for everyone and with the right language anyone can reasonably assimilate the results as referring to them independently!
It is also interesting how positive these personalities or learning styles always are and the net effect of this re-enforcement is the ideal of the powerful individual. That with some relatively minor changes you can make massive differences to who you are and the life you lead. Why for example, is there no mention of ‘laziness’, ‘greed’, ‘aggressiveness’ and so on? Would such frankness undermine existing power and social structures? Would such frankness threaten the coherence and power of the front region as outlined by Goffman? Having taken a series of these tests through the early part of this unit it became clear to me that their reflective value was virtually zero in as much as I could choose to interpret such generalisations in any was I chose. Furthermore, we are all to a greater or lesser degree sophisticated enough to know what goes on ‘backstage’. This knowledge of the back region actually feeds our need to end up with a positive re-affirmation of our uniqueness and individual wonder. Thus we quickly engage in a conspiratorial performance that involves being more actively selective about the answers we choose or give and modify our responses to attempt to guarantee an outcome that tells us how amazing we are.
My first experience with psychometric testing occurred at my second interview for the post of lecturer in Multimedia – a post that I had created, was already doing and would have been the first of its kind. The test was administered half way through the day in between the first and second stage interviews by a senior HR official. Throughout it was clear that the individual was uncomfortable and lacking in experience about the test.
The questions were once again general and the performance dictated a set series of responses. At this stage it was clear that the definition of the performance and the situation was actively yet unspoken being agreed by both parties and a certain degree of ‘tact’ was being employed to gloss over the fact that we both already knew the answers that I would give. However, Goffman implies a certain degree of active consent or agreement in situ – not necessarily explicitly since we as humans live by inference. Yet this ‘consensual agreement’ already existed, long before I even applied for the job. It was predestined that should I want the job that this ‘veneer of consensus’ would be adhered to as a given. Where in this process was my active agreement, the single act of conscious power that allowed me to choose to accept the definition of the performance? Yes, I could have walked out or not applied in the first place but then the job would not have been an option. Hence the idea that we can affect change through the power of the individual is not quite what it seems.
However, In Goffman terms the interviewer was not experienced enough to interpret what I ‘gave out’ and what I ‘gave off’. Hence her ability to check the validity of my performance was severely compromised and this was nonetheless accepted. Just as psychometric tests aim to check the validity of a performance by juxtaposing responses against the performance it alters the relationship of the performer and audience when that ability is not exercised or possible.
In this sense, while Goffman would argue that I was qualified or authorised to perform and that both parties were consenting to the performance it was clear o me that I found the situation dishonest and utterly without value. For example in response to a question such as “Do you consider yourself to be a team player?” would anyone really respond with “No. I really don’t like working with other people and would prefer not to have to deal with them”? However, it must be said that I had complete and total belief in my performance and the answers I gave were immediate, honest and accurate.
It can thus be argued that to have gotten the job I would have to have fitted a preset range of criteria that included personality types and traits that were considered essential to perpetuating the show that the performers within the organisation put on. As Goffman himself suggest, a team of performers are more likely to welcome into the fold individuals who are
Despite ticking all the boxes, I failed to get the position at this, the second time of asking and this major event in my life has resulted in a staggering shift in my personality and approach to the world around me. To get the job I would have had to have engaged in ‘deceit’ and ’feigning’ in Goffman terms and this I found objectionable. If, as Goffman suggests, society expects moral character, that an individual ought to be what he claims to be then what of euphemisms such as ‘tailoring your responses’, ‘hiding your deficiencies’ or ‘making the most of your strong points’?
Kolb
David A Kolb’s experiential learning theory model based upon the work of Dewey and Lewin follows a four part cyclic arrangement where each part represents a stage in reflective personal and professional development. Kolb’s work is heavily influenced by the earlier work of Carl Gustav Jung. Kolb’s work has become popular in education circles and also in organisational structures in terms of staff development policies. There are contrasting views on the meanings for experiential learning but I will for the purposes of this paper refer to it as learning through personal reflection upon everyday experience in a setting not sponsored by an establishment.
According to Kolb (1984, 38) "Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience"
I have a feeling that I have always seen learning in a straight line on a personal level rather than as an ongoing cycle in the sense that you begin as a child with nothing and gradually acquire knowledge and experience as you grow which then affords you great control, comfort, satisfaction, achievement and status.
Again however, the cycle seems like a closed system and there is little opportunity for the actions of others to impinge upon the cycle. Goffman might suggest that the agreed definitions of the performance suggest that individuals can change from disbelievers to believers and vice versa and that such changes in approach are triggered through experiential learning. This does not through take into account the power of ‘others’ to control the range of potential outcomes afforded to individuals in any given setting. For example, countless sections of society feel disempowered, embattled and ‘kept down’. Can we really be asking ourselves to believe that they are all somehow unable to reflect upon their plight or that they are forever poor performers and therefore relegated to passive audiences or even backstage staff?
As an AS, learning for me is far more formalised and problematic in terms of self-reflection. Self reflection happens in me constantly but in two distinct ways; firstly the cyclic response to external stimulus i.e. what other people say or do and secondly an entirely closed internal world where reflection tends to re-enforce existing ideas and behaviour patterns.
Kolb’s cycle can be identified in four stages:
Concrete Experience: Learning from specific experiences and relating to people. A difficulty arises here in terms of verifying the ‘concreteness’ of any given experience and avoiding misreading. Furthermore if our dealings with others is based upon performances then is relating to people more about acquiring a wider portfolio of preset performances from which to draw from in our future social interactions? If experiences are misread then surely that invites major subsequent amplification of the misreading through the cycle and affects the ability of the individual to make sense of the experience and affect future change in new situations?
Observation and Experience: Observing before making a judgment. Here too there is the opportunity for misreading to be fed into the cycle. In the absence of ‘concrete’ information, or the inability of the individual to ‘infer’ according to the structures of any given society or the inability or unwillingness of the individual to accept a given performance or audience role, can accurate or meaningful judgements be made? It is also worth noting that such models are always deemed positive and helpful from the outset. Labels such as ‘negative’, ‘non-constructive’ or just plain ‘uncooperative’ await those that might suggest that there isn’t a possible positive outcome. Too often individuals undergoing this cyclic process of reflection are under pressure to conform or indeed accept a bad situation since the generally accepted view is that if it didn’t help you then you were obviously doing it wrong or not willing to give it a chance!
Forming Abstract Concepts: this is the point at which a form of generalisation takes place where an individual is able to understand or ‘see’ a general principle that can potentially be applied to a variety of situations or experiences rather than seeing each experience in isolation. Again if misreading occurs then the generalisation could result in dangerous generalisations being accepted. Goffman argues that society requires that matters are what they appear to be but clearly a cynical acceptance that they are not allows for generalisations that can be used to exploit situations for personal gain.
Testing in New Situations: this refers to the ability to get things done by influencing people and events. However, it seems that the key to achieving praxis is in becoming a better and more accomplished performer.
For Kolb, the learning process can and often does begin at any of the four stages and he claims that ‘ideally’ a person is involved in all four stages through the learning process – although this is not a process that we undertake explicitly. Indeed it has resonance with feedback theories in cybernetics and it may be argued that Kolb’s theory is an abstract form of biological theory.
Kolb identifies four learning styles stating that people naturally prefer or identify with a single learning style. This LSI is underpinned by three stages – acquisition, specialisation and Integration - in our development and our ability to move through the cycle improves as we move through the stages in our development. His 3 stages are:
For Kolb the learning styles are a product of two pairs of variables or choices that we make. These are:
Concrete Experience: Feeling v Abstract conceptualisation: Thinking
Active Experimentation: Doing v Reflective Observation: Watching
. . . . . .blah, blah, blah
Reflection is an activity and process that defines our age. We are encouraged as professionals, as humans, as people, as individuals, as families to reflect upon our lives and our goals and to consider the range of choices that we have made and the actions that resulted from those choices which, so the idea goes, have led us to where we are now. It then follows from this idea that the very process that led us to an understanding of our current position, needs and wants can help us to ‘move forward’ and work towards achieving our future personal and professional goals.
Throughout this there is the implicit (and indeed sometimes explicit) embedded message that an individual is the sum total of their choices and decisions and that the individual almost single headedly has the power to change any aspects of themselves or their lives that they deem undesirable, disappointing, not satisfying or indeed painful. I have to state at this point that I am of the opinion that individuals do not possess this limitless power (except in certain circumstances) and that for me a great deal of contemporary obsession with self reflection is indeed just another layer of control and performance.
In this work I shall be attempting to understand how I got to where I am now and to posit a potential plan as to future options that might assist me in getting to where I want to go. I shall do this through an analysis of Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle and Learning Styles Inventory in relation to my own experiences. I selected Kolb, since for me the process has always been a straight line and not a cycle and it has therefore been interesting to try to view my development cyclically and to see how I have resisted doing so up until now and whether or not this has perhaps contributed to my current long standing stagnation. Furthermore, I shall attempt to consider the work of Erving Goffman and his performance theory and underline the tensions within me as I seek to reconcile my needs and wants and my perceived lack of power. For me, Goffmans’ theories underline a serious barrier to any self power resulting in praxis.
Having considered these theories I shall then look at their application in key periods of my life and also their potential usefulness or otherwise in terms of affecting a seismic shift in my thinking and affording me some degree of control over my future.
Personal Reflection
Contemporary society is awash with opportunities for individuals and groups (and here I refer to groups as comprising of two or more people such as spouses, work colleagues, friends etc) to not only reflect upon their lives but also to consider their own personality types and traits. While many would consider some of the tests as found in trashy magazines, web sites and online communities as either harmless or helpful it is important to note the undercurrent of predestination that acts to secure the re-enforcement of existing ideals – accurate or otherwise. People have a need to feel good about themselves and our mass media society feeds the view that this is an accepted state and offers us consumer goods, self help, tests and counselling to assist in learning to feel good about ourselves. I might argue at this point than this is little more than a coded message that allows people to accept their lot by simply placing a suitable veneer upon it that fits with the individual’s existing self perception. This Forer effect underpins the ‘fun’ personality tests that I have attempted online as well as the more ‘serious’ psychometric testing models and the self reflective theories and models that I have come into contact with. Essentially, the tests and their results are so broad and general that there is something in there for everyone and with the right language anyone can reasonably assimilate the results as referring to them independently!
It is also interesting how positive these personalities or learning styles always are and the net effect of this re-enforcement is the ideal of the powerful individual. That with some relatively minor changes you can make massive differences to who you are and the life you lead. Why for example, is there no mention of ‘laziness’, ‘greed’, ‘aggressiveness’ and so on? Would such frankness undermine existing power and social structures? Would such frankness threaten the coherence and power of the front region as outlined by Goffman? Having taken a series of these tests through the early part of this unit it became clear to me that their reflective value was virtually zero in as much as I could choose to interpret such generalisations in any was I chose. Furthermore, we are all to a greater or lesser degree sophisticated enough to know what goes on ‘backstage’. This knowledge of the back region actually feeds our need to end up with a positive re-affirmation of our uniqueness and individual wonder. Thus we quickly engage in a conspiratorial performance that involves being more actively selective about the answers we choose or give and modify our responses to attempt to guarantee an outcome that tells us how amazing we are.
My first experience with psychometric testing occurred at my second interview for the post of lecturer in Multimedia – a post that I had created, was already doing and would have been the first of its kind. The test was administered half way through the day in between the first and second stage interviews by a senior HR official. Throughout it was clear that the individual was uncomfortable and lacking in experience about the test.
The questions were once again general and the performance dictated a set series of responses. At this stage it was clear that the definition of the performance and the situation was actively yet unspoken being agreed by both parties and a certain degree of ‘tact’ was being employed to gloss over the fact that we both already knew the answers that I would give. However, Goffman implies a certain degree of active consent or agreement in situ – not necessarily explicitly since we as humans live by inference. Yet this ‘consensual agreement’ already existed, long before I even applied for the job. It was predestined that should I want the job that this ‘veneer of consensus’ would be adhered to as a given. Where in this process was my active agreement, the single act of conscious power that allowed me to choose to accept the definition of the performance? Yes, I could have walked out or not applied in the first place but then the job would not have been an option. Hence the idea that we can affect change through the power of the individual is not quite what it seems.
However, In Goffman terms the interviewer was not experienced enough to interpret what I ‘gave out’ and what I ‘gave off’. Hence her ability to check the validity of my performance was severely compromised and this was nonetheless accepted. Just as psychometric tests aim to check the validity of a performance by juxtaposing responses against the performance it alters the relationship of the performer and audience when that ability is not exercised or possible.
In this sense, while Goffman would argue that I was qualified or authorised to perform and that both parties were consenting to the performance it was clear o me that I found the situation dishonest and utterly without value. For example in response to a question such as “Do you consider yourself to be a team player?” would anyone really respond with “No. I really don’t like working with other people and would prefer not to have to deal with them”? However, it must be said that I had complete and total belief in my performance and the answers I gave were immediate, honest and accurate.
It can thus be argued that to have gotten the job I would have to have fitted a preset range of criteria that included personality types and traits that were considered essential to perpetuating the show that the performers within the organisation put on. As Goffman himself suggest, a team of performers are more likely to welcome into the fold individuals who are
Despite ticking all the boxes, I failed to get the position at this, the second time of asking and this major event in my life has resulted in a staggering shift in my personality and approach to the world around me. To get the job I would have had to have engaged in ‘deceit’ and ’feigning’ in Goffman terms and this I found objectionable. If, as Goffman suggests, society expects moral character, that an individual ought to be what he claims to be then what of euphemisms such as ‘tailoring your responses’, ‘hiding your deficiencies’ or ‘making the most of your strong points’?
Kolb
David A Kolb’s experiential learning theory model based upon the work of Dewey and Lewin follows a four part cyclic arrangement where each part represents a stage in reflective personal and professional development. Kolb’s work is heavily influenced by the earlier work of Carl Gustav Jung. Kolb’s work has become popular in education circles and also in organisational structures in terms of staff development policies. There are contrasting views on the meanings for experiential learning but I will for the purposes of this paper refer to it as learning through personal reflection upon everyday experience in a setting not sponsored by an establishment.
According to Kolb (1984, 38) "Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience"
I have a feeling that I have always seen learning in a straight line on a personal level rather than as an ongoing cycle in the sense that you begin as a child with nothing and gradually acquire knowledge and experience as you grow which then affords you great control, comfort, satisfaction, achievement and status.
Again however, the cycle seems like a closed system and there is little opportunity for the actions of others to impinge upon the cycle. Goffman might suggest that the agreed definitions of the performance suggest that individuals can change from disbelievers to believers and vice versa and that such changes in approach are triggered through experiential learning. This does not through take into account the power of ‘others’ to control the range of potential outcomes afforded to individuals in any given setting. For example, countless sections of society feel disempowered, embattled and ‘kept down’. Can we really be asking ourselves to believe that they are all somehow unable to reflect upon their plight or that they are forever poor performers and therefore relegated to passive audiences or even backstage staff?
As an AS, learning for me is far more formalised and problematic in terms of self-reflection. Self reflection happens in me constantly but in two distinct ways; firstly the cyclic response to external stimulus i.e. what other people say or do and secondly an entirely closed internal world where reflection tends to re-enforce existing ideas and behaviour patterns.
Kolb’s cycle can be identified in four stages:
Concrete Experience: Learning from specific experiences and relating to people. A difficulty arises here in terms of verifying the ‘concreteness’ of any given experience and avoiding misreading. Furthermore if our dealings with others is based upon performances then is relating to people more about acquiring a wider portfolio of preset performances from which to draw from in our future social interactions? If experiences are misread then surely that invites major subsequent amplification of the misreading through the cycle and affects the ability of the individual to make sense of the experience and affect future change in new situations?
Observation and Experience: Observing before making a judgment. Here too there is the opportunity for misreading to be fed into the cycle. In the absence of ‘concrete’ information, or the inability of the individual to ‘infer’ according to the structures of any given society or the inability or unwillingness of the individual to accept a given performance or audience role, can accurate or meaningful judgements be made? It is also worth noting that such models are always deemed positive and helpful from the outset. Labels such as ‘negative’, ‘non-constructive’ or just plain ‘uncooperative’ await those that might suggest that there isn’t a possible positive outcome. Too often individuals undergoing this cyclic process of reflection are under pressure to conform or indeed accept a bad situation since the generally accepted view is that if it didn’t help you then you were obviously doing it wrong or not willing to give it a chance!
Forming Abstract Concepts: this is the point at which a form of generalisation takes place where an individual is able to understand or ‘see’ a general principle that can potentially be applied to a variety of situations or experiences rather than seeing each experience in isolation. Again if misreading occurs then the generalisation could result in dangerous generalisations being accepted. Goffman argues that society requires that matters are what they appear to be but clearly a cynical acceptance that they are not allows for generalisations that can be used to exploit situations for personal gain.
Testing in New Situations: this refers to the ability to get things done by influencing people and events. However, it seems that the key to achieving praxis is in becoming a better and more accomplished performer.
For Kolb, the learning process can and often does begin at any of the four stages and he claims that ‘ideally’ a person is involved in all four stages through the learning process – although this is not a process that we undertake explicitly. Indeed it has resonance with feedback theories in cybernetics and it may be argued that Kolb’s theory is an abstract form of biological theory.
Kolb identifies four learning styles stating that people naturally prefer or identify with a single learning style. This LSI is underpinned by three stages – acquisition, specialisation and Integration - in our development and our ability to move through the cycle improves as we move through the stages in our development. His 3 stages are:
For Kolb the learning styles are a product of two pairs of variables or choices that we make. These are:
Concrete Experience: Feeling v Abstract conceptualisation: Thinking
Active Experimentation: Doing v Reflective Observation: Watching
. . . . . .blah, blah, blah
Tuesday 16 February 2010
Giving Up . . . or not . . .
I feel at a cross roads right now and am not too sure what to do. I feel too tired to keep motivated and frankly would like to just give up and do the minimum. I want to do things, and take risks and be creative on the MA but I feel like I'm making it hard for myself and just being the same fool as always where I try to do what I think but in the end am no better off for it - an MA is an MA right?.
At the moment I feel like just giving up and taking the attitude that I have 4 units left to go which equal 4 lots of books to read, 4 essays about the books which will all lead to a piece of paper that says MA on it.
I haven't touched my interactive piece since I started to write up my evaluation and found that I still couldn't understand what the MA regards as the difference between explicit and implicit. I'm probably going to abandon it now since I cannot see how I can write and make in the time I have left. Once again I've found myself in the same boat - ie I will end up writing thousands of words in a short space of time then spend the last week or two chopping bits out to meet a word count. That process does not lend itself to evaluative, critical or analytical thought so I know I won't be happy with the result. Hence it then becomes even harder to get motivated for it.
Added to this is the wretched paperwork for the coming inspection the week after the hand in date. I have 9 x 34 lesson plans to rewrite, a 34 page scheme of work for each course I run, a 120 page student profile, 3 class profiles, 360 student progress reviews, self evaluations and ILPs plus 4 lever Arch files worth of paper for each course I run! - on top of teaching and assessment.
I just have to be doing something wrong. I just can't figure out what. I'm heading towards a stark choice: give up my job and concentrate on the MA in which case I can't pay my mortgage or give up my MA and be stuck in this crap job. But then I refuse to give up my MA (admittedly at this precise moment the reason being that I've paid for it).
I'm so angry that I haven't figured this out yet! I have only just started this assignment and Jon's post about 'Hopefully by now you'll have 1500 words already written . . ." took me completely by surprise! My immediate first horrified thought was "When was I supposed to have started that?".
I had it set or so I thought. I knew what I was doing. then as soon as I started to write up my notes on the theories I found myself wedging loads of needless crap in because I can't figure out if my 'informed' reader is what I think he/she is. I read Goffman today and again I'm trying to figure out how to write up my 8 pages of notes so that together with Kolb they don't get over 4000 words. I've already decided to leave out Freire, foucault, giddens, schon, lewin and dewey - which means that its not what I thought so my original interactive piece now has lots of useless visual elements in it!
I've been scouring the net for examples of explicit writing versus implicit meaning and not really getting anywhere. I mean in the Kolb stuff, do I have to explain each stage of the cycle and give examples for every aspect of the LSI or would an 'informed' reader pick up the link to my own experience?
IOW can I write:
"My recent job applications have highlighted the extreme tensions in myself between the processing continuum and the perception continuum."
or would I have to write:
"My recent job applications have highlighted the extreme tensions in myself between the processing continuum which Kolb defines as . . . and the perception continuum which kolb defines as . . . . For Kolb the tension between these two is . . . . and as a result . . . Both continuums have two extremes which are . . .."?
I had a similar experience on the first year of my BA. The result was that I went into myself, stopped reading, stopped attending lectures and just did what I 'felt'. Mind you, I came out of it with a First . . .
Anyway, I'm not doing anything else tonight as I'm too wound up. No college work, no reading, no writing, no coding, no graphics. I'm just going to try to sleep and see if I feel better about it tomorrow.
At the moment I feel like just giving up and taking the attitude that I have 4 units left to go which equal 4 lots of books to read, 4 essays about the books which will all lead to a piece of paper that says MA on it.
I haven't touched my interactive piece since I started to write up my evaluation and found that I still couldn't understand what the MA regards as the difference between explicit and implicit. I'm probably going to abandon it now since I cannot see how I can write and make in the time I have left. Once again I've found myself in the same boat - ie I will end up writing thousands of words in a short space of time then spend the last week or two chopping bits out to meet a word count. That process does not lend itself to evaluative, critical or analytical thought so I know I won't be happy with the result. Hence it then becomes even harder to get motivated for it.
Added to this is the wretched paperwork for the coming inspection the week after the hand in date. I have 9 x 34 lesson plans to rewrite, a 34 page scheme of work for each course I run, a 120 page student profile, 3 class profiles, 360 student progress reviews, self evaluations and ILPs plus 4 lever Arch files worth of paper for each course I run! - on top of teaching and assessment.
I just have to be doing something wrong. I just can't figure out what. I'm heading towards a stark choice: give up my job and concentrate on the MA in which case I can't pay my mortgage or give up my MA and be stuck in this crap job. But then I refuse to give up my MA (admittedly at this precise moment the reason being that I've paid for it).
I'm so angry that I haven't figured this out yet! I have only just started this assignment and Jon's post about 'Hopefully by now you'll have 1500 words already written . . ." took me completely by surprise! My immediate first horrified thought was "When was I supposed to have started that?".
I had it set or so I thought. I knew what I was doing. then as soon as I started to write up my notes on the theories I found myself wedging loads of needless crap in because I can't figure out if my 'informed' reader is what I think he/she is. I read Goffman today and again I'm trying to figure out how to write up my 8 pages of notes so that together with Kolb they don't get over 4000 words. I've already decided to leave out Freire, foucault, giddens, schon, lewin and dewey - which means that its not what I thought so my original interactive piece now has lots of useless visual elements in it!
I've been scouring the net for examples of explicit writing versus implicit meaning and not really getting anywhere. I mean in the Kolb stuff, do I have to explain each stage of the cycle and give examples for every aspect of the LSI or would an 'informed' reader pick up the link to my own experience?
IOW can I write:
"My recent job applications have highlighted the extreme tensions in myself between the processing continuum and the perception continuum."
or would I have to write:
"My recent job applications have highlighted the extreme tensions in myself between the processing continuum which Kolb defines as . . . and the perception continuum which kolb defines as . . . . For Kolb the tension between these two is . . . . and as a result . . . Both continuums have two extremes which are . . .."?
I had a similar experience on the first year of my BA. The result was that I went into myself, stopped reading, stopped attending lectures and just did what I 'felt'. Mind you, I came out of it with a First . . .
Anyway, I'm not doing anything else tonight as I'm too wound up. No college work, no reading, no writing, no coding, no graphics. I'm just going to try to sleep and see if I feel better about it tomorrow.
Part 1: Evaluation
David A Kolb’s experiential learning theory model based upon the work of Dewey and Lewin follows a four part cyclic arrangement where each part represents a stage in reflective personal and professional development. Kolb’s work is heavily influenced by the earlier work of Carl Gustav Jung who XXXXXX
According to Kolb (1984, 38) "Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience"
I’ve actually decided to look at Kolb’s theory for a variety of reasons:
It was the one drummed into me during PGCE in the late 1990’s.
I have a feeling that I have always seen learning in a straight line on a personal level rather than as an ongoing cycle in the sense that you begin as a child with nothing and gradually acquire knowledge and experience as you grow which then affords you great control, comfort, satisfaction, achievement and status. I have a feeling that I have been going round in circles for some time and even the most ardent supporter of merry go rounds will want to get off sooner or later!
In terms of control, I will return to some of these ideas later when discussing Goffman, Freire and Foucault.
The cycle seems like a closed system and there is little opportunity for the actions of others to impinge upon the cycle.
As an AS, learning for me is far more formalised and problematic in terms of self-reflection. Self reflection happens in me constantly but in two distinct ways; firstly the cyclic response to external stimulus i.e. what other people say or do and secondly an entirely closed internal world where reflection tends to re-enforce existing ideas and behaviour patterns.
Kolb’s cycle can be identified in four stages:
Concrete Experience: Learning from specific experiences and relating to people. It is the latter that I have found increasingly difficult, as I have gotten older and had an increasing number of ‘specific’ experiences.
Observation and Experience: Observing before making a judgment. This is a stage that I often find myself heavily situated in and my attempts to make sense of the world have lead me to quite difficult periods of my life where stagnation occurs. Through a judging of experience through vicarious experience of others’ experiences coupled with my own experiences has meant a complete halt to my learning cycle. As an AS I struggle to decipher meaning in any given social setting and will retreat into the internalised world where the power to transform it has no limitations or ambiguity. Perhaps I have been too preoccupied trying to understand the meaning of things and instead should look to simply adapting to fit?
Forming Abstract Concepts: this is the point at which a form of generalisation takes place where an individual is able to understand or ‘see’ a general principle that can potentially be applied to a variety of situations or experiences rather than seeing each experience in isolation.
Testing in New Situations: this refers to the ability to get things done by influencing people and events and in my experience this is a stage that I have very limited experience to draw upon. Most of my adult life has been spent feeling powerless to influence and to being beholden to the power of others. As a result at this stage new experiences do not occur which then feed into the next stage of the cycle. My generalisation at the previous stage has been one that has led to a belief system that re-enforces the sense of powerlessness and thus prevents active experimentation. In this sense my Kolb cycle is perhaps a far more limited cycle based upon the first two stages?
There are however contrasting meanings for ‘experiential learning’ which can loosely be stated as:
a) Involving a direct encounter with what is being studies rather than just thinking or reading about it
b) Learning thru personal reflection upon everyday experience – this definition is usually not sponsored by a formal education setting. In this form primary experiences are equivalent to sense experiences. ?
For Kolb, the learning process can and often does begin at any of the four stages and he claims that ‘ideally’ a person is involved in all four stages through the learning process – although this is not s process that we undertake explicitly. Indeed it has resonance with feedback theories in cybernetics and it may be argued that Kolb’s theory is an abstract form of biological theory?
Kolb expanded upon by identifying 4 learning styles and went on to state that people naturally prefer or identify with a single learning style. This is something I find hard to reconcile given that in my own personal reflection it is evident that I tend to straddle a number of different learning styles and that these styles vary and can be influenced both internally and externally.
But Kolb also identifies 3 stages in our development and he claims that our ability to move through the cycle improves as we move through the stages in our development. His 3 stages are:
Acquisition: where basic skills and abilities are defined. At this stage it is clear that my development was dominated by familial influences.
Specialisation: from school through to early personal and employment experiences. Kolb argues that the main influences here are: social, educational and organisational and that these influences shape our own specialised learning style. It is perhaps curious that my own learning style was far more open and varied than it is now. The imposition of ideas, values and norms was counter balanced by the greater sense of freedom and power that felt as a child. I felt no pressure to conform to anything that I felt was disingenuous and as such was far more open to new ideas and methodologies.
Integration: the adoption of a non-dominant learning style in both work and personal life, which occurs from mid career onwards. This does not reflect me at all!!!!
For Kolb the learning styles are a product of two pairs of variables or choices that we make. These are:
Concrete Experience: Feeling v Abstract conceptualisation: Thinking
Active Experimentation: Doing v Reflective Observation: Watching
In other words we choose our approach to the task (through our processing continuum) or experience ('grasping the experience') by opting for 1(a) or 1(b):
1(a) - though watching others involved in the experience and reflecting on what happens ('reflective observation' - 'watching') or
1(b) - through 'jumping straight in' and just doing it ('active experimentation' - 'doing')
And at the same time we choose how to emotionally transform the experience into something meaningful and useful (via our perception continuum) by opting for 2(a) or 2(b):
2(a) - through gaining new information by thinking, analyzing, or planning ('abstract conceptualization' - 'thinking') or
2(b) - through experiencing the 'concrete, tangible, felt qualities of the world' ('concrete experience' - 'feeling')
But do we really consciously make these choices?
The four learning styles (LSI) can be summarised as follows:
Diverging (feeling and watching - CE/RO)
I am/can / like to / believe: sensitive, watch, gather information, use imagination, have broad cultural interests, emotional, receive personal feedback.
I am not / cannot / don’t like to / don’t believe: Look at things from different perspectives and consider them equal, work in groups, listen with a completely open mind, interested in people
This could be me? Or is this what I want to be?
Assimilating (watching and thinking - AC/RO)
I am/can / like to / believe: ideas and concepts are more important than people, require good clear explanations, organise, having time to think things through
I am not / cannot / don’t like to / don’t believe: exploring analytical models, be thrown into the deep end
In terms of learning, this is definitely me! I don’t like being thrown in at the deep end and find that without some clear instruction that is unambiguous I can often struggle. Whether this is an aspect of AS I am as yet unclear.
Converging (doing and thinking - AC/AE)
I am / can / like to / believe: technical tasks, solve problems, specialisms, experiment
I am not / cannot / don’t like to / don’t believe: people and interpersonal aspects
This could also be me!!!
Accommodating (doing and feeling - CE/AE)
I am / can / like to / believe: intuition, hands on
I am not / cannot / don’t like to / don’t believe: using other people’s analysis, have new plans or challenges, rely on others, work in teams
This is the least like me!
It is important to note that Kolb does not define learning styles as absolutes but as tendencies and accepts that individuals may be able to change learning styles. Nevertheless, the thrust is that we prefer some learning style behaviours to others at any given period of our development. One of the most crucial roadblocks to my development appears to be my need to have someone ‘validate’ it. I feel the need to use ‘accepted’ analysis in order to gain validation and acceptance – ie I constantly need someone to tell me I’m doing things right. As an AS I need a smile everyday, I need a hug everyday and I need to be told that I am ok everyday.
Jung's 'Extraversion/Introversion' dialectical dimension here
Experiential learning proponents might suggest the following as relating to experiential learning:
Learning is best conceived as a process, not in terms of outcomes. This is where I diverge from this in the sense that for me it was far more of a straight-line approach – education or learning was a means to get to an end and that end was affluence and power.
All learning is relearning. Learning is best facilitated by a process that draws out the students' beliefs and ideas about a topic so that they can be examined, tested, and integrated with new, more refined ideas. This again I have had issues in terms of adapting to and accepting. My formative years led to a belief in the role of teachers as vessels or translators of knowledge in the same sense that in some tribal cultures the elders hold wisdom and knowledge that is then orally passed down to the next generation. The idea that ‘everyone’ has a valid point of view is one that I have always found difficult to accept. After all if everyone is special then no one is. Would some of our greatest accomplishments as a species have been made had everyone had the same level of ‘voice’ as those responsible for these great leaps in our development?
Learning requires the resolution of conflicts between dialectically opposed modes of adaptation to the world, i.e. reflection and action - and feeling and thinking. This is a key issue for me and in my own experience I now ‘feel’ far more about the world than I ‘act’. It is also interesting that I now see the world as being distinct from me – separate, other, hostile. This is in no small way a facet of AS but my current belief system cannot be attributed solely to this – especially since this mode of thinking is for me less than 20 years old.
Learning is a holistic process of adaptation to the world, not just cognition but also feeling, perceiving, and behaving.
Learning results from synergetic transactions between the person and the environment. The nature of these transactions is for me still a source of much confusion and distress and the level of consent and relative power structures appear also to be not clear. Have I really actively chosen to undertake a series of actions, choices and decisions that have led me to a point in my life diametrically opposed to any sense f my original aims and goals? How is it actually possible for an individual to do everything that takes them away from their goals? It is here that perhaps a closer examination of Freire, Goffman and Foucault might help.
Learning is the process of creating knowledge. My understanding of learning is that it is inextricable linked with acceptance.
According to Kolb (1984, 38) "Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience"
I’ve actually decided to look at Kolb’s theory for a variety of reasons:
It was the one drummed into me during PGCE in the late 1990’s.
I have a feeling that I have always seen learning in a straight line on a personal level rather than as an ongoing cycle in the sense that you begin as a child with nothing and gradually acquire knowledge and experience as you grow which then affords you great control, comfort, satisfaction, achievement and status. I have a feeling that I have been going round in circles for some time and even the most ardent supporter of merry go rounds will want to get off sooner or later!
In terms of control, I will return to some of these ideas later when discussing Goffman, Freire and Foucault.
The cycle seems like a closed system and there is little opportunity for the actions of others to impinge upon the cycle.
As an AS, learning for me is far more formalised and problematic in terms of self-reflection. Self reflection happens in me constantly but in two distinct ways; firstly the cyclic response to external stimulus i.e. what other people say or do and secondly an entirely closed internal world where reflection tends to re-enforce existing ideas and behaviour patterns.
Kolb’s cycle can be identified in four stages:
Concrete Experience: Learning from specific experiences and relating to people. It is the latter that I have found increasingly difficult, as I have gotten older and had an increasing number of ‘specific’ experiences.
Observation and Experience: Observing before making a judgment. This is a stage that I often find myself heavily situated in and my attempts to make sense of the world have lead me to quite difficult periods of my life where stagnation occurs. Through a judging of experience through vicarious experience of others’ experiences coupled with my own experiences has meant a complete halt to my learning cycle. As an AS I struggle to decipher meaning in any given social setting and will retreat into the internalised world where the power to transform it has no limitations or ambiguity. Perhaps I have been too preoccupied trying to understand the meaning of things and instead should look to simply adapting to fit?
Forming Abstract Concepts: this is the point at which a form of generalisation takes place where an individual is able to understand or ‘see’ a general principle that can potentially be applied to a variety of situations or experiences rather than seeing each experience in isolation.
Testing in New Situations: this refers to the ability to get things done by influencing people and events and in my experience this is a stage that I have very limited experience to draw upon. Most of my adult life has been spent feeling powerless to influence and to being beholden to the power of others. As a result at this stage new experiences do not occur which then feed into the next stage of the cycle. My generalisation at the previous stage has been one that has led to a belief system that re-enforces the sense of powerlessness and thus prevents active experimentation. In this sense my Kolb cycle is perhaps a far more limited cycle based upon the first two stages?
There are however contrasting meanings for ‘experiential learning’ which can loosely be stated as:
a) Involving a direct encounter with what is being studies rather than just thinking or reading about it
b) Learning thru personal reflection upon everyday experience – this definition is usually not sponsored by a formal education setting. In this form primary experiences are equivalent to sense experiences. ?
For Kolb, the learning process can and often does begin at any of the four stages and he claims that ‘ideally’ a person is involved in all four stages through the learning process – although this is not s process that we undertake explicitly. Indeed it has resonance with feedback theories in cybernetics and it may be argued that Kolb’s theory is an abstract form of biological theory?
Kolb expanded upon by identifying 4 learning styles and went on to state that people naturally prefer or identify with a single learning style. This is something I find hard to reconcile given that in my own personal reflection it is evident that I tend to straddle a number of different learning styles and that these styles vary and can be influenced both internally and externally.
But Kolb also identifies 3 stages in our development and he claims that our ability to move through the cycle improves as we move through the stages in our development. His 3 stages are:
Acquisition: where basic skills and abilities are defined. At this stage it is clear that my development was dominated by familial influences.
Specialisation: from school through to early personal and employment experiences. Kolb argues that the main influences here are: social, educational and organisational and that these influences shape our own specialised learning style. It is perhaps curious that my own learning style was far more open and varied than it is now. The imposition of ideas, values and norms was counter balanced by the greater sense of freedom and power that felt as a child. I felt no pressure to conform to anything that I felt was disingenuous and as such was far more open to new ideas and methodologies.
Integration: the adoption of a non-dominant learning style in both work and personal life, which occurs from mid career onwards. This does not reflect me at all!!!!
For Kolb the learning styles are a product of two pairs of variables or choices that we make. These are:
Concrete Experience: Feeling v Abstract conceptualisation: Thinking
Active Experimentation: Doing v Reflective Observation: Watching
In other words we choose our approach to the task (through our processing continuum) or experience ('grasping the experience') by opting for 1(a) or 1(b):
1(a) - though watching others involved in the experience and reflecting on what happens ('reflective observation' - 'watching') or
1(b) - through 'jumping straight in' and just doing it ('active experimentation' - 'doing')
And at the same time we choose how to emotionally transform the experience into something meaningful and useful (via our perception continuum) by opting for 2(a) or 2(b):
2(a) - through gaining new information by thinking, analyzing, or planning ('abstract conceptualization' - 'thinking') or
2(b) - through experiencing the 'concrete, tangible, felt qualities of the world' ('concrete experience' - 'feeling')
But do we really consciously make these choices?
The four learning styles (LSI) can be summarised as follows:
Diverging (feeling and watching - CE/RO)
I am/can / like to / believe: sensitive, watch, gather information, use imagination, have broad cultural interests, emotional, receive personal feedback.
I am not / cannot / don’t like to / don’t believe: Look at things from different perspectives and consider them equal, work in groups, listen with a completely open mind, interested in people
This could be me? Or is this what I want to be?
Assimilating (watching and thinking - AC/RO)
I am/can / like to / believe: ideas and concepts are more important than people, require good clear explanations, organise, having time to think things through
I am not / cannot / don’t like to / don’t believe: exploring analytical models, be thrown into the deep end
In terms of learning, this is definitely me! I don’t like being thrown in at the deep end and find that without some clear instruction that is unambiguous I can often struggle. Whether this is an aspect of AS I am as yet unclear.
Converging (doing and thinking - AC/AE)
I am / can / like to / believe: technical tasks, solve problems, specialisms, experiment
I am not / cannot / don’t like to / don’t believe: people and interpersonal aspects
This could also be me!!!
Accommodating (doing and feeling - CE/AE)
I am / can / like to / believe: intuition, hands on
I am not / cannot / don’t like to / don’t believe: using other people’s analysis, have new plans or challenges, rely on others, work in teams
This is the least like me!
It is important to note that Kolb does not define learning styles as absolutes but as tendencies and accepts that individuals may be able to change learning styles. Nevertheless, the thrust is that we prefer some learning style behaviours to others at any given period of our development. One of the most crucial roadblocks to my development appears to be my need to have someone ‘validate’ it. I feel the need to use ‘accepted’ analysis in order to gain validation and acceptance – ie I constantly need someone to tell me I’m doing things right. As an AS I need a smile everyday, I need a hug everyday and I need to be told that I am ok everyday.
Jung's 'Extraversion/Introversion' dialectical dimension here
Experiential learning proponents might suggest the following as relating to experiential learning:
Learning is best conceived as a process, not in terms of outcomes. This is where I diverge from this in the sense that for me it was far more of a straight-line approach – education or learning was a means to get to an end and that end was affluence and power.
All learning is relearning. Learning is best facilitated by a process that draws out the students' beliefs and ideas about a topic so that they can be examined, tested, and integrated with new, more refined ideas. This again I have had issues in terms of adapting to and accepting. My formative years led to a belief in the role of teachers as vessels or translators of knowledge in the same sense that in some tribal cultures the elders hold wisdom and knowledge that is then orally passed down to the next generation. The idea that ‘everyone’ has a valid point of view is one that I have always found difficult to accept. After all if everyone is special then no one is. Would some of our greatest accomplishments as a species have been made had everyone had the same level of ‘voice’ as those responsible for these great leaps in our development?
Learning requires the resolution of conflicts between dialectically opposed modes of adaptation to the world, i.e. reflection and action - and feeling and thinking. This is a key issue for me and in my own experience I now ‘feel’ far more about the world than I ‘act’. It is also interesting that I now see the world as being distinct from me – separate, other, hostile. This is in no small way a facet of AS but my current belief system cannot be attributed solely to this – especially since this mode of thinking is for me less than 20 years old.
Learning is a holistic process of adaptation to the world, not just cognition but also feeling, perceiving, and behaving.
Learning results from synergetic transactions between the person and the environment. The nature of these transactions is for me still a source of much confusion and distress and the level of consent and relative power structures appear also to be not clear. Have I really actively chosen to undertake a series of actions, choices and decisions that have led me to a point in my life diametrically opposed to any sense f my original aims and goals? How is it actually possible for an individual to do everything that takes them away from their goals? It is here that perhaps a closer examination of Freire, Goffman and Foucault might help.
Learning is the process of creating knowledge. My understanding of learning is that it is inextricable linked with acceptance.
Saturday 13 February 2010
A first mock up
THis is the current feel. All the graphics are either free or made by myself and the content will probably appear in floating windows? audio? video? not sure yet. anyway my books haven't arrived yet so I'm taking a break until Tuesday.
I'm going to be reading some Freire shortly altho I'm away for a couple of days now. I've been playing with Flash but its not moving fast enough for me so I might have to revert to something else instead to get something done in time. Altho I now I'm really up against it and still worried about whether or not I've stuffed myself again with regards to making things explicit, I have to admit I am a little happier not writing!
Thursday 11 February 2010
Barnum's Panopticon
I'm thinking of going for a simple theatre style look with perhaps paraphernalia that you can interact with. I'm having to scale back immensely after talking to you and also after the huge amount of paperwork that landed in my inbox this week - we have Internal inspection from 15th March - perfect
So far I have the idea of:
objects that convey my thoughts on some of the tests we've been exposed to
objects that convey my thoughts on some theories (Goffman, giddens, Foucault, Freire?)
A narrative based on my experiences and reflections using the Kolb Cycle as I mentioned over the phone
An object that acts as an action plan
Tuesday 9 February 2010
Oi Vey! The Things they say!
In response to Richard:
Sir, I accept your challenge! Ready?
The following have all been said to me at some time or other by various professionals in the education world:
"You are by far the most unsettling creature I have ever come across"
"Don't worry about what to do for a career, when you're 21 we'll all come and work for you"
"I can't quite decide if you are simply the most gifted person I've ever met or just the best looking stupid one"
"Frankly Raj, you are an enigma. You put me in mind of a theoretical patchwork doll"
"The most impressive thing about you is your dress sense"
"That is the best first piece of writing I've ever seen from a new first year student. What on Earth possessed you to come here?"
"Your problem is not your ability which nevertheless seems to somehow present a problem for me"
"Raj, mark my words, your naive idealism will be your undoing. This Internet business you keep wasting your time on, artists using computers for God's sake. Wake up and smell the coffee"
and my personal favourite:
"Raj, if we ever finally meet God and find out that after all this time he's just a child, he'd be just like you"
Beat that!
When I was an undergrad, I was told that I was 'ignorant at a high-level of consciousness'.
Beat that.
Sir, I accept your challenge! Ready?
The following have all been said to me at some time or other by various professionals in the education world:
"You are by far the most unsettling creature I have ever come across"
"Don't worry about what to do for a career, when you're 21 we'll all come and work for you"
"I can't quite decide if you are simply the most gifted person I've ever met or just the best looking stupid one"
"Frankly Raj, you are an enigma. You put me in mind of a theoretical patchwork doll"
"The most impressive thing about you is your dress sense"
"That is the best first piece of writing I've ever seen from a new first year student. What on Earth possessed you to come here?"
"Your problem is not your ability which nevertheless seems to somehow present a problem for me"
"Raj, mark my words, your naive idealism will be your undoing. This Internet business you keep wasting your time on, artists using computers for God's sake. Wake up and smell the coffee"
and my personal favourite:
"Raj, if we ever finally meet God and find out that after all this time he's just a child, he'd be just like you"
Beat that!
Monday 8 February 2010
Response to Sladjana's Post
Sladjana,
your post resonates very strongly with me and what I've been considering in this Unit.
I too am focussed on power relationships and structures in as much as how positions of power have eluded me. Freire is one of the few links that I found some indentity with
This too also resonates for me although I was wondering in what way you now see it as an advantage? For me its almost like the old Rock band idea of 'paying your dues'! Silly, I know!
This is where I diverge from your narrative. Yes, my parents did have an us and them attitude that filtered down to me but there's was was predicated on a pragmatic approach. Some people were born to be in power. Coupled with this was the idea that a strong work ethic, morality, goodness and integrity were the lynchpins of this right. Hence politicians were in government because they were the role models for us to follow (Can you believe that?!!!!).
I grew up with the idea that if you strove to work hard, to be different, to inspire to be smart then the corridors of power were a natural place for you to end up. Thus my echo-ing of your parents' views came much later in my life.
It is interesting that today having just retired my father is now proud of his achievements - not because of the grace of the people in power but in spite of them.
The first line is central to me. Every last experience of my life has re-enforced this - heavily. In the case of the second line we too had this belief but there were ways - education being the main one - that would allow us to join the latter camp where we would could affect change ie remove oppression
what if this is not possible - at least without violent struggle?
For me its now a mixed question. At times I know struggle to see the difference between Power and Freedom. I would almost certainly take Power over Freedom. Freedom for me has always been an unattainable goal, a myth that oils the wheels of the oppressed/oppressor dichotomy. If in a mass consumer society everyone is so free then why do so many people do, buy, say, like, believe the same things? (massive generalisation I know!!!)
I'm tied up at the mo with work stuff but I'll hopefully be posting back again by mid week.
BTW if you find anything helpful on Foucault and Marx I'd be appreciative of a link!
your post resonates very strongly with me and what I've been considering in this Unit.
On a practical level, one important change in my professional development is the way that I see people in positions of power. At this point it is useful for me to use Freire's concept of critical consciousness and what he aims to achieve with The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, with which I strongly identify.
I too am focussed on power relationships and structures in as much as how positions of power have eluded me. Freire is one of the few links that I found some indentity with
My consciousness of my class position and my relative disadvantage (granted, that is how I thought of it then; now I see my upbringing as a huge advantage)
This too also resonates for me although I was wondering in what way you now see it as an advantage? For me its almost like the old Rock band idea of 'paying your dues'! Silly, I know!
So, I have always conceived of my path in a narrative of struggle. This has a lot to do with my working class upbringing too, no doubt: migrant parents with a formidable work ethic who constantly reinforced the “us” (the oppressed) and “them” (the oppressors) divide: we have to work hard for a living, they can play with us however they like, they are in control while we, the poor old working folk, work all our lives to make money for them.
This is where I diverge from your narrative. Yes, my parents did have an us and them attitude that filtered down to me but there's was was predicated on a pragmatic approach. Some people were born to be in power. Coupled with this was the idea that a strong work ethic, morality, goodness and integrity were the lynchpins of this right. Hence politicians were in government because they were the role models for us to follow (Can you believe that?!!!!).
I grew up with the idea that if you strove to work hard, to be different, to inspire to be smart then the corridors of power were a natural place for you to end up. Thus my echo-ing of your parents' views came much later in my life.
It is interesting that today having just retired my father is now proud of his achievements - not because of the grace of the people in power but in spite of them.
One of the most important aspects of my professional development is questioning the nature of the oppressed/oppressor dichotomy. Growing up, it was always a given (in acknowledgement from my family, etc) that my we belonged to the former camp
The first line is central to me. Every last experience of my life has re-enforced this - heavily. In the case of the second line we too had this belief but there were ways - education being the main one - that would allow us to join the latter camp where we would could affect change ie remove oppression
Yet this narrative is as limiting as typographical self-reflection in many ways in the sense that if previous chapters set the tone for the present, then you can’t escape your past.
what if this is not possible - at least without violent struggle?
So the oppression dichotomy is helpful in that it enables me to question whether in fact this is the dichotomy through which the world is actually played out; and then, questioning how to move, as Freire writes, from a position of oppression to a position not of oppressor, but of freedom.
For me its now a mixed question. At times I know struggle to see the difference between Power and Freedom. I would almost certainly take Power over Freedom. Freedom for me has always been an unattainable goal, a myth that oils the wheels of the oppressed/oppressor dichotomy. If in a mass consumer society everyone is so free then why do so many people do, buy, say, like, believe the same things? (massive generalisation I know!!!)
I'm tied up at the mo with work stuff but I'll hopefully be posting back again by mid week.
BTW if you find anything helpful on Foucault and Marx I'd be appreciative of a link!
Wednesday 3 February 2010
40 Days and 40 nights Pt II
I joined Coleg Gwent in the early 90s as a part time lecturer just delivering a couple of hours a week of DTP. Coleg Gwent was an FE college in Newport and I worked in the Engineering Department under a man named David Nelms. David Nelms is the only manager I have ever met in my life who possessed no hypocrisy, no malice and had a genuine desire to help people. Towards the end of his career (blighted too soon by ill health) as the face of FE education was changing into the mess it is now he would fight tooth and nail for his team. As a former engineer he was smart, organized and a craftsman. he didn't really understand the potential of computers, nor did he have any idea about art, graphics or multimedia. But, he had a sense that a change was coming. Talking to him once he remarked that he felt I was made for great things (I have heard this so often its bizarre). He often told me that he thought I would become principal before I hit 30. (my teachers variously had told me that I would make my first million by 18, become the first asian prime minister by 35 and on one memorable occasion rewrite history before hitting 30 - I cannot comprehend what would make seemingly sane, educated adults say things like this to a child, least of all me)
The most brilliant part of his character was that he would turn to those who did know and those he could trust. David Nelms' greatest talent was his ability to spot the genuine article among a sea of phonies. I was on 2 hours a week and he asked me to begin creating what I had talked to him about - new interactive future. I wrote several courses, hundreds of units (in fact at one point a former head of OCN remarked that over 90% of all OCN units in creative media being delivered in Wales were written by me!). I bought Macs, software, cameras - you name it. I created the first multimedia studio in an FE institution in Wales - all as a part timer. In the meantime a full timer had been appointed in graphics that even he didn't know about. Later on he told me that he had found out, after a great deal of shouting, that the college was getting money from Europe to run courses to promote getting women into technology. As a result college managers had demanded that a woman be employed - not me. Still I continued to build - my week was now approaching 60+ hours and I was being paid for 24!
In the late 1990s the college found itself in serious financial problems (to the tune of several million) through what was alleged to be mismanagement, fraud and incompetence - it all blew up after some lecturers had anonymously blown the whistle to newspapers. The result was a massive restructure. It was also the time I left the union. the union had agreed a deal to safeguard most of the full time jobs - at the cost of massive cuts in part time hours. I was a union member too but a part timer - they stiffed us.
The restructure led to a new Section of Art and Design being created and I applied for the post of Section Head. I didn't get it.It turned out that the successful candidate was a close personal friend of the head of the faculty and despite having demonstrated no ability was preferred to me. I stayed on and decided to carry on what I was doing.
Around the same time I had finally managed to persuade the Head of Campus at the time that my concept for a state of the Art Multimedia building should be taken on. I had won the argument about multimedia and even my fiercest critics could not argue with my belief that games, mobiles, web, interactivity were the future. I sat in the Director's office talking him through lans, sketches and designs for the building (the same one I had pitched to UWN some five years earlier - with an estimated cost of £18m. I was virtually laughed out of the boardroom for suggesting something so 'ludicrously expensive'. A year after UWN dispensed with my services they had a new building built on the campus for the art faculty - it was smaller, less innovative, had no integrated technology and cost over £4.5m more than mine)
It all looked like finally things would happen. Yet, more financial woes had been unearthed and less than 6 months later - just a few months before the bulldozers would have started work on my building - the land for it was sold off to Aldi.
This is the point at which I felt I couldn't go on. It was also the first time in my life when I genuinely felt sub-human.
There was another restructure and I couldn't apply for Head of School since the posts were now ring fenced.
Now I am programme leader (although my deputy head of campus refers to me as 'just' a lecturer) of multimedia and watching the rapid destruction of the everything I had once built. I still have a studio but creativity no longer flourishes. I spend the best part of my week both in work and out completing needless paper work that does nothing but hide the deficiencies of managers. I have no autonomy. I get told what to teach, where to teach, when to teach, how to teach and what with. I'm not even allowed to put an ink cartridge in my studio printers. I can't purchase anything anymore so we keep buying crap technology that it wholly unsuitable. Teaching and Learning has become secondary to the management of teaching and learning. I have no voice. I have half a million pounds of hardware and for the past 2 years neither final cut pro, motion, CS2 Suite or DVD STudio Pro has worked. All my cameras today are £300 Argos consumer type jobbies, I've been waiting for 3 years for game development kit and I now use more square footage of space for storing administrative files than student portfolios. My studio is in the corner of the engineering workshop block. Most days my Mac Pros are slower than the 10 year old G4s they replaced. Squeezing anything to do with Welshness and Wales into the kids' daily routine is more important than encouraging creativity. In short, I've failed again.
One day recently I woke up and found that I was 40 and my life had gone. I hadn't even noticed. I don't know what I want to do or even what I can do. I don't trust my talents or abilities and doubt them regularly.
I do know though that I have to leave. taking on this MA is the first step. Beyond it I can't see anything. My BA turned out to be as worthless as I feared and I can't dismiss the possibility that one of the reasons that I am struggling to consider a future plan is the nagging suspicion that after graduating with an MA I might find history repeating itself. so why put too much hope on the future?
I've thought about maybe looking at creating iphone (or even ipad!) games. I could lock myself away with just a mac and an internet connection and work - never having to see another human again. I need to do some serious upskilling in coding for this tho. I can handle Lingo, Javascript and a little Actionscript, but I haven't touched C for nearly 8 years now. I have good skills in 3D, Graphics, Video, DVD and interactive authoring. I can also write fiction ok - although I've never tried to get anything published.
As a child I thought it would be a good thing to grow up and change the world - make it a better place in the sense that children think of. I always felt like the world was in trouble - I don't know why - and that someone should save it. I grew up trying. Now I don't care if the world becomes better or not. It doesn't want to be saved. Only my monumental stupidity and arrogance wouldn't let me see that.
If I get my MA I might feel better. if I can get a new job or career out of it that would be better. if I could become successful enough to bulldoze UWN and Coleg Gwent, salt the earth and carve my name into the ground then maybe I might finally be able to sleep at night.
The most brilliant part of his character was that he would turn to those who did know and those he could trust. David Nelms' greatest talent was his ability to spot the genuine article among a sea of phonies. I was on 2 hours a week and he asked me to begin creating what I had talked to him about - new interactive future. I wrote several courses, hundreds of units (in fact at one point a former head of OCN remarked that over 90% of all OCN units in creative media being delivered in Wales were written by me!). I bought Macs, software, cameras - you name it. I created the first multimedia studio in an FE institution in Wales - all as a part timer. In the meantime a full timer had been appointed in graphics that even he didn't know about. Later on he told me that he had found out, after a great deal of shouting, that the college was getting money from Europe to run courses to promote getting women into technology. As a result college managers had demanded that a woman be employed - not me. Still I continued to build - my week was now approaching 60+ hours and I was being paid for 24!
In the late 1990s the college found itself in serious financial problems (to the tune of several million) through what was alleged to be mismanagement, fraud and incompetence - it all blew up after some lecturers had anonymously blown the whistle to newspapers. The result was a massive restructure. It was also the time I left the union. the union had agreed a deal to safeguard most of the full time jobs - at the cost of massive cuts in part time hours. I was a union member too but a part timer - they stiffed us.
The restructure led to a new Section of Art and Design being created and I applied for the post of Section Head. I didn't get it.It turned out that the successful candidate was a close personal friend of the head of the faculty and despite having demonstrated no ability was preferred to me. I stayed on and decided to carry on what I was doing.
Around the same time I had finally managed to persuade the Head of Campus at the time that my concept for a state of the Art Multimedia building should be taken on. I had won the argument about multimedia and even my fiercest critics could not argue with my belief that games, mobiles, web, interactivity were the future. I sat in the Director's office talking him through lans, sketches and designs for the building (the same one I had pitched to UWN some five years earlier - with an estimated cost of £18m. I was virtually laughed out of the boardroom for suggesting something so 'ludicrously expensive'. A year after UWN dispensed with my services they had a new building built on the campus for the art faculty - it was smaller, less innovative, had no integrated technology and cost over £4.5m more than mine)
It all looked like finally things would happen. Yet, more financial woes had been unearthed and less than 6 months later - just a few months before the bulldozers would have started work on my building - the land for it was sold off to Aldi.
This is the point at which I felt I couldn't go on. It was also the first time in my life when I genuinely felt sub-human.
There was another restructure and I couldn't apply for Head of School since the posts were now ring fenced.
Now I am programme leader (although my deputy head of campus refers to me as 'just' a lecturer) of multimedia and watching the rapid destruction of the everything I had once built. I still have a studio but creativity no longer flourishes. I spend the best part of my week both in work and out completing needless paper work that does nothing but hide the deficiencies of managers. I have no autonomy. I get told what to teach, where to teach, when to teach, how to teach and what with. I'm not even allowed to put an ink cartridge in my studio printers. I can't purchase anything anymore so we keep buying crap technology that it wholly unsuitable. Teaching and Learning has become secondary to the management of teaching and learning. I have no voice. I have half a million pounds of hardware and for the past 2 years neither final cut pro, motion, CS2 Suite or DVD STudio Pro has worked. All my cameras today are £300 Argos consumer type jobbies, I've been waiting for 3 years for game development kit and I now use more square footage of space for storing administrative files than student portfolios. My studio is in the corner of the engineering workshop block. Most days my Mac Pros are slower than the 10 year old G4s they replaced. Squeezing anything to do with Welshness and Wales into the kids' daily routine is more important than encouraging creativity. In short, I've failed again.
One day recently I woke up and found that I was 40 and my life had gone. I hadn't even noticed. I don't know what I want to do or even what I can do. I don't trust my talents or abilities and doubt them regularly.
I do know though that I have to leave. taking on this MA is the first step. Beyond it I can't see anything. My BA turned out to be as worthless as I feared and I can't dismiss the possibility that one of the reasons that I am struggling to consider a future plan is the nagging suspicion that after graduating with an MA I might find history repeating itself. so why put too much hope on the future?
I've thought about maybe looking at creating iphone (or even ipad!) games. I could lock myself away with just a mac and an internet connection and work - never having to see another human again. I need to do some serious upskilling in coding for this tho. I can handle Lingo, Javascript and a little Actionscript, but I haven't touched C for nearly 8 years now. I have good skills in 3D, Graphics, Video, DVD and interactive authoring. I can also write fiction ok - although I've never tried to get anything published.
As a child I thought it would be a good thing to grow up and change the world - make it a better place in the sense that children think of. I always felt like the world was in trouble - I don't know why - and that someone should save it. I grew up trying. Now I don't care if the world becomes better or not. It doesn't want to be saved. Only my monumental stupidity and arrogance wouldn't let me see that.
If I get my MA I might feel better. if I can get a new job or career out of it that would be better. if I could become successful enough to bulldoze UWN and Coleg Gwent, salt the earth and carve my name into the ground then maybe I might finally be able to sleep at night.
40 Days and 40 nights
I've been trying to figure out how I got where I am today and a couple of things kept cropping up in the back of my mind. Firstly, "where" am I? and have I actually "gotten" anywhere? Secondly Its hard to do because if I try I just get the feeling that I've been sleepwalking and suddenly turned around to find that I was 40. The in between seems at times like 40 seconds and others like 40 lifetimes.
I graduated from UWN in 1992 (or it might be 1991 - I can't even remember) and found myself completely at a loss. Hypercard and multimedia had given me the glimmer of hope of a career but there was no such thing really as the Multimedia Industry, few courses, creative jobs were very traditional and people generally viewed computers in a very different way. I was actually naive enough to believe that if I explained to people the potential of Multimedia as I saw it that they would welcome it with open arms!
I applied to RCA to do an MA even though I really didn't want to study any more - not after UWN. Maybe this was because I still had this hope that there was something better and that UWN was just an aberration? Maybe because I didn't know what to do? Maybe because I felt my BA was worthless and that I needed an MA to feel good about myself again? I just don't know. Suffice to say, that I didn't get accepted and decided that academic study was just another posh exclusive club - with a big sign on the door that read "People like you - Keep Out".
I was still living above an indian restaurant (how ironic) in Newport but I started applying for jobs in graphics, art, media, games etc all over England and Wales and despite a great many applications never got a single interview. I then went to design employment agencies who were only too keen to have me but never actually found me any work! I remember catching a train up to an agency in Birmingham and when I was being 'personally profiled' was asked by my 'personal career liaison' what 'interactive' meant and whether I wouldn't be happier looking at becoming an art therapist. I got book after book from the library about applying, writing CVs - all to no avail.
In the meantime, my head of faculty (the one I'd met the first day I'd gone to see the campus) asked me if I fancied doing a few hours teaching on the BA programme. I'd never really thought about teaching as a career although I'd spent a great deal of time thinking about technology and education. I'd always imagined myself going on to develop education technology and methodology rather than actually teaching. But, hey, it was cash and I had rent to pay.
I started straight off and since many of the second and third year students knew me I was actually very popular and sought after. Despite the resistance from the rest of the faculty the students seemed to share my ideas and demanded that multimedia be an option. I had a sometime ally in the Director of Computing (which actually meant something very different to that which the title refers to now) and I put forward to him some of my ideas. Suddenly I felt like I had found a real opportunity. Here was a barren planet waiting to be terraformed. Here was the world that would shape. The next couple of years were a blur of frenzied activity. I sacrificed everything to build the foundations of what I intended to be a new Multimedia faculty with Mac rooms studios, net access, complete interactive engagement.
I felt like I could actually build something - make a great many of the things that had been rattling around in my head for some time real. I had the autonomy, the respect of my students, the skill and will to do it. I knew that I had critics higher up who saw making videos on a computer or creating interactive electronic sculptures or games as some kind of heresy but I genuinely believed that through sheer persistence I could eventually win even them over. I was only being paid for around 12 hours a week but it had now become a 50+ hour a week job that I threw myself into. There was now a waiting list of weeks for students to see me. It culminated in the student body pushing forward a petition to the College to have me as a full time programme leader for MUltimedia in what became quite a public campaign - none of which I encouraged.
In the end the College opted to put out an ad for the job I was doing and some of my colleagues slapped me on the back and told me how they couldn't wait for me to come fully on board. I applied and got through all stages of the interview. I couldn't believe my luck when I met the other candidates ad they were so hopelessly unsuitable that any minor fears I had were dispelled in seconds - I think my nearest rival was a former formula one pit man!
What happened next shook me to the core. The college turned around and said that no-one was perfect for the job and so they had decided not to appoint anyone! I was bewildered but still too green to figure things out - or maybe in denial.
The job was re-advertised a couple of months later and I applied again - for the job I had created and was already doing. Again, I got through all stages of the interview - leaving me and just one other candidate. I should have known something was wrong when I asked the Principal during my third interview what his hopes were for a possible Multimedia faculty - to which he replied "I really don't care".
A month later, I was called into the Dean's office to speak to the Dean and the Head of Design (who just two years earlier had been a visiting lecturer!). They told me that I hadn't got the job because - get this - "Your CV was an Industry CV and not an academic CV"!!!!!
I don't remember what I felt - I just could not comprehend the situation. They gave the job to a white, middle class, middle aged, bow tie wearing candidate who knew nothing about Multimedia! I was subsequently told that my services were no longer required. The successful candidate was so lacking in any idea about Multimedia that he was given a manual on HYpercard and Director to learn some software and they actually had him working in the admin office as a secretary (on full pay) for months while the fledgling department lay dormant!
The heads of graphics and art came to tell me how they couldn't believe what had happened. During my interview process I had to give a 30 minute presentation on the future on technology, the internet, creativity and education. At the end of mine the lecturers stood and applauded. One programme leader came up to me, shook my hand and told me that he had never heard anything like it (my presentation) in his life, adding "NIce one, its in the bag!".
Something inside me broke.
Since that time I have applied to UWN on no less than 10 occasions - lecturer, senior lecturer, programme leader, head of design - you name it. All unsuccessfully. I even had the indignity of former students of mine beating me to the jobs I applied for only to leave in less than 9 months as they were in way over their heads! In the meantime the organization has struggled to find a replacement for me in over 15 years with a turnover of lecturers in multimedia unparalleled anywhere. About 3 years ago I applied for the once again vacant poison chalice of the lecturer in Multimedia. I got an interview, did well but didn't get the job again! I was told that I didn't have enough HE teaching experience. The successful candidate this time around was another former student of mine (who was taking over from the previous incumbent who was ALSO a former student of mine!!)
who had less HE teaching experience than me! I also found out that this candidate (an internal candidate and part time lecturer) was allegedly at the time under investigation for alleged serious sexual misconduct with a female student!
He was in post for 1 year before being promoted to programme leader, leaving the lecturer job once again vacant. I applied but didn't even get an interview! The successful candidate was less qualified than me and struggled to cope with the job before leaving with 'ill health' in a year!
Last year was the last time I applied - this time for Head of Design (the part time lecturer above who became senior lecturer, then programme leader then acting Head of Design was now Head of Design - and leaving!)
I applied but got no response. I rang them and they said they'd get back to me. The following day I got a letter to say that my application had been rejected because it had been sent after the deadline. I emailed them and stated that I had proof (which I did) that I been well within the deadline. Two days later I got a letter that thanked me for my application but that after due careful consideration of my application it was decided that there were other more suitable candidates!
I wrote and asked them why I hadn't been considered. They wrote back and said that it was because I only had HE teaching experience at 'foundation' level. I wrote back and sated that actually I was teaching on 'their' undergraduate programme and assessing on 'their' BA Hons. They wrote back and told me that it was because I did not have an MA. I write back to them and stated that the previous incumbent did not have an MA either and that not only was thins not an issue for him but that it was a clear indication that an MA was not mandatory! I also asked them if they operated a blacklist. They replied by saying that they could not discuss the suitability of other candidates. I wrote back and asked them again if they operated a blacklist. They wrote back and said that they did not operate a blacklist. They also then incredibly wrote in the same letter that they had an Academic Leader's job at the Uni which was well suited to me and they would welcome an application from me for the post!!!
Why would I apply for a job I already had? (I was academic leader at my current employer at the time - a fact that was in big letters on my application). It was just an attempt to put something in writing to fend off accusations in any possible legal action. they could always just say - "look, we can't possibly be blacklisting him or prejudicing anything. After all here, in black and white we've actually invited to him to apply for a job with us!"
Why do I keep doing this? Why can't I seem to let go? I don't know. I guess that I've always believed that while I might not exactly be einstein I'm pretty smart - yet I cannot find any explanation for any of it. I can't understand why any of it happened and I guess until I do understand then I cannot get closure. It has haunted me for the best part of my adult life. If people are genuinely genuine as all the reflective tools seem hell bent on implying, If organisations are not all bent, If people are not conniving, two faced wretches then there is something that clearly I don't understand.
if on the other hand the above is wrong and people are genuinely evil then I've been royally raped - many times over. So why should I be the one to live my life in shame? Why should I allow them to profit from it? I'm not like some people you read about who can suffer incredible misfortune at the hands of others and still find it in themselves to forgive and move on. I wish I was but I'm not.
I graduated from UWN in 1992 (or it might be 1991 - I can't even remember) and found myself completely at a loss. Hypercard and multimedia had given me the glimmer of hope of a career but there was no such thing really as the Multimedia Industry, few courses, creative jobs were very traditional and people generally viewed computers in a very different way. I was actually naive enough to believe that if I explained to people the potential of Multimedia as I saw it that they would welcome it with open arms!
I applied to RCA to do an MA even though I really didn't want to study any more - not after UWN. Maybe this was because I still had this hope that there was something better and that UWN was just an aberration? Maybe because I didn't know what to do? Maybe because I felt my BA was worthless and that I needed an MA to feel good about myself again? I just don't know. Suffice to say, that I didn't get accepted and decided that academic study was just another posh exclusive club - with a big sign on the door that read "People like you - Keep Out".
I was still living above an indian restaurant (how ironic) in Newport but I started applying for jobs in graphics, art, media, games etc all over England and Wales and despite a great many applications never got a single interview. I then went to design employment agencies who were only too keen to have me but never actually found me any work! I remember catching a train up to an agency in Birmingham and when I was being 'personally profiled' was asked by my 'personal career liaison' what 'interactive' meant and whether I wouldn't be happier looking at becoming an art therapist. I got book after book from the library about applying, writing CVs - all to no avail.
In the meantime, my head of faculty (the one I'd met the first day I'd gone to see the campus) asked me if I fancied doing a few hours teaching on the BA programme. I'd never really thought about teaching as a career although I'd spent a great deal of time thinking about technology and education. I'd always imagined myself going on to develop education technology and methodology rather than actually teaching. But, hey, it was cash and I had rent to pay.
I started straight off and since many of the second and third year students knew me I was actually very popular and sought after. Despite the resistance from the rest of the faculty the students seemed to share my ideas and demanded that multimedia be an option. I had a sometime ally in the Director of Computing (which actually meant something very different to that which the title refers to now) and I put forward to him some of my ideas. Suddenly I felt like I had found a real opportunity. Here was a barren planet waiting to be terraformed. Here was the world that would shape. The next couple of years were a blur of frenzied activity. I sacrificed everything to build the foundations of what I intended to be a new Multimedia faculty with Mac rooms studios, net access, complete interactive engagement.
I felt like I could actually build something - make a great many of the things that had been rattling around in my head for some time real. I had the autonomy, the respect of my students, the skill and will to do it. I knew that I had critics higher up who saw making videos on a computer or creating interactive electronic sculptures or games as some kind of heresy but I genuinely believed that through sheer persistence I could eventually win even them over. I was only being paid for around 12 hours a week but it had now become a 50+ hour a week job that I threw myself into. There was now a waiting list of weeks for students to see me. It culminated in the student body pushing forward a petition to the College to have me as a full time programme leader for MUltimedia in what became quite a public campaign - none of which I encouraged.
In the end the College opted to put out an ad for the job I was doing and some of my colleagues slapped me on the back and told me how they couldn't wait for me to come fully on board. I applied and got through all stages of the interview. I couldn't believe my luck when I met the other candidates ad they were so hopelessly unsuitable that any minor fears I had were dispelled in seconds - I think my nearest rival was a former formula one pit man!
What happened next shook me to the core. The college turned around and said that no-one was perfect for the job and so they had decided not to appoint anyone! I was bewildered but still too green to figure things out - or maybe in denial.
The job was re-advertised a couple of months later and I applied again - for the job I had created and was already doing. Again, I got through all stages of the interview - leaving me and just one other candidate. I should have known something was wrong when I asked the Principal during my third interview what his hopes were for a possible Multimedia faculty - to which he replied "I really don't care".
A month later, I was called into the Dean's office to speak to the Dean and the Head of Design (who just two years earlier had been a visiting lecturer!). They told me that I hadn't got the job because - get this - "Your CV was an Industry CV and not an academic CV"!!!!!
I don't remember what I felt - I just could not comprehend the situation. They gave the job to a white, middle class, middle aged, bow tie wearing candidate who knew nothing about Multimedia! I was subsequently told that my services were no longer required. The successful candidate was so lacking in any idea about Multimedia that he was given a manual on HYpercard and Director to learn some software and they actually had him working in the admin office as a secretary (on full pay) for months while the fledgling department lay dormant!
The heads of graphics and art came to tell me how they couldn't believe what had happened. During my interview process I had to give a 30 minute presentation on the future on technology, the internet, creativity and education. At the end of mine the lecturers stood and applauded. One programme leader came up to me, shook my hand and told me that he had never heard anything like it (my presentation) in his life, adding "NIce one, its in the bag!".
Something inside me broke.
Since that time I have applied to UWN on no less than 10 occasions - lecturer, senior lecturer, programme leader, head of design - you name it. All unsuccessfully. I even had the indignity of former students of mine beating me to the jobs I applied for only to leave in less than 9 months as they were in way over their heads! In the meantime the organization has struggled to find a replacement for me in over 15 years with a turnover of lecturers in multimedia unparalleled anywhere. About 3 years ago I applied for the once again vacant poison chalice of the lecturer in Multimedia. I got an interview, did well but didn't get the job again! I was told that I didn't have enough HE teaching experience. The successful candidate this time around was another former student of mine (who was taking over from the previous incumbent who was ALSO a former student of mine!!)
who had less HE teaching experience than me! I also found out that this candidate (an internal candidate and part time lecturer) was allegedly at the time under investigation for alleged serious sexual misconduct with a female student!
He was in post for 1 year before being promoted to programme leader, leaving the lecturer job once again vacant. I applied but didn't even get an interview! The successful candidate was less qualified than me and struggled to cope with the job before leaving with 'ill health' in a year!
Last year was the last time I applied - this time for Head of Design (the part time lecturer above who became senior lecturer, then programme leader then acting Head of Design was now Head of Design - and leaving!)
I applied but got no response. I rang them and they said they'd get back to me. The following day I got a letter to say that my application had been rejected because it had been sent after the deadline. I emailed them and stated that I had proof (which I did) that I been well within the deadline. Two days later I got a letter that thanked me for my application but that after due careful consideration of my application it was decided that there were other more suitable candidates!
I wrote and asked them why I hadn't been considered. They wrote back and said that it was because I only had HE teaching experience at 'foundation' level. I wrote back and sated that actually I was teaching on 'their' undergraduate programme and assessing on 'their' BA Hons. They wrote back and told me that it was because I did not have an MA. I write back to them and stated that the previous incumbent did not have an MA either and that not only was thins not an issue for him but that it was a clear indication that an MA was not mandatory! I also asked them if they operated a blacklist. They replied by saying that they could not discuss the suitability of other candidates. I wrote back and asked them again if they operated a blacklist. They wrote back and said that they did not operate a blacklist. They also then incredibly wrote in the same letter that they had an Academic Leader's job at the Uni which was well suited to me and they would welcome an application from me for the post!!!
Why would I apply for a job I already had? (I was academic leader at my current employer at the time - a fact that was in big letters on my application). It was just an attempt to put something in writing to fend off accusations in any possible legal action. they could always just say - "look, we can't possibly be blacklisting him or prejudicing anything. After all here, in black and white we've actually invited to him to apply for a job with us!"
Why do I keep doing this? Why can't I seem to let go? I don't know. I guess that I've always believed that while I might not exactly be einstein I'm pretty smart - yet I cannot find any explanation for any of it. I can't understand why any of it happened and I guess until I do understand then I cannot get closure. It has haunted me for the best part of my adult life. If people are genuinely genuine as all the reflective tools seem hell bent on implying, If organisations are not all bent, If people are not conniving, two faced wretches then there is something that clearly I don't understand.
if on the other hand the above is wrong and people are genuinely evil then I've been royally raped - many times over. So why should I be the one to live my life in shame? Why should I allow them to profit from it? I'm not like some people you read about who can suffer incredible misfortune at the hands of others and still find it in themselves to forgive and move on. I wish I was but I'm not.
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