Introduction
I strongly believe that learning should be engaging, exciting and interactive. bell hooks said that “As a classroom community, our capacity to generate excitement is deeply affected by our interest in one another, in hearing one another’s voices, in recognizing one another’s presence.” How we perceive and work with those around us is heavily influenced by our positionality. By understanding how our own positionality affects our outlook and biases we can substantially improve how we work and interact with each other. Through my PgCert journey I have come to realise that positionality can have a big impact on both myself and my students. This impact is not only felt in the classroom but will also be felt in my student’s longer-term careers. In the factual television world, we create content that documents real people and the events that shape them. If my students are aware of their lived experiences and potential biases, they will be in a better position to create content that is not slanted by that bias.
As a lecturer in factual television, I have always believed that one of my primary objectives is to enable students to tell balanced, transparent and unbiased stories. Although I have always ensured a wide range of opinions were represented on programmes, up until now I have never considered my own positionality and how this affected the films I made and how I teach and interact with my students now. If we want the next generation of programme makers to challenge stereotypes and biases, they can only do this successfully if they understand their own. Freire reenforces this concept by saying “[T]he more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can transform it. This individual is not afraid to confront, to listen, to see the world unveiled. This person is not afraid to meet the people or to enter into a dialogue with them.”
I teach a diverse group of students. This year we have students from China, Taiwan, Kazakhstan, Norway, Spain, Italy, Hungry, USA and the UK. This diversity is something we celebrate but it can also have a big impact on the people they choose to work with and their interactions with other students. As the course only runs for 14 months the students must quickly build relationships and learn to work together. When I was marking the student’s critical analysis of their first assignments, I noticed phrases such as “conflict due to cultural differences”, “lack of confidence due to language barrier”, “feelings of not being heard by male members of the group”,’’ feeling excluded in their group as they did not speak the dominate language’’. Based on this analysis I saw the need to facilitate an intervention so that students could all acknowledge their differences and biases.
The Intervention
My lesson plan to introduce positionality to the cohort is as follows
I start by asking my students to write down three facts about themselves – one of which must be false. The cohort then chooses which they think is false. This exercise is a good icebreaker as it is fun and a good way to begin to feel comfortable with each other. It is also a simple way to highlight how we all make assumptions about people based on what they look like, how they speak or their race.
Next, I give the students 5 mins to use the image below and think about which of these listed lenses they see the world though, and they believe makes up their positionality.
The students then break into small breakout groups and to share their own positionality and discuss the following questions
- Who are you?
- How are you perceived by others?
- What are the implications of that perception?
Students first share thoughts within their groups, then as a whole cohort we share our thoughts and insights. I also give my own positionality and include thoughts on myself.
I plan to use this session to prepare the students for writing a code of conduct for the course. The code will lay out the moral and ethical expectations from students and tutors on the course. We all agree to adhere to these rules. It is written by the students to address issues such as how to go about conflict resolution, how we deal with one student insulting another in class, freedom of speech, mutual respect etc.
In Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy model, he discusses how the teacher and pupil are entwined in the learning process. He compares this to the banking concept of education, where the students ‘‘turn into ‘containers’ to be ‘filled’” by the teacher. The critical pedagogy model is important to use in this intervention session and the writing of the code as it is paramount that the students and tutors voices are jointly heard.
This will be a good time for me to signpost many resources for the students to call upon during their time at UAL. The Shades of Noir resources, like Intersectional Film which offers further insight into intersectionality and UAL’s Religion, Belief and Faith identities UAL website.
My Process
From the beginning of my PgCert to now I have been on a very personal journey. Prior to the PgCert my teaching was more aligned to Freire’s ‘banking concept’ and I acknowledge that I was bringing my own biases into the classroom. Moving forwards, I will try to create a space where ‘“The classroom remains the most radical space of possibility in the academy” (hooks) and where I am “no longer the-one-who-teaches, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach.” (Friere).
This intervention is not a one-off workshop but an ongoing work journey for me and my students. To show inclusivity, I will cover intersectionality and I will be mindful in the material I choose, making it as diverse as possible. In our news programme module, we already discuss inclusion and bias, so this will be a good time to look at positionality, making sure we hear everyone’s voice and show the diversity of options and people in the UK.
My MA students have previously produced programmes that covered themes such as race, sexuality, gender, body image, mental health and disability. I felt ill-equipped to support the students as these topics were not something I was knowledgeable about and therefore felt I was inadequate in discussing them. This module has given me the confidence to approach the subject of inclusion in my classes, with the ongoing support of excellent resources like Shades of Noir.
This work has made me really consider who my students are and that there is a need to highlight any material or content that might be distressing to individuals by using a trigger warning. We do not all come to the class with the same lived experiences, and people do not always want to share experiences or highlight them. As tutors, it is up to us to be sensitive when showing material that could cause distress.
Conclusion
On the MA TV, we do have diversity in the teaching staff. Students are taught by visiting practitioners and associate lecturers such as Biyi Bandele, a Nigerian filmmaker and Sam Naz, a British Asian TV presenter. However, there is still not enough inclusion in the factual TV industry in general. There is still not enough people from minority groups making the programmes and featuring in them. The representation of minority groups on TV is often stereotypical and this needs to change. The industry is still heavily white male but after a shift to consciously include women profiles, white females are now joining the conversation.
However, as Josephine Kwali states in the film Unconscious Bias ‘’institutions have managed to make some changes to benefit white middle class women, even if their bias around gender was unconscious, they have consciously taken steps and taken action, this hasn’t been of much use to black and minority women or for working class women, but they have done things consciously’’. This highlights that the conscious shift can happen but has still not happened for many minorities and that we need to be continually challenging the norm.
This has been a very rich experience for me and one I had previously never spent much time thinking about. When people said at the start how transformative this unit was, I couldn’t comprehend what was about to happen. I have looked at myself and seen that I have been part of the problem. By seeing myself as white privileged and recognising my white fragility, I can now begin to transform. As Angie Illman said ‘’I know that this unit is a unit which is lived, not taught’’. I’ve still got a lot of work to do but I am now invested in this change. I do feel that my eyes have been opened to the world around me. As Margret Mead says, ‘it only takes a few thoughtful citizans to change the world’.
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Bibliography
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