Lindsay’s talk is insightful into belonging, she talks a lot about the structure of education and how they are they to ‘protect’ but who are they protecting and who are they shutting out? There is still so much equability she says at one point ‘The culture we want to build might not be a place where everyone feels at home… the journey between gender and race equality rumbles on’.
‘We are always chasing a sense of belonging, but we can’t escape loneliness or anger’ she quotes when discussing ‘where the wild things are’, and how it represents how we all feel. Where and what is home? What makes us feel secure?
Quotes from the video that I found relevant
Belonging is intersectional….. perhaps it’s individual. We belong to groups perhaps by our race, our gender, our academic discipline, academia in general as opposed to other groups but this doesn’t mean we can speak as one, or speak for each other, and there is a radically individuality in the nature of human experience.
It makes very little sense to speak of ‘THE student experience’, experience is something an individual goes through.
University and university structures, fears, threats, rational irrational, relevant or vestigial.
What threats come into play in our conceptions of belonging in education. Who and what are academica standard and rules protecting and who and what are they shutting out?
This really echo’s some of my findings as many of the themes the students discussed regarding their experience of belonging where in the extracurricular workshop and NOT in their usual sessions. Confidence to fail, as the work want marked…
Student 1- I do agree with what she’s saying because it was also the fact that there we weren’t being graded so there was no pressure to feel like ‘oh I have to do a really good job’. I think, I think I did a good job but I enjoyed it more and I learned more and I was able to like the sense of camaraderie, I like, really enjoyed with the people I was with ’cause I was not as worried about my individual performance.
Student 2.- Yeah you’re not under pressure, you’re more free to enjoy learning what you’re doing. Rather than a little space in your mind thinking ‘man am I doing this right’? Because they’re watching me or something like that.
Student 1- I took on the biggest rules on those two workshops precisely because I felt no pressure to, I felt less pressured to do it right. So, if I made mistakes, I thought it was OK. Like he said, it was the right environment for me to try taking on more responsibility.
There needs to be more space for failing and making mistakes. We learn from our mistakes, but there need to be space to make them. for student to know that its important, otherwise there is a constant pressure to perform. Do you go to uni for you to learnt and try new thing and ways, or to work within the structure of the uni and pass?