I already knew when Jaqui from my Teaching & Learning seminar group presented her personal introduction at our initial session, that I wanted to know more about what she did, and how she did it. Jaqui is a Curator at the Archives & Special Collections Centre, house at London College of Communication. Her practice is of course object focused, and the Archive was something that although I had been aware of at my time at LCC, I had never actually visited.
My form of teaching so far has been entirely removed from the physical. Post It notes are about as tangible as it gets. However, in the ‘real world’ I love tactility, and objects, and art works and collections. The idea of being able to bring it into my teaching seemed, at best, a pipe dream.
Teaching professional practice means that the students generally want ANSWERS from you. How do I get a job? What is wrong with my CV? Is my portfolio strong enough? Why don’t people reply to my emails?
There is not often opportunity for prolonged reflection.
The seed of change was planted by spending time observing Jacqui deliver a teaching session within the archive at LCC.
Jacqui was sharing some of the objects from the David Usborne Collection. This is a collection of useful objects, objects with purpose, tools. On the website for the collection there was a really interesting set of criteria which the collection used to select the objects:
The thought of the object’s ‘indifference’ to its decorative nature is very interesting, its function is key, its use, not the way it looks. But what Jacqui identified within this session is that we can identify ‘the problem’ if we work backwards from the object. I think it offers a brilliant perspective on the problem if we are able to look at a possible solution. And starting with that solution we are able to extract a context in which this object is the answer. It therefore allows us to ask questions about the context, and examine that as much as the solution itself. The solution (the object) gives us insights into ways to think about a problem.
In my practice as a teacher of ‘professional practice’, we are often situating the student experience within a selection of professional briefs. They are often asked to look at a problem and develop a solution, through a tried and tested method of examining the brief (the problem), conducting research (around the problem), ideating and prototyping solutions, then presenting their work. Is it possible to upset this process? Is it possible to start with a solution to the problem to allow their thought processes to develop in a different way? Can we ask them to solve the riddle of what this object is a possible solution for, to give them a greater understanding of the ‘problem’? This intuitive, personally lead way of working might indeed counter some of the cliches that can occur when approaching problems. Often it seems that when working with students, their initial response to the brief is already forming when they have finished reading it through. By slowing this process down, starting with ‘a solution’ and being asked to determine the problem themselves, might be develop more nuanced, personal responsive driven approached to the brief? Is it a way of developing empathy with the problem?
In a strange twist of the Jeopardy format, this is perhaps a great way invigorate discussions, and develop a method of ‘problem solving’ which allows us to draw empathetic conclusions to issues. It seems that this has a space within the development of a responsible practice. When tackling briefs, we are often over saturated when it comes to the ‘problem’ we are trying to solve. Having worked with students on a charity brief recently, the same responses seems to arise to the brief over and over again. By working back from the solution, we are able to ask new questions about the problem. By looking at how it’s tried to be solved, we can identify why there was a need for the solution in the first place.
As an approach, I really want to draw this into my teaching, especially when it comes to developing professional projects and collaborations with industry. It is something that I want to develop for my next Teaching & Learning tutorial session where we have to develop an object-based micro-teach.