“Learning without thought is labour lost; thought without learning is perilous.”
―
Confucius
Teaching for Quality Learning at University
Teaching for Quality Learning at University is a comprehensive ‘must read’ book for any teacher in higher education. It offers a comprehensive. It highlights examples of practicalities and principles of teaching in an accessible framework. There is also a deepening of understanding from what it means to be an individual tutor in a classroom to the dynamic at play in the community of an institutional setting.
It talks about the changing landscape of the university setting, being student-focussed – teaching as a direct response to how students learn, implementing constructive alignment in outcomes based teaching, and assessment -‘Assessment is the senior partner in learning and teaching. Get it wrong and the rest collapses’. (Biggs and Tang, 2011: 196), as well as much more comprehensive information imperative to effective teaching.
This is a superb guide to tutors wanting guidance on how to effectively design programmes and course material. It is grounded in years of experience and demonstrates a clear and accessible strategy for the design of programmes to promote learning.
The book regularly encourages the reader to reflect on their own teaching style and practice and their process of assessment, which is imperative to re-evaluate one’s own assumptions which may not have been adequately reflected upon. There are plenty of activities and practical tasks which make it more like a workshop and give the reader the opportunity to integrate learning and understanding of the material. There is also adequate referencing and resource for further reading on any given topic.
It is not surprising that this book is frequently on the essential reading list for any teacher training!
“In all judgements by which we describe anything as beautiful, we allow no one to be of another opinion.” ―
Immanuel Kant
The Role of Aesthetic Judgments in Psychotherapy
John S. Callender’s paper, published in 2005, on ‘The Role of Aesthetic Judgments in Psychotherapy’ is fascinating to me, as a psychotherapist working in the arts. I very much see therapy as a creative process and there are many parallels between psychotherapy and art.
Callendar starts the paper by saying ‘The Nature of Aesthetic Judgments There are many competing and overlapping theories of the nature of art (Dickie 1997) and aesthetic experience (Matravers 2003). By one account, “aesthetics pays attention to what is not reducible to scientific cognition and is yet undeniably part of our relationship to the world” (Bowie 1990, 23). Also, “The basis of aesthetic judgment is the distinction between feelings of pleasure and non-pleasure” (Bowie 1990, 25).’ (Callender, J, 2005)
“An aesthetic judgement attributes a form of aesthetic value to a thing, of whatever kind” (Honderich, T, 2005)
Here he is defining what is meant by aesthetic judgement and aiming to describe a phenomenon that is difficult to put into words. He states ‘There are many competing and overlapping theories of the nature of art (Dickie 1997) and aesthetic experience (Matravers 2003). By one account, “aesthetics pays attention to what is not reducible to scientific cognition and is yet undeniably part of our relationship to the world”’ (Callender, J, 2005)
“…When he puts a thing on a pedestal and calls it beautiful, he demands the same delight from others. He judges not merely for himself, but for all men, and then speaks of beauty as if it were the property of things ” (Immanuel, Kant, J.H Bernard, 1914)
He uses the work of Immanuel Kant, namely his writings on aesthetic experience and his last work the Critique of Judgement to demonstrate themes relative to art criticism and also on psychotherapeutic discourse.
Callender discusses four main characteristics of the judgement of taste. “These are (a) disinterestedness, (b) universality, (c) necessity and common sensibility, and (d) purposiveness without purpose. In addition he argued for an ethical dimension to aesthetics (that beauty is a symbol of morality).” (Callender, J, 2005) and then applies them to psychotherapy discourse illustrating each through vingettes of client case studies.
He distinguishes between the different types of therapy. Cognitive behaviour therapy looks at the thinking mind and the feeling heart and decisions made by each are named cold or hot cognitions. He looks at psychoanalytic therapy and the phenomenon of transference in the psychotherapeutic discourse. And more philosophical psychotherapy stating “No philosopher has yet come up with an answer to the question of the meaning of life. Despite this, most of us carry on striving and living our lives as best we can. It seems that we can get by without the existence of some overarching or ulterior meaning. Life feels meaningful. One might say that life itself, like the work of art, has purposiveness without purpose.” (Callender, J, 2005)
A similarity between looking at art and having therapy, Callendar asserts is that it is done from a non-thinking (often not concscious) way of regulating emotions. “We turn to art when we seek things such as solace, inspiration, happiness, and a sense of connection to others. In short, we use art as a form of affect regulation” (Callender, J, 2005).
He makes the link between psychotherapy and art in terms of purposefulness. The purpose for the art or the therapist is not to prove something to be right but to aid the individual to find deeper meaning, and a more complex understanding of self.
Callender concludes by asserting that finding a distinction between the intellectual/rational and the emotional/feeling has always been a concern of psychotherapists and that it may be more insightful to replace the concept of emotional feeling with that of aesthetic judgment. Much of the judgment we have about ourselves comes in the realm of aesthetic judgment and this is often found in psychotherapy “Aesthetic philosophy clarifies the nature of the relationship between emotion and content in such judgments, by drawing attention to the distinction between self-as-subject and self-as-object in this context. It provides a philosophical framework that links negative judgment of the self, feelings of guilt and shame, loss of inner harmony, and a diminished or absent sense of purpose and meaning.” By applying this to the psychotherapeutic discourse it offers contemporary ways of bringing about psychotherapeutic change.
1), Callender, J. (2005) ‘The Role of Aesthetic Judgments in Psychotherapy’, in Philosophy, Psychiatry, &
Bell Hooks, in her book All About love writes in praise of love and a return to love and away from a society of selfishness and narcissism. She talks about the importance of community as extended family, forming connections through creativity and political awareness and change, and about friendship being as important as romantic love.
Just as arguably there is an art to living, as Sarah Bakewell puts forth in her book ‘How to Live; Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer’, (Bakewell, S, 2010), Bell Hooks argues there is an art to love. Desire and initial attraction requires an illusion, but love requires work and effort – an unravelling of the authentic self in its vulnerability and truth.
She argues that much of the literature on love is written by men (Gray, J, 1992), and yet for men they are more likely to experience being loved whereas women are more likely to experiencing a yearning for love and to be loved. She blames the patriarchy inherently for the imbalance between men and women, men are conditioned to find importance in sexual performance and satisfaction and women are conditioned to give and to nurture and thus resulting in an imbalance inherent in society at large. This said, men and women both write about love, and the love which alludes, and so all are searching. There is as much talk about the lack of love as there is of love in and of itself. It is all about love, it is what binds us together and it is what alludes us in equal measure. If men are taught more how to love and how to give and to be of service, and women to receive, it would result in more joyful and meaningful relationships and in turn happier communities and a more harmonious world.
1), Hooks, B. (2000) Preface and Introduction. All About Love. New York: HarperCollins
2), Bakewell, S, 2010, How to Live; Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer. UK: Chatto & Windus
3), Gray, J, 1992. Men are from Mars, Women are from venus. United States: Harper Collins
“People often ask me why I have spent most of my life concerned with the consequences of conflict and violence. The simple answer is, why not? The honest answer is difficult. It is about the suffering of refugees. It is about the short life of compassion, how quickly it is born and how quickly it dies. It is about the stranger to whom we owe nothing. It is how our society will be judged and how we discover our humanity. It is about love”-
Helen Bamber OBE
pebbles and stones
for the microteaching exercise I wanted to share some of my work as a psychotherapist and the topic of using objects and artefacts made me think back to my time working with asylum seekers at the Helen Bamber Foundation, whereby the founder, Helen Bamber, who was an incredibly charismatic and inspirational woman, would have a bowl of stones and pebbles in the centre of the table of her consulting room and would invite each client to choose a stone, to hold it in their hands, to feel it and to describe what it meant to them. the responses were rich in meaning and metaphor – the stones were worn down, like them, but also strong and resilient, they were both hard and solid and soft and smooth, they were of this earth, of nature and their homeland, from the sea, the farm, the mountains, the stones became an object of which to tell their story.
holding and describing the stones also acted as a grounding exercise, bringing the client out of their mental distress and into the present moment. the stones were also transitional objects – the stone representing the therapist, and the therapeutic relationship, could be taken out of the consulting room. The client would then have this tangible thing to hold, which would illicit feelings of safety they had felt with the therapist.
for the microteaching exercise I invited the members of the group to choose a stone and to work in pairs and to share with each other what came up for them, and just like the clients of the Helen Bamber Foundation rich feelings and meaning were evoked. the feedback was similar, that by holding the stone and by feeling the surface and the texture, it brought about a sense of peace and calm. It made some people think of their home countries, or where they grew up, of childhood, of identity.
I thought the exercise went well and I was happy with the aesthetic of the bowl of stones and how it was presented. for me the teaching was more contemplative and reflective and I think the group found it a calming and interesting exercise. I felt a little bit nervous before hand and on reflection I think the is because it is an emotive subject and a time in my life which is close to my heart and I think the emotion showed. due to feeling nervous I rushed through the informative bit – talking about Helen Bamber and about the use of objects in working with trauma. I had a handout with this information, which was a bit of a crutch.
next time I would like to add more thought to the pace, structure and timing and leave enough time to talk about the use of stones and pebbles in trauma work.
the micro teaching exercise made me think about my teaching style and I would say that it is more contemplative and reflective. I resonated a lot with Ike’s exercise, which I think was similar in style – using objects to illicit emotion and contemplation, and also a little with Tom’s exercise on memory.
in my work as a therapist and with students I am always advocating the power of vulnerability and by sharing our vulnerabilities we connect with others and become powerful as our authentic selves. the micro teaching exercise I experienced this first hand and I would like to embrace this more and more.
for the microteaching exercise I wanted to share some of my work as a psychotherapist and the topic of using objects and artefacts made me think back to my time working with asylum seekers at the Helen Bamber Foundation, whereby the founder, Helen Bamber, who was an incredibly charismatic and inspirational woman, would have a bowl of stones and pebbles in the centre of the table of her consulting room and would invite each client to choose a stone, to hold it in their hands, to feel it and to describe what it meant to them. the responses were rich in meaning and metaphor – the stones were worn down, like them, but also strong and resilient, they were both hard and solid and soft and sooth, they were of this earth, of nature and their homeland, from the sea, the farm, the mountains, the stones became an object of which to tell their story.
holding and describing the stones also acted as a grounding exercise, bringing the client out of their mental distress and into the present moment. the stones were also transitional objects – the stone representing the therapist, and the therapeutic relationship could be taken out of the consulting room and the client would have this tangible thing to hold to illicit the feelings of safety they had felt with the therapist.
for the microteaching exercise I invited the members of the group to choose a stone and to work in pairs and to share with each other what came up for them, and just like the clients of the Helen Bamber Foundation rich feelings and meaning were evoked. the feedback was similar, that by holding the stone and by feeling the surface and the texture, it brought about a sense of peace and calm. It made some people think of their home countries, or where they grew up, of childhood, of identity.
I thought the exercise went well and I was happy with the aesthetic of the bowl of stones and how it was presented. for me the teaching was more contemplative and reflective and I think the group found it a calming and interesting exercise. I felt a little bit nervous before hand and on reflection I think the is because it is an emotive subject and a time in my life which is close to my heart and I think the emotion showed. due to feeling nervous I rushed through the informative bit – talking about Helen Bamber and about the use of objects in working with trauma. I had a handout with this information, which was a bit of a crutch.
next time I would like to add more thought to the pace, structure and timing and leave enough time to talk about the use of stones and pebbles in trauma work.
the micro teaching exercise made me think about my teaching style and I would say that it is more contemplative and reflective. I resonated a lot with Ike’s exercise which I think was similar in style – using objects to illicit emotion and contemplation, and also a little with Tom’s exercise on memory.
in my work as a therapist and with students I am always advocating the power of vulnerability and by sharing our vulnerabilities we connect with others and become powerful as our authentic selves. the micro teaching exercise I experienced this first hand and I would like to embrace this more and more.
“instead of art I have taught philosophy. Though technique for me is a big word, I never have taught how to paint. All my doing was to make people see” – Albert Albers
“Back to Zero:” The Artistic and Pedagogical Philosophy of Anni Albers.
By Sloane Kochman
Kochman, in her MA thesis for the Department of the History of Art and Architecture, at the university of Oregon, writes about the parallels between Alber’s art and teaching during her transition from her time as a student at the Bauhaus and a teacher at Black Mountain College, and focusses on her “back to zero” approach in terms of her individual pedagogical practice. The thesis looks at the link of Albers as student, teacher, and artist.
In the first chapter there is a focus on her time as a student at Bauhous and the aspects of her learning of which she would later use in her teaching. The second explores her teaching at Black Mountain College. And the third details the teaching environment Albers fostered for her students, using the same “back to zero” method that she used in her artistic practice.
“Albers linked her “back to zero” philosophy to the idea of going back to the fundamentals, or back to basics, through haptic activities. These activities or assignments were intended to reacquaint students with the primary human sense of touch. By bringing them back to an early childhood state, Albers’s students used their sense of touch to understand the materials they worked with and their material limitations. By fostering the process of artistic evolution, Albers’s students developed courage through understanding the materials with which they worked.” (Kochman, S, 2017).
Kochman concludes that Albers challenged traditional pedagogy and her “back to zero” philosophy flourished in post-war America, and the craft-based environment of the Bauhaus.
Bibliography
Kochman, Sloane“Back to Zero:” The Artistic and Pedagogical Philosophy of Anni Albers. MA thesis. 2017,Department of the History of Art and Architecture. University of Oregon.
“I feel most comfortable and most abundant when things are very simple and I know where everything is and there’s nothing around that I don’t need.” – Leonard Cohen
Psychotherapy is both a science and an art form and I see the therapeutic endeavor very much as a creative process. Psychotherapy is both an art and a science. (O’Donohue, W, Cummings, N, and Cummings, J, 2007). Different modalities tend to lean more towards one or the other. For example, cognitive behavior therapy is more concerned with the mind and cognitions and is therefore more rooted in science, whereas humanistic therapy is more concerned with emotions and unconditional positive regard and leans more towards art and a creative process. Existential psychotherapy (Yalom, I, 1980) is centered around philosophy and abides by the rules of phenomenology – the study of what is, and so it has a scientific and philosophical underpinning as well as the art form of establishing a safe and secure therapeutic relationship. Good therapy requires both. It is a human endeavor and so creativity is paramount but it is also important to be able to measure the effectiveness of therapy and so science is also beneficial. As a psychotherapist I also have my own art practice. The image is of one of my prints, ‘full moon’ which is inspired by my trip to India to train as an ashtanga yoga teacher. Ashtanga (Sri Swami Satchidananda, 2012), is traditionally practiced every day accept Saturdays, as there needs to be one day for rest, and on full moon days as it is thought that the full moon creates a lot of energy in the body, making injury more likely.
bibliography
1), O’Donohue, W, Cummings, N, and Cummings, J. The Art and Science of Psychotherapy (2007) University of Nevada Reno: Nevada, USA
2), Sri Swami Satchidananda, Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: New Edition. 2012, Integral Yoga Publications: India
3), Yalom, I. Existential Psychotherapy, 1980. Basic Books: New York
ecology is the permeant economy” – Sunderlal Bahuguna
How can Fashion Value Society? Centre for Sustainable Fashion: UAL. London
In this insightful article, Jeffery’s outlines how society and fashion are in direct relationship to one another, each influencing the other and this therefore evolves and changes our relationship with the world.
In todays world of fast fashion the geography and places where fashion and society meet are not always favorable, where profit margin is prioritised over safety the results can be catastrophic, such as the clothing factory in Bangladesh which collapsed in 2013, killing 1,134 people.
Fashion Revolution (https://www.fashionrevolution.org/), is an activist movement which came about as a result of this devastation. This is a movement who encourages consumers to ask brands ‘who made my clothes?’ and who fight for the fair wages and treatment of workers producing clothes. This is one example of how community and society meet fashion and how fashion and society are in constant relationship with each other on a global scale.
The Centre for sustainable fashion are in partnership with Vogue, IBM, Kering, and Business on Fashion Values and in 2022 launched the ‘Fashion Values Challenge’ (https://fashionvalues.org/challenge-2022/fashion-and-society) This is a call out on a global scale for change-making services, systems, and products and offered the opportunity to win a 6-month support programme for further development of the idea.
“If we think about intersectionality and intergenerational access to being, we need to consider not only the effects on people in other places right now, but also the effects of what we’re doing now for future societies. Ultimately, we need to both decolonize and decarbonize” – Prof. Dilys Williams
The Fashion Values initiative is a free initiative to create a more fairer interplay between fashion and society and offers articles, resources and webinars to inspire both professionals and students. “the Fashion Values programme focus is the relationship between fashion and society. We provide the tools and support for students and industry professionals as they push for change and look to create systems for prosperity within our society.” (Jeffreys, C, 2022).
bibliography
Jeffreys, C, 2022. How can Fashion Value Society? Centre for Sustainable Fashion: UAL. London
“the secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less” – Socrates
reflection et inspiration
as a psychotherapist and in teaching too, it is important to take time to reflect, to get some ‘thinking space’, and to stare out of window. it is said that sigmund freud devised the ’50 minute hour’ for just that, to leave time to stare out the window (and to go to the bathroom, have a glass of water etc).
alain de botton wrote a whole article on the importance of staring out the window, where he asserts that there is a cultural expectation that you are always supposed to be active, working, studying, going through your to-do list etc., and the act of looking out into the distance appears to serve no purpose and indicates perhaps boredom, or futility. but it could not be further from to truth, de botton advocates. Staring out the window is not about finding out what’s going on outside but what is going on inside.
“the potential of daydreaming isn’t recognised by societies obsessed with productivity. but some of our greatest insights come when we stop trying to be purposeful and instead respect the creative potential of reverie. window daydreaming is a strategic rebellion against the excessive demands of immediate (but ultimately insignificant) pressures – in favour of the diffuse, but very serious, search for the wisdom of the unexplored deep self.” (de botton)
going to my favorite french coffee shop, l’eau à la bouche, affords me the equivalent of staring out the window. the act of repetition and routine for me is incredibly calming. to sit outside and watch the world go by, akin to a café in paris, lends both time for reflection and calm and also offers a chance for inspiration and to be re-energised.
bibliography
1), alain de botton (https://www.theschooloflife.com/article/the-importance-of-staring-out-the-window/) calm. perspective: the school of life: london
What happens when people open their hearts? They get better” – Haruki Murakami
(Norwegian Wood)
Hello! I am a psychotherapist and student counsellor, working at University of the Arts London, and primarily, London College of Fashion. After spending a month in India in 2018/19 and completing a 200 hour yoga teacher training, I am now looking forward to expanding my teaching practice, but this time in academic practice in art and design communication!
I love combining psychotherapy with art and creativity and I feel extremely grateful to have been given the opportunity to now add academic practice to my work.
I am a bit of a Francophile, hence the pseudonym! And I love photography, film, literature, and philosophy. I have an Instagram account, connected to my private practice for psychotherapy, where I post musings on such themes (therapy_east)
I have written and published academic papers on psychotherapy and I run a psychotherapeutic workshop for students at UAL on Imposter Syndrome. The yoga teacher training and the training in existential psychotherapy is the extent of my teaching and academic knowledge. I am therefore very much looking forward to the opportunity to take part in this year’s cohort of the PgCert in Academic Practice in art and design communication. I hope it will add depth to my current role, help with writing research papers, as well as enriching my interactions with students and clients.
