Disability
“The essential challenge is to transform the isolation and self-interest within our communities into connectedness and caring for the whole.” Block, P., 2008.
Introduction (142 words)
I have been shaped by a blend of cultural perspectives as a product of a kaleidoscopic upbringing that bridges Italy and Ireland with a Roma legacy from both lineages. Born into a family of working-class, I defied expectations by being the first to delve into academia, earning degrees in Architecture, Fine Art, and Film through a scholarship, all while with undiagnosed neurodivergence – dyslexia, dyscalculia, dyspraxia, and ADHD, conditions that I’ve recently received confirmation of at the age of 50. The tapestry of my political ideology, woven from strands of eco-conscious Green values, markedly departs from my family’s historical associations with the anarchist of the 1869 International Workingman’s Association in Italy. I aim for universal respect and understanding, acknowledging everyone’s right to their beliefs and identities but maintaining a deeply personal, non-affiliated perspective. I live in the interstice between creator and catalyst, a maker and enabler.
Reflection (207 words)
Upon viewing “Sun Kim, A Selby Film“, as an individual with disabilities, I confront the prevalent notion that mainstream experiences hold superior validity over my own. The societal definitions of beauty, ‘right’ or truth, largely determined by the majority, cast an alternative shadow over the lived experiences of individuals with disabilities, leading to a skewed interpretation of reality. This creates a task of translation and conjecture for the disabled community. However, I vehemently contest this perception, positing it as a fundamental flaw in our educational system which favours an externally sourced understanding, overlooking the rich, inward insights.
Paulo Freire’s poignant assertion in his “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” brings to mind that “The oppressed want at any cost to resemble the oppressors.” He critiques the traditional education systems, suggesting they impose knowledge on learners, and advocates instead for a problem-posing approach which fosters learning from personal experiences and worldly interactions.
As a course leader, I have diligently endeavoured, initially, perhaps instinctively, to cultivate an environment encouraging critical responses from students. A significant alteration I implemented was removing the traditionally graded “major final project” from the master’s degree evaluation. This strategy was adopted to empower students to explore and take risks without the constraints of grading requirements, and across the board, my intent is to use any tactic to remove any form of judgement across the curriculum.
Given the insights gleaned from my unique personal journey and informed by Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” how might we critically interrogate the deeply entrenched exogenous education model within our universities? Could restructuring the assessment framework towards a model that decouples high-stakes final projects from grading effectively foster intellectual freedom, promote endogenous knowledge growth and empower students to engage in transformative learning actively? How can we use an inclusive and compassionate educational environment that respects all forms of belief and identification to undermine and eliminate the pervasive bias that favours the “majority” and “transform the isolation and self-interest within our communities into connectedness and caring for the whole.”?
Kim Noce
Bibliography
Smart, J., 2000. Disability, Society, and the Individual. Gaithersburg: Aspen Publishers.
Freire, P., 1970. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Herder and Herder.
Block, P., 2008. Community: The Structure of Belonging. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Expanded Version (504 words)
Examining “Sun Kim, A Selby Film“” through my unique lens—which includes being an immigrant from Italy born to parents of Irish and Roma Italian descent; being a woman diagnosed with dyslexia, dyscalculia, dyspraxia, and ADHD; being the first in my working-class family to not only graduate high school but also secure a scholarship for an MA in Film at 30; and being an individual of varied life experiences such as three marriages, no children, and no savings—proffers an alternate perspective on society’s norms. My personal journey of diversity, resilience, and divergence, including my political alignment with the Green Party that stands apart from my family’s historical ties with Italy’s anarchist factions of the first International Workingman’s Association, shapes my perception of societal constructs.
When we live in a society that often privileges the experiences of the able-bodied majority, constructs such as beauty and truth often assume a different and exclusionary meaning for those on the periphery of this majority. Thus, the experiences of a disabled person like myself are often invalidated and overshadowed, requiring us to engage in an incessant process of translation and approximation of our experiences to fit the frame of the majority. Yet, I firmly believe this prevalent bias is not a fact of life but rather a deep-seated misconception propagated by our current education system.
Our education system predominantly operates on an exogenous model of knowledge transmission, where information is taught to students in a one-size-fits-all manner, neglecting the potential of endogenous knowledge growth that builds on individual experiences and interactions. This critique closely mirrors the views of Paulo Freire in “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”, where he states, “The oppressed want at any cost to resemble the oppressors.” Freire’s critique challenges traditional education systems that enforce a passive education model, depositing knowledge into learners. He advocates for a problem-posing education which recognizes learners as active agents and encourages them to learn from their unique experiences and interactions with the world.
As the course leader for MA Animation, I am not an artist but a maker and an enabler. Despite the absence of personal religious affiliation, my respect for all forms of belief and identification has guided me in shaping an inclusive and empathetic educational environment. Acting on this understanding, I’ve spent significant time and energy developing strategies to empower students to critique and engage intellectually. One of the pivotal changes I’ve introduced is decoupling the traditionally weighty “major final project” from the graded unit that conventionally defines the master’s course.
The rationale behind this significant change was to foster a sense of intellectual freedom and exploration within the students, unencumbered by the pressure of grades. This structural modification allows students to engage in bold intellectual ventures, explore, fail, and, most importantly, learn from these experiences. The goal was to create a learning environment that fosters curiosity and encourages students to learn from within and extend this knowledge outward, creating a more authentic, meaningful, and transformative educational experience. And across the board, I intend to use any tactic to remove any form of judgement across the curriculum.
Given the insights gleaned from my unique personal journey and informed by Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” how might we critically interrogate the deeply entrenched exogenous education model within our universities? Could restructuring the assessment framework towards a model that decouples high-stakes final projects from grading effectively foster intellectual freedom, promote endogenous knowledge growth and empower students to engage in transformative learning actively? How can we use an inclusive and compassionate educational environment that respects all forms of belief and identification to undermine and eliminate the pervasive bias that favours the “majority” and “transform the isolation and self-interest within our communities into connectedness and caring for the whole.”?
Kim Noce
Hey Kim, I really enjoyed reading your reflection. Thank you for sharing your personal experience.
I would love to hear more about how you removed grading from the final project on your masters project – you’re so right to put this in context with removal of judgement, in general, between students. While I am instinctively in favour for removing of grades, I hadn’t considered it that way, and thought about the other kinds of value judgements that grading students might subconsciously be sanctioning.
I think members of the department I’m in have tried in the past to make more units pass or fail only, but this has been prevented from going ahead by rules UAL has – at least this is what we’ve been told!
Kim, your account of your own positionality and experiences and Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy is very interesting. Both Paulo Freire and you are seeking an alternative approach and exploration to society’s norms within education. Freire critiques the traditional education system describing it as a passive learning process consisting of teachers passing set of information onto students and instead, he champions student-centred learning. You, too, aim to empower the students by for example ridding them of the grading system. You are making the point of intending to ‘remove any form of judgement across the curriculum.’ I am unsure if you mean removing any grading system.
I see a relationship in my own teaching practice as we often have the dialogue about how students only seem to care about their marks, and we tend to question how much the mark describes the actual student’s progress and journey. Consequently, we sporadically have projects which we don’t grade for the same reason as you to encourage students to take bigger risks and embrace the significance of learning from their ‘failing’.
If you meant that your aim is to remove the complete grading system eventually then I wondered if this would be inclusive enough. For example, grades for the Chinese and Korean community constitute a different meaning than for UK and European students. In China and Korea companies will enquire about the graduates’ marks while in the UK and Europe not necessarily.
Some foreign students have scholarships and need to achieve a certain grade to be able to continue receiving the scholarship. Further, while some students work well independently and don’t need structures other students, such as less confident students, prefer clear guidelines and grades which help them to understand where they are standing in relation to their peers.