… of Higher Education

Reading the article a second time, I shifted my focus away from the student experience towards the socio-political context. 

The International context, the research is set in, consists of two stakeholders, a group of socialist countries, interested in securing influence in Africa and in promoting “Leninist ideals of anti-imperial internationalism.” and African students, seeking a better life, away from their war-wrecked countries and the often still looming danger of becoming a victim of aggression and attacks (Savage, 2023).

Shifting Attention

“Reading is not a neutral activity” Victor said on Friday, “You always bring a bit of yourself into the reading.” On Monday the following week, I read through the article again. 

When reading the article ‘The New Life’: Mozambican Art Students in the USSR, and the Aesthetic Epistemologies of Anti-Colonial Solidarity, for the first time, I couldn’t wait to share with my peers that the researcher concluded that art students, heavily influenced by Russian socialism, did not become spiritually converted. Instead, they identified their positive experiences of hospitality, camaraderie and forged friendships with locals as shaping events that formed their future political values of solidarity and equality. The article is set in an international context of Higher Education in Arts, in the former USSR looking at the experience Mozambican art students had.

I will read the article a second time, considering the wider educational context when thinking of what I took from the article and how this might be relevant to my own teaching. 

I’m Eva. I teach on the MA Innovative Fashion Production course at London College of Fashion situated in East London, East Bank.

I’m curious about the PgCert Academic Practice course and excited about being a student again. I’m looking forwards to learning more about other lecturer’s approaches. I’m quite new to teaching at University and therefore eager to learn more about teaching in general. That said, I already have some ideas that I would like to explore further related to improving the student’s experience. These ideas are highly informed by my own recent experience of studying as a Master student on the same course, I’m now teaching on, back in 2021/22.

How might my teaching approach change? What will be my biggest take-aways? Will those be practical or theoretical?

I love looking at people, which is not the same as loving people, just to make that clear. The variety of faces, bodys and expressions enveloped in various textures and colours ceaselessly fascinate me.

I sketch to manifest my thoughts. I sketch to learn. I sketch because I don’t need to use words. Do people think in full sentences, I wonder? I don’t, which is liberating and frustrating at the same time.