Important summer Reading - we see you.

This is a recent open letter from people working in Theatre in USA - We See You.

The signatories include the Pulitzer Prize winners Lynn Nottage, Suzan-Lori Parks, Quiara Alegría Hudes and Lin-Manuel Miranda; the film and television stars Viola Davis and Blair Underwood; and many Tony Award winners, including the actor and director Ruben Santiago-Hudson and the playwright David Henry Hwang, who is the chair of the American Theater Wing and choreographers such as Dianne McIntyre.  

The statement, outlining a series of ways in which, it argues, artists of color are unjustly treated in the theater world, declares itself to be “in the legacy of August Wilson’s ‘The Ground on Which I Stand’,” an important 1996 speech by the playwright about race and the American theater. Headlined “We See You, White American Theater,” the statement repeatedly uses the phrase “we see you” to punctuate its observations about the theater world, and adds, “We have always seen you. And now you will see us".

http://bway.ly/i23u2a#https://www.weseeyouwat.com/

In my language - Amanda Baggs

I was in a discussion about improvisation this week and this video was shared.

Learning Domains and MAPP

We have talked about Connectivisum as a principle that this course responds to. Module One Handbook discusses this and it is worth going back to again and again when you are in other Modules (we see the handbooks as working documents you access across the whole course – not manuals for what to do in the moment.) 

Hopefully you have also read Knowing Knowledgeby George Siemans– the recommended reading at the start of the course.  

Here are two (over)views on connectivism:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8kqcs2aR9c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyF5k2ab9qI   (2013)

One of the things we value is Learning Autonomy and Connectedness which we feel are key concepts learnt when we carry out the activity of being an artist. (So you already know about these in the arts setting). 

We also value Diversity, Openness (which can be present by their absence in the arts setting!)

We know of things but when do we identify what we know as learning. Each Module you have to ask yourself how to make ‘things happening’ into learning. At one level you have to decide for yourself what the value of learning is to you. We insist that learning is more than just being told exactly about it and doing exactly it. In learning there is something about truth, belief, being gullible, being wrong, and for me most importantly kindness. (Kindnessis a massive idea. For me not a neo-liberal act, but being willing to… be brave and respectful, learning while not contributing to the lack of opportunity for others to do the same). I will write a separate blog on truth and kindness later this term. 

In his book Seimens talks about Learning Domains

In this course, we create the situation for all four of the domains he discusses in this course. But it is the combination of the four that is the Learning Environment of MAPP. The dance, the music, the play, the yoga class are made of a combination of elements and so is the learning environment of MAPP. 

Transmission Learning- The learner is brought into a system through lectures and exposed to ‘facts’.  The Unihub and Module Handbooks do this.

Emergence Learning– involves greater emphasis on the learner’s cognition and reflection. What you do with the UniHub and Handbooks and Blogs, and Skypes and conversations with your Supervisor.

Acquisition Domain– learning is exploratory and inquiry-based. This has to be self-directed (because it is your practice not anyone else’s) but self-directed does not mean alone you need to remain connected through sharing ideas (on blogs, in Skype discussions etc…). You explore this domain through looking at what you have done in the past (and writing AOLs about it), looking at your current practice and how the course and ideas you encounter connect with it, through carrying out a project based inquiry. Sometimes you are considering all three at once (if you are in Module Three for instance).

Accretion Learning– is continuous, the learner forages for knowledge when and where it is needed – Real life and ongoing. This is shared through your blog – which is why your blog is so important to keep contributing to and why commenting on others people’s blogs is so helpful to them. 

Across all this ‘relevance’is crucial to look at critically.  This returns us to thinking about what truth, deception, distraction and fact mean to you/do to you. 

Lastly feedback (to each other on blogs and back and forth with your Supervisor) becomes a conversation - ongoing and not as set of instructions to get an 'A'. Go back to 'The Test'  in my blog on September 16th 2019 for John Green to explain that again...

Looking forward to your comments...

Ethics with this steps we take...

Thinking about ethical questions leads to different ways to better understand your practice. Exploring these ethical considerations leads to ‘big’ questions within your practice – such as questions about gender, rights, cultures. 

Here is a talk where Trevor Copp and Jeff Fox talk about their practice. Questioning their practice and their experiences led them to questions about gender and identity.   

Your art form tells the story (or the text) of the principles of the society from which it has developed. Concepts for things such as gender, power, age, relationship with community emerge in the practices of any group of people.

Watch this ted talk by Trevor Copp & Jeff Fox that talks about the assumed principles behind their dance form. The point of watching this video is to recognise that our practices reflects the cultural values of a society at a particular time and place it stems from. 

Think of questions you can ask when you watch something from the field of your practice that will help you be more aware of the nuances of the culture and history with in your practice.  You may not be sensitive to thinking about these questions because you come from the same perspective as the mainstream expectations of your art form. You assume what things mean. As you engage with the ideas of ethical questions you can see that what we assume about other people has more to do with us than it does with them! This is significant for planning your inquiry (in DAN4630 Module Two) and analysing your data (in DAN4760 Module Three). In some ways, you need to be able to observe yourself noticing the situations the inquiry creates. 
What 'big' questions are you coming across? 
Please comment or post addresses to post where you discuss this...

https://www.ted.com/talks/trevor_copp_jeff_fox_ballroom_dance_that_breaks_gender_roles?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare

Ethical consideration to theoretical frameworks

In our MAPP course we have looked at ethics from two stand points – firstly  ethical procedures that are about ‘right & wrong’ from the perspective of agreed social moral expectations of how we should behave. Ethical procedures link to the kinds of questions ethics boards ask (for instance the MORE on-line form at Middlesex). The right-ness or wrong-ness of the procedures are dependent to some extend on historical, cultural and social contexts. Even when adhering to them it is important to notice what assumptions about ‘good’, or ‘bad’ the ethical procedure is making. It is clear that these change over time, for instance something we accepted even 50 years ago are now considered unacceptable. 

In this video, Michael D. Burroughs raises the question of teaching ethical thinking (the obligation to ask yourself questions and reflect on your assumptions) to young people. There is a sense we do not engage children with ethics because adults ‘know right from wrong’ and children don’t! But it could be argued children are much more willing to adhere to the rules of fair-ness, turn-taking, and listening that society perceives to be appropriate ways to behave. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8juebyo_Z4&feature=youtu.be

I am interested in the role of ‘play’ as an alternative to competitive/consumerism. I wonder what lessons/methods in ethical thinking play itself ‘trains’ us in. 

Play requires rules and at the same time an openness to not knowing what will happen next. This resonates with components I relate to ethics – ie rules, trust…

The following article discusses ‘the ethics of play’ by giving short insights into how play has been addressed across a number of different theoretical frameworks. 

Through following what philosophers have said like  Wittenstein, Sachs, Foucault…the article looks at different ethical approaches to what play is 

http://web.flu.cas.cz/filosofievexperimentu/ethicsofplay/abstracts.html

As we explore what ethics can be, where it should be etc… we move into what on this course we have called ethical consideration (consideration = reflections, thoughts ideas).

The way you approach ideas includes ethical considerations.

The conclusion you draw from considering ideas ethically starts to form your theoretical framework. The framework into which you organise the relationship between truth, meaning, body, etc…

In this way ethical considerations help you noticethe frameworks you are working in. 

MORE on-line form (Module Two)

News about Module Two on-line ethics form.

1.  a draft is due in a couple of weeks. The draft is so your Supervisor can give you feedback on the form. Your feedback should help you with the form and also with the design of your inquiry. The form is finally submitted at the same time as all your other work in December.

2. When you go to the MORE folder of the our MAPP Programme Page the folder open to a lot of information. To start make sure you read:
section 1: MORE User Guidance User Information
section 4 (go to the Arts and creative industries folder): Templates -consent forms etc
section 6 : Health & Safety and Risk Assessment
You can read the rest but start with these key sections.

3. Once you start the form make sure you name your project and include "(MAPP)" at the end of the Project name.

4. Make sure you put your Supervisers name and email in the Supervisor section. That way we have access to give comments and feedback on the form for you.

5. when we give you comments and feedback on the form it come back as 'rejected' (it is not rejected!!!) it just means it is not submitted which is fine because we don't do the final submission until December.

Thinking and considering ethical reflections helps you shape your inquiry as well as give depth to your inquiry. Here video that I think is a warning about not thinking deeply enough in the design of a research project and coming up with questionable and ill-informed conclusions as a result of a bad design!! 

Its ok its Onion News...

MORE Module Two

Those of you in Module Two you'll be starting to look at the ethical considerations of your research proposals and note that there are some ethical procedures for you to undertake as part of submitting your proposal at the end of this term.

We are using the MORE (Middlesex Online Research Ethics) programme - there is a link to this on your MAPP programme page. It would be good to take a look at this and begin to familiarise yourself with it. The Ethics application needs to be completed online for your Supervisor to review by November 23rd (this is when you will also send a draft of your inquiry proposal).

We will be running a skype session with you overviewing the whole Ethics process on SUNDAY NOV 4, 9PM (immediately after our group skype discussion group that evening) and a follow-up session to look at the MORE site and process in more detail on WEDNESDAY NOV 14, 8PM.

Please comment below for these sessions:

First Sunday and Discussion topic

I wrote this post for BAPP students after a campus session we had. I thought it might be interesting to share with you too. What do you think/feel? 

Also comment below about the First Sunday Discussion Group: which one you will attend and what you are thinking/feeling about for discussion. I thought we could discuss some of the below also.

Sunday November 5th

11am (time in London our clocks went back this (past weekend!!!)

or 

5pm (time in London our clocks went back this (past weekend!!!)

In Module Two you are asked to find a ‘question’ (really this is an area you would like to know more about). What happens is that people find ‘big’ questions offer that involve proving something that give further meaning to their own practice. Like showing the dance is important for young children to do (in the question How does dance support children’s development?). These sort of ‘big’ questions are acting as ways to better understand the context of the practice you already have. Really this kind of big question is more appropriate for Module One which is all about positioning yourself and your practice. These big questions are a route to link your practice to further thinking/feeling. As a group we looked at big questions for our practices like:

Community dance how do is it defined? = how am I defining community dance in my practice.

The role of women in acting = As a woman how am I noticing women in practice

Technology and disability = my work involves creating access and experiences.

Identity = how has my identity developed now I have left the environment of training. How have I constructed myself?

These ‘big’ questions are about finding your own position and great to start to develop from Module One onwards. Module One is about this positioning of self (through looking at your practice through the lens of communication., reflection, networks).

In Module Two your question has to be specific to your practice now. Or it will be too big to manage in Module Three. In Module Three keep asking yourself to come back to the smaller inquiry which is part of the bigger questions that the course is raising for you. 

We then went on to look at how ethical considerations can help with finding a smaller relevant question. 

An ethical consideration – is something you are considering. The word ‘consider’ (to think about). 

If you think of ethical considerations as for instance a form to make sure people have consented to have their picture taken, you are looking at the solution someone has put in place after considering something. We are not asking you to make-up the solutions (the forms) we are asking you to do the considering part. The considered part was – ‘people might not like having their picture associated with what I am doing’,’ some people feel an image of them is part of them’, ‘I need to have pictures to capture what I am doing’, ‘people like to see what they did in pictures’… all these are things to consider. They do not all sit well together in considering them you work out how you will acknowledge all these points. 

This is what we are doing all the time thinking about all the elements of a situations. 

Running for the tube I see someone is in my way – I consider: ‘I cannot be late for this meeting if I miss the train’, ‘this lady looks like she can’t move very fast’, ‘If I run into her might hurt her’, ‘If I run into her  she might punch me’, ‘who is bigger me or her?’ ‘if I head to the next door I might not get there in time before the doors close’… these are all my considerations. 

So we are engaging with ethical considerations all the time to better understand/ to take the actions we are taking. As we think about all the possibilities we understand the situation and ourselves better – that is how the ethical considerations help you better understand the inquiry question and what its focused will be – because the considerations help you think/feel through the situation. 

Talking to my son about this he said – ethics is like breath: we are breathing all the time: we are making ethical considerations all the time. But when we are doing something special – if we are about the do a grand allegro we have to think about special breath in relation to what we are about to do, just like if we are about to do some research we have to think about special ethicial considerations in relation to what we are about to do.

So ethical considerations are much less complicated than some people seem to think but need much more focus than some people seem to give them – like breath (Breath is simple and yet deeply considered when we are acting or dancing or making music etc…).

Adesola

Thinking about ethics - something I wrote for the BAPPs and a great video.

Ethics as we have discussed it - in terms of how you might be experienced by those around you, how your inquiry might be experienced by those around you. It seems ironic to say it’s not just a tick-box activity when the form is actually a tick-box form!!!! but …You need to make sure the form clearly explains what you will be doing and why it is necessary to involve the people you want to involve. As well as how your inquiry might impact on them and their identity and relationship with you. - (Think about: it if you have a teacher/student relationship their identity is ‘student’ that is how they see themselves when with you so however much you feel the inquiry is different from your usual relationship they are 'student' with you and asking someone not to see themselves in that way is asking them to make the effort of changing their identity just so you can do your inquiry).

Here is a link to a great Ted video to get you thinking also - as Dave Isay suggests when we are doing what we are doing we may also be impacting on others in an important way that is much bigger than we could have dreamt of 

Below the video should be embedded but here is the address if it doesn’t work below!!

http://www.ted.com/talks/dave_isay_everyone_around_you_has_a_story_the_world_needs_to_hear

Conversations about Ethics and Questions

More informal notes from conversations with Module Twos & Threes in BAPP and MAPP

We were talking about Planning Ethical Practice in terms of Module two and allowing for developments in your plan during Module Three.

First point we made was to look at what is ethics: I have described ethics as reflecting on what you are experience as. Thinking about what is the effect, affect, feeling, event that is created by your actions. This is not to say that you can control how people have a ‘good time’ with you because you can’t know what is ‘good’ and what is ‘bad’ for them. But you can think about what impact you are having on the people and things around you and reflect on whether the impact you are having is the same as your intension for doing things.

Ethics: Impact on others

So having established that when thinking about ethics we are looking at our place, effect, impact on people: what do you think of doing a research project which will result in giving advise to people about a topic. – bearing in mind you have about 3 months, you are at MA level, and some people have been looking at the field you are looking at all their lives. Alan was just saying to me he was listening to a TED lecture where the person said for the first 30 years of the research we thought X but know we have come to see it in terms of Y today!!!!!

So what do you think of you doing a research project that will give people the answer to something? What are the ethics (impact of you) in this?? I would not want to try to do that. It seems a little rude to people who already study the area to think I can come up with the ‘answer’ in 3 months when they might have been looking at it for years and years. And what is the ‘answer’ in terms of them, the answer is really just my thing, my issues?  Who am I?

NOTE: Module One is about asking yourself who am I – through looking at your networks, your presence on-line your reflections. I am the experiences I have. Through your AOLs – unique experiences because only ‘I’ live MY life.

Who am I – after Module One – I am someone with unique experiences and (and therefore) my ideas and thoughts matter because only ‘I’ have my perspective.

So I am someone who does not have to feel I am going to save the world in three months and come up with the ‘answer’ to this important question. But I am also someone with a unique set of experiences and what I think matters ….so  (ethically I could say) my inquiry is about finding out more about my question and giving some informed comments and ideas about what I think of what I found out.

NOTE: This what you do in Module Three – a reflective report and some ‘thing’ people in my industry can relate to (see blog post On-line Campus Three session below for ‘thing’ reference)

OK so what does this ethical perspective do to our inquiry questions? Remember:

1)    We don’t have to ‘find’ and answer to the question (and possibly can’t) we need to find out more

2)    We don’t have to assume we need to save the world and that nobody else thought of saving the world before us and just didn’t try

3)    The goal is to ask better more informed questions

We looked at our questions and reworded them. For example

Save the world version:

What are the different methods for developing performance skills for excellence in performers, so I can teach this to my students?

Find out more version:

What do different people consider excellence in performance is (asking dancers, director, choreographers and audience members)

Or

I feel Pat Smith, Blair Teller and Fran Jones are excellent performers so I will talk to each of them to find out what in their training helped them in their performance work.

Save the world version:

Blindness and Dance: why is their so much training lacking? I’ve noticed there is no training for dance teachers in this.

Find out more version:

What is out there in terms of dance projects that involve blind children. (world wide and locally)

Or

What do parents of blind children feel is a benefit from doing dance class and are these benefits to do with they way the classes are taught?

Or

How are the arts positioned in training for working with blind children? Looking at training programmes in general and seeing how much of this involves arts educational training.

Save the world version:

Culture in dance: what are opportunities for people to study musical theatre in India (but I don’t live in India).

Find out more version:

Is musical theatre a culture in itself (as it could be argued ballet is) having its own language, and expectation for behaviour?

Or

Starting to mapping musical theatre training from different places by comparing the narratives of three performers who have trained in different countries.

Ethics –  Questioning Assumptions

We noticed the find out more versions allowed us to notice our assumptions and question them.

Noticing the assumptions we are making is like taking a step back to look get a wider look at what we are thinking about. Very often the assumptions we make are the best place to start inquiring into. Why we make that assumption and what other ways are there to look at things. In the performance skills inquiry area there are assumptions in the original save the world questions that need to be noticed and in fact could be the inquiry its self.

For example: What are the different methods for developing performance skills for excellence in performers, so I can teach this to my students?

This has the following assumptions and possible inquiry areas:

Assumption	Inquiry
Everyone thinks the same things are performance skills and excellence	What do different people think makes excellence in performance (get opinions from different people in different roles to do with performance)
Performance skills remain the same regardless of the performance setting	Find out if people who perform if different performance events and venues seem to access the same skills each time (Watch great performance in different setting, what do I think? What has been written about this.)
It is possible to teacher people to be better performers its just nobody does it	Talk to people I think are great performers and find out what they do and think.
There are methods to get people to perform it can be broken down in to steps or stages or points and then learnt in the classroom.	Talk to teachers/director/dance captains I have had, who I respect, and find out what they do and think and why.

You can see that all the example inquiry questions that are raised from my assumptions can all still be useful in my end goal of being better at teaching performance skills to my students.

The conclusion we came to is:

We help people (save the world) by being better informed, inspired etc… ourselves. Not by going out and ‘helping’ people. Being better yourself helps other people.

Joke: Old lady (much like myself!) standing at the edge of the road you help her across. And on the other side she says she didn’t want to cross the road and now she has missed her bus!!! (The irony was you wanted that bus too but you sacrificed missing it to ‘help’ her.)

The practice under ethics of looking at your assumptions is really valuable. In the session we all looked at the assumptions in our questions so far. This is about how looking at ethics will help you shape your inquiry. (Its not about a right /wrong question). You can see from my example table above that the inquiry questions that come out of looking at my assumptions also indicate inquiry tools – like I would need to interview people, or observe performances. So looking at my questions through a focus on ethics gives me ideas about the focus of the questions, the tools I would need and where informative information about the question might be.

Ethics – Nuts and Bolts

In a session about ethics we cannot miss out having a quick look at ethics 101. Make sure you don’t hurt people.  As the handbook points out some research has been at the cost of harm to people mentally or physically.

Some of the assumptions we make can be offensive and hurtful to people. Assuming I need help across the road is pretty annoying when I can ask if I do! In the summer I was standing next to someone much older than me waiting to cross the road in Liverpool street station and as the light changed for us to walk across she took my arm. When we got to the other side she let go and realised I was me. She said sorry. I said it was really nice to walk across the road together like that I haven’t done that since I was child. For a moment I was what she needed (some remembered friend or relative) and then I was not.

Nuts and bolts

1)    Plan to use pseudonyms for people you interview. Yes, so they have some anonymity but beyond that because (see Pips blog post from last week – my skype chat post below) because it is hard to really explain what you will be doing in your inquiry as in some ways you don’t know where it will take you either.

2)    Same with informed consent and the ability to drop out of the research at anytime. You can’t really say what will happen minute by minute in your inquiry or where it will go so let people know they can get off the ride when ever they want to. But this is more than just the rhetoric of the consent form you give them. It is about planning an inquiry that understands not all the data is coming from people you interview. What if they all dropped out??? The data is also the literature, and your feelings and thoughts (see recent on-line ‘Campus’ session Module Three blog post below).

3)    The power of the researcher – you think you are stressed about your project! The people you approach also have stress about the idea of research and they are not in control of the project like you are. Think about the impact of being asked to be interviewed or not being one of the people asked to be interviewed will have on people. Think about the relationship you already have with people involved in the inquiry. There is not a right person to ask. You just need to have thought about the impact you will have and maybe tried to make sure it is as gentle as possible. Where possible ask yourself do I really need to involved people they way I am planning, would it be more gentle to change how I engage with them. Like changing planning to interview your students to observing your students. Knowing the power relationship between student (them) and teacher (you) is quite stressful and can be manipulated.

…what do you think?

Adesola