Reena Saxena posted: " "Do we really need this picture for the story?" The editor's nose crinkled up in disgust, "The front view with lawns is far more appealing to go with his childhood pics." Our next issue will carry the story of a celebrity recently killed in a shooting" Reena Saxena
"Do we really need this picture for the story?" The editor's nose crinkled up in disgust, "The front view with lawns is far more appealing to go with his childhood pics."
Our next issue will carry the story of a celebrity recently killed in a shooting incident.
"I believe that while dreams are constructed on the front, the backside of a building keeps one firmly rooted to reality. The theme of our story is how he gradually got unhinged, leading to disaster."
"Well, the backside may have some hidden facts about the killer. Would you like to investigate the linkage?"
Mistress of Yaoi posted: " Seeing as June is the date many countries celebrate Pride, this month here on Yaoi Playground I will be taking a step back from talking about just yaoi and boys love and talking about some amazing pieces of media that will appeal to the LGBTQ+ community " Yaoi Playground
Seeing as June is the date many countries celebrate Pride, this month here on Yaoi Playground I will be taking a step back from talking about just yaoi and boys love and talking about some amazing pieces of media that will appeal to the LGBTQ+ community as well as boys love fans.
This month will include a review of one of my favourite Australian films based on an amazing book called Holding the Man by Timothy Conigrave, which is a movie and book I have wanted to talk about for so long and now that it is available to watch on Netflix in Australia, I thought now would be a perfect time, and speaking of Netflix I also plan on giving my thoughts on the recent series HeartStoppers!
I also have a manga review in the works that thought a yaoi title, digs into some series subject matter that I think is worth talking about this month. Happy Pride my fellow LGBTQ+ followers, friends and allies.
GCU academic development and student learning posted: " By Dr. Karen Campbell Image credit: Unsplash As part of the work to evaluate the Anti-Racist Curriculum, in this blog Dr Karen Campbell interviews Occupational Therapy lecturer, Dr Katie Thomson about her personal experience and her preliminary" GCU Academic Development & Student Learning
As part of the work to evaluate the Anti-Racist Curriculum, in this blog Dr Karen Campbell interviews Occupational Therapy lecturer, Dr Katie Thomson about her personal experience and her preliminary work to address racism within the curriculum. Katie makes the point that the context for such work should be the curriculum in the widest sense. That is, the taught, co- and extra-curriculum including work placements.
Why is addressing racism in the curriculum important to you personally?
I have a lead role in the international student experience within the Department of Occupational Therapy, Human Nutrition and Dietetics at GCU. While I was teaching on the Masters programme, my approach was to try to make our international students feel welcome and included within the class. However, I was aware that I wasn't always getting it right. When I'd ask students for contextual examples and experiences from their own cultures sometimes I had the impression that students were almost embarrassed by these cultural differences in the context of a course that is clearly framed from the perspective of a white, English language based curriculum. This experience really shone a spotlight on the issues of racism in the curriculum for me. It led me to seek personal development which I accessed through Advance HE's online training sessions.
What training/CPD have you engaged in regarding racism in the curriculum and how did this impact you personally?
From attending Advance HE's training sessions I became involved in a network of colleagues nationwide who have the same objective – to learn more, share resources and develop work to address racism in the curriculum. Our network formed a reading group where once a month external colleagues from different discipline areas discuss issues raised in Dave Thomas's book about decolonising the University.
The Advance HE sessions were transformational for me. They opened my eyes to racism and what it means. There's no going back once you've had that experience. We were challenged within the sessions to take action; encouraged to set personal goals and to develop action plans. Things I felt I was able to achieve personally I acted on. I've also undertaken the Union Black training which I feel was extremely useful
What work have you been involved in to address racism in the curriculum?[1]
I volunteered to become a member of our departmental EDI group (led by Christine Monaghan) where I feed in my experiences and ideas. I make sure that the anti-racist curriculum is on the agenda for EDI group meetings.
I work with colleagues to review and address our programme content with respect to racism. For example, some of our modules look at how occupational therapists can help to address global health issues. We have revised the content and readings lists and adapted case studies to be more inclusive of different cultures. Our ethics modules that previously did not include material around race or inclusion now do. There's now a departmental commitment to review and revise reading lists, case studies and other materials and resources in terms of the EDI agenda. Our reading lists include texts from the Global South which previously they did not. Case studies have been rewritten to include more diverse examples and scenarios from the perspective of both the occupational therapists and the service users.
Then we worked on our teaching sessions to include more of a focus on racism. Our teaching sessions on working with people with long-term conditions and our ethics sessions and research modules now also have more of a focus on racism. We want to look at our admissions processes also. That work is very much on the horizon.
How has your practice changed as a result of this work?
My increased awareness and knowledge of the issues has changed how I approach things. I am more aware of the challenges people face in life generally from an EDI perspective. I try to highlight to people both in my personal life and at work if I think there is a different view point that should be expressed or a more appropriate term could be used. I feel more comfortable doing so now and am more likely to challenge inappropriate language or viewpoints.
How have you changed personally as a result of this work?
I feel significantly more comfortable and confident about having these conversations with students, especially now that we have the material in place. However, I'm not sure to what extent the students have noticed this change. We need to continue to carry the discussion about racism through all our modules and teaching. We could potentially have a statement of intent for each module whereby students are given the opportunity speak out if we fall short of that intention. That's an idea I'm pursuing with colleagues.
How have you found the experience of engaging in conversations with other staff about racism in the curriculum?
Having these kinds of conversations at work is no longer challenging. Maybe it's about the fact that, as a profession, we aim to enable others, and part of our ethos is to support people and make them feel included? So, there's a general willingness on the part of our colleagues to engage in these kinds of conversations.
How has your involvement in this work impacted your working relationships?
The work I have been involved with has been fairly organic. We teach across modules so we have access to other people's modules and are able to have discussions around content. Our approach is generally very collaborative and our working relationships are very good.
What has been the benefit of this work to you personally?
I have enjoyed working more collaboratively with colleagues from across the university on the GCU Anti-Racist Curriculum Operational Group as well as the work I am involved in at a more national level. I have enhanced my professional development, the work has increased my network and given me other opportunities. For example, I have written a blog that is published on our departmental blog page and I am delivering a conference paper this summer with colleagues from our decolonising the curriculum external network.
What has been the benefit of this work to staff and students at GCU and how do you know?
It's difficult to evaluate the extent to which our changes are impacting students. We have a Staff-Student Engagement Forum led by our Learning and Teaching Advisor (Emma Green) where the EDI agenda is reflected. Some of the feedback we've had is that we could be doing more in terms of the curriculum for marginalised groups and that, for some students, the on-going work feels a bit surface level, tokenistic or 'tick box'.
There is clearly more work to be done. We are still at the early stages. We need to hear more about the students' experiences of racism at all levels of the curriculum. Some of this experience, from my own conversations with students and staff, happens off campus in student placements for example. Some students tell us that they have experienced racism within the NHS and also from service users while on placement. It's challenging but we have to look at the curriculum in the widest sense.
What structures, systems and processes have been impacted by the ARC work you have been involved in?
Thus far we have not been developing our content through any formal structure but we are listening to the feedback from the Staff-Student Engagement Forum, we have put decolonising the curriculum on the agenda for our Programme Board and will be looking at our developments in terms of programme reapproval and admissions.
What challenges remain?
Some of the challenges are the perennial ones – time, workload, keeping the momentum going and keeping the anti-racist curriculum on top of the agenda while there are other areas competing for attention.
How will you address these?
I think it's about doing what you can do in stages; breaking the work down into chunks, setting goals for each semester and keeping to them. The intention is that the work being done now will be embedded in university structures.
[1] 'Curriculum' in the broadest sense: includes co-curricular and extra-curricular aspects and activities
