Em's PgCert Blog

Proposed intervention 

I am interested in contributing to the Pedagogy of Discomfort framework by intersecting it with Object-Based Learning (OBL), exploring how tactile knowledge can evoke emotion in the classroom and support its use as a collective critical tool. 

Leah Cox’s talk, “Utilising Discomfort Pedagogies as a Decolonisation Tool in Teaching and Learning Practice” (2025), serves as my entry point into pedagogies of discomfort, and I am currently working through her reference list to deepen my understanding. The foregrounding of emotion resonates with my own pedagogic practice, and I am particularly interested in the potential of emotion as a shared, critical resource in learning environments. 

OBL is another framework I encountered through the PgCert, and it too resonates with me. Rooted in tactile engagement and, by extension, the body, OBL offers a way to centre sensory and embodied experiences in learning. As Judy Willcocks et al (2023, 2024) demonstrate, it can also be employed effectively as a tool for critical engagement. I believe that the inherent criticality and corporeality of OBL make it well-suited to be used as a strategy for bringing emotion into the classroom in purposeful and transformative ways. 

My proposed intervention is a workshop framework that engages students in a layered encounter with objects, beginning with their material qualities and progressing toward critical reflection. Students start by exploring how an object feels, then consider how it relates to their body, followed by emotional responses, before contextualising the object within broader frameworks. This structure acknowledges affect as a generative source of knowledge and seeks to activate bodily and emotional awareness as tools for critical inquiry. 

I am interested in designing a framework that can be shared and adapted across contexts in response to shifting groups and needs, with the aim of foregrounding emotive and affective knowledges to challenge hegemonic frameworks and practices. 

Bibliography (loosely categorised although many sources intersect) 

Understanding pedagogies of discomfort: 

Ahmed, S. (2004). The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Edinburgh University Press.  

Ahmed, S. (2004a). Affective economics. Social Text, 22(2), 117-139.  

Ahmed, S. (2004b). Collective feelings: Or, the impressions left by others. Theory, Culture & Society, 21(2), 25-42. 

Boler, M. (1999) Feeling Power. Emotions and Education. Abingdon: Routledge. 

Connelly, L., Jospeh-Salisbury, R. (2019) Teaching Grenfell: The Role of Emotions in Teaching and Learning for Social Change. Sociology 

Cox, L. (2025), Pedagogies of Discomfort, [Recorded lecture]. Inclusive Practices. University of the Arts London. 14 May. Available at: https://moodle.arts.ac.uk/mod/folder/view.php?id=1401553 (Accessed 15 May 2025). 

Understanding the affective and emotive potential of OBL: 

Ahmed, S. (2019). What’s the Use?: On the Uses of Use. Durham and London: Duke University Press.  

Hardie, K. (2015) Innovative pedagogies series: Wow: The power of objects in object-based learning and teaching, Higher Education Academy. Available at: https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets.creode.advancehe-document-manager/documents/hea/private/kirsten_hardie_final_1568037367.pdf (Accessed: 10 March 2025) 

Mahon, K. and Willcocks, J. (2023) The potential of online object-based learning activities to support the teaching of intersectional environmentalism in art and design higher education in Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education, Vol 22 / Issue 2, (October 2023), pp. 187 – 207  

Orgill, G. and Willcocks, J. (2024), How to . . . use objects to support learning and teaching, [Recorded Lecture]. TPP. University of the Arts London. January. Available at: https://ual.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Sessions/List.aspx#folderID=%2261e304ce-5498-4672-a72b-b10600e460e4%22 (Accessed: 17 March 2024). 

Understanding how emotion can help students, staff and insitutions engage with and challenge hegemony: 

Ahmed, S. (2007). A phenomenology of Whiteness. Feminist Theory, 8(2), 149-168. 

Arao, B. and Clemens, K. (2013) ‘From Safe Spaces to Brave Spaces: A New Way to Frame Dialogue Around Diversity and Social Justice’, in Landreman, L.M. (ed.) The Art of Effective Facilitation: Reflections from Social Justice Educators. New York: Routledge, pp. 135-150  

Crippa, E. ‘From “Crit” to “Lecture Performance”’. In The London Art Schools: Reforming the Art World, 1960 to Now. London: Tate Publishing, 2015 Fernandez, D. et al (2024) ‘Gender and social class inequalities in higher education: intersectional reflections on a workshop experience’, Frontiers in Psychology, pp. 1 – 10 

Haraway, D. (1988), ‘Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective’, Feminist Studies, Vol. 14, No. 3. pp. 575-599  

Hooks, B. (1994) Teaching to Transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York: Routledge.  

Hu, X. (2024) ‘International Students’ Feeling of Shame in the Higher Education: An Intersectional Analysis of Their Racialised, Gendered and Classed Experiences in the UK Universities’, Sociology Study, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 69 – 89 

Lin, J.C.P. (2023), Exposing the chameleon-like nature of racism: a multidisciplinary look at critical race theory in higher education. High Education 85, pp. 1085–1100. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-022-00879-9  

Before reading, I invite you to check out this short post for context.

In reflecting on how we can better support students with chronic illness, I have watched the set videos for this task, as well as the recording of Leah Cox’s talk “Utilising Discomfort Pedagogies as a Decolonisation Tool in Teaching and Learning Practice” (2025). I have also read “International Students’ Feelings of Shame in Higher Education” (Hu, 2024) and “Gender and Social Class Inequalities in Higher Education: Intersectional Reflections on a Workshop Experience” (Fernandez et al, 2024).

Together, these materials have helped me think more deeply about: 
a) the paradox of disability being both hyper-visible and invisible in society, and 
b) the relationship between visibility and emotion, and emotion as a critical tool in the classroom.
This has led me to consider adjustments I can make in my own teaching to better support students with chronic illnesses and other disabilities. 

The paradox of disability being both hyper-visible and invisible in society: Adepitan (2020) uses the concept of “discrimination by design” to illustrate how exclusion is embedded in infrastructure—drawing connections between the historical legacy of racial segregation and the contemporary inaccessibility of public transport for disabled individuals. The clustering of wheelchair users into a designated bus section exemplifies how visibility can become a form of control or marginalisation. Christine Sun Kim (2023) also reflects on the politics of visibility, asking, “What is lost and what harm is caused because of this?” She notes that in her artworks, scale equals visibility, and visibility shapes what is socially valuable. These critiques point to the current limitations of positive scheming, which often prioritise visible disabilities while overlooking the realities of people with less visible or chronic conditions. 

This has prompted me to consider some changes I can make in my teaching: 

Intentional classroom setup 
To support diverse abilities in my classroom, I will ensure the space is set up in advance with accessible areas for rest (fatigue is common with chronic illness). These spaces will be available to all students without requiring them to disclose a reason. 

Accessible teaching materials 
Brain fog is a common symptom of chronic illness. To accommodate this, I will design workshop and briefing slides with minimal text, lots of visuals, and clear signposting. This format also supports neurodiverse students and those with language barriers. 

My hope is that by being intentional with both setup and materials, I can support students with diverse needs without making them feel hyper-visible if they disclose their disability—or invisible if they do not. 

Crenshaw’s (1990) intersectionality theory reminds us that disability can’t be fully understood on its own. My student and I share several intersecting identities—whiteness, cis womanhood, Englishness, and a similar socio-economic background—which may have fostered a sense of familiarity and mutual understanding. However, despite these shared positionalities, she has only now disclosed her disability. This highlights how even apparent relational closeness does not necessarily translate into a sense of safety or trust regarding disclosure. According to UAL’s 2024/25 data, 82.1% of students have not declared a disability, suggesting this is part of a wider institutional pattern. Furthermore, UAL’s categories do not explicitly include chronic illness, which may further deter students from declaring their condition. This omission can contribute to feelings of erasure or irrelevance, reinforcing the invisibility of certain disabilities.

Visibility and emotion are deeply linked. Shame, as discussed by Adepitan (2020) and in the paper “International Students’ Feelings of Shame in Higher Education,” (Hu, 2024) can result from intersecting systemic structures. Leah Cox (2025) also emphasises this saying “emotion and discomfort helps us to see oppression and inequality – if we don’t have it, we don’t see it”. Inspired by her, I plan to explore visualisation tasks—like asking students to draw their inner critic —to make emotions visible and foster critical conversations around disability and inclusion. The visual methodolgies of Fernandez et al (2024) offer further resources for developing inclusive learning experiences.

I hope that these changes will help me better support students as they navigate the physical and emotional barriers they encounter at UAL. I also hope they will help students feel able to disclose their needs, should they choose to.

Reference List:
Art 21, Christine Sun Kim in “Friends & Strangers” – Season 11 | Art21 (2023) YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NpRaEDlLsI&t=3s (Accessed: 14 May 2025). 

Cox, L. (2025), ‘Pedagogies of Discomfort’, [Recorded lecture]. Inclusive Practices. University of the Arts London. 14 May. Available at: https://moodle.arts.ac.uk/mod/folder/view.php?id=1401553 (Accessed 15 May 2025).

Crenshaw, K. (1990) ‘Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color, Stanford Law Review, 43(6), pp. 1241–1299.

Fernandez, D. et al (2024) ‘Gender and social class inequalities in higher education: intersectional reflections on a workshop experience’, Frontiers in Psychology, pp. 1 – 10

Hu, X. (2024) ‘International Students’ Feeling of Shame in the Higher Education: An Intersectional Analysis of Their Racialised, Gendered and Classed Experiences in the UK Universities’, Sociology Study, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 69 – 89

Para Pride, Intersectionality in Focus: Empowering Voices during UK Disability History Month 2023 (2023) YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yID8_s5tjc&t=1s (Accessed: 14 May 2025).

ParalympicsGB (2020) Ade Adepitan gives amazing explanation of systemic racism, YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAsxndpgagU (Accessed: 14 May 2025).

University of the Arts London, The Social Model of Disability at UAL (2020) YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNdnjmcrzgw&t=1s (Accessed: 14 May 2025).

Some context/reflections before my blog post: 

Two months ago, a student stopped me in the corridor, tearfully asking if we could talk. During our conversation, she revealed that she has fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition affecting her studies. She also disclosed that she had never informed any staff member about her condition or applied for an EC or ISA, despite being months away from graduation. She explained that her fear of being misunderstood, along with the emotional burden of explaining or justifying her condition, had prevented her from seeking support. 

Our encounter was coincidental but, to me, also serendipitous as my partner has fibromyalgia. 

Fibromyalgia is often misunderstood and, until recently, was regarded as a mental rather than a physical condition. As a result, many face delays in diagnosis and treatment (my partner waited six years). Attitudes are slowly shifting in the aftermath of the Covid-19 Pandemic as the spotlight on long-covid is also shining a brighter light on other chronic illnesses, but misunderstanding is still widespread. 

In that moment, I was in a fortunate position to relate to her experience—though, of course, my own experience doesn’t fully mirror hers. If she had confided in me about any other condition, I might not have been able to respond as meaningfully. This conversation has stayed with me, prompting reflection not only on her specific situation but on the broader challenges faced by students with chronic illnesses or ‘invisible’ disabilities. How can we meaningfully support students if they do not feel comfortable disclosing a disability and if it is not discernible? 

As these posts upload in reverse chronological order, and a lot of cumulative learning has happened across them, I recommend starting at the end with my Micro teaching Write-up and finishing with Blog Post 4. 

Happy reading and thank you for your time.

18/03/2025

This case study (Mahon and Willcocks, 2023) seeks to understand two things: 

1. How object-based and experiential learning can be translated for delivery online. 

2. How object based and experiential learning can help students understand complex issues, in this instance the intersections of colonialism and the climate crisis. 

I chose this text to learn about OBL online. However, when reading, I became more interested in the critical thinking it can enable. 

In their evaluation of delivering haptic and experiential learning online, Mahon and Willcock identify the following: 

Successes include teaching wider and larger audiences and using multimodal communication to facilitate meaningful discussion online.  

Notable challenges include unequal access to technology and networks, screen exhaustion, poor focus and difficulty communicating online.  

Overall, translation for online delivery is deemed successful, although sessions shouldn’t last longer than two hours to give “breathing space for understanding to develop” (Mahon and Willcocks, 2023, p. 201) and students must have a focal point “as it is through conversation and active engagement that learning outcomes are clarified and reinforced” (Mahon and Willcocks, 2023, p. 202). They conclude “when encountered online, objects still have the capacity to tell powerful stories and make abstract concepts more concrete for the learner” (Mahon and Willcocks, 2023, p. 202).  

The study also shows that OBL promotes critical awareness. This observation is supported by literature: 

• Chatterjee at al. argue for “the potential of object-based learning to address troublesome knowledge, make abstract concepts more concrete for learners and develop a range of transferable skills including research, analysis and critical thinking” (Chatterjee at al., 2013 cited in Mahon and Willcocks, 2023, p. 189) 

• Steele (1998) states that object-based research is “the most valuable generator of knowledge production” (Steele, 1998 cited in Mahon and Willcocks, 2023, p. 190) 

• Lange and Willcocks believe OBL has “an increasingly important role to play in contributing to the decolonial agenda” (Lange and Willcocks, 2021 cited in Mahon and Willcocks, 2023, p. 190) 

I find the workshop analysed for this case study very inspirational. “Encouraging students to explore the impact of colonialism on the current climate crisis through the lens of eighteenth- and nineteenth- century botanical drawings” offers a clever entry point for thinking about complex and challenging issues. It also includes examples of good teaching practice, including:

• Using visual analysis to build critical engagement – e.g. plants in botanical illustrations are often isolated “which encouraged them to be viewed purely in terms of potential economic exploitation rather than as parts of a symbiotic ecosystem” (Mahon and Willcocks, 2023, p. 192). 

• Scaffolding questions to support student agency – e.g. asking several questions the first being “What do you know about who produced this object” and the last “How does your understanding of global power dynamics influence your understanding of the object?” (Mahon and Willcocks, 2023, p. 193) 

• Teaching across formats to ensure diversity of learning experience – e.g. asking students to add object-based research to an interactive digital map “which inevitably evidenced the ongoing impact of environmental exploitation in previously colonized nations” (Mahon and Willcocks, 2023, p. 193) 

There is lots of food for thought here and I look forward to digesting ideas to disseminate through my own teaching practice. I have also identified further reading (see photos below). 

References

Mahon, K. and Willcocks, J. (2023) The potential of online object-based learning activities to support the teaching of intersectional environmentalism in art and design higher education in Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education, Vol 22 / Issue 2, (October 2023), pp. 187 – 207 

17/03/2025

I really enjoyed Dr Kristen Hardie’s essay Innovative pedagogies series: Wow: The power of objects in object-based learning and teaching (2015) and find OBL thought-provoking. Keen to know more, I watched the recording of How to . . . use objects to support learning and teaching originally delivered by Judy Willcocks and Georgina Orgill in January 2024. This post will focus on Judy Willcock’s presentation. 

Judy Willcocks is Head of the Museum and Study Collection at Central Saint Martins. She is also a pioneer of OBL and describes herself as an “arch collaborator”, having worked closely with leading figures researching and practicing OBL.  

To start, she contextualises OBL and traces its increasing application in classrooms.  

• 2005 – 2008, OBL becomes an academic discipline with key contributors Scott G Harris and Eilean Hooper-Greenhill, learning with and through objects in museums. Willcocks argues however, that art and design educators and practitioners have been doing OBL informally for much longer.  

• Researchers at UCL advance the use of OBL in classrooms but with a pragmatic lens. For example, considering how objects can help medical students. Willcocks suggests that few of these sessions were “critical, oblique or creative”.  

• She states that, apart from Hardie’s work, there was a void in literature about OBL in art and design. It is within this void that she situates her own practice.  

I love Willcock’s description of her relationship to the world: “I see the world as a very rich and complex landscape which is constantly morphing and changing, and in which people’s understanding of reality is co-constructed not just by their interactions with other people but by their interactions with stuff”. I share this world view.  

Later in the talk she discusses her workshop structure and key benefits of OBL. I particularly like the emphasis on getting students to spend “deep time” with objects. Furthermore, she outlines two frameworks for engaging with objects: “information sharing” and “holding back information”. 

Information sharing is the “traditional, curatorial way of working”, where someone is an expert with knowledge and “storytelling capabilities”. She warns that “the minute you start storytelling about an object, that’s your curatorial voice entering the room” and advocates avoiding this. She does however acknowledge it is useful when engaging with topics like decolonisation, where prerequisite knowledge is important.  

Holding back information foregrounds the “magical and meaningful” relationship people have with objects and holds space for diverse contexts/experiences/knowledges. She refers to this type of engagement as extra-rational or the “visceral, embodied, unconsidered response”.  

I find this lecture enormously helpful, particularly Willcock’s assertion that “objects are a good way of relating to our student population” and that an “object can be highly illustrative of a huge amount of context and information”. She underlines the versatility of OBL but stresses the importance of setting a clear framework for students. I am currently developing an OBL workshop for first year illustration students and, reflecting on this, think my scaffold may be the narrative potential of objects. I plan to set up a ‘table of curiosities’, put students in pairs and ask them to choose one material and one object to research. Then to task them with drawing a wordless story which applies their material’s properties to their object. Considering this, Willcock’s response to a question about the place of material in OBL was interesting. Her current work does not extend to natural materials as it is based off manmade objects/material, or anything where there is “intention behind the making”.  

I will read the literature shared in the session to think more about if and how natural materials can be used within OBL.  

References:  

Hardie, K. (2015) Innovative pedagogies series: Wow: The power of objects in object-based learning and teaching, Higher Education Academy. Available at: https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets.creode.advancehe-document-manager/documents/hea/private/kirsten_hardie_final_1568037367.pdf (Accessed: 10 March 2025) 

Orgill, G. and Willcocks, J. (2024), How to . . . use objects to support learning and teaching, [Recorded Lecture]. TPP. University of the Arts London. January. Available at: https://ual.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Sessions/List.aspx#folderID=%2261e304ce-5498-4672-a72b-b10600e460e4%22 (Accessed: 17 March 2024). 

Contextual Background: On the MA in Illustration and Visual Media at LCC, we use crits to formatively assess student learning and match feedback to relevant assessment criteria to help students prepare for summative assessment, in line with the view that crits are “the glue that connects learning, teaching and assessment” (Blythman et al, 2007, p. 6).   

Evaluation: This comes with a challenge. On one hand, crits help students understand and apply criteria to navigate HE assessment and “many commentators have observed that curriculum elements where students have been involved in self- and/or peer-assessment are found, through formal assessments such as exams, to have been learned much more deeply” (Race, 2001, p. 22). On the other hand, the “learning which takes place is variable” (Blair 2007: n.pag.). Consequently, only some students are benefitting from crits.   

Moving forwards, I want to ensure greater parity for students. To do this I could:  

Discuss relevant assessment criteria with students at the beginning of the session in accordance with the view that “students need to be given agreed criteria to critique against” (Blythman et al, 2007, p. 5). Furthermore, I can involve students in choosing the criteria to help them “relate much more directly to the targets they need to achieve and to be more self-aware of their progress towards achieving them” (Race, 2001, p. 19). For example, asking students to identify criteria they find challenging and using these to guide the critique. This would also help establish a shared framework and goals.

Students’ verbal participation and understanding of what has been said often varies, this can result in an unequal experience. Using a glossary could “give common sense meanings to students, including those who may not have English as their first language” (Blythman et al, 2007, p. 18). I can print words and put them up around the classroom to help students share language. I will join in as students “find it helpful when lecturers explicitly model the types of feedback and dialogue that they hope to inculcate” (Blythman et al, 2007, p. 20). There is a very good glossary in Critiquing the Crit (Blythman et al, 2007) which I can borrow from.   

I wholeheartedly agree that “the relationship between self-confidence and the quality of the student’s creative performance is critical to the quality of the learning experience of the individual student” and that “a negative experience or misunderstanding of the formative feedback . . . can result in the level of learning being affected” (Blair 2007: n.pag.). Creating a supportive environment is therefore essential. Blythman et al (2007) recommend crit pairings so students can review work together before the larger group crit. This is a clever way of building confidence and something I would like to explore (although I will need to be mindful of time).  

Finally, I can incorporate feedback from crits into written summative assessment feedback. This will promote ipsative learning which “can be very powerful”, as “students who have engaged conscientiously with self-assessment and then receive feedback from a tutor on how objectively they have self-assessed, take the feedback very seriously” (Race, 2001, p. 14).  

Taken together, these approaches can increase parity in crits – allowing more students to have a meaningful experience, prepare for assessment and “develop skills invaluable in later lifelong learning contexts, and their own ongoing continuing professional development” (Race, 2001, p. 23). 

References:  

Blair B. (2007). Perception/ Interpretation/Impact. Networks Magazine: 1:10-13. Art, Design Media Subject Centre. Brighton 

Blythman, M., Orr, S. and Blair, B. (2007) Critiquing the Crit. Project Report. Higher Education Academy. 

Race, P. (2001). A Briefing on Self, Peer and Group Assessment. LTSN Generic Centre, Assessment Series No. 9. 

08/01/2025 

Ahead of our first TPP session on January 6^th, 2025, I read the essay How do art and design technicians conceive of their role in higher education? (Sams, 2016). Written by Claire Sams, an artist and former Technician at Central St Martins, it offers an insightful and coherent overview of what art and design technicians do and how they feel about their role within Higher Education (HE).   

The article starts by emphasising the “lack of contemporary literature on the HE technicians’ role in art and design” (Blythman et al, 2008 cited in Sams, 2016, p. 62). To combat this, over 30 technicians were surveyed. They were asked to describe their role, and common responses include helping and supporting staff and students, health and safety, specialist technical expertise and offering bespoke individual teaching experiences to students. In the current HE climate the latter feels increasingly unique to the role of technician, and I would like to explore this further.   

Hunt and Melrose define the technician as a “master craftsperson” (2005, p.70 cited in Sams, 2016, p. 65) and Sams agrees, observing that “this master of craft is confidently able to work through the creative process with students, combining traditional techniques, historical understanding and contemporary approaches to create diverse student outcomes” (Sams, 2016, p. 65). This view is confirmed by Technician A and Technician B, two of those surveyed by Sams. Technician B says “all student work is a one-off creation . . . The role demands a complexity of thinking and facilitating a huge range of students’ enquiries” ([Technician B], Sams, 2016, p. 65). Technician A feels that the face-to-face interaction technicians provide is of “significant value to students” ([Technician A], Sams, 2016, p. 64).  

During the TPP workshop, a group of us discussed the article in relation to ‘risk taking’ (a focus of the session). Several peers, who are also academic staff, shared that rising student numbers and declining time resource, makes offering individual support increasingly challenging. This coupled with the diverse social and educational contexts of our students, and the fact that less are doing a Foundation course, means many of us find students are less confident taking risks. Reflecting on this, I feel that technicians are ideally placed to facilitate risk taking in students; they do more responsive teaching and are less constrained by academic requirements. Additionally, it can be argued that technicians are well suited for supporting neurodivergent students, as they can tailor their teaching to match student needs and offer sustained one-to-one support.   

Moving forwards, I intend to work more closely and intentionally with technicians. Greater osmosis between academic and technical staff has the potential to create richer and more supportive learning experiences for students; helping to meet diverse student needs and encourage risk taking.   

Update added on 16/03/2025: an example of how I am liaising more closely with technical staff is captured in my Case study 2, which you can find here.  

References:

Sams, C. (2016), ‘How do art and design technicians conceive of their role in higher education?’ in Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal, Vol 1 / Issue 2 (2016), pp. 62-69 

08/01/2025

In our first TPP workshop we were given a collection of coloured cards describing significant world events, policies, and educational trends/innovations and, as a class, asked to make a HE timeline. We were also given blank cards and invited to add our own events. I enjoyed this activity; it was thought provoking and a good icebreaker. My peers on the PgCert are diverse and everyone had something different to contribute. This fostered lively discussion and knowledge exchange. Our final timeline was not perfect but overall, we assembled a sensible chronology. What I find interesting is that most decisions were driven by affect, we might not know exactly when something happened, but we had felt the consequences of it and therefore were able to locate it with relative accuracy.  

We were then tasked with reflecting on the timeline and one of my peers made a good point that certain financial data was missing. Notably the rise in tuition fees in 2012 from £3000 to £9000 and the change from maintenance grants to loans in 2016. This sparked an insightful conversation about the implications, including access issues and shifting student demographics. Many people felt very strongly about the issue, me included.  

I was troubled by one card which read “The murder of George Floyd” as I believe that placing emphasis on an individual can distract from the underlying systemic issue. Spotlighting someone’s murder also has the potential to be very triggering. Although I didn’t discuss this with my peers at the time, it seems that others felt similarly as someone added a handwritten card reading “Black Lives Matter”. I believe this is a good reframing: it is less triggering, acknowledges systemic racism and offers an affirmative lens rooted in collective action.  

http://ewoolleypgcert.myblog.arts.ac.uk/files/2025/03/ROT-form-MAIVM-tutorials-27th-Feb.pdf