Fred's PGcert blog

For my micro-teaching day I wanted to push myself into trying something new.

Reasoning behind my idea: I am a big nerd and I engage with games and roleplaying a lot in my spare time, and I run game design and coding workshops as an AL on BA Illustration at Camberwell.

After 4 years of teaching on the course I have also noted that there is a real lack in how my colleagues exchange knowledge about student journeys. As an AL I almost never get asked about what I have noticed or If I have any concerns or ideas to help improve student welfare and support.

so I wanted to build this into my mini workshop by combining my knowledge of games and roleplaying while also helping members of staff to open up conversations around issues students are currently facing.

There will also be opportunity for staff to hold each other accountable if problematic portrayals of students get presented to the group. Hoping it will be easier to process feedback when discussing hypothetical student scenarios rather than real life students.

What did I do? I have devised a simple role playing game where teachers use prompts given by me and dice to imagine a student and their journey throughout higher education.

There are studies about how LGBT people use roleplaying games to experiment with gender identity and how it allows people to process difficult conversations through imagination rather than focusing on real life specifics. (Thom, 2022)

The Rules:

Step 1: Each player picks one set of coloured dice.

Step 2: The game leader (me) will then ask 5 questions, depending on the answer the player will do nothing or they will remove a dice from their pool. The questions will revolve around financial privilege where the players get to add a bit of themselves into the character that they will imagine.

Step 3: Each player rolls the dice, if they roll less than 12 their student did not make it through school, anything above means that they passed. The higher the number the better the grade.

Step 4: Time to role play. Using the dice in front of them, the players will tell each other about their students. If the pool of dice has a lot of low numbers, what barriers could they symbolise? If they are high, what privileges or achievements can be found?

Step 5: Discuss When all the dice are counted, we go around the table and introduce our students as if they are real. We use the dice to tell a story. The purpose of this exercise is to get teachers to share experiences of student hardships but also learn how to find successes even in the students who barely make it through or fail within higher education.

Sharing with peers before the day: In order to prepare for the micro teach day i shared my idea with colleagues, some of who have already done the PGcert and others who are doing it with me. I mainly recieved good feedback, saying it sounded like a very playful approach to the brief and that it was good to showcase my experise.

One colleague mentioned that it sounded very similar to Persona Pedagogy, which is a framework where you develop fictional personas with intersecting identities in order to avoid specific people sharing lived experience. (National Library Of Medicine, 2019)

I did not have time to research this in depth but have added it to my reading list as I think it would be helpful in order for me to develop this concept further.

Bibliography:

James, Thom. (2022) They Came To Slay. 1^st edn. Scotland: 404ink.

National Library Of Medicine (2019) Through the Eyes of Faculty: Using Personas as a Tool for Learner-Centered Professional Development. Available at: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6889841/ (Accessed: 13 Feb 2025).

The first workshop felt very igniting. There was something very affirming about being in a room of people who all had the same worries and concerns about the future of higher education as a business while at the same time all of us needing a job. As a non-British person is appreciated the timeline exercise as it gave me useful context around university fees and steppingstones within equality.  

Since then, I started thinking about things I have read that have helped me shape what kind of educator I want to be. I will admit that I am not an avid reader and that most of my expertise has come from years of community organising and facilitating workshops within a queer context. 

Here are some examples of books that I feel are very formative to my role as an educator and reflections on why: 

The book Centering by M.C Richards (1989) is a meditative exploration of the human body, clay as a material, but also contains chapters with reflections about teaching.  The main point of advice that I have taken to my own practice is that  

“In order to teach, you must be able to listen. You must be able to hear what the person before you means. You cannot assume the meanings and be a teacher.” (Richards, 1989, p. 21) 

Making Comics by Lynda Barry (2019) is another piece of writing that has been very influential in the way that I teach drawing as a subject. In the book she presents a series of exercises that always bring an element of silly to learning. I like creating a more relaxed and humorous environment with students when working practically and I am pretty sure this will come across in any observed learning and during the upcoming microteaching day. 

My final point of reference for recent reading is Anna Anthropy, who teaches game design at DePaul University College of Computing and Digital Media (CDM). In 2012 she released the book Rise of the Videogame Zinesters, which works as a guidebook for LGBT people who want to get into game design while also using it as a tool to challenge the social norms of the heteronormative scene in commercial game industries.  

I hope to spend some more time with these books, but after spending the day re-reading parts of these texts I have created a list of goals that I want to uphold as a teacher working within a HE context.

Here are my key points: 

• Accessibility is important to me. I want to be able to challenge experienced students while also making sure my lesson plans are easy to grasp for students who might struggle whether it is reading, language or just confidence. 

• I want to make sure that I have a good understanding of equality around gender, race and class so that I can stand up for my beliefs with more confidence. 

• I want to put student welfare above all, and make sure students can think for themselves and set goals with their art practice before thinking about grades. 

• I want to learn how to bring my community organising ethos into my university teaching practice more. I think art schools can learn a lot from a more non hierarchal education model. 

Bibliography: 

Richards, M, C. (1989) Centering: in Pottery, Poetry, and the Person. 2^nd edn. Conneticut: Wesleyan University Press. 

Barry, L. (2019) Making Comics. 1^st edn. Quebec: Drawn & Quarterly. 

Anthropy, A. (2012) Rise Of The Videogame Zinesters. 1^st edn. New York: Seven Stories Press. 

Hello people.

My name is Fred and I teach on the BA and MA of Illustration at Camberwell as an AL. My illustration practice is centred making comics, ceramics and sometimes video games. Most of my work touches upon LGBT themes.

I also co-run a free arts school programme called Queer Youth Art Collective, where the main focus is to make arts education as accessible as possible while holding space for young LGBT people to develop their own artistic practice.

Here are some links to my work:

https://www.freddelanka.com/ 

https://qyac.org.uk/