A Course on the Verge

Paper

This presentation examines a particular example of a course on the threshold of Higher Education. The Foundation in Art and Design exists in-between school and the undergraduate degree of the university and is thus a place of transition, where students come with the learning of the former and work towards entry into the latter. Converging from a huge variety of environments, they must learn to navigate one another as they do a transformed educational approach. This place therefore becomes a rich and fertile ground, much like the lava of a volcano, seeming at times to be a maelstrom of affect, discipline, intention – and a sometimes grudging acceptance of that which is troublesome. Differences are bridged (or acknowledged), narratives shared (or contested), cultures examined. The individual student journey is that student's focus, but they cover ground in the company of new and unfamiliar peers. The first part of Foundation encourages students to explore a wider range of art, design and media approaches, in 'diagnostic rotation', prior to a specialism in a more specific area. In each of its parts, practical approaches will embrace both more traditional and digital technologies, to open up a wider range of applications. Within the safety of a structured curriculum, students are encouraged to activate their ideas, to challenge their assumptions and to critique their contexts.

The conference themes could therefore be addressed in various ways, and a discussion might fit into various tracks; or be tailored to suit that where placed. Whilst the example is of Foundation, the ideas it generates are about facilitating students coming into a new environment and assisting their sense-making in that. Therefore suggestions presented should be applicable to a wide variety of such spaces, since the model that will be utilised to generate these is derived from a different age and context (as was indeed the basis of the contemporary Foundation course), contemporarily transposed. However, It is particularly suitable for arts pedagogy, which tends to value individuality and creative approaches to 'becoming' over more prescriptive methodologies.

Takeaway

Following the outlined presentation, participants will be encouraged to identify and discuss transformative points of their particular curricula, with recourse to Whitehead's 'stages' of romance, precision and generalisation. These should prompt a reconceptualisation of the edgier elements, which educators can then uphold as valuable approaches to facilitating learning in uncertain environments. In physical terms, a device will be presented for response and dissemination that allows for the conceptualisation of what we might consider 'helpful liminality'.

Abstract

In UK art & design education, 'Foundation' is widely recognised as the term for the one-year course that has usually preceded a creative BA. Since the 1960s this course has prepared generations of arts undergraduates for subsequent specialisation, in response to contemporary drivers. It might be seen therefore as an 'edge' of creative education, a place of transition from school to university, a course on the verge.

Economic politics have threatened the future of Foundation for many of these years, indicative of the precarious grounding of the sector as a whole, both in the UK and further afield. However, this presentation is not intended as a plea for its survival, but rather to discuss what it does (lest it be lost) – since conversation with international colleagues indicate that Foundation's meaning is not more widely given. This is especially relevant since ideologically, the course suggests a microcosm of creative education generally. With reference to A. N. Whitehead's notion of the 'rhythm of education', I will explain the ways in which its three relatively separate parts may give many of us terms with which to reassess our curricula intention in problematic educational environments.

Originally based on a Bauhausian model, with equal consideration given to all areas of art and design, Foundation is focussed less on particular disciplinary methodology but rather with cultivation of an individual's sense of self and subsequent direction. Basic materials and a 'kitchen table' ethos allow for exploration of approach: the sheet of paper utilised as the computer, the affordances of each technology investigated for what it might enable. This presentation then, suggests that we consider the digital alongside the physical as means to facilitate total work(ing)s of human creativity, but as 'particular' rather than 'blended' approaches. It also suggests that the choices we make are relevant for a period of time; but that we will necessarily need to make further choices about how to proceed. However, we may be supported in our choice-making by recourse to ideas from other places, which may diminish the sense of insecure isolation.