Revisiting the concept of Inclusivity - learnings from a project.

It all started out innocently as a response to community service project call by an ngo NOW PDP -working for people with disabilities. My IVS co-teachers and I were looking for projects to initiate our newly inducted Design and Art students to the idea of using their practice for service of people. Art is often an expression of the self as is the practice. Design on the other hand is supposed to respond a need or a problem. Though these polar views are neither always true nor often possible. However this binary often causes stress during the creative process when a project demands that you to explore an unfamiliar territory, in this case working with people with multiple disabilities.

The brief was vague to begin with but a visit to the site and meeting with the team in-charge revealed quite a bit. What ensued is typical of what most people will experience when they connect with a project....the heart connection. Needless to say it took more time than we had bargained for, had many more meetings than what we had initially thought we would need to put in, infringed on our life - I actually dreamed about it, and exhausted us mentally and physically. I must mention that it gave me the opportunity to visit areas of the city I had not explored before, like the truck 'chamak patti' markets. Also got to get my hands all dirty, worked and shaped plaster and fretted over material not responding to my design the way I wanted it to. Material often has a mind of its own.

                

                                                             Preps for the project

I would now like to speak about the learnings and challenges rather than branch of on a description of the project.  Our inspiration was a cleverly crafted slogan of NOWPDP, 'A Part not Apart'. The aim of the project was to help disabled students work on a mural painting to celebrate a day. The slogan made us think of working on creating an activity which could be participated in by people with multiple disabilities. The centre catered to people varying physical disabilities including hearing, speech and sight as well and mentally challenged. We looked at creating simple silhouettes which could filled in easily by students through using techniques like sponging, hand impressions as well as brushes etc. as we did not know what the students' disabilities would be. Then we had to look at scale of the imagery so as to be accessible for people on wheel chairs. How much could be left to students and how much should be done by us? The students should not feel that we were underestimating them due to their disability. How to communicate with students who were hearing and speech impaired? All these consideration were on our mind. And then the biggest challenge, when designing a visual activity - how do you include students with visual impairment? And after the implementation of the mural how do you include the people with visual impairment in the primarily visual experience. Our mural included tactile surface to be responsive to sight impaired, and we included chimes to create a sound element which would serve to attract the sight impaired towards the tactile part of the mural. However we decided against braille as the ones could see would be left out of the understanding process. With regards to writing in Urdu, we learnt that the blind can read english letters and therefore it is best that we write in english.
            

IVS team getting ready for the big day 

The pictures show our design response. However what i want to add is what the pictures don't show. Our concept of inclusivity underwent a change due to this activity. We learnt that ideas we celebrated as being 'zabardast', creating tactile surfaces, keeping the height of image in mind, adding chimes, were nothing new to them. But we in our narcissism felt the ideas were novel. We felt communicating with the ones who were hearing and speech impaired would be a problem. They made communication with us so easy. We pondered so much about finding imagery which would be easy for the mentally challenged to paint and they surprised us completely with their amazing skills. The word 'inclusive' meant us experiencing them as much as them experiencing us. Two of our team members, students of IVS also had speech and hearing impairment. They played a central role in this project as they became the key communicators between us and the primarily hearing and speech impaired team of volunteer students, a role we had never considered them for them before.

  

                       
                               Finale- co-creators working on the mural on the final day


Thank you so much for letting us be part of you and learning from you. The slogan 'A part not Apart' carries a new significance for us now.

IVS team 

A sneak peak into child's play in a village : what does it reveal?

A sneak peak into child's play in a village: what does it reveal?

Look what I found on my latest sojourn to Gharo. In a small village tucked away from the highway is an idyllic village, the village of Ishaaq Jhokio. This is where I reconnected with the concept of play as understood in days, which seem from another time another world. I made the acquaintance of Samreen and Ambreen, two girls aged perhaps 5 and 8, who allowed me a peek into their little make believe world of play.

A view of Ishaak Jhokio Village, Gharo

Play and creativity go hand in hand or at least used to. When I was young (how long ago was that?), the culture of creating your own games and toys was still rampant. Owing to the dearth of toys available locally, the Toy R Us toys, the Cindy’s, the Barbie’s were things your uncles and aunt's bought for you from America or were available at your rich friend's house for you to go and play with when invited to birthday parties. So most of us resorted to our own devices. Among a favorite past time for the girls was creating dolls houses. These we did diligently recycling old boxes and pieces of cloth and creating spaces for our ‘Sonia’ and ‘Tara’. Another was the ‘shaadi’ (wedding) of the dolls. Clothes were stitched and created for the doll to be married and a grand trousseau was prepared including clothes, bedding, furniture etc. If we analyze this activity its quite fascinating.

The creation of your own toys or giving them a makeover is quite creative activity. It allows a close inspection of form and a molding of things to suit it. As a doll is built from scratch it will allow a child to identify the forms and try to recreate the chosen form with materials. It allows material exploration and manipulation as well as development of motor skills.  It also includes the concept of adaptation and creating and giving the creation the original mark of the maker. Thus the creator or child learns to become autonomous and confident. Some would argue that playing with digital games also instills a sense of autonomy as a child is responsible for the outcome of the game. But lets explore this autonomy. A child playing dress up in the virtual world is working with a set of given templates, which are used by hundreds of others playing the same game. The result is an amalgam of presets determined by the game developer, which you believe are your own creations. How does that compare to creating some thing from scratch, something which bears your own mark.

Samreen with her prized possessions, dolls.

The activity of creation of dolls and their houses could not be done in isolation. You needed to go to mummy to get cloth, ask Dadi's (grandmother) help in stitching, and go poking around the stores and kitchen looking for old materials you could recycle. Empty shoes boxes became doll’s houses, scraps of cloths converted into curtains, old night bulbs were retrieved from trash and proudly fixed to the ceiling of a doll's house. This activity entailed an engagement with the environment, a close inspection of the things, which became dysfunctional or useless so that they could be reused for play. There also existed a culture of exchange. I remember exchanging a small light bulb with a piece of mirror for my doll-house with my neighbor, Tauseef. Creativity was not just out of the box thinking, creativity also meant creative recycling and working with limitations. I wonder when the concept of creativity became synonymous with novelty.

Another important aspect that entailed this activity was the engagement with space and scale. You looked at the size of the shoe-box inside and outside. Was the shoe-box sufficient for the doll you chose? Then you built furniture for your doll and the furniture obviously had to match the size of the doll. Breaking my head over lengths and estimations in Math with my kids, I wondered why they don't understand. And laboring over concept of space in the Design studio class that I teach I wonder at this lack of understanding in students. Perhaps it is the 3D virtual environment, which limits their active engagement with space. Their understanding of space and scale thus remains underdeveloped.

Well, to come back to the lovely Samreen and Ambreen from village Ishaak Jhokio, they showed me how they had made their lovely dolls from old bottles and scraps of cloth.  And they had found a secluded spot in the hedge, which made up the boundary of their house, and created a dolls house. Small stones and empty boxes had been converted into furniture. Both girls had their own set of dolls and were extremely proud of them. It was a fascinating peak into their make-believe world. A peak, which took me back in time to my childhood.

A view of her secret play place

Spatial organisation and recycled scraps- a close-up of the doll's house

To finish up, this is not meant to be an anti-technology post, so techie friends, don’t get upset. It is a mere introspection of the consequences of my own behavior as a parent, when I allow my children limitless access to technology as no encouragement for the kind of self devised play that actually encourages creativity, refines motor skills and hones powers of observation. It is also an attempt to understand and identify one of the causes of the dearth of spatial understanding students exhibit when they arrive in studio as students. And perhaps an explanation of the lack of economical and ecological design solutions by designers these days, designers for who design starts and ends with the computer screen these days. A design, as Balaram (1998) writes, is neither responsive to the socio-cultural requirements of the people nor cognizant of factors such as environment and personal health. As Heidegger (1977) explains “We must ask : what is the instrumental in itself”. The questioning of technological solutions is not to be anti-technology but by doing so aiming to develop a free relationship to it. And finally to try to look at existing and past practices, not as mere nostalgic journeys but for a careful sifting of worked and what didn’t. “The realization that we must foster human receptivity and preserve endangered species of pre-technological practices that remain in our culture in the hope that one day they will be pulled together into a new paradigm, rich enough and resistant enough to give new meaningful directions to our lives,” Dreyfus (1995).


References:
Balaram, S. (1998) “For the People, by the People: Design without Designers”, Thinking Design, Ahmedabad, India : National Institute of Design
Dreyfus, H. L. (1995) “Heidegger on Gaining a Free Relation to Technology”, in a Feenberg & A. Hannay (Eds), Technology and Politics of Knowledge, Bloomington : Indiana University Press.
Heidegger, M. (1977) “The Question Concerning Technology” The question concerning technology, and other essays, New York: Harper & Row.

Reaching out to Na Maloom Afrad …. and Post-Its saved the day

Reaching out to Na Maloom Afrad …. and Post-Its saved

the day  

Karachi traffic has been getting worse. There was a time when my Karachite friends used to declare Lahore traffic as crazy. I think Karachi didn’t like the edge Lahore had over her and decided to upstage Lahore. Well here we are with traffic conditions in Karachi reaching crazy heights.

However this story is not about lamenting Karachi’s unruly traffic, or its bad rule ignoring citizens or even the bad Na Maloom Afrad, (well they can be good too!). It’s about communication.

On my way to work, which is situated in a posh Clifton locality, I was extremely irritated to see my way blocked by a car parked right in the middle of a u turn. Let me clarify, this u-turn, facilitates smooth traffic flow and frequent traffic bottle-necks created due to location of schools and colleges in residential localities in Karachi. Due to this problem, many such schools have taken it upon themselves to regulate the traffic associated with their institutions, to minimize trouble for the residents and other citizens in the vicinity, as has the institution I work for. For this purpose there is a board visually indicating the u-turn. You can imagine my irritation on finding the car in question parked across this area. An inquiry directed to the guards and chowkidaar of my institution revealed that the car belonged to a resident of the adjacent apartments. I requested them to inform the chowkidaar of the building in question to ask the resident to remove the car.

Car parked outside my workplace

The next morning the car was parked in the same place. Irritated I marched upto the guard and demanded an explanation. I was told the chowkidaar of the building in question did not know who the car belonged to, however the guards had conveyed the message. “Try again” I told him and walked into work fuming at the apathy, cooking up plans of vengeance at the car owner. “Deflate the tyres” a suggestion by a colleague, caught my fancy and the whole day I gleefully imagining the face of the person walking of out their comfy apartment the next morning and finding a flat tyre. Yes I would have my revenge. This would be my plan of action for tomorrow.  The whole night I actually looked forward to the act of deflating the tyre, almost savouring the imagined reactions of the car owner.

The next morning fulfilling my expectations, the car was parked right across my way blocking the approach to the u-turn. Almost rubbing my hands in glee I got of my car, ready to put my plan into implementation. However a small niggling voice struggled through my bubble of vengeance. Like Jimminy Cricket of Pinochio, the voice cautioned me about an eye for an eye approach. Irritated with this righteous voice I tried to push it away. I was so close to act of driving the pin I carried in my bag into the tyre and see the air slowly go out of the tyre. I wanted to experience the satisfaction of causing as much inconvenience to the car owner as I had experienced for Three days. The voice wouldn’t give up, it kept poking, “how are you any better,” it asked? “It’s not about who is better”, I replied irritated beyond limits. “You just want revenge,” the voice quipped. “No I want to teach a lesson,” I spat back. “Look at your methods…what will this yield…..a sense of reciprocal injury?” “Did the chowkidaar deliver the message?” This stopped me in my tracks. “Have you tried another method……have you tried enough,” it asked?

I slowly lowered my hand into my purse to put the pin into the bag, and my hand touched the Post-it I carry around with me amongst the other paraphernalia. You must have guessed what followed. I wrote a carefully worded message to the car owner and stuck it on the windscreen. As I walked into work that day a felt a lurking sense of having been cheated out of the satisfaction of seeing the tyre deflate when I pricked it with my pin.  You can’t be all good!

                                                               My little note to the owner 

The next morning there was no car blocking my way.

I would like to end this first by thanking the owner. thank you for reviving my faith in the power of communication and reaching out. And now by reflecting on what veteran actor Talat Hussain said recently, “The act of lying to oneself is reflective of a dead society and we are gradually developing into one.” (http://tribune.com.pk/epaper/) 

Communicating with the little voice inside might help us avoid this. But caution, you do feel cheated out of the vicious satifaction that you get when you indulge in that sweet thing called Revenge.

Tradition vs. Modernity: the debate in reference to Art and Design education

Has the institutionalization of knowledge and industrialization of institutions indeed resulted in independent and critical thinkers? Or are we being held hostage by the colonial mentality ingrained in us that makes us believe in the supremacy of all that is modern, and shun tradition. 

Why am I writing this? I cannot attribute a single happening to this. It can be said that there are perhaps various happenings, that have led me to write this piece. The passing of Shahid Sajjad, a sculptor par excellence, revived the debate in art and design circles, of the oppositional relationship between schooling and the creative process. Shahid Sajjad did not believe in the institutionalization of art education.

There is a pervasive belief that in our part of the world, the developing world - especially Asia, the existence of ‘old-school’ methods and the master-disciple relationship heavily influences the practice of teaching in educational institutions and the mindset of teachers, and this forms the basis of the arguments built upon by the new modern education systems against the so-called ‘old-world methods’, (Richards, 2004). The sole responsibility of low achievement of students, lack of innovation in teaching as well as student out put, independent and critical thinking in students, lack of student motivation and many other problems of education systems in general, are attributed partially to this old-world mindset. 

The master disciple relationship or the ‘sheikh-mureed’ or the ‘guru-chela’ relationship, is the foundation from which a lot of teaching practice emerges in the context of Pakistan, and I will make it clear here that I am talking about art and design education in Pakistan, and not extending this to other disciplines, keeping in view my own association. Though there might be similarities with other disciplines as well.

A very common phrase while I was growing up was “itna chela banay ki zaroorat nahin hai” (there is no need to be such a follower), alluding to the fact that being a chela is something not looked upon too favorably, underscoring the obedience and allegiance such a relationship entails traditionally. The question then is, is the Sheikh-mureed /guru-chela relationship all that bad? What exactly is the relationship? By believing the rhetoric and building new methodologies based on the premise that the traditional methods are redundant and backward and do not allow growth of independent thinking and critical reflection, are we indeed headed in the right direction? Is the adoption of all these new methods the way out of our present crisis?

I refer here to an article suggested to me by the esteemed Abbas Hussain, in order to broaden my understanding of this traditional relationship. Smith (2006) outlines the difference between the teacher–student relationship and the master disciple relationship.

It would be fair to say that the master-disciple relationship is based on the principles of mutuality and reciprocity. However the context might be different from the way we apply it in teaching theories today. In teaching today, it is the commonality of education that brings the teacher student to each other, the body of knowledge that the teacher has.  A student seeks a transfer of that body of knowledge by virtue of being taught by the teacher. However the master-disciple relationship is not dependent on a specific body of knowledge that the disciple seeks to get, but the total self of the teacher. In this sense the relationship is not utilitarian. “ The master does not enjoy the disciple’s esteem because he conveys something that is useful in any utilitarian respect” but “what is significant for the disciple is master’s total self, whose character and activity are unique and irreplaceable,” (Smith, 2006, pg. 149).  In education circles here, there is an ascendance for publication and research as criteria set by HEC in evaluating educational institutions. This severs the principle of mutuality between the teacher and student. A teacher can pursue this practice of research and publication without the student. It is the thus the public side of a teacher that becomes the criteria for their evaluation and esteem. In the master disciple relationship, “the master only becomes a master in his relationship to his disciples, and only through perceptive and comprehending disciples does he become fully aware of his mastership,” (Smith 2006, pg. 151). This is not say that I am devaluing the importance of research and publication in teaching practice, but my intention here is only to point out there is a need to tread with care lest we allow the former to over shadow the importance of the latter. The latter is the basis of the student-centered teaching methodologies we keep expounding and it is important to note that therein lie some of the solutions to some of these new notions. For instance as Smith explains, a teacher resents interruptions where as for the master the entire experience is nothing but interruptions. Time the most important factor in today’s educational circles, where we talk of credits and workloads is of equal importance in the master-disciple relationship. However the difference is in the approach.

This leads me to another aspect that raises its head over and over again in educational circles, the question of aptitude. There is perhaps merit here in going back to the notion of ‘calling to discipleship’. Having just an aptitude does not nesessarily translate into being motivated and sticking it out. The concept of being called to discipleship then perhaps explains what it is we are looking for when we induct students. A student, who is motivated to learn, has an aptitude for the given subject and a learning orientation.  Smith (2006) also points out the two requirements of discipleship, questioning and submission. While there will be no eye-brows raised about the former, it is the second that we need to think about. In the master-disciple submission is the prerequisite for learning to take place. Is it really so different from what we want in a student when we cry about the lack of attention and disregard for what the teacher is saying in class. The attention will only come from the student when he submits to the idea that what the teacher is about to reveal to him is indeed something important and of value.

As far as the question concerning the lack of individual thought and rote learning is concerned, again Smith explains that a teacher is one who gives of himself to his students, but a master gives himself. However as disciples are also varied in nature, each disciple will take away from the master, in accordance with his own understanding and ability. He then goes on to explain the three stages of tragedy in a master’s life- the starting of mastership and renunciation of things held dear, the realization that he will have no true heir as all disciples will interpret and experience their teachings differently and finally the loss of pushing the disciple away.  Here is when the dilemma then shifts onto the disciple. At this moment it is the disciples choice to come into his own, or become an idolater.   It would therefore be unsuitable to rest the blame of solely on the traditional approaches. It is indeed human nature to be defensive in times of loss. To a disciple the loss of parting with teacher perhaps gives rise to the defense mechanism of idolatery. In todays context we think of lack of individual thought and critical thinking in students and their expectance of spoon-feeding.

My concluding remarks then bring me to question our berating of our own traditions of teaching and practice as something old, outdated and to be discarded. Will the utter disregard of the old help us in solving our problems? Has it solved the problem of education else-where? Has the institutionalization of knowledge and industrialization of institutions indeed resulted in independent and critical thinkers? Or are we being held hostage by the colonial mentality ingrained in us that makes us believe in the supremacy of all that is modern, and shun tradition. Perhaps it is time we turn to look at all that is still not lost to us, look around us where tradition still exists alongside the modern. And then try a new individual approach, an approach informed by knowledge of our own tradition and modern thought.

References:

Smith, Huston, 2006, “The Master Disciple Relationship” World Wisdom online Library.

www.worldwisdon.com/public/library/default.aspx

Cameron Richards (2004), “From old to new learning: global imperatives, exemplary Asian dilemmas and ICT as a key to cultural change in education”, Globalisation, Societies and Education Vol. 2, No. 3.

Shahid Sajjad-1936-2014, (2014) video presentation, Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture.