“Students would come to Jaydin for support with their work and to clarify instructions that had been given to them by the course tutors. This placed an exceptional pressure on Jaydin…”
Jaydin – A mature student’s experience, Shades of Noir (2020) Inclusive Practice: Alchemy – Transformation in Social Justice Teaching
Jaydin – A mature student’s experience, details the harassment and bullying a student encountered when prioritising their own work over supporting their classmates.
Student collaboration, communication and peer learning is an essential tool to support student learning. Student’s supporting each other is common practice within the arts, particularly in open studio settings, and would generally be seen as positive collaboration and teamwork. However, this case study highlighted something I had not considered before – the perception and reality of teaching. Something perceived as positive could instead negatively impact a student. Where else could this be happening?
Whatsapp. Whatsapp has become the communication hub for all courses. The accessible and out of sight platform allows students to communicate timetable changes, lesson requirements, questions and general thoughts on lessons/units. This platform supersedes the Moodle announcement, with many students admitting they never read the announcements as ‘it’s too much information’. We as teachers know this space exists and often ask students to pass on information in their group chats.
I recently had an encounter with a student from a group I had not worked with before. There was an issue with their timetable, setting the lesson start time 30 minutes later than intended. An announcement had been sent to inform students of the correct start time but, as expected, many of the students had not seen the announcement – except one. The student was in shock that they were the only person there. After 10minutes of waiting, I’d suggested to the student to send out a message on the group Whatsapp chat to which I was met with “Oh I left the group chat, there was too much drama.” In the past I would not enquire, taking the approach of ‘it’s none of my business’, but after reading Jaydin’s account I investigated more. The student, proceeded to tell me about the many arguments, harassing behaviour and racist comments that had occurred both on the platform and in teaching environments.
How could this happen in a learning environments? Where is the safeguarding?
Safeguarding: Safeguarding is the action that is taken to promote the welfare of children and protect them from harm.
Having worked in UAL for many years, the first time I had heard the word safeguarding was at a job interview for a job in at a different institute. At this point I had worked at UAL for two years and felt I had a good enough grasp of teaching. This was evidently not the case as I had never heard of such a simple term. Although the job role was an adult learner course, I was required to complete training on safeguarding to understand how to best protect my learners. Yet, in higher education this concept is lost. Safeguarding is only required for individuals ‘under the age of 18 and vulnerable adults’ and so, within UAL, safeguarding training is not a requirement. This creates space for universities to avoid addressing and protecting students from harm outside of legal parameters.
Some may make the case that university prepares students for the working environment, “the real world” so to say. Although this is true, I believe it is the wrong attitude towards learning environments. In order for students to gain the most out of their learning, it is important for educational institutes to protect learners from potential harm and barriers they may face whilst studying. This approach is taken in disability, health and safety, equality and GDPR and should be shared towards safeguarding it’s students. Code of conduct sessions for student and the beginning of study and staff training on safeguarding are simple steps to begin addressing student welfare BEFORE harmful situations arise. As they say… ‘Prevention is better than cure’
You can read Jaydin’s story here page 191-193 : https://shadesofnoir.org.uk/journals/inclusive-practice/