Before starting to work on my outcome I organised a meeting with my mentor who chose to remain anonymous. I chose to interview them because of their past experiences as course leader and line manager. They been a mentor for me through my time working at UAL helping me formalise my position as an academic and social justice worker within an institution.
Unlike the other interviews this was more of a meeting where they helped me channel my findings over me asking them direct questions as a researcher.
The meeting took place on the 3rd of December.
Agenda for the meeting:
- Fred to do brief intro of findings
- Illustrate and discuss UAL structure (abstract drawing exercise)
- Discuss outcome format and tone
Meeting Reflections:
Step 1: Brief Intro of Findings
How do you encourage someone so that they feel that they can stand up to social justice?
How do you make someone feel competent, safe and able to make mistakes without internalising it.
Moving away from language around comfort and safety as it seems unlikely that people would ever feel safe or comfortable when standing up to social justice.
Step 2: Drawings of UAL
My Drawing:
My drawing
I continued the train of thought established in my AL interviews around this shape where spikes face inwards in the institution. Often feeling a bit trapped and hostile. I drew UAL existing within a world of capitalism and how that creates a lot of pressure within the institution.
My mentors drawing:
Miriam’s drawing
Despite them openly acknowledging the flaws within UAL around social justice, their drawing still puts a big focus on hope and belief in all the people that make up UAL. They never forgett to believe that people can do good.
When creating my outcome, I will need to counter my cynicism with their strong sense of hope.
Step 3: Discuss Format Outcome and Tone
My doodle and notes from step 3
My mentor puts a lot of focus on the idea of “Doing Right” not “Being Right”. Focus on people, staff and students and the incredible work they are doing. There is an ever-changing network of complex challenges, but there are staff and students turning up to do this work together. These things help them to maintain a sense of hope.
We both agreed that social justice never stops, but that new developments and solutions should feel inspiring and exciting.
How do you build trust with people around justice work? Understand how radically different everyone is based on ideas and experiences around justice. Engaging with this helps create staff development that makes people feel able to participate in justice work.
They talk about the importance of teaching in a way that does not make anyone feel that they are being told off. Unconditional positive regard, giving support to a person even if you do not agree with what they are saying.
Thanks to this meeting I now feel ready to start drawing.
Goals for my outcome:
- Remind myself to be a bit more hopeful.
- Be encouraging.
- Acknowledge that we are all trying.
- Normalising that we all make mistakes.