Stories of the First-Year Experience

Robert Nelson (Senior Lecturer - Faculty of Art and Design)

The Faculty of Art & Design may owe its low attrition rate to the inspirational character of the disciplines; for art and design are addictive for the neophyte and remain so for the ageing practitioner or critic; they are entirely the stuff of life-long learning and are the subjects of deep enthusiasm among people who have anything to do with them. Against this, however, the Faculty battles against the demoralizing lack of support for the vocation of artist. All students in the Departments of Fine Art and Applied Art learn early in their courses that they will not, as a result of their studies, have any realistic access to a paid career as a professional artist; and even after enduring the hardships of an unpaid vocation, they will have only a small chance of winning any recognition as artists. Unless all students are apprised of their miserable prospects before they enrol, you would expect a dramatic dropping away of interest in the first year of university. It would be irresponsible for us to promote our courses without candidly confessing what they lead to in material terms.

The Faculty certainly cannot afford to leave the enthusiasm to chance. We believe that the studio paradigm (which we have outlined in other documents) is a large part of our success. First year is seen as extremely important in fostering the great social, aesthetic and personal benefits of studying art and design. All our lecturers entrusted with the task of teaching first year have special ways of relating to the students - effectively school leavers - and, because a good part of our teaching takes place on a one-to-one basis, the sensitivity to the student's predicament is easily cultivated.

My role as a first year lecturer, however, belongs to the traditional paradigm of a weekly two-hour session in a theatre of 250 souls. For that reason, my experiences may be useful. Student surveys indicate that the gruelling and impersonal weekly two-hour sessions are popular; so I guess that I must be doing something right and imagine that I do contribute to the low attrition rate. If I felt that I didn't contribute to the low attrition rate, I would be incredibly disappointed.

As a teacher, I am very conscious of having a technique but I cannot really describe it much less place it in a pedagogical tradition. I know that I cultivate a rhetorical manner but would sometimes feel a little ashamed to look into it too narcissistically or boastfully; indeed, there are parts of it about which I would have reservations if they were professed by other lecturers.

Obviously I do all the things that you would imagine: talk in a friendly way, smile a great deal (without this being arbitrary or a compulsive mannerism), make jokes as well as argue seriously, never talk down to students, show enthusiasm and convey the idea that the material is inspirational. I imagine that all lecturers at all levels express fondness for the discipline and passion for its advancement. What I attempt to add to this (which I think works particularly well in the context where the students are relating to other lecturers on a one-to-one basis) is to convey the poetic character of learning, to express the promise of beauty, not just the beauty of the material (since at times the material may be ugly) but the beauty of formulating arguments, explaining opinions, challenging them and perceiving the dialectical nature of criticism in the western tradition.

First year students are sensitive to the institutional character of learning. They don't particularly relish the disciplinary element of studies in which there are established pathways to knowledge and steps which they will have to take and be examined by. Of course all of this will in due course be imparted; but I never emphasize any of it. I present as someone entirely parti pris with some argument, then another - which may be its contrary - but, with all even-handedness, at no stage will I appear indifferent. I suggest personalized access to an infinitely larger body of knowledge in which a huge number of scholars have productively worked in the past. I do everything I can to suggest that the lecture comes from the heart; each one is larded with personal investment, a rhetorical line which exposes an immense enthusiasm for some interpretation or part of the material.

Beyond this, I have always felt that the relationship between teacher and student involves certain affections, perhaps parts of which (especially from the teacher's side) are performative, theatrical, charming or charismatic. In spite of all deconstruction - which in other academic senses I practice - I do not mind suggesting to the audience that I am the channel toward greater things; there are almost sacred secrets which I will share with you; there is an element of generosity which is absolutely unstated but which the student will feel in abundance. Once you set up this blend of teacherly authority and intimacy, you can invite the students to deconstruct it (which I always do); but if you don't set up a somewhat priestly ethos in the beginning, you will have little upon which to build a relationship of trust. I assiduously avoid the tenor of pomposity, eliminating any claim to the effect that 'I am an authority'. It is important never to boast; if anything, I exaggerate my ignorance. Students naturally assume that you are one who has seen, read, written and thought a great deal: the teacherly element enters with the construction of a poetic interpretation on the basis of these faculties.

The lecture has to feel as if it has been constructed uniquely for communication. The idea that it satisfies this bit of syllabus or that bit is important; but the prime impression to leave is the idea that something has wanted to be communicated. The arguments have been rehearsed afresh for the purpose of communicating. Students often praise a lecturer for spontaneity, a most difficult construct, since nothing is spontaneously new in a first year subject: the knowledge is fairly old and over-synthesized. The reason spontaneity is so prized is that it demonstrates the way in which the learning experience is being relived by the lecturer.