As we work toward Project #1, which involves writing our own education narratives, we will read a variety of texts that get us thinking about education in a variety of ways, and in a variety of formats or genres. For this week, in addition to reading, watching, and writing about Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” here are two other texts for us to consider. They each come from publications in fields that are related to your career goals–one directly from architecture and one more broadly connected, in the field of design. After you read Michael Caton’s essay, “Architecture Needs a Culture Shift and Ksenya Samarskaya’s interview, “Nontsikelelo Mutiti on Interrogating the Euro-centric Design Canon,” write a comment here to contribute to our discussion to reflect on:
- What stands out in each of these texts? Choose a passage from each to include in your comment.
- Are these texts education narratives? why/how or not?
- Is there anything in these texts that you read as a writer and would want to use as a model to describe your own education experiences? Consider everything on the screen, not just the written word!
- Come back again before Wednesday to continue the discussion with classmates. I’ll do the same.
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One passage that stands out for me in Michael Catons, Architecture Needs a Culture Shift, is, “one area that every person and organization that believes in this work should urgently focus on is inclusivity infrastructure”. This is important in every work environment as being inclusive allows for collaboration and greater ideas. Any idea of race or cultural differences has to be set aside and everyone must be included to work together. Reading, Interrogating the Euro-centric Design Canon, by Nontsikelelo Mutiti, I found a passage that caught my attention. In her interview, Nontsikelelo Mutiti said, “I’m just trying to ask better questions about what has been institutionalized. I think that is the way to open up and bring other things in. Or to say, okay, this is over-presented. We don’t actually need to be teaching that, we don’t need to be passing that on. We need to be discovering and bringing other things forward”. This relates to Plato as her ideas seem very philosophical. There are certain things that can be expanded or changed. There are certain things that just aren’t necessary to learn anymore and I agree with that. We should shift our focus from old unnecessary things to discovering new things that can be beneficial. I feel as if these are education narratives since these people speak about their respective experiences and what they have learned from them. They explain how their experiences were learning experiences and they use this knowledge to educate others on how to improve. Reading both texts as a writer I liked each writing style. I liked how the first one began on a past experience in his first year of College like us. He based the rest of his writing on this experience. Furthermore, in Nontsikelelo Mutitis text, it takes the form of an interview where there are specific questions and answers. I can set up my narrative by posing questions and answering them myself.
I love the idea of asking better questions as an educational goal, and one that can help increase diversity of what we learn or of who gets included in the conversation. That’s something that can guide our education narrative: what questions can you ask to motivate you to see the system you’re in and then change it? Should we add this question to the list for Project #1?
While reading, “Architecture Needs A Culture Shift” by Michael Caton, I never knew that there was such a low population of black students in architecture programs. While reading the article, I came across that employees of all backgrounds and identities do not feel safe and welcomed in organizations and that needs to be put to an end because you should never be judged based on your background and identity, that isn’t what matters when it comes to a job. While I was reading the other article, “Nontsikelelo Mutiti on Interrogating the Eurocentric Design Canon” by Ksenya Samarskaya, I found interesting how she is looking into other cultures and realizing why they are important and what kind of work has to be done to make it a “culture”.
These texts are educational narratives because they both give examples from their life and make it into an learning experience that the reader can learn from. For example, In Caton’s article, I never knew there was such a low population of black students in architecture programs until I read his article.
Good observation, Alvin! Caton, in his article, gives us a great example of using a short experience from our education–here, his formal architecture education–as the way to launch into an argument he wants to make about education in the field of architecture, namely its lack of diversity. This is a technique we might think about using: telling a story that becomes a way into a call to action. What’s something you want to change as you move up in your field (architecture, college in general, STEM, etc), and how can you use your education narrative as a way to tell your story and get other people interested?
Something that stood out to me when reading “Architecture Needs a Cultural Shift” by Michael Caton was the fact that he questioned how organizations treat their employees. do they treat their “employees of all backgrounds and identities truly feel safe, welcomed, celebrated, and cherished—in that order”? would they help those in need or troubled in their organizations, forgetting all background and identity and to focus on that single person. Something that stood out to me in the story “Nontsikelelo Mutiti on Interrogating the Euro-centric Design Canon,” was when she stated “We don’t need to be passing that on, we need to be discovering and bringing other things forward.” People are best when they earn and discover new experiences for themselves, as stated by Pluto in “Allegory of the Cave”, the prisoner who had escaped was enlightened and overjoyed that he experience this. He was so much so as to go back into his cave where others were and to tell about his experience of the new knowledge he gained.
These texts are education narratives because it comes from the point of view of someone who experienced both the learning and teaching. They had gone through something similar as us, learning more about this reality and now is teaching others about their experiences. Something that I would consider as my education experience would be Ksenya Samarskaya stating that “we [as human beings] need to be discovering [experiencing] and bringing other things forward.” the things that we learn helps us progress in this limited life, we get one chance to do what we enjoy in this life, and these experiences and other people experiences helps us achieve dreams.
Yes! Let’s take that idea from Nontsikelelo Mutiti’s interview, that we need to discover what to bring forward. How can this help us shape the education narratives that we write? How can this help shape the educational experiences that we have, particularly here at City Tech?
One text that stood out to me was Plato’s “Allegory Of The Cave” he explains what it’s like to be a philosopher, explains teacher and student roles using metaphors and an analogy. The prisoner who escaped resembles teachers and the prisoners who didn’t resemble students. The prisoner that escaped saw a more real reality, he saw more than the prisoners and wants to teach and share the knowledge. Similar to the relationship between teachers and students. Teachers share knowledge of a subject they have experienced to students who don’t know about it. This makes me view a lot of things differently. In “Architecture needs A Culture Shift” by Micheal Caton what stands out is how he expresses the racism he experienced in school which is something relatable to many people. In “Nontsikelelo Mutiti on Interrogating the Euro-centric Design Canon” Is how her experience in education formed her outlook on design and education. These texts are education narratives because the authors show the educational experience they had. For instance, In “Architecture needs A Culture Shift”, Micheal Caton discusses his experiences with racism while in school, how he meets someone who he could relate to him and his experiences. From reading these texts something I would include in my own educational narrative is how my environment impacted my educational experience. I would also include how I view education or the topic I write about now, show how my experience influenced my outlook.
Jayda, this is such an important point about wanting to share knowledge. I hope that we can break or remix the idea that only teachers teach, and only students learn–that’s what Paolo Freire writes about in Pedagogy of the Oppressed (that passage I shared with everyone) and the banking model of education that Jose Olivarez refers to. We are all collaborators in knowledge creation–or ideally we are. But yes, you become the teacher when you write about your views on education, and we learn from you about your point of view and how your education shaped these views. Let’s add this question of how environment influences our outlook on education to our list for Project #1.
While I was reading “Architecture needs a culture shift” it just stood out for me when Michael Caton describes of how she met with employees of many different backgrounds and identities that just don’t feel safe and welcome in organizations which ofc needs to be ended. This stood out to me because everyone deals with this, and is also what makes it an educational narrative. Even today people with some different backgrounds get treated way way differently and sometimes in a very aggressive way. An example would be like in McDonald’s, it only takes one racist person to just throw a carton of food right at a persons face just because they don’t like there background.
Thanks for highlighting this point from the reading, Johnathon. How does Michael Caton convey to us–the audience–that he doesn’t always feel safe or welcome in his field? How can we borrow his technique–like Mike Bunn suggests we do, in reading like a writer–so that we, too, can address something important to us in the systems we find ourselves in. What’s an issue you have found to be at the core of your experience that you can write about, starting with a story and moving into what you hope to change as you become more experienced or have greater responsibility in that field?
While reading “ Architecture Needs a Culture Shift” by Michael Canton, what stood out to me was how he was really trying to emphasize on the fact that there needs to be a change in the work environment when it comes to racial discrimination. Michael Canton states “Do employees of all backgrounds and identities truly feel safe, welcomed, celebrated and cherished- in that order?” While reading “Nontsikelelo Mutiti on Interrogating the Euro-centric Design Canon” by Ksenya Samarskaya, what interested me is when she states “I think that this is the way to open up and bring other things in… We don’t actually need to be teaching that, we don’t need to be passing that on. We need to be discovering and bringing other things forward.” Her view on how there should be different ways of teaching that doesn’t contribute to the “automatic education system” that already has been set in place.
These texts are educational narratives because both of these are people talking about their life experiences in order to give examples. They also give their perspective on the issues that are being talked about.
In Ksenya Samarskaya’s interview he elaborates about cultural difference what stood out to me was how he mentioned how there were only two African Americans in the architecture program that they were in. When in this situation yes it is clear and is seen a lot, you feel alone in a space filled with people who aren’t the same ethnicity as you. You tend to feel overwhelmed and feeling alone but these feelings have to be set aside whether there are people who are like you or not because in the end of the day your focus is the work you are to do. Cultural difference isn’t bad it gives you an opportunity to look for and look into different ideas different ways of thinking when it comes to Architecture. Architecture in general is a diverse career different types of Architect is brought together creating something magnificent and culturally diverse. Through out Architecture history we are shown many ways and many different structures of Architects it isn’t just one type its multiple ways and ideas is Architecture.