Issue #190 - The Spaces in Between

Tenderloin

The end of a busy week, we’re into routine now, and although I’m still getting used to early mornings, setting off in the dark, and coping with different types of weather, I feel like I’m getting somewhere.

It is tiring though, it took herculean effort of mind to get myself to my Yoga class on Tuesday evening. I’d had a busy day, meetings, teaching, a talk, and slow bus and long trapse home from the T. I could barely get through the door, and I was grateful for a restorative cup of tea and digestive biscuit to get me back out twenty minutes later.

Like I say, the week started with snow still on the ground, then we had a few days of rain, and finally today it is cloudy, with sunny spells. It’s hard to know what to wear, I’ve been overdressed mostly, peeling off layers when I finally arrive at my destination.

It’s all good. Teaching is going well, the students are friendly, and we’ll keep going.

Stephan

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Teaching & Learning

I know it’s early days but I’m thoroughly enjoying team teaching. Seeing someone else work in the class, you can’t help but reflect on your approach, and think about some of what you both do differently. Already I’m picking up on a few things, my tendency to talk quickly, and not give the students enough time to answer, my over packing of lesson time, often I have too many activities on the go, and don’t let things breathe as I should. Generally I’ve noticed how good my colleague is with quieter students, able to give them time and a little more space. I’m still slightly nervous about silent pauses, and too often tempted to jump in, so it’s reassuring to slow everything down, and be more intentioned in questions and comments.

I was wondering about this word “intention”, something I’ve picked up from Yoga practice. We’re often asked to set an intention, something we’d like to focus on, or work on in our session. I haven’t asked the students to set theirs yet, but I think it might be interesting to ask that question, and for them to think about what that might be. Perhaps to be more open, or to let others speak a bit more, or perhaps to suggest a secondary question. I’m not sure really, what they might think about as an intention, so I’ll have a chat with my colleague and get their thoughts.

Also, this week we talked about fragments, scraps of ideas that might help students develop projects. We looked at different ways to collect these, whether it’s an image, a clip, a piece of writing, a bit of audio. All these are seeds that could germinate, and under the right conditions grow into fully fledged ideas. Already I can see that this is a challenge for some students, perhaps more used to solutionalizing, pitching complete projects, a whole.

I’ve set them off on a task to cast twenty different seeds, and start a process of research, asking questions, growing these ideas. We’ll see where we are next week.

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Lost and Found

I stumbled on a few sites, that you may be interested in.

I didn’t know about radical reads, which is a book recommendation site that includes some famous people, who have published lists, or have lists cleaned from interviews. I thought there might be more pulp fiction in Jim Jarmusch’ s list, his part of a series of director’s lists. Those lists are also here at bookshop.org so that you can put them in your shopping basket.

I think I found these while searching for Werner Herzog’s Rogue Film School, which seems a bit old now, I wonder if it’s still running. There are a few interesting interviews and a fascinating list of required readings.

I enjoyed this video of Tim Ferris, talking about writing helps your thinking. I happen to think my writing has deteriorated lately, ideas don’t flow, and I’m a bit stuck. I’m wondering if chat GPT hasn’t been a distraction, it’s not that I use it much, but I often use it as a proof-reader, and that makes me second guess myself, the results are often so clean and streamlined as to be a bit sterile. I’m not sure now whether the bumps and scratches in my writing are part of my writing, some sort of personal expression, or just an annoyance to those reading.

I like this 3D Ai creator, it’s making think about learning how to use the 3D printing machine in the IDeATe lab. Anyone have time to teach me?

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Thank you

Okay, slightly shorter one that usual, hope you don’t mind.

This might be the last newsletter that I write on substack, as I’m weighing up various options and seeing which is best. I wish it didn’t have to be this way, but since all I want is a host, and I’ve never asked for paid subscriptions, the transition should be pretty straightforward. I’ll let you know what you need to do if you’d like to continue subscribing. Chances are that I’ll keep this site up for just a little longer while I spend some time under the hood fixing things.

In the meantime, have a wonderful week and I’ll see you soon.

Thanks for your comments btw, a few last week and some good emails, much appreciated.

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