Wednesday evening discussion group and connections with Lens 2

 On Wednesday evening I joined the Zoom discussion group for all modules. It was lovely to share and discuss everything with like minded people and I feel like these discussions will be very beneficial for me going forward. We mainly focused on 3 things: Learning Areas, Creativity and Ethics. As I've been focusing on Lens 2 recently I noticed a lot of links with this lens and what we were discussing so I'm aiming to link them in this blog. 


I personally was struggling with the concept of learning areas and as we need to write 3 paragraphs on it for the essay I felt a bit lost. I felt like I had all these thoughts, feelings and opinions but surely too many to only focus on 3 areas. However after reflecting on this I've realised that lots of topics fit into the same brackets which will help me reduce my areas of learning topics to 3, yet write deeply about a lot more things within each area. Students in other modules really helped me to do this by trying to make us think about profound moments in our practice that brought deep feeling rather than a basic emotion or answer. This really resonated with me as I suddenly had lots of idea going through my head as to these types of moments where I had really felt something - quite often linking to ethics. 

Transferable Skills was also brought up many times which is something I will reflect on personally through journaling as I know in each area of my life I use skills that have come from my practice. Thinking about learning areas requires a huge amount of reflection which is a big part of Lens 2. Reflection is key as it allows us to focus on what we have learned through experience but also what we don't know so we can move forward. 

Critical reflection seems to be making an appearance a lot and is something I'd never thought about before. In order to critically reflect we must use our empathy which links to multiple intelligences and well the list goes on. I think I'll have to do a separate blog on Critical reflection as I started writing this paragraph and found it really hard to summarise briefly. 


Ethics is something we discussed at length as it is vital to think ethically in and out of practice. Ethics are split into two sections: Ethical considerations and Ethical Procedures. Ethics relate greatly to Lens 2 and is something I've been looking at this morning. 

Ethical Procedures - 'what you do to attempt not to have a detrimental effect on people'

Ethical Considerations - how something has been or could be affected by something else

On reflection of my training I've realised a lot was said and done that was unethical but at the time no one wanted to question what we considered was 'the norm'. Within the dance world I also think it's a case of challenging history and making important changes to things that are no longer valid in a modern society. Considering things in an ethical manner requires great empathy which I do believe I'm good at. What I have not been good at in the past is having a voice and standing up for things that were unethical in my practice. 

Lastly I wanted to discuss Creativity. As a group yesterday evening we all agreed that what we though of as 'being creative' was if you were essentially good at art. I never thought I was creative and even when doing these blogs I think mine look so boring (hence the addition of some colour, lol). However we came to realise that creativity has no definition and of course we are all creative or we wouldn't be in the industry. Your own creativity lies in your strengths for example my Grandma was a great artist and poet and I felt I lacked creativity because I couldn't do something similar but I create pieces of choreography with costumes, lighting sequences and set which she always used to say she could never imagine doing. This also links greatly to Howard Gardner's concept of multiple intelligences. 

This discussion has evidently raised a lot of questions for myself and I'm sure others too. 

I thought I would finish this very lengthy post (sorry) with this quote I found and love...





Comments

  1. Diwakar19 February 2021 at 07:06

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  2. Hannah Mae Thickett24 February 2021 at 04:20

    Hi Niamh, I have really loved reading this blog as I currently find myself trying to explore lens 2 and your blog has helped me to make initial starting points so I feel slightly less overwhelmed. I can relate to your points on ethics during training and challenging what we perceive as being okay, this i something that I am extremely interested in and looking at connections of mental wellbeing!

    I look forward to reading your future blogs.

    H x

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