Week 2 EDUC5199 @ UOIT

1. Filtering Reality and Fashion as Pedagogy
C. Guertin
UOIT | EDUC5199G
22 Sept 2015

2. Jill Walker Rettberg
proposes the idea
that our reality is
seen through
‘filters’ that can be
technological,
cultural or
cognitive

3. “Facebook filters our news feed and it also filters our
behaviour. Cultural filters are as important as
technological filters. Our cultural filters, the rules and
conventions that guide us, filter out possible modes of
expression so subtly that we often are not even aware
of all the things that we do not see.”
In what ways do these filters aestheticise, anaesthetise,
and defamiliarize us from the everyday?

4. #365grateful:
http://365grateful.com/

5. Artist Candy Chang, “Before I Die”:
https://www.ted.com/talks/candy_chang_before_i_die_i_want_to?language=en

6. Why is defamiliarization a key attribute of art
(according to Rettberg and Shklovsky)?

7. William Shakespeare’s
Star Wars
http://www.brainpickings.org/2013/08/07/william-shakespeare-star-wars/

8. In what ways
can and does
popular culture
defamiliarize the
everyday?

9. The Death of Cool: Ryan Adams & Taylor Swift (“We all
live in Taylor Swift’s world now.”)
http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/reviews/a38138/ryan-adams-taylor-swift-1989/

13. In what way do selfies act as a filter,
according to Rettberg?

15. Syreeta McFadden, teaching the
camera to see blackness
http://www.buzzfeed.com/syreetamcfadden/teaching-the-camera-to-see-my-skin#.hcxqj7Gzy

16. What were Shirley Cards? How did they function? What
was one of their side effects?

17. On the racism of Shirley Cards:
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/jan/25/racism-colour-photography-
exhibition

18. Popular Culture Board for
inspiration on Pinterest:
https://www.pinterest.com/carolynguertin/pop-culture/

19. Empowerment through agency

21. Bloom’s Taxonomy

23. Wong and Henriksen want us to think of fashion as a
verb: as an act of personal expression and creative
production

24. Why is fashion
such a deeply
engaging
experience?

25. How do we make school more compelling for
students?

26. Flow

27. How do we make school more
compelling for students?
• Student-centred instruction
• Relevance (connect material to student’s lives)
• Incorporate experiential qualities
• Use visual or tactile forms of expression
• Engage the emotions
• Involve the imagination and considerations of the possible
• Invoke anticipating, hoping, dreaming, wishing, desiring,
and becoming: bridge the actual and the allusive
• Make it mindful, vital and lively
• Use fashion as a verb: to fashion, to style, to create

28. How did the Silhouette iPod ads grab our attention?

29. How are:
• the psychological,
social, and cultural
dynamics of a new
fashion item similar
to the dynamics of
a new idea?
• (Wong, p. 181)

30. Fashion (verb) = imagination,
creation, and expression

31. Maker Culture
• The metaphor of learning as the fashioning of
ideas actually shares much in common with
mainstream metaphors such as
– learning as identity formation,
– Learning as participation in shared activities
– Learning as language appropriation
• Connections facilitate the comprehension and
assimilation of new ideas

32. “We Are Makers”
Watch to 4:40: https://vimeo.com/66162292

33. Style is substance

34. How do we use culture to motivate
learning in our classes?
• Breakout rooms: 6 groups of 4
• 2 groups – elementary
• 2 groups – secondary
• 2 groups – adult education
• Give concrete examples

35. How do we employ ‘deep inclinations’ like
fashion in our classes?
• Wong and Hendricksen ask, "What kinds of
phenomena do people seem to be deeply
engaged by across time and across age groups?”
• One enduring phenomena of fascination was
fashion:
– people of all ages, across time, are drawn to fashion.
(Examples of other "deep inclinations” include an
almost innate fascination with sublime experiences,
the idea of redemption, sex and violence, heroes, and
tales of love overcoming great odds.)

36. According to Rettberg,
• the ideal neoliberal is an entrepreneur. “An
effective neoliberal subject, Marwick argues,
‘attends to fashions, is focused on self-
improvement, and purchases goods and
services to achieve ‘self-realization.’ He or she
is comfortable integrating market logics into
many aspects of life, including education,
parenting, and relationships.”