The first block is over; the second begins. Two students this time, who have already decided what they want to do. The life drawing session was better attended, which was a relief. I am assured that other waifs and strays will return once exams are over.
Having finished my first set of marking, I was flattered to receive an email asking if I would care to “second-mark” essays selected for distinction/honours grades. I then realised that the message was part of a group mailing, and probably not really, really intended for newbies like me. But it was jolly nice to be asked – thank you, Sharon. As it’s the end of the month, I might also get paid. Whoopee. My only other paid employment this month has been a two-day demonstration of Iron Age textile techniques to 8-11 year olds on Anglesey. That would probably have been a whole project blog on its’ own if I’d had enough notice, but I stepped in at the last minute to help out, so, little preparation and few photographs. And I can’t really link it into the Anatomy & Art project; although, it might connect into the ideas of healing wells, and things hidden and revealed in the landscape.
Another week, another round trip of umpteen miles, and another excellent life drawing session. The attendance was down a bit this week (to put it mildly), but this is attributed to exams for 2nd year students, and essay deadlines for 3rd. year students. One poor soul has had to expunge 1,500 words from a 3,000 word essay due to a misunderstanding by Someone in Authority about what counted towards the word count. (Not, I hasten to say, for an Anatomy & Art SSC.)
I am anticipating the receipt of the first essay (deadline tomorrow, 12midday) and will then have to get down to assessing it according to some pretty strict criteria. This may not be Fun…..
Another week passes…..
“My” student is full of good ideas, and I’m expecting a draft of the graphic medicine page any day now.
Numbers were down for the life class (have I frightened them away? It’s possible) but those who attended are improving so fast you can almost feel it. We did the old exercise where you take 20 minutes to draw the whole model, take a fresh piece of paper & fold it into four equal sections (i.e. A1 down to A4), and then home in on a particular area of the model and draw that in one of the quarters. Next, you focus down on a section of the same area and draw it to fill the next quarter. And so on until you end up with, say, a portion of a toe occupying the whole of the last A4 section. A good way of learning all sorts of things including concentration.
After the break (no tea – the vending machine was out of order), the drawings were stronger and more confident – a result, I think, of the intense looking practised in the first half of the session.
Among other things, I am gaining an intimate knowledge of coffee shops and pubs along my route to the Medical School. Opposite a smart little tea room in Audlem (great scones & pastry) stands a monument to a local doctor. The inscription reads around four corners of the plinth, culminating in one of the best “so there” moments I have come across in a long time.
Slightly less frenetic this week, as I am learning to pace myself and consequently not as “high” as I was after the teaching last time. I have always found teaching an exhausting business; more of a performance than a simple academic exercise. Medics learn from a very early age to cope with speaking in public – sometimes in front of huge audiences in seemingly vast lecture theatres (sometimes in foreign parts, with your own image projected behind you as if at a political rally). Not everyone enjoys it, but somehow we get through it: my coping strategy involves assuming a (probably highly annoying) super-confident extrovert persona, leaping about as if I had St. Vitus’ Dance and trying to make people laugh. Sad, really. And very tiring. But they do call it a Lecture Theatre, after all.
The life classes are proceeding in a satisfactory manner, and the drawings are getting better and better. There’s still a bit of reluctance to move away from the black line all around the form, but everyone is doing much more looking, and they are looking more critically and productively.
My student, Y.L., has decided to investigate the topic of explaining a common cancer to the “target group” using a graphic format. Cue much discussion of the role of images vs. text, whether the provision of information can reduce anxiety, and how best to do this. Yet again, most of the available Patient Information Booklets give precedence to text over explanatory images. memo to self: must find out more about literacy rates & geographical variation thereof.
Arriving back home, I have remembered to vote – telling myself as ever that people died so that I could vote, and it’s an insult to them if I don’t do it. Not that anybody I ever voted for actually got elected….. Now the mist has descended on the hill, and visibility is down to about 100 yards. A metaphor for modern politics?
