DRG: Externals

Today's Drawing Reading Group sessions was the most productive one yet. AR, the Kingston University student finally made it. After canceling her attendance to the two previous sessions. A couple of weeks earlier I had attempted to convince the MA Drawing pathway leader to attend and somehow (maybe because we were at a Private View) communication wasn't altogether efficient and she send me the names of two MA students that might be interested. So, for this session, we had 3 visitors!

I was delighted to give it a go as my Action research findings stated that attendance and peer group were the real problem of the Drawing Reading Group sessions. These external students would duplicate the number of members and give some outside perspective to our discussions.

That is the reason why it worked so well. The student's assessment of the problem through the feedback and evaluation questionnaires of the action research projects was absolutely right. The experience was wholly enriching for the whole group, including the newcomers (as evidenced by the feedback I received from my own students: "I think AR found it a lot more useful than she thought she would"). AR is now going to lead the next session. She felt welcomed and supported, which led her to open up her practice to us in this first session and venturing to present a problem for the one of the 17th.

The MA students found it interesting but very different from what they are used to. I explained to them, 10 minutes before the session that this was to be a supportive environment, looking at and sharing problems we have encountered through our research. In that, it differed from a crit. They understood, although perhaps they felt a bit daunted by the vocabulary and only participated when prompted by one of our students. They were keen to attend more sessions but they were also conscious that they couldn't be opened to all MA students. " I can think of a couple of people that may be interested in issues of mapping -our next session's topic- and I might tell them to come to see how good it is" said one of them.

But one thing demonstrates the value of the Action Research I conducted, more than anything else: my three regular students haven't missed a session since then!