October 20, 2020

8.00 am: A communion. A review of the day ahead. The next three were choc-o-bloc with tutorials and consultations. Work has been busier under Covid-19. The pastoral workload has increased significantly. Even strong and otherwise very able students can get lost and need reassurance at times like this. 9.00 am: The day began with a postgraduate surgery, which was embedded within the structure of the Vocational Practice module.

The conversations:

Life lived is like walking across a minefield, presently. I walk slowly, deliberately, and apprehensively. … Think about the sonic equivalent of a pin-hole camera. … What we miss most is the opportunity to meet and get to know one another as a group in the real world. … Maintaining continuity between tutorials is essential. Therefore, feed your tutor with updates and images on which they can make comment as and when you need to hear it. … Occasionally, someone will drop into a conversation a fact about their life that utterly transforms them in my eyes. In that moment, they become remarkable and explicable. … If air traffic control had as nonchalant an attitude to spatial separation as some folk do to social distancing, we’d be in a right pickle.

11.00 am: Off to School for a face-to-face, one-to-one tutorial with one of my students. The distinctions between the quality of online and face-to-face tutorial encounters has diminished in my experience over the last week. Perhaps we are adapting to the former. The School was quiet. Students and staff only attend when they have to. We’re still in business, and moving forward safely, imaginatively, and with courage.

12.00 pm: The first of two PhD fine art tutorials this afternoon. The pandemic can present formidable practical problems for some student’s research. We discussed damage limitation and, more importantly, how an advantage could be eked out of a predicament. When the light arises upon a a tutorial discussion, it’s always the product of a meeting of minds. Through conversation, truth finds a way to the surface. 3.00 pm — 4.30 pm: The final part of the afternoon was given over to some of my MA fine art contingent. No one’s struggle is any easier than another’s.

4.30 pm:

7.30 pm: Teaching prep and personal tutor admin.

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October 19, 2020
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