Ikeorah Chisom Chi-Fada: The Tailor’s Corner, from ‘Udo Di’ a sub-series of Maktub (Copyright © Ikeorah Chisom Chi-Fada, 2021)
After the workshop about assessment, I felt very demotivated and disillusioned with the standing of technical skills within UAL and the lack of value placed on both skills and technicians.
I went on to look for discussions around the roles of technicians and began to think about what I value as a technician and my teaching style. When reading Developing Professional Knowledge and Competence (Eraut, 1994) Eraut raises Schon’s concept of “knowing in action”. This refers to the ability to perform a skill or make decisions in a situation without needing to consciously access explicit knowledge, essentially “knowing how to do something” through experience and intuition, rather than just having theoretical knowledge about it. It’s a concept primarily associated with Donald Schön’s theory of reflective practice, where the “knowing” happens within the action itself, not just before or after. As a technician I am always contemplating the ways in which I translate this ‘tacit knowledge’ into articulate and relatable information for the students to acquire and apply to their construction of garments.
I also found this article published in January 2025 questioning the role of technicians as teachers. Savage and Vere (2025) state,
“institutions still commonly regard technical teaching as formulaic and didactic and described as demonstration or instruction. Yet, this linguistic slipperiness conceals a paradox: technicians teach in HE and do so within institutions that rely on their teaching while simultaneously sustaining systems, cultures and discourses that deny they teach”.
The hierarchies enforced within higher education are something I have found myself pushing up against throughout my time at UAL and have stifled progress and changes that the technical team have tried to implement due to our lack of power and authority. Without support from management and a cultural shift, it can sometimes be difficult to see how this will change.
References:
Eraut, M.R. (1994) Developing professional knowledge and competence . Abingdon: Routledge.
Hingley, O. (2022) In his paintings, Ikeorah Chisom Chi-Fada seeks to respect and ‘deify’ his fellow Nigerians, It’s Nice That. Available at: https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/ikeorah-chisom-chi-fada-art-190122 (Accessed: 06 March 2025).
Savage, T. and Vere, K.A. (2025) ‘Why is it problematic for technicians to say they teach in higher education?’, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (33), pp. 2–7. doi:10.47408/jldhe.vi33.1191.