Winner Threshold Award Social Practices (shared)
On December 9th, 2020, Jasmijn Simons won the annual Threshold Award for the Social Practice with her graduation project Rotterdamse Verbinders. In this interview, we look back at Jasmijn’s time at WdKA and look forward to her evolving career.
What have you been up to since graduation?
Since last year, I have been teaching at the Graphic Lyceum in Rotterdam (Grafisch Lyceum Rotterdam). I teach film- and design classes in which pupils prepare and make films—from pre-production to the writing of a concept or scenario. Since this year, I am also mentoring two classes, which means I have one-to-one conversations with pupils about how it is going and how they experience their studies.
Can you tell us a bit more about your graduation work and how it came about?
One of the educational focus points of the Graphic Lyceum, is that storytelling should be central to audiovisual media. To me, this was an interesting starting point because it ties into my background in audiovisual design. Something I did quite often in the past is to visit people at home and make a documentary about their life. What I notice in my pupils, is that the three-year programme flies by in the blink of an eye. That’s why I wanted to offer pupils another opportunity to engage in a project with people and organisations from the city, besides their internships. I see the city of Rotterdam as a great learning environment where projects can really be brought to life. To connect this context to societal initiatives or developments, I came up with an assignment for which pupils had to make a video portrait about a socially engaged youngster from Rotterdam. Furthermore, I designed a set of research cards that supports teachers in guiding their pupils through this process.
I believe it is very important for pupils to have a role model in the same age with whom they can exchange ideas.
With this project, which I named ‘Rotterdamse Verbinders’ (Rotterdam’s Connectors), I aim to create a safe yet challenging learning environment that stimulates pupils to formulate new learning questions. I believe that knowledge cannot be separated from the physical and social context in which we learn, and therefore seek to connect the two. The project is about the encounters between pupils and socially-engaged peers, about their exchange and the connections they create.
What do you hope to achieve with Rotterdamse Verbinders?
I hope that there will be more interaction and connection amongst youngsters. And that they learn to ask each other questions: what life or world does this person come from? What does he or she value? I hope this also makes pupils think about their own values and identify the things or issues they want to commit to. And this is, of course, in connection to film: how do you want to tell this story? You always tell any story from a certain perspective. The research cards I created help pupils think about these questions.
How did you experience graduating in Corona times? Has it affected your work?
Before corona started, I planned to start working with the pupils and youngsters right from the start. The idea was to visit different places in the city in order to get to know each other, and to create the portraits starting from there. But then the first lockdown started, and the entire plan was thrown out the window. So instead, we started by having conversations online in order to get to know each other. Looking back, that has brought a lot. Usually, pupils tend to want to start working with their equipment and start filming straight away. But now, they had the opportunity to spend almost four hours speaking to the youngsters before deciding how they wanted to portray them. That worked really well. Actually, I think I will do this again the next time.
How has your graduation work changed your perspective on your practice?
The project has made me aware of how to best connect to pupils and youngsters and the ways in which they experience the world. And of how they can inspire or help each other in realising a project like this. Within the field of education, many people are beginning to question whether we should take on the role of the teacher, or rather that of a coach or mentor. I think I started seeing my own position differently since my graduation project. I am there, I connect, and I coach, but especially, I let pupils make things together. This has made me much more aware of my own role as a teacher.
Where do you hope to be in a year?
At the moment, I am still learning a lot in my teaching practice. So, I would say I want to continue developing myself as a teacher and mentor. Besides that, I want to further my design practice. The Graphic Lyceum offers me the space I need to develop my own ideas and projects, just like Rotterdamse Verbinders. I hope that I can continue this and make way for new connections and collaborations between pupils and local initiatives or organisations.
What will you be working on next?
I would like to expand the project over the course of this year. It would be nice if I could connect the assignment to other subjects and courses, and involve other teachers as well. The first time we did the assignment, pupils were full of ideas for the refinement of the cards. But unfortunately there was too little time to elaborate on that. In the future, I want to involve pupils in the development of the research cards. And eventually, I hope that this project can also be offered at other schools.
How would you introduce yourself as a practitioner today?
I would say ‘socially engaged educator/designer’. I don’t see myself as more educator or more designer, nor as one of the two. It’s really a combination of the two. And the societal component is very important to me as well.
What role did WdKA play in the process of becoming the professional you are today?
I think that collaborative projects and projects in which I could engage in local communities and work with people, were very useful. Also, WdKA’s multidisciplinary approach—working together with students with different expertise—has brought me a lot. Besides that, I learnt to be critical, to observe from a distance and to involve others in my work. Those things are still very useful today.
What is the future of your work field, in your opinion?
Ideally, the way I see it, the educational and design practice overlap more and more. I think it is very important to see the two of them as one whole, and to keep developing yourself and your design practice besides teaching. I think this connection between the two careers will be more important in the future. And I also see this change within the curriculum itself. Pupils get more options and freedom to choose what they want to do. Maybe in the future, there will be more opportunities for them to work on short projects in collaboration with teachers or people from the field.
For more information about Jasmijn’s work, please check out her LinkedIn page.
