13 minute read
Virtual Internships: Creating & Learning From India
Virtual Internships: Creating & learning from India
By Ishita Shailesh & Varshini Girish
Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design & Technology with a B.Des in Creative Education Design, Bangalore, India.
Foreword by Alisha Collins, Brilliant Labs Creative Catalyst
"Alisha, anything can be learnt," my mentor Geetha Narayanan, the founder and former director of Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design & Technology, told me when we first met. I was then encouraged to experiment in order to learn anything I wanted. I had joined the Institute's Design in Education program but shortly found myself exploring new areas— such as Visual Communication, Crowdsourcing, Envirocasting, Physical Computing, and Cartography— that did not seem to be connected to education. Surprised, I went to my mentor again and asked, "Why am I pursuing other areas? I came here to learn how to teach," and she said, "You are learning how to learn." Since then, my focus has been on consciously exploring the art of learning to better understand, "Who is the learner? What and why are they interested in learning? How do they learn? And how can I design tools and practices to further their learning?"
Eleven years after graduating from Srishti, I got the opportunity to connect with two brilliant minds who also had just graduated from the same college and studied the same program now known as Creative Education Design. We bonded quickly as we all had been exposed to interdisciplinary educational approaches and shared similar learning values.
Ishita and Varshini are extremely talented designers who have a novel way of navigating complex ideas into simple and appealing visuals. I invited them to join me in designing an illustrated guidebook to introduce Biomaking to young people, teachers and parents.
It's been a pleasure working with Ishita and Varshini. They have worked very hard to sharpen their skills in using digital illustration as a medium to communicate complex learning concepts. Their work brings abstract learning ideas alive through beautiful graphics depicting concrete examples and applications of biomaking. They have made a significant contribution to the project supporting young people's curiosity and interest in learning science.
Illustrations by Ishita Shailesh & Varshini Girish
Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design & Technology with a B.Des in Creative Education Design, Bangalore, India.
What inspired you to study within your field?
Varshini: The Indian education system inspired me to find better ways to learn. I knew what was wrong with it, but didn’t know of more alternatives besides YouTube. It struck me that there’s no need to find ways to change the system, when one could look at alternate ways of educating and setting up spaces and processes for learning. Creative Education in 2017 sounded like an all absorbing idea. In the first year of college we were forced to build a schedule from a buffet of random art, design or other curated classes. Every class was a creative edu class because at Srishti. Most of the time teaching that was done creatively with prompts that I hadn’t see before. Things got real when we were taken to Chorao, an island in Goa (a state in western India). We were accompanied by brilliant educators, some of whom were ecologists and honestly ‘living libraries’ (title of a class I took a couple years after). They were very knowledgeable and had a lot of information to share. They helped me discover so much love and curiosity for the natural world. Since then, I’ve delved into: nature education, ecology, conservation, illustration, reading, writing, dreaming about and planning to spend more time in the natural world.
Ishita: Having experienced the education system as a dyslexic student with ADHD, I found the lack of inclusivity to be very evident. And as a natural designer, I coped with my disappointment by problem solving and imagining a better, more inclusive education system in my head. When the time came to choose what I wanted to study, there was no doubt in my mind that I would choose to enter into this field. I wanted to bring my lens of inclusivity into the field of education design so that in the future, we could have more inclusive education systems that are accessible to every student in my country.
How did you feel when you first started working as an intern?
Ishita: When I first started working as an intern, I was most excited to go over the content that we were designing the guide for. It was so nice to see that our mentor, Alisha, was happy to take the time to explain any of the concepts that we had questions about. Initially, it was difficult to find the flow since we were still trying to figure out what exactly was expected of us and what platforms and software would be best for us to work on.
Illustrations by Ishita Shailesh & Varshini Girish
Ishita Shailesh & Varshini Girish worked on an illustrated guidebook to introduce the Brilliant Labs Biomaking to young people, teachers and parents. Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design & Technology with a B.Des in Creative Education Design, Bangalore, India.
Varshini: Alisha Collins, our mentor for the Biomaking Guide, was very accepting of our doubts and clarifications with all the new information we were processing. My favourite part of the process was about fungi. It helped that I was visiting in the Western Ghats (a mountain range coast of the Indian peninsula) because I spotted so many mushrooms. I wish I could describe them, but I couldn’t identify them by name. Another subject that caught me was SCOBY and the creation of kombucha. Now I understand what goes on in that container and why I have to be very careful with it. A movement that is stirring about microorganisms and their potential to be harmless factories. But not maybe people know about it as it isn’t talked about in the mainstream media. I’m thrilled to be working with a medium that is going to inform more people about it. The main process of building the guidebook was to take all the information in and create images out of it. Trying to get the details on the illustrations right led to us learning and understanding more facts. There’s obviously beauty and learning that happens when there’s an attempt to translate something. The piece will demand your full attention. I’m excited about this and I often find ways to share biomaking information, especially kombucha, with my friends and family.
Ishita Shailesh & Varshini Girish worked on an illustrated guidebook to introduce the Brilliant Labs Biomaking to young people, teachers and parents.
Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design & Technology with a B.Des in Creative Education Design, Bangalore, India.
Learning is a journey, where do you want to go & what adventures do you hope to explore along the way?
Ishita:
• I want to be able to travel and deconstruct how different communities around the world learn.
• I want to be a part of different communities that are as passionate as I am about education philosophy and design.
• I want to document inspiring quotes and moments that spark lightbulbs in my head.
Varshini:
I’m studying a bit for an ecology test at the moment and I’m connecting dots. I live for these ‘eureka moments’ even though they’re borrowed. I want to learn more about the biological processes that happens in the wild, especially in a rainforest, that would be amazing. Also, I picked up a book titled ‘What a Fish Knows’ by Jonathan Balcombe Learning about habitats and organisms is incredibly interesting. Each one is so different and they all have variety of capabilities and limitations. It makes me want to do more in my day. There’s lots to think about and build upon.
Any learnings or tips for peers and educators?
Ishita: If you are trying to be a part of a community, never be in competition with your peers. When you grow alongside your peers, you not only climb high but also support your growth. That makes you all strong. Don’t be afraid to ask others for help and remember to give back to the community.
For educators: In our guidebook, we included illustrations that had character and layers for readers to break down. As students understand the illustration; they will understand the concept. We didn’t want the illustrations to relate to the text in a very obvious way. This is a fun visual method to get learners to actively think about the text. It will also help them remember the concepts as they already have a connection to the illustrations.
Varshini: Read - a lot! The best part about reading is all the new ideas that’ll find you in the process, some of them keep buzzing and demand to be shared with others. After sharing, you start to feel empty from a fact that just left your head and you’ll be drawn to read more. Another important tip is to document what you read. Again the translating will be interesting. The trick is to illustrate and write journal bits from a few minutes of reading every day.
Question everything! Find people to discuss questions and ideas with. It’s a great way to build community and new friendships. ‘Learn in order to teach’ is mantra I swear by. Every time I’ve attempted to learn something to later teach...I’ve grasped more. Paying attention to your teachers is the fastest way to pick up the skills of an educator. And, I can’t put enough emphasis on the fact that operating in an educator’s mindset helps you improve. Because you’re forced to build upon what you’ve learned, refine it, learn more and do it over and over again.
What do interns need to make their learning journey successful?
Ishita:
• They need to build a warm and open connection with their mentors. Never be afraid to ask for anything.
• They need to develop a reliable process and learn to build and adapt that process along the way.
• Understand and connect with the material you are illustrating for. Working on topics that you are passionate about will always show through in your art.
• Trust the process. The unknown may make you feel uncertain or uncomfortable, but the joy is in it figuring out.
• Take a lot of notes. Review and build on your notes. Document as much as possible and revisit your documentation to reflect.
• Pick up new skills within the internship. Find at least one thing you don’t understand and put it in your agenda to get familiar with it. Become obsessed with at least one new idea you like.
• Develop a good rapport with your mentor/ boss, figure out learning and work opportunities beyond or ahead of the internship.
Ishita Shailesh & Varshini Girish worked on an illustrated guidebook to introduce the Brilliant Labs Biomaking to young people, teachers and parents.
Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design & Technology with a B.Des in Creative Education Design, Bangalore, India.
Can you share some of your work with us?
Varshini: For my thesis, I worked with the Museum of Solution’s brief to create an exhibit for kids around carbon and consumption while following the UN's SDGs. The exhibit is a 3 part experience zone which includes a reverse vending machine, an interactive life-size map of where trash ends up, and a soil sponge / compost creation section.
An earlier project I worked on is called ‘Soup’, it’s an illustrated book / zine about Shark fin soup. This one is close to my heart because this was my first attempt at putting information and illustration together.
Ishita Shailesh & Varshini Girish worked on an illustrated guidebook to introduce the Brilliant Labs Biomaking to young people, teachers and parents.
Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design & Technology with a B.Des in Creative Education Design, Bangalore, India.
Ishita: Pre-Thesis Project: Visible Spaces
For my pre-thesis project, I teamed up with Industree Foundation to empower the weaver women that work at their factory. Upon getting to know them, I learned that they are open to share the problems they face at home and lean on each other for support and friendship. However, their attitudes towards their situations of oppression were ones of hopelessness. They were very accepting of oppression and I felt that they did not have access to the educational tools that could help them take action to liberate themselves. I also felt that as an outsider and a privileged upper caste city woman, it was not my place to teach them what liberation looked like. So, for my project, I decided to create 10 recurring sessions for the women to take part in every morning before they start their work for the day. These sessions explored topics of their choice in particular formats and are highly modifiable, giving them agency and control.
The goal of these sessions is for the women to transform their workspace into a safe space where they could explore their ideas and personalities while getting to know each other more deeply, and for them to slowly build a collective knowledge bank that could push them towards liberation. The project is highly influenced by resources like Harvard’s Project Zero: Thinking Routines, Daniel Wilson’s work in making thinking visible and the pedagogy of play, books like Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and educational theories like Participatory Learning and Action (PLA), Life-Long Kindergarten, Theory U and Andragogy. I also illustrated a step by step infographic on how to conduct a chalk talk so that the facilitators and participants can understand how to conduct these sessions since they were previously only used to lecturers and speakers conducting classes with minimal participation.
Thesis Project: The Brain Forest
For my thesis project, I decided to focus on children’s disconnect with nature. Studies show that this disconnect leads to the diminished use of our senses, attention difficulties and lack of initiative to preserve the environment. Overall, that causes a higher rate of physical and mental illness in our youth. The Brain Forest is a multisensory playground where children have the opportunity to explore the wonders of nature by using their own bodily compass and experiment with using nature as a dependable tool for mental health. Once the children develop an interdependent relationship with nature, I believe that the need to conserve the environment will come to them naturally. This project also educates children on how forests and brains function. I find this to be an important area of study since society often neglects to educate children about mental health and connecting with nature. When education systems do tackle environmental concepts, it is either removed and impersonal or comes from a place of fear for environmental degradation and global warming. Instead of invoking care for the environment, rote learning teaches nature through facts that students are obligated to mug up and regurgitate into an exam paper. My thesis project rejects this form of fear-based learning and solely focuses on invoking wonder within the children. The design principles and educational philosophies that I followed for this project were radical inclusivity and accessibility, Inclusive Architecture, Sense- Hacking, Play-Based Learning, Multi-Sensory Play, Place-Based Learning, Lifelong Learning and, Bringing Visibility.
Illustrated by Ishita Shailesh, Thesis Project: The Brain Forest
Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design & Technology with a B.Des in Creative Education Design, Bangalore, India.
Find this article and more Brilliant Labs Magazine: Working Together at issue.com.
Brilliant Labs is an Atlantic Canadian-based charity. We are a hands-on, experiential learning platform providing youth with opportunities to develop coding and digital skills. When creativity, innovation and technology are applied to projects supporting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), along with a socially responsible entrepreneurial spirit, educators and youth can effect change within their classrooms, curricula, communities, throughout Atlantic Canada, and beyond.
Visit us at BrilliantLabs.ca to learn more about our Biomaking Guide, teacher & student resources, and more hands-on learning activities/programs.
Ishita Shailesh & Varshini Girish worked on an illustrated guidebook to introduce the Brilliant Labs Biomaking to young people, teachers and parents.
Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design & Technology with a B.Des in Creative Education Design, Bangalore, India.
