As we dissolve disciplinary boundaries through opening up interactive smooth spaces in the curriculum, exciting processes seem to emerge. In my recent student workshop with 4th Year medical students, I handed out A4 pieces of paper on which I had printed the outline of a circle (about 10cm diameter). This followed my earlier trial run in which blank paper was given to the first group of students in 2015 - an effort to move beyond written and oral text. This time, like before, I asked students to draw something about their experiences using shared boxes of pastels - a reflection on their 8 weeks immersed in the practical realities connected to and with/in Maternal Obstetrics facilities.
What appeared from the students was powerful. The paper seems to act as an affective gateway to open up the individual and collective flows of intensities. The circle gives a platform from which their thoughts can emerge. It facilitated their focus on themselves with many students using it as an outline of their face. Red was a dominant colour chosen by students, sometimes indicated as an association with blood and anger.
Some students illustrated the stark contrasts in their experiences between the good and bad, happy and sad, a common trend with the previous group, while others moved further into metaphorical depictions of their memorable encounters. For example, in the circle one students drew a scene of crocodiles with mouths open looking at a stick person harnessed and hanging down in the centre. Another striking image depicted a tearful face with sadness in the circle, framed by flags from a variety of African countries. This links to the poor quality of care frequently experienced by foreigners, exacerbated by the language barriers - a common theme in our classroom discussions and roleplays, resonating with the shocking xenophobic attacks presently hitting South Africa. This drawing and the others are acting as a connecting medium to pull together-apart the meanings of students' clinical encounters with larger societal issues (Barad 2007). The artefacts generated from the group become a force to open up injustices that shape behaviours inside and outside the Obstetrics facilities.
The drawings and particularly the circle outline appear to contribute a valuable component to the student engagement. This supplements their online reflective task which uses the Six Step Spiral for Critical Reflection - a spiral framework. and their classroom role playing of critical incidents. Through these practical activities, a diffractive process is emerging with an expansion of our mutually generated knowledge in an effort to engage with challenging issues in student learning. Perhaps the challenges of the disrespect in Obstetrics can be likened to the waves in the ocean confronting an obstacle causing diffraction as described by Karen Barad.
Only one student out of 32 chose to use the flip side of the paper that was blank. The drawing on the landscape orientation of the paper illustrated a graph with strong gradients where each of the descents were accompanied by text describing the challenges faced by some mothers in labour.
My image above was created as a response to the student drawings. I used You Doodle on the iPad which enabled me to connect my ideas about the impact of the circle on the blank paper and the spiral framework that the students find helpful to guide their thinking. In the light of the context of student learning in Obstetrics, the central flipped, sepia circle indicates the smoothness of the clinical space that students are immersed in, where the unknowns and uncertainties especially during night time shifts challenge students in unexpected ways.
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