Recently I have been feeling quite lost in the way I convey my project and felt the need to redefine my research question. I had trouble with identifying the focal point of my topic, failed to address my topic in a clear and succinct matter, and conveyed it in a wrong way. I’m redefining it right now in order to gain evidence and feedback from the area that I had always intended it to.
6.14 about education
For my project, result-based education acts as part of the “compost heap” in the mind for me as a writer/creator of fiction.
For my intervention on May 13th, I created a fictional, exaggerated version of results-based culture. My aim is NOT to create change in the structure of the Chinese education system(it’s impossible). It’s to use the negative experience of an individual to create something beautiful. A piece of speculative fiction like Black Mirror is only going to reveal an incident to possible stakeholders rather than change the incident itself. But revealing as an action does create change.
The intervention does provide evidence to a research question, but not the research question that I chose before. I need to doublecheck the function of interventions and the specific field that I want to change.
Research Question updated up till now: How can we measure the impact of fantasy-based fiction?
A project on fiction, unlike a design project, doesn’t have stakeholders in a particularly focused field, and the impact it creates is relatively intangible. It inspires change in individuals rather than creating tangible change itself.
This story contains overlapping narratives about different people editing a real incident and turning them into a piece of news on the media for their own benefits.
nYE
One man’s dream of the NHS
From campaigning at the coalfield to leading the battle to create the NHS, Aneurin ‘Nye’ Bevan is often referred to as the politician with greatest influence on our country without ever being Prime Minister.
Confronted with death, Nye’s deepest memories lead him on a mind-bending journey back through his life; from childhood to mining underground, Parliament and fights with Churchill in an epic Welsh fantasia.
Michael Sheen (Under Milk Wood) is Nye Bevan in this surreal and spectacular journey through the life and legacy of the man who transformed Britain’s welfare state. It’s written by Tim Price (Teh Internet is Serious Business) and directed by Rufus Norris (Small Island).
After careful consideration, I decided to pivot my approach from result-based education to fiction. I stopped with education mainly because of the stakeholders. I realised that teachers and students and guidance councellors were not what I wanted to form as a network for my future career, so I decided to change my topic. To redirect it to the area of fiction.
Intervention on May 13th
For my project, result-based education acts as part of the “compost heap” in the mind for me as a writer/creator of fiction.
For my intervention on May 13th, I created a fictional, exaggerated version of results-based culture. My aim is NOT to create change in the structure of the Chinese education system(it’s impossible). It’s to use the negative experience of an individual to create something beautiful. A piece of speculative fiction like Black Mirror is only going to reveal an incident to possible stakeholders rather than change the incident itself. But revealing as an action does create change.
The word “fiction” has to be part of the research question. If I edit it out, it will cause confusion amongst my audience because simply writing a tale inspired by result-based education is not going to change the system itself. I have tested internally at school and the audience, both tutors and fellow cohorts, has given me advice solely on the education part and nothing on the fiction part. That explains how I didn’t “reflect” on the advice and feedback received, because I had trouble with identifying the focal point of my topic, and conveyed it in a wrong way, therefore receiving feedback in the wrong area.
In the story, Puddleglum would believe in Aslan and the world he came from even if he’s in a world where neither is real.
Puddleglum’s words were the “Ontological Proof” in a form suitable for kids.
An example of Ontological Proof from from Ontological Proofs Today by Miroslaw Szatkowski:
Fantasy creates belief in its audience. It inspires change for different individuals.
3 septembers and a january(the sandman)
This story comes from the Sandman, and is a very inspiring tale about the story of how believing in a fantasy can change a person’s actions. I regard this story as secondary research because it has a true background story.
Joshua Abraham Norton, a resident of San Francisco, arrived in 1849 and thrived as a businessman. However, a failed attempt to monopolize the rice market led to financial ruin. In 1859, following this misfortune, Norton declared himself “Emperor of the United States.”
Despite lacking official power, San Francisco embraced Emperor Norton’s eccentricity. He received courtesies like free travel and meals, and even his self-proclaimed currency held value in some shops. While some viewed him as odd, others found amusement in his pronouncements and enjoyed his presence.
Emperor Norton’s reign may have been unofficial, but his impact was real. He became a beloved local figure, immortalized in the works of literary giants like Mark Twain and Robert Louis Stevenson. His story serves as a reminder of San Francisco’s unique character and its embrace of the unconventional.
Dragon’s Den was a very fruitful experience. I gave a brief 5-min-intro of my project to the 2 Dragons, and they pointed out that the psychological impact of my most recent intervention(the Ministry of Potential) didn’t provide direct evidence to my topic.
However, the presentation on Dragon’s Den was the first time where I felt that I had the 3 different areas in balance, and more importantly, could explain the narrative of the project thoroughly to an audience. This is concrete progress for me as a writer and artist.
My question up till now is: How can we disrupt the psychological impact of result-based education on current and former students?
My main issue now is the cycle of research and interventions. I need a more logical link between my topic, the research that backs it up, and the interventions that fuels the research.
Going to upload the most recent changes of my project in a few days. The content below is the presentation I gave for Dragon’s Den on Jun.4th, 2024.
P1 [WHAT]&[WHY] My topic focuses on 3 areas, fiction, psychology(mental health), and Chinese (education) systems.
I’m aiming to write a story, a tale that deprogrammes result-based education. Or disrupts the psychological impact of results-based education.
There’s a phenomenon in the education system in China which focuses on labelling an individual based on the results of tests and exams, (the Chinese version of “teaching to the test”)and it has severely damaged the mental health of current students, and it doesn’t stop after we graduate, result-based education fuels a continuing belief inside us and we project it into whatever environment we enter after school, which could do huge impact on how we choose our workspace and families and life basically. It’s almost a religion in China, a Religion of Results.
P2 [WHY] I want to address this phenomenon from the perspective of fiction. （’cause I find that my own experience in a result-based education background has a very 1984 quality to it)(a lot of things that I thought was normal when I was immersed in that narrative were almost gruesomely absurd when I looked back on that narrative from a God’s Eye view)
Any system that labels an individual casts a fictional shadow on them. In this project, students think their work/their grades define their whole personality. Ppl are psychologically affected because they are taught to believe that this fictional shadow in that narrative is who they actually are.
In Chinese high schools, students live in a reality based on test results, ranks and they think their future is solely depended on that. This psychological state is the by-product of a system that pushes society forward. Really successfully actually.
See, a system, any system contains a degree of order. Like this one. When this order causes pain to the individuals within it, even though it is beneficial in macroscopic terms, we’ll need to do sth to disrupt this order. Which is the goal of this project.
P3-5 [HOW] The first stage of this project is to create a fictional world based on this reality(which is the education system).
In the background of this world, there is a Ministry that promises fame, money, anything you want if you get in by taking a test. (Next page)
The audience immerses into this narrative with their mindset already accustomed to the order of results(They take the test) This mindset is disrupted when they discover(by themselves or by me telling them) that it is actually a puzzle in the shape of a test.(original idea from the Mysterious Benedict Society)
The test consists of questions that has answers in another question. I’m aiming to disrupt the idea inside ppl’s heads of learning solely for the results.
P6 (At this stage I’m currently exploring the interactive part of storytelling.)I personally prefer interactive storytelling because it allows the audience to be part of the story. And that in my opinion will make greater impact.
The next step is to tweak the media of fiction I use to give my audience a more immersive experience.
I’m really inspired by psychological experiments like Stanford Prison and the Third Wave Experiment, because they succeeded in /actually creating an alternate reality /and convincing participants to believe in that reality.
I’m aiming for my project to create an alternate reality as believable as that. Ultimately aim to disrupt that order which is instilled inside our heads.
Those are two key topics that were discussed in seminars in the past two weeks. As we are preparing for 3 months of independent study, it feels like we’re packing different techniques(food, water, clothing, weapons etc) into our brains like heroes in storybooks preparing for a very long journey ahead.
autoethnography
My initial understanding of autoethnography was to tap into our own experience when doing a project. The actual definition is as follows:
Autoethnography is an approach that seeks to describe and systematically analyze(graphy) personal experience(auto) to understand cultural experience(ethno).
This somehow reminds me of a novel I read when I was 16… It’s called “Spirit Walker” (from the series “Chronicles of Ancient Darkness”) by Michelle Paver. The story is based on mythology and history in the New Stone Age. In this book, every human has three souls inside them: the name soul(on the heels), the clan soul(on the heart,representing who you belong with, your environment and surroundings), and the world soul(on the forehead). If anybody loses one of those souls in this world, they will forget what it’s like to be human and morph into demons and ghosts.
So, autoethnography, to me, is using our name soul to understand our clan soul.
(I’m just putting this here because I genuinely think like this, I’ve been told that I leap onto a different topic reeeaaally fast)
I have used autoethnography in my own project(unconsciously if I might add, because I wasn’t aware at the time that what I was doing was a method called autoethnography) when I went back to my high school in Beijing during spring break. Physically being back there did wonders in reawakening my old memories of the place. I drew from my own experience and insider knowledge on the topic, and am now at a loss of what to do next, and which area to research next. I’m probably at what I would personally like to call a stalemate.
time management
We used the Eisenhower Matrix in class to map out what would eventually be our schedule for independent study. As you can see below, I have no idea what I’m supposed to do:(
I do tend to get to this point in previous projects where my topic is too scattered for me to continue. So the next step is to gather all the info and research and other titbits I had collected(rather kleptomaniac behavior actually) and to reframe my research question into a cohesive sentence.
Right now it has stretched to 3 different topics, not unlike 3 jigsaw puzzles where I’m trying to force them together. In my own head they piece together quite well in fact…
Fiction, Psychology, (Education) Systems
How can dystopian fiction be used to disrupt the psychological impact of result-based systems on younger individuals?
The Eisenhower Matrix told me I need a more concrete plan. FAST.
The education planner test we did on the right told me I was a Tactile Learner, which means I learn best by taking action. Which I guess was right because the intervention on May 13th had a huge boost on my project as well as my personal feelings about the project. Action and physical movement does push my project forward a lot.
This is the layout of my mind map right now(I linked my Box of Uncertainties to my project recently):
I sense an adventure in the independent study period. While my thoughts and the scattered pieces of research I found are chaotic to the extent that I couldn’t succinctly describe it, they are there, and they come like the tide. I’ll just have to figure out how to take advantage of it.
We are also required to:
Draft plan/design of your project management strategy
Draft timeline with your goals/milestones mapped out over the Summer Independent Study Period
Honestly not quite sure how to do that yet. I will update this as soon as possible.
TBC.
References:
Spirit Walker (Chronicles of Ancient Darkness) Michelle Paver
