Interdisciplinarity can be understood as a response to the rapid changes our world is facing today, particularly social, technological, and environmental changes. Yet interdisciplinarity does not advocate for an end to traditional subject disciplines. Rather, it calls on each discipline to “develop open, dynamic, and transactional approaches capable of depicting research in a network representation that is more aligned with changing configurations of knowledge and education” (Klein, p. 28). In short, it calls on all of us to listen, learn, and work together more closely and more sincerely.
Beyond being educators and researchers, we are members of our families, our communities, and our society. As our society has been placing greater value upon diversity, an interdisciplinary approach to teaching, learning, research, and inquiry seems like a perfect fit.
Exploring textiles in the classroom provides an excellent opportunity for students to connect theory and practice, and to reflect on how we are living interdisciplinary lives and have an impact on the world.
Listen to Episode 6 of our Learning Outside the Sandbox Podcast: Textiles featuring Dr. Lorrie Miller and Dr. Kerry Renwick explaining and providing examples on how to work with students around topics like the sourcing of fibers, string making, and fabrics, followed by exploring the process of dyeing, transporting, manufacturing and wearing.
Create, Make, Innovate: Getting Hands-on with Learning Design
Recap of the session in the Scarfe foyer Fall 2019
Understanding the nature of fibres is the first step in learning how we use them.
At this week’s Create, Make, Innovate! activity session, held Tuesday, September 24, 2019, teacher candidates (TCs) were able to try their hand at the ancient craft of spinning wool into yarn.
Silk fibres as captured by the Leica optical microscope at more than 30x magnification
Using a Leica optical microscope and its accompanying downloadable camera app to capture photos, they also examined cotton, silk, polyester, and freshly sheared sheep wool. Something everyone found amazing is how odd, even alien, the fibres look at such high magnification. One TC imagined her students thinking these pictures had been taken at the bottom of the ocean. Everyone appreciated the value of seeing something so ordinary from such a different perspective!
After making their top-whorl drop-spindles, TCs compared and contrasted the properties and pliability of each material during the felting and spinning processes. By considering both historical and cross-cultural perspectives, teachers can ask students to think about how textiles have played central and supporting roles in the stories and traditions of cultures such as British Columbia’s local indigenous peoples, including the Coast Salish and, more specifically, the Musqueam, on whose traditional territory the university now resides. The Musqueam people have a long tradition of weaving. Weaving and the spindle wheel play a central part in their culture to this day.
Visit the Musqueam Cultural Centre Gallery and arrange for a short guided tour of the local community. The Gallery is located a short drive southeast of the UBC campus.
Today, even a cursory assessment of the contemporary textiles industry reveals its elaborately diverse range of interconnection with other areas: geography, sociology, anthropology, folklore, religion, iconography, economics, agriculture, environmental sustainability, fashion, mathematics, education, and – presumably for any of these – history. Through a political lens, the textiles and garment industries focus concern upon some of our most fundamental human rights issues, such as poverty, women’s rights, and child protection, and also labour codes and safety standards. As Blandy & Hoffman (1991) marvel, “… the breadth of this topic leaves one wondering how it could possibly be ‘hidden’” (p. 62).
Check out some brief instructional videos on the Sandbox to see spinning in action!
Visit our Podcast Episode, Thinking Outside the Sandbox – Textiles to hear from some UBC Faculty of Ed professors
Resources
If you’re intrigued by the scope of textiles, visit The Quilt Index (Michigan State University), “an open access, digital repository of thousands of images, stories and information about quilts and their makers,” and the Boise Peace Quilt Project (BPQP), “a gesture of friendship to the people of the USSR, from 35 Idahoans.” You can also read this New York Times article from 1985 to get a sense of the BPQP’s historical context.
Check out the Science Learning Hub – Pokapū Akoranga Pūtaiao, University of Waikato, www.sciencelearn.org.nz for some great articles detailing wool fibre properties and wool processing, and search for a lesson plan provided by the Science Learning Hub called “Making Felt.”
The fibres of a wool swatch, as captured by the Leica optical microscope.
Learn more about wool at lovetoknow.com and quatr.us, and learn about needle felting at birkelandwool.com.
Here are some sample unit plans for Weaving made available by School District #44 (North Vancouver), suitable for Grades 4–5 and Grades 6–7.
Local Math legend and Richmond helping teacher, Janice Novakowski, shared a blog post & handouts from a session titled “Creating spaces for playful inquiry: encounters with fibres and fabrics”
Finally, have a look at these fascinating films for a sharper historical understanding of the textiles industry as well as some future alternatives it might be able to provide:
“Thread” (Vey Films) “Can the fashion industry reverse global warming?”
Textiles on Film (BFI Player) “A century’s worth of cinematic history documenting the British textiles industry”
“The New Black” (Fast Company) “Ideas for the future of fashion that blend style and sustainability”
Acknowledgement: post author, Scott Robertson; editor, Yvonne Dawydiak
Interdisciplinarity, collaboration, hands-on learning – that’s the spirit of Create, Make, Innovate! We want to promote enthusiasm for sharing and learning across age groups and across subject disciplines.
Make, Create, Innovate sessions took place during the Fall 2019 in the foyer of the Neville B. Scarfe building and were hosted by Scott Robertson, a project assistant on a small TLEF grant with Dr. Lorrie Miller, Dr. Marina-Milner Bolotin and Yvonne Dawydiak, Teacher Education.
If you have an idea or an inspiration for a resource or future session, please let us know! scarfe.sandbox@ubc.ca
References
Blandy, D. & Hoffman, E. (1991, January). Resources for research and teaching about textiles as a domestic art in art education. Art Education, 44(1), 60–71.
Klein, J. T. (2012). A taxonomy of interdisciplinarity. (2012). In J. T. Klein, C. Mitcham, & R. Frodeman, Oxford handbook of interdisciplinarity. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
