Introduction and pedagogic item

On 10th January I met my tutor and tutor group. We were asked to give a short presentation to introduce ourselves and share something we had found- an article, image or resource- about pedagogy (ie.teaching methods and practices)

I have decided to add this to my blog having just completed my ‘microteach’: objects and artifacts task.

Edward Carpenter aka Saint in Sandals, was a socialist philosopher and activist who wrote and campaigned around issues that still resonate today, gay rights, womens rights, animal rights (he was a very early anti vivisectionist.) green issues, recycling and vegetarianism. Carpenter was advocating for and popularized the phrase The Simple Life.

Carpenter wanted to alleviate the poverty and pollution of working class Victorian era Sheffield residents by encouraging them to get out into nature and ‘be free with each other’ and the natural enviroment outside the city.

Carpenter wrote that ‘boots are the coffins of the feet’ and the shoe is a ‘leather prison’ for the toes. In 1892 he designed and had made replicas of Kashmiri sandals and began distributing them to Sheffield residents. Freeing your foot and your mind to live a more healthy and less repressed life. The simple act of allowing your feet to breath can encourage individual emancipation.

Yuen Fong Ling in his art work ‘Towards Memorial’ is celebrating and introducing a new audience to the life and writings of Edward Carpenter. Lings art work is performative and participatory. He did not want to create a traditionally commissioned monument in the center of Sheffield were Ling currently lives and Carpenter was a resident. Ling says

“Gifting the sandals to participants is a way of activating Carpenters memory. The sandal production process is a way of developing a non permanate public memorial that can exist within a city and would be the antithesis of putting a full life figure of Carpenter in the city center. A sandal that could be worn by a group of people could permeate the city and could be seen actively being worn in and around the city of Sheffield and suddenly the image of the sandal being worn today activates the idea of where it comes from and who it connects to”