Ethnography Vs Teaching Aids
When we were growing up, life in the church was inspiring and always looked forward to Sunday school teachings. In order for us to understand the teachings of the bible and follow with interest, the teachers used photographs of the bible stories. When they talked about the Ark of Noah, they had to show us the picture of the Ark for us to understand what it meant. That created a lot of interest and curiosity, and we understood the story more from the striking images, and we can still remember what we learned till today. When we read that story now, we still connect with early teachings using the aid materials. This practice is still used to teach in our Sunday schools for young people to understand the bible. It is even surprising to note that images of animals that are believed to have existed some thousands of years are shown, and many have believed their existence. These are the existence of dinosaurs on the planet.
Sarah Pink says that the visual images, practices and ways of knowing are figuring increasingly in the critical work of scholars from across the social sciences and humanities.[i] It is true that the human mind visualises things as they describe them so that he understands the concept. One believes the visual aid through the teaching of the Sunday school which is the same approach Pink is describing here in his book. Many of us learned well through the process of visualisation and images which play essential roles in disciplines outside the social sciences and humanities, including medicine design and engineering.[ii] It is a great moment for one to learn that these are visual ethnography which is intersecting well with these fields. It is interesting to remember that when reading the book “Animal Farm” by George Orwell in the school as a literature book, we understood it very well when it one visualised through images of Pigs and the rulers after overthrowing man from their territory and animals taking care of themselves on the farm. As learners, we used various creative methods through visualising how such a government managed by animals would be behave. It is in the same spirit Pink is saying she understands ethnography as a process of creating and representing knowledge.[iii] Visual imagination and creating pictures of the animals was a vast knowledge learned from the animal farm book.
It is also coming out clear that during the time we did our high school exam we had a geography paper that was only pictured and asked to describe what one sees and how s/he understand that picture. One connects this with the ethnographic approach that we are reading here from pink. Specific uses of visual images and technologies tend to develop as part of the social and technological relationships and activities that ethnographers engage in during fieldwork.[iv] Thanks to this book which has now opened a new understanding and one can call that geography exam paper as an ethnographic question paper. The only difference was that the candidates were not the ethnographers describing their picture they have come up with, but it the examiner assumed that the candidate was the ethnographer describing what it was.
The part of Ethics and Ethnographic research appealed to us, such that decorum must stand out in using this visual method rather than some people abusing the process. Pink writes that ethical decisions, within the context of ethnographic practice, are ultimately made by individual ethnographers concerning the specificity of different situations.[v] The ethnographic process has enlightened many in using this method in research and would help them consider the accountability for legal issues relating to the production and use of images in online and offline contexts as pink explains here. Especially using other people’s images without their consent. During the year 2017, a friend of mine saw his picture in the obituary page of the National Newspaper in Kenya, and there was no description but only his picture and the name. When I saw it, I called his wife and inquired from her, what happened that our friend’s picture appears on the obituary page of the newspaper. The wife was equally shocked because they were with her husband where she was when I called her. Such incidences are not healthy at all if ethical issues are not followed when using people’s images without their consent.
[i] (Pink 2013) pg33
[ii] (Pink 2013)pg33
[iii] (Pink 2013)pg34
[iv] (Pink 2013)pg49
[v] (Pink 2013)pg58
About the Author
John Muhanji
I am the Director Africa Ministries Office of Friends United Meeting. I coordinate all Quaker activities and programs in the Quaker churches and school mostly in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. The focus of my work is more on leadership development and church planting in the region especially in Tanzania.. Am married with three children all grown up now. I love playing golf as my exercise hobby. I also love reading.7 responses to “Ethnography Vs Teaching Aids”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
I appreciate your comments about images and Sunday School. I remember many images that were key to my understanding and shaping my imagination as a youngster. I think there are strengths and weaknesses with these images. Certainly it is a strength when items from scripture are so foreign to our modern understanding, like the Ark as you mentioned. I also fairly recently was part of having kids build and Ark of the Covenant so they could get a visual representation of something so outside their experience. It was enlightening for the adults as well! But I also think that damage can be done with images—particularly in church. Every photo hanging in our little church depicted a fair skinned, blue eyed Jesus. While I do recognize that most cultures artistically represent Jesus similar to themselves, I think it can be harmful when the images aren’t faithful enough to culture. Your point also reminds me how much more we should include good images with adults! What role do you think images could/should play in our weekly worship gatherings?
John,
Thanks so much for connecting ethnography with visual and teaching aides. I am suddenly reminded of the recent documentary that I saw concerning Fred Rogers. While he certainly used sets, puppets, and other visual aides, they were almost laughable in their simplicity and crudeness. However, the genius and brilliance of Mr. Rogers was he never made his shows about the images but always focused on communicating respect to his children’s audience. For over three decades, Rogers would end each program by telling his viewers, “You’ve made this day a special day, by just your being you. There’s no person in the whole world like you; and I like you just the way you are.” Fred Rogers never let the images/technology overwhelm or distract from the primary (research) mission, that is, telling kids every day how special, how uniques, and how accepted they were. Blessings, H
Hi John. Thanks for sharing your reflection on ethnography. I agree that pictures are effective as teaching aids, especially for children. I also liked your comment that ‘the human mind visualizes things as they are described to them.’ I agree with that. Our perceptions guide our pathway in life and our mind’s pictures are part of those perceptions. I also appreciated your story about your friend seeing his own obituary in the paper. That would certainly be eye-opening and unsettling to see! Thanks for sharing, John.
A couple of years ago all the hip preachers in the US were making jokes about the flannel board lessons they learned in church and how it scarred them. No doubt there were some representation issues with those lessons — Jesus looking Swedish for instance — but if I’m honest the lessons I still remember come from those flannel board lessons. The visual aspect of it tied to my memory in a very special way. When we started looking for a children’s bible for our son it was very important to us that we find one that had illustrations that included black people, because it was important that he see people like him in the Bible. The visual aspect of the lessons were important. I think you’re on to something with VE and visual aids in church lessons.
Thanks, John, loved the post. I didn’t grow up in church so my experience of these visual aids is more in line to what Sean has said, in that, most of the time it is used as a joke to the past. On the flip side, in America at least, a lot of new/contemporary churches put a great emphasis on visual aids or props. In your setting how do you see this playing out?
Thanks for this, John. I have gained from the use of visual aids in Sunday school as well. Like Sean, we hear this mocked a bit in fun but it’s true that we understand and learn what we visualize. My Sunday school teachers were using what resource and technology they had at the time and it is our responsibility to continue that for future generations.
Hi John. Really interesting reflection from your childhood years. It’s interesting how this images remain as the years roll on. They remind us of our own story of life and faith and also how it has been shaped through time. Phenomenology is a really interesting study of how we interpret what we see. We talk about the sun rising and setting because that’s what we see. The truth is rather different of course, in fact planetary movement is wonderfully complex. Yet the church persecuted Galileo for suggesting the sun was at the centre, not the earth. I guess the question is, how do we transition from childhood phenomenon to adult truths?