On Foregrounding the Backdrops

 

 

On Foregrounding the Backdrops

Much of my liking for large pictures has lot to do with the backdrops and the 'others' in the frames. By others I mean the also-rans, in a way! But this is more about the past when pictures were not so common, when not everything could be shot and framed, as we do now. Magazines with photos were a premium then and colour pics even harder to come by. Rather than the ones who were the focus, meant to be the focus, my eyes would involuntarily wander off to the rest of the things and people who have been caught by the camera. It is their looks, expressions, postures, feels, appearance, that my senses will work on. The man in the middle, or men, those on whom the story is supposed to zero in, will fade out and the backdrop will zoom in. Imagination tracking those to their illogical conclusions constituted my act of reading the pictures. It was such a delight as it helped one keep the trivial off and enjoy the core of the margins.

When online teaching was launched, the same kind of pleasure was affordable for the students as much of the polish of today hasn’t got working then regarding the backgrounds. The students had the pleasure taking a peep at the interior of the teachers home, drawing room or study. They could thoroughly search the premises and have a curious assessment of the teacher! It affords such a delight to see what is lying around and dangling in the backdrop. From the scattered dress items of the family to the broken pantry, it is such a constructive diversion for the students from the class, especially when they feel the lessons are not going their way (and sometimes even when the teacher feels it does!).

It would be rewarding for the students to see what all stuff in fact fill the otherwise inaccessible lives of some of their teachers. The broken guitar in the corner of an apparently stiff and prosaic faculty member may trigger lots of questions in the students’ minds, I mean, if they happen to be one who will signify the margins at the cost of the so called centre. Does the woman/man play guitar? Did she in the past? Or is it her children's? Why are the broken strings not fixed? The attempt to picture the teacher doing a blue, strumming the guitar, will leave a jarring feel as the known face and the attempted morph in the light of the unknowingly revealed musical inclination fail to sit together. But the thought affords enjoyable relief for the mind. The same goes for the other items in the backdrop- an exercising machine, certain books in the cupboard (though this is becoming one of the benchmark backdrops for online sessions now and the students will be beginning to get tired, unless one keeps changing the titles in the shelf!), the colour of the ceiling, the easy chair, items on the clothesline, so on!

Now that we have been educated by the experts, what they call the industry standards have set in. We have been trained as to how to curate the backdrop. All the distracting (interesting!), items have been removed. Nothing is lying around loose. All spick and span. Think of all those rooms and angles one tried so that nothing from behind will be caught by the camera! The week long, month long experiments sanitizing the backdrop! Sometimes I wonder (never wonder!) if this is like removing all windows from the classroom! In Education, how much this backdrop rubble can we permit? It has got me thinking about the backdrop in the learning process.

The things we say in a lecture and the things which walk in un-curated into the learners’ minds, the visuals we show and those the learners create, the questions we ask and those they do inside them consequentially, the stated to unstated, given to implied, from the focused to the blurred, core to backdrop: isn't this how learning works? Without swearing by the rule books (Industry standard again, this time as my friend put it irritatedly!), we need to open up more backdrops, allow the sideways tangents to take roots and move in search of emotional and intellectual nourishment. I would love the people who move around in the backdrops of TV news screens as it provides interesting diversion. Do we have a reason to re-clutter our online session backdrops (ignoring the norms) and put more life into it? I am sure the purists would cry for my head as many teachers are racking their heads to keep the students fully focused on the centre!

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