Ep59: Kath Bicknell, Researcher, Educator and Content Creator

Today my guest is Kath Bicknell, a researcher, educator, and content creator. Kath’s academic work relates to performance studies, cognitive science, anthropology, philosophy, psychology, cultural studies, and sports science. In this episode, we explore learning about learning and Kath’s research activities on collaborative embodied performance and her recent collaboration with sports sociologist Kristina Brümmer. Within the cyclical process of success and failure, they asked the question: How is failure built into learning systems? Using participatory ethnographic research methods, with no official goal, but looking out for what might emerge, the team enrolled in handstand classes at a circus school to learn some new skills requiring them to coordinate hips, arms, torso and legs. Along the way the team documented their experiences and perceptions as they learned new skills, eventually publishing their findings as a book chapter. Kath shares insights into skill theory and how people generally improve when acquiring new skills. Until they don’t. We chat about elephants and handstands, failure, and flailing during their time at the circus school. (The elephant acted as a handy metaphor for communicating about failure.) We explore how people typically recover after the inevitable ‘dips and blips’ of failure and how they develop ‘a feel’ for correcting one’s technique. We also chat about the role of emotion regulation and the benefits of keeping the learner in a lighter headspace to support the learning process. Kath reflects on the positives of failure, the value of supporting students and colleagues to fail, the benefits of having freedom to experiment and take risks, and to build in techniques related to coping and bouncing back. Links: https://kathbicknell.com/ https://intelligentaction.cc/