Personal School Artefact
Within an EXC440 seminar we were asked to reflect on a personal school artefact to reconsider our school experiences in another light. The personal artefact I chose was my VCE Media Production Design Plan (DPD). This folio is full of all my decisions and planning towards my final media product. It outlines my intentions to utilise the school’s SLR digital camera and Photoshop facilities.
My personal artefact shows a distinct connection to privilege within my schooling. Many students experience pressure to study certain subjects from their families in order to achieve certain futures. I was privileged enough to have a freedom to choose to study the Media Arts. My parents supported my decision to study Media and placed no pressure on me to choose any other subject.
My artefact also connects to privilege as many schools do not offer Media. This can be due to lack of funding or other subjects being viewed as more important. Therefore, I was quite fortunate to be able to undertake Media studies during my schooling. Furthermore, at my school, the Media department had enough funding to provide students with a range of cameras and other resources to allow them to achieve with Media studies. Many schools are unable to provide this, leaving the students to organise their own resources.
Also within Media, it is essential to understand the how to work cameras as many students may struggle to use some of the SLR cameras without proper instruction. I was fortunate enough to have been taught how to operate an SLR by my father and I had grown up around cameras. Due to this, I was quite experienced, unlike many of my peers who may not have been able to afford cameras or have a parent to teach them.
This artefact for a long time has been a symbol of pride as I worked incredibly hard on it during my VCE. It has been interesting to reflect on my PDP as a symbol as privilege and quite eye opening to consider something that was simple to me, i.e making the choice to study Media, could be quite a challenge for a range of students due to a range of factors.
