TEACHING in a creative arts programme is interesting because of the nature of the practices of the different art forms and juggling (and oftentimes demystifying) industrial expectations shaped by both prospective students’ expectations and industry practitioners.

Just like any other university programme, the film programme I now head at Sunway University, is bound by standards and procedures set not only by the different committees in the university but also by the Higher Education Ministry.

What most don’t see about being an academic in a private institution (public institutions have their own set of unique grievances that I am aware of) aside from teaching and research is the amount of administrative work that goes into not only keeping a programme running, but also planning ahead for future student intake, curriculum revisions and audits.

On top of this, which I assume is unique to a creative arts programme, is the drama and the emotive conflicts between students and sometimes with their subject lecturers.

The drama is usually of a productive kind – students who wish to pursue a career in this must get used to receiving criticism about their work, but must also equally learn the skill of giving constructive criticism. 

This form of drama emerges, to me at least, in part because all creative pursuits tend to have very personal, sometimes private, origins, be it a storyline, character or even an aesthetic approach.

To burst any of these with some form of criticism – constructive or malicious – does indeed hurt a bit (I know this personally as an artist) but part of the learning and training must also be imbued with the skill of thickening one’s skin and learning how to respond constructively (not destructively). 

Reflecting on my own university training during my film and journalism double major degree programme in the late 1990s, I realised none of us was taught to equip ourselves with these skills – and this was overseas.

As the programme was new – it was under the broader field of mass communication (it was still not as ubiquitous as it is now) – I was the only Malaysian enrolled along with a group of Singaporean students, right before the 1997 Asian economic crisis.

When classes began, it dawned upon me that the ability to elicit and receive criticism is tied closely to one’s mastery of language. By “mastery” I don’t mean the ability to win a spelling bee or write a flawless essay, but the ability to converse and opine offhand spontaneously when needed.

In tutorial classes, students are expected to have done the weekly readings and everyone – and I mean EVERYONE – is expected to give their thoughts and opinion on a given topic.

The pre-university course I took in Malaysia at a private college felt rigorous enough since my lecturers were expatriates but this sort of discussion never really happened in our classes. 

It was intimidating to us – the Malaysian and Singaporean students – but we took it in stride as sometimes I would just answer “I agree with so and so” and it would move on to the next student.

I realised most Malaysians then, or maybe just the circle of peers I was around with, could not have a meaningful spontaneous debate without turning into a personal attack, which seems to be our definition of “criticism” or “critique”.

It seems this trend still persists in Malaysia in my classes and beyond as most fellow lecturers I meet even from other universities lament the lack of inquiry or questioning in lectures or tutorials. While we may be proud and loud on social media, in person, most of us tend to be muted.

This is one of the appeals of Twitter to me which, beyond becoming our popular source of breaking news or “trending” hashtags, is also an interesting avenue to sit back and read the oftentimes entertaining (and sometimes audacious) comments on postings or threads.

If anything, I “sell” the idea of writing essays – the bane of all students – as a method of structuring criticism or arguments. While digital technology has indeed accelerated communication and especially miscommunication, the basic principles of writing transcend technology.

This is even more critical because the accelerated rate of interaction online now has weaponised armchair critics of everything. The only thing that hasn’t accelerated is the ability to grow thick skin in the face of criticism, constructive or not.

This is where I personally believe creative arts education remain an untapped source of learning and promoting constructive criticism, since drama and emotions are always the order of the day. – December 9, 2022.

* Azmyl Yunor is a touring underground recording artiste, and an academic in media and cultural studies. He has published articles on pop culture, subcultures and Malaysian cultural politics. He adheres to the three-chords-and-the-truth school of songwriting, and Woody Guthrie’s maxim “All you can write is what you see”. He is @azmyl on Twitter.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.