Raising awareness of current affairs through photography

This paper will describe how the poster-sized ‘Eyewitness’ photographs from The Guardian newspaper have been used weekly with trainee teachers undertaking a PGCE teaching qualification for the lifelong learning sector. The aim has been to raise awareness of current affairs through photography and open up discussion and critical reflection as educators with reference to equality and diversity, perception and perspective. The teaching strategy will be described and then demonstrated in the presentation with the audience themselves asked to ‘view’ a gallery of the previous week’s ‘Eyewitness’ photographs. Evaluation has shown the effectiveness and impact of the approach, and this will be discussed with reference to transformative learning theory (Mezirow 2000).