This is so important. But I have to report a very dissappointing experience I had this year co-teaching a course on design thinking to some school leaders. I gave them some of the representative literature and worked through the theories a little for my part, but all my students knew and wished to hear more off was IDEO and prototyping. I got the impression that amongst those I teach, they had decided that IDEO is and exhausts 'design thinking'. I went away upset and angry, but also realised that the term design thinking may be been taken as a kind of static idea or sign, unlike what Gunther Kress talks about in his works, where words and phrases are not just assimilated but transformed, used, and shaped, which is what children do, using wrong words to best effect, to re-design in fulfilment of their potential for other meanings, and with that, the semiotic assumption that words and ideas are not given, received and used merely, but taken and then to be molded for our own interests. A fallacious semiotics was to blame. The thing now is to help many know that, 'design thinking' is not something defined by someone and therefore to be used as such, and studied as such, but a concept under which we can put, for ourselves, those interesting ideas concerned with the creation of the artificial. We have to, to quote the gospels, turn around and become like little children. And in order to put those things that interest us, we have first to know what's available, the various different ideas throughout the history of design, some of which are in conflict. 'Design thinking' itself is a task to be designed.
Jude
________________________________________
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Victor Margolin [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, November 03, 2011 2:09 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: critical mapping
Hi Rosann:
The point is not that one person or several will do the definitive critical mapping of design's and design research's history but that everyone who teaches should develop a sense of what the key literature in the field has been and is. Thats how most fields work. Certainly you can ask any art historian, sociologist, or political scientist what are the important texts in their field and they can tell you. If nobody knows that in the design and design research fields, then I suggest that lots of people dig in and discover key texts for themselves. I was thinking today about jazz musicians. I can't imagine that you would meet a jazz musician today who had never heard of Charlie Parker or who had never listened to his music. Or to Sonny Rollins, Horace Silver, Chick Corea, or Pat Metheney. Maybe some straight ahead players have not heard of Peter Brotzmann but I would say that they should listen to him too. I have just bought a book about wikinomics. Maybe this is a grand wikiproject for the field.
Victor
National Institute of Education (Singapore) http://www.nie.edu.sg
DISCLAIMER : The information contained in this email, including any attachments, may contain confidential information.
This email is intended only for the use of the addressee(s) listed above. Unauthorised sight, dissemination or any other
use of the information contained in this email is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email by fault, please
notify the sender and delete it immediately.
|