Hi Chuck

The program basis within which this methodology is engaged is grounded in
Indigenous understanding...the philosophy of Aboriginal Australians which i
have presented as being similar or at the very least related understandings
generalised across the several hundred Nations which make up this group of
peoples.

This approach is moral in terms of this general Indigenous understanding in
that it is an expression of the proper-way for humans to engage within a
knowledge context. The basis for this morality is a natural systems
understanding of the world which recognises that all systems have knowledge
and that human knowledge is but one of these many enmeshed understandings.
In this natural systems understanding if one kind of knowledge (also one
species when translated into English) comes to dominate then the whole of
systems is thrown off balance and some knowledge systems die. This
conception of knowledge held in balance is moral because the attempt to
institute one form of knowledge as dominant over others is considered to be
either gross arrogance or incredible stupidity...because all natural
systems are vital to keep the whole of environments healthy...a state that
we all recieve the greatest benefit from.

So this morality has an origin in a different ontology...a different
conception of the nature of being....indeed this conception of
being-knowledge has been called an Earth Morality...D.B. Rose (1992)
describes this understanding well in a book titled Dingo Makes Us
Human...in North America Greg Cajete's (2000)text Native Science approaches
this understanding from a Native American position.

i have just completed the fifth week lecture in this series and this weeks
class is probably the best example of what i mean by knowledge formation in
design-learning...this group has fifty students who are divided into four
groups which are afforded an identity which allows them to develop through
negotiation separate approaches to knowledge...in this weeks task each
student brought in a card on which they had completed a design of any kind
with any word of their choice written on the back of the card...this was
the only information given to students.

In this class each group had to arrange the cards into a pattern through a
process which is based on their negotiated approach using only the design
sides of the cards for reference...the words on the back of the cards
remain hidden from the entire group... one group of ten students in this
class arranged the designs according to an approach which was focused on
the dynamic living nature of patterns, they arranged the fifty cards into a
dynamically centred pattern of 4 interlocking cycles...then they described
the approach they had negotiated to the rest of the students using the
metaphor of life cycles to express their approach to knowledge
living-in-the-world.

When the centre card and the four cards at the end of each quadrant in this
arrangement were turned over the words on the back read...
Centre Card.... connections
Quadrant cards... respect; living; community; understanding

This groups knowledge formation produced this knowledge formation 'text'
which can be seen as synchronistic, chance, magic and special, trickery
etc. in western understanding because none of the cards turned over
belonged to the members of this group and many cards had words such as
raisins; artichoke; frizbee; BOO!; soccer; me; confused; tired etc written
on the back. This knowledge just popped out for this group of students and
had meaning for them in this context...this happens almost every time these
knowledge negotiations through design take place...the key to understanding
this process is that this context is not so random as we are conditioned to
believe it is...and the words only have meaning because of the context in
which they are framed...the real learning is that the way in which we
organise ourselves in coming to knowledge is of prime significance so much
so that even when the text is invisible the knowledge formation we adopt in
our approach often generates a text that corresponds to this approach.

This brings students into the conception of formations in knowledge
approaches...your example of myths and fairytales in the western traditions
when understood through Indigenous Philosophy a story which describes an
animal...such as a rainbow-serpent... is actually describing a particular
knowledge formation in the world not some mythical beast. I know this seems
a bit on the lunatic-fringe for most of you but from the inside stories in
this vein are very similar to the contemporary stories of theoretical
physicists which describe M or membrane theory and the multiple universes
paradox etc

The key observation is that there are many possible knowledge formations
and how many are usually applied in judgement?

Norm

At 02:22 PM 27/08/03 -0400, Charles Burnette wrote:
>Dear Norm:
>
>Your thoughts  interest me but I am not sure that I
>understand them adequately :
>
>You said:
>"design-learning is a collaborative visual-emotional &
>practical knowledge
>negotiation from which a group understanding emerges
>because in the
>non-reductive complexity of multilayered visual
>negotiations knowledge
>often seems to just happen prior to judgment ...indeed
>this is a context
>where the suspension of judgment is a prime moral
>code."
>
>How is this moral? Do you mean fairness in listening
>to the observation of others? If so isn't that ethical
>rather than moral? What do you mean by a multilayered
>visual negotiation? Is it attentive to different
>aspects of a situation or is it introducing images
>from outside the observed circumstances?
>
>Similarly, you said:
>"When these knowledge 'things' begin to just happen in
>a group we then begin
>to focus on the meta-relations of knowledge
>negotiations...those patterns
>observed in our interactions which prompt knowledge
>events...which we may
>then represent visually in many individuated
>conceptions that are then
>brought together to establish another layer of
>knowledge
>negotiations....another engagement cycle of
>design-learning><observation-learning where we may
>begin to track the
>temporal rhythms of these patterns."
>
>This sounds like learning through using images as the
>focus of discussion?
>
>And at the end you said:
>"This approach focuses on people engaging equally as
>human beings through
>visual and oral knowledge formation without a central
>control, a series of
>texts or defined-implied objective. Sometimes it is a
>lot of fun and
>students occasionally make profound cross-cultural
>transformations of their
>understanding of human-being-in-the-world."
>
>This sounds like the students interpret what an object
>means to them without input other than their own.
>Sharing their interpretations? Is this what you mean?
>
>If I am (more or less) correct you might also be
>interested in this approach: A student is asked to
>convey a myth or fairy tale that has personal meaning
>to them through a few visual icons representing the
>main events in the story. The icons are presented
>without explanation to the other students for their
>interpretation. The author then indicates what each
>icon was intended to convey and receives advice to
>help clarify them. The author then incorporates the
>resulting visual language into a product intended for
>someone with whom they would like to share their
>story, attempting to retain its imagery, meaning and
>emotional content. Students really get into the
>personal meaning aspect of this learning experience.
>
>But based on your earlier exchange with Terry, I
>detect the tendency to put too much emphasis on the
>visual and not enough on what I have termed "formative
>thinking" which is what interested me in the way you
>said what you did. (Formative thinking, in my
>definition, is the making of meaning through the
>convergence and adaptive reconfiguration of mental
>events only some of which are visual and immediate).
>
>Thanks for your post
>
>Chuck
>
>Dr. Charles Burnette
>234 South Third Street
>Philadelphia, PA 19106
>Tel: +215 629 1387
>e-mail: [log in to unmask]
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhDs
>in Design
>[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Norm
>Sheehan
>Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2003 7:29 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Design Learning
>
>
>Thanks Terry
>
>I present design learning in the last posting as two
>words but maybe they
>could best be presented as
>design-learning><observation-learning a single
>conception of those engagements with the world which
>are productive of
>visual 'things' such as images artefacts etc...the
>significance of this
>learning is that the products and the methods of
>production engage multiple
>layers of meaning and produce multiple layered
>understandings...you might
>say a different layering of meaning for each 'maker'
>and 'viewer'and with
>each revisitation to presentation of an image.
>
>There has been a lot of discussion concerning the
>notion of judgement in
>relation to such productions in design...however the
>context of my use of
>these approaches is within the mainstream academy
>where analytic,
>interpretative, critical, rational, normitive
>formations of learning
>dominate...judgement in this Western traditional
>context is almost always
>based on an exclusion of the visual as a sound basis
>for a philosophy. The
>programs i conduct are titled Indigenous Knowledge &
>Indigenous
>Philosophy...these programs are based in a Visual
>Philosophy...essentially
>a philosophy wherein the texts have been seen by
>western viewers as "ART"
>for decades.
>
>In such a context the normal design things that happen
>in art/design
>schools become tools for engageing students in
>understandings across
>cultures... they also teach the basics of this
>Indigenous visual philosophy
>which is founded in a very particular natural systems
>morality concerning
>knowledge itself. To make the jump across these
>understandings of the world
>design-learning is a collaborative visual-emotional &
>practical knowledge
>negotiation from which a group understanding emerges
>because in the
>non-reductive complexity of multilayered visual
>negotiations knowledge
>often seems to just happen prior to judgment ...indeed
>this is a context
>where the suspension of judgement is a prime moral
>code.
>
>When these knowledge 'things' begin to just happen in
>a group we then begin
>to focus on the meta-relations of knowledge
>negotiations...those patterns
>observed in our interactions which prompt knowledge
>events...which we may
>then represent visually in many individuated
>conceptions that are then
>brought together to establish another layer of
>knowledge
>negotiations....another engagement cycle of
>design-learning><observation-learning where we may
>begin to track the
>temporal rhythms of these patterns.
>
>This approach focuses on people engageing equally as
>human beings through
>visual and oral knowledge formation without a central
>control, a series of
>texts or defined-implied objective. Sometimes it is a
>lot of fun and
>students occasionally make profound cross-cultural
>transformations of their
>understanding of human-being-in-the-world.
>
>Norm
>
>At 08:20 AM 26/08/03 +0000, Terence Love wrote:
>>Dear Norm,
>>
>>Good post. You say,
>>
>>"Design learning can be seen as an interaction and
>manipulative interplay
>>between persons, materials, objects, our conceptions
>and the responses they
>>elicit...at another level this activity may be seen
>as an enmeshment within
>>the relations which constitute the whole of a
>being-in-the-world...this
>>view presents design as elemental to human sapience
>as a continual (albeit
>>inhibited & interrupted in some  societies) cognitive
>tradition undivided
>>from the world...an enmeshment within the relational
>knowledge of the world."
>>
>>Just wondering why 'design learning' . Seems to me
>that what you are
>>describing in this and your second paragraph is the
>same as what is normally
>> meant by 'learning' - the ordinary sort that is
>learnt in order to do
>something with it.
>>Seems a bit odd to need to prefix it with 'design'?
>>
>>I welcome your thoughts.
>>
>>Cheers,
>>
>>Terry
>>
>[log in to unmask]
>Norman Sheehan
>Lecturer
>Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit
>University of Queensland
>Brisbane Old 4072 Australia
>
[log in to unmask]
Norman Sheehan
Lecturer
Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit
University of Queensland
Brisbane Old 4072 Australia