Dear Keith, Klaus, Norm, Jan and All,
Thanks all for your input.
Keith you wrote (07 sept):
"The ways you describe the process reminds me very much of the concept
of de-centreing - students have to be able to apprehend the object of
work (their own and others) as an object that is not attached to their
identity in an expressive way - my drawing, my words, etc. The
connection is mediated, as all acts of consciousness are mediated, by
the material form (though, word, deed). Such mediations are aspects of
the inter-identity we know as communication..."
Klaus you wrote (05 sept)
"...if it turns out later, and only in retrospect, that one's
consciousness got one into trouble, if one made a mistake, goes on a
wrong start, makes an unworking assumption and explains one's trouble
in terms of the difference between one's past consciousness and one's
present consciousness, in other words, in terms of having learned
something since, then one can say that one's past consciousness was
false (i would prefer a more moderate word) relative to one's current
consciousness..."
Norm you wrote (08 sept)
"...each of these themes has layers of meaning across various contexts
and it is this the depth of such layering which i believe substitutes
for conceptions of "truth" and eliminates such questions & judgements
from significance (in the context of the learning together we
promote)..."
Jan you wrote (08 sept)
"...The examples you gave seem to be distinguished by differences in
the perception of who has viable knowledge....
... As you described it, there was also deliberation on what happened,
perhaps even clashes of opinion, which resulted in a clearer more
comprehensive picture..."
I sense that there are some common denominators in your comments above,
which come close to the way I have seen design students and
practitioners tackle the notion of revealing Norm's "depth of layers"
in a design task, both on the collaborative and personal level.
Keith, I am also coming to the conclusion that a lynchpin in all this
is communication. I used to focus mostly on the activity, but have now
allowed my thoughts to shift to aspects of communication. The two hang
together, but in terms of trying to explain some of the nuances
involved I find it makes more sense to concentrate on communication -
for now at least. One does the activity to try something out, to learn
and I think it's ultimately because one needs to communicate with
others or needs the discourse to generate a renewed sense of synthesis.
The negotiation contributes to the sense of belonging.
One of the reasons I was so taken with your use of "engagement" is that
Etienne Wenger's (Wenger 1998) model of belonging in a community of
practice is a combination of :
1. Imagination
- images of possibilities, images of past and future, images of
ourselves. One could also couple Gadamer's (Gadamer 1998) "fusions of
horizons" to this concept.
2. Alignment
- discourse, coordinated enterprises, compliance and I would add
negotiation as re-alignment.
3. Engagement
- Shared histories of learning, modes of belonging, interactions and
relationships.
Keith, I think your notion of de-centering is very interesting.
But just to complicate matters, I find there seems to be a need for
both a de-centering and an exploration of personal association and
experience. As far as I'm concerned, this applies to both design
students and practitioners. It seems that the need to reach into one's
world of association in order to find a way into a task, identify with
it and generate a sense of intrinsic meaning, is very important. Yet by
building on the concept of de-centering, it confirms my view that there
is a to-ing and fro-ing or oscillation between the sense of belonging
when engaged in the use of personal design resources and what I call
deep-level personal resources ( expectations, meaning, understanding
and experience) and the need to de-centre and engage in collaborative
design practice. One has to "let-go" and negotiate another sense of
belonging, to achieve feelings of sharing and joint ownership.
In other words, it is important to get the message across that
de-centering is a dynamic phenomenon. It's not a once and for all. I
think this is one of the reasons that design students are wary about
really getting involved in collaborative design practice - at first.
They think that they will have to give up the sense of belonging that
is personal. Their breakthrough is often when they realise that they
can deal with the oscillation that I mentioned above. That they don't
loose themselves in the process.
I have also noticed this on a professional level. Some of those one
works with feel that if they take on other ways of thinking and
structuring their working process, (design methods) then they have to
let go of "the way they normally do things", which generates a sense of
insecurity and a reluctance to participate.
If one now takes this concept of oscillation further, I can see an
interesting aspect to this which fits Klaus's:
"... makes an unworking assumption and explains one's trouble in terms
of the difference between one's past consciousness and one's present
consciousness, in other words, in terms of having learned something
since..."
and Norm's:
"...each of these themes has layers of meaning across various
contexts..."
In a previous mail to Norm, (05 sept) I presented an observation:
"... That an initial clicheé is often a container that can be broken
open to reveal innovative possibilities..."
I think this oscillation between modes of belonging is also the way
that different layers of a task are explored, introduced into the
collaborative arena and negotiated with. Ultimately a sense of common
identification and understanding with the task is generated and as Jan
puts it:
"... there was also deliberation on what happened, perhaps even clashes
of opinion, which resulted in a clearer more comprehensive picture..."
This oscillation and exploration of the layers of meaning of a task,
can also be used as a way to explain a so called "false start". A
positive view is that an initial start is an expression of a given
understanding - in other words, it is considered true and therefore has
a use, even though it is initially inappropriate. The resultant back
and forth and negotiation will help to realign the designers into the
layers of meaning that are more appropriate or useful. In other words,
value can often be found in most avenues of inquiry. A designer's sense
of process is always under development.
I have one anecdote that is appropriate here (Heape 2003). Some
students were explaining their various attitudes to different types of
task. They dubbed them as the "fun", the "serious" and the
"restrictive" task.
The fun task was an imaginary task, with a low level of extrinsic
demands - the main focus was a deepening of their understanding.
The serious task was typically where they were involved in a task with
a company. There were extrinsic demands, but they were given free rein
to explore the task and generate a sense of understanding and intrinsic
meaning.
The restrictive task gave them no room for manouvre. They were
basically told what to do and felt deprived of identifying with the
task.
Interestingly, the students were able to see that if given the
opportunity to explore and identify with the task, it was then easier
for them to make the necessary compromises to carry the task through.
This is, I feel, a very good expression of the students' (or practising
designers') ability to oscillate between the exploration of their
personal design resources and the layers of meaning of the task and the
de-centering necessary to negotiate a synthesis that they could also
collectively identify with. A shared synthesis that was very much
considered as "everybody's" and which did not entail a sense of loss
or of not belonging for the individual.
Best regards,
Chris.
References:
Gadamer, Hans Georg - 1998
Truth and Method. New York: Continuum.
Heape, Chris - 2003
Design as the Construction and Negotiation of Meaning.
ICSID 2nd Educational Conference - Critical Motivations and New
Dimensions, Hannover, 2003, pp. 62-69.
Wenger, Etienne - 1998
Communities of practice : learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge,
U.K. ; New York, N.Y.: Cambridge University Press.
-------------
from:
Chris Heape
Senior Researcher - Design Didactics / Design Practice
Mads Clausen Institute
University of Southern Denmark
Sønderborg
Denmark
http://www.mci.sdu.dk
Work @ MCI:
tel: +45 6550 1671
e.mail: chris @mci.sdu.dk
Work @ Home:
tel +45 7630 0380
e.mail: [log in to unmask]
-------------
from:
Chris Heape
Senior Researcher - Design Didactics / Design Practice
Mads Clausen Institute
University of Southern Denmark
Sønderborg
Denmark
http://www.mci.sdu.dk
Work @ MCI:
tel: +45 6550 1671
e.mail: chris @mci.sdu.dk
Work @ Home:
tel +45 7630 0380
e.mail: [log in to unmask]
-------------
from:
Chris Heape
Senior Researcher - Design Didactics / Design Practice
Mads Clausen Institute
University of Southern Denmark
Sønderborg
Denmark
http://www.mci.sdu.dk
Work @ MCI:
tel: +45 6550 1671
e.mail: chris @mci.sdu.dk
Work @ Home:
tel +45 7630 0380
e.mail: [log in to unmask]
-------------
from:
Chris Heape
Senior Researcher - Design Didactics / Design Practice
Mads Clausen Institute
University of Southern Denmark
Sønderborg
Denmark
http://www.mci.sdu.dk
Work @ MCI:
tel: +45 6550 1671
e.mail: chris @mci.sdu.dk
Work @ Home:
tel +45 7630 0380
e.mail: [log in to unmask]
-------------
from:
Chris Heape
Senior Researcher - Design Didactics / Design Practice
Mads Clausen Institute
University of Southern Denmark
Sønderborg
Denmark
http://www.mci.sdu.dk
Work @ MCI:
tel: +45 6550 1671
e.mail: chris @mci.sdu.dk
Work @ Home:
tel +45 7630 0380
e.mail: [log in to unmask]
-------------
from:
Chris Heape
Senior Researcher - Design Didactics / Design Practice
Mads Clausen Institute
University of Southern Denmark
Sønderborg
Denmark
http://www.mci.sdu.dk
Work @ MCI:
tel: +45 6550 1671
e.mail: chris @mci.sdu.dk
Work @ Home:
tel +45 7630 0380
e.mail: [log in to unmask]
|
