Hello,

I am really in a hurry, but I have to say a couple of words. Forgive the
roughness...

Lubomir, my experience is just the opposite of yours. I believed (and was
"educated" in the model) that a good designer is a good teacher. Until,
after a couple of years, I realized that I got very little (and I am not
saying this out of one case, but from 90% of the teachers, visiting
professors, exchanges etc I experienced) and that most professionals have
simply no distance with their own practice. Studio teaching is a cheaper
reproduction of studio practice, inexperience (of the teacher) being the
premium. At least, during an internship, criterias are set up by the
customer, somehow. At school, topics are supposedly more open, issues more
adventurous, you should have broader visions... Oh yeah (sorry, I'll get
emotional)... then you realize that your teacher is incapable of such
ventures, incapable of developing concepts seriously, that all this ends up
being pub dreams without depth. Oh yeah, these wonderful evaluation sessions
were students are supposed to be wildly creative, and when the evaluator
criticizes the size of the hinge... Studio practice is the best excuse for
using your opinions as plain truth, for not doing your teacher homework, for
arrogance and powershow.

But of course, there is a 10% of people who are different. It is just a
matter of meeting them. And there is so much to say about the way schools
recruit teachers as if they were a consultancy hiring a designer. "Sexy
models" (forgive the expression)of crapy goods (I mean : culturally
irrelevant, technicaly basic) will win against any articulated discourse.

I don't consider myself as a good designer as Lubomir defines it. In my
teaching experience, I have applied a few rules : never give a subject that
you will not be capable of developing yourself; put myself at the same level
as the students and do a "collective" work.

Apologies again for the bluntness,

Jean



-----Message d'origine-----
De : PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhDs in Design
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]De la part de Lubomir S. Popov
Envoyé : jeudi 19 juin 2003 15:54
À : [log in to unmask]
Objet : Re: Good Designer = Good Design Teacher?


Those can, do it, those who can't, teach it.

For a few years I have been really distressed when I have been hearing such
statements. But in the last several years I understood what that means.
And, I found, it is right. Now I am distressed by the number of babysitters
in academia who make their money not by teaching their profession (they had
never studied it and never worked it) but by making students happy.

A GOOD DESIGNER is a GOOD PROFESSOR IN DESIGN (don't ever mention to me
that word "teacher")

When a talk about a good designer, I mean a reasonable designer, not
somebody who is the talk of the design community; people who have at least
Master's in design and had been several years in practice.

Teaching design is designing. Teaching deign is showing how to do it. What
can a poor designer do in class? The poor designer is like a tapeplayer,
like a computer, like a robot.

Teaching skills and pedagogy are crucial at kindergarten level where little
organisms can not understand basic ideas. It is simply a matter of
biological development of their minds.

However, after a certain age (12-14 if memory serves) the brain matures and
humans develop capability for abstract thinking. They need a few more years
for ethical and emotional development and by the age of 16-18, in most
cultures, humans are capable to learn rocket science without being treated
as retards.

I am really frustrated by the idea about the good teacher (who have never
studied what he teaches). And on the top of all, these people pride
themselves as the best teachers. They refer to their student evaluations,
not their student works. Contemporary University became a daycare for
20-year olds and the educational process degenerated to babysitting. Of
course, the housewifes are at their best. I know people, many people in
academia, who have never studied design, who have never worked design, yet
they are the best teachers in design. Isn't that a scam? Who supports that
scam? The incapables. The ones that can not do their profession but are
excellent in teaching it. Teaching what? Teaching excellently and
effectively the wrong things! That is the effect of babysitting strategies.
I would rather pay these people to stay at home and do not contaminate the
minds of the students. Do you know that there are faculty in Architecture
who have never heard about Frank Gehri, Eisenman, Stark, Hall, Miralles,
Morphoses, Coop Himmelblau, Tscuumi, Nouvel and so forth. (They heard about
Liebeskind thanks to the local newspapers.) Or they might have heard, but
can not make sense of them.

Not a good designer, but a good teacher. (Again, I am talking about
reasonably dood designers.) That is the top of ignorance and impudence.
Criminals. For one meager salary they compromise the future of their
students. I don't need to see their student evaluations -- these are
customer satisfactions surveys. They indicate the level of rapport and
charisma, the level of babysitting skills. My method of evaluating these
teachers is different -- I just go and see their designs and the designs of
their students.

The whole talk about communication and pedagogy is a scam created by the
babysitters. I can accept that some excellent designers are shy, awkward,
introverted, but the 20-year old retards should be a bit more active and
try to overcome the effects of personality for the sake of utilizing as
much as they can the wisdom and talent of a good designers.

I believe that teaching involves ability to explicate and explain one's own
ideas. However, moderately intelligent designers can do that (I mean with
university students, not with 5-year olds). A Ph.D. degree is a plus
although not a must. It is the design thinking that is a must. But ability
to explicate is important as well for the field practitioners who have to
communicate with their aids. Communication in design is similar both in the
class studio and in the design office. The difference is in the
preparedness of the audience. However, understanding novel ideas is
difficult even for some designers with graduate degrees.

I believe that professors who do not care about their students and skip
studios are not that many. Usually these are again the babysitters who
prefer to stay at home and cook or gossip with the neighbor. (Well, the
signature designers do it also, but I am not talking about them either.)

Babysitters make students happy by praising students indiscriminately and
letting them engage in profane designs. They don't criticize because they
don't know what to do. Praising is safer. In this way they cover their
incompetence.

I bet we will hear soon from the good teachers. I am interested in the
opinion of good designers (people who have at least Master's in design and
had been several years in practice).

So much for now, and have a good day,

Lubomir










At 01:54 PM 6/19/2003 +0200, Mattias Arvola wrote:
>So, what are _your_ thoughts on this matter? Is there any correlation
>between being a good designer and a good design teacher?
>
>Cheers,
>// Mattias (who is on his way out of the office to celebrate a traditional
>Swedish Midsummer)
>
>--
>Mattias Arvola, M.A., Fil. Lic., PhD Student
>http://www.ida.liu.se/~matar
>Dept. of Computer and Information Science
>Linköpings universitet, Sweden