Dear Prof Ranjan,
Many thanks for the links to your work on Lego and its uses in design teaching/learning.
Yes, I am sure this group will offer up lots of useful suggestions about education - I think this is an area where we share central concerns - our students and our teachers make us members of a larger community of concern.
cheers
keith
>>> Ranjan MP <[log in to unmask]> 06/06/11 3:36 PM >>>
Dear Keith
Wonderful observations. I have always been fascinated while watching
children play and Lego has been an all time favorite for me. I did set an
assignment for my class in furniture design many years ago where the
students analysed Lego from the systems prespective to appreciate the many
levels at which they work. I am sorry to see that Lego is loosing market
share and have had to discontinue the large quatro blocks. When Lego crossed
their 50th year in January 2008 I had posted on my blog "Design for India",
a note on my thoughts and insights from Lego and the way we had used it for
design education assignments here in India.
<
http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2008/01/lego-toy-for-all-ages-can-it-be.html
>
The second part of your observation is on how human children seem to very
quickly loose their ability to experiment and learn to play by the rules, a
poor setting for the sustained use of design thinking within our education
systems. Here too there are opportunities to look at the content and
delivery of formal and non-formal education in our society and design has a
huge role to play here. In India we have been facing a sort of crisis in
design education which too has reached the 50 year landmark with the setting
up of the National Institute of Design at Ahmedabd in 1961 which is
celebrating its 50th year this year based on a report by Charles and Ray
Eames in 1958. The Government of India had announced a National Design
Policy in 2007 and this year they came forward with a proposal to set up
four new NID's. However the manner in which these were being proposed led
to some of the NID's alumni to express their concern and a form of
democratic design activism has taken root here with the formation of a group
calling for "Vision First" as a way forward. Vision First is a movement and
a volunteer action group that is calling for a rethink of design education
as well as a broader call to look at the manner in which design is located
and used with in government action across all its ministries. You can see
more about this initiative here on the Vision First blog that is mapping the
unfolding thoughts and action here in India.
<http://visionfirst.in/>
Last week I was in Amsterdam to deliver a keynote at the conference "What
Design Can Do" that I titled "Nature of Design: The Need for Nurture in
India Today". The definition of design is expanding and design education,
research and use of design by government and industry all need to be
reviewed and taken to new levels of integration into our way of doing things
here. My paper and presentation can be downloaded from my blog from this
link here as a 2.3 mb zip file in pdf.
<https://files.me.com/ranjanmp/rlmjp1>
We are proposing a series of regional round table meetings here in India
followed buy an International conference that could bring many diverse
stakeholders for design thought and action to the table so that we could
explore the new directions that design education can take in the days and
years ahead. I am hoping that this list too would join in these
deliberations in the days ahead and that we can draw considerable benefits
of insights from members of this list as well. The problems taht we are
facing here in India may not be unique and other countries too may be facing
similar challenges and I will be happy to hear about initiatives and ideas
from list members on the directions that design education would need to take
in the future.
I and my colleagues on the Vision First group look forward to suggestions
and discussions from the list.
With warm regards
M P Ranjan
from my imac at home on the NID campus
6 June 2011 at 11.05 am IST
-------------------------------------------------------------
*Prof M P Ranjan*
*Design Thinker and author of blog -
www.Designforindia.com<http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/>
*
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