Saturday, January 17, 2009

Inculcating Design Maturity

One of the key challenges that I am relishing currently is in how to inculcate a sense of Design Maturity amongst my young charges. And I am not even talking about a Level 5 Design Nirvana DQ, or anything just below that, suffice to say that if I am able to make a significant section of them be aware of what design is all about, I think I would be happy already.

Design Maturity in this context does not try to make them total design critiques, or for that matter, designers of products that are superlatively wow! What I have in mind, and I hope to be able to achieve, is to get them to realise the importance and rudiments of design, and about how design in itself is something that permeates every section of their lives, whether incidental or accidental. My objective is clearly to enable them to lead themselves on to a higher level of DQ, should they want or be motivated to, but at the very basics, they must be at least be equipped with the basic capacity 'to see, more than look, and to listen more than hear'!

With the few experimental things that I am trying out within and out of the classrooms this year, I hope to be able to enlighten myself on what makes my young charges tick, where design is concerned, and perhaps, just perhaps, be an enabler for me to become a much better educator, professionally and personally. I hope to be able to get my blog readers posted on this, more so to get some reviews and feedback, and hopefully, just hopefully, the intellectual discussions that follow online can be a platform to greater heights for all those who are involved.

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