Teaching Beyond the Curriculum

Abstract

When they brought me into the interrogation room, the light was blaring, blaring is not quite the correct word, though, since it refers to sound, but perhaps it was because something had shifted overnight; I was no longer who I thought I was, but I was still able to think, to process, to comprehend that this was a room in which I was not quite in control. All I could imagine was that they were going to remove my ability to think freely, to imagine creatively, to “breathe (in the air)”, as Pink Floyd would have it, was I racing “towards an early grave”? Or maybe I had morphed into a coral, a sponge, a Venus-fly trap, perchance… “A final and highly direct approach to training creative thinking is to teach students systematic methods for generating new and creative combinations of ideas.” Gary A. Davis, Teaching Creativity, The Clearing House, 165 Over the course of the past few years I have asked my students to study animals, minerals, and vegetables; and then creatively extract design potentials and possibilities, that include essential raw elements such as form and space, value, pattern, and texture. “The question of distinguishing animal from plant from mineral may seem like a straightforward one but in fact it can very quickly lead to incredibly complex problems…” Susannah Gibson, Animal, Vegetable, Mineral?, 1 This experimental process takes the students through two-dimensional and three-dimensional studies in order to develop skills in both analogue and digital processes, as generated through both traditional methods and techniques, in relationship with contemporary modes of representation, fabrication, and integrated design thinking. These trajectories are specifically aimed at the juncture between making and designing high quality environments that have positive benefits and impact to human beings who occupy and utilize these spaces through a systematic understanding of atmosphere and mood as generated through form, space, and patterns.