Design is other-serving (42). This is what makes design unique. It is based on a service relationship. The idea of serving others, rather than helping them or serving yourself is fascinating and an idea that should be fostered and encouraged across disciplines. What if we designed community around service? What if we built relationships on a foundation of service, not servitude, not helping, but service? What if we designed learning spaces treating everyone involved as equals (instructor, undergraduates, graduates, staff, parents, someone with a fancy title)? Because right now, traditional classrooms are built with an emphasis of importance placed on the instructor/professor (being at the front of the room). What could be achieved if we were to design from a community-oriented perspective rather than based on the individual (i.e. sage on the stage)?
We live in an ever-changing world where today’s solutions to complex problems will change tomorrow based on new understanding and knowledge. Because of this, it is difficult to be comprehensive when designing anything. “People, in general, prefer what is known or predictable…The future is shown repeatedly to be unpredictable” (43). Designs are never fully complete due to our incomplete understanding of others and this mysterious world, as well as our inability to fully know what we want. “Clients may not fully know what is concretely desired in the beginning” (43). Instead, designs should be adequate – as they fulfill a need based on design intention – yet they are still never final due to empathy, the dynamic nature of the world, and our focus on the ideal.
But being adequate is difficult to achieve due to our attraction to the ideal and our conscious need to reason and be comprehensive in design. But how do we know what’s ideal? Is it just the agreed upon definition of what is ideal and what is not ideal? Why is it that humans strive for something that is unattainable? “One has the double intention of wanting the expected and desired outcome, but also hoping to be surprised with an unexpected benefit that transcends original expectations” (42). We cannot be adequate if we do not fully know what we want. This idea of having a double intention, but not knowing that we want something more, creates complexity in design.
When considering the whole, and understanding how each part makes up the whole, it’s reminiscent of music albums. A complete album is a whole, and each song relates to the whole and helps make up the whole album. This can be related to community (the whole) and how each individual person (song) makes up a community. An album can be one of many albums that a band releases, all comprising the band’s body of work, or constellations. So each whole is just a part of another whole, just as each community is a part of another community. One can also consider different CoPs, and our conversation about sets and subsets of CoPs and how each CoP, in itself, is a whole, but also only part of another (or many other) CoPs.
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Isaac Jason Bretz says
I like where you are going with design from a community-oriented perspective, but where do you want the teacher to stand? That is not a facetious question, re-designing classrooms to be non-hierarchical may sound like a good idea, but learning is sometimes a didactic process and someone, or a group of someones, will need a place to present sometimes. Our classroom for this class, with its fixed tables and tight spaces between, is just as awkward as a traditional classroom. I do not have an ideal classroom in mind, but I think it might be a good exercise in design practicality to brainstorm what we might do with a standard classroom or even lecture hall. For my part, I have come to terms with moving desks around to form different patterns.
Brandon says
Whole, complete, finished… These terms, at least in the design world, are arbitrary. Even an album is only finished if we frame it just so. If a part of a song is later remixed into a new one, was that song finished? When someone hears it for the first time, connects with it, and gives it new meaning, was it finished? Rather than ask what qualifies something for these terms, I want to know what these terms get us. What does finality afford that possibility does not?
Audrey Romano says
And now I have “what a girl wants, what a girl needs, whatever makes me happy sets you free…” stuck in my head. Thanks. Anyway… “As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously gives other people permission…. our presence automatically…” I just don’t agree with those terms of “unconsciously”, “permission”, and “automatically”. In a magical, idealistic world, whatever. In reality, our actions and choices are intentional. Humans are multifaceted and capable of a range of emotions, including fear and darkness. Sometimes exploring that fear is what drives us to design and innovate and create works of art. I don’t think any individual’s emotional epiphany or enlightenment automatically/unconsciously effects anyone else. And I don’t think they really care. And if they do, it can be overbearing. I think -compassion- is more on the path to other-serving. As we show compassion for others, we teach our children compassion. We design compassion into the fabric of our world. That is true others-serving.
Aside from all that, design is iterative. As is society and individuals. Nothing is ever a finished product because there are always new stories to tell.
Adam says
I really like the idea of rethinking education as a service. I think Isaac’s comments about where the teacher would stand or sit when they do have to present is a good one. I’ve seen some articles that talk about new classroom designs that make for movable furniture for different configurations. I think if we look at education as a service, it would only make sense if we turn to design to help us realize this new form of education.
Leah Bug says
I really liked how you tied the design aspect of “service” to the ideas of community. Your first paragraph gave me images of a utopian classroom where the focus is learning, not titles and roles and who has the power, but how can we serve one another to accomplish our goals. I think is some ways, there are classrooms that have elements of these ideas.
I was then brought back to reality when I read “people like predictability” and thought about the current era of high stakes testing. Students are becoming conditioned to expect constant and never ending tests in which they must know the facts being asked on that test. It’s predicable. It’s known. It seems this learned behavior will make it more difficult for students to look for the “unpredictable” and ponder what is not known.
Priscilla Taylor says
I agree that the design of traditional classrooms support a transactional model of teaching and learning as well as learning as an individual event. The redesign of learning spaces creates the potential for more learning with as opposed to teaching to. But sometimes in the discussion of displacing the sage on the stage, we neglect the fact that a sage has a place in the classroom, which I think Isaac is talking about. Although a community-oriented perspective of the formal classroom environment makes the sage a member of the community as opposed to the center of it.
pul121 says
It’s interesting that you use an album as an example to relate to the community. It is also common that each song can be taken from different album to make a new album. So, each individual joins different group and participate in a variety of communities of practice. Each community either as a part or whole of another community is bridged and connected through people who interact and learn from each other.
Michael Sean Banales says
“But how do we know what’s ideal? Is it just the agreed upon definition of what is ideal and what is not ideal? Why is it that humans strive for something that is unattainable?”
This passage really forces me to stop and ponder for a bit for some reason. How do we know what the ideal is? Honestly, I don’t know. Is the ideal what we truly believe it is? Even once we have a grasp on what the ideal is, how long would it be until the ideal changes? Or is the ideal something that should not be changed or swayed with the with the passage of time? Assuming the ideal is based on the needs and desires of the consumers, should they have a greater say in this as well? We do always seem to strive for the ideal, but now that I actually sit back and ponder it, this feels like an impossible goal for a number of reasons.