Industrial design is the perfect vehicle for teaching problem solving, critical thinking, and design process to high school students. And industrial design curriculum in high school is the perfect cross-trainer, combining math, science, history, English, and art in every project. The CTE Product Design Studio curriculum is this vehicle, and the vehicle is raring to go.
Yet, immediately after I started teaching Product Design Studio (in Santa Ana, California), it occurred to me that there was something vastly more important than the curriculum itself. I had initially assumed that high school students would engage industrial design curriculum, much the way I had in college. That is, with a combination of wonder, and a desire to learn the skills I needed to succeed in the profession. But only a small minority of my high school students seemed to think that way.
How could I have expected high school students to engage in this way? Out of control hormones, a million distractions, social interaction and social standing at the top of priorities, tough economic realities, family issues, and a climate of "its not cool to learn", present themselves as just a few of the many obstacles to engagement. College and career seem to be a distant destination, that many do not see a clear path to.
I first had to ask myself, what was it that I wanted my students to learn. Or more precisely, what did I want my students to get out of or come away with, from my course. Was it my love of design? Was it the sense of accomplishment I had discovered in college? Was it the experience I had of realizing I could solve complex problems? It was all of these things and more. And I decided to try to make my passion for design contagious.
But my display of passion, would not be enough. What did I discover that was vastly more important than the curriculum? Simply put, it was "how I engaged my students". How I engage them, far and away transcends, validates, and authenticates everything I try to teach. And amazingly, the tools of engagement that I employed were incredibly intuitive and natural. A fellow teacher of mine, Don Isbell who has taught in Santa Ana for over 17 years, confirmed my intuitions.
1. It all begins with respect. Respect for students, respect for their current existence and experiences, respect for their being. My training in non-violent communication taught me that respect is a powerful peace maker. How could I expect my students to respect me or what I was trying to teach, if I didn't genuinely respect them?
2. Secondly, respect is derived from a genuine sense of caring. This is not the act of saying "I care about you" to students. Caring is something that I can only communicate to my students through my actions.
3. Thirdly, my respect and caring is driven by a over riding sense of empathy for my students. This is something I also learned from my non-violent communication training. We must empathize with those with which we engage. We must understand that students suffer, feel, are frustrated, are moody, etc. as we are too.
4. Fourthly, I try to use humor as much as I can (even self deprecating humor). Humor lightens the mood, diminishes the seriousness of the moment, and can be a great tool for learning. I have found humor to be an incredibly powerful tool for dissipating otherwise uncomfortable situations. When things don't go quite right, humor is sometimes the only way out.
5. Fifthly, I've discovered that I need to possess an enormous degree of flexibility in my teaching. Sometimes a lesson plan that I've spent an entire prior night developing - doesn't seem quite right the next morning. The students aren't in the mood for the lesson, perhaps I judged their enthusiasm wrong, or perhaps I planned the lesson with myself in mind - and not them. Projects sometimes need to take a necessary twist or turn. I think of every project as an experiment with an unknown outcome.
These 5 tools of engagement that I am using are just a start for me. I know I will discover many more, as I learn as a teacher myself. I only know that these tools are essential to engage my students, and without them I would stand no chance of reaching them. In the weeks to come, I'll share details about the projects my students have completed, along with examples of how these tools and the Product Design Studio curriculum have helped reveal the inner genius in each and every one of my students.
