Reading Assignment 02: "The Redesign of Studio Culture"

         
Reading Assignment 01: Summary
"The Paradox and Predicament of Learning to Design"  by  Donald Schon

          The excerpt taken from Architecture and the Higher Learning focuses on the idea that students pursuing a design career will learn best through hands-on-experience and experimental thought. The author, Donald Schon, reveals that there is an abundance of inner or inherent contradiction taking place in the student’s mind. The idea of learning something that one does not know is the main idea Schon is trying to emphasize. He suggests that in most studios early students will not learn because of what the teacher has taught them, but by interaction with their classmates and personal trial and error.
          Schon explains the initial feelings a student may encounter when the professor appears to be vague or elusive. Students most likely react with sensations of loss, risk, and anxiety while trying to seduce exactly what the teacher condones and expects. The obscurity of messages within the studio leads to a loss of confidence for the student while they are trying to create. The student, however, must learn not to be dependent on his or her instructors when confused; but they should answer questions by means of student-to-student interaction.
          Confidence will eventually develop as students accept how the professors are teaching. There is purpose behind instructors’ ambiguity, and it is to let the student’s individual skills and understanding develop as a process of experience. Students will undergo less anxiety toward design as the confidence in their abilities develops.
         The main question behind “The Paradox and Predicament of Learning to Design” is “how is a student supposed to grasp ideas that are currently unknown to him?” Schon tried to teach us that initial inferiority of the design student will evolve into superiority over time. But this will only take place when the student learns to grasp the underlying ideas behind the professors’ cryptic attitudes, and they become confident in their own judgments and beliefs.
309 words

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Reading Assignment 01: Critique

        Donald Schon’s article “The Paradox and predicament of Learning to Design” is written in order to create a better understanding behind student-teacher relationships in early design studios. He presents his ideas formally and with excellent discourse. Schon is also descriptive, analytical, and uses outside support to help denote the meaning of his thesis. Schon presents the idea that “learning comes from doing,” in a competent and orderly, which in turn makes the passage reasonable.
        Schon’s passage begins with a case study that describes a single student-teacher relationship in a first year studio. He incorporates both the student’s and the instructor’s perspective rather than limiting his explanation to a single view. He specifically describes what the teacher finds unacceptable in the student as well as what the student’s present feelings are concerning design. The way he approaches the situation is very effective. For example, he quotes the teacher’s suggestions and follows up with the universal conclusion that most students in this stage of development are thoroughly confused. He details the situation nicely and then begins to explain himself through the rest of the article.
         Schon includes numerous descriptive words in the excerpt that illustrate the student’s feelings. As a student, I can easily relate to what he is saying, and this helps me to better understand the latent meaning beneath professor’s actions. The idea of learning through experience is repeated over and over again, and his portrayal of student feelings is redundant. But this style of writing may be less of an annoyance and more of a learning tool. His restatement of ideas throughout the chapter eventually clarifies the thesis more and more. Schon has a method, and his method seems to prove successful, because I understood and enjoyed the passage as I continued to read it. Schon expresses the difficulties and struggles in a clear and precise manner, and he also utilizes outside information to support his premise.
         As Schon incorporates Plato’s dialogue, his friend’s opinions, and instructors’ beliefs, he successfully creates a better understanding of how design is truly learned. Writers that pull from multiple outside sources have more validity while discussing their topic. I appreciate his technique and feel he does a very good job explaining studio confusion.
         Schon utilizes legitimate arguments and analytic approaches to explaining his idea of self-education. I found almost all of the statements about student feelings in the chapter to be true. The excerpt was certainly effective because now I clearly understand why my own professors act the way they act and say the things they say. The ambiguity and obscurity presented to us in studio is now finally understood.
437 words