Making a Start to Design Education - A First Year Integrated Design Programme

Abstract

Where does a 'design' course finish and a 'technology' course start? Where is the dividing line between investigation and practical work? Viewed as a whole two main tendencies clearly emerge from new courses in design and craft education. First, there is the attempt to teach a subject area from first. principles, which incorporates an analytical approach to problem-solving situations. Secondly, there is the almost inevitable growth of integrated methods of teaching, as the first principles of engineering, for example, are found to lie in another subject area - physics, or the first principles of product design midway between the art and technical departments. This situation leads one not only to question the traditional division of subjects within the school curriculum but also the older types of 'craft' course organised, as they were, so far from a teaching of first principles.

At Stanborough School we are in the middle of the second year of an integrated design course which illustrates these general tendencies. In addition since what we seek to instil are the elements of an education in design, is the determination that at least some children will be educated to challenge the traditional assumptions made about the activities of artists, craftsmen, and the distinctions based upon them made in society and in education.