Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education
Document Type
Article
Date of this Version
May 2005
Abstract
Discovery and invention yield design, bringing forth a tangible form. There is little room for exploring designing as being-in-the-world where rigid rules dictate the way in which design should be represented. Limitations unduly impinge upon or restrict the possibilities for designing. Design as being-in-the-world comes from playing with possibilities, starching for relationships. The development of such thinking in situation allows for the discovery of potential. It permits possibilities to be included as the search evolves. Without a playful spirit it would seem that imaginative thought, requiring speculation and conjecturing about possibilities, might not be possible. So as educators find themselves caught up in the immediacy of given situations, they arc confronted with either contriving encounters to fit a fixed idea or acting on a openness to new ideas and an acceptance of alternatives through listening and responding to the particularities of contexts. Belief in the worthiness of the latter approach to design translates into greater commitment to search for these considerations in their designing practices. The act of creating meaning makes visible the bearings of its own visibility. The bearings lie in constantly questioning what we see and think about the world as it opens up.
Comments
Published in Education and Culture: The Journal of the John Dewey Society for the Study of Education and Culture 21:2 (2005), pp. 31-43.