Feb '05 - May '06
Our midterm critique is this week. We've been working like crazy. One of our ideas is creating an ABC that relates more to Chicago but not the usual Chicago highlights, of Bears, Cubs, Wrigley...It's hard writing your own ABC.
We went to a pre-K class last week with the "tools for schools". That was pretty wild. You know it went over really well when you get invited by a 4 year old to jump rope after class...
I think going into classrooms full of pre-k kids, or sitting at our bay in Archeworks it's easy to think that all have to do tone down our thinking, our designs, our attempts so they'll work for little kids. But then I read a quote regarding Mr Rogers,
"He [Mr Rogers] got a hold of concepts so throughly that he could transmit them to six-year olds ! Do you know how much you have to get a hold of a concept to transmit it simply? His idea of simple-but-profound (has had) a profound influence..."
Makes me realize that one school year is in no way adequate to get much done, plenty of time to dream big but not nearly enough time to make it materialize. Maybe that's the idea behind Archeworks, enough time to get you REALLY thinking but not enough time to follow through, so you leave with that itch of "I could be doing more" and you go out on your own doing what interested you here at Archeworks...maybe. Or maybe you get so disenchanted with the realization that you really aren't going to actually get anything done...
Future Studies class is hard to write for. So maybe instead I'll just wear this t-shirt to class:
-pamela
4 Comments
i have a cool 'future'-oriented shirt that i got in berlin in 1990. it has a picture of an opening in the wall, concrete and razor wire littering the ground, and says:
the future isn't what it used to be.
it doesn't fit any more but i can't throw it away.
conducting classes for pre-k sounds intriguing - and difficult. i'm very interested in bringing ideas about design, space, and other things often associated with architectural thinking, to young students. but i've only ventured as young as middle school so far.
curious to hear how this goes, if it continues. my assumption would be (*prejudgment warning!*) that very young students would not have the same ability to engage in abstract, non-symbolic or non-language-based thinking. but i haven't tried it.
In my (limited) kid interaction it always seemed to me that they were *better* abstract thinkers than adults; maybe because they hadn't yet learned and absorbed the social orders we all adhere to as adults. (?)
It's really gone both ways. On one hand it's sometimes just about impossible to spell out to the kids what we were hoping they'd see...it's just that an abstract concept. But then, you see them picking up on things (way too long of an explanation right here and now) and I was thinking, "holy crap, that's amazing, I didn't even see that." And then when they decide they've "completed" or finished a certain task (to their liking) they were extremely happy and proud of themselves, making sure to show off...
I am more inclined to say the sooner we get get kids of any sort thinking differently or out of their box, the better.
i believe that children are the future...sorry thats as much of that song as i ever listened to.
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