31 Mayıs 2009 Pazar

kırıklar, bulanıklıklar, sınırlar ama nerde ötesi? | Cracks, Blurs, Boundaries, but Beyond?

[this is the text i’ve heralded down before, i have heard this article from the blog of James Benedict Brown, who says he is working on "a PhD investigating the means, methods and motivations of collaborative and participative practices in architectural education"!! http://learningarchitecture.wordpress.com/]

Architectural Education after Schön: Cracks, Blurs, Boundaries and Beyond, Helena Webster (Oxford Brookes University, UK), Journal for Education in the Built Environment, Vol. 3, Issue 2, December 2008 pp. 63-74 (12)
(http://cebe.cf.ac.uk/jebe/pdf/HelenaWebster3(2).pdf __05.2009)

64> Arguably, over the last two decades or so, Donald Schön’s pedagogic ideas have become the dominant ‘theory of practice’ for all professional and vocational education (i.e. learning ‘for’ disciplinary practice rather than learning ‘about’ a discipline or subject). Indeed, the notion of the reflective practitioner is now so ubiquitous that Barnett wrote, without irony, “We’re all reflective practitioners now” (Barnett, 1992, p. 185).
This paper will attempt to demonstrate a number of ways in which Schön’s cognitive-based theories are severely limited by his inability to recognise their ‘partial’ or ‘limited’ nature. The aim is not so much to discredit Schön, but rather to point to the role that other theories of knowledge and learning might play in the development of an understanding of architectural learning and teaching.
According to Schön, this technical rationality resulted in a curriculum premised on the idea that students learnt a “body of theoretical knowledge…” and subsequently practice was “…the application of this knowledge in repeated and predictable ways to achieve defined ends” (Usher et al., 1997, p. 126). Schön criticised this notion of education, firstly because it denied the complexities of the problems that professionals faced in the real world and secondly because it failed to account for how professionals actually worked in practice. [this notion didn’t work, and was irrelevant to the real situtaion]
[here’s an account of what i like to call the "old studio":]
It seems somewhat fortuitous for the un-theorised field of architectural education that Schön used its core pedagogical tool, design studio learning, as a paradigm for all professional education. ... in the 1980s, architectural education had a relatively homogeneous ‘naturalised’ form that originated in the 19th century when the articled apprenticeship model (in which novices learnt to become architects through a mix of engaging in the work of an architectural office, observing and being coached by a master architect) was almost literally transferred into an educational setting. The dimensions of transfer might be summarised as follows:
_Pedagogic Space: the architectural office became the design studio.
_Pedagogic Tool: architectural design problems became simulated architectural design problems.
_Pedagogic Method: learning design artistry via coaching from the architect became learning design artistry via coaching from design tutors.
65> Schön asserted initially in The Reflective Practitioner (1983), again in the RIBA publication The Design Studio: An Exploration of its Traditions and Potential (1985) and yet again in the better known Educating the Reflective Practitioner (1987), that by reproducing the apprenticeship model, architectural education had successfully given precedence to professional ‘relevance’ over technical ‘rigour’ (1985, p. 15). ...
Thus, Schön defined ‘reflective practice’ as occurring when skilled practitioners responded tacitly to situations of uncertainty, instability, or uniqueness, through a combination of intuitive “knowing-in-action” (1987, p. 22), “reflection-in-action” (1987, p. 26) and “reflection-on-action” (1985, p. 74). ...
66> However, it could be argued that Schön’s singular focus on design studio learning results in an overly narrow description of architectural learning. Firstly, Schön fails to recognise that there are other cognitive, affective and corporeal dimensions to learning that take place both within the design studio and in other settings (the lecture theatre, the refectory, parties, etc.). Secondly, Schön fails to recognise that students experience architectural education as the sum of its explicit and hidden dimensions and it is this total experience that effects the development of students from novices to professional architects.
[following seems to give us a reason to consider education, in general, as a more diverse intellectual “strive”:]... throughout his early ‘archaeological’ writings, and particularly in Discipline and Punish, [Michel] Foucault repeatedly referred to educational institutions as sites par excellence for the creation of the modern (post-19th century) subject. Foucault’s archaeological writings attempted to ‘excavate’, through detailed archival work, the particular ways in which the new 19th century disciplines (medicine, law, prisons, and education) exercised power to effect the transformation of individuals into alignment with specific disciplinary norms and values. Foucault’s research identified a generic taxonomy of devices (‘surveillance’, ‘normalisation’ and ‘examination’), what Foucault called “micro-technologies of power”, through which the new disciplines exercised their disciplinary power (1991, pp. 170-194). Thus, Foucault suggested that schools, colleges and universities, as examples of the new 19th century institutions of power, employed disciplinary specific ‘micro-technologies of power’ to transform students from one state to another. Subsequently, several historians of education have explored the character of these micro-technologies in more detail. For instance, Jones and Williamson explored the spatialisation of power in classrooms (1979, p. 59) and Hoskin and Macve explored the examination as a means of objectively evaluating and categorising pupils according to ability (1986). By extension, it seems entirely plausible to conceive of contemporary architectural education as a set of ‘micro-technologies of power’ (regulations, exams, timetables, spatial organisations, pedagogic encounters, etc.) that effectively ‘discipline’ students into ‘becoming’ architects. An additional tenet of Foucault’s argument was that ‘micro-technologies of power’ work to transform the whole person i.e. both the mind and the body (1991, p. 138). Thus, it follows that architectural education might be understood as a set of ‘micro-technologies of power’ that alter the cognitive, affective and corporeal dimensions of students towards disciplinary norms.
67> Schön’s research looks at architectural education through a very narrow lens, yet somehow he feels able to derive grand theories of learning from the results. [schön, you’re fine, you’re nice, but do not stretch your arms over education!] Most design tutors have taught students who believe that they can succeed merely by following their tutor’s weekly instructions. This is often a frustrating experience for tutors because they know, and repeatedly tell students, that engaging with formal teaching in a strategic manner is not sufficient to ensure successful progression through architectural education. Indeed, a recent study that investigated students’ approaches to learning revealed that poorly performing students tended to take a strategic approach to learning whilst high performing students understood architectural learning as a more diverse activity involving informal as well as formal learning (Webster, 2005 & 2007). This latter group of students described how they had thrown themselves into the world of architecture by, for instance, reading expansively, visiting cities, buildings and exhibitions, attending lectures, spending long hours in studio, and living in houses with other architectural students. In effect, it appears that students who take a deep approach to learning by fully engaging with the world of architecture appear to gain an understanding of the culture of the discipline, including the tricky notion of aesthetics, and thereby establish a kind of ‘feeling for the game’. [so where has that foucaultean critic gone? how is acculturation through micro-politics overcome when we step outside the institutions? we take a leave, but reach out to the ‘instituted culture’, and gain the ‘feeling for the game’ anyhow!?:]
The twin notions that all people learn all the time, not just in educational settings, and that learning is inescapably ‘situated’ in real settings were put forward in the 1990s by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger. In their seminal book Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (1991) [back to the “lonca”, back to apprenticeship, back to recreating the current verbatim, back to unchanging medieval ages:] Lave and Wenger drew on ethnographic studies of craftsmen apprentices to outline the ways in which formal and informal learning work to allow, or disallow, novices to move from the periphery (unskilled/un-acculturated) to the centre of a community (skilled/acculturated). Etienne Wenger subsequently suggested that educational experiences could be designed to facilitate the acceptance of novices into a particular disciplinary community (Legitimate Peripheral Participation) and effect their transition, via formal and informal learning, towards full membership of the community (1998, p. 263).
68>... in his long explication of students’ encounters with design tutors Schön suggests that the role of the design tutor is to ‘correct’ students’ designs. [this is what we try to leave behind, but we never intend to overcome the following:]
Why is it we enter [architecture school] with incredibly diverse backgrounds, interests and friends and we leave here with the exact same handwriting, muttering a language that prevents normal communication and exchange with almost anyone outside of our future profession – and we like it this way…? (cited in Anthony, 1990, p. 38)
[apparently, she criticizes schön on the grounds shared by my elder colleagues in our institution:] It is undeniable, although rarely talked about, that architectural education has a powerful ‘hidden curriculum’ that socialises and acculturates students into the values (particularly aesthetic, motivational and ethical values) and practices (including language, deportment and dress) of the discipline (Dutton, 1991, p. 167). Yet Schön’s theories fail to acknowledge the existence, let alone the importance, of the affective and the corporeal domains of architectural learning.
[so the story goes towards the students’ individuality, through bourdieu’s concept of habitus: “to re-conceptualize the student as an individual with a distinct habitus.” individualism is fine. but seems not to be rich enough a concept to understand and reconceptualize the current conditions and the studio... nonetheless, i claim that the following has already happened in our institution:]
69> In recent years phenomenological and ethnographic type research has provided evidence that transmission teaching is not an [70>] effective way to inculcate learning (Prosser & Trigwell, 1999). Subsequently, new theories of student learning that focus on what the student does rather than what the tutor does have gained popularity in higher education (Ramsden, 2003, pp. 14-19; Biggs, 2003, p. 12). These theories propose a new model for the teacher as ‘facilitator’, ‘critical friend,’ or ‘liminal servant’ (Webster, 2004b, p. 10). In light of the above, it is clear that Schön’s conception of the way students learn in a tutorial situation is in urgent need of revision.
[creativity comes into prominence:] Clearly, reflection has an important role in designing. However, it is only one part of the design process. It might be more fruitful for architectural educators interested in understanding more about the performative act of designing to consult theories of innovation and creativity because they provide more rounded and nuanced models of the design process (Cropley, 2001; Lawson; 2005).
[an implicit conflict occurs in this text, and in our minds, where post-modernist tendencies to devalue all pre-established knowledge or truth claims, and legitimacy of hierarchical social constructs constantly clash, with still implicitly assumed boundaries of a discipline, we have been moving, gradually, from the caricature technocrat of schön, through schön’s master, and we came here, and while we are opening the boundaries of disciplines, more and more, towards vagueness, we still like it to assume presence of a disciplinary practice, which is nevertheless learned, if not taught; but in more and more ambiguous ways...] [follows a further critic of the behavior of the former tutor/master (namely, Mr. Quist), institutional habitus versus creating of a personal habitus:]
So, if one accepts that professional knowledge is both ‘constructed’ and ‘contested’ both between and within groups it seems very odd that Donald Schön continually presents architectural knowledge as unproblematic (as opposed to ‘contested’ and ‘contestable’).
71> It is Schön’s enlightenment view of knowledge as ‘truth’ that allows him to present Mr Quist’s habitus as a paradigm of the architectural habitus (Schön, 1985, pp. 32-52). According to Schön, all the student Petra has to do to become an architect is to learn to be like Mr Quist: white, male and middle class! In Schön’s model of learning there seems no possibility that Petra ‘could’ or ‘should’ be critically constructing her own architectural habitus or that her habitus might or might not differ radically from her tutor’s habitus. Further, Schön fails to recognise that Quist, as a representative of a particular institutional habitus, uses his power to direct Petra’s learning towards alignment with his normative habitus. The tutorial interaction Schön describes is a prime example of the primacy of structure over agency i.e. Quist provides little room for Petra to act independently or make her own choices. [this is a continuing conflict, also hereabouts:] Along with other apologists for the naturalised model of architectural education Schön puts forward design studio learning as a paradigm for liberal self-development. However, recent primary research on design studio learning has painted a picture of tight control, coercion and molding (Dutton, 1991, p. 167; Stevens, 2002, p. 187). [this article indicates some of the problems, but the proposals seem to me to be quite “light”]

Hiç yorum yok: