Illinois Institute of Technology - Interview with IIT Design Professor
Illinois Institute of Technology - Interview with IIT Design Professor
Interview with IIT Design Professor. - audio poor, lots of BG noise. Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), Chicago, IL
Illinois Institute of Technology - Interview with IIT Design Professor
Interviewer: First off, can you tell me what Mies philosophy was? Professor: It s generally summarized under the slogan Less is more Interviewer: Can you say that slogan one more time? Professor: Less is more Interviewer: Now IIT is a technological university, and I m just wondering, why do you teach Shakespeare here? Professor: I have to confess to total bias on that one, because I m English, I m born in the county Warwickshire, the same county as Shakespeare, so I m in favor of the local boy made good. Interviewer: What does it do though? Why would they teach a course like that? Professor: I don t see why technologists should be restricted and what they learn. Technology is concerned with the every day life of people, so anything that helps you understand ordinary people: how they think, how they work, what they believe, what inspires them, has to help. Shakespeare and the whole range of other things are fully appropriate for technologists.
Illinois Institute of Technology - Interview with IIT Design Professor
Interviewer: That kind of well-rounded education does that lead to anything? Professor: A better-rounded person, I would argue. I think a technologist has to be well rounded, just as well rounded as anyone else. There s nothing intrinsic that ought to be excluded from technological education. Interviewer: I heard it said that you enlighten students here, how do you do that? Professor: I think that the university ought to be a place of enlightenment anyhow. There are two ways in which I think you can enlighten students. You give them a greater sense of themselves, who they are, what they are, and what the world offers to them, a sense of confidence in themselves. And secondly you can give them a greater sense of understanding of the world outside, of other people s needs and aspirations. Interviewer: Does IIT accomplish this? Professor: I would hope so. I can t speak for the university as a whole, but certainly in the institute of design, it s one of our primary purposes.
Illinois Institute of Technology - Interview with IIT Design Professor
Interviewer: Why is it important to enlighten today s technicians? Professor: I think, my main argument would revolve around the fact that we live in an increasingly man-made world. That s hardly an aspect of this planet that isn t affected by human intervention. So, if that s true than clearly, we ve got to have technologists capable of grasping far greater dimensions than I think then they ve ever been asked to consider in the whole of human history, previously. The challenges are hug, the potential is huge, but the problems we face require more and more solutions of a better kind.
Illinois Institute of Technology - Interview with IIT Design Professor
Interviewer: So many problems today call for creative solutions. And I guess one of the problems actually is that creativity can t be taught. Professor: I don t think you can teach it in the sense being able to write a list of rules that would enable you to be creative. What you can do is to try and develop situations in which students creativity will be realized. You can develop exercises, projects, give students problems that require them, in stages of increasingly difficulty and complexity, to development their own creativity. Interviewer: So creativity can be nurtured? Professor: Yeah, I think that creativity is something that every human being has a talent for, a capacity for. It isn t there like a can of soup, waiting to be opened and immediately used. It has to be nurtured. It has to be developed.
Illinois Institute of Technology - Interview with IIT Design Professor
Interviewer: Again, how do you develop something that most people think, that you re born with creativity and if you re not born that way you will never be creative? Professor: Well, I can only repeat that every human being has a talent for creativity in greater or lesser degree. And our job in education is to realize that capacity to whatever level it s capable of being realized. So if we can develop an educational process that puts an emphasis on creativity, that demands of students that they go through a process of creatively responding to problems, and I think we can bring them along the path and give them an understanding and a confidence in their own creative ability. It s a matter of confidence as much anything else.
Illinois Institute of Technology - Interview with IIT Design Professor
Interviewer: Einstein said, The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking do you agree? Professor: My field of competence is design, and if you substitute the word design for science in that statement, he s absolutely right. I think science generally has to do in the world in which we live, the way in which we live. Design is the way in which science is made assessable, comprehensible to people in their everyday lives. So, yes, I m going to agree entirely with Einstein. Interviewer: Let me ask you this, one more time, thinking not just of science but broader terms. It s everyday thinking that leads to big ideas? Professor: You can cut it from both ends. You can say that ideas come from the top down, indeed some do. Other ideals come from the bottom up. There are trends, there are beliefs, there are fashions that come up from below, so, you can observe those beliefs as practices and you can take them as one of the leading motives of the time.
Illinois Institute of Technology - Interview with IIT Design Professor
Interviewer: The big ideas, the whole of science, any big ideas comes just from the refinement of everyday thinking? Professor: Yes, I think it s very much to do with your whole notion of what it is that motivates people, in terms of everyday life. Interviewer: Who can we more of a creator? Professor: That s a very difficult one to answer simply. It s obviously a complex question. If you look at our society today, and you ask what demands does it make of people s creativity. I would say that by in large, you have a bureaucratic structure in most governments across the world that don t demand creativity. It demands simply that you follow accepted procedures. If you look at a great deal of business, they re restricted by short-term thinking that is aimed at avoiding risk and risk is adherent in any creative process. We live in a society that in general, is not open to change on a very fundamental level, and again creativity is involved in change. So on all these levels there are problems. Interviewer: So who are we to blame? Professor: All of us are to blame. Education is to blame, because education has not encouraged creativity. But in the world of work, creativity is sometimes not wanted. It s a threat.
Illinois Institute of Technology - Interview with IIT Design Professor
Interviewer: What is a pedagogical education? Professor: I don t know. In all honesty, I don t know what the term means. Pedagogy implies teaching, so I would assume a pedagogical education is the process of teaching people what is known. Interviewer: I think it s defined in the dictionary; it s more like a pedagogical is a tutorial. Professor: If it s a tutorial system, it implies that there s a two-way relationship between teacher and student, which I think is important in any form of education. Otherwise it s a one-way process and it becomes by definition, non-creative. It s the master - apprentice solution.
Illinois Institute of Technology - Interview with IIT Design Professor
Interviewer: I read in the literature here, that in terms of current pedagogical, that some students, as it is supported in the literature here, they almost teach themselves. And if that were true, what is the role of the professor? Professor: I think if I can rephrase it a little, it isn t that students teach themselves, but we try to bring them to a point where they re capable of learning for themselves. So that obviously the role of the professor in this is giving them the equipment: the concepts, the methodologies, the understanding of the sources, to which they have access in this process of self-learning. Because if self-learning isn t the end to what we do then we re not equipping students to go out into the world of work and effectively compete, for the rest of their lives.
Illinois Institute of Technology - Interview with IIT Design Professor
Interviewer: So, it is a method of self-learning and the professor s role in that is to what? Professor: I think you can give students an understanding of what is involved in the process of learning. I think you can give them an understanding of the methods that are involved in learning. I think you can give them an understanding of the sources that are available to them. And given students such competence and above all confidence in using these sources for themselves, if we can bring them to the stage, then I think we done our job well. Interviewer: Are you more of a mentor in that? Professor: Yes. There is obviously a body of knowledge, of specific knowledge, that we can pass on, but it goes way over a specific knowledge to, I can only repeat, giving students confidence in themselves in their ability to function in a much broader context then we can ever encompass here.
Illinois Institute of Technology - Interview with IIT Design Professor
Interviewer: I just asked you if you were more of a mentor and you said yes, but do you think you can say that in a full sentence for me? Are professors more like mentors? Professor: Yes, they have to be more like mentors in order to encourage students to have confidence in themselves. Interviewer: How does that form of education lead to leadership skills out in the workplace? Professor: Leadership implies, first of all, I think, having a clear concept of what you want to achieve and being able to carry other people along with you. So that if we can turn out students who have this confidence in themselves, and this competence in functioning. Then it seems to me, that there s a good chance that they will be able to exercise leadership, in a way that people who don t have that confidence in themselves can t.
Illinois Institute of Technology - Interview with IIT Design Professor
Interviewer: With all the problems that the world has, things seem to be getting worse before they re getting better. Where is it heading, for our country and for the world? Professor: I am not a prophet, but there are certain trends that I think one can identify. I think were moving out of the age of mass production, mass advertising, mass consumption, into an age of technology, the word flexible technology is used, that will be adaptable to individual needs. That will be capable of being scaled down, where it hasn t been for 150 - 200 years. Interviewer: Why is that important? Professor: I think it s very important that people should be able to define how technology relates to them, rather than conforming to how someone else defines technology in their lives.
Illinois Institute of Technology - Interview with IIT Design Professor
Interviewer: Now I seen interviews on Letterman and a couple of corporate guys, and they all told me the world is heading towards disaster. Professor: It could be. If we re to avoid it though, I think we need more and more better technologists, better education. I think we need a clearer sense of values on a much broader plane then we ve encouraged in the last century or so. Interviewer: Do we have enough engineers to meet the future problems that are coming? Professor: Nowhere near enough. We need far more, we need far better engineers, technologist of all kinds. People who are capable of functioning at a much higher level of decision making. People who are capable of taking on board much greater range of values and such human needs.
Illinois Institute of Technology - Interview with IIT Design Professor
Interviewer: The IIT fields of engineers, designers, architects, this piece is kind of leaning towards the future of the world, where the future s going, and where a school like IIT is going to move it. I sort of coined the word techno-futurist that embodies all of them. Is that a fair ? Professor: I think we have on the campus of IIT, all the competencies that are probably needed to address the major problems of our time. We have a responsibility, clearly, within the university get our act together and cooperate to a much greater degree than we have done in the past. Interviewer: Is that a good word to use though, techno-futurist ? Professor: Yes, I think it is. Because any technologist, any architect, any designer are innately concerned with the future. Their work is creating the actual tangible future that we will all inhabit. Whether you re producing a brochure for publication in two weeks time, a machine for two years time, a building or city plan for five years time, you re anticipating the future. So we have to think about the future, about the kind of future we re creating. If we don t do that we re not doing our job, we re simply responding to how other people define that future. Interviewer: So what do we call the future then? Professor: Techno-futurist is a very good term. Interviewer: OK, good good.
Illinois Institute of Technology - Interview with IIT Design Professor
Professor: Your right, you re absolutely right. I think it s the business of getting (Pan up his jacket to face.)
Illinois Institute of Technology - Interview with IIT Design Professor
CU of hands. Professor: I think it will be absolutely welcomed because we re talking amongst ourselves very much in these terms, we haven t used that particular terminology, and in terms of the whole idea of getting all of the participants working together, getting them focusing on the kind of future, getting them to think about the problems we face, it s primary concern for us. We have a lot of contact, a lot of discussion, a lot of initiatives aimed at trying to