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Transcript of Design Educate Liberate II
A Model for Design Learning by Stuart Harvey
Design Educate Liberate II
2
Contents
Introduction & Context 3
Literature 5
Models - Intorduction to Theories 14
Authors reflections and thoughts 16
Reflective Log 16
Development 22
Case Studies 25
Conclusions 35
Bibliography 44
Further Reading 45
Appendix One 46
List of Illustrations
Prototype Model 15
Notebook Tutorial 18
Development Thinking 19, 20, 21
Humanist Learning Model Elements 22, 23, 24
Humanist Learning Manifesto 37
Humanist Learning Model Experiments 38-43
Design Educate Liberate II
Words 18 567
Author Stuart Harvey
Student ID 10026403
Date August 2011
Programme MA DPP
3
Introduction and Context
At an age when many students elect to start an
undergraduate education, creative students with
a measure of ambition and an interest in career
possibilities in art and design apply to undertake a
Foundation Course. This is the traditional, diagnostic
route for Fine Art and Design students, enabling them
to identify a subject specialism and apply to suitable
degree courses. In 2004/5 there were two hundred and
three Foundation Diploma courses (Legg, 2006, p4)
and today most degree courses prefer students with a
Foundation Diploma. (Hilpern, 2010), (British Council)
In most respects the students are adults but they
undergo a rapid change both because of the rigours
of a Foundation Course and because most are new to
adult-hood and are expected to embrace the challenges
of this phase of their lives, leaving behind school and
classroom culture. Against this background, the role
of the lecturer is complex, being partly art or design
practitioner and lecturer but also coach and counsellor,
guiding the student through a transitional process which
takes them from an ‘A’ level subject to a specialist,
industry based subject. Alongside this transition the
students ‘grow up’, becoming self directed and reflective
learners but also confident and reflective citizens, able
to critically de-cypher their worlds.
Many educators observe this process, not least
colleagues of the author, but it is the intensity of the
Foundation Course which forces it under the lens of this
paper. The sheer speed, one academic year equating
to nine months, at which the course progresses, the
demands on the students and staff and the problems
associated with guiding young adults, some older than
the usual eighteen or nineteen, through an intellectually
stimulating yet challenging journey will be familiar
to Foundation Course tutors. This paper examines
that process from the point of view of the relationship
between the student and the tutor. It is the contention
of this paper that art and design learning and teaching
must be humanist in approach to succeed and that a
truly humanistic application brings with it responsibility
and discipline. Furthermore, it is proposed that the
following models and discussions are relevant to design
education at all post-graduate levels.
The Foundation Course at Leeds College of Art, one of
the oldest in the country, dating back to Harry Thubron’s
Basic Design Course (which was in turn based on
Itten’s Basic Design Course) publishing its prospectus
in1958, (Owen, 2003, p78) is split into four subject
specialisms. These are ‘Fine Art’, ‘Textiles, Fashion and
Design for Performance’, ‘Object and Spatial Design’
and lastly, ‘Graphics, Illustration and Digital Media’ for
which the author is responsible. The students specialise
in October and remain in their specialist areas until
the end of the course. This context has provided a
site in which to make a study of design teaching and
this paper makes a distinction between Design and
Fine Art and will concentrate on design teaching and
learning. However, ‘The goal of education - any kind of
education, but especially a humanistic education - is
traditionally understood as twofold. First the students
are supposed to acquire a certain professionalism in
the field in which thay are being educated. Second,
the students are supposed to be changed as human
beings, formed anew by their education - to become
different, more accomplished, even a better example of
humanity.’ (Groys, 2009, p26)
Designing and delivering a programme which aims to
equip students with a range of design skills, an ethos
which endeavours to prepare them for independent, self
directed study in combination with subject specialisms
such as graphic design, advertising and illustration
which demand a critical engagement with contemporary
culture means that students are required to challenge
notions of how their worlds fit together. They are subject
to, what seems at first, a deeply unfamiliar learning
culture, their understandings of what art and design is
are completely overturned. The critical, reflective and
evaluative demands of design demand that the students
change as people and it is this transformative learning
that this paper will address.
4
It is fortuitous that a study of humanist teaching and
learning practice has grown out of a course which puts
great emphasis on one to one teaching. However,
design is usually taught in this way, (Schön, 1987,
p45) with additional crits and seminars ensuring that
students receive the full range of design learning
but it is this ‘one to one’ element which is the most
important to the development of the student of design.
Design is reflective, evaluative and demands deep
thinking and problem solving skills. However these
things are difficult to learn individually. ‘Designing is
a holistic skill. In an important sense, one must grasp
it as a whole in order to grasp it at all. Therefore, one
cannot learn it in a molecular way, by learning first to
carry out smaller units of activity and then to string
those units together in a whole design process; for
the pieces tend to interact with one another and to
derive their meanings and characters from the whole
process in which they are embedded.’ (Schön, 1987,
p158) The development of the designer as a person
and self-directed, professional, creative being is also
a design process itself. It requires understanding of
the motivations and inhibitions which are affecting
learning and a sensitivity to the relationship which must
exist between student and tutor in order for learning
to take place. It assumes and argues that students
learn differently and so a single teaching and learning
strategy is not effective. The evidence suggesting that
the incidence of dyslexia, dyspraxia and ADHD in art
schools is due to those students having a predisposition
towards visual creativity (Barton, 1998) was part of the
inspiration for undertaking the required research for
this paper which aims to describe a relationship which
adressed diverse learning needs, model it, in order
to understand its functioning, discuss how it can be
applied in the design studio and how it came to function
in the authors practice of design educator and designer.
Part one of this investigation (Harvey, 2010) aimed to
set out a manifesto for design teaching and learning.
This second investigation is focused on the relationship
between tutor and tutee but under pinning this study
are the same beliefs in critical theory, thinking and
emancipatory education. In the section on the authors
thoughts and reflections, these belief and convictions
are discussed in more detail.
5
Literature
By far the most influential and vital text in terms of
informing this study is ‘On Becoming a Person’.
(Rogers, 1961) Person to person approaches and
attempts to understand and guide practices during
tutorials coupled with the emancipatory aspects of
critical theory and thinking drew the author to read and
re-read this volume. There are other good studies of
mentoring and tutorial techniques, among the most
useful being Cohen,1995, but ‘On Becoming a Person’
addresses the problem of client centred learning.
Rogers sets out to pin-point the similarities between
person centred psychotherapy and education,
culminating in his earth shattering statement that
‘anything that can be taught to another is relatively
inconsequential and has little or no significant
influence on behaviour’ and ‘I realize increasingly that
I am only interested in learnings which significantly
influence behaviour’ so, ‘I have come to feel that the
only learning which significantly influences behaviour
is self-discovered, self appropriated learning’ and in
conclusion, ‘Such self-discovered learning, truth that
has been personally appropriated and assimilated
in experience, cannot be directly communicated to
another.’ (Rogers, 1961, p276) So what of the role of
the teacher? As this study unfolds it will be seen that
the notion of ‘teacher’ is questioned and re-framed. In
the same section, Rogers confesses ‘As a consequence
of the above, I realize I have lost interest in being a
teacher.’ (Rogers, 1961, p276)
This statement also had deep felt consequences for the
author who, was already questioning his role as creative
being with ambitions related to a professional creative
practice and college lecturer. Was it possible that there
was a way of not teaching which may instigate a deeper
and more significant learning in design students?1
1 The period of study which has led to the development of
the Humanist Learning Model has resulted in some decisions
about my own creative practice. I still do not know what that
is. Part of the aim of the year was to investigate a symbiosis
betwen creative and educative practice but this did not
happen, the conclusion being that the two can never occupy
the same space. I am still not sure what I have learned.
The PGCE felt a bit like I was not really doing it for myself
but the MA is and I have chosen to continue my PGCE. The
original idea was that the MA should be an antidote to the
PGCE but because of the MA I now think the PGCE was for
myself.
The label of ‘teacher’ is given to me not so much by my job
but by society. I am, if not a teacher, a kind of a teacher, but I
have come to realise that I am really not any kind of teacher.
This is a recent experience and it is the first time I have
realised that this year of study has been for me. The aim to
find a coexistance between design and educative practices
has failed but in re-reading Rogers and reflecting on learning
models I have come to realise that I am just a designer and to
design is to learn.
‘On Becoming a Person’ establishes a hypothesis for
personal growth and Rogers states that ‘in my early
professional years I was asking the question, How can
I treat, or cure or change this person? Now I would
phrase the question in this way: How can I provide
a relationship which this person may use for his own
personal growth.’ (Rogers, 1961, p32) He describes
‘The Relationship’ (Rogers, 1961, p33) as having three
elements, the first being that the therapist should as far
as possible be genuine. ‘This means that I need to be
aware of my own feelings, in so far as possible, rather
than presenting an outward façade of one attitude, while
holding another attitude at a deeper or unconscious
level’. (Rogers, 1961, p33) The second ‘condition’
(Rogers, 1961, p34) is that the therapist should have
a ‘warm regard’ for the client. ‘It means a respect and
liking for him as a separate person, a willingness for him
to possess his own feelings in his own way. It means
an acceptance of and regard for his attitudes of the
moment, no matter how negative or positive…’ (Rogers,
1961, p34) The third condition is empathy to enable
understanding of the clients feelings, ‘Acceptance
does not mean much until it involves understanding’
(Rogers, 1961, p34) which creates a further condition
of freedom, ‘freedom to explore oneself at both
conscious and unconscious levels’ and ‘freedom from
any type of moral or diagnostic evaluation, since all
evaluations are, I believe, always threatening.’ (Rogers,
1961, p34) This final statement, far from calling into
6
question that notion that design students must be able
to evaluate themselves, their own and the work of
other practitioners, addresses educational assessment
directly. The implication for this thesis is that design
teaching should provide a stable trusting relationship
with a tutor and should not transmit design knowledge
at all.
In connection with diagnostic evaluation is the attitude
of professionalism which Roger describes as ‘aloofness
- a “professional” attitude, an impersonal relationship.’
(Rogers, 1961, p52) Most education is subject to
checks and procedures which make the process of
learning impersonal and whilst assessment, moderation
and verification are facts of life for all educators, they
must not affect the relationship between tutor and
tutee ‘it is safe to care… it is safe to relate to the other
person…’ (Rogers, 1961, p52) Rogers discusses the
conditions which have to exist within ‘The Relationship’
in more detail in the context of significant learning
but first explains significant learning (and he is now
discussing learning in psychotherapy), ‘It is learning
which makes a difference - in the individuals behaviour,
in the course of action he chooses in the future, in his
attitudes and in his personality. It is pervasive learning
which is not just an accretion of knowledge but which
interpenetrates with every portion of his existence.’2
2 I have said that design is the setting and solving of
problems but I am as a consequence of researching these
(Rogers, 1961, p280) The most important conditions
are Congruence and Empathic Understanding but firstly
the client must face a problem. This is another place
where design education and practice find resonances
in humanist psychology because surely, design is, at its
most fundamental, the setting and solving of problems.
The student has the problem of setting out to learn
something, the processes which constitute design but
also the problem of how to learn.3 The tutor also has to
theories of a new opinion that design is thought. I use the
term ‘realisation’ a lot as if the truth were ‘out there’ until I
found it but I think that is what significant learning feels like.
3 Perhaps the one thing I am learning is that design is a
way of freeing the mind. Rather than finding meaningful
structures to shape ones thinking it requires a banishing of
the ‘D’ motivation to model thinking. It requires a dissolving
of pre-conceptions which do not only exist in the eighteen or
nineteen year olds but build up like lime-scale in a water pipe
eventually restricting clear thought and perception in all of us.
Perhaps design is purely about thought - not thought that
leads to products. Perhaps problem solving and production
are aided by design thinking but at its purest design is, I am
sure, about thought. But thought wants to be structured. It
wants cause and effect, a model, a diagram and tries hard to
build a lifeworld and maintain it. But design wants to be free
of all constraint, all structure.
What, then, of the brief? The brief supplies constraint just
when our thoughts are freest but perhpas a brief cannot be
successfully interpreted without a liberated mind. When I and
other commentators talk about emancipation and liberation,
this is what is meant, that approaching problems from this
learn how the tutee learns and for that reason further
reference to tutor will be made as Learner ‘T’ and tutee
will be Learner ‘S’ since both parties, in what will be
further discussed, have to become learners. The third
condition is ‘Unconditional Positive Regard’ (Rogers,
1961, p283) ‘a caring which is not possessive, which
demands no personal gratification.’ (Rogers, 1961,
p283)
Congruence is about being real or genuine. Rogers
implies that unless the therapist is a ‘congruent person’
(Rogers, 1961, p282) ‘unified…integrated’ (Rogers,
1961, p283) therapy will not occur. The contention
of this paper is that learning will not occur if Learner
‘T’ is not congruent. ‘What I mean is that within the
relationship he [Learner ‘T’] is exactly what he says he
is - not a façade, or a role, or a pretense…Unless this
congruence is present to a considerable degree it is
unlikely that significant learning can occur.’ (Rogers,
1961, p282) It appears to be the case that any hint of a
front or façade causes wariness or caution in the other
person.4 Trust is misplaced and the relationship, if it can
perspective means both effective problem solving and
significant learning.
4 How long has it taken me to realise that the students react
more meaningfully if I allow them to see me as a real person?
Whenever this happens it feels dangerous but at the same
time I am more myself with the students than not - well, that
is the way it feels. Friends have remarked that they cannot
7
be called a relationship is not one ‘in which defenses
can be dropped or in which significant learning and
change can occur.’ (Rogers, 1961, p283)
Rogers describes a further condition which has two
aspects. These are Psychological Safety and Freedom
and these conditions should have been arrived at as a
consequence of Congruence, Unconditional Positive
Regard and Empathy. If these are achieved, the client,
or Learner ‘S’ exists in a climate of Psychological
Safety and Freedom. If Learner ‘T’ can genuinely feel
that Learner ‘S’ ‘is of worth in his own right and in his
own unfolding, no matter what his present condition
or behaviour’ and can sense ‘the potentialities of the
individual and thus be able to have an unconditional
faith in him, no matter what his present state’, the imagine me as a teacher and I have made the same kind
of remark to teacher friends. A student said to me whilst we
were talking about his aspirations to become a teacher that I
had cause quite a few of them to re-evaluate themselves after
a particular briefing. In the briefing I was trying to address
poor attendance and a kind of relaxed attitude to the limited
amount of time the students had. They would typically sign in,
go for a coffee, have a break an hour later, take a long lunch,
have an extended afternoon break and pack up half an hour
before the end of the day. My speech was impassioned,
contained swearing, personal confessions of drug taking,
alcoholism and time wasting. I pleaded with them not to
waste their time. It was not an act. I was angry and the
students saw me angry and a little out of control. (At the same
time I know they value patience and control.)
learner will ‘sense a climate of safety’. (Rogers,
1961, p357) Not only will the learner be able to grow
psychologically and experience significant learning but
will be operating in a creative environment, experiencing
design. To be able to provide a climate of psychological
safety means also the absence of ‘external evaluation’
in which ‘we cease to form judgments of the other
individual from our own locus of evaluation [my italics]’.
(Rogers, 1961, p357) Structured education means
assessment and however this is conducted, it threatens
the stability and efficacy of the learning relationship
but, of course, assessment is a reality and in some
respects all students expect and want to be assessed
so that they can receive a measure of progress. The
relationship a tutor has with her tutees must be resilient
enough to conduct formal, summative assessment
without affecting the learning of the student. In short
Learner ‘S’ must implicitly trust Learner ‘T’ who is
conducting the assessment in the understanding that
assessment criteria are being applied fairly, carefully
and rigourously and that Learner ‘T’ is not judging
Learner ‘S’ on her own terms. As Rogers states,
‘Evaluation is always a threat, always creates a need
for defensiveness, always means that some portion
of experience must be denied to awareness’ (Rogers,
1961, p357) but, also cautions, ‘to cease evaluating
another is not to cease having reactions.’ (Rogers,
1961, p358)
Psychological Freedom means freedom of ‘symbolic
expression… complete freedom to think, to feel, to
be, whatever is most inward within himself’ but not
at the expense of the rules of society as expressing
‘all feelings, impulses and formings may not in all
instances be freeing. Behaviour may in some instances
be controlled by society, and this is as it should be.’
(Rogers, 1961, p359) Psychological Freedom however
means symbolic expression so that rather than
physically attacking a hated object, a symbol of it is
attacked and, in the context of this paper this means
critically attacking an object. Students beginning a
Foundation Course have not developed critical skills
and appear to require permission to criticize established
art, design and practices. Psychological Freedom
allows this critical thought to develop.
The phrase significant learning has already been
used and will continue to be used throughout this
paper. In terms of design teaching it signifies a deep
understanding of principles, of evaluative and reflective
praxis, of practical problem solving and manual skills
but all these are secondary to fundamental significant
learning. Only Rogers is definitive but from a tutors
point a view, the student who has been the subject of
significant learning understands this significance and it
inspires him or her to seek this feeling or state of mind
again. It is a peak experience which really does change
the individuals experience and ‘interpenetrates with
8
every portion of his existence.’5 (Rogers, 1961, p280)
Abraham Maslow is the other major influence in the
development of this thesis and he uses the term
‘rubricizing’ to describe a kind of superficial learning ‘a
cheap form of cognizing, ie. not-cognizing, a quick, easy
cataloguing whose function is to make unnecessary the
effort required by more careful, idiographic perceiving
or thinking’ (Maslow, 1968, p141) in fact, just the
type of false learning the development of a Humanist
Learning Model aims to avoid. Maslow focuses on
cognition like Rogers and Mezirow and defines the
goal of human growth by the term ‘self-actualization’
but also confusingly warns that it is not the ultimate
goal and represents more of a ‘dynamic process,
active throughout life’ of becoming rather than ‘an
ultimate or final state of affairs’. (Maslow, 1968, p32)
This is one reason why once the learning relationship
is established it cannot be left to see to itself but must
be fed and watered. ‘Growth’, Maslow defines as ‘the
various processes which bring the person towards self-
actualization’ (Maslow, 1968, p32) and these processes
are broken down into ‘growth motivations’ like ‘talents,
capacities, creative tendencies [and] constitutional
5 It is not only eighteen or nineteen year olds or university
students who are struggling with design. Design requires
constant learning because only significant learning can
liberate the mind. Perhaps if I am not learning, I am not
designing.
potentialities’ (Maslow, 1968, p33) but growth can
also be affected by deficiency motivations or ‘deficit-
motivation’. Maslow observes that ‘So called learning
theory in this country has based itself almost entirely
on deficit-motivation with goal objects usually external
to the organism, ie. learning the best way to satisfy a
need.’ (Maslow, 1968, p44) Students leaving ‘A’ level
courses are observed to exhibit deficiency-motivated
learning needs, often questioning why they are not
being taught anything and when they will be taught
Photoshop or screen-printing or any other practical skill.
The culture shift can be as difficult as the shift from
child-hood into adult-hood.
The development of the Humanist Learning Model,
which this paper sets out to document, borrows
Deficiency Motivation and Being Motivation from
Maslow but deficiency and growth (growth and being
are interchangeable in Maslow) can be applied to
perception and Maslow clarifies using a slightly different
terminology. ‘I think our understanding of perception
and therefore the perceived world will be much changed
and enlarged if we study carefully the distinction
between need-interested and need-disinterested or
desireless perception. Because the latter is so much
more concrete and less abstracted and selective…[the
person] can perceive simultaneously the opposites
and dichotomies, the polarities, the contradictions and
incompatibles.’ (Maslow, 1968, p45) The person who
has developed the cognitive functioning to perceive at
a critical level, to question this perception and to form
judgements based on this perception can be said to
be critically aware and reflective. This is the goal of the
Humanist Learning Model but it is justifiably conceded
that this lofty ideal may not be achievable in all its
participants, however the principle under development
asserts that any progress towards this goal is significant
learning.
Not only are the students arriving from their ‘A’ levels
on the verge of adulthood, they are ‘D’ motivated ‘(D
= Deficiency, B = Being)’ (Maslow, 1968, p223) and
are embarking on a course of education where self
actualization is a distinct possibility because of the
nature of design thinking and processing. (The reader
must not confuse ‘D’ motivation with demotivation which
is a consequence of ‘rubricizing’ and something the
Humanist Learning Model has to address frequently.)
To explain ‘D’ motivation in more detail, Maslow uses
‘D’ this time with cognition. ‘D cognition could be called
selfish cognition, in which the world is organized into
gratifiers and frustrators of our own needs, with other
characteristics being ignored or slurred. The cognition
of the object, in its own right and its own Being, without
reference to its need gratifying or need frustrating
qualities, that is, without primary reference to its value
for the observer of its effects upon him can be called B
cognition (or self-transcending, or unselfish or objective
9
cognition)’. (Maslow, 1968, p223)6
The Humanist Learning Relationship must adopt a
role of identifying ‘D’ motivations because these inhibit
true or significant learning, preventing learners from
transcending and initiating shifts in their own lifeworlds.
However, it is impossible to banish them entirely
and indeed they are essential in identifying practical
processes and skills which should lead to significant
learning. ‘D’ motivation induces a desire to assimilate a
practical skill without a reflective context. Jack Mezirow
uses the term transformative learning in the same
context as Rogers uses significant learning but with a
subtle difference in that transformative learning implies
a change in frames of reference so that as a ‘condition
of being human…we have to understand the meaning
of our experience. For some, any uncritically assimilated
explanation by an authority figure will suffice.’ (Mezirow,
1997, p5) Mezirow makes a direct link when defining
the term frames of reference with Habermas’s concept
of lifeworld (see below) in which particularly adult
learners ‘have acquired a coherent body of experience
- associations, concepts, values, feelings, conditioned
responses - frames of reference which define their life 6 Having an MA means more options for earning money
from something I love; a ‘D’ motivation. When I ‘realise’ I
have certain views, that they fit together although they may
be extreme, that those feelings are fleeting or dangerous,
that one of my students has this ‘realisation’, that they are an
individual because of the way they think...
world.’ (Mezirow, 1997, p5) In young design students
this can also include preconceptions, expectations of
what design is, how it works and how it can be learned.
The development of a learning relationship, aims to
affect change, transformation in the learners lifeword or
frames of reference, as Mezirow states, ‘Transformative
learning develops autonomous thinking’ (Mezirow,
1997, p5) not just a component of design thinking but
an essential tool for future, significant learning and
progression through education.
Mezirow breaks down frames of reference into two
components (which seem in some way to reference
Maslow’s ‘Being’ and ‘Deficiency’ motivations) namely,
‘points of view’ and ‘habits of mind’ which ‘are primarily
the result of cultural assimilation and the idiosyncratic
influences of primary caregivers’ habits of mind being
‘more durable’ than points of view.7 (Mezirow, 1997, p6)
The primary means of instigating significant learning
is facilitating critical self reflection and in the design
education context this means critical reflection of
the results of design problem solving also since it is
7 Until recently my point of view was that I was a teacher
who wanted to (re) build a design practice and that these
two things had to mesh or I would not achieve what I wanted
to achieve. Perhaps a habit of mind has been broken in that
I realise its all about thought - not just accepting another
opinion but a change in deep seated beliefs. And using the
term ‘beliefs’ is a little difficult because we are not supposed
to challenge our beliefs are we?
proposed herein that design has to address the self
as well as the brief. Mezirow, extensively referencing
Habermas, borrows the term communicative learning
where two parties aim for a consensus. ‘Communicative
learning involves at least two persons striving to reach
an understanding of the meaning of an interpretation
or the justification for a belief. Ideally communicative
learning involves reaching a consensus’. (Mezirow,
1997, p6) The Humanist Learning Relationship aims
to establish a consensus that allows for critical self
reflection in both parties, both learners. It will be
proposed that the learning which takes place in the
Humanist Learning Relationship is not one way and not
significant in just the student of design but in Learner ‘T’
also.
Critical Reflection, then, is the key to adult learning but
Foundation students are eighteen years old and turn
nineteen on the course for the most part. To instigate
significant learning, growth, becoming or being, that is
personal growth, requires maturity and experience at
least and this responsibility and inevitability cannot be
ignored. Mezirow calls this process ‘psychoeducational’
and warns that for adults to ‘overcome such ordinary
existential psychological distortions’ requires ‘skilled
adult counselors and educators as well as therapists.’
(Mezirow, 1990, p17) This statement provokes the
question and point that teachers are not therapists so
how can they ‘deal’ with the psychological needs of
10
students on a day to day basis? Mezirow adds that it is
‘crucially important’ that educators address learning at
a psychological level ‘inasmuch as the most significant
adult learning occurs in connection with life transitions.’
(Mezirow, 1990, p17) Psychological distortions are
preconceptions arising from ‘presuppositions generating
unwarranted anxiety that impede taking action.’
(Mezirow, 1990, p16)
The Humanist Learning Relationship is a discourse that
has to be developed in order for learning at a significant
level to take place. It cannot isolate itself from the
psychoeducational processes of personal growth by
focussing on subject knowledge and maintaining what
has been called ‘professional distance’.8 The Humanist
Learning Realtionship is a ‘dialogic community’ which
Learner ‘T’ is responsible for facilitating and monitoring
using reflective practices but enables ‘learners to
engage in rational discourse and action’ (Mezirow,
1990, p354) but it may seem that once the Learning
Relationship is set up, it can be left to take care of itself.
The Relationship is a process, a praxis which contains
8 Most educators have experienced their more senior
colleagues’ warnings about ‘getting involved’. The
Humanist principles being discussed in this paper require
wholehearted involvement. Until developing these theories,
I kept a little of myself hidden under the mistaken view that
I should not ‘give’ the students all of myself. These words
seem so naive now. There is no danger. There is no negative
consequence of being congruent.
two learners who are consensually transforming and
so requires constant nurturing because ‘reflective
discourse and its resulting insight do not make for
transformative learning. Acting on these emancipatory
insights, a praxis, is also necessary…The learner must
have the will to act upon his or her new convictions.’
(Mezirow, 1990, p355)
Before leaving Mezirow it seems fitting to discuss a
final paragraph where he uses the term ‘precipitates’
and the reader will hopefully forgive this extended
quotation but there is some important definition in its
contents. ‘The adult educator actively precipitates
transformative learning when, in the process of helping
learners address their expressed needs, he or she
seeks to move the learners interest beyond their
articulated needs to understanding the reasons for
them and the way psychocultural forces have shaped
the learner’s interpretation of the worlds of others, and
of themselves.9 Here, the role of the educator calls
for a higher degree of creative effort, to conceptualise
ways of drawing learners into critical self-reflection
about their own ideas and assumptions. As this process
of transformative learning begins, its initiative and 9 My perception of the students has changed steadily over
the past three years but this year has felt like letting go. My
colleagues say that I always say “Its been a great year” but
because of this ‘letting go’, which seems like a much more
intuitive approach to the relationship with the students, it has
been a great year.
control reside in the learner; increasingly the role of
the educator is to provide a sound board for testing
new learner realities.’ (Mezirow, 1990, p365) The
Humanist Learning Relationship is the mechanism
that precipitates significant learning and the above
paragraph applies to Learner ‘T’ as much as to Learner
‘S’. It also describes a design learning methodology.
Donald Schön describes the ‘predicament’ of the design
student as ‘likely to find the costs of commitment greater
than its expected rewards’ (Schön, 1987, p94) and
for many graduating Foundation course students this
seems to hold true because it is not until later, on their
degree programmes that the value of having undertaken
a Foundation course starts to be realised. Many
students return to Leeds to talk about their experiences
on their degrees with the benefit of reflecting upon
how Foundation learning has been applied in a
degree course context. The author also speaks from
experience here. Schön, however also defines the
same ‘predicament’ but it also applies to what faces
students at the beginning of a four year period of design
education. ‘More important is the sense of being at
risk. Swimming in unfamiliar water, the student risks
the loss of his competence, control, and confidence.
He must temporarily abandon much that he already
values… And he may fear that, by a kind of insidious
coercion, he may permanently lose what he already
values.’ (Schön, 1987, p94) Schön is talking specifically
11
about design but design students are routinely asked
to ‘temporarily abandon’ ideas about who they are
and how they fit into the world so the passage above
equally applies at a psychological level. ‘Designing is
a holistic skill. In an important sense, one must grasp
it as a whole in order to grasp it at all. Therefore one
cannot learn it in a molecular way, by learning first to
carry out smaller units of activity and then to string
these units together in a whole design process’. (Schön,
1987, p158) Students beginning to think about this
notion can become confused and attempt to look for
formulas, steps to follow, a flow diagram of design. The
task of shifting a mode of thinking attuned to an ‘A’ level
syllabus to one which, asks for a massive reshaping of
psychologies and cognitive processes seems almost
inhuman and it is one which lays at the feet of the tutor
a huge responsibility. ‘However much the master may
dislike asking the student to give up his autonomy, he
must invite him to enter into a temporary relationship of
trust and dependency.’ (Schön, 1987, p95)
Schön describes the relationship between a selection of
architecture students and their tutor Quist but it seems
from the perspective of developing a Humanist Learning
Model that Quist, although a skilled and reflective
designer, is not concerned with any other transaction
than the design process. He seems rather cold infact.
The purpose of Schön’s description of Quist and his
students is to demonstrate how he, Quist, is in reflection
almost the whole time he is discussing the problems
posed by the architecture brief. Schön calls Quist’s
series of responses to the students project ‘moves’.
‘Each move is a local experiment that contributes
to the global experiment of reframing the problem.
Some moves are resisted…while others generate new
phenomena.’ (Schön, 1987, p57) Although Schön’s
focus is reflection and learning he in no way addresses
any sort of client/therapist relationship as in Rogers or
Maslow, but he sets out the complexities of reflection
in-action-in-design. For both parties involved, Schön
uses the terms coach and student, ‘two kinds of
practice are involved in the practicum: the substantive
designing she tries to learn and the reflection-in-action
by which she tries to learn it. Each kind of learning
feeds the other, and the resulting learning circle may
be virtuous or vicious.’ (Schön, 1987, p164) There is a
correlation in this statement to the effect that ‘one type
of learning feeds the other’ because the proposal under
investigation with regard to the Humanist Learning
Model is that lifeworld and psychological transformation
affect how learning, particularly design learning takes
place.
There is no doubting Quist’s skill as a teacher. He is
practicing ‘responsive listening, and asking ‘open ended
questions’, providing ‘descriptive feedback’, ‘perception
checks’ and offering ‘nonjudgmental sensitive
responses’ (Cohen, 1995, p29) but he maintains
professional distance. In some respect it seems that
Schön’s model can be a little unsympathetic to the
‘predicament’ of the student. He correctly identifies the
need for a dialogue between tutor and tutee and the
fact that the ‘student must be able to take part in the
dialogue if she is to learn the substantive practice [of
design] and she must design to some degree in order
to participate in the dialogue’ means that learning can
be ‘hindered’. (Schön, 1987, p165) This would hold
true for the Humanist Learning Model also but the tutor
accepting and instigating the Model is seeking empathy
from first meeting the student and ‘as she learns the
reflection-in-action of the dialogue, she increases her
ability to draw from it lessons useful for designing. And
the greater her design competence the greater her
capacity for the reflection-in-action of the dialogue.’
(Schön, 1987, p165) The student new to design will
always feel overwhelmed and in awe of the task ahead,
of learning design and the realization that design cannot
be learned by rote. The Humanist Learning Model
anticipates this predicament but also proposes that
psychoeducational change is part and parcel of learning
design. If both learners in the Humanist Learning Model
are to learn then personal transformation is necessary.
There are criticisms of Schön’s work on reflection
(Moon, 1999, p46) but within a design learning context
they appear to be helpful. Moon’s volume offers an
extensive overview of reflection and suggests sensible
12
practica in learning and professional development.
One of the criticisms of Schön’s work is concerned
with terminology, in particular the term reflection-in-
action. (Moon, 1999, p46) From a creative point of view,
reflection-in-action is vital to the process of designing
and the Humanist Learning Model would not work
without subscription to this theory.
Central to the thesis being developed is the idea
of the lifeworld, a complex matrix of suppositions,
preconceptions, and frames of reference which
all adults have developed to enable them to form
judgements about their environments and others who
they come in to contact with. Design-Educate-Liberate
(Harvey, 2010) proposed that design learning required
critical thinking that asked students not to accept their
worlds as they find them, to critique and question and
that personal growth was connected to this process
of becoming critical. This paper focuses down on the
mechanism for achieving those aims and the critical
theorists seem almost convenient in what they have to
offer to the Humanist Learning Model. Kellner (1989)
has the place of the most useful introduction to the
history of the Frankfurt School and it consequent
incarnations but Brookfield (2005) places critical
theory firmly in the context of adult education with the
emphasis on emancipation.
‘Any one who claims that adult education is about
empowering adult learners (in my experience a majority
of those who identify themselves as working in the field)
must engage with Foucault’s work.’ (Brookfield, 2005,
p121) The most important point Brookfield makes in
terms of Foucault (apart from justifying him as a critical
theorist) is that ‘Foucault criticizes the belief that society
at large, and adult educational practices in particular,
contain zones of freedom uncontaminated by the
presence of power.’ (Brookfield, 2005, p129) Even given
the strive for empathy and psychological freedom within
the Humanist Learning Relationship, there is still an
issue of power that Learner ‘T’ must be eminently aware
of. It cannot be dissipated because the teaching team
must be able to ‘police’ a cohort in order to maintain
the rules of a normal society but it will always threaten
the fragility of the Relationship as if ‘a multitude of
often minor processes, of different origin and scattered
location, [which] overlap, repeat, or imitate one another
according to their domain of application, converge and
gradually produce the blueprint of a general method’
of control. (Foucault, 1977, p138) Foucault makes the
onset of power insidious but it is not the purpose of
this thesis to discuss power per se. Since Learner ‘T’ is
responsible for maintaining the Learning Relationship,
it is Learner ‘T’ who is likely to be perceived as having
‘disciplinary power’ (Brookfield, 2005, p131) so must
trust the functioning of the Relationship so that the
power balance does not undermine trust. Indeed
Learner ‘S’ may even expect that the power in the
Relationship is mainly with Learner ‘T’.
Brookfield discusses Fromm in terms of ideology
critique, Gramsci on hegemony (Brookfield, 2005, p170)
and in particular consumer malleability (Brookfield,
2005, p160) and it is an aim of both design learning in
both subject specialist terms and design thinking and
processing, and the encouragement of criticality and
cultural awareness that are central aims of the Learning
Relationship.10 In a similar way that is described by
Maslow as a property of peak experiences, the ‘self-
validating, self-justfying’ moments which carry their
‘own intrinsic value’ that are ‘so valuable an experience,
so great a revelation, that to attempt to justify it takes
away from its dignity and worth’, (Maslow, 1968, p90)
‘Marcuse turns to the liberating power of art…To him
true autonomy - separation from the contaminating
influences of conformity and consumerism - arises out
of the individual’s opportunity to abstract herself from
the day-to-day reality of the surrounding culture.’11
10 My feeling is that design and consumerism are in fact
incompatible. I liken the antipathy to the music industry where
disposable pop is produced to generate capital to support
new music. Design has answers but consumerism dulls the
senses. For instance Defuturing or ‘confronting and remov-
ing the authority of the foundations of thought, upon which
the narratives of the like of ‘world’, ‘future’, ‘production’ and
‘progress’ stand...’ (Fry, 1999, p2)
11 Design is a political act. Design as thought, frees
perception from wordly, that is capitalist, constraint. The Peak
13
(Brookfield, 2005, p196) Marcuse, discussed by
Brookfield, theorised that solitary appreciation of art was
liberating and revolutionary because ‘we are moved
by primal aesthetic and creative impulses, not the
dictates of majority opinion or common sense criteria of
beauty.’ (Brookfield, 2005, p198) Although the Humanist
Learning Relationship is central to the learning of both
parties involved, the learning it precipitates is more
important than the relationship because this learning
should, if all is going well, be significant, deep and life-
changing.
The author has a belief that design can and hopefully
will change the world, even save it from extinction.
Marcuse did not believe art could change the world
but did believe that ‘it can contribute to changing the
consciousness and drives of the men and women who
could change the world.’ (Marcuse, 1978, p32) Perhaps
the goal of the Humanist Learning Relationship is to
inspire designers who will make the best use of the
resources the Earth has left or has already used. It is
they who will change the world.
Experience is the phenomena of the self-realisation of the
freed mind. Design is critical because it is not conformist or
shaped by commercial influences. Design is Marxian. Kellner
uses this term instead of Marxist to denote the progression of
social theory from the original Marxist critiques to ‘a response
to the vicissitudes of twentieth century history’. (Kellner, 1989,
p1)
‘When adults deal with situations that demand actions
from them, glimpses of the lifeworld become possible.
Pieces of it also come into view in the process of what
Habermas calls symbolic reproduction.’12 (Brookfield,
2005, p240) The concept of Lifeworld is also central to
the functioning of the Humanist Learning Relationship.
Brookfield is sympathetic to those of us who have read
Marcuse’s explanation and précis him thus; ‘I think of
the lifeworld as the background rules, assumptions,
and common sense understandings that structure how
we perceive the world and how we communicate that
perception to those around us. This kind of primordial,
prereflective knowledge hovers on the periphery
of consciousness, a shadowy frame to all we think
and do. The lifeworld is all pervasive, the oxygen we
breathe without ever really being aware of our rhythmic
inhalations or the way they keep us alive. (Brookfield,
2005, p238)
Although the Humanist Learning Relationship is
empathic, mutual and trusting, it must also be
challenging. The lifeworlds of both parties have to be
tranformed. ‘Habermas allows the possibility of our
becoming aware of the false knowledge, distorted
assumptions and self-destructive presuppositions
12 Discussion or discourse is essential for design as thought.
To challenge a lifeworld, problems have to be set which
induce shifts in thought, in motivation and so in lifeworlds.
Criticality can achieve this whether by self or another.
the lifeworld contains when we are confronted with a
particular situation which demands action.’ (Brookfield,
2005, p240) This is when symbolic reproduction takes
place as the assumptions and collected knowledge we
had relied upon cease to serve us in the challenges of
a new situation. The Humanist Learning Relationship
is a site of communicative action. ‘In communicative
action our assumptions and intuitive preunderstandings
are all the time being put to the test as we are asked
tacitly to accept suggestions, justifications and social
arrangements that are presented to us as obvious
facts.’ (Brookfield, 2005, p241) The lifeworld, if not
addressed in learning prevents growth and underpins
conformity, in Habermas’ words ‘in communicative
action, which requires taking yes/no positions to claims
of truth and efficiency, the background knowledge of the
life world is submitted to ongoing tests across its entire
breadth.’ (Habermas, 1987, p321)
14
Models - introduction to theories
Understanding, monitoring and establishing a learning
relationship with a student is complicated, hard work
and is time consuming. Previous research (Harvey,
2010) identified a manifesto for design learning but did
not successfully examine the relationship between the
tutor, Learner ‘T’ and the student, Learner ‘S’ which is
the site of psychological transformation, growth and
significant learning. This paper sets out to map this
relationship which is based on humanist psychological
principles so that it may be useful for educators
working in a design education context. Although this
thesis describes deeply held beliefs about teaching,
learning and design, the one thing it does not set
out to do is instruct. It may be that if these word are
read by design professionals, they may recognise
some of the problems or some of the difficulties of
teaching something as intangible as how to design
something and that is all one can ask because there
are many things written about teaching and learning,
wrong ways and right ways but herein we are dealing
exclusively with design and adults striving to understand
themselves as well the labyrinth of design process.13
13 Even though I am reaching significant conclusions
about design, the Humanist Learning Model, and my
practice, I am by so doing, ganing the confidence to swim
into deeper, rougher waters. Design can not be understood
The above literature review identifies key concepts
which inform the thesis but to recap, the learning
relationship revolves around two people, the student
and the tutor, Learner ‘S’ and Learner ‘T’ and is about
their interaction. Both are considered learners because
each has to embark on a cognitive journey, Learner
‘S’ into the intricacies of creative thinking and practical
problem solving combined with a growing maturity and
adult psychology, whilst Learner ‘T’ has to precipitate
and support this process by learning how best to
encourage it. The relationship between the two people
is called the Humanist Learning Relationship (HLR)
and wholeheartedly embraces the humanist principles
of Rogers and Maslow with the transformative theories
of Mezirow and the critical commentaries of Marcuse,
Habermas and Fromm. The HLR also has the function
of providing a model called the Humanist Reflective
Model (HRM) and both together, the complete thesis
is modelled and called the Humanist Learning Model
(HLM). The discussion will try not to rely solely on
abbreviations.
The prototype model was a reflective template
devised with guiding reflection in mind. (page 15) It
is a little confusing and requires some effort to apply
it to reflective thought, however it did serve to aid
methodologies with case studies of which more later.
The blue squares were positioned to visually separate
as a totality. It is as if moving towards a horizon.
the progression from yellow concepts, through red
to blue but this in hindsight adds to the mistaken
supposition that the process illustrated has a beginning
a middle and an end. However further development
made use of the squares to contain different aspects of
the model. The reflective notes that follow describe the
context for the building of the Humanist Learning Model
as it stands currently.
15
Prototype Humanist Reflective Model.
16
Author’s reflections and thoughts
Throughout the development of this thesis, the author,
in the context of a specialist design pathway on a
Foundation course wrote up notes for case studies
and kept a reflective log. The reflective log is unedited
and tracks changes in thinking and the reasons for
abandoning or continuing with a particular activity or
methodology. They contain also some more personal
notes on the case studies which may not have fitted
tidily into the case study notes themselves. Of note
is the struggle to instigate the practice of Leaner
‘S’ and ‘T’ drawing on the same sheet of paper in-
tutorial. Time unfortunately did not allow for this
experiment to proceed but it is proposed that in the next
academic year it will be fully embraced as a vital part
of the Humanist Learning Model. Also of note is the
abandonment of any attempt to contrast the author’s
design practice with that of the thesis research.
When the tutor leaves the students workstation, the
student is left to consider the time with their tutor.
Rogers in particular is scathing of any procedure
that will potentially undermine trust or empathy in the
relationship between client and therapist but many
lecturers are required to record tutorials on forms.
This is very distracting and was the key determinant in
selecting methodologies for conducting case studies.
Schön is particularly helpful in this context in describing
how for his subjects ‘the graphic world of the sketchpad
is the medium of reflection-in-action.’ (Schön, 1987,
p165) It is very simple. Learner ‘S’ and Learner ‘T’ draw
as they talk and Learner ‘S’ keeps the drawing at the
end of the tutorial. The ‘drawing’ contains thumbnail
sketches, names of practitioners, websites, books,
methodologies, visual possibilities and snatches of
the conversation. The purpose of producing a drawing
whilst the tutorial is in progress is not only to aid
reflection-in-action but also to establish a focus and to
produce a record which can be reflected upon after the
tutorial by both parties.
Reflective Log Semester 3
May 5th 2011This preliminary paragraph introduces the student case
studies at a time when they are severely stressed and
preparing for the end of the course. There has been
a short break both for Easter and for me to hand in
assignments. There are two important developments
connected with this. The first is that there are no
longer any tutorials with the students. They are, at
present installing their work for the final assessment in
the course and have two days left to complete. Work
continues with the case studies and all other students
with this focus in mind. Alex continues to be illusive
but his work is progressing. Cat was seen a few days
ago for the reason that she qualifies for Extenuating
Circumstances but the plan to make very brief notes
during the tutorial was unfortunately forgotten about.
However, there may still be some time to trial this idea
particularly in light of Schön. (See paragraph above)
Staff room conversations between colleagues have
often discussed drawing during tutorials but it seems
that the practice of tutor and tutee both drawing as
a focus for discussing work is a valuable one and
could provide a practical record of the tutorial for both
parties. Schön describes a tutorial in detail between
and architecture student, Petra and her tutor Quist. ‘For
Quist and Petra, the graphic world of the sketchpad
is the medium of reflection in action. Here they can
draw and talk…The act of drawing can be rapid and
spontaneous, but the residual traces are stable. The
designer [both designers, tutor and tutee?] can examine
them at leisure.’ (Schön, 1987, p75)
The prospect of constructing work in the transformed
studio space ‘throws’ most students as they have
little experience of preparing for a public exhibition
and presenting their work to a high and professional
standard. Many revert to ‘A’ level practices as they have
no conception of what ‘professional’ is or means. This
lack of knowledge is not necessarily an inhibitor, but
most students, rather than apply their design education
acquired over the past year to solve the problem, revert
to practices commonly seen on all secondary school
17
notice-boards. For instance, the use of black sugar
paper, drawing pins, etc. This behaviour has simply to
be stamped out.
It seems natural for my team and I to build a group
identity in our pathway specialism. Although the
students are in competition with each other for
university places I do not feel that I should encourage
either my team or the students to take this competition
too seriously.14 Perhaps it is my discomfort with conflict
or aggression which I associate with competition that
makes me want to build a supportive community within
the GiD area. The other team members seem to agree
with my ethos but they understand that they are in
competition with so many other industry professionals
for work. But I do not think it is necessary to make this
industry competition real on the Foundation Course.
Our unofficial motto is ‘Work Hard. Be Nice to People’
from the Anthony Burrel poster. Rogers discusses
Psychological Safety in On Becoming a Person.
(Rogers, 1961, p357) Although in some respects,
what he proposes is impractical in an educational
setting - what I mean to say is that to embrace his
recommendations fully would mean for instance 14 Is this capitalism - comodifying them if I encourage
competition? Even if I belive it is, cooperation above
competition, in my view, encourages collaboration,
partnership and group practices - that are nevertheless
in competition with other groups but it seems a way to
challenge capitalisms insistance on competition and profit.
eliminating assessment so as to provide a ‘climate in
which external evaluation is absent’, (Rogers, 1961,
p357) the fostering of a group identity as separate from
the other pathways seems to benefit the students in a
positive way. For instance on the residential trips they
look after one another. They are always accommodating
and polite to each other, well, for the most part and are
nearly always polite to support staff. They are pleased
to be part of something which they feel is helping them
to engage with the culture of design. I should discuss
psychological safety and also psychological freedom
(Rogers, 1961, p357) more fully in the thesis.
The days immediately before the final project deadline,
when students are installing their work in the exhibition
spaces are strange transitory days where learning
changes to a reliance on the technical skills of the
staff. In some ways this time is the culmination of the
Learning Relationship when both parties are under
pressure and working to a looming deadline. It could
be a test of the Relationship. If it has gone well, both
parties should be communicating easily and the work
should run smoothly and to time. There should be a
deep trust that the staff member is working at the same
level as the student, that is in the utmost best interest of
the student and her work. Learning does not stop when
the studio is dismantled. It continues but the emphasis
is on practical problem solving and reflection happens
very much in action as there is not time to reflect post
event.
Written work for the previous semester established
that the Humanist Reflective Model was either similar
or the same as a model of The Humanist Learning
Relationship. This idea requires further investigation but
Rogers is correct when he criticises how procedures
have been placed between the parties involved with
counselling and teaching. (Rogers, 1961, p52) Schön
talks of design education as having a ‘predicament in
which design, by its very nature cannot be taught by
transference but requires the student to embark on
an enquiry into the unknown. ‘He [the student] must
temporarily abandon much that he already values. If
he comes to the studio with knowledge he considers
useful, he may be asked to unlearn it. If he comes with
a perspective on what is valuable for design, he may
be asked to put it aside.’ (Schön, 1987, p94) Although,
the Humanist Learning Relationship must be mapped
in some way as to make it both useful/functional and
assessable, it must not be formulated in such a way
as to restrict the participants in any way. It must be
liberating rather than binding, so mapping must work
with this concept. The work that has already been done
as far as studying the learning relationship must not be
allowed to colour the objective which is to champion the
humanist approach and facilitate design teachers. It is
becoming increasingly evident that the act of applying
the Humanist Learning Relationship should be one of
18
liberation and enpowerment which begins to infer study
of critical theory.
Schön will be continually referenced in the coming
months because he offers insight into design teaching,
reflection in and on action and the communication
which has to take place between tutor and tutee so
that learning can take place the purpose of this study
is to get to the psychological root of that partnership, to
understand its functioning and disfunctioning so that to
model, in some way, what needs to be established for
the relationship to exist and grow.
May 17th I think it is important to consider originality as a factor
when constructing the Humanist Learning Manifesto
(this could be the working title of the thesis). It is
also important to get to the psychological root of the
Relationship rather than (although it will be necessary
to illustrate how the Learning Relationship facilitates
the mechanisms of learning) concentrating on the
communication and learning processes which result
from the Humanist Learning Relationship.
In the cases of students who are receiving support from
tutors or specialists other than their tutors, the tutor has
a duty to communicate with these sources of support.
These may be Student Services and Learning Support
tutors. however there is a problem of confidentiality
in that neither student or support staff are at liberty to
divulge any information but since the HLR requires that
(all) inhibitors to learning are reflected upon, how can
this problem be framed?
May 31st The opportunity to test the idea for tutorials has now
passed because this years cohort of Foundation
Course students graduate on Friday 3rd June. However
I have decided to test the idea on myself. The re-
branding of the design and educative identity of ‘Stuart
Harvey’ appears to have become an important part
of understanding the conflict, dichotomy and parallels
of Educative and Design practice. The brand of
Lycanthrope appears to fit this concept with its folklore
and inherent sadness of the irreconcilable parts of the
self. So I have decided to conduct a reflective tutorial
with myself to establish where ‘I’m at’ and to trial the
tutorial idea but first a synopsis of the idea.
Tutorials are, as Schön argues, a forum for reflection.
They are the site of operation of the Humanist Learning
Relationship (HLR) but established practice means
two things. First that the tutorial should be recorded.
There are numerous procedures for this, forms and
practices. Second is that the student must be able to
reflect on the tutorial after it is over. She must be able
to remember what was said and the aims set out in
the tutorial, the advice given and support offered. The
case study of Quist and Petra (Schön, 1987, p46-79)
describes the functioning of the design studio and
process but falls short of illustrating the HLR (but Schön
of course did not intend to discuss the relationship
between the tutor and tutee, indeed his tutor is a little
reserved and lacks integrity). What makes this process
fascinating and important to the development of the
HLR is the joint drawing involved in the tutorial. Quist
and Petra draw on the same sheet of paper. What if
this practice as embraced as part of the functioning of
the HLR? Student and tutor could draw not only design
19
will include promotional details and business cards. This
will be screen-printed.
The most pressing matter at the moment is re-
modelling the Humanist Reflective Model so that it
functions as both a reflective model and a model for
the Humanist Learning Relationship. It is constructed
on three squares which are meant to denote three
elements of the reflective praxis but in the original
they are not clearly defined as the model represents
a flow of communication between the tutor and tutee,
identified in the model as Learner ‘S’ for student and
Learner ‘T’ for tutor because both parties are required to
learn. So the task is to define firstly the central system
which is the dynamic system of the actual Learning
Relationship. Next the learning consequences of the
central relationship need to be clearly identified and
grouped together. One consequence is the ‘education’
of both parties in that they understand, empathise
and trust each other but the other result is significant
learning in the student, changes in psychologies, beliefs
and lifeworlds and coping mechanisms for what I am
beginning to term ‘inhibitors’ like autism spectrum
conditions and negative past experiences of education.
Maslow uses the term ‘deficiency’ to denote a belief or
psychology which is blocking growth and it is not clear
as to whether this terminology should be included in
the new models. The point would be to continue to use
the squares but depending on the order and proximity
the functioning of the whole model would be changed.
Perhaps it is becoming too complicated and a simple
set of guidelines would suffice? I think I need to do
some reading.
After some thinking with scraps of paper and mock-
up squares, the model seems a little more complete.
The whole process which consists of establishing a
learning relationship (for which there would still need
to be some guidelines - another square?) and then
guiding the learning which can happen as a result of the
effectiveness of the relationship, which again can result
in a number of applications, is complicated.
The squares help to break the process down into
understandable units. This is simply questioning
whether the original Humanist Reflective Model is
working. Does it say what it should say? Is it addressing
the ideas it should be? This method of using rough
rectangles of paper was also helping to establish if the
new idea of using squares to divide and contain the
variations but lists, aims, objectives, research leads in
fact anything that would mean that the tutorial becomes
deeply reflective and integral to the design process.
Could it take place in the sketchbook of the student?
The first test is to self-tutorial by drawing in a note-book.
The aim is to stay with one page or open spread and
to not turn the page so that all thoughts are recoded in
effect on one sheet of paper.
The results of the test will be summarised in due
course. It seems important that a period of days elapse
before revisiting the tutorial.15
June 23rdMy learning plan for the final semester of the course
includes the completion of the Red Hills Book - a
project which frankly has been dragging on because
it is always put to one side as other tasks take priority.
So far I have done nothing to further this aim but I am
confident that I shall. The project is designed so that I
can ink-jet print the main pages. The cover will function
as it should but will also contain a fold out section which
15 I think in adult learning, reviewing the last tutorial is
condescending and seems to undermine trust. It did not
seem necessary to do this in my self-tutorial. It felt like
going backwards. Thinking had moved on. The drawing still
maintains its function of being a focus for the tutorial and
records thought processes at the time. I suppose in some
cases looking back at what happened will be useful but it
does not have to be a hard and fast rule.
20
elements of the model will work.
In this version both learners are separated but this These are mock ups of the original Humanist Reflective
Model clarified into three squares which represent the
actual Learning Relationship, learning for growth and
applied learning. Applied learning also feeds back to
As above but asking questions about the order of the
squares.
approach does not seem to fit since the whole concept
is about the interaction of Learner ‘T’ and Learner ‘S’.
Top middle has had Design Processing and Self
Evaluation added to it. It is essential to remember that
the completed model is intended for the design studio
and hopefully design-like educational processes.
both learners and the red inhibitors Autism Spectrum
and Past Negative Experiences (of education) are
addressed by learning resulting from the Relationship
and growth squares. The reflection and confidence
ensuing positively affects the psychologies-growth
cycle.
With the addition of what seem relevant test notes from
the other tests.
21
The test pieces have been made more square-like and
refined. So here self reflection is represented with a
square on which appear two Learner ‘S’s, a Maslow
square, a square which is almost like the learning
outcomes of the whole process and a square outlining
the qualities of the Humanist Learning Relationship.
to do because they take place on Thursdays when
I am working. The first was during a weeks break
and the second was on a day when as a member
of the University and College Union, I was on strike.
This classroom consisted of just my tutor and I so it
functioned as an hour long tutorial towards the end of
which he asked me about my motivations for embarking
on this body of research. Where was it going to get me?
I found this a difficult question to answer because apart
from making me a better teacher (I have real problems
using this title because actually the HRM is designed
to make better learners), I do not know where it will
take me. I don’t know the answer. Anyway here is my
response to the problem.
It seems unnecessary even self-indulgent to consider
ones own motivations and career aims when designing
a learning model for the education of young designers.
Professional possibilities, the future, seem very unclear,
even confusing because the journey to this point has
been unplanned. It is possible that the emphasis on
the belief that ‘other people’ have been responsible
for career choices has highlighted a lassitude towards
any personal ambition. There is a very clear aim when
working with young designers and that is to produce
thoughtful critical people who are more or less able
to solve the problems that life might put in their way.
Before addressing the problem of personal ambition,
it seems appropriate to wonder about the challenges
which might require a humanist learning model. The
main one is the squeeze on funding which will mean
eventually that lecturing staff will be able to spend less
time than at present with the students. The benefits of
a structure that will enable them to quickly establish a
learning relationship so that reflection and evaluative
thought is ‘up and running’ so to speak cannot be
doubted.
So what are the possibilities for the HLR in terms of
professional development and how can it be used
to illuminate a way forward in terms of professional
ambition? If the Humanist Reflective model is supposed
to be used for re-appraising problems through reflection
and it has a self-learning application, it should aid the
identification of personal goals and ambitions. I am
going to make an excuse, however, because I do not
know where my career is going and at the end of an
academic year I feel depressed, tired, burnt out and
feel a sense of loss but I always feel like this at the
end of a year. To research and develop a humanistic
learning model means that being involved with learning,
particularly design learning, is something extremely
valuable. When many teachers start to think about
course management and relinquishing contact for admin
in order to take on greater responsibility, the study of a
learning methodology means this is not a direction to be
contemplated. Perhaps roles which involve overseeing
a year group, as now, can be considered but perhaps
Here, the expected colour coding has been added.
Yellow represents elements which pertain directly
to the Learning Relationship. Orange represents
the transformation of the qualities of the Learning
Relationship to its effects in the growth-psychologies
cycle. Red represents psychologies and ‘D’ motivations.
Purple represents applied learning. Possibly Design
Processing should be added to the Red square which
contains Peak Experiences and should be coloured
Purple. This thinking may be subject to change because
my feeling is that it is not quite there yet.
July 3rd I was able to join two virtual classrooms recently which
has been something I have never before been able
22
at a higher and more prestigious academic level. But
the problem remains as to a creative practice. I have
dreams…
It may be necessary to adopt some pragmatism and
aim to secure some commercial work as soon as this
current phase of study is complete. If the contemplation
of never giving up on creative practice is too much
to bear, then perhaps more effort should be made to
embrace ambitions in developing a specialist graphic
design, landscape interpretation practice. The HRM
is for guiding reflection-in-action so time should not
be spent reflecting on how to initiate action. In other
words, ‘just get on with it’. There is much capital as an
educator in having a design practice and after all it is
the reasonable belief that one cannot teach what one
does not know - and to know is to do.16
July 17th Although it has been established that participating in
design informs learning in the Humanist Models herein
developed, the practicalities of continuing with the Red
16 The role of a tutor is to throw the proverbial spanner.
If a tutor had not forced me to consider my own learning, I
would not have considered postponing The Red Hills Book
positively. I cannot say that I am considering my learning in
conjunction with my students but rather juxtaposed with it.
The development of a model for student learning (although
there are two learners in the model) and the falling of time
means that as a consequence of developing the HLM, I am
transformed, my thought is being freed.
Hills Book at present seem very difficult to manage. It
seems more realistic to continue ‘designing’ the two
models - I have begun to realise that that is what I
am doing. To begin with I accepted that I was simply
discussing and modelling something that was already
there, and in some ways it is because I use some of
the techniques in my educative practice but perhaps I
am designing something new. The processes involved
do feel like the processes involved in design. It seems
strange and cyclical. The aim of building a practice
based on the completion of the Red Hills Book must
remain however - if only for my sanity.17
Development
The reflective log above outlines the problem of the
prototype Humanist Learning Model in that it plainly
requires more elements because it simply does not
describe the Humanist Learning Relationship in real life.
It seemed to describe peripheral cognitive processes
and did not address the core of the Relationship. The
following represent the refinement of the model, aspects
of the model contained within squares in which these
aspects relate. They are colour coded also.
17 It is the correct decision to postpone The Red Hills Book.
I had proposed completing it but it is more important to
continue and see through this process which is transforming
thought. From this new position I will look again at the long
postponed project.
LifeworldThe squares do not really have an order but this is the
first square, modified by placing the wording in side,
contained within it. The square represents both learners
influencing lifeworld and preconceptions to precipitate
learning.
23
PsychologiesThe second square addresses the cyclical influences at
work between growth and deficiency, those motivations
which inhibit learning and those that promote it.
Applying LearningThe third original square includes severe inhibitors
to learning but also represents that learning can be
applied even under extreme circumstances provided the
Humanist Learning Relationship is operating effectively.
CongruenceThis is the square that describes the core of the
Humanist Learning Relationship, the conditions which
have to exist for deep and significant learning to occur.
The task of Learner ‘T’ is to create this climate in which
Learner ‘S’ (and indeed Learner ‘T’) feel psychologically
safe and that trust exists between the two.
24
Reflective/PracticalThis square addresses being and growth through critical
reflection and growing criticality resulting in practical
problem solving in design problems and life situations.
MotivationsBeing or growth and deficit or deficiency, applied to
beliefs, which relate to the lifeworld and psychologies
or motivations. The effects on learning speaks for
themselves but Learner ‘T’ has to be aware of all
these elements. In extreme cases there can be ethical
problems because Learner ‘T’ may need to be in
possession of information that Learner ‘S’ has disclosed
to another party, for instance a student counsellor.
Learner ‘T’ must maintain the utmost level of trust in the
relationship under these circumstances.
MetacognitionThe Humanist Learning Model is a guide to reflective
practice and here Learner ‘T’ has become another
Learner ‘S’ engaged in deep critical reflection and
autoethnography resulting in meta cognitive learning.
Also learner ‘S’ is able to look back at him or herself to
reflect objectively on thoughts and actions.
25
In the original this was intended to illuminate a flow
through the diagram but perhaps the Model is not meant
to be read as any sort of progression. The colours now
signify relationships. Note all the backgrounds are
washes rather than solid colours. This seemed to make
for more ‘human’ feeling visuals.
Case Studies
It is with some regret that the plan of making ‘drawings’
during the tutorial as discussed above was not tested
at all but the author is greatly optimistic that this
methodology can be tested and refined during the
next academic year. Reflecting, post tutorial appears
to have provided some useful insights but there can
be no doubting the potential of having ‘drawings’ on
which to reflect also. (It is envisaged that the drawings
will be made on an A4 layout pad and photocopied,
Learner ‘T’ keeping a copy for planning Learner ‘S’s
future tutorials and for reflection. To please the record
keeping protocols, the copy can be kept in the students’
record cards.) It will be noted also that the frequency
at which reflection took place, not tutorials, is perhaps
not as rigourous as it could be but nevertheless, the
notes are useful. The dates are the dates when the
notes were made. It is important to point out that these
notes cannot be concluded in themselves because the
experience of making them, and reflection inspired by
them, informed for a major part, the construction of the
Humanist Learning Model. The following are extracts
from the project planning phase and highlight the use of
McNiff (1988) to guide action research.
Tutorials and reflections by the tutor post tutorial
constitute both field notes and interviews. It was
concluded in previous research that taking notes during
tutorials was distracting for both parties and prevented
real reflection in action. (Harvey, 2010) ‘Live interviews
are, however, very valuable in giving immediate
feedback on the enquiry and suggestions for its future.
In this way such conversations are crucial in the
validation of researchers claims that improvement has
taken place.’ (McNiff, 1988, p79) The improvement that
McNiff refers to arises from the ‘Perspectives of Action
Research’ (McNiff, 1988, p2) which provide an effective
structure through which to generate aims and outcomes
for action research. ‘The first perspective describes
the outcomes when a teacher decides to intervene in
his own practice…The second perspective attempts
to identify the criteria of these activities; to formulate
systems that will account for the improvement that is
an anticipated outcome of the self reflective practice.’
(McNiff, 1988, p2)
‘Questionnaires. These are notoriously difficult to create
in order to get the information desired and are liable
to misuse. In an action enquiry, questionnaires will
probably be used in an exploratory fashion to get an
idea of trends. Enquiries conducted in action research
mode are usually to do with values, and it is difficult
to capture the nuances of opinion associated with
questions of value through the precise formulation of
questionnaires. Questions of value often take the form
of “Yes, but…” and this sort of tentativeness is not
accommodated in questionnaires.’ (McNiff, 1988, p78)18
The students names have been changed and all signed
a consent form agreeing to be the subjects of research.
(Appendix One)
Katherine
March 8th 2011Katherine understands the use of sketchbooks and is
beginning to conduct systematic visual experiments
and is thinking reflectively about her research. The
initiation of her project is constituted of a healthy mix of
18 The purpose of producing drawings in a tutorial, (see my
self-tutorial - I call this a drawing even though it comprises
lists and memos) is not really to collect information for
research. It is to record the tutorial for both Learners and to
provide a site of visual interaction but it would also provide
an effective mass of data. The drawing represents where
structure meets the freedom of thought. The paper is the
only structure containing the drawing but it is also free from
institutional procedures because it is not an official form or in
duplicate. It is free from outside influences apart from those
of the two Learners and represents utopian thought and
feedom from capitalism.
26
contextual research and visual testing. It all seems very
confident and sophisticated. She becomes stressed
however, when doubts creep in and she wonders where
it is all going. Her subject matter is her own childhood,
in part, but she knows she will have to bring in new
ideas to augment her main concept which is about her
childhood memories of living all over the world as her
parents travelled and worked. Her doubts concern the
purpose of telling the story. Interestingly she is confident
even when explaining her misgivings. She is reflective
and knows that her conversations with me are part of
this process. Her media play is inventive, thoughtful and
sophisticated but she knows her work will be empty if
she does not work on concepts.
nb. The following have been made with some attempt
to use the prototype Reflective Model, what became the
prototype Learning Model, to contextualise the notes in
terms of the future development of a Humanist Learning
Model.
March 20th
From reflective model. (Abbreviated to RM from now
on.)
Katherine recognises that she must make her idea
relevant to an audience she has identified. She is
interested in mapping and is setting out to investigate
the methodologies of this discipline of graphic design.
It is difficult to tell if she is genuinely accepting advice
from her tutor. She makes affirmative gestures but I am
in doubt as to whether she agrees with my comments.
Her confidence and unique experiences on which
she is drawing so much for her project are her only
constants and maybe inhibiting any thought processes
which may make her project more accessible. However
she believes that putting the hours into her work will
move it forward and has the ability to reflect in action,
maintaining an effective engagement with her practice.
To grow as a person she will have to recognise that her
(privileged) childhood may not have significance for
her intended audience, given that she has identified it.
Although she is capable of engaging reflectively across
media, concepts and intentions, she has yet to develop
a more objective reflective practice which will help her
process these parts of her work. Nevertheless she is
beginning to demonstrate this skill and my conversation
with her should encourage her to think reflectively and
critically.
March 27th RM
I talked to Katherine last Monday to find that the
reticence she had had about working with three
dimensional materials was being exorcised and she
was investigating the possibilities of mapping the
data she was analysing using vacuum forming and
blocks of carefully cut MDF. There was an obvious
inhibitor/motivator at work, the cause of which I could
not pin down but she seems to have recognised this
in the form of a deficiency and then set out to address
what she saw as an irrational belief that she was “not
very good with three dimensional thought”. I suspect
there are two reasons for her actions, the first being
a rapidly developing understanding of her reflective
self and second being an innate belief that a risk is
worth taking. My task is to keep up with her learning,
in a way, because she may lose confidence as she
works more and more with three dimensions. (In
the Graphics Illustration and Digital Media specialist
area it is significant that a student is undertaking
three dimensional work in an area that is perceived
as being a 2D area. However contemporary graphic
design approaches are increasingly addressing three
dimensions). As her practice develops however, her
reflective skill increases and she may be able to
see problems on the horizon and be ready for them.
Perhaps my task is to make sure she is looking for
problems.
May 8thThe construction of Katherine’s work is nearing
completion and she has solved the problems involved
with vacuum forming tiles from acrylic sheet which
represent a quantifiable ‘bit’ of memory. My last tutorial
with her was focussed on how all these tiles would be
assembled to make a Periodic Table of Memories given
the constraints of the exhibition space, the aesthetic
27
of the whole piece and time. A plan was devised to
suspend the tiles on fishing line after considering other
cabling options which were deemed too complicated
and intrusive. There are serious constraints as regards
fixing to the fabric of the building so Katherine’s work
will be suspended between wooden brackets and
beams, painted white against a white wall on which the
title for her work will be applied. This is constructed from
laser-cut acrylic letters.
June 7thDuring the installation of her work it was evident that
Katherine was at once out of her depth technically,
reliant on my experience and also, in contrast to the
expected position one would find a student in this
situation, in control. It took me a few minutes to realize
this. There was much she was unable to do and that
was new to her, in terms of construction and joinery,
but she insisted on understanding what was to happen,
the order things were to happen and when considering
the demands of other students on my time and skills
set. The easy thing about a student like Katherine is
knowing you can push them to do things that make
them very uncomfortable, processes, materials
methods, thought processes but the hard thing is
knowing if they understand the significance of what
you are asking of them. The HLR is crucial in not over
powering the student with new cognitive pathways. It is
not really the tutor who is suggesting that the student
embark on a new process or train of thought but the
HLR. It comes from both tutor and tutee as two parts of
a reflective praxis.
It is easy to say that Katherine is intelligent and highly
reflective but not so easy to say why. Every new
cognitive thread thrown into the circle of beliefs, growth,
psychologies and deficiencies caused growth in the
beliefs of the person and shifts in the psychological
motivations of the person which resulted in significant
and effective learning. She was out of her depth, but not
for long. The brackets she designed which suspended
her work in front of the wall broke when I tried to attach
them to the wall. To her this was intolerable and it was
only at this point that I sensed how stressed she was
but also how controlled she was. For me it was a matter
of a couple of screws but for her it was a major problem.
The HLR here was something she could trust implicitly.
Also before we actually began to assemble the work,
I had to change the location of her work because of
a technicality. This also made her quite stressed but
she trusted my decision and her work was installed
successfully.19
19 The HLR worked because Katherine was very able. She
looked for new problems or risks because she knew that that
is how to change her perception or thinking. Even if she did
not fully understand the mechanism for this she understood
that a risk meant possible failure but could percieve the
learning value in this. Robert, (see below) was not in the
same position. One of my tasks for next year is to use the
HLM to form a more effective relationship with the ‘Roberts’. I
Susan
March 8th 2011Susan crossed her name off my tutorial timetable twice
this week. I do not know why this is but when I had a
spare time slot she was happy to speak. Her concern
was with her sketchbook which she had abandoned in
favour of another, identical one. This was puzzling to me
because there is no reason at all why she should start
again. She said she hated her first ideas and wanted
to make a clean break with them. My explanations of
decision making and evaluation seemed to be of no
interest to her. She seemed worried that she had made
a mistake, was doing it wrong. This is worrying because
she does not understand the principle of evidencing
her thinking at this stage in the course. Perhaps her
ambition for a successful project and good grade have
distracted her from this principle. I must investigate this
with her at our next meeting.
nb. Again RM means the Reflective Model is being
used.
am not sure how to do this at the moment but it could be that
I must emphasis the necessity of seeing them regularly. I do
not blame Robert. It is my fault that he referred (he passed
eventually) and did not take as much from the course as
I would have liked but this does not mean he will not be a
success in the future.
28
March 27th
RM
Last weeks crit. was significant for Susan. She is
interested in multiples and repetition and initially set
out to draw a single object in many variations. Recent
interview experiences and the staff team’s Monday
morning briefings brought it home to her that she
needed to address more in the way of graphic design
problems, namely type and lettering. She correctly
identified a deficiency in her practice but was prevented
from addressing type and lettering directly by her belief
that she had to have something to say, a message
to communicate. The subject of typologies turned
into typographies in the crit and it seemed to those
present that there was a codification at work. Susan
was excited by this, especially when it was suggested
that her multiples could exist in sets of twenty six and
refer to type. When I saw her at a tutorial later she had
started to produce abstract variations of the letter ‘A’ in
a particular typeface by both adding to and subtracting
from its form. This process of actioning a deficiency
motivation has meant that she has addressed a
perceived weakness in her practice but I am not
sure whether she has grown as a graphic designer
as a result. That remains to be seen. She is drawing
motivated and this can prevent her from addressing
communication problems but it is important for me to
allow this process to take her in the direction of practical
type treatments which may say something about
typographic communication in the concluding processes
of her project.
April 3rd Recently Susan spoke to one of my colleagues. This
is normal practice and it is healthy for the students
to talk to more than one tutor. This time, however
Susan wanted to change the direction of her work. The
typographic element to her investigation, as relayed to
me by the colleague who had spoken to her was to be
abandoned in favour of a purely illustrative investigation
of repetition. I will be seeing Susan after the end of
term, two week break so cannot comment but I will not
be able to challenge this direction so near to the end of
the course. I wonder if she is avoiding my input because
it challenged her own point of view? She has applied
to a graphic design course but her work is illustration
(although I do not subscribe to these two disciplines as
being absolutes). It is common that students will seek
an alternative opinion if it disagrees with their own. I
have to be aware that she might be right, that she is
‘glimpsing her lifeworld’ and instigating growth because
the process if avoiding me is a ‘B’ motivation. But I am
suspicious.
nb. I did not trust her a self-directed learner and I felt
betrayed. This is inexcusable and very selfish.
May 5th At Susan’s final tutorial before the students are due
to begin preparing for the End of Year Show and
assessment, we reviewed progress of here project
which had the predisposition to ramble and lose
direction. Indeed, Susan felt that this was the case.
When looking through her note books however, it was
obvious that there was a sensitivity to linguistics which
she could not see the potential of. So we discussed
this in the context of graphic design as previously I
had worried that she was too illustration focussed and
was not thinking in terms of communication and not
exploring how type would accompany her images. The
word games she was hinting at were humourous, dry
and intervened with her drawings simply and inventively.
I was troubled however because she could not see
the connection between the type, some of it made with
wood block letter-press, and the mixed media images.
In this instance, within the context of the tutorial I
insisted that she look up semiotics and continue to find
links between type and image. For instance she had
deliberately spelt pear, paer and had thought about hare
and pair.
June 12th Normally, perhaps at an earlier stage in the course,
I would have tried to instigate reflection-in-tutorial so
that the student would come to realise the possibilities
staring at me from her note-book but with Susan at
29
this late point in the project I decided to risk being
prescriptive in the hope that she would learn-in-action.
Perhaps there is a (simple?) relationship which can be
applied here? Since the student is not aware of what
she is doing, from a theoretical point of view, the tutors
knowledge can come into play. The tutor must facilitate
the student in researching the theoretical point. In
Susan’s case she was losing confidence in her ability,
losing momentum, confidence in her manual skills and
beginning a downward dip in motivation which must be
interrupted. The relationship between psychologies,
deficiencies, beliefs and growth is changed by the
interjection of new material, new knowledge or a new
growth motivator, in this case a look at semiotics.
She emailed me around the time that final products
were being outputted and printed, extremely worried
that her screen and letterpress prints were not
achieving the finish she wanted. Curiously she had not
contemplated digital methods but that is what I advised.
It may be that the same thing was happening again,
a loss of confidence and growth motivation causing a
deficient psychology which prevented her from problem
solving.
At the assessment it was commented that the way
she had hung her work was exemplary, each small
pin precisely positioned at the edges of the prints.
She achieved a Distinction which actually surprised
me because I though she would receive a Merit but
her work encouraged a slow read which began to
make sense as the assessors thought through it - like
osmosis. This is something many graphic designers aim
for. Perhaps I should give Susan credit for achieving
this but I am not convinced she fully understands how
her work operates. This is acceptable at the end of a
Foundation Course, however because my hopes for
her are that she develops this understanding at Degree
level.20
Natalie
March 9th 2011Today I found out that Natalie had not been selected
for interview at Leeds College of Art BA Graphic
Design. She was upset, in tears. She sees every
missed assessment point or forgotten submission as
deep failure - catastrophic failure. She is dyslexic and
has ADHD which makes her both a perfectionist and
unable to focus for lengths of time, unable to organise
efficiently and aware of her perceived inadequacies.
Her learning is greatly affected by her ambition and
20 No matter how empathic and trusting the relationship is,
sometimes the fact that the student wants only to please the
teacher comes into play. If they feel unable to, problems arise
such as avoidance and this will never change. The trust built
in the HLR should mean that any avoidance is short term and
any negative learning consequences are offset. I wonder how
this works in the meata cognitive situation?
her natural (and nurtured) striving for success. Most
students begin to realise that not being selected for a
particular course is not rejection of themselves or their
work, (however older colleagues remember the pain of
these rejections well into their careers) but with Natalie,
these feelings are amplified. I am very worried about
her. I think there may be pressures at home also.
nb. Reflective Model used from here.
March 20th
RM
Last week again Natalie seemed distressed and said
to me “its over” meaning undoubtedly that she thought
she would not succeed on the course and her dream
of a creative career was over. This is not ‘dramatics’. It
is her deep rooted belief that failure is inevitable. She
is heavily reliant on myself and our learning support
tutor Shaun. We informally speak about her but I think
I should be having regular meetings with Shaun so that
our approaches have some coordination. The report
from her crit was that she was floundering under an
immense body of research which was worrying in the
extreme. I decided that I should bolster her confidence
(and I am not sure how my reflective model has helped
me come to that decision because it seems just a
human reaction - I want to make her feel better.)21
21 Pefect. Thinking free of constraints.
30
March 27th
RM
To pin all Natalie’s learning motivations down to
organisation would be simplistic. Her father is a
dominant force in her life and she respects him and
wants to prove to him that she is clever, intelligent
and academically robust. She is all these things. The
student counsellor has spoken to me about how she
needs coping mechanisms to structure her learning and
her life outside of college. I would like our conversations
to affect her self-belief. She should be viewing her
lifeworld from her own perspective. Natalie is the most
complicated of my case studies to reflect on and to
apply a reflective approach to. I am purely attempting
to be genuine and human with her but also offering her
questions which will help her to organise and reflect.
Her autism is compounded by negative educational
experiences at ‘A’ level and pressures from her father.
These have motivated beliefs which are inhibitors and
will not affect growth motivation in her psychology. I
have to over-turn these beliefs so that her learning can
soar. One belief is that her organisational problems
cannot be over-come. She is right in one sense but
there is evidence that organisational structures are
helping her structure her actions and reflection. I
wonder whether this is the key. If I can help her to
organise, that is, super-organise, she can reflect and
progress work within the timescale required.
This week she seemed to be on top of everything but
triggers from any part of her life can erode this state so
quickly. It seems that she can lose her place with her
learning so quickly. I have promised her that I will be
there for her whenever and that she must find me if she
begins to have doubts and find herself in a lost place.
April 3rdRM
Natalie had promised me she would not disappear. This
means that if anything happened that meant she would
not be able to come into college, she would contact
me. However, she disappeared for four days. I saw her
talking to her friend on Thursday evening but I did not
manage to talk to her until Friday when all students
were required to attend a final assessment briefing. It
was plain she was avoiding me but could I be certain
that she thought I was angry with her for breaking our
deal? I invited her to the office for a tutorial as it was
more private than the studio or computer suite where I
eventually found her. The tutorial was effective and we
discussed her project and her aspirations for it. The first
significant piece of information she gave me was that
she may have to move with her family again. This cast
doubt on what she would be able to do next year as far
as taking up a degree place. The second, and by far
the more significant was that she asked that I did not
ask about her home life and that I was just her tutor.
This hurt me because I am convinced that I cannot
facilitate learning unless I understand the whole person,
I understand ‘B’ and ‘D’ motivations. There are events
taking place in her home life that are affecting her
learning and I am unable to know what they are. Do I
need to know? Is it enough to know that they are there?
That she would not, could not confide in me was a blow
but am I being egocentric? Has my fix all theory failed?
Upon reflection it is vitally important that I am supporting
her on her terms and not mine. She did indicate that
she did not want to show weakness in front of me but
she is not weak, she is irrationally hard on herself.
She has to trust me but I must not ask her to confide
in me if this makes her uncomfortable. She may think
that I will judge her. She may just prefer her tutorial
support organised in certain ways that are conducive
to her learning. I have requested that she see me on
Wednesday, because generally she needs to see me
twice a week. The thought that a learning relationship
has been threatened by my selfishness is sickening
and I intend to repair this damage. I cannot identify her
learning deficiencies clearly but I can reflect in action
on her growth motivations - her intellect, her obsessive
tendencies, and her passion for her subject.
June 12th From a point two weeks before the Final Project
deadline, I had the feeling that Natalie was avoiding
me. I had to insist that we have a tutorial. It is observed
that certain students will avoid tutorials of they feel
31
they will not be able to ‘please teacher’ and it may be
the case with Natalie. I also thought that she may have
felt that my tutorial style was too informal or perhaps
too personal, which the HLR is as it has to consider
motivations not immediately associated with the
learning taking place in the studio. Previously she had
asked that I not ask too much of her personal life which
I knew to be difficult particularly her family life. There
is only one course of action in the HLR and that is to
acquiesce. The students’ desires are paramount but
the Humanist Learning facilitator (what an awful title. I
must think about how the teacher can be labelled in the
HLR.) However, it seemed important that I remained
both genuinely understanding of her wishes but also
available if she should wish to talk.
The last tutorial I had with her was to explain that
because of her severe dyslexia etc. she was eligible
for Reasonable Adjustments in which extra time can be
given for her to submit. She seemed greatly relieved
after we negotiated an extension for her. When time
came for her to submit her work she was not ready so
I had to spend a couple of hours with her printing out
and making the final decisions on things like typefaces.
Exasperating but so fascinating.
I am sure that the HRM is applicable to Natalie but I
am unsure of the mechanism which prevents her from
applying learning. In fact, I am unsure of this. It is plain
that her understanding of her subject matter, and I
am talking design here, is profound. Her research is
skilful and thorough and she can interpret research
to high level. Her main deficiency motivation is in
decision-making. So does this mean that she not only
grows as a person but challenges her own beliefs and
lifeworld, changes her psychologies and over-comes
any resistance to change? It may well mean that she
is cycling round the middle section of the model which
means she is reflective but that she cannot apply the
learning which has resulted.
Natalie achieved the grade of Merit. She was ecstatic.
I have mentioned pressures from her father above. He
has requested clarification of her grade.
Robert
March 8th 2011Robert is often difficult to find. His attendance is at
around eighty percent and he misses crits and tutorials
regularly. He has gained two university places and has
some inventive ideas, his project aiming to investigate
with illustration contemporary and historical music
recording. To understand his thought process, it seems
necessary to impose some organisational rules on
him and the way he works in his studio notebooks. For
instance, he has I believe, a drive to draw but this can
be unsystematic and does not set out to solve problems
but is imaginative and intuitive. He draws in the back of
his sketchbook if he thinks that particular drawing has
little relevance to his project work or his wider practice.
My primary task with Robert is to aid his reflection
and learn how this is not happening. Sometimes he
seems very tired and struggles to keep focussed in our
conversations. It is too easy to imagine the distractions
of youth in trying to account for this. My feeling is that
he is unable to reflect effectively and has not developed
an intimate connection with his drawing. He seems lazy,
defaulting to drawing from his head rather than looking
for reference material.
March 20thA recent crit which was lead by one of my colleagues,
has had some effect on Robert. He was spoken to firmly
and accused of laziness in that he did not research for
his drawing and did not put the hours into developing
technically. This surprised me because I took a softer
approach with him although I am glad that Matt, an
illustrator by profession, has spoken to him in this
way. Matt cannot stand lazy drawing. However, I feel
it is my task to deal with Robert’s inhibitors so that our
conversations start to affect his reflective processes.
The students do not want me to intrude into their
thoughts or lives but I think I must without demanding
personal disclosures - and I mean both the serious kind
and others, like relationships with parents etc. I have no
evidence that Robert has serious problems. He knows
32
he is struggling with his Final Project though. I manage
to talk to him regularly I think we can affect his learning
by challenging the way he processes his drawing, the
way he thinks about it when he is doing it, reflection in
action. That will be my line of questioning when I next
see him.
May 5th Are my worries allayed?
He seems to be working hard but does his work have
the invention I am looking for?
Can it be said that I have not done my best to nurture
the learning relationship with Robert?
How can the relationship be summed up - or can it be
summed up at this stage?
May 15th I know at this stage in the course that Robert has
referred on his Final Project assessment. This makes
me question whether I have failed him and in some way
I have. It is easy to argue that Robert may not have
been my most able student and that he was a little
lazy or unmotivated but it is my duty to find out why
he has these inhibitors. Where the Humanist Learning
Relationship breaks down is that it requires that the
student and tutor must see each other regularly so
that the relationship can be fuelled by the developing
communication and trust. The fact remains that I did not
manage to see him the week before the deadline even
though he was in college. It may be that he saw me as
a derailing influence rather than a supporting influence.
Even so, it is still my duty to make sure he sees me. It
could be argued that his learning style has meant that
he could not complete his learning by the final project
deadline and that the Referral system is there for
people like Robert. At least I can give him some efficient
one to one time after the end of the course. It has
been difficult to establish the relationship with Robert
because of his tendency to avoid me but one of my
aims as a teacher is to reach this type of student.
June 7th It is certain now that Robert has referred Unit 7, the
Final Project unit. For reasons of his own he was not
at the awards ceremony and so did not pick up his
results. Nether did he come into college to remove his
work from the End of Year Show. I have emailed him to
tell him his results (because the phone number on his
record card does not work) and to remind him to discuss
how he can re-submit so that he will eventually pass the
course. Not wanting to leave to chance the possibility
that Robert may not understand that a referral means
the opportunity to re-submit I emailed him again. The
transcript of the communications are below.
-----Original Message-----
From: Robert
[mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Sat 6/4/2011 5:17 PM
To: Stuart Harvey
Subject: Collecting Work
Hi Stu, hope you are well, due to unforeseen
circumstances i was unable to
come into college on thurday and friday, so was unable
to collect both my
work and my results, is there any possibility that i would
be able to get
these tomorrow some time , or has the old work already
been removed from the
spaces. Regards Robert
From: Stuart Harvey
Sent: Sun 6/5/2011 3:56 PM
To: Robert
Subject: RE: Collecting Work
Hello Robert
All remaining work is in room 170 now.
You’d best come and see me on Monday because I’m
afraid you referred Unit 7. I am unavailable Tuesday,
Wednesday Thursday because of meetings and am out
of the office on Friday. You need a tutorial to discuss
what to re-submit.
Regards
Stuart
33
From: Stuart Harvey
Sent: Tues 7/6/2011 8:13 PM
To: Robert
Subject: RE: Collecting Work
Hello Robert
I’m not sure if you understand that if you re-submit you
can pass the course. Any offer from Universities is not
affected by your referral, so long as you submit your
referral work which is agreed with me. I can see you on
Friday now because I no longer need to go to London.
Don’t leave it too long Robert. Your referral work must
be submitted by 30th June.
Call me if you need to but come in on Friday.
Regards
Stu
The notion that I have failed him remains. It is possible
that he may have referred on a technicality, namely
not submitting his critical journal (the written element
of the project). However he was warned that this was
something he needed to put more effort into. Written
language was not his strong point but he convinced me
that he was ‘OK’ with his critical journal. He may not
have trusted me but I cannot pin point the epicentre
of any mistrust. To me the Learning Relationship has
failed because he did not pass the course. If it had
been successful his belief motivations would have
been influenced but to the last his apparent lassitude
prevailed. There is so much I do not know about him
but he did not trust me enough to ask for help with
his project. In the middle of his project Robert was
beginning to understand the significance of everything
he drew, even though it was difficult for him to research
and find references for his drawings. The crafting of the
drawings was mature however. At this point I thought he
was beginning to understand the necessity of research
and process in drawings but I was wrong.
With Robert I am perplexed. I have one last tutorial
with him, I hope in which I aim to try to discover a clue
as to why his learning was flawed. As soon as I write
‘flawed’ I realise this is inaccurate because I think he
was learning but not in the way the course asks him to.
This is difficult because the course teaches design and
is predominantly constituted of sound practices. We
will see but I cannot conclude Robert’s file until I have
worked successfully with him.
Zoe
March 10th Zoe is struggling to build momentum in her final
project for the Foundation Course. She has decided
to research neurology and has done a reasonable
and thorough job in assembling some useful source
material. Her choice for the next three years is graphic
design and so her task now is to identify the intention
of her project and the means through which she will
communicate her message. Not easy with such a
complex theme. She admits that she does not know
what she is doing or where her project is going to go,
which, on one hand is good at this research stage of
her project. Zoe is bright, intelligent and individual. She
lacks confidence in her own reasoning powers but has
produced some sophisticated resolutions to the set
briefs she has worked with in the GiD specialist area.
Our last conversation was as a result of the tutorial the
same week. She had not figured out how she wanted
to use the theme of neurology to investigate graphic
design problems or how she would initiate some visual
research. My line of questioning was to probe her
for why she had chosen neurology ion the first place
and what her real interest was but she is unable or
unwilling to enlighten me. In previous conversations
she has ‘closed down’ when she has not wanted to
discuss something or at the thought of having to explain
34
her motivations for attempting a piece of work or a
visual line of enquiry but this time she closed down
altogether. I felt that something critical was happening
and took her aside to another small private seminar
room but to no avail. In the end I decided to leave
her alone and not pressure her to explain her work.
She will be attending a crit chaired by me and I do not
know how to approach her now. It is imperative that
I find a way to communicate with her, hence my off
plan inclusion in my case studies. (I had intended and
had started to use another student but this incident
made me change to Zoe.) My only plan at the moment
is to reflect so that perhaps I can work through the
problem. Since, I propose that both student and tutor
must learn through a dialogue and relationship forged
in the studio and seminar room, when that dialogue is
threatened, action must be taken. But what action? At
the moment I only wish to talk to Zoe on a social level
so that any discussion of her work is left to one side
for a short period of time but she understands that I
do not disapprove in any way what so ever of her as a
person. It is important that she understands that she
can approach me when she is ready.
March 27th RM
My action was to make sure I was not judging her in
any way. So I made a point of saying good morning
to her and talking to her about her friend, another
tutee of mine who was struggling with some aspects
of her progression. In some ways this goes against
my decision to always be genuine. If I am angry with
her, why should I not show it? Rogers insists that we
are genuine with our emotions in the presence of the
client (quotation) but, in a situation where time is not
a resource, other actions must be taken. (This is an
important point in my personal humanist philosophy
of learning. I have adapted my behaviour in response
to the student, based on reflective processes, so that
the student has ‘space’ to reflect and knows without
doubt that her tutor is not judging her and continues to
be on her side.) It transpired that Zoe and her friend
discovered that I was at a concert that they had both
attended. This appears to have changed the way Zoe
approached me, which she did later in the week, to
consult me as to some new ideas. I had also decided
that I would encourage her peers to feedback to her
as much as I could in the crit. which took place on
the Monday morning. This further allowed me to step
back from her work so as to take pressure away from
her. Was she feeling that she was not achieving the
standards I expected from her? Zoe asked me to talk
to her late on Thursday afternoon, after 4pm when I
usually finish teaching but I am always happy to talk to
them after time. Her project had progressed in terms
of concepts, considerably because she had decided
that neurotoxins were where she wanted to focus.
She had discovered that substances that are known
to be essential for life can become toxins if taken in
high concentrations, for instance vitamin A. Moreover,
our conversation was free flowing and comfortable
with some humourous moments. Both parties seemed
pleased with the new state of affairs.
May 8th I regularly make visits to the Printroom because
many Graphics student can be regularly found there.
Zoe’s project will consist of a printed booklet so she
is also to be found in the Printroom. She seems much
happier and will enthusiastically chat or discuss her
work with me when I visit the Printroom. She will talk
about a technical aspect of registration, of the quality
and transparency of the stock on which she is screen
printing or the colour palette she has chosen. I wonder
whether she has discovered her capacity to think in
action and reflect in action? I observed that she seemed
unworried by the tasks ahead of her and the impending
deadline. She explained that she was only worried
when she was worried about her work. At the moment
she said she was not worrying about her work so she
was not worried.
nb. This is a case where ‘D’ Motivation is precipitating
reflection in action and thus it becomes a ‘B’ Motivation
as Zoe achieves significant learning.
35
June 7th I found this perhaps, inaccurate description of a
complex set of cognitive processes and reflections
she was experiencing fascinating and have tried
to understand this with reference to the HRM.
(Humanist Reflective Model. Also Humanist Learning
Relationship has become HLR) I wonder whether she
has discovered what my team and I advise, being that
to do nothing was to not solve the problem but to do
anything, something, a different action, a change of
process meant a change in thinking would occur which
may help to work through the problem. The HLR is
there to underpin this process of reflection in action. It
is not directly involved. This would inhibit the cognitive
processing which leads to reflection. It simply needs to
be there. It is like a safety net. When I meet Zoe in the
Printroom, the HLR we share, means that I can accept
whatever she is doing without question, advise, ask
her how she is feeling and receive an interesting reply,
affirm that I am intensely and genuinely interested in
what she is doing and leave her to continue.
Before this, Zoe came to see me twice on consecutive
Thursday evenings when I am often in college. I could
not give her my complete attention because I was with
a colleague but both times she talked in detail about her
project. I cannot turn my students away and perhaps I
should but at this point she was eager to demonstrate
that she needed my input. I was not comfortable with
her doing this because she should not have to but we
had had a curious tutorial where she had been vague
and distracted. Perhaps she should have the right to do
this after all.
Zoe’s beliefs have evolved so that she thinks as she is
making. This has motivated her to attempt a complex
print project but has also affirmed for her ability to
problem solve. This situation is not so unusual in
design but what is a mature motivating psychology
is the realisation that significant thinking functions at
a deep level whilst producing or making. I hope Zoe
realizes this. She achieved the grade of Distinction for
her project but this is in no way a justification for the
success of the HLR.
36
Conclusions
‘The ultimate abstract, analytical thinking, is the greatest
simplification possible, i.e., the formula, the diagram,
the map, the blue print, the schema, the cartoon and
certain types of abstract paintings.’ (Maslow, 1968,
p229) The Humanist Learning Model and its counter-
part The Humanist Learning Relationship are not meant
to be simplified. To visualise one or the other means
to distil and group certain elements so that a model, a
diagram can be applied to a real life situation. The aim
of this is to give the educator who assumes the role of
Learner ‘T’ and possibly even Learner ‘S’ the means to
nurture the many Humanist Learning Relationships that
have to be formed in the average tutorial group. It is
the expressed intention not to make a definitive model
because although there are certain elements which
will always occur in Humanist Learning Relationship,
Congruence being the most important, the model has to
deal with people, and as the above case studies have
demonstrated, no two learning relationships are alike.
By manipulating the squares or ‘Elements’ in Adobe
Illustrator it is possible to find combinations which
describe many aspects of a Humanist Learning
Relationship, to reflect on how the elements apply to
real life situations and two reflect on how the elements
influence one another. It is envisaged that the HLM
Elements be made available so that educators can
download and print them out or manipulate them in
Illustrator (or even Buzan’s mind mapping application)
using simple arrows to examine how the Elements
influence each other. For instance, the Humanist
Learning Relationship can be modelled with particular
emphasis on ‘B’ and ‘D’ motivations or reflective and
practical processes.
This thesis attempts to prove that learning design
depends on a good relationship between tutor and
tutee, that learning design is inextricably linked with
personal growth and becoming critical and thirdly that
learning can be framed within the HLM if Humanist
principles are adopted. The Model does not assume
that any tutor or lecturer has one or half a dozen
students to see in a week. That is all well and good if
this is the case but realistically Learner ‘T’ interacts
with many more, each student engaging in one to one
contact for as little as twenty minutes and no more
than an hour and a half per week. The Humanist
Learning Model is an aid to establishing and nurturing
the Humanist Learning Relationship which will mean
significant, effective learning, the Elements allowing
what is going on in the studio and tutorial to be reflected
upon. No one is saying that at the end of every day,
educators should meditate on the Elements. This is
simply not practical but perhaps from time to time they
may find it useful.22
22 What about meta cognition, me on my own? What do
The aim to develop something like the Humanist
Learning Model, the case studies and developing the
Elements and diagrams, has crystallised for the author
the theory that learning, particularly in design benefits
from these approaches. It has taken two years to reach
this conclusion and the thesis was tested to some
extent over the course of academic year 2010/11 but
next year will provide a more complete testing ground
as the thesis was not formulated until near the end of
10/11. As for a final conclusion it seems appropriate
to set out the thesis in conjunction with the Elements
in succinct terms - a manifesto if you will. Following
this there are six experiements with the layout of
the Humaist Learning Model elements containing
explanations which are brief but aim not to be over-
explanatory. It only remains to put the Humanist
Learning Model into practice.
I need as a learner? And now where? I asked the above
questions and then thought that I would rephrase to ask
what do I need as a designer? The proverbial spanner most
definately but also some time to apply my learning, apply my
theories. I am not sure that I have had so many ‘realisations’
over the past three years so I will look for more. Last year
I realised that design could for-arm the person against
capitalism. This year it has released my world view from the
problem of design and productivity. Design is nothing to do
with consumerism and is capable of undermining it. Design is
pure thought.
37
Humanist Learning Manifesto
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40
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Design Educate Liberate II BibliographyBarton, Susan (1998) Bright Solutions for Dyslexia, Inc. available at http://www.dys-add.com/symptoms.html - gifts last accessed August 1st 2011
Brookfield, Stephen, D, (2005) The Power of Critical Theory – Liberating Adult Learning and Teaching. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.
Brookfield, S. & Preskill, S. (1999) Discussion as a Way of Teaching: Tools and Techniques for Democratic Classrooms. Josey-Bass, San Francisco,
British Council, Undergraduate Courses: Entrance Requirements - subject specific available at http://www.britishcouncil.org/portugal-educacao-licenciaturas-requisitos-adicionais.htm last accessed July 31st 2011
Cohen, Norman, H., (1995) Mentoring Adult Learners: A Guide for Educators and Trainers, Krieger Publishing Company, Florida.
Foucault, Michael, (1977) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Vintage Books, New York.
Fry, Tony, (1999) A New Design Philosophy: An Introduction to Defuturing, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney.
Groys, Boris, (2009) Education by Infection in Madoff, Steven Henry, ed. (2009) Art School: Propositions for the 21st Century, MIT Press, p26 - 32.
Habermas, Jurgen, (1987) The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve Lectures. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Harvey, S. (2010) Design - Educate - Liberate: A Manifesto for Design Education, available athttp://issuu.com/lycanthropedesign/docs/design-educate-liberate last accessed August 23rd 2011
Heidegger, M, 1968, What is called thinking? Hater Torchbooks, New York.
Hilpern, Kate, (2010) Art: There are a huge range of art courses, but which one is best for you? The Independent on Sunday, July 30th 2010, available at http://www.independent.co.uk/student/into-university/az-degrees/art-1630750.html last accessed July 31st 2011
Kellner, Douglas, (1989) Critical Theory, Marxism and Modernity, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
Legg, Chris (2006) Review and Evaluation of the
Diploma in Foundation Studies (Art & Design) Learning
Skills Council available at http://readingroom.lsc.gov.
uk/lsc/National/Review_and_Evaluation_of_FAD.pdf
last accessed 31/7/11
Madoff, Steven Henry, ed. (2009) Art School: Propositions for the 21st Century, MIT Press.
Marcuse, Herbert, (1978), The Aesthetic Dimension: Toward a Critique of Marxist Aesthetics, Beacon Press, Boston, Massachusetts.
Maslow, A. H. (1968) Toward a Psychology of Being: Third Edition 1999. Foreward by Richard Lowry. John Wiley & Sons Inc., New York.
McNiff, J, (1988) Action Research: Principles and Practice, Routeledge, London.
Mezirow, Jack, (1997) Transformative Learning: Theory to Practice, in New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, no. 74, Summer, 1997, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.
Mezirow, Jack & Associates, (2000) Learning as Transformation: Critical Perspectives on a Theory in Progress, Jossey- Bass, San Francisco.
Mezirow, Jack & Associates, (1990) Fostering Critical Reflection in Adulthood: A Guide to Transformative and Emancipatory Learning, Jossey-Bass Inc., San Francisco.
Moon, Jennifer A, (1999), Reflection in Learning & Professional Development – Theory & Practice, Kogan Page Limited, RoutledgeFalmer, NY
Owen, Chris, (2003) Firm Foundations: The Process Continues, in Miller, Corinne, (2003) Behind the Mosaic: One Hundred Years of Art Education, Leeds Museums & Galleries.
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Rogers, Carl, 1961, On Becoming a Person – A therapists View of Psychotherapy, Houghton Mifflin Co.,Boston, New York.
Rogers, Carl, 1969 Freedom to Learn, Charles E Merrill, Ohio.
Rogers, Carl; Frieberg, H. Jerome, 1994, Freedom to Learn – Third Edition, Prentice Hall, New Jersey
Schön, Donald, A., (1987) Educating The Reflective Practitioner, Jossey-Bass: A Wiley Imprint, San Francisco
Further ReadingAustin, J., & Hickey, A., (2007) Autoethnography and Teacher Development in International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences, Volume 2, Number 2, Common Ground Publishing, Melbourne.
Bauman, G, (1996) Contesting Culture, Cambridge University Press, Canbridge in Holliday, A., Hyde M., & Kullman, J., (2010) Intercultural Communication: an advanced resource book for students, Routledge, Oxon.
Ehmann, Debra (2005) Making a Difference: 2005 Evaluations and Assessment Conference. 30 November-1 December, Sydney. Using Assessment to Engage Graphic Design Students in their Learning Experience Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australiahttp://www.iml.uts.edu.au/EAC2005/papers/Ehmann2005.pdf
Fiedler, Jeannine, Feierabend, Peter, 1999, Bauhaus, Könemann Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Cologne.
Fiske, S.T., Gilbert, D.T., & Lindzey, G., (1998) Handbook of Social Psychology; Fifth Edition, Volume 2, John Wiley & Sons, New Jersey.
Hickman, R, (2007), (In Defense of) whippet-fancying and other vices: Re-evaluating assessment in art and design, In Rayment, T. ed. (2007) The Problem of Assessment in Art & Design, Intellects Books, University of Chicago Press.
Holliday, A., Hyde M., & Kullman, J., (2010) Intercultural Communication: an advanced resource book for students, Routledge, Oxon.
Rayment, T. ed. (2007) The Problem of Assessment in Art & Design, Intellects Books, University of Chicago Press.
Robinson, Ken, (2006) available at TED Talks http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html, last accessed 21/6/2011
Tan, Shaun, Dir. Writer. (2010) The Lost Thing, (Animated Film), Interviewed in Extras, Passion Pictures, Australia
Tschichold, J. (1928) Die Neue Typographie: Ein Handbuch für Zeitmäss Schaffende, Brinkman & Bose, Berlin, Translated by Ruari McLean, (1995) University of California Press, Berkley, Los Angeles and London.
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School of DesignInformed Consent Form for research participant
Title of Study Design - Educate - Liberate II
Person(s) conducting the research Stuart Harvey
Programme of study MA Design Professional Practice
Address of the researcher for correspondence
c/o Leeds College of Art, Foundation Office, Vernon Street, Leeds, LS2 8PH
Telephone 0113 202 8153
Email [email protected]
Description of the broad nature of the research
Investigation of one to one teaching paying particular attention to humanist psychological methodology in a learning and growth context.
Description of the involvement expected of participants including the broad nature of questions to be answered or events to be observed or activities to be undertaken, and the expected time commitment
Questionnaires aim to assess the tutor - tutee relationship with a view to future action research aimed at collecting data about the learning relationship and assessing its efficacy. Further research will involve interviews and notes made about individual students.
Information obtained in this study, including this consent form, will be kept strictly confidential (i.e. will not be passed to others) and anonymous (i.e. individual and organisations will not be identified unless this is expressly excluded in the details given above).
Data obtained through this research will not be reproduced. It will not be used for purposes other than those outlined above without your permission.
Participation is entirely voluntary and participants may withdraw at any time.
By signing this consent form, you are indicating that you fully understand the above information and agree to participate in this study on the basis of the above information.
Participant’s signature Date:
Student’s signature Date:
Please keep one copy of this form for your own records
Appendix One
47
The Humanist Learning Manifesto and Elements are available to print for a small price at:
http://public.fotki.com/Stuart-Harvey/humanist-learning-model/
‘Design-Educate-Liberate: a manifesto for design learning’ is available at:
http://issuu.com/lycanthropedesign/docs/design-educate-liberate
‘Design Educate Liberate II’ is available at:
http://issuu.com/lycanthropedesign/docs/designeducateliberate2
48