re-designs & anarchy

diane celia hodges (dchodges who-is-at interchg.ubc.ca)
Tue, 28 Oct 1997 18:32:54 -0800

At 6:59 PM 10/28/97, Eva Ekeblad wrote:
>Oh yes
>
>imagining I were the architect, I can see fascination both in designing
>buildings freshly and creatively re-designing them.
>
>Strikes me that with people - i.e. not individuals but communities, like
>educational communities
>
>our task is ALWAYS re-design
>
>Would be the scarce situation when an educational community was to be put
>together from scratch, according to some vision of design (including
>"self-design")

this reminds me of an interesting anecdote. Several years ago, I was in a coffee
shop, a struggling 1st-yr undergrad, a dyke-in-drag in a very girlie
teacher-education
program: I was glum and pouring that mood into my coffee,
when an older woman approached me and asked me if I was alright. (!) I
said sure, I was just struggling with school -

and we began to chat about education and reform (how to change the system)-
she was(is) Russian, and Gorbachev was newly in power.

She was both excited
and nervous about the changes, but said that it was necessary for the Russians
to start re-designing their infrastructures - some Russians, she said, thought
Gorbachev was too radical, and that the system would collapse...

and I said that for "real" change to happen, you have to tear down the
existing structures in order to re-build; otherwise, you are just building on
top of rotten foundations. She agreed, quite enthusiastically.

Kind of a rambling way to insert a point about re-design, but
alongside with Eva's thoughts: what would it take to tear down the existing
structures of schools in order to rebuild?
Inner-city schools, all urban-design schools are built, I think, on
rotten foundations. What would it take to start anew?

like, what if there were no classrooms? (Hm. John Dewey-esque workshops and
studios
come to mind...)

diane, letting loose a bit of a babble

>
>Thinking of Peter Smagorinsky's story posted earlier today, too...
>
>Eva

"Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right."
Ani Difranco
*********************************
diane celia hodges
faculty of education
university of british columbia
vancouver, bc canada
tel: (604)-253-4807
email: dchodges who-is-at interchange.ubc.ca