Bau Wow! A model for creative practice, thinking, learning, research and innovation in the 21st century
Abstract :
This chapter is an attempt to articulate a shared unease about whether art and design in higher education is adequately addressing the creativity agenda as described in The Innovation Gap (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, October 2006). In particular, we wondered if our tried and tested 20th century curricular structures were still effective in a 21st century world.
Very early in our deliberations we identified a shared anxiety about the ways in which our subject and its constituent disciplines are currently described and we questioned the cultures of learning associated with them. We agreed that the term ‘subject’ should describe the overarching configuration of subject titles – art, design, media, communication; while the constituent specialisms – sculpture, graphic design, fashion and so on, should be described as ‘disciplines’.
The Bau-Wow in our title began as an affectionate working title but was, in the end, retained because it seemed both to capture our distinguished pedagogic past and imply art and design’s continuing duty to foster wonderment – our chapter asks if our prevailing educational structures are becoming less able to deliver the unexpected.
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How do we prepare students to engage creatively in the 21st Century – an age of global, fluid and mutable communities where specialist knowledge can be easily accessed and specialist skills can be speedily acquired through new and emerging technologies ?
It was agreed that we need to question these premises :
- In many ways we are preparing the students, and improved links with Creative Industries will also help us to do this.
- There is also uncertainty whether all specialist skills will be so speedily acquired in the future.
- Does learning technical skills hinder or promote creative thinking ?
- It is also clear that learning through making is still a vital stimulus to creativity – especially experimentation at the highest levels of technical skill
We therefore need to start this debate by asking some more questions :
- What skills will be needed in the future ?
- What will be the balance between traditional skills like drawing, and broader creative thinking ?
- Will we still need to know how to make a shoe, in order to design one ?
- Are we just talking about fluidity between art and design specialisms ? Or between art and design and other disciplines ?
- Is creative thinking needed by all in the future workplace, not just designers ?
Are our linear and compartmentalised structures – based on the specificities of ‘level’, ‘specialism’, and ‘department’ – still effective in a highly interactive, highly interconnected 21st century world ?
The Creative Industries still demand specialisms, especially in some particular skills. Students themselves also demand specialist disciplines. They both understand and are excited by achievements within identifiable areas of creative endeavour. Some creative areas lend themselves more easily to interdisciplinary activity than others eg. visual communication / digital media.
The influence of structures throughout the education system which are designed to support individual learning may be the biggest barrier to interdisciplinary work. Some of the restrictions created by intellectual property rights also perhaps need to be challenged by the academic community, as well as by new technologies.
Does the primacy of specialism within our art school structures lock-up expertise and resources and limit the expectations and learning journeys of its students ?
Specialism occurs too soon in all parts of the UK education system. Curriculum structures are based on specialism at school and in FE, as well as at HE level. Faculty, school and subject boundaries also put blinkers on student and staff thinking, and act against interdisciplinary working.
Quality processes, including QAA benchmarks, module outcomes, etc. also act to reinforce boundaries between disciplines. Maybe external agencies could be used to help break down internal boundaries – like some of the interdisciplinary CETLs. Structural hierarchies which give primacy to science and maths from school onward also need to be challenged, in order to give creative thinking the prominent place it deserves in every young person’s education.
Could we develop new educational models that would exploit new creative opportunities in the spaces within and between disciplines ?
Perhaps we have already had this model for many years – the Foundation Diploma in Art & Design. But this is itself under constant threat. Or maybe it is best to develop this interdisciplinary approach at MA level, after specialisation in UG programmes. Is Fine Art actually the most interdisciplinary art and design subject ? Or is this mainly in terms of media, and less evident in its creative methodologies ?
Project based work, allowing individual specialists to work together to solve problems, is a key requirement. These group projects should engage with other disciplines, not just art and design. There is perhaps a need to revise the design of the HE art and design curriculum, in order to encourage group work and group assessment strategies, and to teach group working skills. We also need to find ways to turn pockets of interdisciplinary project based practice - which are often resource-hungry – into practical curriculum delivery methods within our mass education system.
How do we facilitate interdisciplinary learning communities ? Do we need to encourage new ways of using social networking technologies to stimulate group working ? Self-regulating virtual communities like Wikipedia may offer a model here. QAA need to develop less restrictive quality guidelines, so that some degree of mixing between levels and subject benchmarks, and broader less prescriptive learning outcomes, become acceptable.
What might an educational programme aimed at developing creativity, yet released from specialism and level look like ?
There is broad agreement that for most art and design students specialism is still an important base from which to develop interdisciplinary methods of working. There is much to be gained from ‘vertically’ chosen groups for projects – students from different levels as well as disciplines, working together and learning from each other. But there is also caution about the idea of abandoning level altogether. Students need to learn to think laterally and work collaboratively at all stages of their education, from kindergarten onwards. At present, after primary school, these skills often seem to be allowed to wither – with the exception perhaps of the Foundation Diploma course.