(2012-10-03) Kahl Design Thinking Schooling

Melanie Kahl on building a Schooling Curriculum around Design Thinking. *In this series, we will explore what it means to export various lenses of design in learning settings. From empowerment to empathy and iteration to co-creation–– how might we better illuminate this fertile intersection of design and learning?

Emily Pilloton and Matthew Miller, co-founders of Project H Design, launched Studio H, a “design/build” curriculum to spark student-driven community development through Real World projects in rural North Carolina and Berkeley, California. In the Bertie, North Carolina program, students designed and built parts of their own school and other important structures in the community. In Berkeley, Studio H is headquartered at and integrated into both the learning and community at Realm Charter School.

“At the most basic level, when you are not specifically trying to churn out designers, [design thinking and design] is really about empowerment,” Alex Gilliam said. Empowerment emanates from the dynamic pairing of possibility and agency, ownership and impact, and the right tools and critical thought to make it all happen. *

Jan'2014 update: Emily Pilloton first discovered the rewards of teaching kids to design and build while co-founding Studio H, an innovative high school shop class in Bertie County, N.C., that was featured in If You Build It, a recent documentary that is now playing at the IFC Center in New York and soon to tour the country. The designer-teacher-activist is now running Studio H out of REALM Charter School in Berkeley, Calif., where she has founded Camp H, an innovative after-school and summer design and build camp for 9- to 12-year-old girls.