500 Words
Why I want to teach Design & Technology
The relevance of Design & Technology as a subject was recently brought into question, with a telling reflection in how its curriculum was rewritten. Based as craft subjects, students were expected to learn a range of technical skills and craftsmanship for practical tasks. Fortunately, a panel of stakeholders challenged this dated mind-set, and have now created a more realistic guideline.
When I think about why I wanted to teach Design & Technology, I think about The Martian, written by Andy Weir. This is an astronaut that specialises in biology and somehow manages to survive on Mars on his own, using his initiative for the most part. He looks at the resources he has and draws on existing knowledge to use it in other ways. Design & Technology may teach technical skills that pupils can use in later life, but it isn’t limited to this. In my own experience, D&T is a multifaceted subject that draws on knowledge from other areas in the curriculum. Without D&T pupils may know how to, but they wouldn’t know why to. They wouldn’t be questioning because in the other subjects the answers are already there. History has already happened, science has its theories and maths has its equations. D&T looks at the resources other subjects have, and improves them.
This generation of students are literally going to be growing in a time never before lived. This year begins the dawn of the Anthropocene era, the human-influenced age. I believe that now more than ever before, students are going to need to know how their actions affect those around them, and the world they live in. There are a number of similarities between these real issues and the national curriculum asking that pupils “design and make products that solve real and relevant problems within a variety of contexts, considering their own and others’ needs, wants and values […] Through the evaluation of past and present design and technology, they develop a critical understanding of its impact on daily life and the wider world”. In 2012 a Dutch teenager combined a school science project with his love of engineering, and is now on a mission to clean plastic pollution from the ocean. This reveals a strength in students that can be unlocked, with the right questions asked.
This idea excites me, and I wish to see students as enthused as I am, whatever area of D&T this comes from. Whether this is biomimicry, graphical communications, or something as simple as watching The Great British Bake Off, as a practitioner I will adapt myself as needed.
Furthermore, I see D&T as an irreplaceable subject, a catalyst for learning to happen; and I wonder how someone could so grossly mistake it for a craft subject? This makes me feel determined to keep D&T relevant, in the projects at school and the discussions in the classroom, to ensure that our future generations are equally inspired by it.
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