ECDT Online Journals

My initial thoughts about Equity-Centered Design Thinking are sentiments of intrigue. I’ve been curious about design thinking for years, and have read a few articles and dabbled in it at conferences. When you add the equity-centered piece to this, it totally changes it’s value in a way that I believe it can begin to tip the scales to begin to be more equitable. I say ‘begin’ because I believe that we have a very long way to go to have an equitable society.

The empathy phase is interesting as well and of course essential if we really want to make a change for the positive for those that might benefit. When Nate and I worked together on our cafeteria design sprint on Thursday, I did not take empathy into consideration. I was mostly thinking about how ‘I’ wanted the cafeteria to improve. I have duty with 220 7th and 8th graders two times per week. I was thinking about what I appreciated and wanted for our cafeteria experience. I wasn’t really considering the students at all if I’m being totally honest. I wasn’t empathetic. I wasn’t considering that for our students, this was a chance for a real break, an opportunity to be social and relax as well as a time that might be potentially scary if one didn’t have a group of others that they could connect with during lunch. After another iteration, I began to remember what my cafeteria was like in middle school, and I started to think about what a 12 year old might want during their cafeteria time. My perspective shifted on the design of the cafeteria to be more student centered, and I started to abandon my own desires. When I really considered it, I started to question if the cafeteria suited the desires of the students more, perhaps they would act more appropriately, clean up after themselves, and be kinder to others.

When reading Perspective and the Use of Empathy in Design Thinking by Gasparini, I began to understand the two main aspens of empathy, emotional and cognitive. Only after a second design iteration of our cafeteria did I begin to have a bit of emotional empathy. I began to think about the students I constantly redirect during lunch, and consider how they might be feeling during their lunch. I tried to put myself in the shoes of the students and see the cafeteria as they might. It changed my perspective and my thoughts. Perhaps, and I can only hope, that this changed me too.

I hope that this will mark a new era in my own instructional practice, one of having considerably more empathy for all students I’m designing lessons for. I don’t ever want to forget how it felt to realize that I had not even considered what students might want. I was only thinking about it from my own perspective, when I often feel I am very good at empathizing with others. Perhaps this is true in many situations, but in this design activity I was not empathizing. I was only thinking about how much I detest this 24 minutes of my day, twice per week. My hope is that I will remember this overwhelming feeling each time I design something new for the rest of my teaching career.

Gasparini, A., 2015. Perspective and Use of Empathy in Design Thinking. [online] Research Gate. Available at: <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273126653_Perspective_and_Use_of_Empathy_in_Design_Thinking> [Accessed 5 March 2022].

Textured Teaching by Lorena Escoto Germán

At the end of chapter 1, which was last week’s reading, this quote still rings in my ears. “We are perpetuating these flaws…Once we recognize that education has traditionally been a part of a hate-filled system, we can then begin to acknowledge the need to envision our teaching to dismantle said system.” (Germán, Audible Ch 1) So much of the book so far, including chapter 2 titled Student Drive and Community-Centered focuses on the wrongs in our educational system, and how we can stand up for, learn from and connect with students and our community. I see how broken our systems are here in the US.

Much of the focus in the text has been on BIPOC, systemic oppression and fighting for social justice through empathy and trying a desire to get to know those who might be different than ourselves. I agree that systemically our system is broken and holds huge amounts of people down. However, I take exception to the quote that our education system is part of a hate-filled system. That statement is an extreme statement in my opinion with no room for gray. I would say that most of the educators in our educational system are filled with nothing but love for students. While they may be unaware, I don’t believe that makes them hate-filled or our system hate-filled. That quote just doesn’t leave any room for other perspectives, which I believe is the goal of the book. To me that is troubling, perhaps because I hold that there is a lot more love in the world than hate, although the hate speaks in a much louder voice

Launch by Juliani, A. J. & J. Spencer, J.

The define phase is very important because the tendency is to move too quickly to a solution. The define phase slows us down. We’ve asked some questions, then that leads us into research so we can grasp “an understanding of the systems and key information connected to their problem.” (Spencer, J. & Juliani, AJ., 96) When we have researched and attempted to understand the problem better, we can then begin to generate ideas for a solution. During the define phase, interviews may be carried out to better understand the audience(s), which is another powerful method of research. Structuring class throughout the design thinking process is a way to slow students (or adults for that matter) down, so that they don’t jump to conclusions or solutions that are biased or truly don’t address the problem.

'Geek' is a word that troubles me. Geek or geeking out is used repeatedly in Launch which is troubling in that it has a negative connotation. Although some of us might be proud of being called a geek or nerd, these tend to be used in a derogatory way, and if we truly want to have students’ minds open that they don’t have to have a ‘math’ or a ‘computer science’ or a ‘geek’ mind, we have to stop using these terms or change what connotations they have. I find it interesting that the author uses this type of language, then goes on to the next page (Spencer, J. & Juliani, AJ., 117) to discuss the binary terms of fact and fiction to further explain how students should look for loaded language. Enough said?

Citation:

Germán Lorena Escoto, & Paris, D. (2021). Textured teaching: A framework for culturally sustaining practices. Heinemann.

Spencer, J., & Juliani, A. J. (2016). Launch: Using design thinking to boost creativity and bring out the maker in every student. Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc.

Since we’ve been learning about design thinking and how it relates to equity, I’ve changed. I am starting to see things as I’ve never seen them before. The power of design thinking to be used for radical change is due to its process oriented, iterative nature. When we think of things as “done” or “completed”, there is nothing left to improve upon. But if we see things as always being able to be improved upon, we can continue to make small changes to improve whatever it is we find lacking, small improvements and changes that we then ask others to try out, gaining insight and feedback from them on further potential possibilities for improvement.

As a school, we did a peace project over the past few weeks. We were given a circle and instructed to put our name in it and create an image of peace of our own choosing. On mine, I wrote peace in Latin and in Italian. Then I thought, what about those that can’t see? How can we make this accessible to them? And then I thought about those who couldn’t read? How could they access my image? So I iterated. Here is what I came up with.

I am attempting to model creative confidence with my group of 5th graders in my shared community. I don’t just have them do the peace project. I completed the project with them. I’m proud of my work. It’s inclusive. With the QR code you can hear the message on the left. The message of peace on the right spells out peace in braille. When the final project comes together, all 450 students in our schools’ pictures in black and white up in the entryway to my school, I will add glue dots to my picture so the braille can be read. If I were not in this program, I would not be changed. I wouldn’t even be considering such things. I agree with David Kelly. We have the power to change the world, as hard as it might be.