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We live in a world that is evolving rapidly. The scale of change we have seen in the last few decades is staggering. Schools today have not kept up with this change and are making students experience a world they are not yet fully prepared for. This leaves many of us wondering if schools are even relevant anymore. However, for most educators the words of systems scientist Peter Senge are reassuring, “Children will always need safe places to learn. They will always need a launching pad to pursue their curiosity into the larger world.”
Today, educators around the world are constantly looking for ways to foster innovation in the school environment. Even as they are constantly trying to understand what the future holds for their young learners, schools are plagued by a monolithic approach that promotes rote learning and standardized testing. Therefore, for schools to retain their glory in the years to come, it is clear that they must change their approach in a way that sparks curiosity and gives learners the necessary skills to tackle the challenges of an unpredictable tomorrow.
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In this context, design thinking emerges as a powerful and transformative tool that can re-energise our schools and empower every learner by promoting 21st century skills, or as it is popularly called, the 6Cs. At its core, design thinking is driven by a human-centred, empathy-driven approach that lays the foundation for innovation, where user-centredness, creativity, collaboration and iterative problem-solving skills are exercised.
Design thinking is a process as well as a mindset. It encourages individuals to understand the needs and perspectives of others, empathize, ideate, prototype and test solutions to address complex challenges. It nurtures entrepreneurship as well as citizenship and humanity in youth who identify unmet needs and imagine new possibilities, turning challenges into opportunities.
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Today’s students must learn to adapt to change with hope and optimism. This is only possible when the design thinking process is adopted from the very beginning.
The active participation of all stakeholders in the school community, including teachers, parents, administrators and the wider community, is crucial to the success of this process.
Teachers are designers themselves and they must understand that education does not mean just solving problems.
math problems or knowing the parts of an organ. It is more about facing challenges, armed with a process of using creativity and critical thinking ability to come up with practical solutions. Teachers can help students tackle real-world problems they experience and/or relate to, such as bullying, finding ways to share limited common spaces, and analyzing excessive use of resources such as water, paper, and electricity to embed a transformative design thinking process.
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These hands-on projects foster curiosity, creative thinking, and environmental awareness, where students interview their peers and/or community members and empathize with their feelings, collectively define the problem, brainstorm ideas, create prototypes, test, and review. This iterative, human-centered process brings the designer and the user together to collaborate, coexist, and thrive as a community of problem solvers, which is the need of the hour in this conflict-ridden world!
Parents play a vital role in their children’s lives and can help support the school by reinforcing the design thinking process through conversations and providing them with opportunities to explore, experiment, and think critically. Parents must remember that if we are to keep the interest in education alive, learning must be student-driven, where their voices and choices are respected. This process can help them build the confidence needed to look at their challenges through the lens of design thinking.
As designer, builder, and educator Emily Pilloton-Lam said, “We as a community must acknowledge that youth are the greatest asset and untapped resource while we imagine a new future”. Administrators and the wider community can support initiatives that promote design thinking. Students can be part of real-world issues such as building bus shelters or cleaning up beaches and water bodies. Learning to design and build using their hands, minds, and hearts opens up new opportunities for young minds, giving them a sense of empowerment towards realizing an idea and finding inclusive, nurturing, and practical solutions.
In conclusion, Design Thinking helps harness the abilities to face the unknown, embrace change, work in diverse teams, and celebrate collective knowledge over the individual with an iterative and experimental mindset. For me, Design Thinking is a way to look at the world with fresh eyes and an open heart! – a powerful combination that is bound to create solutions that are sustainable, inclusive, and adaptable.
(The author Padmini Sambasivam is Principal, Shiv Nadar School, Chennai. The views expressed here are personal.)
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