[Archive] Subject Integrity: When Art Meets Design & Technology

Michelle Gregson, General Secretary and Chief Executive of NSEAD, discusses the relationship between art and design and design and technology education, exploring their distinctiveness while highlighting their shared values and challenges.

• NSEAD operates as a learned society, subject association, and specialist trade union for art and design education
• Both art and design and design and technology subjects face similar challenges of reduced curriculum time and resources
• Michelle describes a "spectrum of practice" where art and design focuses more on internal/artist expression while design and technology addresses external/user needs
• Curriculum "blurring" between subjects is often driven by budget constraints rather than pedagogical innovation
• Both subjects share dispositions like curiosity, critical thinking, and problem-solving but apply them with different intentions
• Creativity exists across both subjects but manifests differently depending on context
• Children lose authentic learning experiences when subjects are narrowed down to what can be taught cheaply
• Education should value children for who they are today, not just as "units of currency for the future"
• Both subjects uniquely give students opportunities to be in control of their learning

Find me at dralisonhardy.com where you can connect with me, support the podcast as a patron, or leave me a voice memo via SpeakPipe with your thoughts or ideas for future episodes.

Chapters

• 0:00 Summer Archive Introduction
• 0:58 Meeting Michelle Gregson from NSEAD
• 5:27 NSEAD's Three-Part Mission
• 8:28 Challenges for Art & Design Education
• 12:26 Blurring Subject Boundaries
• 17:50 Subject Integrity and Distinctness
• 24:00 The Spectrum of Creative Practice
• 32:29 Shared Dispositions and Different Intentions
• 36:40 Creativity Across Subject Areas
• 43:20 Education's Purpose Beyond Future Economy
• 45:07 Closing Thoughts and Farewell

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This is one of the episodes that I've pulled out for the summer from my archive of episodes. I've picked these because they're a longer play and I'm thinking that maybe you've got time to do some more relaxed listening over the summer.

Speaker 1: 0:11

This episode from the archive is with Michelle Gregson from the National Society of Education in Art and Design. It's an association based in England I'm sure Michelle will tell me if I've got that wrong and it covers more than England in the United Kingdom. But that's where I was thinking at the moment and it was part of my shaping D&T series that I did back in 2024 when we knew there was a curriculum review coming up and people were starting to come with ideas about what design and technology should look like, and this was a really great conversation. I think we talked for as long before we recorded as we did in the recording and Michelle gave me a great insight about art and design and we started to explore some of the differences between art and design and D&T. So hopefully you'll enjoy listening to this as much as I enjoyed recording it and chatting with Michelle.

Speaker 1: 0:58

This is one of my final episodes I think I'm going to be doing for now in the Shaping Design and Technology series and I'm really pleased to have somebody from Art and Design joining me today, so I'm going to let Michelle introduce herself fully in a moment. But yeah, this is a. This is somebody I've met once, but we've had lots of interactions at lots of different meetings online, and so it's been really great to get her to come on the podcast today. So, michelle would like to introduce yourself, say who you are, where you are and what you do.

Speaker 2: 1:24

Hi, it's lovely to be here. Actually I am well. Where am I? I'm in East Kent because, like so many of us, a lot of my time is spent working remotely, as well as being out and about supporting and meeting members and stakeholders. I'm the General Secretary and Chief Executive of NSCAD, which is the National society for education in art and design, and we are um, we've been around since 1888. We, uh, we are a kind of trio trio of learned society, subject association and specialist trade union. So we've got an interesting perspective, I think, on matters to do with curriculum, but also what that means for the workforce and how that triangulates with a research and evidence base.

Speaker 1: 2:16

Yeah, I didn't realise that NSEAD had those three sort of parts to it, so tell me again what are those. So another subject association bit, but the first one was learning, learned society.

Speaker 2: 2:28

So we, we publish our a journal and that whole kind of like research and evidence gathering is very much part of of our mission. Um, and then yeah, specialist trade union, which we've been since 1984. So we we've always worked to advocate for the subject but also professional interests of teachers who teach art and design. But yeah, that became a formal part of our work and actually that's our legal constitution is trade union.

Speaker 1: 3:00

Oh right, okay, so are you down as a registered charity as well, then, as part of that?

Speaker 2: 3:04

No, we're not. That's something we're thinking about, right? Okay, so are you down as a registered charity as well, then, as part of that? No, we're not. That's something we're thinking about, though, just in terms of direction for the future and what that might look like and what that might allow us to do. We have points in our history being incorporated and unincorporated, and you kind of go backwards and forwards and it is very interesting territory.

Speaker 2: 3:23

But I suppose for me it's that, as I say, that point of intersection, of looking after teachers, and when we think in those broadest possible terms about their professional interests, it is to make sure that their terms and conditions are such that they can thrive in the workplace. But actually we think that you're going to thrive in the workplace, but actually we think that you're going to thrive in the workplace if you're a really confident professional in your subject specialism and we are determinedly subject specific it is all about art and design, art, craft and design and we think you get that professional confidence that you get from being a leader of your subject area from being a confident architect of curriculum.

Speaker 1: 4:14

It means that you can stand up for your subject and maybe do something to withstand the tide of job losses and other things that have been in our communities over the last sort of 10 years or more yeah, that was just a geeky question because obviously I've I'm from the design and technology side and I've been a trustee of the association. That's a charity, so I was kind of curious to see how the two kind of compared. So it's just trying to understand that. But that's that's really interesting about, about the way you set up so. So how long have you been at nsead?

Speaker 2: 4:50

so I joined nsead, um about a thousand years ago, when I was training to be a teacher myself, right back in 1991, um, and I've been a member ever since. I've done lots of things in education, not a kind of straight route, but starting as a secondary teacher and moving through to SLT and being responsible for people smoking in the toilets and that kind of thing, but also through to local authority and consultancy and all kinds of things cultural education, cultural institutions but I've been a member of NSCAD throughout and I took office nscad because mine is an elected post in 2019 and it felt lovely. It felt like a kind of of coming full circle and coming back, yeah, to get to give something back as well, um, to something that nurtured me over the years, but it is that notion of design technology. I've also got the same thing going with with data where you've got you've got a place, you've got a tribe, you've got a bunch of people working for the interest of the subject and you get this amazing.

Speaker 2: 6:02

Well, we talk about hive mind sometimes, don't we? But it really is, because where you've got people working in that subject from early years through to HE, research, interest, adult education, secondary education, it all comes together and we get a much better, richer understanding. And I guess, as subject associations, that's the job is to try and not just connect with teachers and serve, but is to create a professional learning community. And sometimes that's quite difficult because teachers can be incredibly isolated.

Speaker 1: 6:38

Yes, yes. Have you got a similar situation that's been growing in design and technology, where more and more schools, even big secondary schools particularly, might only have one specialist art and design teacher? Are you finding that wrong?

Speaker 2: 6:51

Oh, yeah, very much so when I started teaching Alison, I was in a kind of normal size secondary school, so a thousand plus pupils, so it's a big school, but it's just not unusual. Secondary school, so a thousand plus pupils, so it's a big school, but you know, it's just not unusual. And we had a department of eight art and design specialists and the dt department had the same again. I mean, they might have had more because you know that you, you know when you get food in the mix, um, and now that's, the schools are the same size. You've got one, maybe a part-timer, and then a few people pulled in to teach because they might, they might make jewellery in their spare time. So they find that suddenly on a Friday afternoon they're teaching year eight art and design. And we know that DT colleagues have exactly the same experience. Yeah, yeah yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:40

So what's? What have you sort of seen have been the challenges for art and design, maybe in relationship to design and technology, over the last few years? Has that changed or is it? Well, challenges is negative. Okay, what's the positive symbiotic relationship and what's the challenge around the subject that maybe you see happening?

Speaker 2: 8:03

Well, I mean mean challenge is interesting, isn't it? Because, uh, as, as designers, we rather like challenge, don't we? That's where we, that's where we start. Yes, so what?

Speaker 2: 8:15

The challenge, frankly, is being the educational landscape, um, over the last, to be precise, 14 years, which has has been driven by their particular ideological position about the hierarchy of subjects. Some subjects matter more than others and we see that in practical terms in terms of progress, accountability, measures in schools that do skew, uh, status of certain subjects, and DT and art and design have both, I think, felt the effects of that. That has been a massive challenge. It's been a massive challenge in terms of how much curriculum time we've been able to maintain, how much resource we've been able to to be allocated as particularly as well, and it's not just about value of subjects but just budgets full stop for schools being such a challenge. But also, you know, the landscape of high-stakes assessment. You know that has definitely moved and changed and become harder, I think, to navigate, and the landscape of a crowded curriculum. We've got an awful lot to cram into there. There always has been, but just that sense of anxiety.

Speaker 2: 9:39

So those challenges for the two subjects sitting together have, in some weird ways brought us together better. I think we've got more collaboration now and collective action going on than I've ever seen, actually, in my career, so there's a really positive vibe at the moment between DT and art and design teachers. But I would also say we've seen an awful lot of merging and integration and discussion and consideration about what overlap between the two subjects might be. I see that as, yes, potentially an opportunity, because when you collaborate and you look at, you know the things that you have in common and and you know the ways that you can amplify, uh, different attributes and characteristics of our subjects. It's fantastic. But the reality is that that's often happening because it's driven by budget pressures, uh, staffing, you know, loss of teachers in the workforce, and that's not so good, because the danger then is that we just kind of lose identity, uh, we lose time and, um, yeah, I actually think it's really dangerous.

Speaker 1: 10:55

Allison yes, yeah, I think I think that is. That is key. I mean, there's some, there's some pragmatism that has to take place. Isn't there, whether you're a primary school or a secondary school about you know, the bottom line is we need somebody to teach these children this subject, and who's going to be our best fit, as well as, sometimes, very pragmatically, who's got space on their timetable, which is why, a long time ago, I ended up teaching childcare, which somebody said. That's very strange, alison, because you're not the mothering type, but anyway, there you go.

Speaker 2: 11:29

Maybe an advantage, who knows?

Speaker 1: 11:30

yes, yes, possibly, possibly, um, but yeah, there's that pragmatism, but then there's also, yeah, what that leads to a loss of and a blurring, isn't it where? And also, it comes from the teacher. I think that's been a big thing that we've seen is that teachers trying to find their home. You know, when there's been changes to the curriculum, to the qualifications, it's like, well, where do I belong? I don't feel like I belong in what was design and technology before, or art and design. Do I now belong more on the other side and there, and then that also leads to a blurring as well, doesn't it?

Speaker 2: 12:06

Yeah, and I think blurring is a really good word, because I don't believe in solid barriers, I don't believe in subject silos, I don't think that reflects real world practice, I think it is reductive and I think it's boring. But I don't also believe in a just a kind of like kind of mushy free, free for all. I really do think that when we think about subject integrity, it's about getting to get into the heart of what we do more than anybody else. Yes, what we do, that's our natural space, and then we kind of invite each other into that space to work together and to think differently about what we do. So having porous boundaries is what I'd like to see.

Speaker 2: 13:05

And I think back to the time of um, the new secondary national curriculum and mcwaters and the big picture, where we talked about how can we create compelling learning experiences that draw together subjects to work together, and we saw some fantastic work. Then, uh, and I've got to say back then, uh, I was art and design advisor for kent schools, worked very closely with my, my colleagues in dt, my counterparts in dt, and we'd had some amazing departments that were working together just doing the most innovative, wonderful stuff. But the reason they could do. It was because they felt really secure in their identity as art and design specialists and dnt specialists working together to be creative and innovative in the kind of learning experiences they designed. And I'm not convinced that that's really what's happening in that many schools now where we're seeing blurring across across the subjects. I think it's driven by resource restrictions, uh, lack of lack of teachers.

Speaker 2: 14:11

Oh well, I don't think. I know. You know we, we've got plenty of evidence to back that up, and you can't have curriculum development and innovation, you can't have innovation in terms of pedagogical approaches, if it's just driven always by the bottom line. So, yeah, I think there's opportunity, but we've also then got about being brought together, but we've got to have space and time and respect as well for difference. Maybe difference isn't the right word, but, yeah, distinctness, distinctness.

Speaker 1: 14:48

Distinctness. You are good at words. I'm sat here making notes on these words that you're using and I'm thinking I really like this. Subject integrity blurring. I can't take credit for anything.

Speaker 2: 14:59

Oh, is that.

Speaker 1: 14:59

Yes, okay, thank you. Thank you for making me feel a little bit part I'm using blurring. Thank you, thank you for making me feel a little bit part. I'm using blurring. But what do you see that the children lose when?

Speaker 2: 15:14

there's that blurring. That's the key thing, isn't it, I suppose? Yeah, well, I think if we go back to, why is the blurring happening? If it's because it's cheaper to have classrooms that can be multipurpose rather than workshops that have got fantastic equipment, that are set up to rigorous health and safety standards, that allow different styles of learning to take place. If that's what we're losing, if we're doing it because of budget restrictions, let's go for what's cheapest. They lose breadth definitely.

Speaker 2: 15:54

Uh, I think about just within art and design. You know, on the face of it, uh, art and design looks like it's not faring too badly out of the you know the sort of last 14 years of challenge in in some senses. You know, our GCSE entries are definitely incrementally down, likewise with a level and in fact accelerating, but not as bad on, you know, not as extreme as other subject areas, d&t in particular. So on the surface it looks okay. But again, I think back to our subject.

Speaker 2: 16:26

Like dnt, it encompasses such an enormous, um, breadth of possibility, you know, I mean and and it's not fixed, it's ever changing. You know it is enormous, it's huge, it's. If you take that down to what can we do cheaply and easily and in a small way without having to invest and update and improve equipment, if we don't have to actually employ people who really know what they're doing but they can be quite general and apply themselves flexibly well, they lose possibility of experience. I feel that really strongly within art and design, you see far too many centers narrow down, narrow down, narrow down to what essentially becomes a painting and drawing, fine art focused curriculum and one that isn't particularly challenging or exciting at that, when actually the range of possibility takes in, just even within the GCSE specification photography and textiles and 3D design and graphics and what might come and what might be added to that range and I see it's been exactly the same in DT so they just lose, they just lose.

Speaker 2: 17:47

Everything becomes narrower, a bit less good, a bit skinnier, a bit less exciting yeah, yeah, becomes much more surface than it does depth yeah, and, and that's that's the other thing um, because ofsted talked in our research subjects, research review, about avoiding the um mile wide, inch deep approach where you try to do everything but you don't do anything very well, and and I agree with that, uh, so I'm not, I'm certainly not advocating for try to do everything that's possible in the you know, the whole uh rich buffet of possibility across our subjects.

Speaker 2: 18:27

That that's not what it's about, but it's certainly not about being limited, um, because you can't do anything else and actually, schools ought to be free to explore and develop what's relevant for their students, because the other thing that gets lost is authenticity of learning experience. If you're only providing from this very narrow diet and you might go deep into it, but a very narrow diet, diet that's not necessarily going to be something that reflects the interests, the lived experience, the aspirations of the learners in front of you. So, yeah, I think I think there has already been a lot of loss actually, and I think we're gonna we've got quite a big job as a design community, design education community, because that's where the two subjects really intersect to, yeah, to to get back to, even to get back to where we were. But of course, that's not good enough, is it?

Speaker 1: 19:27

because, um, you know, we want a future-facing curriculum, we want contemporary practice, we don't want to go back yeah, but I think you know there's such a tension, isn't there, between the resources that are available, the physical resources, a teacher having a strength, a strong understanding of what there's, what art design is, or what design and technology is, and that's been hit because of changes to teacher training and the amount of subject time.

Speaker 1: 20:01

And then so then they become for want of a better way of putting it weaker advocates for the uniqueness or the distinctness, to use your language, of the subject. And then, when they've got support, you you know, if they're a single art designer, a single dnt teacher, they've got to support these inexperienced teachers coming in to teach art design or dnt. Then it gets watered down even further. So it does become, as you say, potentially very superficial. And that's not because these teachers aren't doing their best. They're doing their best with several hands tied behind their backs, aren't they? You know both their hands and anybody else's sort of you might be able to help them, because they're just so restricted. So it's just not straightforward to try and resolve this, is it at all?

Speaker 2: 20:59

No, it isn't. And you know, if you're a headteacher looking at making some really hard choices around your budget and they all are, that's the truth. That's the truth you don't have the luxury of uh producing an ideal educational diet and it's funny. I think there's a challenge for actually for the leaders in education of like an ethical conflict, and it's not dissimilar to that that we hear about in medicine, where you have medical professionals feeling a terrible conflict of not being able to do what, what they know to, to be right, to feel that they're not doing quite a good enough job. I think educational leaders are at risk of that as well, because the choices they make, the pragmatic choices, are not the ones that they would make if they in an ideal world. I would suggest we don't need an ideal world, we just need one slightly more better, more generous yeah, you know, and one that's.

Speaker 2: 22:08

That's starts to privilege children um, as they are right now. You know, it's not just about what they're going to be in the future, it's about. It's about what they're contributing today, and the child that comes out of school zinging with ideas and possibilities is making a difference right now. So we're not even just losing down the line. I feel very strongly.

Speaker 2: 22:32

We're losing today but yeah, you're that head teacher and you've got to make tough calls and it comes back to you know what? What are your drivers and what are you accountable for? And we've got a curriculum that I would suggest has become pretty unbalanced.

Speaker 2: 22:50

Anyway, we've got a curriculum review that let's hope will address that a little bit. But if you've got a directive that you have to uh, there is a hierarchy of learning and subjects, um, yeah, experiences then actually you've, you've got a responsibility to to basically do what you're told um to some extent, because to stand it and in the way of that is incredibly difficult. That said, you know there are ways of doing it because we know that there's amazing practice out there. It isn't all doom and gloom, is it? There's some really, really wonderful stuff happening, and I do think that where there's a will to actually have really open professional conversations within schools, and where you've got leadership that nurture those and encourage those rather than try and impose and say, well, we're all doing it like this, yeah, then you've got a chance of doing something even in the face of dwindling resources.

Speaker 1: 23:51

Yeah, yeah, it's about giving teachers some autonomy, yeah, isn't it In their professionalism? But yeah, and some space to think. So, okay, let's go straight back to those distinctiveness within art and design. We met in the summer, didn't we? Yeah, we, we talked about what's the what, the similarities and the differences, the distinctnesses of art and design, because there's, there's been um, I was going to use the word seepage, but that doesn't sound right it has a little unpleasant it does, doesn't it?

Speaker 1: 24:22

and I don't think, I don't think it's oh dear. Yes, just even thinking that now, um, just that movement of. You know, we know that textiles teachers from design and technology, you know, have migrated to art and design, um, and and that then starts to lead to the question are they the same? You know, we're having this conversation about teachers teaching in different, the two different subjects, and they understand the difference and recognize the differences. So if we think back to that meeting back in August that we had and it was a really fascinating meeting, wasn't it talking about? About the subject, what's the common ground, and where the two subjects are different, I've just sort of dug my notes back out. So what, what do you say? See as the, the commonalities and um, yeah, you know you're on the spot there, aren't I?

Speaker 2: 25:18

well, no, what was really interesting is that we, we kind of came together to to just talk about our subjects and to be able to try, between us, craft or attempt to craft, something that teachers could use to speak with confidence about the subjects and advocate. And what was interesting was we spent a lot of time talking about what we had in common, and that's really interesting that we found it so easy to talk about what we shared. And then when we started to try and dig into the differences, um, it became a lot harder but also more complicated, I suppose. To start with, why do we even think we need to do it? Um, I think because I do think it's. It's really it's much more creative and interesting when we we have a constant dialogue, you know, in and between different, different types of learning. But why do we have to do it? Well, we talked about curriculum integrity. Um, because if you kind of, if you lose, it's like, um, you know they talk on on the shipping forecast about a storm losing its integrity, and I kind of always imagine at the heart of it some sort of dwindling little force that's just sort of squeaking out, and it's that, isn't it Keeping that core life force of what people gravitate to your corner as opposed to another, and kind of knowing what the core of that is is important. That's integrity to me. Is is important. That's integrity to me. It's also about political security, frankly, because I think if we were to have a world where there was a decision made to just make it one great big, happy subject, um, we wouldn't get double, triple the amount of time we've got now. We'd be condensing it down and I don't think we can afford to do that. So we have to be really confident to talk about what is brought. That is essential by having the two subjects really strong within the curriculum. From primary through to secondary difference.

Speaker 2: 27:41

I I like to think of a spectrum of practice that we all sit upon and whether we're artists, craftspeople, designers, engineers, make makers, wherever we might be, that actually we dip in and out and we do bits and pieces of all of those things at different times, so we kind of run backwards and forwards along along that spectrum, but we tend to spend most of our time in one part of it and if we can, if we can create, uh, a sort of strong understanding of the different possibilities along that spectrum. Yes, that that's the mission. I do think that if we went, what might be either end of it I mean, I, I would say in my view, and lots of people disagree or have other things to say, but if you think about it kind of, you're pure artists that answers to nobody but themselves, you know it really is about that. You know their own determinations and interests, and maybe an engineer at the other who's designing a bridge that a train has to go across, that has really got some things that are not negotiable, that have to be engaged with. But they've got so much in common.

Speaker 2: 28:55

And I guess, think about those two ends of the spectrum. You've got that difference between the tangible that you can see and feel and it is a certain way and it needs to be that way in order to work. And then you've got the other sense, really intangible stuff that's more about ideas and thoughts and feelings. And it's not to say that at one end of the spectrum you don't deal and thoughts and feelings and we kind of. It's not to say that at one end of the spectrum you don't deal with thoughts and feelings, uh, and it's certainly not to say at the other end, people whose, whose stock in trade their stuff is is expression. Don't also need to think about function and tangible matter, but not quite so much.

Speaker 1: 29:36

And it's that really. It's how they're foregrounded isn't it yeah, I suppose I think I really like the idea of that spectrum and I've looked at my notes and we we talked about that design and technology looks at the external the user and art design looks at the internal the artist and I've got the crossover. Is the interrelation between these?

Speaker 1: 29:58

yeah, and I remember thinking about that um, and, and I I think that is quite interesting.

Speaker 1: 30:05

I think, as you say, that that fine art end where it's driven solely by the self and the way the self is responding to whatever is external or internal, but is then constrained by the media that they might choose to express that in.

Speaker 1: 30:21

But then they can still flex around with it because who it pleases when it's out there is actually not as important as it being a resolution for the self. But at the other end, for design and technology, there's the parameters of the materials, the processes that will directly impinge on the quality of the output, because other people will have to use it and it has to meet safety standards or expectations or requirements in a completely different way. But still this thing, whether it's a system or an actual thing that we can touch, still has a representation of the person or the people who were involved in designing and developing it. Yeah, absolutely so, it's, it's, it's still got. Their values are in it, but in a very different way to the artist, working very much on their own, in an introverted way, I suppose, is yeah that I think you put that so beautifully and oh, thank you.

Speaker 2: 31:22

And and it's that sense of we have to wherever you, wherever your focus is, you still have to draw on things from across the spectrum. So, um, holistic nature on it, honestly, is very holistic. And if you're a student planning a fine art outcome, you're still designing as part of that planning. And if you're coming from a pure engineer side of things, where you know what are you there for, you're there to enhance the lives of people and keep them from harm and it might not look lovely.

Speaker 2: 31:57

So aesthetics may come into it or they may not, but but you will draw upon that and you will draw upon to keep people from harm, that, thinking about about how those people feel, uh, and you know, social engagement. So we, we have all these things that they're. They're sort of like almost like cross-cutting themes, aren't they, that we draw upon? I think for me that little. You've almost drawn a diagram for me there, actually thinking about the intersections. I'm seeing it.

Speaker 2: 32:27

And the bit in the middle is curiosity. So, whatever it is you're doing, whether you're an artist, designer or moving between the two the thing you've definitely got in common is curiosity. How is this going to work? How will this be?

Speaker 1: 32:46

What if? Yes, yes, and trying out and taking risks along the way and seeing that as part of the process. Yes, because the other thing that we talked about was, um, disposition, capacities and capabilities being different, and we didn't quite get down to start digging down to what they, what we meant by those words, because they're lovely words sometimes, but you think, what do we mean by that? But the disposition, as you say, that curiosity is a disposition, isn't it in the middle? But then, as you maybe move out on the spectrums, that there's different dispositions that may be added in.

Speaker 2: 33:23

Yeah, and and um, I think it's, it's, you know it's. They're like ingredients, aren't they in the process, and sometimes you'll, you'll use just a pinch of that ingredient and in other contexts you'll use a great big dollop of it, and you're thinking about some of what are those dispositions? Well, we share critical thinking and problem finding and solving, meaning making, culture, generating information gathering and research. These are all things that you know. They are their particular behaviors, habits, skills, competencies, and they're not, they're not the territory of any, I mean even beyond art and design, and dt of course that they sit elsewhere.

Speaker 2: 34:09

Um, designers and artists, both model and prototype, but they're doing it with a slight. You know they're doing it with a slight. You know they're doing it with different intention and the intention is actually quite a big thing. So, whilst a lot of those behaviours and characteristics and dispositions, they're applicable across the different learning contexts, it, to me it is the intention that shapes how you're applied.

Speaker 2: 34:37

Yes, yeah, and how wonderful to have those, those, those behaviors, those skills, how wonderful to have them developed, uh, in different ways at different times. Yeah, how wonderful for young people to be able to sort of dip in and recognise that this is what I need now and I know that I'm actually going to have to change it a little bit Isn't that the very essence of knowing what to do when you don't know what to do?

Speaker 1: 35:06

Yes, because you've been gifted this wonderful toolkit that you can pull from yeah, yeah, different places, yeah, and that's that's where it comes in, that again there might be some knowledge crossover between you know and using knowledge in a very general sense, about the stuff that they know, but also that they stuff that they can, they do and they learn how to do the processes. They learn how to do from design processes to communication, to making, to craft in whichever form. It's how they draw on that and how they use that in different ways for those different parts of the spectrum Again.

Speaker 2: 35:56

so, yeah, parts of the spectrum again um, yeah, yeah, I mean both subjects, uh, absolutely, are immersed in sort of materials, um, and material qualities and processes, um for sure, but the fine artist might have a different reason for investigating technical characteristics to somebody working with a design brief. That's got a constraint and a set of criteria attached to it, and that's the thing, isn't it? I think there's definitely a tension between curriculum content versus creativity, yes, between curriculum content versus creativity, which feels like a bit of a. It can be quite an explosive thing to throw in, because who, in any subject area, wants to say we're not creative or creativity isn't part of what we do? It's everywhere. And it's interesting that we talk about the creative arts, um, as if creativity belonged to, uh, and, and, yeah, that's that's, that was the natural home of it and when we think about creative arts, we are thinking about the visual arts, we are thinking about dance, performance and so on, music, um, and it's.

Speaker 2: 37:15

And it's not that those subjects have have a higher entitlement to claim creativity as part of their content and their knowledge and all the rest of it sitting within it, but it's just that we've got more freedom to lean into it, I suppose, because generally there is less constraint, um, and constraints a very positive thing, but it's, it's just tends to be less present in in the work of art and design as opposed to dt, and I suppose that then we can, it can start to feel like um, that's, that's what that's, creativity uh and it isn't necessarily and I think those are things that really need to be.

Speaker 2: 38:01

We need to have good conversations about those and we need to get that going again, because I feel like there's a bit of a a tussle to be creative, that that's a bit of a false false narrative, it's not helpful.

Speaker 1: 38:16

Yeah, and I think, yeah, the conversations around creativity, you know, because I I'm I kind of I can feel in my gut that I slightly disagree with what you're saying around design and technology and creativity yes yeah, um, but I think it's partly because of how we talk about creativity.

Speaker 1: 38:36

Creativity doesn't mean that the design that's produced is something outlandish completely the way it looks. It can be just a slightly different way of thinking about a material. I remember, um, I was a long time ago, I was going to become an engineer and so I went on small peace, trust courses, wise courses. It's like in the days when, oh, there's, there's a girl who's thinking about engineering, we'll send her on everything. And I went on this, uh, residential at brunel university. We had an engineer come and talk to us and he was I think he was in involved in part of the aircraft industry and he talked about that.

Speaker 1: 39:14

There used to be these bolts that would. They would tighten different parts of an aircraft and and um, and and the the, the torsion was was kind of quite crucial Overtighten, you know, fall apart too loose, and so on. So what they created was these bleeding bolts. So if they were overtightened, they literally bled, like that's what humans do If we're overtightened, we bleed. Now, that's creativity, but it's still a bolt. You know what I mean. Yeah, it's still a bolt, but actually the, you know you can always say it's biomimicry in there, can't you in that one? And I remember kind of being like I'd never thought about it like this, um, so yeah, so there's, it's. It's the way we think about. What does creativity look like?

Speaker 2: 40:06

and it's it's breaking out of um what are, just frankly, sort of stereotypes as well, which is really important, and you know, 10 years ago I felt like there was some great work going on around that actually with creative partnerships and other things yes um, and we've kind of retreated from that.

Speaker 2: 40:21

But I mean, of course there's been wonderful work, um, you know, during commission and so on since, but I think it feels like an area of tension. So that's why I think it should be explored. I absolutely agree. Creativity it's about a shift. It's about a shift from what you could possibly be expected to know to something that didn't exist until you created it, found it, imagined it, and that can be vast and extremely expansive and visible, or it can be micro but absolutely explosive in its impact.

Speaker 2: 41:03

That's what I'm trying to say really yeah but, I suppose in terms of um curriculum structure, it's kind of interesting where space is actually being made for creativity and if it's genuine creativity as well, because that's another issue, because I can tell you there are some, very there are art and design classrooms that I've been in where there is no creativity whatsoever, despite it, you know, on the surface, being something that we're supposed to be, it's supposed to be at the core of our being, yes, yes.

Speaker 1: 41:38

And then at the other side of it, you see in D&T, some things that are being said that that's creative, and you think I'm not sure what I'm seeing. Or are we trying to falsely put that in here? Where this is actually isn't actually the place in what the children are learning or developing at that moment as well, so kind of. And then that's where I have a problem with stem and steam as well around it's that siloing, isn't it? It's like saying, well, over here we're creative and over here, we're doing stuff for industry and for the economy.

Speaker 1: 42:07

You know, it's kind of that's the other, that's the other message that gets sent as well. Um, I, as I think by trying to create those clusters of subjects, it creates a falseness as well. That then implies particular things about those subjects and what their value is and what their contribution is. Well, that bit's all about making you feel good. This is all about making you get a job you know, isn't it?

Speaker 1: 42:31

it's, you think? Hang on, hang on. General education, all children are doing it and, as you say, it's about these children going out today. What they're gaining today, what are they bringing today? Not in the future, you, but because some of these children won't as well go on and do careers in this book. So what are they getting from it today? And that, to me, is the key.

Speaker 2: 42:54

And maybe that's it, alison, that we've entered a space with education generally and this is a kind of global move towards education, but high high stakes assessment driving it and the idea of it's. It's got to have utility. So if it's not, it's not contributing and making money. At some, some point in the in the cycle. It has no value. And those, I think, going back to what you know, we need to get back to what is education for and if we, if we can kind of do some new thing, new thinking, old thinking, come back to that. Um, I'm old, old thinking, I've got a lot of it. But if we, you know, if we can really go back to that and put learners at the heart of it and a respect.

Speaker 2: 43:43

I believe that our society doesn't respect children, young people, that's our fundamental problem and that we only think about them as little units of currency for the future. Um, I, I, yeah, I think, and that's the beautiful thing about art and design and design and technology, because between them, what they do is they give children, young people, an opportunity to be in control in a way that they don't get that many opportunities elsewhere in the curriculum we could keep talking.

Speaker 1: 44:25

I'm going to have to bring this to a close, michelle, but thank you very much. That was a fabulous conversation. We've recorded this on a friday afternoon and that's just another of these conversations I have with people on the podcast that just make my head go all over the place and I now want to go and draw diagrams of what we've been talking about and and share that. But yeah, I'm going to get you back on the podcast to talk in more depth and we can have more of a conversation about some of these different things around design. That'd be brilliant. But thank you very much for your time today and the conversation. Oh, no, thanks.

Speaker 2: 44:52

Alison, it's always a treat to talk to you and, yeah, let's keep the conversation going.

Speaker 1: 44:57

Absolutely, absolutely. I'm Dr Alison Hardy and you've been listening to the Talking D&T podcast. If you enjoyed the podcast, then do subscribe, on whatever platform you use, and do consider leaving a review, as it does help others find the podcast. I do the podcast because I want to support the D&T community in developing their practice, so please do share the podcast with your D&T community. If you want to respond to something I've talked about or have an idea for a future episode, then either leave me a voice memo via SpeakPipe or drop me an email. You can find details about me, the podcast and how to connect with me on my website, dralisonhardycom. Also, if you want to support the podcast financially, you can become a patron. Links to SpeakPipe, patreon and my website are in the show notes. Thanks for listening.