BEYOND KNOWLEDGE TO UNDERSTANDING: A GOETHEAN PERSPECTIVE ON DESIGN EDUCATION AS LIVING PROCESS BEYOND KNOWLEDGE TO UNDERSTANDING: A GOETHEAN PERSPECTIVE ON DESIGN EDUCATION AS LIVING PROCESS by KAREN LEIGH SUSKIN Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Magister Technologiae in the Faculty of Informatics and Design at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology Supervisor: Dr Alettia Vorster Chisin Co-Supervisor: Dr Elsabe Pepler Cape Town April 2016 DECLARATION I, Karen Leigh Suskin, declare that the contents of this thesis represent my own unaided work, and that the thesis has not previously been submitted for academic examination towards any qualification. Furthermore, it represents my own opinions and not necessarily those of the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. 8 April 2016 Signed Date I ABSTRACT This study explores appropriate responses to some of the challenges inherent to life today, and method – “delicate empiricism” – is essentially a participatory, perceptive practice with which how a holistic design education can bring about a new reality. The approach to design learning to harness qualitative ways of knowing. The methodology supports students to cross the divide advocated here acknowledges the present reality of fragmentation and reductionism as the fun- between abstraction and holistic relational modes of knowing that are context-sensitive. damental and pervasive mode of understanding our world and ourselves, and seeks to develop instead a design approach grounded in inclusion, context and connectedness. The research study reconsiders the current worldview and determines ways in which to develop relational awareness through deliberate learning experiences. These ways imply re-focusing exist- Under the primary concept of profound engagement with self, culture and environment, I devel- ing awareness with personal qualities and active participation. The Ensembles open up new ways oped a complementary design education model exploring the role of designer as mediator be- of perceiving emergent process rooted in integrated, flexible and evolutionary processes. tween culture and nature. This model proposes future design knowing situated in environmental, social and self-awareness so as to offer a vital interface between ecology, public and the personal. Students’ learning experiences are traced as they develop their capacity for interconnected deci- sion making modelled on living processes. This in turn helps develop the model further, so that Three themes emerged during the research that helped me to approach and engage with complex- in the future designers may embrace ways of thinking and doing design that are more flexible, ity during particular experiences of teaching and learning. These themes are: Wild, representing mobile, delicate and sustainable. quality; Conversation, representing experience; and Transformation, representing consciousness. With these themes in mind I entered into the untamed territory of my research seeking the The radical humanist perspective and qualitative methods used in the study advance the pedagog- dynamic connections and interrelationships of living processes in education. ical approach embedded in human engagement and interaction, and encompass logic, intellect, creativity, imagination and philosophical reflection. Thus the critical shift, from perceiving the The Ensembles or modules constituting this model evolved from the work of Rudolf Steiner’s world as abstract and as “something out there” to a deeper inner knowing and understanding, is concepts of higher perception: Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition, made clear through fol- embedded in the education model as an opus of Ensembles reflecting a pedagogy of lived expe- lowing Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s phenomenological method. Goethe’s phenomenological rience, grounded in embodied creative practice. II ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to thank: • Alettia Chisin, who acknowledged my different style of practice in teaching design, and • Claire Clark, thank you for your generosity, love and continual support in recognizing the my relentless search to ground experience in written form. No matter how provocative my importance of this work and graphically for giving care to workshop proposals and flyers. ideas, she remained at my side, as a loyal friend and committed mentor. • To my three children, Joshwa, Keziah and Josiah, each a unique gift, thank you for your • Elsabe Pepler whose inner faith and outer steadfastness drew out of a warren of dense perfect love, space and encouragement. To Anthony, my beloved husband, for his trust thoughts the inherent pattern, who organized and helped me articulate complex ideas in and confidence; you never for a moment let me give up on any one of my aspirations, and simple language. are always at my side. • The financial assistance of the Cape Peninsula University of Technology Research Funding • Alice Ashwell, Cyril Coetzee and Alexandra Dodd, my gratitude goes to you for your gen- towards this research is acknowledged. erosity of spirit, attention to detail and countless hours of reading, all of which gave rise to this thesis. • Allan Kaplan and Sue Davidoff who immeasurably deepened my thoughts and practise of a Goethean methodology. Your living teaching inspired this thesis. • Rolf Proske and Liz van Aswegen for your support, valuable comments, suggestions and professional advice ensuring all who were referenced were given their due. • Helen van Zyl as a conversation partner, Bridging Polarities through art practitioner, special friend and co-facilitator, who wholeheartedly and with unerring dedication has enhanced • To all the many unlisted contributors who formed insights and viewpoints and in particu- my work. lar the students, I thank you all. • Yvette Worrall, friend and wise wordsmith, my deepest appreciation for all the care you • I have made every effort to trace, quote and reference accurately; however the research gave to the content and flow of the text. Inspiration was drawn out of our conversations is based primarily on fieldwork, reading, workshops and conversations over a period of and in particular, the TEDx presentation. The thesis is now ready for the broader public. many years. • Cecilia Solis-Peralta, dear friend in the deepest sense of the word, thank you for support- ing me in life and for easing the thesis into this beautiful form. I have been blessed to work with you. III DEDICATION To my Mother and Father, for giving me the stars. And to all those who seek a new paradigm in life and education through conscious participation, may it be our shared purpose to develop new ways of thinking and doing design in the world today. IV GLOSSARY BEHOLDING: IMAGINATION: Beholding is used in the text to mean staying with the phenomenon, as a direct encounter, as well Imagination is the ability to form mental images of what has not been experienced, and as holding the phenomenon in mind and envisioning it (Schilling, 2007:5). more “precisely the ability to think in moving, living pictures” (Piening & Lyons 1979:161). Imagination in the text refers to the ability to “look beneath the surface of outer facts” CHAOS: (Steiner, 1974:33) as a practice with which to open our eyes to what exists in the invisible, “This “chaos” is the Greek chaos, where the potentials for a new order lay hidden, waiting to be non-sensory world. expressed” (Perlas, 2011:11). IMAGINATION, INSPIRATION AND INTUITION: CONCEPT AND PERCEPT: Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition are considered in the text as a “nondiscursive form To understand concept and percept and their meaning in the text it is essential to refer to Steiner’s of seeing connections that is comparable to the experience one can have most purely in description. Steiner describes the inter-relations of the object, the image or percept, the concept mathematical insight” (Holdrege, 2005:50). All three demand that we are “inwardly active and the ego below, as relevant to understanding the meaning of concept and percept in the text. on a much higher level than in the case of outer cognition” (Steiner, 1974:34) and can lead to “In the ordinary sense knowledge, four elements are to be considered: (1) the object, which makes “facts [that] are not revealed in the physical world” (Steiner, 1974:53). an impression upon the senses; (2) the image, which the human being forms of this object; (3) the concept, through which the human being arrives at spiritual [soul] comprehension of an object KNOWING: or event; (4) the ego, which forms for itself the image and concept based on the impression of Knowing is used in the text as a verb, as process in action-getting to know. It can also sug- the object (Steiner, 1974:4). This description makes explicit the phenomenological approach and gest that we already know and simply need to re-member. Goethe’s methodology. LIVING THINKING: ENSEMBLES/MODULES: Perceiving the moving, unfolding processes through a living relation to the world through These terms will be used interchangeably throughout to describe educational interventions. I active participation. have used the words participant and student interchangeably, although in The Cross-Pollination Workshop I will refer only to participants. MAN: Has been substituted from the original texts with human being. GESTALT FIGURES: Gestalt psychology posits that “the parts are determined by the whole, and that all experience is OPENNESS: Permits us to experience the unknown with an open mind, without judgment or criticism. related to certain basic structures which cannot be subdivided” (Lucie-Smith, 1984:88). PROTEUS: HERMENEUTICS: “Proteus, in Greek mythology, the prophetic old man of the sea and shepherd of the sea’s Most broadly, hermeneutics is the theory and practice of interpretation, particularly the inter- flocks (e.g., seals). His dwelling place was either the island of Pharos, near the mouth of the pretation of texts, which may be any material object or tangible expression imbued in some way Nile, or the island of Carpathus, between Crete and Rhodes. He knew all things—past, pres- with human meaning. The approach is iterative and an important feature of a holistic framework ent, and future—but disliked telling what he knew.