Philosophy of Education

I've been asked to write a piece on my "Philosophy of Architectural Education". I shouldn't be surprised how difficult it is to write but I am. I spent my 7 years in architecture school thinking a great deal about precisely this problem and reached only a few (tentative) solutions. One problem I'm having writing the piece is the question of how inclusive it should be: do I have to write I think plenty of space in well-lit studios is good? Surely everyone accepts that! Do I need to write there should be more books and fewer periodicals in the library? More than what and fewer than what? My difficulties come from the fact "architecture education" means the school I received my architecture education. What else do I know about the subject?

This wouldn't be a problem at all (or it would be a completely different problem) if I was writing for the University of Waterloo. I could write about all the things I thought the school did well, some suggestions for improvement, and then the difficult bit, the things they completely fucked up. See? Different problem but one I know how to solve.

Writing anything presumes some knowledge of either what is expected or who your readers will be. If you are writing for a newspaper, you don't need to know who reads the paper because you know what an article looks like and how it reads. Which isn't to say I could write one - I'd be shit at it. Too much passive voice, too few descriptions, and too much cursing.

The other difficulty, as if I needed another, is I have more than one teaching philosophy. Design studio is not taught the same way design history is taught, nor should it be. Both are taught completely differently from a course on literature, cultural history, or contemporary politics. Teaching design studio starts with giving the students scissors and telling them to go run around with them. Encourage them to fuck up then help them un-fuck themselves. This is not helpful in History of Modern Architecture. Students don't need scissors for that.

My way of dealing with anything I write is to start telling stories. Narrative is how we understand what we are. It is also a very big part of who we are. But I don't think my Philosophy should degenerate into "Story Time with Uncle Sean". Or maybe it should. If nothing else, it would be completely different from everyone else's solution to the problem. See how confused I am? I'm going back to watching reruns on the internets.