There were countless moments in building the benches and redesigning the rest of the garden when we needed to make decisions about materials, how to join two materials, cost, tools, size, placement, etc. Students learned that putting up a trellis doesn’t have to mean going to Home Depot and choosing one off the shelf. They could build one with materials that made sense for the space and decide the dimensions based on the space and their intent. Similarly, designing a pathway and then actually having to make it level heightened their sensitivity to designed systems they had taken for granted before, including—literally—the ground they walked on.
My take-away: Design happens in the making of things, not just in the planning. And for the ELLs I work with, many of whom didn’t know the words “hammer,” “drill,” or “tape measure”—much less words like “ideate” or “prototype”—it was far more satisfying to communicate and work together in the actual physical space of the area we were trying to redesign.
Was agency a by-product of this design-build experience? I think yes. So was community. Could thinking routines, protocols and more language scaffolds help develop students’ capacity for discussion? I think yes. Could working with actual building materials earlier be a valuable part of the design thinking process? Possibly. And I can’t wait to try all this again.
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Thi Bui, a founding teacher at Oakland International High School, was born in Vietnam and came to the U.S. as a refugee when she was a child. She received her BA in art and legal studies from University of California Berkeley, an MFA from Bard College, and an MA in Art Education from New York University. Thi taught in New York City schools before returning to the Bay Area and joining the staff of Oakland International High School. Thi has also worked as an educational consultant with the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum in New York and as a curriculum writer for PBS/ Art:21 Education Council. In 2010, she was named the winner of the National Plank Fellowship Award by Fund For Teachers. In 2012, she received the third place national Unsung Heroes Award from ING for her Immigrant Voices documentary project. She is currently working on a graphic novel about the Vietnam War and her family’s immigration. In addition, Thi is a School Liaison working with the Oakland Learning Community in conjunction with Project Zero’s Agency Design research initiative.