The Future of Education
in Harmonious Schema
Harmonious Schema is the study of education through the lens of social sustainability.
That is to say that the system of public schooling in North America, the post secondary structure, accompanying mindsets and stigmas therein are each systems that should be dynamic in their evolution, and responsive to the populous they represent.
The Richly Imagined Futures project was hosted by Alexander Manu through OCAD University, and challenged design to reach outside its boundaries. If the future of a system were in our hands -
How would we go about creating it, from nothing?
By looking inward and putting form to the very nature of our values, a design framework was built.
Applying this framework to key moments in history, specific patterns begin to emerge. 16 case studies were done centered around both revolutionary movements, and evolutionary historical figures. These patterns became trend signals, and were then synthesized into a second framework - that of the Design as Second Nature Trillium.
After the Trillium had been established, both it and the Socially Responsible Design Framework were used as foci to distill the virtues and pitfalls of the theme at the very core of educational systems - that of the adaptive process of
Learning.
With three further deep dives into the history and present time of educational systems, the SRD framework and Trillium were used to synthesize the Athenian, Factory, and North American indigenous educational systems.
Trends and impacts were mapped, and design opportunities were found in Societal, Cultural and Economic realms of each study.
The amalgamate map and framework synthesis yielded further opportunities which were then used to create a design brief for the foundation of a socially responsible system of education, were we to create something from nothing.
System inception from zero point is hypothetical, but by retuning those same virtues into everyday strategies to be employed in the home before educational system induction, the benefits were quantifiably astronomical.
Finally, a new taxonomy of language was employed in the form of a design toolkit.
This was a takeaway, a parting gift for having invested the time into participating in something so monumental.
It may be used with the document as a personal framework by which the reader may mete out their own path in the pursuit of deeper questions.