Pedagogy of Immersion: Facing the Unknown | Knowing the Unfamiliar

Pedagogy of Immersion: Facing the Unknown | Knowing the Unfamiliar Dr. Brian R. Sinclair University of Calgary & sinclairstudio inc. Calgary Canada Education is a robust and remarkable medium for transformation. In a world in dire need of guidance there is urgency to build knowledge, foster respect and cultivate wisdom. Graduate education, due to the maturity of students and their strong intellectual base, proves especially equipped to instil the competencies and capabilities required to realize positive change. In considering our modern ethos one of the greatest hurdles to overcome is cultural difference. When we don’t understand each other we often dwell in fear. When we can’t see through the eyes of another we are often blind to possibilities. When we don’t have empathy we often resort to ignorance. Globally we witness increasing tensions, turmoil and conflicts, with nations put at odds over differences in political, cultural and spiritual posturing. Ironically while disagreement heightens so does the reach of technology, the ease of mobility and the access to information. In such a complicated milieu it is vital to teach students to appreciate other ways of seeing, thinking and acting. Central to such goals is exposing students to different cultures, peoples, spaces and places. Study abroad, as a compelling immersive educational model, can be a powerful means of proffering deep, meaningful and profound learning. The present paper explores a successful term-abroad program, based in Tokyo, Japan, which serves to deliver strong professional education in Environmental Design while concurrently providing profound learning in other equally vital realms (e.g., culture, ways of life, sacrality, etc.). The study abroad program is focused on urban design, with students living and studying in Tokyo while engaged in design studio and theory courses. Pedagogically the teaching and learning transpired in-situ – following a model of the city as the classroom, with education delivered in the streets, temples and offices, and with an understanding of the local pursued above the grasp of the global. The paper considers the decisive dimensions of immersive teaching that transcend book learning and that provide students with the mindsets + methods to cope with and succeed in our dramatically chaotic contemporary world. Keywords: Pedagogy, Systems, Education, Holism, World-View, Self-View, Immersion, Study Abroad, Japan The Context "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.” E.F. Schumacher Higher education is a rich, complex, daunting and demanding enterprise. On one hand such education is concerned about building knowledge, developing skills and training for the future. On the other hand, and equally important, are aspirations around cultivating curiosity, nurturing critical perspectives, and shaping values. Both parts of the equation are required. Knowledge and values have an important relationship. Knowledge alone is arguably insufficient. Knowledge without a sound sense of how best to apply it can be inadequate. The head operating without the heart is incomplete. While university systems rightfully take great pride in information management and knowledge discovery, they are often uncomfortable in realms of sentiment and feeling. Cognitive matters are seen as precise and quantifiable while emotional matters are seen as soft and immeasurable. Mantras increasingly prevalent and relevant within the academy include: “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” and “If you can’t count it, it doesn’t count.”. Such focus on the empirical, the objective and the rationale deny equally crucial qualities so necessary to a healthy, joyful and successful journey. While we need the measurable we also must relish the incomprehensible – both operate in concert to bring our lives completeness, harmony and happiness. Within the landscape of higher education, and given the ever-changing nature of our modern world, the vehicle of study abroad proves increasingly powerful and all the time more necessary. Taking students out of their zones of familiarity and comfort and immersing them in foreign and far-off places proves eye-opening, mind-opening, heart-opening and, inevitably, life altering. The present paper examines an innovative, colorful and successful study abroad program aimed at the environmental design disciplines and based in Tokyo, Japan. Confronting the Unknown & Embracing the Unfamiliar “Ceramics are by no means inadequate as tableware, but they lack the shadows, the depth of lacquerware. Ceramics are heavy and cold to the touch; they clatter and clink, and being efficient conductors of heat are not the best containers for hot foods. But lacquerware is light and soft to the touch, and gives off hardly a sound. I know few greater pleasures than holding a lacquer soul bowl in my hands, feeling upon my palms the weight of the liquid and its mild warmth.” Tanizaki, 1977i Within most university degree programs there are evidently prescribed curricula, set credit hours, carefully choreographed sequences of courses, well-equipped classrooms and relatively clear pathways to completion. In an effort to check off all the requisites to obtain their degrees, students busily shuffle between diverse courses housed in disciplinary-focused buildings located across beautifully designed campuses. The enterprise proves effective and the exercise proves rewarding. And yet, often, the system proves unfinished. Our world faces growing and increasingly consequential challenges. While our planet gets smaller due to information technology and greater mobility, it also confronts mounting conflict and escalating tensions. Misunderstandings and confusion arise due to the clash of civilizations, the collision of values and a lack of understanding. Within the ethos of higher education, teachers have outstanding opportunities and serious obligations to respond to such concerns and to address such challenges. One mechanism to such ends is study abroad, whereby students are moved from their home campuses to engage in learning in different countries and cultures – basically to confront the unknown and embrace the unfamiliar. When we become comfortable and complacent with our circumstances it can limit growth and curtail learning. While on-campus learning is of course central to the goals of higher education, the occasion to study elsewhere, as a part of one’s program of study, is exciting, enriching and effective. Key in the formula for success in this regard is the full immersive aspect of studying abroad. Students’ lives change in dramatic ways through the experiences and encounters of living, studying, playing and working in a distant place. While there are expectations tied to the curriculum being shifted a few thousand miles away from home, the realities of relocation are neither simple nor predictable. When curriculum shifts from a home campus to a far-flung destination it is a complex, intriguing and exciting prospect. Far more than a change of setting, students are faced with an intense intertwined ethos where learning is 24/7, subject lines erode and dissolve, the intellectual collides with other ways of knowing, and the zones of comfort disappear. When faced with novel spaces, unknown places, new languages and unanticipated traditions students must react and respond. Notions of book learning and strategies of the sage on the stage lose potency and are replaced with the city as the classroom and life as the teacher. The dramatic mixing of the pursuit of professional knowledge with culture, spirituality, cuisine, climate, and language, to name but a few dimensions of being elsewhere in the world, is outstanding from a learning vantage point. The challenges of developing and delivering a study abroad program are many and intense – however, the learning experiences and the educational outcomes possible through such expeditions are powerful and profound. The City in the Classroom | The City is the Classroom “The Japanese society approaches much of life with a similar respect for space and a critical eye to efficiency. Take clothing, for example: kimonos are designed to be folded then stored flatly, tightly, and efficiently. The bento box for food is another example where the focus is on space: attention to delivery, designed presentation, concern for aesthetics, and no waste. Cemeteries are another example of high efficiency, effective use of room, and the appreciation for scale, mass, surface, and space. As regards design and space, Japanese culture so often places tremendous value on beautiful functionality, on quality, on keeping, on maintaining, on preserving, on innovating, and on appreciating.”Sinclair 2015ii In the case of the present study abroad initiative, the curriculum for graduate programs in environmental design professional programs is relocated from Calgary Canada to Tokyo Japan. There are many reasons to select Tokyo as a destination for foreign immersion – perhaps first and foremost is Tokyo’s uncontested position as the world’s most populous and complex metropolis. Studying in such a rich and multifaceted milieu provides unparalleled learning opportunities. Outstanding city planning, sensitive urban design and dramatic architecture serve as exemplars for students as they strive to learn on the move. In conventional on-campus learning students are taught about city design and city life in the sterility and security of the classroom. Lectures by professors, slides of remote buildings and distant lands, and discussions around ‘good’ design and planning are all part of the educational equation. In unconventional study abroad learning students are taught about city design and city life first hand. Rather than the city in the classroom the city is the classroom. In the present study abroad program in Japan, typically in a given week the students are studying and investigating as much on and in the streets of Tokyo as they are within the formal studio space. Studio + Theory: An Entwined Pedagogical System “At some point architecture lost its mission to change society. It is largely because architecture has become a tool of capital. But I believe that, limited as it may be, architecture still has a power to propose something to society, or has some role to play in society.” Ito, 2012 iii Architecture, Planning and Urban Design are powerful and limitless vehicles for realizing positive change in our world. The disciplines of Environmental Design (e.g., Architecture, Planning, Landscape Architecture, Urban Design, Interior Design, Industrial Design, etc.) are increasingly focusing attention on the capacity and capability afforded through interdisciplinary practice and integrated design processes. Without question architecture, planning and urban design are potent forces that need to be understood, developed and deployed in our efforts to heighten the quality of life in our communities. The world is now more urban than rural, with significant implications for the design disciplines. Coupled to growing urban realms is our increasing awareness of climate change and its many implications. Cities and buildings stand as major contributors to such phenomenon. However, they also loom as tremendous instruments to change directions. Architecture, Planning and Urban Design hold fundamental places in our society. Architects, Planners and Urbanists have real obligations and opportunities at the present juncture. “Urban Tokyo | Urban Typologies | Urban Design”, the theme for the Tokyo-based studio, presented students with a lens through which pressing dilemmas could be critically considered and meaningfully explored. Political dialogue, social change, intercultural sharing and ‘seeing through the eyes of the other’ all present rich possibilities for contemporary development, professional advancement and international harmony. A major objective of the present studio was to explore urban conditions, analyze urban dimensions and synthesize urban responses that, while proving professionally competent and viable, also push our understanding concerning the potential of architecture, urban design & planning to make a difference to a world in need. The studio project presented a unique opportunity to explore how planning, urban design and architecture can serve as potent vehicles to acknowledge, reflect and celebrate the identity and culture of place while concurrently providing opportunities for understanding more universal concepts and constructs. The interdisciplinary studio, based in Tokyo, intertwined cultural, spiritual, social and design experiences in the field with more time-honoured studio-type learning. Each week the class was walking around the Tokyo metropolitan region, visiting projects, participating in events, working with local environmental design professionals, and critically considering the city, its districts and its buildings. A key goal was to take advantage of the ‘city as laboratory’ and to critically consider many aspects of architecture, urban design and planning that contribute to Tokyo’s premier position as one of the planet’s most intriguing, dynamic, pioneering, walk-able and liveable urban centers. Studio projects were conducted in small interdisciplinary teams. The studio focused on a single project over the students’ time in Tokyo – namely “Urban Tokyo | Urban Typologies | Urban Design”. In our time in Japan we moved from an open exploration of city and region, to a critical analysis of space delineation & utilization, through to the conceptual development and delineation of urban responses (that encompass the street, the landscape, the site, and the building). In addition to a core studio, all students concurrently were enrolled in an Urban Design Theory course. The design studio and the theory class were carefully coordinated and intentionally symbiotic. The urban design theory course was intended to present an overview to theories, principles and practices in both an historical and contemporary sense. Being closely connected to and interwoven with the Tokyo studio, the course aimed to support and reinforce encounters, explorations and experiences in Tokyo. Structurally the course included lectures, video-taped talks, office visits, project tours and field studies which illustrated and reinforced the interplay of theories and practices. Several assignments, strategically coordinated with studio, examined, delineated and demonstrated urban design theory in play in the city. Beyond Books “Education is about healing and wholeness. It is about empowerment, liberation, transcendence, about renewing the vitality of life. It is about finding and claiming ourselves and our place in the world.” Palmer, 1999 iv For environmental design graduate students to be based in Tokyo for a full semester of intense study and immersive learning is a remarkable prospect. Transcending words on a page and a sage on the stage, the possibilities afforded by living and learning in the world’s largest city are outstanding. In part lead by the author, with carefully organized and thoughtfully sequenced activities, and in part an exercise of self-discovery, the study abroad program in Japan presents students with learning that is non-stop, without borders, and clearly beyond issues cognitive and matters cerebral. Being absorbed within a foreign culture in this extreme fashion is without precedent for most students. The challenges of residing outside a place of ease and acquaintance are often many, often unnerving and often overwhelming. That said, the potential for personal development, for professional growth, for the refining of self & world views, to cast but a few benefits, prove extraordinary. From a system’s perspective study abroad, in the case of the present initiative, intentionally married a range of parts and pursuits into a complex and unified whole. While the system was at times indeterminate and unpredictable in its details, the overarching aspiration was one of deep immersion, cultural collision and weighty learning. The key components that comprised the educational system were the intellectual, the social, the cultural and the spiritual. While each component had its own boundaries, character, content and activities, the real learning advantages arrived through the conjunction of parts and the resultant Gestalt. This array of activities proves diverse and intriguing: from visits to government & architect’s offices to Zazen training; from factory tours to Sumo matches; from university lectures to local festivals; from building expeditions to temple excursions; from investigating city planning to watching Kabuki theatre; from formal presentations in the day to socializing in bars at night. This rainbow of educational encounters creates a magical mix of learning that transcends the norm, challenges conventional curriculum, counters the expected and encourages students to question and delve deeply into their own capabilities, understanding and views. Figure 1: Sinclair Study Abroad Matrix In the experience of the author all four of these matrix components must be afforded similar emphasis and attention. It makes little sense to travel to the other side of the globe merely to attend to intellectual development. Mindful care must be taken, from a more holistic learning perspective, to provide opportunities for students to encounter local traditions and partake in community activities. Through a more balanced and thoughtful immersion the learning realized will be far more meaningful, memorable and impactful. Succeeding in a Kaleidoscopic Complicated World “Emptiness does not merely imply simplicity of form, logical sophistication, and the like. Rather emptiness provides a space within which our imaginations can run free, vastly enriching our powers of perception and mutual comprehension.” Kenya Hara, 2008v Education is a powerful vehicle to change ourselves and to change our world. The efficacy of education depends to a great degree on the inventiveness, determination, values and vision of our teachers and the curiosity, commitment and capacity of our students. While traditional models of teaching and learning have served us well over recent years, the world is now shifting in drastic and dynamic ways. Our world is increasingly multi-faceted and multi-cultural. Tensions rise and conflicts amplify. It seems imperative, in such an ethos, to educate our students to more effectively understand, to more clearly see, to more sensitively accept, and to more confidently act. An exceptional pedagogical means to achieve such ends is study abroad. The present paper explored many rich and inter-related aspects of study abroad with particular focus on the case of a Tokyo-based environmental design semester abroad. The unique initiative, which brings approximately 20 graduate students from design fields to Japan for an academic term, intentionally marries dimensions that are intellectual, social, cultural and spiritual. The milieu is one of intense immersion and 24/7 education – an environment which sees the city as classroom and the learning as diverse. The Japan study abroad program imaginatively and critically considers those special qualities that make learning in the city very different from learning on a campus. In acknowledging this distinction the curriculum and the conditions can be shaped and celebrated in ways that promote even deeper, more profound and more life-changing educational experiences. i Tanizaki, Junichiro. In Praise of Shadows. Vintage Books: London. English Translation 1977. Pages 24-25 Sinclair, Brian R. “Integration | Innovation | Inclusion: Values, Variables and the Design of Human Environments”. Cybernetics and Systems: An International Journal, 46:6-7, pp 554-579, 2015. iii Ito, Toyo. Forces of Nature. Princeton Architectural Press: New York. 2012. iv Palmer, Parker J. The Grace of Great Things: Reclaiming the Sacred in Knowing, Teaching and Learning. In: Glazer, Steven (Editor). The Heart of Learning: Spirituality in Education. Penguin Putnam Inc.: New York, 1999. Pages 18-19 v Hara, Kenya. Shiro (White). Lars Muller: Zurich Switzerland. 2009. ii