Books + Teaser

As mentioned in the previous post, I hold a huge amount of respect for Sir Ken Robinson. His presentation at TED talk was so inspiring, enough to make a stubborn underachieving buffoon like myself to pursue a post-grad degree. If this isn't a testament to his beliefs, I've no idea what would be. That said, simply listening to his presentation for the umpteenth time really doesn't make me a better person. So I picked up two books to read to better understand design, creativity, and education. What better than reading a book by the man himself?

Although there are other books by Sir Ken Robinson, I felt that this one is probably the best for a start. I've gotten a few pages in, and it's pretty darn close to his presentation. Seeing that it's a 250+ book, I'm expecting it to go further in depth with the concepts he talked about. It'll be great resource for grabbing sources. I will probably do a small critical review of the book after I read it.

That said, I wanted something that has a more design-oriented view of education rather than an education-oriented view on creativity. So my second book I picked up was this one:

The Third Teacher is a book (more like an anthology) full of different factors of design that contribute to increasing the learning (and health) potential for kids. It's a book by Bruce Mau Design, VS Furniture, and Cannon Design group, and dissects every facet of design ranging from interior to architecture, to industrial and product design. It covers topics ranging from health, environment, and community. It's pretty much a bible for the thing I'm doing at Masters program. Although the layout is a little jarring at first (the title page for the chapter is on the opposite side), it's still one of the finest resource book I've picked up in a while. I would recommend it for anyone that want to go into something related to design for education, but don't really know what's out there.

​I'm stoked about finding the area I want to research (design, creativity, education is still a broad subject), and going head-first in this. I have a feeling I will love doing this.

Although... Truth be told, I'm beginning to think that maybe I'm not cut out to do research at the Masters level. Compared to other classmate, I feel... dull. I can't seem to process information as well as I remembered in the past. It's probably the lingering effect of the past year, or maybe it's something else. I'm just afraid of lagging behind others if I allow this to persist.

And thus, I picked up a personal project -- like I said I would. I will try to document it to the best of my abilities and update often (I'll churn out a schedule, I promise).

But here's a small teaser:

Is it a game? Is it an animation? You don't know. I don't know (i actually do). But I'm not telling until I've got enough to vomit a post for the blog.

Though I've gotta get some stuff done before I get the time to work on this project. Since I won a competition and the final product is due in a month and a bit, I'll quickly produce the design. I'll update once the site updates. But here, check out my bio on their page <CLICK ON MY FACE>