Educating the Reflexive Practitioner
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The intention of this article is to question the mode of instruction in an architectural studio. I’ve structured the paper in three parts. First, I will briefly describe the findings of the study made by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching known as the Boyer Report. To develop and support the findings of the Boyer Report, I introduce the work of the educator Donald Schön. Though I see much merit in the Boyer Report, and Schön’s proposals, I argue that a more nuanced approach is required. I will recommend, therefore, in the second section of this paper that a means of architectural education as based on the Socratic method may be a more productive approach. My reading of the Socratic method is based primarily on early Socratic dialogues and I will specifically use Charmides to illustrate the issues that I believe are relevant to studio pedagogy. From my analysis of Charmides I will, in the third section of the essay, describe how the Socratic method is beneficial to studio pedagogy three ways: reflexive, non-propositional, and finally how Socrates’ approach may indeed be practical. This last section will be illustrated with a student project. It is my conjecture that the Socratic method offers insight into current discussions of educational theory, namely student centered, project-based learning . |