A talk delivered by Frederick van Amstel and Hien Phan at the Futures of Design Education series promoted by the DRS Education SIG.
Abstract: Paulo Freire, the Brazilian educator who defied dictatorships, developed a literacy method that integrated the acquisition of graphic language with political education. With some adjustments, generative themes, images, words, and tools, along with the culture circle dynamics in which they are decoded, can be employed in a design studio to find an appropriate pedagogical orientation in the face of contemporary oppressive systems. This conversation shares the expansive commitment of two design educators working in Brazil and the USA to adapt the Paulo Freire Method to design education, aiming for a critical design literacy that reads the designed world while redesigning it.
