Talking D&T
Talking D&T is a podcast about design and technology education. Join me, Dr Alison Hardy, as I share news, views, ideas and opinions about D&T. I also talk about D&T with teachers, researchers and academics from the D&T community.
The views on this podcast are my own and of those I am interviewing and are not connected to my institution. Much of the content is work in progress. As well as talking about D&T, I use it to explore new ideas and thoughts related to D&T education and my research, which are still embryonic and may change. Consult my publications for a reliable record of my considered thoughts on the topic featured in this podcast.
Podcast music composed by Chris Corcoran (http://www.svengali.org.uk)
Talking D&T
Design Education Reimagined: A Conversation with David Houston from the V&A
In this episode of Talking D&T, I chat with David Houston, team leader for schools and colleges at the V&A South Kensington. David shares his passion for design education and the pivotal role museums play in inspiring young minds.
We delve into the V&A's innovative programmes, including DesignLab Nation and V&A Innovate, which bring design thinking to schools across the UK. David's insights on creating 'eureka moments' for students and the importance of hands-on experiences with objects are particularly fascinating.
Our conversation explores how museums can complement classroom learning, offering fresh perspectives and igniting creativity. David's anecdotes about students finding their voice in museum settings are inspiring.
We discuss the challenges facing D&T education and how museums can support teachers in delivering rich, engaging content. The V&A's teacher twilight sessions and resources emerge as useful tools for professional development.
This episode offers ideas for D&T teachers looking to enhance their practice. Consider how you might incorporate museum visits or object-based learning into your teaching. Could you collaborate with local museums to create similar opportunities for your students?
As we reflect on the cultural, social, and democratic aspects of design education, I encourage you to think about how these ideas align with your own teaching philosophy.
How might you foster those 'gasping for air' moments of learning in your classroom?
How can we, as D&T educators, build stronger bridges between schools and cultural institutions to enrich our students' learning experiences?
Mentioned:
- Schools and Colleges In-person workshops Autumn 2024 - Summer 2025 - Workshop at V&A South Kensington
- Teachers' resources for primary schools
- Teachers' resources for secondary schools & colleges
- Teacher Twilights & Teacher Sanctuaries can be found on the V&A What’s On page.
- DesignLab Nation
- V&A Innovate
- You can find V&A Innovate object in focus films on
Join my online workshop on 6 November at 4pm to prepare your response to the government's curriculum review. Get insights, discuss key issues, and learn how to submit your views effectively. Your expertise matters - make it count before the 22 November deadline!
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today's episode is another one um for the shaping dnt series, and today I'm delighted to have david houston from the vna on the podcast, who's going to come and talk about about what, uh, what happens at the vna and how they support design education, but also they're thinking about how the subject may or may not evolve and develop, and they're thinking about how the subject may or may not evolve and develop and they're thinking around that. So, David, would you like to introduce yourself, say who you are, where you are and what you do?
David Houston:Yes, so my name is David. I'm the team leader for schools and colleges at the V&A South Kensington and the title basically means that I manage the schools and colleges programme for the museum in South Kent.
Alison Hardy:But you've worked at the Design Museum as well in the past. You've had quite a lot of experience.
David Houston:Yeah, I was previously at the Design Museum for about six years, so kind of right at the point when the Design Museum moved from Shad Thames, which is just before, or just I started just before the move, and then we moved over to to Kensington, to Holland Park, in the building that's currently in which the old Commonwealth Institute from many years ago a very, very sort of beautiful building in fact. Actually both of them are beautiful buildings the purpose-built museum space, but still, both those spaces are the design museum occupying a previous building, so that one was previously a museum. The original design museum was actually previously a banana ripening warehouse on the Thames. But, yeah, both had their own sort of benefits, which is amazing. But it's amazing to be there at a time of such a big sort of capital project and yeah, you know, see, kind of almost like opening a new museum, which is is a real big task. And the V&A has been very similar, although I've not had quite the involvement that some I would have had in the design museum. We are at the process of doing that on probably a bigger scale really, because we've got the Young V&A, which opened last year and so, yep, that was 2023. I'm going to check what year it is right now, 2023, in July, and just coming up to the first birthday right now.
David Houston:I mean that's an amazing space and it's it's the um. It's a museum that's really curated with young people in mind, kind of. You know, it's curated for children first, um, which is really kind of unheard of. If you think of museums, you think of kind of bolt-on galleries, bolt-on exhibitions that are allows um, young people and children to be kind of really interactive with with objects. But this is really kind of thinking of them as the primary audience and thinking of kind of any, any temporary exhibition that goes in there or the galleries that are in there are always thinking about how children will interact with that and how children will learn from those, those objects and those displays first. And then, of course, next year we'll be opening V&A East and Storehouse as well, which is another exciting thing. So a lot of activity happening at the moment in the V&A and a lot of kind of new exciting programs, teams expanding all the time and lots of colleagues and new colleagues to learn from, which is amazing and you said you've also been at the V&A in Dundee yesterday.
Alison Hardy:Yes, I went up there, so right.
David Houston:So the V&A we actually went on a team day up there to see their programs and kind of meet with the team up there. And obviously, education very different system in Scotland, but really I think museums.
David Houston:So I've met with museums, I've met with people from MoMA, I've gone to South Korea to meet with museum professionals over there, whereas Doha as well, museums have got the similar problems with the world over really, and I think it seems that there are common threads that go through and it's things like attracting families to come along, but it's also things like having making sure the offer is the best that it can be for my audience, which is teachers and students, and making sure that you know it really aligns with kind of what they're learning in the classroom, but also that we're providing things for them that help them in their classroom learning. And we're very aware of how time type teachers are and how resource-tight they are more and more so these days so what?
Alison Hardy:what does the vna see itself as being for design education, for design and technology education? What does it see its role as being?
David Houston:so I I think any any good museum is is a would really kind of put themselves in that kind of complementary space.
David Houston:We shouldn't be trying to teach something which is taking the place of classroom learning.
David Houston:What we should be doing is kind of reinforcing and making sure that, when you know, if they come on a visit to us, they're seeing real world examples of the classroom learning and they're seeing things that kind of the classroom learning and they're seeing things that can actually kind of show them the kind of, I suppose, where the practice that they're doing in the classroom and where the kind of theory that they're learning can actually be embodied into objects.
David Houston:The V&A, we say, is the world's leading museum of art, design and performance, but also it's all about creativity and we're all creative in a different way and we all express creativity in our everyday lives, and this is really kind of thousands of years of human creativity sort of embodied, and you can walk around there. You can see anything from sort of objects that are hundreds of years old, that are referenced in sort of embodied, and you can walk around there. You can see anything from sort of objects that are, you know, hundreds of years old, that are referencing sort of Shakespeare, through to objects that are kind of, you know, very modern you know sort of in the last 10-5 years, and so it really should be about, I suppose, the human response to inspiration and that kind of creative output.
Alison Hardy:So if we go back to where I'm sitting things with this podcast series, what's the perspective, if there is a perspective from the B&A about the positioning of design, education, design and technology in England and what they're seeing as outsiders sort of looking in in terms of what's happening in schools around the subject. Do you have an opinion on that? You don't have to have, but I'm just curious.
David Houston:If it's kind of political, I think we would try and obviously be neutral a little bit. But I think the thing that we would always be trying to do is kind of bang the drum for for design and and really show that actually design technology has a very real world application to it. And my I mean you mentioned I've previously worked for the design museum, but my personally, my response to that would be that ours is not really the place to I'm trying to think of a way of kind of politically wording this but ours is the place to kind of make sure that people know what design is and what design technology is. And I think that's the thing. It doesn't really matter if we, you know, if a young person goes through our program and they don't become a designer, but what matters is that they know what design is and they know how to express it. Um, we would always want design thinking to be a central to our program, so we will and we use design thinking even in creating our programs. But it really should be something that a young person should go away and understand what a designer is and what they do and, um, and and whether that's a conversation they have with their own children in, you know, 20, 30 years time, whether that's a conversation they have, you know, with a peer on their way back to school.
David Houston:What's important is that that we understand, or that the societally we understand, what the role of designer is. Um, and it's the same, um, really kind of. It is a sort of a design, um, uh I think of the best way of putting this, but I think I suppose um, uh, marketing design is is kind of that's what we're doing. We're trying to make sure that people appreciate that actually, design is all about the made world. It's something that we do on a regular basis. It's something we do, you know, in our everyday lives all the time, and it can be, as we've previously discussed. It can be sort of, you know, doing something around the house, or it could be sort of, you know, like a bit of DIY or something like that, or it can be actually a professional practice so it's kind of.
Alison Hardy:I'm just thinking about something I wrote quite a long time ago about, um, five arguments for design and technology um, and in that I talked about the utilitarian aspect of it, which is, you know, talking about that, that diy aspect, being able to actually do stuff, um, and then there's the.
Alison Hardy:The democratic is actually by being able to engage with designed items, the made world, in a critical way, then you're able to articulate as part of a democracy about whether something's right, wrong or or otherwise, for example. I mean, for example, I've had a little conversation this morning, a little conversation with somebody, our marketing team, about, you know, taking stuff to an event that I'm going to, and and as a university, we make a conscious decision not to take stuff to give away lanyards, pencils and such because that doesn't fit with our values about sustainability. So we don't have stuff to give away. Now, through design and technology. I think that's where you engage in those sorts of conversations, that children can have, those democratic conversations. So there's the utilitarian, the democratic I will not remember all of them the economic um, which is kind of like a given almost um.
Alison Hardy:It's one that kind of, I think, gets talked about more than the others, but maybe too much sometimes. But then there's the um, cultural aspects of it, um, about why things are like they are and where they come from. And we were talking before we recorded I kind of wish we'd had record on in our previous conversation when we were talking about where design movements like Memphis came from and we were talking about the red blue chair and we were sort of I was sharing products that I've got at home because you're not at home at the moment, but we were kind of talking about that. And it's that cultural appreciation of the heritage and why things are like they are I think design and technology brings in. And the final one is the social aspect is understanding how technological and design developments change the way we are as a society. The way we are as a society, um. I then talks around the development of the baby bottle and how culture over centuries.
Alison Hardy:That's changed, sometimes due to materials, sometimes due to class, and you know people having, you know wet nurses, um and such so and things like um. The bread making technique I'm going to get it all wrong there. You know there's a. There's a bread making technique that came in I want to say the chowamonde or something like that but came in that meant we have sliced bread and so that kind of revolutionized what women's role was partly in the house about fresh bread making and such. So that social aspect. So I think good design education covers all of those aspects and I can see very clearly where what you're doing at the V&A fits within all of those categories, but maybe some more than others at times to engage children in those conversations.
David Houston:I think. I think it depends on the audience. So I think it depends on who you're talking to, because if I was talking to university students about why design teaching is important, and then I would also I would put in the economic output, and certainly if I was talking to anyone who is influencing policy, I would talk about that because that's, that's what's valued. But when it comes to students themselves, it's all about stories, it's all about the. You know, a museum is about its objects and if you kind of, if you boil a museum down to its absolute essence, it's about the objects. And those objects all have stories behind them, and an object isn't exciting well, isn't as exciting if you don't know the story, if you don't know the story, if you don't know the development. And I think the the biggest difference between what we do and what, um, what school does is that is the process, and that's why you know we, you can walk around a museum and you can see all of these objects, and we might have a school in with us. For, for, you know, a day visit, as a part of which they do a workshop which is 90 minutes. Within that 90 minutes. We need to take that score and show them that these objects, you see, are thousands of years of human creativity. They're not, you know, they haven't just sprung up. It wasn't like I got up this morning and I thought of this object and I made it myself. There is the whole of human creativity in this and there are lots of failures and there are lots of big processes. We talked about the hot butter, the Philippe Starck, the story I love telling which is around the GC Salif, and it was him sitting down drawing on his napkin, waiting for his calamari to come out and drawing a kind of lemon squeezer and that sort of thing where you can show students that there is a process and you can show them a picture of the napkin. You can show them the kind of like.
David Houston:He's not done these amazing sketches. What he's done is he's iterated and he's come up with lots of ideas and he's taken the best parts of all these ideas. Some of them are really bad 2D sketches. Some of them he's put more time into because he likes that idea better. But it's all about that process and that's the biggest challenge we have with any group that's coming in is unlocking the process behind an object that's on display, because we can show objects and then sit the students down and say, right now, here's the activity. You design a response to this brief and it's really unfair. It's really kind of impossible for students to then come up with the response that they feel is valued alongside the objects they're seeing.
David Houston:So a lot of our work is actually sort of breaking down the kind of the process and the decisions that that designer has made on the decisions that have gone through that end object, and also showing that it's not just about philip stark, it's about the kind of the teams of people that put these things together. We have a lot of big names in there, but actually there are he talks about memphis movement. There are big movements. There are certainly instigators of those things, but actually there are kind of um. There are good examples in there and there are lots of um. There are lots of bad examples in there as well. Lots of things which which have kind of um, have come out of a movement which which maybe you know aren't as you know, uh, have been fallen by the wayside.
David Houston:Yeah, um, and it is in that kind of that sifting of of history that allows only the good things to remain, um, only the most kind of you know, only the ones that really kind of stood out for a reason, whether that's because they looked amazing, whether they functioned perfectly or whether they they changed something in a big way. But it's all about showing that process and showing that kind of that whole that holistic view of a particular object or particular movement as well yes, yeah, and the context of it, isn't it it?
Alison Hardy:it is that sort of, because sometimes it's the name, isn't it the name of the designer that brings it to the front as well as the artefact being particularly amazing. It's the kind of the whole, it's the charisma of the designer, sometimes as well as whether the product's actually any good or the best that's come from.
Alison Hardy:That range again about how do you judge what is the best yeah, I went to a memphis exhibition that was at the milton keynes museum a few years ago and, um, I think there was only four rooms. I went, I went with my good friend from university, steve and uh, and their partner, and, and I thought this would take us an hour, we were in there for four hours because there was so much to absorb and there was stuff that I'd never seen, that didn't know was part of Memphis, and you just got a much deeper insight to the stories about why the things were like they were and where things had challenged people along the way. But yeah, yeah, it's the story and I think that's really important.
David Houston:I I think I think that's interesting. You mentioned that because I think we these things get boiled down to the kind of their pure essence over time. Um, and actually I mean, you know, I grew up in the 1980s and looking at the 80s revival stuff you think it wasn't like that and it's that thing of seeing the reality of things. I think that's something we can work on expressing to students as well. But it is that story behind it because I think, going back to it, it's going back to the kind of learning theory of things and the kind of certainly discovery learning is that we should allow students a space to discover things for themselves, because that's where the real impact of learning happens and it should be that thing of taking them through the process. And I think that's where certainly things like roleplay we talked about with the hot butter kettle allowing for students to interact with examples of things.
David Houston:So we try and with these days we're actually trying to incorporate more sort of objects into our sessions. So we do actually have a juicy salif that we hand around, because it is objects, are about physicality and they are about, um, experiencing something. That's, for example, with the juicy salif lemon juicer. That thing is very unstable and if you were putting any pressure on it, knowing that that could happen. So those design stories or those kind of appreciations of the weight, just the tactility of an object and the kind of the haptic approach of something which is really important. I think many years ago someone told me that Thomas Heatherwick's approach was if he was told he can't do something out of a material, he would make it out of that material anyway and find out why it failed and it's.
David Houston:That's a lot of space that to have, and and that's something that you know curriculum wise, doesn't it? You know it's not there we need to go through. We need to make sure that we hit certain marks in the curriculum. Um, and certainly with a, with a you know, with budgets at the moment it's it's really hard to have any space in that curriculum other than making sure that you hit all the points you need to hit. But it's something that in a museum, we know that we have students for 90 minutes in a workshop and we know that we have to get through a certain amount of things.
David Houston:What we try and do in our workshops is make sure that we've got the space that we can. If students get interested in something and they get sort of focused on a particular thing, we can explore that in depth. Um, the the thing that I would want from our sessions is that I don't really kind of I don't want it to be a a case that we have to hit everything in the session. I want the students to walk out that room inspired. Um and you talked about going to dundee and that was going, taking the team to dundee to actually get them inspired about their, their practice and get them inspired, about our audience. You need those moments, um, and, and I'm sure, coming out that memphis exhibition you were just completely fired up about, right, exactly right and you just are you so and you've got so many ideas about the things you want to do.
David Houston:And that's exactly what we want to do with students and we don't. And that's where we kind of try and counterbalance what they're getting in sort of in a formal education. When they come to us and they have a workshop, it should be about sort of showing them this kind of smorgasbord of what design can do, what design has done, and just giving them the space to practice and kind of just just try things out for the first time. One of our sessions is design, inspiration and prototyping, and it's not about any outcome. It's about them going through the process and at the end of it it we want a kind of looks like prototype, and this can be just a few things glued together or taped together, but what's important is they can talk to us about it and they can express their idea. It's just about the idea. It's not about them creating something that can be displayed anywhere.
Alison Hardy:It's about them having this idea and going through that process yeah, and I think that whole thing about the, the tack this is the word tactility, being able to handle stuff and be immersed in it I I took students, six form students. I flew them from um stansted up to glasgow for a day trip. Of course, that's what you do, isn't it?
Alison Hardy:and to go and immerse ourselves in the macintosh stuff the charles reilly macintosh yeah and at the start of the day they knew pretty much nothing about him by the end of the day, and so we visited the church, um, we went to one of the tea rooms, we went to the school of art and in the school of art, I think it was our last part of the day one of them said so why does he do things in groups of four or nine? I've noticed that as a pattern. I'm thinking they would never have got that if we hadn't gone and seen. And then we started to talk about the beauty of maths.
Alison Hardy:You know that sort of symmetry, you know to the power of, you know that kind of you know yeah you know, two squared, three squared, that that kind of thing sort of bring that you wouldn't have got that if we just, you know, in an hour and a half lesson, um, and I wouldn't have picked up on it. So it's also good. I think it's also good as a teacher, isn't it, to kind of get those stories because it adds to our, our bank of knowledge that we can bring into a classroom or into a, into a conversation I I don't teach much these days, um, just because kind of my seniority in the program, but every time I do, the questions are really about the whys and and I think that's the most important thing.
David Houston:So when a student says something, um, and my favorite thing is is when they say, well, that's stupid. And I'm like that's that that's one of my favorite responses. Because why is it stupid? Like why? Because you've unpicked something there in your brain. You've said something. You said something doesn't work, or you're not happy with something, why is it? And you but what's important there is, you've formed an opinion about it. Yeah, and I need you to kind of unpack that. And that's sometimes where the best classroom debates have happened, because someone's got one opinion, someone's got another opinion and you you you can step back a little bit and let them discuss it and you can get other people involved with it. And that's really where design you know it good design does kind of blend in, but I think we don't interrogate it sometimes. We don't, we don't, we don't unpack why we like it, why we don't like it, or why it's good, why it's bad yeah my, my favorite thing to do um uh with students is actually show them things like why a phone is kind of designed.
David Houston:You know, the accelerometer uh triggers when you take it out your pocket because you're most likely going to look at the screen, so the screen lights up. My thumb is here, my fingers are that they've dictated that I should be right-handed using this thing. It's those sort of things which you don't really think about and suddenly when you get that, that penny drop moment or that kind of Eureka moment. We worked with a group of students in the fashion gallery fairly recently. So we have a workshop called fashion contents which looks at the kind of the it's just that the, the social role that a designer could take, so things like body positivity, and we looked at even sort of gender in clothing. And we had a group of students in the in the gallery and one of the students was there saying well, I've got school uniform, we've all got school uniform, it's exactly the same, doesn't matter if you're a boy or a girl. And I, I just was just got him to sort of go what, what side are your buttons on? Um, and he, they're on, they're on the right hand side. And and I was like, oh yeah, mine too, mine too, yeah.
David Houston:And I purposely picked all of the the male members of staff and chatted to them. I got them to chip in and then I turned to one of his classmates who's a, who's a female and kind of said, look what side of your button's on. And she said, well, they're on the left. And it absolutely blew his mind for a second and because he almost like saying credulous to the fact that he that he'd never known this and it's that sort of thing, because that's what sticks with your students, is that that moment when one of them realizes like why is it in groups of four? Why is it in group? That's the point where you know they've had a kind of real, because the question they've got there is like why you've just broken their world for a second, and they want to know why.
David Houston:And it's that sort of um gasping for for, for the answer, as if they need oxygen yes, it really it's a, it's an amazing moment and when you get a student in that space, you know that they've had a really profound impact, because he'll go home and he'll talk to people about that and he'll he'll say I never realize and that's discovery learning. It's one of the most perfect things and it just it means that you walk around telling people the most obvious things that you've noticed that they might have known for phrases but to you it's really important yes and it allows you to.
David Houston:It allows you to kind of um to, to, to, for a moment, be to preach the choir which is, you know, it has its place and it's great.
Alison Hardy:yeah, it's that sort of immersion in it, isn't it that that coming to a museum gives you? Um? And I think that I think that's where it really taps into the cultural aspect of those arguments I was talking about is because then people start to see oh, it's not this way by accident. This is deliberate. Somebody's thought about this. Why have they thought about it being like that? What does that mean for me or somebody else? What does that mean for, for greater society, if it's like that? Yeah, what about if it is a phone that's designed for somebody who's right-handed? What about people who are left-handed or ambidextrous, or you?
Alison Hardy:know, their fingers and digits aren't the same, you know, they've got a difference about them. What does that mean? When I've designed something, so yeah, suddenly, just that little moment, they then are forced to see the world in a different way. They've sort of passed a threshold and there's a kind of no going back then as well but I mean, that's the way I've always seen.
David Houston:Education is a series of ever increasingly larger fields which you occasionally open the paddock or the gates into the next bigger field, because it would overwhelm you if you were in this huge, huge field to start with. But if you start small and if you open that next gate and you're, you suddenly have all this extra space you've never charted, you've never occupied before, and then you kind of once you've got to the point where you've occupied and charted that space, the next gates open, yeah, and it, and it changes the way you viewed the previous um, the previous area, and I think that's what's really important. I think that's the kind of the eureka moment with, with, with schools, and with with with anyone with a.
David Houston:You know, with any age of learner, you know you, we never stop learning. We're always discovering things and learning things for the first time, and there's a, there's a world of learning out there and there's a world of kind of.
David Houston:You know, everything has its story I think that's the thing with with museums, with um, with trying to unlock that, because and this is the place that we we take is we know that teachers are time tight. We know they don't have the time to understand not just the logistics of where things are in the museum but also what objects are in the museum as well. So one of the things we try and do is prime them with as much information as possible. There is no spoilers with bringing a school group into a museum, the most amount of information you can give them. If they know 100% of the information that you know about that particular object, when they come into the museum they're not going to walk past that object to say I know it. It becomes a familiar friend and it becomes something they gravitate towards and they they rush to, they will pass everything else to get that one object they know everything about and they will stand there and curate it to each other, even though they all know the same information. Then they'll talk about it. But it's fantastic, because it really is. You know, it unlocks something and it gets them super excited and they see it in the flesh for the first time. It's bigger, it's smaller, it's different angles, it's. You know it's not how they expected. And that's the most important thing, having that kind of that physicality of it is is, you know it's what museums are there for.
David Houston:So we do try and prime, we create things like teacher resources and with those we have object-based discussion cards. So you have a nice big picture of an object and then you have on the back of it a bit of a description and then some leading questions to get them discussing kind of what do you think about this and why do you think that's the case? And what's interesting, kind of curriculum wise, is that we always know that teachers are time tight but we get sort of two sets of teachers really. We get kind of the newly qualified teachers who want those introductory overviews of the museum because they might never have done a museum visit. And then we also get the kind of more experienced teachers who are saying I want to do a thread through the museum based on something like materials and I want to look at, you know, I want objects that use this particular material, this kind of this narrative to it, and I think that's kind of us finding a space in there is usually quite a sort of it's tricky, but it's not something we, you know, it's not something we shy away from of um, it's tricky, but it's not not something we, um you know, it's not something we shy away from um. So I think, when we, you know, when teachers come to us, they need to know as much knowledge as we can give them in a really short space of time, um, so that's you know, it's for us.
David Houston:We do that, uh, through many, many different ways, um, one of which is we do a teacher twilight. So if there's a new exhibition opening, we have curator talk um, and then we have access, access to the exhibitions. When we had chanel on, it was the only way that you could get to see the exhibition for a time, because we sold that out within, I think it was like four days. I think we had a hundred or days run of the exhibition. It sold out in four days.
David Houston:Um, but things like I teach at twilight, you, you actually get to speak to the curator and they'll, you know, they'll talk you through the process, and sometimes it's the sort of things you learn from those that that just really are the kind of fun stories, um, like creating mannequins for the Fashioning Masculinities exhibition that were slightly androgynous in places but also pulled from the collection.
David Houston:So representations of masculinity in the collection and knowing the kind of the process behind it, and then the curators sort of saying, well, actually it was a really difficult process to go down and we'd question whether we'd go down this, this, this process again because it added the extra time onto the exhibition creation and that sort of thing which really inspires you to go away and kind of think about things.
David Houston:And and I think that's where you know teachers are they don't come to us, um, or the majority of them don't come to us because they, um are obliged to come to a museum. They come to us because they're passionate about the subject and they're passionate about the museum and they will. They will come to us on a day off and see the exhibitions and a lot of them are members, um, and it's just because they're passionate. So for them to actually feel that they're getting something back from the museum for being a teacher, so those exclusive pieces of access which we can't give to everyone, just down to resource, is really inspiring and that trickles down to the classroom as well. And that's the things that we know that we're very time tight with teachers. We know we've only got them for a brief amount of time and we need to instil as much knowledge in them as far as possible and give them as much arsenal to go away with the um. I sound like I'm on a sales pitch here, but the other side.
Alison Hardy:I'm fascinated. I'm writing these things down and thinking you know, I need to find some teachers have been on these teacher talks and get them to come on the podcast and talk about what they learned. That would be yeah well, our teacher sanctuaries.
David Houston:We do, we, so we do want to term those and they are around a particular practice. So at the moment we're doing uh around ceramics, but we've done things like um, uh, we've done uh fashion, um, we did caribbean connections in our collections. We did uh, so that was kind of around the time of Windrush 75. We've done Global African Connections for our collections as well, which, if I can pick an overall theme, links into something that's either a big celebration or is something very curriculum-based as well, and it's a three hour long, um, uh, sort of evening of of content. In fact we've actually got one tonight, oddly enough.
David Houston:Um, and there are things like curator talks, there is um exhibition access, so we we usually commission a tour of objects and we have um participating teachers go around the museum, have particular objects there. We have things like panel discussions. We also have making, so we'll upskill the new making techniques. But the thing that I think I'm most proud of in that is that all of the speakers, the experts that are involved in that, they all sort of do a brain dump of you know the books they've read, the exhibitions they've been to, the documentaries they've seen, you know kind of anything they've that they've participated in, that that really kind of stood out for them was a really glowing example. We collate that all into kind of one resource that gets given to the teachers, um, that attend and it's like one.
David Houston:The last one I saw we had about 17 pages worth of of just links to various things, and so you, you spend, you spend your friday evening really kind of upskilling, learning about objects and learning about kind of learning about history, learning about kind of current practicing creatives in that space, um, but then you also, um, you also go away with this kind of wealth of of research that you that you don't have to then do you've already started on sort of third base um that allows you to go and take that into the classroom, and that's the kind of that's where we're always trying to think with teachers. We know how time time they are, yeah, and we know how under-resourced they are. So having us printing things like our teacher resources and having them ready to hand out, having them in nice glossy versions so that teachers can use those on a regular basis, having resources or having lists of research that they can go and work from, it's just amazing.
Alison Hardy:So that's where we're trying to occupy. That's a huge resource. That's a huge resource. That's a huge resource, right. So so far we've got. Teacher Twilight Teacher. Century 90-Minute Workshop. What about if I can't get down to London? What about if?
David Houston:I'm in a church and I can't get down. Well, I mean, we're not about London. I think that's the response to that All right.
David Houston:I mean the V&A is physically based in London but obviously the V&A is. You know, we've 10 sites across the world and obviously kind of the majority of those are UK. We've got one, as you said we talked earlier about Dundee that's the kind of the furthest V&A imprints in the UK. But we've also got things like V&A Wedgwood which is in Stoke. We've got the Young V&A, which is Bethel Green, v&a East, which will be opening up in the Olympic Village next year, and the V&A Storehouse as well. So there's lots of opportunities in London but obviously kind of further afield as well.
David Houston:But if you want to engage with the programs, we do have a couple of national programs from the schools and colleges team, one of which is DesignLab Nation. So with DesignLab Nation we work with partner museums in different regions of the UK. We generally try and pick areas that are low uptake of design technology at GCSE and are kind of more of a socio-economic need there. So there's a lot in kind of. We work a lot in the North East particularly. We worked up in Newcastle, we worked in Bradford, we've a partnership in Stoke this year with V&A Wedgwood. But usually with those we work with a partner museum, a local designer and we also then work with industry as well. So when we first started the programme we actually worked with the Transport Museum in Coventry. We worked with the partner museum works with local schools. So they would work around about three local secondary schools and the one class from each of those schools would come along. They would have four sessions. So in the Park Museum they'd be set a brief. They go and look at the collections, they come to us at the V&A and then they have a industry visit. So for Coventry they went to the Brompton Bicycles factory and it's all about.
David Houston:It's all about having like local making, that historic kind of making, on your doorstep and learning about the heritage of it but also seeing that it's still going on today and and within that you get sort of an idea that actually there is a rich making heritage all across England which students are very unaware of. For example, the Stokes sessions. We asked students why is it called the Potteries? And the responses are things like well, that's the name of the shopping center. Um, and and it because they, you know they, they don't know, you know they.
David Houston:I think, probably, going back to our macintosh conversation, they think they, they, they've seen the evidence, but they haven't made the correlation or they haven't had all of the information to allow them to make those connections. So we are really focusing on kind of what is on their doorstep but how it is, kind of how it's still going on. You know, there are still. There are still a ceramics industry in Stoke, there's still a transport industry in Coventry. There are these kind of historic makings. They don't leave the areas, they just change, they just kind of move and I think people, your everyday person on the street, might not realise that that industry is still represented in some form or another. And with Design Lab Nation a, it's fully funded. So the schools that come on it we pay for, you know, we pay for their, their travel.
David Houston:Um, we pay for, you know, everything from sort of making sure they have a lunch to making sure they're kind of you know they, there are no um financial obligations, yeah, no barriers for the school and that is, you know, for some students it's their first trip outside of their, their city or their town.
David Houston:You know, it's both heartbreaking and inspiring when you meet students who it's their first trip, not just to London but on a train yeah you know and it shows you the need and it shows you the kind of the space that we can occupy as a museum and the kind of, I suppose, the inspiration that we can give students and it also shows you how you know how those students can be inspired by museum visit. A lot of them it's their first trip to a museum is going to the partner museum and actually showing them that museum is a place for you.
David Houston:Museums are very um, uh, can be very intimidating um yes, especially when you see a granderose building and it feels not a place for you. And if you're a young person it can feel like that. You know, our typical sort of idea of museum I know mine when I was that age was that it was stuff in glass cases and I would be told to to be quiet, not touch, yeah yeah, exactly, it shouldn't be the case.
David Houston:It shouldn't um we, we museums, are it? It's a never-ending story. You never finish the story of of of a museum's content. Um, what majority of museums contents? Um, because it's still ongoing. Certainly, a museum like vna design is still going um. You know, arts, performance, design is something which is is always evolving and for us, staying on the cutting edge of that is, you know, it's a tough task um, and museums collections will never finish no, no, that's one thing that's guaranteed.
Alison Hardy:It's just going to get bigger, isn't it really? Exactly, yeah, and actually giving finish. No, that's one thing that's guaranteed.
David Houston:It's just going to get bigger, isn't it really? Exactly, yeah, and actually giving access and that's what V&A Storehouse will do is it will give access to objects in the collection, albeit in a kind of, you know, without the kind of interpretation you might expect from a museum. It is going around the storehouse with these kind of hacked ends where you can see the objects in there. Um, but the point is that actually, when you get to things like that, people curate them for each other, you know, and that's the nice thing. Certainly when you get to very modern objects, you know my grandmother had this or my my uncle had one of those, or whatever, and that's the stories that come out of people when they see those objects, they get inspired by them.
David Houston:But Design of Nation, is? It really is? You know it's not um, you know it's something that inspires young people and gives them that kind of knowledge of what design can do. And it really, you know, we're already, we're what, seven years in now and we, we see, um, it's for 11, 16 year olds. We see kind of more students on those programs who think about and take up design qualifications later on. So, yeah, it's something very anecdotal at the moment. But we something we can sort of notice that some students are kind of you know, it comes back to them being inspired, that actually design is the thing that's open to them and it's something it's a fun way of kind of exploring the world around them. You know something that is it's really about interrogation and kind of um critical thinking, um, which is really, you know, kind of really key to just understanding the world so well, that's clearly something that's really close to your heart, that one um yeah, design elimination is amazing.
David Houston:You know it's tough. I think the um for me, there's a part of me that has a kind of uh, um, almost a tear in my eye when I see those kind of moments where, but and it's a joyous thing of like it's it's a shame this, it's a shame this is the part of your life or this is the kind of point which this opportunity has been provided for you because it should be. You know, everyone should have this and everyone should have those opportunities and also that one of that tears shed in a kind of very happy moment that they have been involved with it, and I think that's. That's the thing where, thinking back to um, my own, um schooling I went to my school was, uh, about 40 percent free school meals, so it was kind of you know, it was very much a edge of london, um, comprehensive school and and actually kind of the opportunities that someone who would come from my background would have had. I think that's important to me and, you know, by a long stretch, I, you know I didn't grow up.
David Houston:You know I grew up with lots of things that many of the students that come on our programs don't have and that and it's, I think that's where things like design lab nation really inspires me, because I think it's it's access to um, to collectionists, treating them in a way that that, you know, makes them a valid voice and makes them understand that actually a museum is a place that that wants to hear their opinions, their thoughts and their responses as well. You know, and and you know, the the end of the um uh, they're at the end of their sessions there's a celebration event where their work goes on display in the partner museum and that's a massive thing. You know that. You know I've I've been privileged to be involved with projects throughout my career where students work is on display and you, you almost have to kind of show them like this is, this is big right think about.
David Houston:Yeah, well, I and I worked with this group um many years ago that I had to sort of sit and say how many you know have you ever had work on display at school? And yeah, how many people do you think go through your corridors? And we've had, in the time your work's been on display, we've had over a quarter of a million people, wow can you imagine?
David Houston:and that's right, and so that's the thing where it's like, actually, and and we couldn't have done this without you and having that opportunity to say to a young person we as a museum we won't exist in the future without you. Not because you we would value as just as a visitor, we also value as a contributor to the collections as well. The collection or the collecting story of vna is not finished, and in this room could be somebody who puts who you know, who has an object or has you know, has something, a concept, an idea that becomes part of vna in the future yeah, that's an exciting opportunity.
David Houston:Yeah, it's, it's amazing to think yes, it's not about long dead people who've made things years ago. It's about the lifeblood of what's happening right now as well.
Alison Hardy:Yeah, yeah, right. Well, I'm conscious that I've taken up quite a bit of your time this morning.
David Houston:Well, that's fine. I'm enjoying it, and yeah it's. You know I I'm a lot in the reeds of of the program and and making sure that we hit targets, make sure the budgets are spent properly and things like that.
David Houston:But actually it's kind of it's always lovely to see the inspiration or see the kind of the reason why I do this job um, the other thing I was gonna say national program wise and and this is I quite often describe this as our kind of, you know, sort of build up to a Christmas day type of programming is V&A Innovate, which is our national schools challenge, which, again, it's open to state schools only and it's a design thinking challenge for Key Stage 3. So 11 to 14-year-olds, who we set a three-word brief every year. We have some questions around those briefs, but they can interpret the brief how they want to. This year's themes are belong, celebrate and transform. Oh sorry, this year's themes, rather, are belong, celebrate and transform. We would always have a judge base. We have three judges and then kind of a lead judge which is our director of learning national programs in Young V&A, dr Helen Charman, but we have a judge that fits each one of those theme words every time. So we had, I think last year around about just over 200 entries from 200 teams entering Teams of four to six entering there, and what we were looking for is two sides of kind of A3.
David Houston:In response, we have the kind of specifications of what we're looking for. They need to work as a team, they need to show some iteration in their designs, they need to do a bit of research and so it's really kind of along that design thinking process and if you've, you know, something like the double diamond, we kind of simplified down a little bit to give them kind of the access to that design thinking process. But some of the responses that come out of it are just, you know, I think this year in particular, or the year that we just had, in particular, um, the, the empathy involved, and that's the thing that really makes me feel, um, very positive about the future, is that young people just have so much empathy and they, just they, yes, they want to change the world, they, and they often don't know what the, the, the channels are doing. That is, and design can do that, you know. It can empower them, it can, um, embolden them to feel like they have a place in the world and they can change something on a macro level or they can change it on a kind of, you know, a massive international level, um, but the, the, um, the challenge itself, we'd be um, our kind of deadline for submissions is January.
David Houston:We open up the challenge in May with the announcement of the themes, the deadline is January, and then we have our pitching awards day for our finalists, our 10 finalists in March, and again we bring our 10 finalist scores to London. We pay for their travel, we make sure they have, you know, activities during the day and we really kind of try and say we'll take away the anxieties they have to pitch to the judges, which is a is a big thing so we allow them the space to kind of practice their pitches beforehand. They'll meet with judges, so there's a nice friendly atmosphere to it. But the reason why I describe it as our christmas day is because there's so much work goes into it and it's so fun when you're actually there.
David Houston:But you wouldn't want it every day because it's so you know it's, it's, it's it's a lot of work for us but it's also just so, so rewarding, and I think we've now, I think for the last three years at least, we've had judges drudge at least cry um. Yeah, it's profound, it's, it's you know, it's just so. It's so heartening to see um and even seeing teams turn up. We had a boy who, again, never been on train um before when he, when he came down to us in march and in his team um and our furthest entry we had was from hull um. So those they got up at 5 am. One of so they got up at 5 am. One of the team actually got up at 4 am. I don't think that was entirely down to the need to get up at that time.
Alison Hardy:It was just so exciting?
David Houston:Yeah, exactly, and so you know, I mean, we had a team from Stockport as well, so we had real kind of, really, you know, some big journeys coming down to us.
David Houston:But just their ideas, just so empathetic, and I'm I'm currently talking to you from the peak district and actually one of our past winners, um, was, uh, a school from sheffield who had done a, a, their idea, um, I actually can't remember the theme um, what they were responding to, um, but they, they, their idea was a kind of a walker that turned into a chair that had caterpillar tracks so that you could basically go off and go for a ramble if you had mobility issues, and it's things like that where they looked hyperlocally and they kind of they had responded to something which they felt was a need and they also built a one to-to-one cardboard model ready for the finals.
David Houston:So initially, they submit their ideas and this is where I think, you know, this is where something like innovate takes works alongside not just the curriculum but more the restraints that teachers are under at the moment, because, yes, what they don't have to do is there's no, you know, it's an idea, so it's something on a piece of paper. You can create something. So we have, you know, we have schools that will build a model in autocad or something like that. They'll, they'll, you know they'll make something that's, you know, like a CAD design. They might make a physical prototype, but what they't uh have to do is kind of make a, you know they can.
Alison Hardy:It can be completely an idea. It doesn't have to be a fully functioning.
David Houston:No, no, exactly, yeah, exactly yeah, and it is about the idea. It's not about the kind of you know we, whilst we're aware that we don't want technology to be that kind of you know, air quotes, technology to be the, the, the magic solution.
David Houston:Um, you know, there has to be a kind of believability in the practicality of it, yeah um, what we are doing or what we want to do is, you know, make sure they have the space to kind of have an idea and that that idea can be kind of, it can be kind of out there. One of my favorite ones from, I think from last year, was was, um, uh, it was a spray can that had I think it was insect food in it so that you could go and do, you could go and do some graffiti, um, and then it could be, it would be slowly eaten away by, by bugs, just completely not you know, and and just so left field and so brilliant as well, and you know it's. You know, you see, you could, you could, you could take part in some civil disobedience, but at the end of it it would be cleared away nicely and and you'll be feeding the, the ecosystem and it's that sort of idea. That's, I know, right, it's, that's a level of of idea. That's just amazing. The one that came out of one that came out of COVID was an entry called Scented Memories, or Scented Memories, and it was an item of clothing that could be. It could be basically kind of given the kind of the?
David Houston:Um responses of that person, so you could get that item of clothing, you could charge it up with a hug and your body warmth and your smell, and you could send it off to a loved one who couldn't see you at that point and they could get it out and they and it had. So you could put, you know, hold the piece of clothing and hold it and know that was the warmth and the, the touch of the person hugging um, and and that sort of thing where you think, oh gosh, you know, that's it. That really hurt, that really hits you hard, um, in the heart, because you think, like, this is exactly what you know, this is what young people are thinking of, these are the things on their minds yeah, and, and and it's you know.
David Houston:You feel the future is safe in in the hands of young people like that, yeah, yeah.
David Houston:And then I'm going to put that last line in, particularly if we have design education on the curriculum, yes, yes, yeah, no, completely, and I think that's the thing and I think that's where, as a museum, we need to be showing that creativity is in everything we need to be showing, and I think this is, you know, politically at the moment. It's and has been for a while with things like Progress 8. And the weighting is more on those kind of those core subjects of English and maths and I think, combining that with the cost of D&T, it's been, you know, it can easily be pushed out of a curriculum and it can easily be pushed out of a school's you know, school's budget, let alone their kind of their time, just thinking about the space that a D&T department takes up and even the amount of cost that goes into keeping that department going. In the time that I've been, we talked about Design Museum. That museum moved to um, kensington in 2016.
David Houston:So the time that I've been, sort of that's been my borough of, kind of the you know workplace borough. So from the design museum to the vna, I've seen dnt departments closing down within the kind of what? Four or five state schools. I'm in that borough, um, and I think I can only think now I've thought my head of one maybe, yeah, one school no, it's actually two schools in that in the barrel that have that, would have a dnt department, um, and it is that that story, and that's the thing that kind of comes out anecdotally from some of our teacher twilights, is that it is, you know, teachers are being stretched, they're being asked to teach things that they don't have an expertise in, um, and they are looking to us as a museum to give them those kind of introductory and those basic overviews. So that's the space that we try and occupy and it is. We are never. Our place is never to teach the curriculum, but to complement it and provide teachers with the arsenal they need to teach.
Alison Hardy:Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm really gripped by the idea of the teacher twilight and the teacher sanctuary, Even though it would be two hours for me to get to you. I'm going to look and think am I a teacher? Could I convince them that I?
David Houston:could come on one of these. We would love to have you and, to be honest, I'm sure there's a place on the panel for you there as well. I wasn't angling for that, but I'm always up for, for I mean, I'm up for children making me cry in a good way in a good way, yeah, with their creativity um.
Alison Hardy:I've had too many children try and make me cry. When I was a teacher without I know that feeling yeah you know what and that's like.
David Houston:So going back to that's one of the amazing things about working in a museum, working with young people in a museum, you know there might be a child that's tried to make you you know or try to be difficult, but when they come into our classrooms we don't know who this is. You know, we don't know the dynamics of the class, we don't know the dynamics of the students in there, and it gives students a bit of a fresh page because they might feel that they've found their. You know that they've. They've created their, their identity within the classroom. When they come into the museum they don't have that identity and I think one of some of the most inspiring moments I've ever had teaching in museum setting, is that child at the back who kind of says something which is a bit of an offhand comment, but when you interrogate it it's a bit of genius and it's because they don't have that um, they don't have that baggage that they might have had um, and they'll come into a classroom.
David Houston:I particularly, I think, one boy that I go back to and he I can't remember what he said now, but he said it really under his breath and and I I was like, when I overturned to ask him about that, what did you say? And I and to look for the life of me I can't remember what it was, but he, he felt, he, he, he managed to get him to, to repeat it in a kind of light way, and he kind of he said it back and it was like no, but that's great, what you've just said there is great. Why is that the case? And and and and it just penny drop moment. Just you reek him out where he's kind of always looked like what I've said something smart.
David Houston:Um, and he just penny dropped moment. Just you reeked where he just kind of almost looked like what I've said something smart, and he just and then everything. Oh, I couldn't stop him by the end of the session because he had a response and he was just like, yeah, right, and you know, I went up to him at the end as they were leaving, I said thank you so much for your contribution.
David Houston:you were, you were absolutely fantastic, and I could tell you that boy went out there a foot taller than he walked in and it's that's I think that's what museums have the ability to do in a workshop setting as well, which is is fantastic, and that you know it can be that thing. Where we are, we have a bit more informality than we do in the classroom, because we're on first name terms as well, um, but also, you know, we want you to to to explore things, we want you to to to feel that you have that voice in the museum and we value, we value students voices, we want them to be there, um, and we want to hear back from them, we want to know what you know, exactly what they're thinking about something.
David Houston:Yeah, even if it's, even if it is a kind of like, I don't think this is good. I think it's a rubbish idea.
Alison Hardy:I don't I don't agree with it. Got no point to that.
David Houston:I will have it in my house, yeah yeah, exactly, no, I love that, I love those responses yeah, yeah, that's all right, why would you know?
Alison Hardy:but tell me why you wouldn't have it in your house, though. Yeah exactly the wine and also and also it's it's the teachers in the room kind of being reminded of those conversations, because teachers are so much in that moment of the pressures of the classroom then being able to have that pressure off, that they're not at the front yes, they're not doing the instruction that actually they're part of the learning, and learning on many different levels comes from it as well and it's it, teaches it.
David Houston:Sometimes it can be a real different response and some of them like to be involved. So some of them will sit on the table with with students and be a be a learner again, which is great, and and others will, um, you know, others will kind of, you know the amount of times I've had a teacher stop me, um, because they want to really, uh, reiterate the point that that this person who just met has said something I've been telling you all term. How important is it and and it is that thing for them. Actually, it's that kind of that um, uh, a sort of um, reinforcement of what they've been saying in the classroom. And here's the practicalities of it. Or here's somebody who who's saying exactly what I'm saying, you know, because you might have got bored of me saying it, um, but it doesn't make it less true no, no, no, and you're a different person to be saying it as well, and they're you know, we all know that you know, children don't listen to their parents, but they might listen to teachers.
Alison Hardy:And then they don't listen to teachers, but they might listen to an outside expert.
David Houston:So yeah, exactly, yeah, and I think that's that's. That is a massively important thing and and yeah, I've been. You know, some teachers will ask you to sort of to say again, or they get students to write down particular words you've said or the thing but yeah, I think that's kind of that's the pleasure of teaching in a classroom.
Alison Hardy:Yeah, yeah, well, look, david, we've covered a huge amount of ground, but thank you very much for coming and talking with me this morning. Like I said, I wish we sort of hit record before we started as well, because we had a whole rich conversation there. But actually we've brought quite a lot of that in today and, um, yeah, I'm hoping teachers I'm sure teachers listening to this will kind of get them thinking and get them thinking about how they can work with whether it's the vna or other museums that are local to themselves and take some of those ideas, and we'll put links in the show notes to all of that as well for people to follow up with. But thanks very much for your thoughts about design, education and the role of the museum in that and shaping what's happening.
Alison Hardy:So thanks for your time today and enjoy your holiday, as you're off yeah on your way up to Scotland thank you so much.
David Houston:Yeah, well, no, it's been lovely, for I'm going to say this again it's been lovely for me to kind of um, find the passion, uh, in what I do, which is it's, it's really lovely to kind of almost, you know, think about the greatest hits of, kind of those moments when I've seen students who've who've really, you know, been inspired by, by, by by the passion of learning, really, you know, and buying that kind of that, um, you know, that sort of moment when they've realized that they need to know the answer to something.
David Houston:Learning should be like your, your, you know, and buying that kind of that, um, you know, that sort of moment when they've realized that they need to know the answer to something. Learning should be like your, your, you know, your underwater gasping for air, and information should be that air that you're, you're, you're desperately trying to get, yeah, um, and and. So, having students in, or having kind of, and having teachers as well I mean, no one's not in that position having that, that moment when people are so sort of desperate to know something or desperate to or even give an opinion, I think that's inspiring to me. It's kind of the thing that makes me laugh while I do.
Alison Hardy:Yes, I can hear. I can hear that. But thanks for your time. We'll have to get you back on and maybe I'll get some of the people involved in the V&A Innovate, some of the teachers, we'll get some of those on the podcast and talk about what they've got as well.
David Houston:That'd be brilliant, yeah, brilliant, amazing. Thank you so much.
Alison Hardy:Thanks, David.
