[Archive] Talking about design education in schools and higher ed with Max Pownall

Max Pownall is a product design lecturer at Nottingham Trent University.

Find out more about Max and his work:

• Instagram (NTU Focussed)
• LinkedIn
• Uni profile
• Final Year Degree online degree show

Mentioned in this episode

Events with Alison Hardy

The Design Thinking Toolbox

https://www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/books/michael-lewrick/design-thinking-toolbox/9781119629191

Tools from the book at - https://en.dt-toolbook.com/t

Transcript

Alison Hardy  00:00

So I'm really looking forward to talking with my guest for today, Max Pownall. Max and I connected because Max is a lecturer at NTU. And the different departments made in the School of Architecture in the built environment, it's still called that max? And in the Maudsley building and that sort of area, again, where I used to be until we were quite rudely kicked out by your department, but won't hold that against during this afternoon's conversation. And then we connected because Max was talking to me about Master's in education. And then we started talking about D&T. And we started talking about his work and research and I said, right, you need to come on the podcast, so that the ante teachers can hear what you've got to say, and learn from you about what happens into you design. So there we go, long introduction, but over to you, Max, you want to say who you are, where you are, and what you do.

Max Pownall  00:48

Yep, sure. Yeah. So Hello, everybody, I'm Max. And my kind of background is different to Allison's, and I guess maybe lots of people listen to this. And in terms, I haven't come from education background. So I've come from being a designer for 10 years or so. So my I started I graduated in 2008, from stats University on a product design course. And then kind of went there over the next 10 years doing various different roles. So my first innovative design role was up in Blackpool, designing recycling bins for a company called bustin, which was really really interesting to learn lots about kind of manufacturing, rotational moulding and things but not that glamorous street furnishings is what we were, they're the glamorous name for them. And then from there did various different other roles looked at some kind of disabled living, assisted bathing devices, so kind of baths that lift up and down and things, then I came across to Darby and worked for a company who do single use surgical products for about five years work there. So we were looking at more so not so much design that the products because they've kind of been the same in terms of surgical products, the same kind of things for a number of years, but looking at the automation of the assembly. So looking at how can we can improve the process of improving getting costs down and kind of improving existing systems with machinery. So kind of more engineering reactor, I guess, kind of actuators and things and how can we turn a hand assembled process into a mechanical process that can be automated, repeatable and things. And so I did that for about five years. And then after that, I moved up to North Nottingham to a company called TTS, which may be people listening might know because they do lots of educational resources for schools from kind of early years, all the way up to secondary and things like that. So anything from your pens and pencils and stationery up to your kind of interactive programming toys and sensory kind of sensory rooms, and yeah, early years educational resource and things so loads and loads of variety of products there. Lots of products, we used to make like 300 new products a year, various kind of injection moulded products down to your kind of soft furnishings and things. And, and so yeah, that was really good experience and work there for a couple of years and then decided for some strange reason to diversify into coming to university having a conversation with my head of department now, Jim Dale and kind of thinking yeah, this is actually really interesting, kind of inspiring the latest generation of designers. So So yeah, I joined nothing and trend in 2018. And from there kind of weren't learning the ropes of how about how to teach and how to educate and things and using I always I came of it came from it from using my kind of knowledge of industry and what industry wanted to kind of drive. What the Yeah, what we taught and what we gave out our course for in product design is always really industry linked and industry focused. And so we do lots of live projects with companies who come in and take off skills and I pride us on making what I would call real designers like product designers, you can go and kind of design whatever you want from our course and I think that's because it's that strong liquid industry. And so yeah, it's been a bit of a learning curve to learn about kind of pedagogies and things like that. But yeah, hopefully I've got the design knowledge to the background Well, I guess

Alison Hardy  04:16

I was gonna say it sounds like you do have because that's that's for different design companies or companies you worked for doing design in quite a variety of different things. So you've got a huge rich CV and experience that you've that you that you're bringing in abroad. I was talking with somebody else's we go for another podcast episode Kate window, who's a student teacher for Design and Technology said a little bit about yourself in terms of early career in education, although in a different sector. And she spent a long time working in the textile industry and thought about her experiences of being on the shop floor looking at the manufacturing looking at the processes, how do we streamline it? What can we modify in the garment that makes it more economical, feasible and so on. So yeah, so but I think bringing that to a design education class, whether it's higher education or secondary that that experience, reasons, add something new to a department.

Max Pownall  05:14

Yeah, I guess I'm the kind of sonification a bit of a plug for our course. But we, one of the things that makes us stand out compared to some of the other courses of the universities is our placement year. So where it's a three or four year course, and in that third year, you go and kind of work out in industry, do a placement, do a kind of six, month nine, roll out in industry, and then come and apply that role to the final year. And that really, really lifts the students and you can really see a difference. So I guess that's kind of me having that of industry experience bringing that in and thinking, What does Yeah, how does this work in the real world? What was kind of the constraints of there? And yet, given that other perspective, I suppose,

Alison Hardy  05:53

yeah, well, I mean, the conversations that we've had already you've given, you've given me a different perspective. But also, you know, we've talked about what what does the university courses want the design courses want from the students that are coming through secondary school? And we've talked about those tensions, haven't we around the qualifications that happen in school and what they have to do? And then what that might mean when they come to university? So let's start from there about what what are you looking for in terms of when I want to say young people, but they're not all young people, you have majority that's coming on your courses, what you're looking for those that have multiplied, so he said, which cost you you're teaching on, and

Max Pownall  06:35

BA product design I teach currently. So I look after the first year for the whole kind of First Year Experience. So when the students come to university, they're with me for the whole year. But I've dabbled in the other courses, as well. I was originally brought on for the BSc side with all my relatively engineering side, but I've gradually navigated across to the fluffy side, I'd imagine they were very cool. But then, yeah, in terms of terms, what we're after for students. Interesting question, I think the kind of the biggest thing for me is that is the kind of open mindedness and creativity I guess, the kind of willing to be creative and free, think of it differently. And yeah, be open to an opportunity, I guess we always in the in the past, we've always found the student students that come to us who were the strongest, maybe not so much anymore, but historically, was tended to be those Foundation, guys, people who'd kind of done a foundation degree between or would you say mature students coming in and kind of knowing a bit more, I guess, kind of a little bit more self knowledge about kind of knowing who they are and what they want to do. And so yeah, I think kind of people who, who can be adaptive and creative, I think it's, we can work with that. I think if you're quite kind of relatively strict in what you're thinking, I want to go and do this and be and do that I'm going to get go to university to do this and do that. It kind of limits your choices where I, I went to university to do proper design, because I wanted to be a designer of whatever, like I wanted to just be able to go somewhere to shop or wherever and see something I designed on the on the shelf and think, wow, I design that. And that's potentially why I ended up at the bean factory to start with. And because I got that, that first my first job role out of university, two years in, I could go down, it was at the NSC, my bin was, and I could go to the NAC and be like, wow, there's my rotation. And then that's a product that come from my brain. And that, as I talk about that a lot with the students that kind of a feeling of designing something, and then seeing it in the real world is something manufactured, it's a real kind of high. And

Alison Hardy  08:43

so I'm just going to stop you there. Because I think that's really interesting. Because so my work is around what people say the value of D&T, one of the things that came out was that when when children design and make something, and they have it in front of them, it's kind of my interpretation of what people were saying, in front of them. It's almost like a physical representation of them in a way because it's part of them, it's come from them. And that that is more than a sense of satisfaction, isn't it? In a way it's Yeah, as you're saying that that's, that's come from me that's come from my brain. That's really exciting to me, that, that you talk about that in your work as a designer, but also it's something that's talked about in design and technology is that this realisation is part of the person who's done the designing and thinking about it. Yeah,

Max Pownall  09:33

absolutely. Yeah. And I think that the kind of ultimate version of that was when I worked for the final company for came to university TTS and that was designing things for chip for kids and children and and seeing someone playing and loving and interacting with your product. That was like the ultimate high of like, yeah, I've got this thing out and it's great kind of personal gratification, but then to see someone else playing with that as well was really was really exciting. And yeah, I think that's in terms of going back to your question. I think that's, that's what I'm after or not, I don't really want people to think I want to come in and be like a car designer, I kind of want people to come in and think I want to make a difference. I want to change the world, I want to have an impact. And I think those are the people we can kind of work with America really exciting minds to, to develop, I guess.

Alison Hardy  10:23

Yeah. Right. Like it kind of blow my head off in all sorts of different sorts of different directions, which is, which is great. So if you want them to come in like that, let's say they come in, they're not like that, what what do you do?

Max Pownall  10:39

Lots and lots of activities, and kind of fun tasks and things is what we're kind of, and this has been the big learning curve for me really is coming in from having having done it from for 10 years, having kind of come over ideas and bit and run builds off other people's ideas and generated those ideas, thinking coming into university and naively thinking that everyone was like me, and everybody thought the same way and could kind of see problems developing and think, oh, what about that? What about I change that, and then realising that actually, that needs to be taught, like you need to learn that skill of how to build and organise ideas or not just take your first idea and run with that, how that's the seed of a great idea. But how you develop that and iteratively improve that if that's the key. And so that's what I've spent the last couple of years really focusing on is those activities of how do we get that kind of design thinking, I guess, how do we get the kind of creative process going? So we do, we do loads and loads of activities. Now they're kind of really exciting when we did recently was, we got the first years to go out into Nottingham. And and observe people people watch, pick a person, watch them, kind of not the making, making stuff known and not taking pictures or anything, but kind of observe them and then try and use your imagination to build a picture of their life, like what are they doing? Why are they in that space? Where are they going? And then bringing that back into the studio and thinking right, okay, now here's a scenario put that person in this scenario, what products might they need? What might be the problems that their pain points and things? And yeah, just lots of really kind of nice activities to kind of, because a lot to show, you can get an idea a lot of because a lot of things we find with students who come to us from maybe a level background is they tend to kind of think that that first idea is the best idea. And I and so it becomes

Alison Hardy  12:30

a giant dinosaur, baby. That's the terminology for it. Yeah. So if there's a book by I'm looking up on my shelf, it's called glimmer by Warren Berger. And I'll put a link to it in the show notes. And he talks about dinosaur baby. And so, you know, dinosaur babies are very pretty. And only their mother loves them. And so your first idea is a dinosaur baby, because other people, you know, your tutor, or whoever will come along and go, Oh, no, that doesn't work. But you don't want to let go of it. You love it, because it was your first idea. So they're called dinosaur babies. Right?

Max Pownall  13:06

That's a really interesting interview idea. I'm actually reading a book myself at the minute on creativity, and called startup Lee by David, and I can't remember his surname, I'll get you to put in the show notes afterwards. But that's all about the idea of starting ugly is to embrace that ugly first design, but not as the endpoint as the as the starting point. But yeah, absolutely. That's that dinosaur baby. How do we kind of make his mother realise that he's not quite as good as he thinks he is. But the way I've addressed that before, when when students come to me and said, This isn't, this is the best idea. It's the first one I've had, it's the best idea I've had the not so I say, okay, use the rest of your sketching in your development to prove to me that that is still the best design. So look at lots of different variations. and nine times out of 10 there's a there's a change and an improvement along the way. But yeah, that's dinosaur babies. That's definitely a good way to describe it. Yeah.

Alison Hardy  14:01

Yeah. I mean, as you were talking about that idea about watching people, and I didn't either the David you're talking about is David bramston. No, that got the book in the other room. Yeah. I used to use on the, on the undergraduate course, a book by David bramston. called idea searching. Okay. And he has at the back of that book. And it's aimed at undergraduate. And he's, he's a, he was at Lincoln University on lead in their design course. And at the back of it has all these different like projects or activities to do and one of them is sitting and watching how people walk into a building. I see how people adjust themselves as they walk into, they pick their bag up, do they move their head or they tell me that they will have will have mannerisms? And, and just to develop that observation about a particular space. And then that idea that you've got there about you know, watching a person or building a story and Bill Nicole Who's at Cambridge University produce some fantastic resources, which now are print that we used to use in schools, where you'd have a picture of somebody, there's a whole pack of these cards. And then there was loads of questions to ask, so what music they like, you know, what, what kind of proxy, you could build up a story, a story like that. And then as you say, once, once you've done that, then bring that back into the studio and say, right, here's the context. If this, but this is the person, you know,

Max Pownall  15:31

yeah, yeah, that's really, really nice. I get it reminds me of a technique we use as well, which I think is from IDEO, originally, but the five why's method where I've got a three year old daughter, and she does this to me all the time of just keep asking why, you know, that child thing of why why why and yeah, doing that to you, your design or your user? Why do they need this product? Why, why that, why that and building on from that can be a really nice time, as you were talking to men we got we're thinking about kind of empathy, and the idea of putting yourself in someone else's shoes. And that was a big part of my career, when I worked, I kind of brushed over in my introduction, but when I worked for the place that did assisted bathing. And so these were people designing these baths, that will for people who are living in their own home, but had some kind of disability, so they couldn't kind of bathe themselves, or they wanted some bit more freedom of mobility back. And so these baths were designed to look like normal bath, their regular bath size, they weren't horrible walk in showers or anything. And the idea was they had like a surfboard in the top of them. So you'd fill up the bath, and then you'd transfer smoothly into the top of the onto the surfboard, press a button and the bath would lift around you. And so you'd go in. Yeah, ready, filled bath. And then if you had an issue, or a seizure, or something, your carer or whoever can easily quickly press the button and get you out of the bath without having to kind of any manual handling issues or anything like that. And and in doing that job, I thought it was all about empathy and kind of putting myself in those people's shoes and going into their houses and thinking, like this person just wants a bath, you know, this kind of basic human right if you don't have a bath on their own, or

Alison Hardy  17:09

the dignity.

Max Pownall  17:10

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I didn't want someone there or after they want to sit in a in a shower, stand or walk in shower and get in cold and wait for it to fill up and then get let it drain out. They just kind of wanted to have that normality. And then we take for granted. And that empathy idea is again, something we really like to push in first year of kind of getting people to put themselves in other people's shoes. So we have kind of empathy tools where we'll have gloves that restrict your movement. So it's kind of harder to grab things. And then in the past before, before the COVID times, we used to do things where we get someone or get groups of students and one of them would sit in a wheelie chair and we'd say right now get upstairs in the university, get to the top of Arkwright and the person is in a wheelchair, so get them around there and they would learn so much of this the little silly things like a tiny little step, or the left is miles away because it's an old building. And yeah, those those are the really interesting tools to kind of we like to get people thinking different ways and put themselves in different people's shoes and thinking of those things.

Alison Hardy  18:11

Yeah, and again, just finish off on that for the teachers that are listening again bill knock bill Nicholson some stuff on that designing our tomorrow's his his, his his website, you're going to have a look for that book. And he was talking

Max Pownall  18:23

about number one, but I really like to encourage everyone to design thinking tool book. I don't know if you've ever

Alison Hardy  18:29

Okay, no.

Max Pownall  18:30

You're right by Michael Lerwick and Patrick Lincoln, a few of the people really, really good and loads of really good hands on activities about how to set up an activity how to do kind of empathy mapping explorative interviews, there's absolutely tonnes of fear stakeholder maps, SWOT analysis is all all things like that.

Alison Hardy  18:49

Sounds great. So we'll put a link to that in the show notes. Is that book aimed at higher education? Primarily?

Max Pownall  18:54

No, it's it's aimed at kind of anybody looking to do innovation. So anybody looking for Kind of, yeah, guide to mastering the most popular and valuable innovation methods. So yeah, just about design thinking about how to problem solve and loads of loads of different things.

Alison Hardy  19:12

We've talked previously about how does higher education support secondary, yeah, in developing the next generation of designers, but also being aware of the fact that not every student in secondary school is going to go on to become a designer. So what's the sure what's the core skills that are around that? And so you've just got me thinking is, those books are great, but then as I said that the reason I asked the question about who is it for is because they're not really written for school teachers to use in their classrooms? No, true, true. No. So so just thinking about the fact where does new knowledge and new ideas come from from higher education for us to use in schools or for school teachers use in schools. And so maybe that's something that higher education design departments could think about if they want to work closely with schools because we talked about You could go in and just work with one score. And I said, but you're only kind of hitting one school, if that makes sense. Yeah, you only have an impact in one school. But it is about design departments like yourself, to me it is anyway, who are generating new knowledge, generating new ideas using new ideas. Doing new practice. That is, how do you bring that into the curriculum? Yeah, in the schools, rather than it being a project, but it's the curriculum. And so things like that book is working with teachers to how do we repurpose that approach in that book, but in a way that is appropriate for 11 year olds, that does develop their design thinking, given that the fact that their brain is at a different stage of development? We talk about pedagogy in secondary schools, when we talk about andragogy in universities, which is learning for adults, because adults learn differently than children. So I guess I'm just throwing that curveball out to you. That's, that's a challenge for you to think about. How does your department help in the repurposing and reproduction that repose recontextualizing of the knowledge of stuff that you do in higher education into secondary?

Max Pownall  21:12

So do you think that dinosaur egg idea then does is that is that also driven by the curriculum? Do you do you think of kind of secondary schools? Do you think that kind of that idea of, there's not that room for that creative expression, do you think or I'm naive to the kind of secondary school world? So?

Alison Hardy  21:29

I think, right, so I think this is really interesting is you have you have the assessment tail wagging the curriculum, dog? Yeah, yeah. We are subjective, just as just as much. Yeah, absolutely. But in a slightly different Well, there is shifting in higher education, I think, in secondary, the the assessment tail, how much it works, if we take that metaphor even, is measured by external people, as in the government league tables, Ofsted, whereas in higher education. It's not measured in it is measured by external organisations, like QA and stuff, but not in as much of a kind of granularity. Yeah, exactly. That's, that's, that's a great way of putting it. And, and so, and, again, the assessment criteria in secondary for design and technology, and we've talked about this is driven by having a high quality prototype having a product. And so if children start to design stuff, and they're taking risks, and my friend, Matt McLean talks about it, they're taking risks with their designs. And their solution is, we don't need a new product. Does that mean the Fed failed the GCSE or the a level?

Max Pownall  22:48

Yeah, yeah. And I guess that that feeds into kind of what we're looking for. When I talk about kind of creative free thinkers, it's almost that risk takers, thing, but we have exactly the same conversation as if we if we have a student who is willing to take risks, and as you say, develop design projects that ends in no product, no tangible product, how do we assess that? And how do we promote those those guys? So yeah, we're having exactly the same issues. It's just yeah, that kind of granularity, I guess, is, is different.

Alison Hardy  23:18

Yeah. And I suppose we also think about the fact that we talk about design thinking and design and technology, but a lot of other subjects talk about design thinking, yeah, please stolen from us. Yeah, thank you very much. That is perfect. But the other question is, why haven't we claimed it? Yeah, yeah, you know, true. And part of it. Part of what we do is that there are outcomes, there are outputs, there are solutions. Whereas in other subjects, they use the thinking, but they're not necessarily thinking about what the solution is. Sure, almost kind of stop at the creativity and the innovation without taking the innovation to a point of realisation whether the realisation is a product or system. Or let's go no further with this. Yeah. Yeah. Does that make sense? I think that's the part I think it's David spends about being in conversation with about this. And Edie Norman, about that? What makes the design thinking Indian tea or design education in higher education different? Is it it's taken somewhere?

Max Pownall  24:24

Yeah. Yeah. into something that taken places exactly as you say, does that place it's taken does not need to be a tangible office piece of furniture. And it doesn't need to be a tangible object. Because I see a lot of the kind of whispering on the window thing in the media about as you've been talking about kind of design technology budgets being caught, and people not having workshops and things and then I'm thinking it just didn't like obviously, of course, we want those skills. It's really good to have those hands on skills, but in terms of the core of what we're teaching is that creativity and that exploration, it doesn't really matter if you don't know how to use a bandsaw because it Again, in my industry experience, I would always go to the manufacturing expert attractor and say this is my design make that and of course there's a place for that that scale. Definitely. But I think, yeah, do we focus too much on that end outcome? And a lot of portfolios. I see from a level people coming in a level guys coming in. It's a lot of, yeah, things have made for their home things are made for their mom or their dad. It's like a. And is that because that's the tangible, easy, achievable outcome? And are we asking is the curriculum I guess, asking the right correct question to kind of get those things out? But it's, I can see. Yeah.

Alison Hardy  25:40

But it's always the assessment, asking the assessments asking the question this Yeah, yeah. And that's it. And the assessment isn't holistic. It's parts. Yeah. And one of the parts is about an outcome. Right? And then the challenges as well, is because what seems by the outcome that's easy to share, isn't it? And then we make judgments about the outcome. And then then we get the tension, though, is it craft? Or is it a prototype? And does it matter? Yeah, yeah. And, yeah, but I do, I do think it is about an outcome, whether it's tangible, or about a process or about a system. I do think that is it, because because in design education, I mean, although you say I would go to the manufacturing people, you did have an understanding about the manufacturing processes to be able to make those design decisions. Yeah, yeah. Good point. Yeah, you might not know all the nuances, and you might not necessarily be able to do it, but you had an understanding and awareness. And I think is the difference from other subjects in terms of the design thinking does inform, excuse me an output? or something? I don't know. That's, that's my, that's my thinking today. Anyway, I might change if we had this conversation next week.

Max Pownall  27:02

No, that is very true. That is that is a really valuable point, I guess. But yeah, the, the no understanding that process. And again, it's something we tried, we tried this year with the project, but wasn't quite as successful as I wanted to where we were kind of looking at applying a process later in the development. So allowing the students to run with an idea and saying, right now, there's been a big change in you've all got to make this out of from a CNC machine. How does that change your design? And yeah, not having that knowledge? I guess all the not understanding that process. Having a basic understanding of it from the outset meant that some people really struggled to convert their design, because they, they didn't understand those limitations. So yeah, yeah, tricky, tricky. I can do education is tough.

Alison Hardy  27:47

It is, it's, it's really tough. And, you know, I talk to a lot of D&T teachers, and you can see that tension all the time by what the exam boards are looking for. What is expected, what the children come with expectations of as well, I think there's more and more of a breakdown about that I don't mean break down in a bad way. I mean, it's been broken down in terms of that, it's not being seen as we do have to have a finished a finished product that we can take what we can put on the war we can use or whatever. But, but there are, but there is about there is a value that we've talked about in making something that we designed that we can see and touch and go, this is part of me. Yeah, yeah, true. So you have I think you have to have a varied curriculum, I think is what I would say, to do that. But you have to be really clear in that curriculum when you're assessing that. And when you're assessing this, and when you're setting the whole.

Max Pownall  28:44

Yeah, yeah. Which, again, is something we've discussed about in university level, how do we do that? Do we, because at the minute, we kind of assess there's a whole, like you say, we take the whole process, and then maybe sometimes the the nuances or the some of the steps are missed, because you're assessing the whole thing. But perhaps we look at that in those early those first, second years, we look at that kind of focusing on the processes. And then the final year is right now bring all that together and apply that and easy for us to do in higher education, because we can bend and duck and dive wherever you need to. But yeah, that's Yeah, in terms of D&T at school, then is from the the outside perspective, it feels like a lot of kind of education now is driven by kind of do this, to get back to go into this type of job. Is that still kind of Is that true? Or I'm trying to think of like, what would what would bring a student choosing their options towards D&T over something else? Is there is that the end goal, or is it just a kind of personality trait?

Alison Hardy  29:46

I think there's a whole variety of things. I think, sort of it's the end goal, and I'm probably not the best person placed to talk about this because I've not taught in schools for quite a while now. And, but I would, I would say it's driven by the pupil, the student do what they want to do. But that view is formed by the experiences they have in school. Yeah, they're their family, you know what their family believe and value and have experience of what their teachers say and talk about, and how they talk about different things, whether positively dismissively. So I think, you know, we've talked about, you know, department, you know, as being dismissive early about university departments working with schools. And I do think those sorts of things are important, because some of those children will never have an awareness when sending Well, there is a job that I can even do this like that. And I want to do that now. There's a danger in that. And I talk from experience, because, you know, I went to school in the in the mid 1980s. And it was a really big push, as it seems to be in every decade for girls to go into engineering. Yeah. And I did, I didn't design the technology at secondary school, I did something I did graphical communication. Okay, just kind of like I was at school before the national curriculum saying how old I am. And, and, and from that, so it's only for girls that are 50, who did that graphical communication course. And so then you kind of get tapped into not meaning. So when opportunities come across to, or we need some girls who might be interest in engineering to go and do this, or do that. You what your name was always near the top of the list, because you're one of the only girls doing x, y, and Zed. And I also did physics at a level of them. And I did maths and further maths in and then when I went on to my do my a levels, I did maths, physics, and in Wales, it was called design, craft and technology. DCT. And again, I was the only girl I was the first girl who done it for eight years. And so I was given lots of opportunities. I did stuff with the women into science engineering, I did stuff with what was called gait, girls and technology, engineering, maybe it was, right. So I was given all these opportunities. I went down to Brunel university, I took part in a residential with a small piece trust. And so you start to see the possibility of his engineering. So I then applied all my university applications and Polytechnic, as it was that tells you if you're more how old I was, and applied to units and polytechnics to do mechanical engineering. Because I've been exposed to this idea. Yeah. And then, for the Brunel degree course, I had to go and get sponsorships, I was applying to different universities, I want to go down to Port Talbot and go down British steel. I had no idea what was going on. And then I went for an interview in Sony hall to these small company designing gas taps, basically, I just thought, No, I don't want to do this. And really, that kind of came out in the interview, not in a horrible way to them. Yeah. And these two lovely people in the interview talking about how to go back to school and my college and change mode, change my course. But what I'm saying is, but by then I've got places. And so actually, I then transferred onto a design technology with engineering with education course at Brunel University Park, which is mainly industrial design. But the point of my story is, is that I was given all these opportunities. But nobody really sat down and said, Is this really right for you? Huh? Yeah, so it was almost too late. There was Yeah, cuz you cried it all that? And yeah, yeah. So we've got to be really careful. So. So again, in my research work, we talk about the value of doing T. And we've we've kind of been curious about. So we've got this survey, and we're getting children's, fill it in, and we get the profile. And we're looking to see if there's a profile of how children valued NT if they choose to do GCSE D and T. And so for the ones that don't have that profile, we're thinking, can we shift it to make them choose GCSE D and t? And then you start to ask, Well, first, it's not ethical at all. And secondly, they could end up in the same predicament that I was in, doing GCSE D and T, because they've been sold it for two days. Yeah. So in actual fact, we've repositioned it to say what we're doing is to give them a broader understanding about the value of d and t. So they are better informed to make a good choice for themselves, right. So that's why it's a really long story, in answer to your question about where do children's views have come about what they do and what kind of what can universities do? And I think we have to be really careful. There's a moral obligation that when we when universities and we do an education, go into schools or do outreach work. We're actually giving children the full picture and actually enabling them to make a choice not just say, hey, come and do this, because it's great.

Max Pownall  34:39

Yeah, yeah, that's really interesting. And to kind of to follow up on your long your long story with my kind of not quite so long story. And so back at when I was in sixth form, I want I brought my levels I wanted to do English literature, tech and art. And my school said, No, you can't do that can't do to coursework projects, because it was too much of a heavy load, oh an ICT ICT as well, so really for eight levels, and you just do what you can't do that you need to you can't do art and tech. So I did physics instead, which was the hardest thing I've ever done in my entire life. And then the whole of my sixth form with the school that one of the early technology to colleges was all about pushing me towards engineering. So I did the engineering education scheme with GKN and Ford and, and all things like that. And so and when it came to university time, I kind of, I really struggled in physics, I'm terrible at maths, even now, I'm still really bad at maths. And I knew in my heart, I didn't want to be an engineer, I kind of ended up in that role eventually as a design engineer in the terms of the kind of process improvement but at the time, I knew I didn't want to do that. So I kind of I can remember thinking in my mind, I'm going to rebel, I'm going to going to kind of do something against it and choose the RTS core, so that could possibly find for a degree level. And that's why I ended up at Staffordshire University doing their ba because it was it was the other side it was that kind of the fluffy side, I guess the kind of a bit more creative freedom side. And it wasn't linked. It was wasn't pulling me towards the engineering side. But exactly your point there is because I'd had that exposure to the different options, that I knew that that was a possibility for me that rather than thinking, which has happened to you, though, I'm tied into this route, I'm going down this route. Now, my school obviously does something well, because they kind of share with me these other things I could do as well. And that allowed me to diversify. And eventually engineering got me in the end anyway. But still it kind of Yeah, it was good to have that opportunity to think actually, now I'm going to go and do this completely tangential thing. It was a

Alison Hardy  36:44

Yeah, so there are. So go back. There are lots of reasons. And then I think there's I mean, there's a whole load of research around around this about how young people make choices and what what influences them. But I think a lot of it does come around to not just them, but what they what they also feel I can get from it, what their motivations and their goals are like, like you were saying you wanted to make a difference. You wanted to make a difference through products through design, architecture, social workers going well, we make a difference to you, I mean, or doctors, but it's really yeah, it's in a particular way, isn't it? That's what you wanted to do is you want to make a difference through through design. And, but there's also weather, sometimes it's about how much money is horrendous. I mean, what what sort of income are going to get from this? Do? Do people like me do that? Hence why there's lots of girls into engineering programmes. And, you know, what have my parents done with my brother, dad, my sister, my family, my aunt, my uncle, my mates? Will it take me to a place that I don't? I don't want to go? Or? And also, it's how you teach us talk about it? And do you teach us talk about it in a way that this is a subject for everybody? Or is it just for people who look like me? Yeah, or behave like me? Or, or whatever. So I think there's lots of, there's lots of factors. And that's partly why I look at values. I think values are a factor in that what we think the point of the subject is, and therefore, how we see that in relationship to us. Crikey, well, we've covered a lot of ground. So I think we're probably going to have to come back and talk again and do another episode. And I think I think it would be really good maybe to have a look at that book. And maybe we could sort of bounce some ideas around, maybe get a teacher on with us and talk about it. Yeah, I will give it how we're gonna play that. Yeah, yeah. So for anybody listening, he'll be up for that having a three way conversation about some of those ideas about what might that look in practice? And also how what, what schools want from working with design departments?

Max Pownall  38:40

Definitely. I would love to kind of Yeah, we have our kind of jaded perception, I guess, of what the lower education systems like and it would be great to come on combat interview and say, No, you're wrong. This is what it's like and redo this and yeah, and we can we could work together and have that conversation. Fantastic.

Alison Hardy  38:55

Yeah, let's do that in the future. Anyway, it's been great talking to you, Max afternoon. Thanks ever so much. At Ross and thanks a lot.