Seldom does an opportunity arise that engages such diverse thinkers,

leaders, educators, individuals and institutions. The World Design

Capital Cape Town 2014 offers this occasion. This is not necessarily the
case with all capitals of design. The City of Cape Town has taken an
active, involved, and engaged interest in this juncture of design, as the
opportunity to Live Design! Transform Life! Against this backdrop,
theyellowtree.org is launching its campaign for 2014, looking at and
reporting on evidence of transformative principles and practices that
have educational or curricula impact, as reflected across a number of
the almost 450 projects in the World Design Capital 2014 (WDC2014)
programme.
theyellowtree.orgs interest resides in transformative principles and
ideas and how these may either illustrate, or contribute towards, new
and innovative practices in curriculum development. We hope that our
project will serve as a mechanism to ensure future sustainability and
multiplication of this valuable project collateral from WDC2014. We
also hope to encourage conversation, open up dialogue, and support
debate amongst stakeholders and practitioners, policymakers and
students, creatives and the world of business.
Mike Thoms and I have collectively engaged with curriculum policy,
critique, debate and design over a number of years and we hope to use
this experience, to work with the WDC2014 projects and their
principles, ideas, critiques, possibilities and evolution. This opportune
moment offers occasions to translate or codify the underlying
principles into new forms of educational relay, whether as curriculum
principles, contemporary policies or potential curriculum designs for
future delivery. The WDC2014 projects offer a unique occasion to
engage with key stakeholders, wider design audiences and a global
platform, and one that can simultaneously contribute to innovation,
explore critical social issues, and transform lives.
In the development of the campaign, it is our aim to contextualise the
opportunities and debates, to raise diverse and critical questions, and
to reflect on the projects and their teaching & learning practices. We
endeavour to map and appraise collateral developed through
engaged, design thinking, during WDC2014 for future curricula. In
future posts, we will cover some of these exciting WDC2014 projects,
as well as looking more closely at the concept and practices of design
thinking, in relation to 21st century knowledge creation and
dissemination, knowledge production, knowledge forms and knowledge
relations.
Our 2014 Campaign reflects theyellowtree.orgs four guiding
principles for the ongoing research and curatorial project, namely:
Social Justice, Innovation, Collaboration & Democratisation, and the

development of new digital Archives & Resources. Does your project

recognise the potential for any of these principles? Having been
selected as a winning concept by WDC2014, does your project
strongly focus on socially responsive design? In what ways does your
project recognise and mobilise Cape Towns considerable design
resources towards addressing critical issues? In what ways do you
envisage your project to engage with the design thinking, to activate
and transform?
It is the City Of Cape Towns aim to deal with past imbalances and
inequalities across three broad themes:
rebuild Cape Town through community cohesion
reconnect the city through infrastructural enhancement
reposition the city for the knowledge economy
theyellowtree.org supports the slogan Live design. Transform Life.
Contact us if you are interested to share or contribute to this powerful
moment in the lives of every Capetonian, fellow South Africans, and
global thought-leaders and citizens.

Critical Thinking: The Key to a successful education.

As a lecturer in higher education, the most commonly asked questions
I am asked relate to the scope of the next test, project or exam
students are facing. What they are actually asking of course is for me
to tell them exactly which parts of the curriculum they need to study,
and the types of question they are likely to be asked.
This really means that students believe that a piece of paper with the
word Diploma or Degree printed at the top is a passport to a better life.
In reality, it means nothing, because if the transfer of knowledge is
made (and assessed) through a parrot learning style, even an A
student is unlikely to be able to apply that knowledge in the workplace
and that is what really matters.
At Boston Media House, many subjects are what could be described as
craft-based. Students study Journalism, Graphic Design, Advertising
and PR amongst others - subjects that require a hands-on, practical
learning style. It is no coincidence that Advertising and PR companies
call themselves practitioners.
A key element of this mode of educating is critical thinking and this is
sadly lacking in many of our students. Adli Jacobs, author, journalist
and fellow lecturer believes this lack of critical thinking relates directly

to the thesis of Citizen and Subject, well documented by Mahmood

Mamdani, in his 1996 book of the same name.1 The

1 Mamdani, M. 1996. Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the

Legacy of Late Colonialism. Princeton University Press.