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Among the trail blazing developments that heralded our new century, the one with the farthest reaching consequences is, without doubt, the irreversible transition from the industrial to information technology. Many of us may consider the new dispensation a mixed blessing and not without reason. Yet, the silver linings it seems to promise need to be considered as well. One of them is a real possibility of breaking away from the prevalent mind set that thrives on what can be best described as specialism (approximate translation : tendency of acute, narrow specializations); the mind set that has been actively promoted by our present education system right since Macaulay and the hay days of the industrial age. |
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The point taken here is vividly borne out when effort and time wasting hurdles one must face while inducting young minds to learn creative disciplines like design. The worst of these hurdles materializes in the form of beginners' linear, mono directional habit of thinking; the legacy from the previous lopsided learning entirely centered on literacy and numeracy. Inevitably, time must be spent on the arduous process of reorientation to a more generalist and 'global' thinking habit, so essential for solving a problem of design. Modern design has been singled out as to provide a human face to technology. It is to this end that one of the silver linings the 'soft' technology of Twenty First Century offers becomes relevant. If employed with discretion and human compassion it may hold out a real possibility of ushering the age of New Generalism and affect a sea change in the thinking habits of our younger generations; the much aspired equal partnership between the word thinking brain and image thinking brain. There cannot be a more opportune moment to start a new center of Design learning. |
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