Ian Flude

Educational Philosophy:

As an educator and creative professional it is my belief that creativity, coupled with self confidence and a willingness to act for the good of one’s community is key both to a fulfilling, empowered life and a society that is both prosperous, culturally rich and inclusive.

I believe it is my role as a teacher in a creative subject to tap into children’s natural curiosity and idealism and channel that into creative and original solutions to real life problems.

On a practical level, this manifests itself in a strong focus in the classroom on teaching students how to conduct, collate and document high quality research that will be genuinely useful as they develop their ideas. Given the opportunity to discover for themselves, students are often good at constructing knowledge and I see my role as being to give them the tools to find their own useful information. However, I see it as being even more important to be a mentor and coach to the students in the often more tricky task of working out the right question to ask in the first place. 

I see part of my job as being to demystify the creative process with the goal of equipping students with creative routines to enable them to become confident in their own creative abilities and approach problem solving activities with relish both in the classroom and later as they mature and follow their own life path.

I believe it is essential to coach students to see failure, not as a final result, but a part of the learning process on the path to eventual success. With this front and center in my mind, I try to empower students to follow the philosophy of "fail fast, fail often" championed by the San Francisco design studio IDEO and embodied in the "Design Thinking" movement. To achieve this, I strive to provide stimulating and safe creative environments where students feel free to take creative risks in the knowledge that making mistakes is not only unavoidable but moreover an essential part of the process of learning, self-realization and developing a successful design solution. I see my role in this process as guide, mentor and coach.

I am also strongly of the belief that Design, when well organized, is a perfect medium for teaching students to be empathetic members of a community who can put themselves into the shoes of others in order to develop design solutions that are well attuned to the needs of someone other than themselves. The ability to do this within the context of a Design project is a skill that needs to be practiced and can help young people develop into thoughtful, considerate members of the community who are aware of the consequences of their actions but are also aware that they can be agents for positive change in their world, both locally and globally.

For myself, teaching has provided an opportunity for continual growth and self development. One of my goals as an educator is to instill in each student a belief that they are able to become empowered, valuable and valued citizens as a result of their creative contributions to their community on both a local and global level.