If you’re interested in the ways that education and design intersect, this book is for you. If you’re interested in empathy, design thinking, hands-on creative learning, getting comfortable with failure, you’re in luck. And if you love super-awesome illustrations created by the author spread throughout your books, this one’s got you covered. Educated By Design: Designing the Space to Experiment, Explore and Extract Your Creative Potential is a fantastic book on creativity and design and I highly recommend it.
(Post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase using them, I get a small commission that helps support running this blog.)
Read This Book: Educated By Design
I never make it to ISTE keynotes. I’ve tried a few times, but the size of the crowd and the volume of the room always feels a little too overwhelming to me. I like finding one of the various lounges that live-stream the talks to watch them. That type of environment always feels more comfortable to me. Back at ISTE in Chicago, I heard some of my friends talking about how excited they were about hearing the Tech Rabbi (Michael Cohen) speak. I missed his keynote. But I later made it to his session on design, which was one of my favorite sessions that year. While doing some research on design thinking this summer, I was so excited to find out about Michael’s book, Educated by Design. Like his session, this did not disappoint.
Before working in education, Cohen worked as a designer. When he took on the role of director of educational technology, he brought that mindset into his work. He realized that all of education can benefit from the design process and from teaching students to think like designers. Throughout the book, he weaves spiritual wisdom, personal experience and empathy into explaining how to teach your students to think like designers. Rather than go into detail with a traditional book review, I’d like to pull out some of my favorite quotes from the book:
Creativity, Innovation, Empathy, Design
“Innovation doesn’t come from skill or knowledge alone; it comes from belief – belief in yourself, belief in others and belief in something bigger than all of us.”
“Creativity is the ability to look at ourselves and the world around us and notice what isn;t obvious to others and to author unconventional solutions to the problems we identify”
“Creativity isn’t something you get; it’s something you reveal”
“Feeling empathy is one of the most powerful abilities one can possess. It’s the ability to truly understand and experience another person’s feelings and concerns, and it’s absolutely critical to personal and professional success.”
“Collaboration is about building on the ideas of the others and seeing those ideas as critical to the collective success of the group’s efforts.”
Read This Book: Educated by Design
This is a fantastic book on creativity and design. It takes a different approach from many others on the subject. Plus, it’s just darn fun to read. I highly recommend getting yourself a copy of this.