Response to reading “Design and the Play” by Paul Rand
I agree with Rand’s viewpoint on teaching from your own perspective as a student because as a student I feel that his ideas for how a class should run lines up with my style of learning. He argued that learning should be fun yet structured incorporating games that allow students to enjoy themselves while engaging their brain in problem-solving activities. He also believes that there needs to be rules and discipline in order for this to work and be efficient, you can’t always just do crossword puzzles and brain-teaser games, you have to abide by the laws of the classroom as well. I found this idea of his to be contradictory, as he is a designer, an artist and art should be about freedom to express oneself and create as you please, not as the rules dictate. However, this may just be what he needs in order to learn/work better. He explained this by saying how “there are many ways in which the play principle serves as a base for serious problem-solving.” Then he utilizes different images as examples for how designing a play can help with other skills. One of the examples that stood out to me the most was the Chinese Tangram, a toy in which a square is divided into five triangles, one square, and one rhombus and can be arranged in various patterns. It shows how what is can be changed to something new, and we rely on our problem solving and design skills to rearrange the shapes.
