Working Class Studio

In February 25th’s New York Times Magazine, Rob Walker writes about a “program at the Savannah College of Art and Design (or SCAD) in Georgia, called Working Class Studio, that is so focused on marketplace realities that it seems more like a company than a college course.” Students in the program, referred to as “interns,” conduct trend research and are involved in producing prototypes and products, some of which actually have sold well in the real marketplace (in stores like Anthropologie and online).

The article, entitled Too Cool for School, describes an approach to design education that is wedded to the realities of the real world and marketplace; for example, “a follow-up set of designs riffing on statues of historic Savannah figures was scrapped when… retail contacts… thought the concept was too local.” Introducing students to their future lives seems like a no-brainer, but most traditional college experiences seem to do the exact opposite.

While Epistemic Games are simulations for younger children, they operate under the some of the same design principles as the Working Class Studio. SCAD’s program operates the same way a junior-designer job at any real-world design startup would. Similarly, Epistemic Games environments are modeled on the training regimens that are the launchpads for innovative professions. Although the young participants of the upcoming Digital Zoo game will not really be providing designs for the next Pixar movie, the play environment has been set up in all ways as if they will be.

Of course, the purpose of elementary school differs from that of design school: we are providing our players with some useful lenses, not advanced career training. The premise of epistemic games is that advanced career training is a wonderful model of education for younger learners. The promise of epistemic games is that this same model will prepare tomorrow’s adults with a toolkit of skills that are relevant and authentic, as opposed to the current and outdated model, which focuses on drilling basic skills that have few (if any) applications in the real world.