Please, teacher, don't give me freedom. Contortionist pedagogies, Un-learning critical practices in architecture

Abstract

It seems now that students are afraid of taking decisions, of being free to decide. The problem it is not the university teaching method, but kindergarten and the school, society and education trends. Not training emotional abilities means we, professors of architecture, receive soldiers. Used to follow rules, not to decide. They suffer creating. And we try to motivate, turning everything upside down, making circus strategies and contortionist movements to make them committed and involved with the architectural project. Our proposal has the aim to open a dialogue among professors. The hypothesis is to implement a methodology of learning in a way that we un-learn, change emotional responses, focused on having fun. The idea is to implement freedom in pedagogical methodologies. We try to make contortionist pedagogies, deforming and depicting old ways to learn, to make room for new critical practices used in the context of freedom.