On the teaching of wonder

Abstract

Educational institutions that impart a high level of critical and intellectual rigour in their students are usually considered as "good". However, when one compares regions that have these "good" institutions with regions where the intellectual rigour is comparatively weak, one finds that the state of professional practice may not be that different. It appears that the quality of education in a region is not necessarily correlated with the quality of architecture that it produces, even though the professional practices may be inhabited by the same people who once inhabited these "good" colleges. To sustain consistency across drastically different contexts (academia and commercial practice being a case in point) requires a rooted sense of self, which cannot be produced by abstracted externalities such as theories or philosophies. The 'self is an entity that can be produced in its fullness only experientially rather than intellectually. But to merely stay within itself would be narcissism; the self finds fulfillment by anchoring to a higher reality. And to be moved by a higher reality is to be possessed by wonder. The paper will argue that by clinging solely to standards of intellectualism conventional education limits itself. For a more holistic construction of the self, education should embrace experiential foundations oriented towards the inculcation of wonder. The paper will outline some implications of this approach on architecture and on education.