Dilemma: Am I legitimized to change a long-established traditional practice by enriching it with new tools and practices?

A group interview revealed that many of the techniques and tools that we use in the architectural drawing course are considered by the students outmoded and not useful in the contemporary professional practice. This discovery made me oscillate between the decision to keep preserving the ‘traditional’ character of the course and the decision to open my practice to several changes. Finally, I opted for the second choice accepting that the relationship between tools and practices is a two-way relationship and consequently any innovation to the one part will always influence the other.

For example, many subjects, like music, literacy, drawing, etc are largely defined by the media they use and consequently new technologies transform the nature of the subjects at its most fundamental level. Similarly in my practice, many modern tools and techniques have become popular among the practitioners, such as the digital drawing, and therefore, it’s a matter of time, these changes to start transforming deeply the educational practice. Besides, many institutions have already adopted hybrid forms of teaching, combining both digital and traditional design practices.

Hence, I’ve realized that any practice, even the traditional ones can be at the same time, resilient through generations and also open to change, while the enrichment of the subject will inevitably enrich students’ experiences and enable their participation to go beyond the familiar.

However, the extension of the tools can not occur hastily and uncritically, since the students have to develop operative knowledge in other words the ability to understand explicitly what they know and how they know it, before starting to explore new tools.