Abstract:

In her plenary at ICERI 2025, Amy Smith of MIT talked about the idea in human centered design of moving from Consultation to Partnership to Leadership of the target population. The authors learned this in practice. Using the Stanford Design Thinking model the authors arrived in Isiqui, Nicaragua with the idea of building a creative preschool classroom. Preschool was carefully chosen as there was more flexibility in the national curriculum and the potential to create a model for future creativity. The community was selected after multiple visits to communities selected by faculty from the local university CUR Estelí.

After a year of workshops when we could be in Nicaragua and discussions it was clear that there were many players including the university, municipality, the ministry of education, the local community the parents of school children, the teachers and more. Time was spent trying to figure out who needed to be engaged in the conversation to make changes on the school property.

Architectural students were engaged to try and figure out what some of the proposed changes might look like. This turned out to be problematic as they did not know the community well. They also designed for urban construction with amazing detail. The frustration grew as there was no action visible in the community.

The Isiqui community was proud of their school property. We tried to imagine what could be on this wonderful property in the village, close to the highway with a beautiful view of the nearby mountains. The school was a typical concrete block structure with rectangular rooms. The water came from up in the nearby mountains through tubes bringing it to the town and ultimately to the school.

There seemed to be interest and great contact after an extended stay and building relationships. However, even with all the close warm feelings there was no real movement. The goal was to co-create by working together. This was not working to advance the process for a creative classroom. Finally at a meeting a triumvirate of faculty from the local university offered to take charge and they did.

They let the community lead and ask them what they wanted most. Water! The authors wanted a creative classroom for preschool, and they wanted a water tank. The water tank was particularly important as it could fill up at night and supply water pressure by day. A platform was created in a weekend for the water tank and on the next trip it was purchases. The parents wanted improved latrines for preschool children and better places for kids to wash their hands. While they laid tube for water to handwashing stations they cleaned up an outdoor space. This led to the desire for cement tables in the middle of all the natural occurring rocks. A local carpenter was found to build small chairs to get the young students off the floor.

It was a matter of letting them lead to an outdoor space for preschoolers complete with fun animal sinks. The community did most of the work and money was used to buy the most basic supplies in the form of tubing, water tank, and much more. It is not as we conceived it. It is not what we thought was most important, however it was what the community wanted, and what they saw as being creative for their school. The authors are reflecting on how we might get another community to move through the process of which Amy Smith spoke at ICERI 2025, Consultation, Partnership and then local Leadership.

Keywords:

Design Thinking, Human Centered Design, Community School, Leadership.