Abstract:

“Reading makes a full man, meditation a profound man, discourse a clear man.“ Benjamin Franklin

According to the UNESCO/UIA charter on architectural education and others, the third millennium architect is expected to be a “universal genie”; a creative competent, intellect and proactive. Literature describing measures to improve educational standards emphasizes the knowledge based approach mixing between shared experience and transferring know-how, thus achieving an integral coherent curriculum.

From a local perspective, studies conducted over the last two decades affirm that our Egyptian architecture schools emphasize the doing on the expenses of the thinking. This feature has proved to hinder students from exploring the abstract characteristics of theory and ideology that help develop the manners and behaviors of both the thinking and the doing. My argument therefor, is centered around the change of the formal educational context towards a varied intangible actions and reactions, constantly implied through a hidden curriculum, verified and practiced through discourse.

Concerning the hidden curriculum, Dewey’s 'Democracy and Education' explored those things students learn through the experience of attending school rather than the stated educational objectives. The concept that the hidden curriculum expresses is the idea that schools do more than simply transmit knowledge, but criticizes social implications, political underpinnings, and cultural outcomes of modern educative activities. Jackson 'Life' urged to understand education as a socialization process; picking-up approach to living and an attitude to learning.

From another angle, discourse means either the “written or spoken communication or deabte”. Discourse, according to Foucault, is observed in the spoken, written and sign language and multimodal/multimedia forms of communication. In the social sciences, discourse is a formalized was of thinking; social boundary defining what can be said about a specific topic, and affecting our views on all things; delivering the vocabulary, expressions and the style needed to communicate.

Through this paper, my aim is to introduce an educational model that emphasizes the urge of discourse in architectural education as the paramount hidden curriculum priority. The methodology is based on building a theoretical foundation of hidden currculum and discourse and relating them to architectural education. Then evaluating a course of design and research methods offered to junior students in one of the architectural schools in Egypt, in which the proposed model was executed. Discussion of the findings is expected to enrich the educational talk in this domain.

Keywords:

hidden curriculum, discourse, design and research methods, architectural educational model.