W H A T ' S    Y O U R    P R O B L E M?

The aim of this project is to identify a design problem within life, this could be anything from developing a new product, an everyday hinderance etc and then to develop and integrate a solution. Since I am very interested in the field of education and art I wanted to take a deeper look into the benefits of visual stimulation and design within the classroom. Thinking upon my own experience at University, the walls in all the classrooms are stripped bare and all painted in that dreaded colour- magnolia. Upon thinking more about this I realised that this doesn't really affect my education as all my classmates,myself included are constantly on their phones or laptops in search of visual inspiration etc, we all use Pinterest and sites like Behance during class and so we have no lack of visual stimulation. 

Thinking on a smaller scale I then thought about visual aids and resources for Gaelic speaking schools on a primary and playgroup level (bunscoil). I then visited my local bunscoil in Maghera and asked the múinteoir a few questions and had a look around the classroom, it was obvious immediately that this was not an environment in need of art/design. The walls had plenty of numeracy charts and alphabet charts in gaelic and the teacher assured me that they had plenty of resources....next idea. 

I then started to think about different cultures and schools with less funding, this lead to a memory trigger from my time in Tanzania, Africa in 2010. Whilst there with the charity 'Rafiki Tanzania' associated with St Patricks College Maghera,  I visited a number of schools in Mwanza, mainly primary schools. These are severely poverty stricken areas and so the classrooms hadn't even had windows installed, never mind having any educational wall decor. 

Below I have included first hand photos I had taken during my time there showing the grotty walls and the fact that the only wall decor displayed were colouring book pages donated by charities and coloured in by the children. 

I have taken a look at the statistics surrounding visual learning and classroom stimulation..

Approximately 65 percent of the population are visual learners. – Mind Tools, 1998

Visual aids in the classroom improve learning by up to 400 percent. – 3M Corporation, 2001

One study found that after three days, a user retained only 10-20 percent of written or spoken information but almost 65 percent of visual information. Another study showed that an illustrated text was 9 percent more effective than text alone when testing immediate comprehension and 83 percent more effective when the test was delayed. 

My problem therefore is that Swahili speaking classrooms in Africa have little to no visual stimulation or resources for the walls to decorate the room and stimulate the children. Below I have included a proposed timetable to help me stick by the strict timeline in place for this project.  I also wish to implement my solution in an actual African classroom to receive accurate and valuable feedback.