The country of the "make-believe" and the "experts" in anything (or nothing)!

In the last weeks, in a period of great immersion in the "Country of Education", either by means of applied research projects in secondary schools or by means of evaluations / answers and pronouncements with the entities managing the Education, my beliefs in the future of this Country were heavily shaken!

I am resilient, optimistic by nature, but still, yesterday, I thought with my "buttons" what I do here and by not go to Countries where the Teachers are:

• Recognised and Relevant;
• Work in a education supportive environment and where Academic Institutional management structures are evolved and open-minded to the different and to the prospective;
• Have "environment and space" to promote an innovative view of educational environments;
• Are encouraged to "think and act" out of the box;
• Where disruption and evolution are seen as the elements that enhance the development and preparation of knowledge, skills and ability not for "TODAY" but for "TOMORROW";
• where the decision is not only in the hands of people who represent a stopped and decontextualised ACADEMY without knowledge of the reality of the productive world and the economy!

There are no perfect "worlds", but there are "Worlds" where the vision, the imagination and the ability to DO different is taken in account in the decision-making processes of the decision makers! I know they exist because I have experience and "WORLD" in my professional and academic activity! In fact, it is "having WORLD" that is lacking in most of the decision-makers or influencers of the Institutions that regulate the ACADEMY. The word is given to people who do not COME out of their comfort zone (not to say years and decades of stagnation!) It is not politically correct to say this BUT IT IS THE PURE OF TRUTH, especially when they are still trying to IMPOSE their vision (shorted and limited) to others!

A concrete example of this strangle of innovation in education, especially in DESIGN. When the Ministry of Education calls the Directors responsible for the Portuguese Design courses and informs them that we "must rethink" our courses because the Ministry of Economy reported that the value of Design is not reaching the real economy and the productive world ... how can you receive a response from decision-makers / evaluators of a new DESIGN course that says: "The proposal does not comply with the current existing courses in Portugal for the same cycle of studies !!!! .... Remember Einstein? Stupidity is to repeat the same thing (formula) over and over again and expect different results....

Moreover, how much unreal is the current notion of Design from the decision-makers / reviewers, remember One's that "do not practice" or do any applied research out of researching within the university context) and therefore do not "listen to reality"; when they say: "the course does not have to provides curricular units with concrete and deep knowledge contents in areas of knowledge to which Design wants to intervene because nowadays is the Design knowledge that fertilizes ALL fields of science and knowledge ... you only have to manage their Autonomous Research"!

How IRREAL and arrogant is this statement! How wrong ...

I make a clear statement! It is EXACTLY because of this kind of thinking that the RESULTS of students' work and research DOES NOT HAVE AN IMPACT on organisations and the real economy!

I am proud that I have early foreseen the potential of Design to impact "emerging territories of knowledge" but to have a sense of the reality of the productive world I was to acquire knowledge and deep competences in the knowledge areas of inter and transdisciplinarity that I wanted to focus on my work. Master in Marketing, PhD in Management always with strong formative component in INNOVATION) ....

I know that the academic world of Design, influenced by "bad professional practices of Design" (mainly so called Design Thinking formula evangelists), has assumed Other's Knowledges has our own! we started to use other's methodologies, models and tools but these assumptions has been generally done superficially. "We" assume social science practices (eg. sociology, anthropology for example), and we only repeat the same adapted formulas (eg. observation, ethnography) translated into formatted tools. I ask: "How many DESIGNERS have really emerged in depth in this knowledges?

Another example: The current positive focuses of human centered processes ... How many designers and researchers in DESIGN have acquired deep knowledge of Psychology or Social Psychology?. I would say even more ... how many research teams are actually multidisciplinary and do they actually develop scientific models of the crossings of these areas?

The only positive thing that has happened is that we have attracted students / researchers from other areas to our courses, mainly Masters and PhD. levels, these has positively contaminated our areas of formation, but has a less positive side is that in the end these people may have less potential in translating these knowledge to the world of DESIGN! and finish their degree with impactful projects and research outcomes that can be transferred to the real economy....

Today, my feeling has changed. I want to Stay here and I want to help change this situation! It may be utopian, but I am a believer that things only change if there is someone who does not give up and I DO NOT GIVE UP ...

The positions i am taken were never easy, nor well received because I try to think ahead of what exists but in most cases TIME gave me reason and I want to believe that this will be the CASE again! Never have any "VELHOS DO RESTELO" (non believers experts of nothing) put me in the way of obstacles that I could not overcome, for the sake of what I believe and grieve!

Américo Mateus -