#HTE

“Design Ah!” is a Japanese TV Show Created to Nurture Children’s “Design Minds”

As someone who used to teach in Japan, I’ve always been blown away by that country’s bizarre-yet-somehow-effective approach to education. I’ve just been reminded of this by learning about “Design Ah!”, an NHK TV show created to stimulate children’s “design minds:”

“Design mind is interpreted as the combination of sensibility and thinking to be aware of one’s environment (LOOK), investigate what kinds of problems exist (THINK), and make a better situation (CREATE), using a diversity of expressions.

"Our wish is for children—who will be responsible for the future—to experience the richness of looking, thinking, and creating with the"design mind.”

Sounds good enough, but man, they’ve got a show segment called “Unexpected Outcomes” that’s outright bizarre. They’ve basically tasked a video guy with creating surrealist takes on everyday life, and the result is pretty much what you’d see on mushrooms. Here are some examples:

The rest of the show is pretty cool, and opens with segments that show you visuals of basic human factors stuff, like this:

If you’re in the U.S., you can actually watch full episodes of the show for free here.