T1. Definitions

You are doing a Textiles or a Mechanics course, so humour me for a moment, DEFINE for me ‘Textiles’ or ‘Mechanics’ as YOU see it. In English, of course [But don’t ever feel frustrated if your English is a bit weak: if you want to say something: SAY IT… if you run out of English that’s not a problem, continue in French!  I’d rather have your ideas and hear your thoughts than have you frustrated in class by your inability to participate.]  I am not interested in ‘classical definitions’ you may have learned by wrote (by heart), I am more interested in what YOU believe the field to be…. because you act on the basis of what you believe!

Good ‘Definitions’, however, do more than tell the story of the ‘WHAT’… they also cover the WHO, WHERE, WHY, WHEN and the difficult one..  the HOW.

INSTRUCTIONS.

1. Spend a few minutes silently jotting down your own thoughts on the matter.
2. Make a team of three and share your thoughts
3. Construct a definition in English in a narrative form
4. Double-check that it contains the WWWWW+H
5. be prepared to read this out LOUD to the class
6. We will then try to construct a ‘Master’ definition of your field of study, your industry, which contains the attributes of ALL your thinking.
7. If you have a laptop or connected device with you, NOW we will look at what the ‘experts’ and academics say … [Q. Are academics ‘experts’, I wonder???].  In the light of their views, should we change / improve our definition, perhaps?

I suspect we will end up creating better definitions ourselves…..