Sarah Holliman (00:00) And welcome to the fourth episode of Headway, an official podcast of Headway School. Today we dive into design thinking, a human-centered iterative approach to problem solving that fosters creativity, empathy, and real-world impact. In this episode, head of school Rachel Skiffer is joined by David Clifford, our inaugural director of design and making. David is a seasoned educator, builder, and equity-focused design strategist, and he's leading the vision for the Hed Royce Collaboratory, a state-of-the-art makerspace and interdisciplinary design hub opening on the South Campus in the fall of 2025. Together, they explore how design thinking can transform learning, empower students and teachers, and reimagine education through a more human-centered lens. Rachel Skiffer (00:41) David, welcome to Head Royce. We are excited that you are here. And I was wondering if you could start just by telling us a bit about your journey. How did you come to combine your identities as a builder, educator, and design strategist? David Clifford (00:43) Thank you. It starts with my parents. My father was an investment counselor. He was an amateur race car driver. And so I grew up in his shop and he grew up in Pasadena, Altadena in the forties and fifties. It was a very segregated town and he and his friends, they transcended class and race. They worked together to build go-karts. And their folks' garages were these sanctuaries for them to have these relationships that the city itself and our culture as a country did not allow them to have. And I learned this new term recently from Terry Reels. He's a psychologist and he says that it's really important for men to find relational joy. And so these young men in the 40s and 50s had cross racial cross class relational joy through making cars. And I was able to be around that when I grew up. And so that's part one. Part two from Chandler School, I take the bus east to East Pasadena. My mom taught general hygiene at Pasadena City College. to be young and to be witness to an excellent educator that Both was high warm and high firm. Rachel Skiffer (02:27) we call warm demanders. Yes. Yeah. David Clifford (02:30) And to see the energy that that created and the empowerment that that gave her students, I was really palpable. And then in high school, watching her raise us and go back to school to get her doctorate in vocational education was huge modeling. They were my teachers without ever being my official teachers. And then design and design strategies, my love language. Nice. It's a way of using my creativity and my love of building and my love of community to imagine different worlds, imagine ways to bring out the best in individuals and in a community. It invites systems thinking, equity orientations. I feel very fortunate to have had the models that I've had over the years. Rachel Skiffer (03:24) Yeah, there is a K-12. I think for the younger students, there's sort of this expectation of creativity. And then as students get older, middle school, and then get to high school, even after it's like, know, creativity, that's for the young kids. I'm not creative anymore. How do you as an educator and as a colleague help people tap back into the creativity that we have throughout our lives? David Clifford (03:53) It starts with a belief that I have that all humans are creative. Through again, our culture, schools, messaging, we start to believe that we are not. Or that creativity looks a very particular way. So it's believing that everybody's creative. And then designing the container, the environment that allows, especially as humans grow up, and move out of curiosity and creativity and into confirmation and answer seeking. What are the ways that we can design spaces that makes it still okay to not know and to be in that unknown space that happens between being curious, discovering something. Right. And sadly all too often learning environments jump over that piece. AI is an example of getting to an answer as quickly as possible, which is detrimental to curiosity, critical thinking. And I know the brain is not a muscle, but it's developing them. Rachel Skiffer (05:07) It's true, just knowledge building. Thank you for that. So you've worked in a range of educational spaces from high school to college younger than that even. So what are some lessons or through lines you bring with you from those environments? David Clifford (05:25) So I have taught kindergarten all the way up to doctoral students. What I've noticed over the years is a couple of things. One, that everybody wants to belong. What are we doing in schools to ensure that every human that we have the privilege of working with is feeling seen, known, empowered? and that their mere presence is making that space even more magical. I've been in many schools around the planet and they tend to jump over that part that everybody wants to belong. Learning ultimately is an act of vulnerable courage. And if we can create learning spaces where one doesn't have to feel they have to check parts of themselves at the door and that they can be their full selves, imagine. what can happen in that space, right? So that's one, everybody wants to belong. Another is everybody wants to learn. And that looks a lot of different ways. And our job as educators is to look for all the ways that humans learn, not just a very particular kind of learner. Neurodiversity, not just cognitive, but embodied. So that's one, two. Then the third is humans are intrinsically creative. Rachel Skiffer (06:21) Yeah. David Clifford (06:50) and curious. What I've noticed over the years and working across grades is come middle school, students start to ask questions from a place of confirmation rather than curiosity. And I think there's a lack of inhibition that happens when you're little. So much wonder and imagination. And then biologically, students start to attune to novel and sometimes that novelty is their crew. And now it's Social media and social media is so unforgiving and makes us thinking about vulnerability and courage. It's not a safe place to be curious. ⁓ And sometimes in schools too, we bias towards getting students to give us the answers rather than be okay with the unknown. Rachel Skiffer (07:27) Yeah. ⁓ I always think that a statement that reflects a community's ability to hold curiosity is, don't know yet. Right? Because I think particularly for kids when they get into that self-conscious stage to be able to say, I don't know, or what did that word mean, or can you explain that again? You really have to have a sense of belonging. You have to be in a place where it's cool to learn. So you do want to explore and dig deeper and make sure you know everything. It's tough to create those spaces and don't get me started on social media and particularly the permanence of it too. I talk to kids sometimes about their digital tattoo and the fact that what they might write in sixth grade online or eighth grade or even in high school now, that'll follow you forever and it's so easy to take a picture now. You don't have to go to Walgreens and wait a week for things to. ⁓ come back to you and that's tough for kids. David Clifford (08:47) And again, that gap between back in the day, pushing click on a camera and then having to wait to use up that whole and then take it in, wait for it to get developed. And then some of your pictures coming back are not going to be that great. And having to live with the consequence of that. Whereas now the gap between wonder, curiosity and the end product diminish so much. does impact our resilience, our curiosity, creativity. Rachel Skiffer (09:19) You had said something just when we were walking over to the studio about, was it limitations, foster creativity? David Clifford (09:27) Creativity thrives in constraint. Rachel Skiffer (09:29) Yeah, so I even think the old school camera roll, if you only had so many exposures, then you're a little more discerning and more thoughtful. There was space for time and thinking. David Clifford (09:40) Really had to be very intentional about what you were going to take a picture of. And you had to set the aperture just so. Rachel Skiffer (09:50) So let's talk about design, design thinking, and for listeners who may not be familiar with the term design thinking, what does it mean in a school context and why does it matter? David Clifford (10:04) So, first start with design. And there's lowercase D design, and all of us are designers, and then there's capital D design, and those come with years of training. So often, when I'm working with students, educators, leaders, other designers, I work in the realm of the lowercase D, because going back to this idea that everybody's creative, I also believe that everybody's a designer. And we live in a designed world. Everything around us is designed. Objects, processes, systems, spaces, visuals, and everything that's designed also has a consequence. All of us are designers. All of our actions have consequence. Part of my job over these last many years is to create learning environments that help students, youth and adults to see themselves as designers. Yes, everyone's a designer. Then the question is, what kind of designer do you want to be? What kind of impact do you want to have on the world? Do you want to design to bring out the best in others? Do you want to design to intentionally or unintentionally cause further harm? I believe most people don't want the latter. And so how can we create opportunities so that our students can see that everything is an opportunity to design good. And that's where design thinking comes in. Design thinking, also known as human-centered design, centers the human, which is cool and also problematic because we now live in what I've learned, this language of human supremacy. Rachel Skiffer (11:49) Like dams, we're building dams because that's good for people, we think. Yes. Initially. David Clifford (11:54) rather than thinking of the consequences of our design behaviors on the world, which we are living in the consequence of now. Schools are human centered, loaded with humans and with that complexity. Human centered design, a form of that is design thinking, is a way to understand those that you are working with, particularly working with those most impacted by problem. And what's the problem in schools? I mean, there's multiple, but it is ⁓ what what do we want students to learn? And thinking about to there's what the National Equity Project uses, which is every system produces what it was designed to produce. Question I ask schools all the time is, what is your school producing? And that's why you have a mission, vision and values to help guide. design thinking is a really great creative empowering practice to bring out creativity in others, the maker mindset in everybody, and to think anew about a challenge that you're facing. Rachel Skiffer (13:06) Can I ask a question about that consequences piece, especially for young people who their perspective may be smaller because it should be smaller because they're younger and they're growing up in their house with their parents. They may not go beyond their neighborhood except maybe to come here. So how do you train particularly young people to think about consequences and how do you set the stage for them to get perspective beyond their own? David Clifford (13:36) First it goes back to modeling. What are we doing as adults to model the behavior that we hope to see in future adults? And that's hard to do. As a parent of two, in this really complex, uncertain time, living in the Bay Area, it takes work, takes discipline to slow down. and to really be thoughtful about how I'm showing up in my identity as a man, as a father, as a husband for my daughters. So shame never works. It goes back to our modeling. How can we model this behavior? How can we model joy in our decisions as adults? So often I tell parents how important it is for their children to see them enjoying work. I recognize that could be a privilege. ⁓ But it also is taking the time to honor your purpose. One of the things that the Collaboratory has the space to do is to create opportunities for students to learn many facets of their purpose. Rachel Skiffer (14:46) And I think just by virtue of the natural diversity of our student body, there's so much that our kids can learn from each other. And that's a gift. David Clifford (14:56) you go to school with matters for the very reason that you just said. And as a school, what can we do to ensure that each of our students and the adults in this school are open and curious about the magic that everyone around them is bringing? Rachel Skiffer (15:14) Everyone. So you're known for advancing a pedagogical shift, not just adding a makerspace or a class, but embedding design thinking into the culture of a school. So what does that look like in practice? David Clifford (15:29) It's interesting, creativity, design, making can happen everywhere. And so I've spent my 30 year career looking for ways to design learning environments, not just the classroom, but the ethos and culture of a team to the culture of a school. How do we using the school's mission, vision, values, align it with the skill sets and mindsets of design and making to illustrate where it's already happening? And if we are designing humans to navigate this complex world, we are doing them no service by maintaining a siloed learning culture. So how then can we create this culture where design is happening everywhere, history is happening everywhere, critical thinking is happening everywhere? How are we developing innovators that have the courage to navigate the uncertainty and complexity of this time with creativity, with equity orientation, with a desire to ensure that everybody, especially those that have been historically marginalized in a context to feel. Rachel Skiffer (16:41) Can we talk a little bit about liberatory design? Because that was one of the things that first struck me when you applied for the role. I was like, ⁓ I need to read up on this. So what is it? How is it different from traditional design thinking? Let us know. David Clifford (16:58) Design is an equity and complexity approach to design thinking. It embeds systems thinking, it embeds radical care, which I call love, and embeds deep self-awareness. It came out of a collaboration between myself and four others with the National Equity Project and the Stanford D. School K-12 Lab. And what we recognized was that design thinking, where it's lovely, empathetic, human-centered, it lacks the opportunity to slow down and reflect on a couple of things that are critical. Who we are as designers and how our values, our identities, our beliefs are shaping even how we listen. And if we are not aware of who we are as designers and the biases that come with us, we run the risk of baking that bias into the very solution that we are claiming to be trying to solve. Rachel Skiffer (18:00) It's not a bug, it's a feature. David Clifford (18:03) Yes. Yeah. Well put. Yeah. Beautiful. And that then just perpetuates inequity. And so we thought that design thinking needed a hack, if you will, an interruption. And that was, again, to slow down before you even empathize, which again is critical to be curious about who you have the privilege of working with. Before you go there, pause to notice and reflect. on who you are as a designer, your relationship to the problem, your relationship to power, your identities, your historical placement within that problem. Thinking about schools, did you love school? Did you feel harmed by school? Both those experiences will impact how you design curriculum, how you design the culture of your classroom. Another critical part of liberatory design is seeing the system and what is the system, right? And every school is an ecosystem. The Bay Area is a larger ecosystem, California, the United States, et cetera. And we do not make decisions in a vacuum. So the more we're aware of all the pieces that are at play when we're designing, more equitable and liberatory the outcomes will be. Another juicy part of liberatory design are the mindsets. And so there's the modes. The notice, reflect, empathize. Some of those come out of design thinking. The mindsets are really the grounding, guiding ethos of a designer for equity, a designer for belonging. And they invite you to practice self-awareness, build relational trusts, focus on human values. recognize oppression and the multiple dimensions of exercise, creative courage, take action to learn, attend to healing. Rachel Skiffer (20:06) I went to the conference for the National Association of Independent Schools to help everyone get into a mindset of design that doesn't work for everyone was to think about people who are left-handed. Right, and so I'm right-handed, scissors were easy for me, where doorknobs are, where to sit when I eat, I don't think about it. So imagine a left-hander, they're always conscious of it because the world isn't designed for them. And so they see things that right-handers miss every day. An entry point to think about it before you get into gender and race and socioeconomic status, but I've found it's been powerful because I think everyone then realizes like, ⁓ regardless of who I am walking through the world, I might have my own blind spots, right? And that I think is pretty powerful. So it's not just, you over there, you have a blind spot, we have. David Clifford (21:03) And the beauty of design and particularly liberatory design is you can take that awareness and do something with it and give it some motion towards designing differently past the status quo. Rachel Skiffer (21:19) So how does the Libertory Design Framework lead educators and students to greater design outcomes? David Clifford (21:27) And I'm borrowing directly from the National Equity Project. they design equity leaders. working with Victor Carey and Tom Malarkey, we saw no distinction between designer and leader, and leader and designers. Every leader is a designer. And often power is related to leadership. Power is also associated with designing. Part of liberatory design is also showing up to share that power. How are we working to share power? of leadership, of design. So then again, it's not hoarding, but it's sharing. And the more share, the more opportunities for purpose and community and liberation. And then I think about a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that all great leadership starts from within. And with liberatory design and the addition of notice and reflects and the mindset of practice self-awareness, with the goal of building relational trust as the glue that binds us in our shared learning and growth is that radical practice of becoming aware of who we are and who we are not so that when we are in any given design or leadership opportunity, we are bringing out our own best while bringing out the best in others. Rachel Skiffer (22:41) Yeah, and I sometimes in meetings like to ask who is not in the room. Their perspective we need to follow up on after we have this conversation. David Clifford (22:50) Oftentimes I work with schools and they want to redesign programs and the first question I ask, well, who's most proximal to the problem? And generally that's students. Okay, where are the students? And yes, it's great to practice empathy and to ask them questions and learn and an interruption to work towards transforming power. It's then once we empathize, how can we invite them in to the design process? So it's not extractive. It's not transactional, but it's transformational relationship. And they become a part of the design team. I mean, imagine how students would feel if they got to work on a design team next to you and all that they would learn from you that would carry on a lifetime. It's feeding several birds with one seed. Rachel Skiffer (23:39) There's so much I learn from students. I'm at that age where I'm like, hmm, how does this thing work? And then student will show up and bing, bang, boom. And I think it's that lifelong learning piece, my goodness. But it makes it fun. I enjoy coming to work every day because I'm like, I'm going to learn something new, probably from a six-year-old or a 16-year-old. David Clifford (24:00) And the cool thing about schools, if they're one of the last places where we're forced to come together to learn side by side. To your point, you learn so much by working with students and colleagues. And Zoom is not enough. How do we pick up on each other's vibes? Rachel Skiffer (24:17) And even, I think, for educators post-COVID realizing how much work, lowercase W, happened in those interstitial spaces that didn't happen on Zoom, whether it's just over lunch or you're getting water somewhere or watching an assembly together. People matter. And I think the students' first part of our core values speaks to that. Could you share an example from your past work with students of how design led to a more equitable and rigorous learning environment? David Clifford (24:52) For me, Equitable is co-designed with deep awareness of identities, of power, of history. It's also ensuring that everybody has the opportunity to show up as their full self, so that's belonging, so that they can manifest who they want to become, not who our society says that they are. Rigor, to me, is craftsmanship. Rachel Skiffer (25:20) ⁓ Can you impact that little bit? for us? Okay, cool. David Clifford (25:23) ⁓ My first degree is in jewelry metalsmithing. It's an intimate practice. It requires deep fine motor skills, deep design skills. Originally I went to college to study product design, industrial design, and it was too broad for me. And so I chose jewelry metalsmithing because you're still designing products. It's just on a much more intimate level. So I bring that up because there's deep craftsmanship in jewelry. And primarily you can tell a great jeweler by looking at the back or the inside of something. So if you look at the back of a brooch, it should be as beautifully finished as the front. If you look at the inside of a ring, it should also be beautifully finished. And I think too about my electrical work or plumbing or carpentry. Most of the time you never see because it's behind drywall and yet A true craftsperson before that wall gets everything's parallel, everything's beautiful. And to me, that's rigorous. Craftsmanship is also doing something well because you care and you can. And you understand the consequence of what you're building. I think too often there's the seventh generation principle from the Iroquois tribe. And that is every design decision you make. or every action, you need to consider those seven generations down the line who can't be here in the present to advocate for themselves. So again, example of how this shows up. Having an environment where people feel that their presence matters, that their presence is contributing to the craftsmanship. and rigor of that space, that love of that space where they feel that they belong is the best way to create a safe environment because you're not worried about making mistakes. You're not in fear of somebody else judging you. You're not in fear of what that saw could do to you. You respect what that saw can do to you. You respect who you're working with and you know that your actions could deeply impact those around you. so that said, when I was at Lick a few years ago, with each of my woodshop classes, we took the time to design the ways of being and the values that were going to drive each particular culture, because each class has its own ecosystem, its own culture. And so slowing down enough to get students to reflect on when they're at their best. when they need support through challenge, create the space where it's safe for kids to be vulnerable to name that, celebrate that, then look for connection, name those ways of being, and also how are we going to hold each other accountable? And from there, it's not gravy. It's But I feel like it was a way that I could truly live into the liberatory design practice of designing for belonging, designing within the complexity Rachel Skiffer (28:25) Still David Clifford (28:38) of working with humans around machines that can cause some harm. Again, as educators, how can we create spaces where students trust us enough to be vulnerable, to really be curious and learn and grow? Because if we're just creating spaces where they want to please us with the answer or the product, we're doing them a disservice. Rachel Skiffer (29:03) Concur. So at Head Royce, we're building out the collaboratorial maker space and other spaces for design, expanding project-based learning. What excites you most about that work at Head Royce? David Clifford (29:21) I'm pausing because I am so grateful to be joining this community. It's a hard time in this world and this is my, it's been my life's work. I feel very grateful that you all have invited me in to co-design what this collaboratory could look and feel like and not just in the space itself but but in ethos across the school. So that's why I was pausing. What I'm excited about is You're having the privilege of the year to go slow in order to move fast later to be the liberatory designer that I hope to be to be an ethnographic researcher to have a stance of a learner this whole year. I know I was hired because I have experience and that will come. My goal is to lean in with curiosity and see What magic is already happening and I'm not seeing it already. was just at the second grade, big build. I mean, I took notes of what I saw and if there was creativity, there was communication, there was deep shared purpose. There was high warmth. What do call warm demander? Rachel Skiffer (30:20) Yeah Yeah. Warm, demanding. Hannah Winn, who is our Equity and Community Director for the upper school, she first asked all of the teachers to reflect on their favorite teacher and map them. And there was this clump around like the warm demander, someone who had incredibly high expectations and you were inspired as a student to meet them because you knew that they had faith in your ability and they would also support you when you struggled. And so I'm a big warm demander for you. David Clifford (31:03) Seeing what already exists here, learning what design means to this community, doing a lot of work with students in all 13 grades, learning from parents and families, learning from the educators here. I have stuff in my back pocket, but I really, I want to hold off and create opportunities for people to, again, feel seen, known, loved, heard, they're mere presence and practice. are contributing to what the Collaboratory could be. Also designing with the school's mission, vision, values. I think what's also really exciting, and I mentioned this, part of why I'm so grateful is that I feel humbled and privileged to co-design this program and this moment in history. Creativity thrives in constraints and there's a ton. Rachel Skiffer (32:05) I feel like our students are so excited for the challenge. I also think the sign of a great educator is someone who is always designing. You get a new class each year. You even get a new class after winter break, depending on what age the kids are. And so one of the things that excites me the most about you is that you have this deep expertise. ⁓ And part of that expertise is knowing you have to get to know the culture of a community. I think for me, this is end of my third year, I'm having to do that too. And was that saying culture eats strategy for breakfast? You can't rinse and repeat. And that's why I think particularly as adults, we have to be creative all the time and we have to collaborate in problem solving and there are new problems to solve all of the time. And also part of education is having context for history because we have not done what we were supposed to do and we're not necessarily learning from things that have happened in the past. And I think for some folks they just don't know, but that's why think education is so important too. It's just like context and content and history and pattern recognition and a respect for knowledge across cultures, some of which we still have and some of which we've lost, but understanding how detrimental that loss is and to make sure we cut that out, like stop doing it. How do you bring into the conversation students or adults who think about design as STEM-focused? It's like, I'm a humanities person, if I prefer to write, how is this relevant to me? David Clifford (33:59) Every system produces what it was designed to produce. I feel head Royce is doing this. Schools have an opportunity to shift because the contexts that our students are going into is very different than they were 100 years ago. And the silo disciplines were appropriate for that time. Now, again, with the complexity and uncertainty, we need as much cross-disciplinary communication and skill building as possible. Design is going to be a part of the STEM field. I would then add an A or a D to it. So STEAM or STEM and the D is silence. What's also great too is I know that having design attached to STEM allows for more funding to go into the design field. Design is multidisciplinary. can span and should be a glue that holds it all together. And like you said, Everyone should be thinking as a designer 247. So it's okay. The folks think that design is a part of the STEM field and part of our work together is to design opportunities where everyone sees that every part of their life is a product of design and that they themselves are designers and can cultivate the designerly mindsets. Rachel Skiffer (35:24) What does success look like to you, not just in the collaboratory, but in how equity in design shows up across the school? David Clifford (35:32) Similar to my response earlier, success is when everybody within the Head Royce community sees themselves as a designer and that they have an opportunity to reflect on their values that guide their design behaviors. Success is also, and I'm really excited about this, is how can we co-design and embed together the design, design thinking, liberatory design, making practices? with Head Royce's DEIBJA framework and that they're inextricably linked. That to me would be successful. Success is also folks leaving the program or leaving Head Royce knowing that failure, failing along the way has actually made them even more excellent in what they do. Rachel Skiffer (36:25) means they took more risks. David Clifford (36:26) Love that. Rachel Skiffer (36:28) Finally, what's something about you, personal or professional, that's just a fun fact for our community? David Clifford (36:36) I live just down the street and we have 16 chickens, many parakeets, they keep breeding, many cats, but one of our pets is an eight-year-old desert tortoise with three feet. His name is Skippy. Rachel Skiffer (36:53) my goodness. You know some of these kids are gonna want to Skippy. ⁓ they will. David Clifford (36:59) I do a really cool activity or design activity with young students in particular, practicing empathy and designing a prosthetic for Skippy's missing foot. And they have to start first by empathizing with an 80-year-old's desert tortoise. Rachel Skiffer (37:15) Is that a middle-aged desert tortoise? Is that a young adult? David Clifford (37:20) They live to be 120. Oh. What is that? Yeah, middle age. Rachel Skiffer (37:22) Okay Yeah. It's a fun time in life. Very cool. David Clifford (37:28) That was just really lovely. Thank you. Yeah. Again, I'm so grateful to be here in front of you and to be on this journey at Hed Royce. Thank you. Sarah Holliman (37:38) We hope you've enjoyed this conversation and have a clearer understanding of our strategic direction and why this is such an exciting moment for the Head Royce community. stay updated on our journey and learn more about the strategic direction, please visit headroyce.org. And don't forget to subscribe to Headway on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode. Until next time, thanks for listening.