Last week, I sat down with Stephen Andersen, to talk about next weeks Design and Technologies Teacher Association Conference. Stephen who is such a good host, and also happens to be the Treasurer of DATTA QLD. The chat was part of the series Stephen is doing warming us all up for next weeks DATTA Conference, where I’m going to be busy presenting 3 sessions!

• Why Design is the most important subject in school (with )

• The Future of Trades: Connecting Design and Technologies classrooms to real-world manufacturing pathways (with Manufacturing Skills Queensland (MSQ)) and

• Pedagogical Enactments of Design and Technologies: a research informed framework for teaching aligned to the Australian curriculum (drawn from my PhD thesis).

If you’d like more context before the conference, Stephen and I also recorded an extended conversation in early 2025, covering my research into Design and Technologies and ITE, and our shared history in a little town called Nanango.

Thanks Stephen - your work championing Queensland Design and Technologies teachers through DATTA and the podcast is seriously valued!

Yet its aim was just to whet the appetite of attendees of the conference, where the title of our presentation will be “Why Design is the Most Important Subject in School” (Nick Kelly and Leighann Ness Wilson) and it’s a deliberate provocation. As in, why isn’t design taken as seriously as other subjects like Science or English or Mathematics? And how might things change?

Listen to the podcast at https://pca.st/8mfbcz69

I’d been invited to not just present, but to give the keynote address at the conference dinner! What an absolute honour, to then, a few weeks later, speak to a room full of people who care deeply about Design and Technologies education. I used the opportunity to highlight all the potential of our subject, share my research and enthusiasm, and also say some things I felt need to be said.

The talk drew on my research as well as honest reflections on the state of the field of Design and Technologies education. I spoke about the genuine potential I see in Design and Technologies, but also the concerns I have, particularly around initial teacher education, and the broader confusion around how our subject is perceived.

By this time I had begun collaborating more seriously with Associate Professor Nick Kelly. We had shifted from bouncing shared ideas, to drafting the manuscript for a book.

Nick was there in full support as I delivered my Keynote: Contemporary Research into Design and Technologies Education: Insights, Implications and Future Directions.

Watch the full keynote on my website createed.com.au

Fast forward a year, and I feel so privileged to share that, together with my co-authors, Nick and Vaughan Huck - who bought it to life with her illustrations, our book: Taking Design Seriously in Education comes out through Cambridge University Press in August 2026. We can’t wait to share it with the community.

This year, Nick and I are heading back to the DATTA Queensland Conference, this time to present a session inspired by the book: Why Design is the Most Important Subject in School. I also have two other presentations at the conference, which you can check out in the program below. If you’re in Brisbane on 18–19 June, we’d love to see you there.

DATTA Queensland 2026 program

Event registration

The core argument of the talk is that skills like critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication are still in the background of K-12 schooling when, in the era of AI, they ought to be front and center as the most important thing. These four things are known as 21st century skills and they’ve been talked about for decades.

Design should be the subject where these skills get taught, but design isn’t taken seriously in schools in most countries in the world. It ought to be. Design often gets relegated to the background compared to the weighty subjects like English, mathematics, and science.

There are good reasons why schools haven’t adapted to teach 21st century skills well. There are systemic factors at play. The whole point of the designerly schools movement is to build the momentum needed to change this.

My colleague, Leighann Ness Wilson, was in the audience on the day I gave this TEDxQUT talk. She was doing her own work with a similar focus at the time and our conversations over the course of a year became the book that will be out in August of 2026, Taking Design Seriously in Education (Cambridge University Press).

The book starts with the personal, describing the significant influence that a book had on my life. The book is called We Make the Road by Walking, by the educators Myles Horton and Paulo Freire.

Becoming a capable designer is gives you agency in the world. Imagine a school system in which curriculum, the built environment, the assessment regime, and the pedagogy all supported students in becoming capable designers. It’s already starting to happen.

Kelly, Ness Wilson and Huck, 2026

Illustration: "The Expert Designer" by Vaughan Huck, 2025, CC-BY-ND 4.0