Is there a better way? Does there need to be?

I am a potter. It is a huge passion of mine. I am somewhat OCD about it and if I had the means & a babysitter during my son’s 2 hour nap every day you would find me in the pottery studio. Today while my husband was “napping” too, I got to run to the studio for a too brief moment yet I had a great conversation that drives this post.

I asked this question this afternoon of an expert potter, manager of a potter studio, & pottery repair. I figured after observing him load and unload kilns multiple times a week, he would have figured out a better way. A more efficient way. A more less back breaking way. A more less tedious way. Actually, simply a way that is just different than how kilns are loaded & unloaded because as a person who doesn’t have to worry about such a task, it appears to be such a dreadful thing to constantly do day in and day out.

And to my surprise, he said, “No, not at all.” I pushed him asking how in the world is that possible, there must be something to improve the system. He said, “No, in my 30+ years of working with pottery and different kilns when loading and unloading pots the key is to handle each piece by hand and there’s nothing getting around that.”

And not to my surprise, my brain keeps thinking there must be some way to improve some aspect to this system. Why can’t I accept the answer that how its been is how it needs to be especially from the expert, the user of this system? I wonder if its the educator in me that can’t understand why “school” tends to stay pretty stagnant with the times when these kids are constantly changin’? Or is it the design thinker in me that is always seeking cracks in experiences, systems, and things not only to keep my skills growing but also to find opportunities for design? I believe its the latter and I also believe there is more to this thinking that may require more writing at a later date. I will close this post with this—— I am reminded of the movie Jurassic Park (original) and the plotline of the velociraptors. There is a scene where they describe the female velociraptor that makes me think I do this all the time when I leave my house (sort of).

“Muldoon: They show extreme intelligence, even problem-solving intelligence. Especially the big one. We bred eight originally, but when she came in she took over the pride and killed all but two of the others. That one... when she looks at you, you can see she's working things out. That's why we have to feed them like this. She had them all attacking the fences when the feeders came.

Dr. Ellie Sattler: But the fences are electrified though, right?

Muldoon: That's right, but they never attack the same place twice. They were testing the fences for weaknesses, systematically. They remember.”