Two-time Griffith alumnus Jasmine Kassulke is using skills she picked up in the Big Apple to provide Logan’s next generation with better quality design education.

Jasmine (front row, third from the left) with participants in the Cooper Hewitt Educators Academy.

Jasmine, a design and technology teacher at Marsden State High School, recently spent three months in New York on the Queensland-Cooper Hewitt Fellowship, which supports a registered Queensland school teacher to visit the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum to gainexperience in the classroom, community and online strategies for delivering quality design education.

After graduating from a Bachelor of Design in 2013 and spending some time abroad, Jasmine came back to Griffith to study a Graduate Diploma of Education – Secondary (now a Master of Secondary Teaching) in 2017. Now a passionate teacher, she applied for the fellowship not for herself, but for what it could provide for her students.

“For me, the fellowship wasn’t about opening doors or climbing ladders, it was about expanding opportunities for young people,” Jasmine said.

“Young people in Logan deserve access to quality design education as a means of teaching them essential 21st century skills.

Jasmine at a workshop in New York. Image: Asya Gorovits.

“Design is a way of thinking about the world where designers are tasked with identifying, exploring and solving problems.

“If we can bring design to the everyday and democratise design, we can prepare the next generation for success in the workplaces of the future.”

Jasmine said she was “empowered and inspired” by the Cooper Hewitt design staff, working alongside their education team to develop, co-ordinate and assist with programs for teachers, children, school students and summer camps.

“Seeing the direct impact design literacy has on people of all ages has only strengthened my mission to democratise design,” she said.

“I am currently in the process of designing a program and platform for teachers in the Logan area to enhance and share skills in design in an attempt to improve the quality of design education in Logan.

“I aim to continue an ongoing collaboration with Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design museum moving forward.”