It takes a village and my village overflows with family, friends, and colleagues, eager to have my methodology honored and this book sent out into the world. I am grateful to them.

With her unwavering patience and belief in me, my editor, Lynne Heffley, guided the shaping of this book. I’m grateful to Barbara Isenberg for leading me to Lynne Heffley; to Mike Rose, who reminded me who the book was for, and to Paul Goldberger who encouraged me as a storyteller. Among others who generously contributed to the preparation of the manuscript, poring over the details, voicing their opinions, and giving loving, critical reviews: my former student, Jessica Heim; writer, editor, and gifted photographer Susan Morehead; my early reader, Phyllis Rosser; Charmaine Morano, always there for me in a pinch; my invaluable assistant, Nicolás Bejarano Isaza; and Erica Escobar, who has helped me for many years.

Thanks to photographer and long-time friend, Tom Vinetz, who jumped in at the last minute to review the photos; and to Scott Widmeyer, at Finn Partners, who guided and reassured me during the publication process, along with his team Marina Stenos and Kathleen Kennedy Manzo.

I am fortunate to have friends who have urged me to continue capturing my thinking about education in writing: Noma Copley, Flory Barnett, Sheila McCoy, Susan Morehead, Grace Arnold, Yasmin Kafai, John Iacovelli, Amanda Pope, Molly George, Robert Ramirez, my doctor, Lawrence Piro; and my therapists Peter Galvin and the late Miriam Williams.

In developing my methodology, I stood on the shoulders of a host of hero educators: John Dewey, who opened my eyes to how thinking about the meaning of teaching and learning can have a transformative effect on a teacher; Charlotte Crabtree, a professor of education at UCLA, who taught me how to organize Dewey's thinking into a course of study; Dewey's disciple, Corinne Seeds, who started the Lab School at UCLA where his pedagogy was practiced and where I was trained and taught; Hilda Taba, whose spiral curriculum illuminated for me the fact that a specific concept could be taught over and over, from kindergarten through high school, in different ways; Mee Lee Ling, my training teacher at the UCLA Lab School, and administrator Amber Wilson, both of whom understood my drive to bring to life the intellectual and philosophical underpinnings of classroom teaching and nurtured my determination to merge theory and practice; and Helen Heffernan, the Chief of the Bureau of Elementary Education for the State of California, who hired me as a demonstration teacher, watched me teach, and critiqued my lessons.

Thanks to my hero thinkers who influenced and contributed to my work over the years: psychologist and cognitive learning theorist Jerome Bruner, who became a friend and challenged me to prove that creativity could be taught; Benjamin Bloom, whose writing inspired me to put the teaching of higher-level thinking skills first; and educators, educational theorists, and philosophers Lev Vygotsky, Herbert Kohl, Ivan Illich, Paolo Freire, Maria Montessori, John McNeil, John Goodlad, and David Perkins.

I am grateful to so many who enabled me to extend and deepen the reach of my work: renowned designers Ray and Charles Eames championed National Endowment for the Arts funding for me to train teachers in my methodology, took thousands of photos of those classrooms, made slide shows, a film, and gave me office space and the resources to promote the work. Susan Hamilton, then-Director of the Smithsonian Institution Associates, oversaw the first intensive summer teacher-training program in my methodology at the Smithsonian for teachers from all over the country (and Ruth Heibert, from Sulphur Springs Union School District in California, was one exceptional teacher who picked up the baton and ran with it). Landscape architect Lawrence Halprin invited me to co-lead workshops with him, and aeronautical engineer and inventor Paul MacCready, who described my work at educational conferences as “pioneering the future,” and funded the application of my methodology in a yearlong, middle school science program.

I am forever thankful to videographer Rachael Strickland for introducing me to computer scientist Alan Kay—and to Alan, who included me in his groundbreaking research for Apple Computer that Rachael was documenting at the L.A. Open Charter School, led by principal Bobby Blatt. As part of Alan's team, I was fortunate to collaborate with teachers Dolores Patton and Leslie Barclay in a yearlong application of my methodology in their joint classroom of 70 students; and with composer/bassoonist John Steinmetz to explore my methodology's aural applications. An unexpected bonus of my work with Alan Kay was getting to know mathematician/computer scientist Seymour Papert, a pioneer of artificial intelligence, who invited me to MIT as a scholar-in-residence; and Will Wright and Jeff Braun, who hired me to come play in their sandbox and write their teachers' guides as they refined the world of Sim City.

It is due to Sylvia Coop, the principal of Westminster Elementary School in Venice, California, who took a risk in the late 1960s and let me put my research into action in the classroom, that my methodology developed so quickly. By connecting me with veteran teacher Ruth Glatt, who worked tirelessly with me to turn my thinking into practice, Sylvia gave me the time and space to explore the intersection of creative thinking and required subject matter. (My friendship with Ruth has lasted through all the years since; Ruth ensured that I had a quiet place to begin writing this book, a house in Hawaii provided by her nephew, Jeffrey Milman.)

I doubt that I will ever find the right words to express my gratitude to that first class of 9- and 10-year-olds at Westminster, the students who became my coresearchers and critics: Jennifer Albert, Yolanda Benuelos, Diana Gardner, Adam Gardener, Elizabeth Gordon, Roger Grant, Portia Grimes, Terrance Hoke, Joseph Hopfield, Janet Jefferson, Jack Loera, Evelyn Lund, Tami Manzanaries, Randy Martin, Donna McLemore, Terry Meadows, Lisa Mendelsohn, Socorra Moldonado, Norma Proctor, Laura Robinson, Joseph Shea, John Shea, James Sherman, Brenda West, and Stephen Wilson. I've stayed in touch with many of them. Most recently, Portia Grimes spoke at a UCLA teacher-training event about the effect the methodology had on her life, and Donna McLemore tracked me down to tell me of her vivid memories of our time together.

My thanks go out to former USC architecture students Gilbert Stayner and Alan Gatzke (who had heard about my work and wanted to see what I was doing), photographer Teri Fox, USC professor Ralph Knowles, Elyse Grinstein and her family, and artist Ed Bereal, all of whom showed up regularly in my classroom to work with my students as they built the first-ever City and documented the process with Teri. With funding from the National Endowment for the Arts Architects-in-Schools Program, I was able to hire my brother, Frank, then a young architect, who taught with me and helped me select student architects Doug Moreland, Jaime Gesundheit, Richard Rowe, Jeff Vanderbort, Bob Simonian, Greg Spiess, Dan Benjamin, Ty Miller, and others to join me as I began training teachers throughout Greater Los Angeles. Through their commitment to my methodology, I developed a blueprint to enable K–12 teachers to use their skills to facilitate a student-built City in the classroom without a professional by their side.

I am profoundly grateful to those who saw to it that my work gained academic approval in college and university settings. The late Marvin Malecha, former Dean of the College of Environmental Design at Cal Poly, Pomona, hired me in 1986 to develop a course of study based on my methodology, made sure that I was tenured after three years, and championed my work during my eight years of teaching there. Bob Suzuki, the university's President at the time, asked me to teach teachers my methodology in off-campus cohort groups of K–12 teachers, and assigned me to Sidney Ribeau, Vice President of Academic Affairs (later President of Howard University), who coached me in how to navigate the off-campus process and before leaving the university, assigned me to the School of Education and Integrated Studies. Interim Dean Sheila McCoy, an early supporter of my work, shepherded the establishment of a Master of Arts degree with an emphasis on Design-Based Learning (the first such degree in the nation) through the university's governing body, and continues to be a close friend and advisor, speaking with me nightly to get me to the finish line with this book. Dorothy MacNevin, Chair of the Education Department at Cal Poly, saw me through difficult times and taught me how to recruit teachers and guide them through the master's degree program.

It was my good fortune that Richard Koshalek, former President of ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, brought me there to start a program under David Walker, the Dean of Public Programs. Working with Paula Goodman, Director of K–12 Programs, we established the still-running ArtsCenter for Kids program, the Design-Based Learning Summer Institute for K–12 Teachers, and informational workshops for school administrators. The Summer Institute thrived for nearly 20 years, thanks to the direct involvement and continuous support of Lorne Buchman, Richard's successor.

Unexpectedly, my retirement from Cal Poly in 2018 led to the forging of a relationship with UCLA School of Education and Information Studies. I felt that I had come home, because I was a graduate of UCLA, had taught in the UCLA Lab School, and was honored in 2017 as the first educator whose work was exhibited in the university's Charles E. Young Research Library, Special Collections, thanks to Marcia Melkonian, Curator/Manuscripts Librarian Genie Guerard; and Project Archivist Kelly Besser, who organized my work with deep understanding and recorded my oral history. The three-month exhibition led to a new platform for my work and I am grateful to Marcelo Suárez-Orozco (then Dean of the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, now Chancellor of the University of Massachusetts, Boston), Christina “Tina” Christie (Marcello's successor), Professor Megan Franke, Center X Executive Director Annamarie Francois, and Senior Director of Development Amy Lassere, who positioned my methodology as part of UCLA's teacher-training.

A big thanks to other individuals and organizations that have underscored the boundless applications of my methodology. Singer/composer and treasured friend Anna Pangalou taught classes in my methodology and incorporated it into her music teaching practice in Greece. Architects Shinya Sato, Hiroko Hosoda, and others in Japan, through a cultural exchange program, brought my work into classrooms and showcased it in an exhibition at the Sendai Science Museum. Gordon Davidson, Founding Artistic Director of Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles, provided matching funds for a three-year NEA grant to apply my methodology to the teaching of underserved kids about theater. At the Lotus Music and Dance School in New York, my program called Dancing Across Cultural Borders featured dance forms from around the globe, and was taught in New York public schools. The methodology was studied at England’s Royal College of Art during my one-year NEA fellowship as visiting scholar. It was applied by the American Bar Association to its Law-Related Education Program, and to the development of a Career Education Project for three California State University campuses and science programs at the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium in San Pedro, the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, and the Weizmann Institute in Israel, where I was scholar-in-residence.

A methodology is only as good as the teachers who make something out of it. The teachers whose classroom practice I describe in the book are among the many who have made my methodology their own. It has been my privilege to call them my colleagues. I am exceptionally proud of those teachers in the master's program at Cal Poly who developed their own programs using my methodology, opened their classrooms as demonstration sites, and became teacher-trainers themselves (many hired by Cal Poly to teach in the master's program; some hired as faculty to teach the methodology at ArtCenter in Pasadena and at UCLA Center X): Natalie Bezdjian, Kate Borihane, Nancy Buck, Terry Ceja, Daphne Chase, Miguel Fernandez, Araceli Garcia, Jessica Heim, Don Huey (the very first graduate in the master's program), Stephanie Na, Leakana Nhem, Richard Rosa, Cynthia Sicairos, Jennifer Sorbara, Leslie Stoltz, Temi Taylor (who applied my methodology to teach high school chemistry, the first time I found the subject understandable), and Emily Tilton, among others.

I owe special thanks to those teachers who have expanded the application of the methodology and given it prominence in unexpected ways. When Jessica Heim came to study with me in the master's program, her determination to learn the methodology was extraordinary. At the time, she was a full-time elementary school teacher, her son was a newborn, her daughter was six, and her father was terminally ill, yet Jessica not only got her degree and became a magnificent practitioner of my methodology, she began training other teachers. Luckily, she was willing to leave her stellar 15 years of classroom teaching in 2019 to take on the immense leadership role of Director, Design-Based Learning, UCLA Center X. Two years on, under Jessica's guidance, the program is blossoming. Leslie Stoltz, an early graduate of the master's program, was a marvelous overachiever, embracing the methodology and going on to develop a 6th-, 7th-, and 8th-grade program at her school in the Walnut Valley Unified School District, teach teachers at Cal Poly, travel with me to Japan to establish and run the exchange program, write teacher guides and syllabi with me, and become the principal of a charter school with Design-Based Learning as its mission. Leslie, who died in 2010, personified the very meaning of a gifted educator. A Design-Based Learning building on her middle school campus was named in Leslie's honor to showcase the work she began. Math teacher Jennifer Sorbara, Leslie's former teaching partner at the middle school, sculpted the methodology into the outstanding Academic Design Program at Walnut High School. She worked with teachers from varied subject areas to develop and sustain this three-year, interdisciplinary, immersive program for students who apply to take part (students like Madeleine Skinner, who refers to the program as a transformative experience and who is now training to become a teacher herself). Jennifer, an inspirational teacher of teachers, doesn't hesitate to question me as we plan teacher-training courses together, and I love it. I am indebted to Daphne Chase, who wrote to President Obama's Secretary of Education in 2016, relating how my methodology dovetailed with the Administration's belief in the importance of makers, builders, and doers to meet the nation's challenges, and who conveyed the significance of the methodology to administrators and teachers throughout the goes out San Gabriel Unified School District, leading to ongoing, in-depth teacher trainings in that district.

My gratitude to administrators in a variety of school districts: Los Angeles Unified School District, where I started teaching in 1959; Eugene Tucker, who has supported my work throughout his years as a superintendent of schools, beginning in the Sulphur Springs Union School District and the multi-city ABC Unified School District, and as faculty at UCLA, and whose guidance was invaluable in bringing my methodology to the UCLA School of Education; Ron Hockwell, who oversaw the development of the work Leslie Stolz began; Pomona Unified School District, Hacienda-La Puente Unified School District, Pasadena Unified School District, El Monte City School District,and Rowland Unified School District, among others. My eternal admiration goes to Superintendent Jim Symonds for his consistent and methodical guidance in expanding the work that Daphne Chase started in the San Gabriel Unified School District. Other exceptionally supportive administrators who made a difference: Angie De Martinez, Emma Hullett, Grace Arnold, Jeff Seymour, and Georgia Lazo.

Thanks to the truly extraordinary people, who through their wise counsel and unstinting financial and moral support, have kept the lights on for my nonprofit, The Center for City Building Education, started in 1974, giving me the freedom to take advantage of every opportunity to maintain the immediacy of my work and to continually adapt its applications in multiple settings. Among them, my Center for City Building Education Board members—Vice President Alan Mandell, who not only gives regular financial support, but who has listened tirelessly to my woes for over 40 years; Secretary Bobbi Mapstone, who as my confidant and invaluable assistant, despite having no formal teaching background, successfully took over my teacher-training during the year that I was bedridden with an injury; Treasurer Marcia Melkonian, who assisted me in countless ways for 30 years, making me an honorary member of her family as her daughter, Dvin, and son, Arin, came along to help; and my nephew, artist Alejandro Gehry, a recent addition to our Board, who has already made an impact with his commitment and expertise. Among our valued advisors: famed scientist Jonas Salk, Gloria Steinem, Gordon Davidson, Susan Hamilton, Lawrence Halprin, Nicholas England, Mel Powell, Morton Subotnick, John Goodlad, John Steinmetz, John Iacovelli, Hiroko Hosoda, and Lev Gonick. My endless gratitude to them and to so many others whose generosity has enabled the work to flourish: Nicholas Beck, who named the Center in his will with a sizeable donation; my closest friends, musician Thomas Buckner and dancer Kamala Cesar Buckner, who have provided sustained financial support since 1991; and Andy Florian, my former driver, who gives a monthly donation out of his Netflix salary. Major donor Thomas L. Safran, along with Susan and Jaime Gesundheit, Susan Morehead, and Abby Sher, made the launch of the Design-Based Learning Project at UCLA Center X possible. A Thomas L. Safran Scholarship Fund provides for teachers in underserved communities to be trained at UCLA in the methodology; and the Frank O. Gehry Foundation has ensured the future of the methodology with a multimillion-dollar gift establishing the Doreen Gehry Nelson Director of Design-Based Learning endowed position at UCLA Center X.

Thank you, too, to the amazing teachers who have become Fellows of The Center for City Building Education: Jennifer Sorbara, Kate Borihane, Daphne Chase, Rana Masri, Yvette Villaseñor, David Cameron, Georgia Singleton, Araceli Garcia, Stephanie Na, Natalie Bezdjian, and Emily Tilton.

In my work and in my life, I am indebted to those who defy tradition and make things better by bringing their ideas into being. The classics have informed my life, but it is the artists, musicians, dancers, architects, writers, and furniture and clothing designers who break the boundaries of the old that I look to for inspiration. Seeing or hearing their works sets me on fire. These are some of the artists who played a big part in giving me permission to think differently: Joanna Beal, Cliff H. C. “Cliff” Westermann, Jess Collins, Ken Price, John Altoon, John Chamberlain, Edward Keinholz, Irving Petlin, Joe Goode, Yvonne de Miranda, Judy Baca, Wallace Berman, Lucas Samaras, Gwynn Murrill, Robert Indiana, Frank Stella, Louise Nevelson, and Mark Rothko. The Surrealists—Renee Magritte, Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp—resonated strongly with my conviction that renaming ordinary things sparks original thinking. Claes Oldenburg, who changed the size and scale of everyday objects, and Joseph Cornell, who turned boxes into worlds, fueled my use of scale and miniaturization in my work. As I was refining my methodology, I was influenced by artists whose work I began collecting: Robyn Denny, Carol Furr, Leo Robinson, Alexis Smith, and fashion designer Issey Miyake. After training as a classical harpist, I was inspired by the originality of cutting edge composers like John Cage, Harry Partch, La Monte Young (a fellow student at UCLA, who wrote a solo harp piece for me to perform), and Anne LeBaron, who honored me with a performance of her composition, “Poem for Doreen.”

Finally, I am beyond grateful for the love of my family. My big brother, mentor, and friend, the tradition-defying, boundary-breaking, architect extraordinaire Frank Gehry, taught with me, gave me space in his office in the 1970s as I began spreading my methodology, has always egged me on to do more, took the time to read the draft of this book, and is determined to see that the word gets out—and his wife Berta, sister, confidant, and dearest friend, who has been there for me, step by step. Together, Frank and Berta, through their love and the Gehry Foundation, have provided for the continuation of my work in perpetuity. Our parents would be proud of all that we have both accomplished. I am, too.