Over the weekend I have been doing some maintenance on this blog. I looked back on the archive and dug around in the old posts. It reminded me of the commitment to change I had when I became a teacher.
I was quick to align myself with other people making a change in the profession. It seemed that technology was a wave we were riding, a wave that would take us to change. I still think that technology as a catalyst has a huge role to play in the renewal of education and schools, but I think a different frontier is going unnoticed.
Every time a school builds a new set of learning spaces or a school system decides to build a new school, there is the opportunity for “school” to be completely redefined.
I am fortunate to be involved with some of the newest schools in Australia, both in the current design phases and in post-occupancy. Each example is an opportunity to push the system of “school” and to wash away the vestiges of an educational model that does not serve the needs of our young learners.
My projects involve establishing the base principles of teaching and learning as early as possible in the design process. Even before an architect is involved. The groundwork of establishing the First Principles of the overall project is essential and vital work. All too often this is not invested in and poorly conceived.
I was delighted to read Ira Socol’s post titled “What does it mean to build a school or to rebuild a school?” in which he echoes similar endeavours.
“I really ask all the architects here,” I said in response to an architect who had asked educators to be better clients — with bigger dreams, “to help develop those better clients by asking, at the very start, “what do you want your children to be?” Don’t ask about spaces or number of students or timelines or budget, not yet. Make that first question, “what do you want your children to be?” and help us remake education.”
If that first question is about spaces and student population, as Socol points out, it short-circuits the dialogue. No longer is there a value base being established or a shared morality, it becomes a wish-list discussion.
His question “what do you want your children to be?” cuts to the heart of what should be driving any educational architectural process. But this is equally true of existing schools and their existing practices. It is often much more challenging to escape old ideas.
If you want your children to be creative, to be collaborators, to be great communicators, to know how to make choices, to know how to build their own work and/or learning environments, to be kind, to be curious, to learn throughout their lives from the great wide world, to engage with technology well, to build healthy relationships and lead healthy lives… well… can you really do that within the closed boundaries of traditional schools? Can you do that with age-separated learning? with closed classroom doors? with separated subject areas? without seating choices? without technology choices? without culturally engaged learning groups?
When you reflect on the questions Ira Socol shares, you rapidly realise the physical environment is dependent on many other forces. They are intertwined and connected. When we tug on one another is affected.
| QUESTIONS | PRINCIPLES AND DEPENDENCIES |
| Can you really do that within the closed boundaries of traditional schools? | Privacy, safety, community, partnerships |
| Can you do that with age-separated learning? | Age Vs Stage, readiness, collaboration, community, personalised |
| Can you do that with closed classroom doors? | Functional learning spaces, community, partnerships, |
| Can you do that with separated subject areas? | Curriculum design, team teaching, interdisciplinary projects, collaboration |
| Can you do that without seating choices? | Student choice, agency, functional learning spaces, investment in furniture, different learning modes |
| Can you do that without technology choices? | Strategic technology integration, curriculum design, Student choice, agency, |
| Can you do that without culturally engaged learning groups? | Community, partnership, collaboration, curriculum and learning design |
We need to take the re-invention of education seriously. We need to mean it when we say “we’re going to build a new school,” or, “we’re going to rebuild an old school,” so that we imagine into existence something completely new — and thus give our architects free range to develop true child-centric learning spaces.
Although I agree with refreshing our perspective on the importance of these projects, I do think the best architects understand how to create child-centric learning spaces. Decades of expertise, projects and practice mean that educational architecture is understood. It is often the lack of ambition of the client, (the school or school system) that foreshadows any real innovation.
Architects and design teams look for guidance as to how hard they can push. How far they can stretch the brief and express a truly imaginative response? They look for the educator’s guidance on the extent to which they can “imagine into existence something completely new”.
This is where the precedent and the past catch up with educators. Facing real opportunities for innovation, we limit projects to incremental versions of what we already have. Worse yet, we continue old practices in new buildings.
Aesthetically beautiful with contemporary function, but pedagogically nostalgic.
An idea that Ira Socol explains more clearly than I did, in my recent post about the morality of educational architecture, is the inter-generational tension of school design. Schools are places for children built by adults.
Our education system was built from the very beginning on adult needs and adult priorities.
When adults do not design with empathy, we are designing an adult biased experience. Or at least for the school, we wish we had. Not the school for children we are yet to meet.
I will finish by sharing this final paragraph from Ira’s great blog post. There is so much truth here that we all should grapple with.
When we build a school, or rebuild a school, we need to insist on doing the right thing, and doing it completely. We must create a learning space that is physically safe, psychologically safe, emotionally safe for every child. And that learning space needs to be surrounded by a community, a nation, and a state with that same abundance. Only then can our kids truly be kids, and truly be kids on their way to being healthy adults. Adults who will be way better than we adults have been.
Make sure you have a read of the post in full here: “What does it mean to build a school, or to rebuild a school?“