Evitar la linealidad. Redesigning Education: Why Can't We Be in Kindergarten for Life? "The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind—creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers and meaning makers. These people—artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big picture thinkers—will now reap society's richest rewards and share its greatest joys. " —Daniel Pink, A Whole New Mind I remember when my twins entered kindergarten at our community public school. All of the parents were invited to the school for an introductory presentation on the teachers' goals for learning in the upcoming year.
While listening to the teachers' presentation at my twins' school, I had a moment of clarity: The kindergarten classroom is the design studio. Even the kindergarten classroom's physical environment supports dynamic teaching and learning. The status quo of classroom design from first grade through high school graduation, courtesy Steven Errico, Veer Take classrooms from elementary through high school. WXY. A 21st Century School on the Cutting Edge of Learning [Slideshow] We are instruments endowed with feeling and memory.
Our senses are so many keys that are struck by the nature that surrounds us and that often strike themselves. -- Denis Diderot If form followed function in today's schools, then there would be no need to change the current learning environment. The current model that pervades today's school design is based on an outdated 19th-century model -- what academics call age-specific grouping, contain and control, didactic instruction, prescribed knowledge, uniformed progression, fixed schedules, and standardized assessment through memorization. In walking into many of today's schools, you are instantly transported to the familiar experience of the double-loaded corridor, self-contained boxes with minimal daylight, and giant, impersonal lecture halls. Artists and architects Bosch & Fjord rejected this Victorian thinking in their design of Ordrup School. Wanna Improve Education? Demolish the Classrooms.
"Education is experience, and the essence of experience is self-reliance. " —T.H. White, The Once and Future King Who removed the classrooms? Apparently, the Danish government did. In 2005, the Danish government established a new vision for the secondary school reform. 3XN, an architectural firm based in Copenhagen, responded to the government's vision by creating a radically different learning environment for Ørestad College. 3XN's design for Ørestad College is a novel interpretation of agility and openness where the architecture complies with the pedagogy of individualized and interdisciplinary learning.
In designing for teaching and learning, I am continually asking myself the following questions: 1. Well, I've found the answer—Ørestad College. For more of our coverage of 3XN's work, click here. For more images of the school, check out Dezeen. [All images © Adam Mørk / 3XN] Study Shows How Classroom Design Affects Student Learning. As debate over education reform sizzles, and as teachers valiantly continue trying to do more with less, a new study suggests that it might be worth diverting at least a little attention from what’s going on in classrooms to how those spaces are being designed. The paper, published in the journal Building and the Environment, found that classroom design could be attributed to a 25% impact, positive or negative, on a student’s progress over the course of an academic year.
The difference between the best- and worst-designed classrooms covered in the study? A full year’s worth of academic progress. The study was conducted over the 2011–12 academic year, with 751 students in 34 classrooms, spread across seven primary schools in the seaside town of Blackpool, England. So what did they find? Six of the design parameters—color, choice, complexity, flexibility, connection, and light—had a significant effect on learning. Read more here. [Hat tip: Wired] [Image: Brain and Board via Shutterstock] Redesigning Education: Rethinking the School Corridor. "I am entirely certain that twenty years from now we will look back at education as it is practiced in most schools today and wonder how we could have tolerated anything so primitive. "-John W. Gardner, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, "No Easy Victories" (1968) Education reform is in the air and taking root in thousands of classrooms across the country.
From overhauling No Child Left Behind to closing poorly performing schools and raising student expectations, the push for change is powerful. Yet, the space where most learning takes place--the school and classroom--has changed little over the last 200 years. Even before students set foot in a classroom, most schools still are built like factories: long hallways, lined with metal lockers, transport students to identical, self-contained classrooms. School designers have used the double loaded corridor for easy circulation. Photo courtesy of the American Architecture Foundation Let's design hallways with human beings in mind. Hellerup Skole. Education Design Showcase Project. Miami-Dade County Prototype Schools - West Hialeah Elementary SchoolM.
C. Harry and Associates, Inc.Honorable Mention Winner 2008 Education Design Showcase MDCPS Prototype Elementary Schools: West Hialeah Elementary School Overview The goal of the ‘prototype system’ is to achieve a high performance school that delivers meaningful civic presence; responds well to varying site conditions; and creates an inviting educational environment for impressionable young minds. The library, an iconic expression of lifelong learning, is located on the second floor directly over the entry breezeway, and is a key element in the composition of the school’s main entrance.
The interior design of the ‘cafetorium’ accommodates not only the school’s lunch activity, but also the special acoustic and lighting requirements of a 400-seat performance venue for staged productions, musical events, and public address. The architectural vocabulary for the campus is based on a ‘tilt-wall model’. Aesthetic Use of Tilt-Up. Green School. Floating Schools Designed To Fight Floods In Bangladesh. Climate change is getting a lot of attention in America this fall, thanks in part to the havoc wreaked upon New York by Hurricane Sandy.
But that’s nothing compared to its effects on low-lying Bangladesh, which has struggled with global warming-induced floods for years now. Bangladesh now endures two annual floods, leaving millions of people without access to clean water, electricity, and other basic amenities for huge portions of the year. Since the rising tides of global warming won’t be slowing down anytime soon, a group called Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha has come up with an incredibly simple alternative: build homes, health care offices, and schools that can float. Founded by a Bangladeshi architect named Mohammed Rezwan in 2008, the nonprofit runs a fleet of almost a hundred boats that offer education to kids and their parents, as well as access to libraries, health care, and information about agriculture and financial management. {H/t Designboom] A School That Connects Kids to Music and Nature. "A child's world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement.
It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. " --Rachel Carson Tetsuya Matsui and Tomoko Murata of UZU Architects collaborated with two artists, Shintaro Yoshimura and Naomi Ito to capture the child's world of beauty and wonder in the design of the Ontonoha nursery school. Using the metaphor of a tree with notes, UZU Architecture designed a nursery school that connects children to music and nature. This connectedness to nature goes beyond the metaphor as the architecture of the nursery is sculpted to gracefully merge into the Earth and create an exterior terrace that connects to the center of learning environment. Surrounding the building are lush rice fields, illustrating for the children the source of their sustenance.
[Photos by Akiyoshi Fukuzawa]