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Voices in Urban Education
Archives
Learning Environments
VUE Number 19, Spring 2008
| VUE Home | Archives | Order Print Copy |
EXCERPT:
Democratic School Architecture: The Community Center Model
By Prakash Nair and Annalise Gehling
Prakash Nair is president of and Annalise Gehling is an educational planner with Fielding Nair International, which served as the planner and design consultant for the High School for the Recording Arts in Minneapolis.
> Author biographies
A new model of school design would eliminate the “binary” structure that divides formal learning from students’ own time and would foster student motivation and learning.
The experiences that a young person can have within
the confines of a classroom do not reflect the diversity
of settings and relationships young people must
learn to negotiate in order to thrive in the academy
and the workplace.
— David Lemmel & Samuel Steinberg Seidel, “Alternative High Schools”
There's a definite and unfortunate divide in school time between formal lessons, during which students have limited control over their learning, and students' own time, which is generally spent on social activities. The design of a majority of school buildings clearly reflects this divide. Formal learning takes place in classrooms and specialty areas like science labs, while social learning is relegated to unfurnished corridors, institutional cafeterias, and outside spaces of variable quality. Under this prevailing model of school, bells that signal the end of classroom time actually invite students to “switch off” from learning.
There are several problems with this model; in this article, we will discuss two.
1. It does not create a culture of lifelong learning.
If you are only able to identify learning as such when it is happening under tutelage, it is difficult to make other time “learning time” as well. Remember when you were told you had “free time” at school, and how exciting that was? As a teenager, did you want to use this precious time for study? Of course not. We are conditioned into this binary of “work is hard and boring, so someone has to make you do it”/ “Play is about being social, not creative.” It is difficult to create a personal or community culture of lifelong learning within a system that is saying you can only learn when someone else packages the lessons for you.
Recently, we spoke with a Ph.D. student who remarked, “I didn't actually learn much at school. The most important things I learned were from Scouts.” In scouting, she had experienced leading and working with a small group over an extended period of time, figured out new skills “just in time” to use them, and discovered a love of healthy living. Scouting doesn't have a “sit down and be quiet” time and a “go and play with your friends” time. At a Scout camp, the “work” really doesn't stop, whether that involves setting up a scavenger hunt for the next-door Cub pack, cooking dinner, washing up, or looking for firewood. It's full of learning experiences, but it isn't a binary of work and play. Both involve being creative and doing things with each other.
2. A pure focus on the social isn't socially inclusive.
Time in school that has not been fully programmed by an adult is quite limited, and the spaces students are able to occupy in this time are not designed for them to exercise creativity. The focus, then, is entirely on peer relationships — which is fine if you're one of the coolest kids in school. If you're not, this single focus is really stressful. One colleague recalls spending recess and lunchtimes walking purposefully from place to place so that it looked like she was busy, even if she wasn't, just to appear not to be as lonely as she felt. It's far easier to be social in the context of meaningful activities.
Archives
Learning Environments
VUE Number 19, Spring 2008
| VUE Home | Archives | Order Print Copy |
EXCERPT:
Democratic School Architecture: The Community Center Model
By Prakash Nair and Annalise Gehling
Prakash Nair is president of and Annalise Gehling is an educational planner with Fielding Nair International, which served as the planner and design consultant for the High School for the Recording Arts in Minneapolis.
> Author biographies
A new model of school design would eliminate the “binary” structure that divides formal learning from students’ own time and would foster student motivation and learning.
The experiences that a young person can have within
the confines of a classroom do not reflect the diversity
of settings and relationships young people must
learn to negotiate in order to thrive in the academy
and the workplace.
— David Lemmel & Samuel Steinberg Seidel, “Alternative High Schools”
There's a definite and unfortunate divide in school time between formal lessons, during which students have limited control over their learning, and students' own time, which is generally spent on social activities. The design of a majority of school buildings clearly reflects this divide. Formal learning takes place in classrooms and specialty areas like science labs, while social learning is relegated to unfurnished corridors, institutional cafeterias, and outside spaces of variable quality. Under this prevailing model of school, bells that signal the end of classroom time actually invite students to “switch off” from learning.
There are several problems with this model; in this article, we will discuss two.
1. It does not create a culture of lifelong learning.
If you are only able to identify learning as such when it is happening under tutelage, it is difficult to make other time “learning time” as well. Remember when you were told you had “free time” at school, and how exciting that was? As a teenager, did you want to use this precious time for study? Of course not. We are conditioned into this binary of “work is hard and boring, so someone has to make you do it”/ “Play is about being social, not creative.” It is difficult to create a personal or community culture of lifelong learning within a system that is saying you can only learn when someone else packages the lessons for you.
Recently, we spoke with a Ph.D. student who remarked, “I didn't actually learn much at school. The most important things I learned were from Scouts.” In scouting, she had experienced leading and working with a small group over an extended period of time, figured out new skills “just in time” to use them, and discovered a love of healthy living. Scouting doesn't have a “sit down and be quiet” time and a “go and play with your friends” time. At a Scout camp, the “work” really doesn't stop, whether that involves setting up a scavenger hunt for the next-door Cub pack, cooking dinner, washing up, or looking for firewood. It's full of learning experiences, but it isn't a binary of work and play. Both involve being creative and doing things with each other.
2. A pure focus on the social isn't socially inclusive.
Time in school that has not been fully programmed by an adult is quite limited, and the spaces students are able to occupy in this time are not designed for them to exercise creativity. The focus, then, is entirely on peer relationships — which is fine if you're one of the coolest kids in school. If you're not, this single focus is really stressful. One colleague recalls spending recess and lunchtimes walking purposefully from place to place so that it looked like she was busy, even if she wasn't, just to appear not to be as lonely as she felt. It's far easier to be social in the context of meaningful activities.
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