He goes on to describe ways to revolutionize the learning environment. Foote approves:I graduated high school in 1977. The English classrooms I see in 2009 are almost identical to the English classrooms I experienced in 1977. I started teaching biology in 1986 and my biology classroom then looks exactly like most biology classrooms do today. Don’t get me wrong- a great deal of outstanding teaching and learning can, and does, take place in such spaces.
Will I be able to say the same thing 20 years from now? Will the English and Biology classrooms of 2029 look exactly like the same classrooms from 2009?
It is my personal belief that they will, and that the notion of what a learning space looks like will not fundamentally change in mainstream K-12 education over that same time period. It is also my belief that the concept of learning space is one of the most neglected concepts of school design. Unlike some, I spend each and every day actually in a school, and I see teaching and learning jammed into a one-size-fits-all space that has the potential to constrict learning.
So I’m interested in something more. Something different, something better. Some might say I’m passionate about learning space, some may say obsessed. So, here is a quote that I posed the other day on Twitter, from Ryan Bretag:
“What are the dimensions of a learning space?”
If I were to ask you to identify a single word that describes a place for learning, you would probably say “classroom.” And that’s a great place to start, but unfortunately, that’s as far as most schools go. So when I think dimensions, I think of all possible spaces for learning, and all the types of learning that could potentially take place in those spaces. I use dimension in that context.
Myself? I'm not totally convinced. Perhaps it's because I have a hard time pinpointing my role in that new learning space. One of my greatest concerns about the incorporation of technology into the 21st Century classroom, especially if it's done in haste, is that teachers will find themselves becoming more and more obsolete. If in the future there is no more need for an actual, physical building (the "schoolhouse" concept that we cling to with nostalgia), why stop there? Why not make all of the lesson plans digital? Why not use computerized instructors to facilitate a virtual curriculum? Eventually students can just download all they need to know into an implanted microchip. Okay, perhaps I've taken this dystopic vision too far. But the point still stands. I think that we all get so caught up in the romance of technology and innovation that we forget what education is really supposed to be about. As Jakes reminds us, a lot of teaching and learning has taken place in those old-fashioned classrooms without the benefit of multimedia stations and advanced software or social networking. Can we teach with Twitter? Sure. Can we teach without it? Definitely.Change can become viral quite suddenly and if we aren’t prepared for it, we find ourselves reacting to it. What if we envisioned our building five years down the road, or ten? And then added in the key component, what will our students be like ten years from now? (Imagine that first grader who can use a laptop, Wii remote, and iPhone and then project forward ten years.) What would we do differently in our building arrangement, remodeling, or planning to prepare for those students?
Because they are coming soon, to a school near you.
And let's not forget that schools and classrooms are not just places for adolescents to congregate between the hours of 7:00am and 3:00pm. They also provide space for community groups, adult education classes, extracurricular activities, athletics, tutoring, voting, and playgrounds. And for students that need a safe environment to study or stay out of trouble, there's nothing quite as reliable as a school. Of course, Jakes and Foote are not suggesting that our venerable institutions of learning will disappear overnight. But are we trending away from the traditional structure towards a campus-like layout? Will large common areas replace smaller classrooms and labs? What about the school library? Or cafeteria? Altering these spaces in such fundamental ways will inevitably have an impact not only on education but on the broader community relationship with the school. Before doing anything drastic, I think we should really consider some of these implications.
And finally, how are we going to pay for these incredible upgrades?
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This is an extremely interesting topic, Stella. I should say topicS, because I do find it interesting to think about learning spaces, and how to make them more hospitable to students and to learning, but I also am intrigued by the potential gap between the urgency with which issues in education are presented to us as needing attention, and the actual needs. Questions like this one were in my head just recently when I was steered towards this website, whose authors raise questions about whether today's student is really all that different from yesterday's. You might find it interesting...
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