For the past nine months I have spent an irreplaceable
amount of time pondering what a school should look like. My district passed a bond referendum last
spring, enabling us to add a new wing to one of our elementary buildings. As a member of the design team tasked with
planning this new addition I toured facilities and met with architects in an
effort to create a structure that would fit our students’ needs and our budget. Being woefully underwhelmed at what our new
“building” will be I have continued to longingly ponder exactly how I would
construct a learning environment if given the true power to do so.
Intrigued was I with a lunchtime Twitter post posing this
question: “If you were to start a school
from scratch, what would it look like?” It
has been roughly ten hours since I began to formulate an answer and somehow
what I am about to write will sound nothing like my initial thoughts. In fact, this has been a therapeutic exercise
that has shifted my mindset about our future facility and what a school really is.
Two words kept gnawing at me all day while I mentally crafted
my response to this question I had already been answering for weeks. “From scratch” conjures the image of baking
or cooking; recipes, ingredients, cookware, taste tests, a final product. Much of the food I consume is created from
scratch – I rarely eat out or buy processed foods – so my thoughts about creating
a school began to align with the process of creating food…which led to a new
question: Why do I create my food from
scratch? It’s a healthy way to eat. I feel more connected to food that I have
created myself. I have true ownership
over the food I create with nearly all meats and vegetables used being gathered
by my hands. When I create my own food I
have a much stronger desire to end with a high quality final product. These answers about my food have, in turn,
formed the vision for my school – my “from scratch” school will be healthy because
of the connectivity and ownership felt by those striving to create a high
quality final product. My school will
not be created out of bricks or wood.
Layout and design are irrelevant.
My school creation will start with people.
In my 18 years of teaching I have yet to see the size of a
classroom engage or inspire a learner. Nor
have I heard students converse about the great natural lighting in this year’s
classroom. Too many educators get suckered
into believing that things beyond themselves hold the greatest power in
education. From technological devices to
ergonomic furniture to meditative music, nothing has a greater influence over a
child’s development than the quality of the human connections in that child’s
life. I know, I know – natural light
boosts test scores…but can it tell a good joke or redirect off-task
behavior? I would rather my own children
be taught in a dark room by a personable teacher than in the sunshine by a
teacher who doesn’t know when to laugh, when to grump, when to scold, and when
to hug. My school will be shaped by
people, warmed and lit by people, and held together by people. Well paid people I might add since, you know,
we won’t have any heating or lighting expenses…’cause of the people warming and
lighting the place. Ugh, never mind.
This has become a three-part blog. With today’s first part you have, hopefully,
been given a taste of my school’s flavor with the knowledge of its main
ingredient. Tomorrow I will share the entire
recipe, the human elements that will create this “from scratch” school. Part three will be devoted to the ingredients
that will stay in the cupboard, the features of schools I find unnecessary,
wasteful, and impeding. Thank you for
reading. Until tomorrow……
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