Designing relationships of schooling as spaces for learning, creativity and innovation

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Designing relationships of schooling as spaces
for learning, creativity and innovation

• Dr Catherine Burke
• School of Education,
• University of Leeds, UK
• C.burke_at_leeds.ac.uk

The modern school, 1949 by Cecil George
Stillman  R Castle Cleary
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10 Key design relationships of schooling

• Between adult and child,
• Between children of different types, ages and
  backgrounds,
• Between areas of knowledge,
• Between boundaries of time and space,
• Between indoors and outdoors,
• Between school and community,
• Between visual literacy and textual literacy,
• Between public and private spaces
• Between educational enterprise and the wider
  social, industrial and political world,
• Between architects and educators

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New Book Old Ideas.
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flexibility
colour
inclusion
richness
humanity
real
wisdom
variety
play
comfort
imagination
respect
movement
warmth
transparency
freedom
nourishment
Open
knowledge
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• The school we'd like is
• A beautiful school with glass dome roofs to let
  in the light, uncluttered classrooms and brightly
  coloured walls.
• A safe school with swipe cards for the school
  gate, anti-bully alarms, first aid classes, and
  someone to talk to about our problems.
• A listening school with children on the governing
  body, class representatives and the chance to
  vote for the teachers.
• A flexible school without rigid timetables or
  exams, without compulsory homework, without a
  one-size-fits-all curriculum, so we can follow
  our own interests and spend more time on what we
  enjoy.
• A relevant school where we learn through
  experience, experiments and exploration, with
  trips to historic sites and teachers who have
  practical experience of what they teach.
• A respectful school where we are not treated as
  empty vessels to be filled with information,
  where teachers treat us as individuals, where
  children and adults can talk freely to each
  other, and our opinion matters.
• A school without walls so we can go outside to
  learn, with animals to look after and wild
  gardens to explore.
• A school for everybody with boys and girls from
  all backgrounds and abilities, with no grading,
  so we don't compete against each other, but just
  do our best.

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Leonardo DaVinci 7 Principlessuggested by
Michael J Gelb.

• Curiositá - An insatiably curious approach to
  life and an unrelenting quest for continuous
  learning
• Dimostrazione - A commitment to test knowledge
  through experience, persistance, and a
  willingness to learn from mistakes.
• Sensazione - The continual refinement of the
  senses, especially sight, as the means to enliven
  experience.
• Sfumato (Literally "Going up in smoke") - A
  willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox, and
  uncertainty.
• Arte/Scienza - The development of the balance
  between science and art, logic and imagination.
  "Whole-Brain" thinking.
• Corporalita - The cultivation of grace,
  ambidexterity, fitness, and poise.
• Connessione - A recognition of and appreciation
  for the interconnectedness of all things and
  phenomena. Systems thinking.
• Source How to Think Like da Vinci by Michael J
  Gelb

(1452-1519).
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• Curiositá
• An insatiably curious approach to life and an
  unrelenting quest for continuous learning

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Curiositá

• My dream school would be a school which would let
  me explore the world and tell me human knowledge.
  To achieve this ideal school would be located in
  three different places underwater, underground
  and in space. At the start of every year, the
  children will choose the topics they are most
  interested in. There are no compulsory
  timetables Guatier, Primary age.
• all quotes are from Burke, C. and Grosvenor, I.
  (2003) The School Id Like. Children and Young
  Peoples Reflections on an Education for the 21st
  Century. London RoutledgeFalmer.

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Curiositá

• Teachers should not be tied down by the tight
  restrictions the curriculum presents. They should
  be able to plan a lesson the way they wish and
  develop it into a worthwhile life lesson maybe
  the pupils will treasure and apply within their
  lives. Captivation of the imagination guarantees
  a lesson will stay with a person and not be
  forgotten the moment the classroom is vacated.
  (Angela, age 15, Croydon).

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Curiositá

• I dont understand why teachers ask so many
  questions. it seems to me that it is the learner
  that should ask the questions. Give us the
  freedom to ask questions and do us the courtesy
  of helping us find the answers.
• Hero Joy, aged 14.

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• Dimostrazione
• A commitment to test knowledge through
  experience, persistence, and a willingness to
  learn from mistakes.

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Dimostrazione

• The school would be much more integrated into the
  wider community. The notion of writing
  prize-winning essays on tropical rainforests
  without taking some action would be seen as
  strange. Schools would be part of the local and
  international community and would take part in
  solving some of its problems. This would
  re-attach effort to real tangible results and
  would have a positive effect on motivation to
  learn.
• Jonathan, age 17.

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• Sensazione
• The continual refinement of the senses,
  especially sight, as the means to enliven
  experience.

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Sensazione

• Students learn concepts by doing seeing,
  smelling, hearing, touching, and tasting as well
  as thinking either creatively or logically. All
  their senses are utilized in all sorts of manners
  so that learning is meaningful and practical
  not something so alien that they have to be
  forced upon to do. When children find learning
  meaningful, they will naturally want to learn
  more and hence, they will be self motivated and
  do not need to be pushed by adults to learn.
• Oliver, age 13,

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Sensazione

• I wish I had a school where the children can
  slide down slides and a bouncy castle for a
  classroom, a chocolate teacher for a real teacher
  and a sweet fountain for a water fountain. There
  is a room where you can go and say a title of a
  story and it will make you be a person in the
  story . . .and a room where you can go back in
  time or into the future.
• Samuel, age 7

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• We choose circular tables with computers so that
  every child can see and feel that they are
  working in a fun atmosphere to make them feel
  more relaxed. The circular tables enable each
  child to see each other and feel part of a group.
  Dome chairs will induce comfort... The enclosed
  speakers will give full surround sound without
  the sound interacting with other students. The
  chairs will have pockets and holders to hold
  pencils, lunch, homework, diary. . Dominic and
  Benjamin, age 11 12, (Burke Grosvenor, p.
  145.

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• Sfumato
• (Literally "Going up in smoke") - A willingness
  to embrace ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty.

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Sfumato

• The best thing about the maths classroom is that
  when our teacher enters, hundreds of sparkling
  numbers tumble down from the ceiling and then
  disappear as they hit the floor. And all of us
  scurry around clutching nets in our hands, trying
  to catch them.
• Jade, aged 9

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• Arte/Scienza
• The development of the balance between science
  and art, logic and imagination. "Whole-Brain"
  thinking.

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Arte/Scienza

• My school would be holistic, education can often
  be divisive splitting subject from application
  and mind from soul. The education would be best
  where art, music, maths and English blend and
  integrate and where one is not expected to
  forsake being a human being to teach or be
  taught.
• Jonathan, age 17.

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• Corporalita
• The cultivation of grace, ambidexterity, fitness,
  and poise.

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Corporalita

• I would have comfortable chairs to make the
  lessons more interesting chairs like the ones in
  offices would support our back and mean we would
  not fidget, and would therefore pay more
  attention to the teacher. Matthew, aged 17.
• My dream school would have a few home comforts .
  . . Paul, age 11.
• One lesson a week would be given up to relaxing
  and unwinding. This could be in the form of a
  sport, reading, playing games, singing or
  painting and the purpose of it would be to
  relieve tension and enjoy unwinding. I think that
  this would calm down those students who are
  troubled because of the life they lead.
  Elizabeth, upper secondary.

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Connessione

• The place must not be afraid of kids staring out
  of the windows and must not insist on 100
  attention or even 100 attendance. . . it is a
  terrible pressure for kids to have to pay
  attention and think what they are told to think.
  I would encourage people to dream more and enjoy
  the sun and the sky, the growing grass and the
  bear bowed trees. I would encourage kids to look
  beyond the classroom, out of the classroom and
  see themselves doing different things.
• Hero Joy, aged 14.

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Implications some examples in planning.
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Da Vinci Studio Action Through Synthesis of
Knowledge

• Randall Fielding, Jeffery Lackney, Prakash Nair

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• Imagine a place with lots of daylight and
  directed artificial light, connection to an
  outdoor deck through wide or rolling doors (for
  messy projects), access to water, power supplied
  from a floor or ceiling grid, a wireless computer
  network, lots of storage, a floor finish that is
  hard to damage, high ceilings, places to display
  finished projects, reasonable acoustic
  separation, and transparency to the inside and
  outside with the potential for good views and
  vistas

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Let Teachers be Spacious

• To take full advantage of todays da Vinci
  studio, teachers would need to collaborate more,
  offer students the opportunity to work on real
  projects, and encourage cross-disciplinary
  thinking in a way rarely seen within the four
  walls of traditional, unrevised schools.
  Designshare.com

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Eveline Lowe School, London, 1967-2007
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(No Transcript)
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Inside Out Wooranna Park Primary School,
Dandenong North, Australia.Mary Featherstone
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The strong views of children and teachers led to
many innovations including elimination of tables
or desks in the classroom in favour of seminar
chairs, integration of computers and IT
equipment throughout the Unit and an aquarium in
the study.
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• Stephanie Pace Marshall ". If we are truly going
  to create learning communities for the 21st
  century, we must look differently at our
  classrooms, our schools, and our work. We must
  view them as dynamic, adaptive, self-organizing
  systems, not only capable but inherently designed
  to renew themselves and to grow and change - not
  by the rules established from the top, but by
  relationships created from within." Marshall,
  S.P. (1996, Summer). Chaos, Complexity, and
  Flocking Behavior Metaphors for Learning. In
  Wingspread Journal, 18(3), 13-15.

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Final words

• I dream of happiness and learning united. I
  dream of no interuptions. Maisie, age 14, (Burke
  Grosvenor, p.132)