Book Notes: Redesigning the School Environment

Few people would disagree that how kids learn is connected to where they learn. Those wondering about how a school's physical environment enhances learning will relish The Third Teacher, a new book on school and classroom design. Published as a collaborative project by architects, designers and a furniture company, the book explores how schools and classrooms can be built in smarter, greener, and more imaginative ways.

The book itself is a beautiful piece of construction -- over 200 colorful pages of interviews, graphics, case studies and meditations that are grouped into 79 suggestions for improving school buildings and classrooms. With its visual ingenuity, the book suggests how powerful good design can be.

The authors are OWP/P | Cannon Design, a Chicago-based firm that has over 50 years of experience with school design; VS Furniture, a German company that specializes in educational furnishings, and Bruce Mao Design studio in Toronto and Chicago.

If there ever was a time to talk about school design and construction, now may be it: the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (better known as the stimulus bill) has designated money for school construction. Additional funding for K-12 schools, and even early learning centers that include children before age 5, is proposed in the student aid reform bill that is expected to be introduced in the Senate. (Here at Early Ed Watch, we've written several times about the need for early childhood facilties to be included within policies related to school construction.) With the increasing momentum for "green" building, designing sustainable schools will likely become a priority in both public and private school systems. The Third Teacher is not intended to be a book on eco-conscious design -- it talks extensively about community building, technology and special education, among other issues -- but green building ideas are displayed prominently among The Third Teacher's prescriptions for school innovation.

Pragmatically speaking, however, The Third Teacher is limited -- not by its collection of anecdotes and ideas, but by neglecting to show how teachers and administrators might overcome the barriers to implementing them. Ultimately, The Third Teacher does not always fulfill its promise of proposing "practical ideas" for the classroom. Idea #55, for example, suggests that teachers "create a workshop for the senses" in classrooms for young students, with "concentrated as well as diffuse light." But, how many public school teachers are given the financial resources and autonomy to restructure walls or replace the furniture in their classrooms? And how exactly does a teacher add "multi-sensory" textures to his or her room?

The reality is that most school districts cannot feature writing centers co-founded by author Dave Eggers (from idea #61) or nutrition programs spearheaded by celebrity chef (and former Montessori school teacher) Alice Waters (#53). Those who are faced with overcrowded, poorly maintained schools may find this book to be an exercise in frustration.

What The Third Teacher does offer is a set of ideas that are often engaging, occasionally inspiring and, frankly, fun. Perhaps its most successful feature is the wealth of case studies that highlight innovative approaches to school design. The book highlights Rosa Parks Elementary School outside Seattle, which is connected to its community by foot paths that students use to take the "walking bus" to school. It also showcases the urban Hampden Gurney School, an elementary school in London that sold half of its space for the construction of an apartment complex in order to finance the remodeling of the other half into a six-story "children's tower" with open-air play spaces and a sunlit shaft down its center to help brighten up classrooms. If, as The Third Teacher implies, students gain from where they learn as well as what they learn, a closer look at the physical nature of children's schools is overdue.