Does Environment Matter? What Do Classrooms Say About Our Philosophy?

I just became aware of an architectural contest to design new classrooms. In looking at the winners - it's easy to see why we are still in the mess we're in. Only one of these offers something that might be a little different from what we already have in classrooms that were designed over 100 years ago.

Why is that?

Environments and structures create behavior and the form of our classrooms are no exception. We can learn a lot about ourselves by looking at our physical environments. Our homes, work places, hospitals, and schools tell us a lot about our philosophy - the way we think and what we value.

Schools and classrooms are fundamentally about compliance and the physical environment supports that. These are NOT places where creativity are valued. These are NOT places where social interaction are valued. These are NOT places where exploration and discovery happens.

Early research into teaching and learning shows that a single adult can control about 19 young people. Classrooms were designed with this kind of knowledge in mind - and they still are even though most classrooms today have upwards of 30 young people in them.

If we continue to design what we've always designed there is no hope in having what happens in these rooms be any different than what has been happening in these rooms for nearly 150 years now.

What's Wrong with Education in America?

Here's more about the State of Washington's proposal to standardize the curriculum at all schools throughout the state.

Standardized lesson plans irk some Washington educators
As Seattle considers standardizing its curriculum in every classroom, teachers in one Washington district log in to see what pages and subjects they must teach each day. Opponents of across-the-board standardization say it hinders a teacher's ability to respond to the needs of a particular class, but Bellevue Superintendent Mike Riley says inconsistent curriculum is "at the heart of what's wrong with education in America." The Seattle Times (6/24)

The Superintendent is arguing that inconsistent curriculum is "at the heart of what's wrong with education in America."

I disagree 100%. What's wrong with education in America is NOT inconsistent curriculum!

What's wrong with education in America today is the way the majority of people in America think about education.

The concept of mandatory education - or public education - originated to develop factory workers for the emerging 'industrial economy' in the late 1800's and early 1900's. The system of education we have today is nearly the same as the one conceived and implemented more than 100 years ago.

The desire to standardize education - the curriculum, the teaching, the timing, and the tests - flies in the face of what we have learned about how humans learn. AND, it flies in the face of the fact that the external world - the environment in which the learner lives and the learning should take place - has changed dramatically in the last 100 years!

Standardizing in the way the Superintendent is proposing is a natural and understandable outcome of the way of thinking that dominates our education system. The system has an underlying operating principle of compliance and control. Standardizing the way it is being proposed is a way to control the 100s and 1000s of people involved in the system in the State of Washington. The thinking behind this idea also presumes that learning can be stuffed into people at a particular time, in a particular way - and all the same time and same way - for every 8 year old or every 12 year old in the entire State.

So here we have a well meaning man, in charge of the entire public education system for the State of Washington, mandating a policy that more well meaning people will implement. All these well meaning people, with the best of intentions, will actually be doing harm and creating further problems. The solutions to the problems they create will be looked at through the same lens - that of control and compliance - so those solutions will NOT solve the problem either but continue to make things worse.

The solution is to change the way we think about education and learning.

To contrast what is happening in the State of Washington, here is something happening in the State of New Hampshire:

New Hampshire to develop personalized high school
New Hampshire's Department of Education wants to develop high schools in which learning is tailored to students' interests and teachers become mentors instead of lecturers. "If we do this right, why would any kid drop out of high school?" asked Fred Bramante, a state Board of Education member. Education Week (article free to SmartBrief subscribers)/Associated Press (6/26)

This is an example of changing the way we think about education.

Staying Even is Falling Behind

In an article by former Michigan State Superintendent of Schools he says that Michigan schools are not preparing young people for the 21st Century. As a respected educator I hope he is listened to (and it's interesting to me he is using language that sounds a lot like a consultant - which he is!)...

As Michigan attempts to catch up with the 21st Century, this state must realize that our children have to compete with the children of the world, not just those from adjacent school districts or states. It is imperative that policy makers and educators address the fact that in a hyper-competitive, entrepreneurial, information age, the old way of providing education must be altered -- and sooner rather than later. Michigan's students must be the recipients of an agile system of education and public policies that effect substantive change.

Further on he says,

In a rapidly changing world, staying even is falling behind.

These are well articulated and clear challenges for education - and also one of the clear arguments for there being NO ONE RIGHT ANSWER for public education in this country.

One of the strategies our firm advocates as a viable strategy for enterprises to use to 'catch up' or 'stay even' is to increase their own capacity to learn. The faster an organization can learn the more capable they are in dealing with/adapting in a world of rapid change.

There are several viable strategies to consider to increase the capacity of an organization to learn. One of these strategies is to have many experiments taking place simultaneously to enable the organization to learn fast. Another way of saying that is to develop a capability to do rapid prototyping. Quick cycles of testing theories (plan, do, study, act).

Another strategy organizations can use is to do things in parallel instead of doing them in a serial fashion (doing things at the same time instead of one after the other). This strategy is not an easy one for older, western educated managers to learn but it's really important to help shrink life cycles for product development, strategy development and innovation.

Click here to read the entire article by the former Michigan State Superintendent of Schools.