Before reading this blog, watch the 5-minute video below in which Eden Park Elementary School teachers share their wisdom about starting strong in a Learning Community. Trust me it’s worth it.  

When talking to the Eden Park teachers to understand what they do to start each school year strong, it became clear how much they lean into student voices to create shared expectations. It’s a compassionate approach. They invest the time to co-create expectations at the start because they recognize the level of trust it builds allows them to do extraordinary things throughout the entire year, including trusting students with a lot of freedom. When teachers were talking about how they start the year strong in a Learning Community, I realized many of their practices apply to conventional school environments, as well. 

Here are some of the teachers’ key insights, with an angle of how they might apply to conventional settings:

Facilitate A Project to Start the Year: It’s about collaboration, connecting students, teachers, and staff in a cohesive project, thereby fostering unity and creativity. A classroom teacher can start the year with a “How might we…” question that gets their class engaged in a design challenge about making their room feel welcoming and comfortable. Consider giving students opportunities to engage with community members in hospitality to elicit advice, feedback, donations, etc. for their project.

Map Out Spaces: This involves planning and coordinating spaces to facilitate learning, ensuring that everyone is on the same page, and each space is utilized effectively. In a conventional school, go on a learning walk with students throughout the campus where they document places that are uninviting and/or underutilized. Have them map their favorite spaces and brainstorm ways to overcome the uninviting, underutilized environments.

Create Expectations For Furniture and Zero Space: Kids love choices to sit, stand, and move around their learning environment. A classroom teacher can advocate for a variety of furniture that gives students the freedom to have agency. Zero Space is the idea that kids can move furniture around to meet their needs, but before they leave the room it gets reset back to its base layout.

Establish a Culture That Is “OUR” Space: Eden Park Elementary School takes great pride in building a culture where every space is seen as co-owned and operated as a community. Teachers in classrooms can give this sense of co-ownership to their students, starting with minimal decorations and no clutter at the start of the year, and then working with students to transform the room into their own unique oasis. 

Emphasize Community Values: In a Learning Community, knowing that sharing space can cause conflict, the instincts to give grace and learn from mistakes are remarkable de-escalators. Helping young people develop these instincts through practice can be achieved no matter the environment. Identify possible points of conflict in your environment (i.e. some kids prefer the lights off for part of the day) and give students time to come up with solutions to propose and discuss with each other. Fostering this sense of collaborative problem-solving will help make the values you espouse become instinctive habits.  

As a video producer, I was inspired by the commitment of the teachers and the enthusiasm of the students. As I’ve observed the Eden Park team, I’ve seen firsthand how these principles aren’t mere words but living practices that shape everyday life at Eden Park Elementary School, which over time manifests as a holistically vibrant learner-centered culture. I hope this short film serves as a case study for anyone, regardless of their environment, to start every school year with compassion and relationships at the center.

Nathan Strenge is a Senior Learning Designer at Fielding International, where he works with school communities around the world to create environments that foster creativity, collaboration, wellness, and belonging.

The post Video Insights – Start the School Year Strong appeared first on Getting Smart.

While planning this short film below in partnership with the dedicated educators at Eden Park Elementary School, a resonant theme emerged – the importance of preserving existing best teaching practices even as we innovate. As a classroom teacher of a decade, this insight instilled in me a profound hope for the evolution and expansion of future Learning Communities. 

Knowing how many teachers are struggling with the weight of teaching in an isolated environment and feeling overwhelmed to engage kids in an age where mental health needs are vast, Learning Communities offer a more collaborative and holistically supportive environment for kids and adults alike.

So why is their insight about preserving existing best teaching practices so important? It has to do with the reluctance some communities have to move away from a classroom-based spatial model, even if they see its limitations. 

There’s little question why a classroom-based approach to schooling has had such a profound staying power (hint: it’s not because it’s best for kids). To put it simply: it’s what we know. Here in the United States, the vast majority of adults alive today went to schools using a classroom model. Today’s teachers were trained to teach in a classroom and have a lifetime of experiences in a classroom. Because of this familiarity and its effects on operating a school building, classroom-based models continue to be designed and built.

Compounding the “it’s what we know” problem is how little the K-12 education industry has invested in research and development. From a report by Aaron K. Chatterji at Duke University,  “Research and development (R&D) accounts for a tiny share of total expenditures in K–12 education, around 0.2%, or 1/50 the rate of the most innovative industries” 

Caption: Research & Development Spending (from Chatterji report)

Despite these historical factors, many communities recognize the power of place and the limitations of a classroom-based approach. Schools are becoming aware that giving young people more agency to move around to find the right place at the right time is essential to wellness and student-centered learning. That level of authentic student agency requires a variety of safe, desirable environments that are highly accessible. Creating a diverse array of environments that meet the spectrum of needs of any group of kids is practically impossible within the four walls of a classroom, but it’s what defines a well-designed Learning Community.

As more and more schools embrace different spatial models, it has to be very reassuring for classroom-based teachers to hear from Eden Park educators that maintaining existing best teaching practices is important. I am hopeful that hearing this insight will alleviate some of the fear caused when considering transitioning to Learning Communities.

Nathan Strenge is a Senior Learning Designer at Fielding International, where he works with school communities around the world to create environments that foster creativity, collaboration, wellness, and belonging.

The post Addressing the Reluctancy to Transform Learning Environments appeared first on Getting Smart.

In the evolving landscape of education, professional learning stands as a powerful catalyst to foster teacher or system resilience, effectiveness, and job satisfaction. But how can we make the profession more rewarding and impactful? Schools around the world are realizing that their flexible learning environments are improving conditions for educators’ well-being, helping build stronger teams, improving culture, and benefiting students as a result.

Flexible learning environments are not just for students. These spaces serve as hubs for professional development, nurturing a collaborative culture and fostering professional learning communities (PLCs). The PLC model offers a collaborative approach to professional development, allowing educators to share expertise, exchange ideas, and learn from each other in a real-time, practical setting. A study by Waldron and McLeskey found that schools that implemented the PLC model in a flexible learning environment experienced increased teacher effectiveness, improved student achievement, and a more positive school culture.

In these flexible spaces, teachers become students, learning and seeing new teaching methodologies, integrating technology effectively, and understanding diverse student needs alongside their peer educators without the siloed classroom that has traditionally contained educators for the spirit of collaboration that is so widely discussed in education circles. The interactive nature of these environments creates a network of professional educators collaborating in real-time, offering feedback, peer observation, and co-teaching, enhancing the quality of professional learning and implementation of high-quality practices that help kids.

Beyond enriching teaching methods and enhancing student engagement, flexible learning environments also serve a more pragmatic function in bolstering the resilience of staffing structures. The inherent adaptability of these environments allows for seamless adjustment in cases of unforeseen adult absences, ensuring continuity in student learning. Instead of traditional isolated classrooms that depend heavily on the presence of a single teacher, the fluid structure of flexible learning spaces fosters a sense of shared responsibility among educators, promoting cross-functional teamwork.

The malleability of these spaces supports unanticipated shifts in a school’s day-to-day operations, effectively accommodating spur-of-the-moment events or sudden changes in school routines. For example, a flexible learning space can swiftly transition from a collaborative group work setup to a lecture-style arrangement for a surprise guest speaker or can be rearranged to host an impromptu school assembly or event.

But the power of flexibility extends beyond physical space and into the teaching strategies employed. It empowers teachers to pivot their instructional methods as needed, honing practices in real-time based on student feedback and peer input. This dynamic, responsive approach builds a more resilient teaching community that can adapt swiftly to changing educational circumstances or challenges. Flexible learning environments are not just about providing versatile spaces; they’re about nurturing an adaptable, resilient, and collaborative educational community that can thrive in the face of both routine and unexpected challenges.

So, if you’re an educator or school administrator looking to invigorate professional learning and practices while making your system more resilient, it’s time to embrace the type of flexibility demonstrated at Eden Park. By transforming a block of classrooms into dynamic, collaborative spaces that are collectively shared and understood as environments to help all students learn, we can catalyze professional growth, foster resilience, and ultimately, enhance the quality of education we deliver to our students. As always, email me to talk more about the specific challenges you are facing in your buildings and the models we could explore to meet your specific programming needs.

Mike Posthumus, a leader in education innovation since 2009, excels at transforming complex challenges into successful strategies, utilizing a human-centered design thinking approach. As Vice President of Learning and Engagement at the Grand Rapids Public Museum, he co-established the XQ Super School award-winning Grand Rapids Public Museum School, reflecting his commitment to place-based and experiential learning. He holds a Master’s in Education Administration and now serves as the Learning Design Principal for Fielding International where he collaborates with an interdisciplinary team in designing the ideal conditions for learners to thrive.

The post School Resilience and Educator Efficacy: The Power of Flexible Learning Environments appeared first on Getting Smart.

In today’s education landscape, “student voice” and “youth empowerment” are popular catchphrases. It’s understandable – there’s a growing recognition that giving young people more say and more ownership in their educational journey has profound, transformative benefits for learning. The ability for students to have a legitimate voice in things such as how they learn, what they learn, when they learn, and where they learn has tremendous potential for schools to adapt to the unique needs and gifts of every individual. However, there’s a glaring disconnect between the popularization of these terms and their actual implementation in many schools.

Over my career, I’ve worn many hats in education: classroom teacher, school founder, leadership coach, design consultant, and more. These experiences have given me the opportunity to really dig into HOW we can amplify youth voices and HOW we can empower young people; what I see is that many of the well-intentioned efforts schools are making to do this fall well short of what our students deserve. For instance, giving kids an hour of unstructured time once a week in a Genius Hour is progress, but it doesn’t address what happens in the other 39 hours. So, what does genuine empowerment actually look like? To put it simply, empowerment is a function of the level of freedom students have to navigate time and space in their everyday school experiences. 

Through that lens, Eden Park Elementary School stands out as an exemplary model of genuine student empowerment. Here, 3rd-5th graders in the Learning Community have a tremendous amount of control to determine how they flow through the day. 

That sense of freedom really comes out in this 3-minute short film.

During filming, students repeatedly told us the spaces they have access to are a big part of why they feel empowered. The proximity and transparency of the small group rooms to the classrooms make for a great breakout. The commons feel welcoming and comfortable, an agile place that allows students to spread out and find a quiet area when needed, or actively work on a project as a team. The variety of furniture students can arrange and rearrange encourages more movement, more active learning, and a greater sense of autonomy. 

One of Eden Park’s students, Josephina, succinctly sums up the importance of such empowerment: “Freedom helps you learn; because without freedom, kids wouldn’t really want to go to school.” It’s through this profound understanding of the role of freedom in learning that Eden Park Elementary is raising the bar in fostering student empowerment. 

This model serves as a powerful reminder of the significant impact a true commitment to youth voice can have on the education system, and how reimagining physical space an unlock genuine student empowerment. 

If you’d like help creating learning environments that give students the freedom they need to thrive, reach out to me at nathan.strenge@fieldingintl.com or visit us at https://fieldingintl.com/. 

Nathan Strenge is a Senior Learning Designer at Fielding International, where he works with school communities around the world to create environments that foster creativity, collaboration, wellness, and belonging.

The post Elementary Students Speak About Their Unique Learning Environment appeared first on Getting Smart.

The post-COVID world presents unique challenges for education globally. With declining engagement rates, rising social-emotional learning needs, and the daunting reality of staff shortages, schools and districts worldwide are at a crossroads. However, as Eden Park Elementary School demonstrates, there may be a potent solution to these challenges – the transformative power of collaborative learning communities.

Eden Park Elementary has committed to creating the ideal conditions for future-ready learning. They’ve reshaped a wing of their school into a collaborative learning community. This new approach replaces traditional classrooms with ‘studios,’ common areas, and specialized labs for scientific experiments or design thinking. Small group rooms allow for intervention and student support services or peer-to-peer collaboration. Teachers have a dedicated workspace where they can collaborate, reflect, and recharge. The defining quality of a learning community is that there is a culture of learning, in which everyone is involved in a collective effort of understanding.

In the video linked below, Principal Courtney Sevigny takes us on a tour, showing us how this strategic spatial restructuring has sparked a paradigm shift in teaching and learning. At Eden Park, the teachers have moved away from isolated classrooms to a collective model, thinking of every student and the entire wing as ‘ours.’ This shared sense of ownership has created a more inclusive, supportive learning environment, increasing students’ feelings of belonging and high-quality learning habits.

Belonging is a critical component in learning communities. These environments cultivate interactivity and collaboration, making students feel valued and connected. This sense of community can counter the current engagement crisis, as a feeling of belonging is a crucial aspect of student engagement.

But the benefits of learning communities don’t stop there. They also foster social-emotional learning by increasing social interaction between students, adult mentors, and peers. This networked approach provides students with necessary emotional support while modeling constructive social behavior. Studies show that these relationships can enhance students’ social-emotional competencies, contributing to their overall success.

In the current climate of school, staff shortages, and frequent changes, learning communities also offer resilience and adaptability. A team of educators shares responsibility, enabling smooth transition and continuity in students’ learning experiences when a substitute teacher isn’t available or a sudden shift occurs. This collective team approach ensures that every student receives consistent support and guidance, making learning communities a model of resilience in today’s ever-evolving educational landscape.

However, it’s not just the students who benefit. Learning communities also foster a collaborative and supportive environment for educators. Teachers build stronger relationships through daily collaboration, which leads to the sharing of effective teaching practices and natural mentorship opportunities. Such an environment enhances job satisfaction and fosters professional growth, further solidifying the community’s resilience.

So, what can other schools learn from Eden Park Elementary?

Start small and try a ‘Pathfinder.’ Transforming a single classroom or introducing collaboration within a grade level can provide a testing ground for the model. Encourage a shared sense of ownership among educators. Facilitate increased interaction between students and adult mentors, and foster a learning environment that nurtures belonging.

Eden Park Elementary School offers a hopeful lens into the future of education. By embracing innovation, collaboration, and a forward-thinking mindset, they have shown us how to engage students effectively, support their emotional growth, and foster resilient educational environments.

What about your school or district? What innovations are you considering or have you implemented to address these modern educational challenges? 

Whatever the challenges, we at Fielding International are ready to help you get to where you want to be. Visit us at fieldingintl.com or reach out to me at mike.posthumus@fieldingintl.com to get started. 

Mike Posthumus, a leader in education innovation since 2009, excels at transforming complex challenges into successful strategies, utilizing a human-centered design thinking approach.

The post The Future-Ready School: Harnessing the Power of Learning Communities in Education appeared first on Getting Smart.

This is the second of a two-part preface excerpt from the book To Know the Joy of Work Well Done: Building Connections and Community with Place-Based Learning.

When Walter writes simply of his experience in Hiroshima –I am reminded how PLACE resonates for all. I am reminded how the power of place is a universal principle with a very local reality; all places have stories; all places have histories. And each story is unique to its own place. For Hiroshima, the arc of its history, from its founding in 1598, was traumatized with a tragedy of epic proportions on August 6th, 1945. This event was so “place-critical” that the words from Cardinal Carsoli, “What do you do for Peace?” were akin to a greeting, echoing the power of Hiroshima.

It’s like standing with others at Wounded Knee and asking a stranger, “What do you do for Justice?” Asking this with one’s feet upon the ground at Wounded Knee both honors the place and is real for the person asked. For most places the story of the past is less dramatic than Hiroshima, yet always meaningful to those who inhabit these places. The stories of home can be profound. This came home to me when I had the opportunity to study the Kickapoo Valley with 15 amazing students for an entire year. Together in our little school bus we came to know our place engaging over 100 days in the community; field trips became field studies.

One morning, in mid-fall, a seemingly innocent question during a silent reading time led us down a path of immense undertaking. It was a classic example of ‘generative emergence’ that so often occurs in place-based inquiry, almost always from a student’s contribution. A student was reading a history of Black Hawk, the Sauk chief who defied U.S. treaties, when she looked up at me, a question having been triggered, and asked, “Did the Kickapoo Indians ever really live in the Kickapoo Valley?” Her classmates on the eclectic chairs and singular couch in our living room unhooked their literary eyes from their books. I paused, and replied, “I really don’t know.” The ensuing discussion led us down an inquiry path. What did we really know about the Kickapoo Indians? No one had ever read of the Kickapoo Indians actually living in the Kickapoo Valley. Nor did we know why the valley was named Kickapoo. With this historical gap in mind, we discussed ways to bridge it. We knew archival research would be critical. How to find a historical document placing the Kickapoo Indians in the Kickapoo River watershed?

Next week, off we went in our little bus to read the original US & Kickapoo Nation treaties at the historical archives located at the University of Wisconsin – Platteville.

We read all seven original treaties. Clearly, in all the treaties, the land ceded by the Kickapoo was in Illinois, not Wisconsin. The treaties described territory bordered by the Wabash and Vermillion Rivers of Illinois, not the Kickapoo River in Wisconsin. Our query remained unanswered. A few weeks later in Madison, at the State Historical Archives room, we were reviewing scores of notes, letters, and transcripts of meetings between chiefs recorded by a U.S. Indian Agent from 1790 to 1810 at Prairie du Chien, along the Mississippi River.

Prairie du Chien is a few miles downriver from the Kickapoo River confluence with the Wisconsin River, which empties into the Mississippi River at Prairie du Chien. While we sorted through these artifacts, you could have heard a pin drop in the stately marble-pillared reading room. Suddenly a student shrieked to fill the hall. Backs straightened. Heads of historians working at their own archive-filled tables quickly turned. “I found it!” Jenny gasped. We gathered around her table. Eyes looked upon a tattered yellow parchment, an original record of a speech by a Kickapoo Chief given in Prairie du Chien in 1807, a mere twenty miles from the Kickapoo River. Jenny had found the first historical document to place a Kickapoo Indian, let alone a Kickapoo chief, within a day’s horse ride from the Kickapoo River! This didn’t fully answer our questions, but it certainly whetted our appetites. The other question pressing the student’s inquiry buttons was how did the valley receive the name Kickapoo? We now understood that it had not been the Kickapoo Nations tribal land, so why name it Kickapoo? And who?

A few weeks later, on a separate research trip back to the archives, looking into the history of Haney Creek, a tributary of the Kickapoo River, a student was reading the private letters of John Haney from 1842, one of the first white men to enter the pristine valley soon to be named Kickapoo. In one letter to his father, he mentioned two Native American families living along the banks of the river below his cabin. Could these have been Kickapoo Indians? This historical association led the students to hypothesize that John Haney, one of the first settlers in the Kickapoo Valley, who had a creek, township, and school named after him, may have originated the name Kickapoo for the river which ran 100 miles from its source near Tomah, Wisconsin, past his log cabin at Haney Creek, to its confluence with the Wisconsin River. The students knew that John Haney was knowledgeable about Native Americans because they also found that day in the archives a hand-made Ho-Chunk Dictionary that Haney had created for the Ho-Chunk Nation just north of the Kickapoo Watershed. He would have known the tribal affiliation of these two families. It certainly refined our line of questioning. Was John Haney, an early settler, the person who named the Kickapoo Valley?

What a chain of research events unfolded that fall. Place based inquiry, like a compass bearing, led us forward to discover the story of our place we shared – students and teachers alike– the Kickapoo Valley. Hiroshima and Kickapoo contain universal place based principles. A key principle being that students OWN the WHY.My students were looking into origin stories; Walter’s students were looking for ways to contribute to the community through Peace interactions. Importantly, the students owned the whys.

• Why am I doing this?
• Why is it important?
• Why will it matter for my place?

Key threads self-organize the work. For my students, the thread was discovery. For Walter’s students, the thread was contribution. The activation of each student’s ability, whether through discovery or contribution, was the fuel that drove this place-based work. When a “student’s capacity is turned into ability” – to echo Jerome Bruner – then the vibrancy of learning is so strong that the air seems to radiate. I’ll leave it to a place-based student, Nicole, from her unique Colorado community, to express this idea, “I learned more about myself, my peers, and my community than I could possible imagine. It is incredible to be with so many people with a strong passion working together to make their dreams happen. I learned to trust and respect people for the good that they had. It is an incredible feeling to work with people and make a successful product. I did things that I didn’t think I could.”

“For me, the most important place on the farm was the cattail marsh at its north end. To get there, you took the farm’s interior road, a grass track that ran east to the edge of the maple grove and then north as far as the waterway that drained into the slough from the east. The physical distance was not quite half a mile, but so far as I was concerned it might have been halfway around the world.” Paul Gruchow (Grass Roots: The Universe of Home)

James Lewicki is the Director of Development at EdVisions. 

The post Place & Peace Based Learning: James’ story appeared first on Getting Smart.

This is the first of a two-part preface excerpt from the book To Know the Joy of Work Well Done: Building Connections and Community with Place-Based Learning.

I came to Hiroshima in 1980 at age 31 to be teacher-principal at Hiroshima International School, a small, parent-organized school for foreign children grades K-8. I was returning home where my parents had lived since 1963. Typically, the school served 30-40 full-time students from ten countries in three multi-age, multi-grade classrooms, self-contained with art and Japanese language/culture integrated into the school day. The school was a blend of American British curriculum, “instruction” was in English, half the students were ESL or bi/tri-lingual whether Japanese or other (e.g. Dutch, French, Danish, Portuguese).

A third of the children were bi-racial, bi-cultural and or bi-lingual. Most students were at the school for at least three years, their parents working for global businesses (e.g., Mazda, Mitsubishi), as university and language schoolteachers, missionaries, the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, and the occasional American professional baseball player for the Hiroshima Carp. There was also a cadre of part-time students who met late afternoons: Japanese citizens in English Conversation classes and a group of 15-20 Japanese children who attended Japanese Schools but had lived at least three years in English-speaking countries whose parents wanted them to retain their “English” language skills and “International or American identity.”

I taught a self-contained 6-8 class of fifteen students and was school principal before and after school and during lunch. Teaching in a self-contained multi-age, multi-grade, multi-national, multi-language classroom where parents expected an ‘above standard’ education was a challenge. Most importantly, to teach in Hiroshima, the city whose self-proclaimed ideal was to become “the International City of Peace and Culture” brought a special obligation. Part of what attracted me back to Hiroshima at the height of the Cold War was the idealistic belief that I might make the world a better place through my teaching and leadership in an international school that contributed to Hiroshima’s vision.

I began the year as a novice principal, though experienced teacher having taught 9 years at the Paideia School in Atlanta. Our Hiroshima school had legal challenges with its landlord; the new building, designed as a two-story warehouse without heating, a sprinkler system or a fire escape, had a collapsed wall from the rainy season the month after I arrived with no insurance for repairs. Ford Motor Co. was beginning to work with MAZDA and was exploring our school for up to twenty additional families. And then there was the greater issue of teaching and learning. We used a variety of methods: group work, cooperative and peer coaching, thematic and topic study. Over time, I discovered that hands-on collaborative projects, mediated between speaker/thinkers of different languages, both transcended language and created phenomena termed “Nihongrish” (Japanese English hybrid) or “Portugrish.” There were also ample opportunities for individualized study and self-grading (e.g., a table with teacher “answer books” for children to check their math and language arts) as well as a variety of class field trips. I “made a go of it,” as a more experienced British colleague noted (he was building a 39 ft sailboat over the next five years to return to Tanzania). I gave myself that first term an A- for effort and a B for satisfactory performance (on a good day!). But I wasn’t satisfied. I knew we had the talent to do more!

In February 1989, I decided with my co-teachers that we would have a school-wide field trip to Peace Park to hear Pope John Paul II speak, visit the various exhibits and monuments, and have a picnic. A few parents questioned the trip, and a few folks even decided to keep their children home. Nevertheless, we teachers viewed this as a powerful learning experience for our students. As the school leader, I also saw it as a public relations opportunity to introduce our international school to the larger Hiroshima community. How might we contribute to Hiroshima’s message for the world: NO MORE HIROSHIMAS?

Additionally, for me it was a deeply personal matter. From the time I had lived there at age fourteen I had struggled — unconsciously at least — with my own culpability as an American, living in Hiroshima the strange life of victor, the hegemonic life-style of “movie and rock and roll star.” Hiroshima is a special place as much for its symbol of nuclear apocalypse as it is for hope, renewal, and resurrections. It is a local place, vibrant, alive in the present, struggling to forget the past. Hiroshima is a global place, alive in the present, frightened that few will heed the warning that its hibakusha (a-bomb victims) inculcate and embody.

The essence of the Pope’s message, following his greetings in nine languages to the thousands assembled in Peace Park was a clear, simple set of truths.

• War is the work of man.
• War is destruction of human life.
• War is death.
• To remember the past is to commit oneself to the future.
• To remember Hiroshima is to abhor nuclear war.
• To remember Hiroshima is to commit oneself to peace.

Following the ceremony, a group of us went to the Mound of the Unknown, the repository tomb of the ashes of some 70,000 victims, surrounded by an iron fence festooned with thousands of brightly colored paper cranes of peace. We stood there as an entourage of priests and photographers arrived. People were gathering around Cardinal Carsoli, Secretary of State of the Vatican, who had accompanied Pope John Paul II to Hiroshima and Peace Park that day. We were greeted in Japanese and English; “Hello, how are you today?” inquired Cardinal Carsoli to us. We spoke for a few moments and as he turned to leave, he asked us, “What do you do for peace?”

We stood there in silence. It sunk in very much for me those next few weeks. Over the next months we began answering that question in tentative and inarticulate yet tangible ways. We invited international schools to join us in fundraising to erect a monument in Peace Park honoring the Pope’s visit. We established sister school programs with our local elementary school, a K-8 rural school in the mountains east of Hiroshima, and later the City’s school for physically challenged youth. We organized service projects through the World Friendship Center for elderly a-bomb victims. We joined with performances and exhibits at the City’s weeklong May Day Festival and Peace-Love Festival.

But it was in the month after our encounter with Cardinal Carsoli that I decided to introduce the kids in my class to an organizing idea, first developed by John Dewey and William Kilpatrick, coupled with an activity pedagogy proposed variously by Adolphe Ferriere, Jean Piaget, and Celestin Frienet: project and placed-based learning built on the estuary of the Ota River: Hiroshima (wide Islands) – Past, Present, and Future. We followed Kilpatrick’s year-long model of an upper elementary class organizing itself around the topic and place of Ancient Egypt: building pyramids, producing papyrus, mummifying a chicken, writing in hieroglyphics, making bread from thrashing wheat to baking in a clay-made oven.

We were committed deeply to the development of basic, essential skills and concepts, honoring each student in the present for who they were holistically, and what they knew, and taking them as far as we together could accomplish. With that in mind, I decided to approach the topic of Hiroshima: Present, Past and Future through the modalities of learning about, learning for, and most intentionally learning through.

That story is captured in my books Oasis of Peace (1998) and Lessons from Ground Zero (2002). We took a hybrid approach engaging four interrelated outcomes; place-study, Hiroshima themes, thousand cranes, and guiding questions.

1) The place study of Hiroshima through language arts, history, science, mathematics, art and physical education was imbued with variety; e.g., discovered that Hiroshima had invented a local game, Esuki Tennis, badminton size court, foot high net, tennis ball and paddles!

2) We explored Hiroshima themes through mind-mapping and free association and generated a variety of connected topics: agriculture led to rice cultivation present day, while during the Jomon Period; oyster cultivation led to the Yayoi period shell mounds, pearl divers, and the eventual development of Hiroshima as human made islands where the estuary of the Ota River met the Inland Sea. This led to the building of Hiroshima Castle and the 17th century fiefdom of the Asano Clan.

3) And we planted the germ of a seed that grew in 1985 to become the world-renowned Thousand Crane Club.

4) Guiding Questions. We asked guiding questions requiring in-depth research, field trips, letter writing, interviews, and the writing of reports:

• What does Hiroshima mean to the world?
• Who speaks for Hiroshima?
• Why was Hiroshima the first A-bomb city?
• Was the bomb necessary?
• Why were the hibakusha not supported and shunned by so many?
• Why doesn’t the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission treat a-bomb victims?
• Were there any foreign casualties? (Yes, forced Chinese and Korean laborers, three Russian families, a German priest, and at least 8 American British prisoners of war).
• Why so many orphans and what happened to them?
• What was located on our school property and the local playground on August 6, 1945? In 1845?
• How do we find out?

Local peacemakers were interviewed. All were hibakusha (bomb victims). The high school teacher who studied in the United States, Miss Shibama; the Rev. Tanimoto, a graduate of Emory University and leader of the “No More Hiroshimas” Movement; the current Mayor Mr. Akiba, and Miss Matsubara, one of the disfigured “Hiroshima Maidens,” and docent of the Peace Museum, all agreed. Letters affirming our work arrived from overseas: from Dr. Helen Caldicott, leader of Physicians for Social Responsibility, and the noted authors and peace activists Norman Cousins, Pearl Buck, and John Hersey.

A letter shared from the Thousand Crane Club caught the spirit, “Most important, (the club) is a time to work together, to talk about friendship and conflicts, and to discuss and think about a lot of things. We don’t have any suggestions other than when we did this (folding 1000 cranes) we learned a lot about each other, we helped each other, and now our class is really close. We folded these cranes for peace and in memory of Sadako, but really, we helped ourselves.”

Walter was a teacher, educational leader, scholar, author, artist, and peace activist.

James Lewicki is the Director of Development at EdVisions. 

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Having spent the first ten years of my career as a teacher stationed within the four walls of a solitary classroom, I often felt the itch to change the scene. The classroom felt like a box, and I wanted the ability to think, teach, and learn outside of it. Looking back, I ask myself what about the classroom made me yearn for something different: Was it the industrial lighting? Was it the openness that caused poor acoustics? Was it the set of desks crammed into the room, limiting movement and restricting certain pedagogies? Or was it just the feeling of a known institutional setting that triggered a sense of hierarchy and group dynamics that I wanted to disrupt? Whatever it was, I became aware that the limitations of a classroom could never truly adapt to the real-time needs of each individual. Furthermore, the wellness goals we are finally beginning to prioritize as a society face major obstacles within a classroom. When kids have no place to go when they feel X (insert your own emotion here), they can feel trapped inside the box that is a classroom.

Aggravating the classroom problem is the space immediately adjacent. For the schools I taught in, and the majority of schools I’ve been in, the hallway is not designed to be a learning space – I’ll refer to these as non-learning hallways. In my experience, non-learning hallways serve two main purposes: (1) circulation paths and (2) a place to store students’ personal items (i.e. house lockers). This may sound benign, but if the byproduct of this design approach is isolated classrooms that inhibit wellness, personalization, and certain pedagogies, it’s a problem that needs to be addressed.

It wasn’t until I started working with Randy Fielding and was introduced to a different spatial paradigm that I understood the full consequences of non-learning hallways. One of my biggest ah-ha moments came when I learned that hallways can make up nearly 30% of a school’s overall area. So not only are non-learning hallways contributing to isolated classrooms, but they are also creating vast stretches of grossly underutilized floor area within the school. Recouping this area is a huge opportunity, financially and educationally.

Since the revelation of non-learning hallways, I’ve had a chance to talk to countless teachers and students who share similar frustrations.  “If we just had a decent small group breakout space” and “if I could just have a calm place to relax and feel alone” are common desires I hear. Fortunately, there’s a Design Pattern called Active Hallway that aims to address the problem. If it’s not possible to make the full transition to a Learning Community model, which essentially gets rid of conventional hallways, activating your hallways is the next best thing.

What does it mean to activate a hallway

Activating a hallway means making physical changes so that corridors are able to be learning spaces. When this is paired with an educator mindset shift about where learning happens, the results are powerful. The physical changes can be accomplished in a number of ways, and each school has its own conditions to consider; with that understanding, we’ve seen trends towards fewer and/or smaller student lockers across the globe that can support hallway activation. By eliminating some locker banks and/or replacing full-height lockers with half-height ones, a considerable amount of space is opened for furniture to accommodate individual students and small groups.

Consider this image of a junior high hallway:

From the image above, a plan to replace the full height lockers with half-height ones opened up enough space for small zones with agile furniture. With this fairly minor change, the hallway was able to be redesigned as a learning space, as you can begin to imagine from the plans below.

Be Creative As You Activate Your Hallways

To be clear, there’s no one right way to activate a hallway, but creating seating options and workstations is always a good way to incentivize usage. At the same time, considering how the walls are used can serve to spark creativity and interaction. Through the use of writable surfaces and learning walls, like you can see in the two images below, hallways can become places of collaboration, curiosity, and play.

Final Word

If you are a teacher, a school leader, or a student, and you want to break free of the spatial limitations of a classroom, activating your hallways can be a good first step. It can spark a culture shift towards more collaborative practices, give students more agency over the way they use time and space, and shape an environment that is more adaptable to the real-time needs of the people who use it. And best of all, you can do that with minimal construction or sacrificing any existing space. It’s an inexpensive option that can profoundly impact teaching and learning, so what are you waiting for?

Senior Designer at Fielding International, Cierra Mantz is a registered architect with a Masters in Educational Leadership and Societal Change. Through her work, she seeks to champion change within education through innovative design, research, and grassroots community engagement.

Senior Learning Designer at Fielding International and USA Country Lead at HundrED, Nathan Strenge approaches school design with an innovative educator lens. As a teacher of ten years, Nathan’s drive to transform education comes from his belief that all people deserve to learn in an environment that adapts to their unique gifts and needs. Follow Nathan on Twitter at @nathanstrenge. 

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Problem: Most common areas are designed as secondary spaces, a place for breaking out from the classroom. But as schools transform from a traditional, classroom-based approach to a learner-centered approach, common areas become essential hubs of learning; and as such, require carefully orchestrated design.

In recent years, a learner-centered model of education has become increasingly popular.  As a result, we at Fielding International see an emerging trend in the vision statements of many schools: there is an emphasis on multiple pathways toward excellence and achievement for all students. These statements often go on to call out specific student characteristics and skills such as holistic well-being, critical thinking, creative problem solving, technological and media literacy, communication, and collaboration. At the same time, most educators have begun to acknowledge that the physical learning environment is a key factor in supporting their educational vision – the environment can catalyze, or hinder, desired competencies.

One type of space that comes up again and again as having the potential to disrupt the isolated nature of the classroom model and align with the goals schools have today is the Learning Commons.  A well-designed Learning Commons supports each of the competencies schools are trying to foster in their students; thus, it is an essential resource for any school seeking to achieve learner-centered visions.  Despite people wanting access to Commons, they are often poorly designed and underutilized. So why do people want them in the first place?

A well-designed Learning Commons is foundational for creating fluidly connected spaces that foster collaborative, interdisciplinary, and self-directed learning. A well-designed Commons features spatial diversity which makes it possible to simultaneously facilitate learning experiences that incorporate a range of learning modalities.  Spatial fluidity plus spatial diversity equals a kind of spatial agility that responds to the real-time needs of kids and adults alike, making them ideal places to cultivate dynamic communities built on relationships, belonging, and agency. So, if Learning Commons are so beneficial, and people actively want them, what can history tell us about why they are frequently ineffective?

As early as the open classroom moment of the 1970s and later in the middle school pod movement of the 1980s, the idea of communal learning areas was explored. Ultimately, these explorations failed for numerous reasons, many of which were spatial, including a lack of spatial diversity and limited connections to the outdoors (just to name a couple); but some of the reasons can also be attributed to a lack of professional resources and educational programming in support of the model.

In the decades since architects and educators first attempted to disrupt the notion that the classroom should be the primary place for learning, we’ve made significant progress regarding how we can design the physical environment to be an educational asset in the learning process.  This article will focus on the spatial design components necessary for a well-designed Learning Commons.  Specifically, we’ll discuss six key elements for thriving Learning Commons:

1. Strong indoor-outdoor connections
2. Visual and permeable connections to adjacent spaces
3. Diverse activity zones
4. Varied furnishings, fixtures, and finishes
5. Sound attenuation
6. Access to water and storage

Strong Indoor-Outdoor Connections

We can see many elements that support thriving in the Design Pattern sketch above. Foremost, a connection to the outside that offers natural light and views is important for nurturing a sense of wellness. In The Extended Mind, Annie Murphy Paul cites research that indicates students’ ability to look outside improves academic outcomes. Despite the awareness of humans’ innate desire to be connected with nature, and research showing its multilayered benefits, we see many flawed common areas which are surrounded by classrooms–essentially, widened corridors–without a connection to the outside. If the surrounding classrooms have natural light and the Learning Commons doesn’t, where will learners want to be?

An indoor-outdoor connection can also be reinforced through the use of natural building materials and finishes. In the photo of Schiffer Collaborative School below, we can see how the use of local stone, wood, and natural light contributes to an atmosphere of beauty and calm, mirroring the local landscape.

Visual & Permeable Connections to Adjacent Spaces

Strong visual connections and permeable boundaries between spaces invite students to walk, observe and engage with their peers and their environments inside and out. Interior windows, glass doors, and movable walls offer learners the opportunity to move outside their classrooms into adjacent project labs, learning studios, outdoor classrooms, and cave spaces where they can work individually and/or in groups while still receiving the benefit of visual supervision by teachers–an important element of safety.  In addition to visually connected safety, students have the opportunity to connect with four to six teachers and around 100-120 students, versus one teacher and 20-30 students in a conventional classroom. As such, well-designed Learning Commons increases the odds that a learner will develop a close connection with an adult and peers, enhancing their sense of belonging.

In the image below, from Saint Francis of Assisi Elementary, we can see how permeable boundaries and visual connections facilitate student autonomy and collaboration among students and between students and teachers.

Diverse Activity Zones

Learning is a complex process that happens in many ways; therefore, it’s critical that the types of available spaces are designed to support multiple learning modalities as well as all aspects of the learning process. In order to design for this, spatial diversity is crucial.  In the Design Pattern sketch at the beginning of the article, we see three activity zones: small group and individual, project zone, and presentation.  While these three zones are not exhaustive of the types of zones a Learning Commons may have, they provide a framework for understanding how multiple zones can be created in a single open space.  In addition to more broadly defined activity zones, for times in which a learner needs a quieter, personalized space, we provide cave spaces, calming retreats, and smaller tables or booths for independent work and reflection. These areas allow students to have personal space while still being visually connected to others.

In the image below, from South Clearfield Elementary, we can see how cave spaces provide a sense of partial enclosure–a space to feel secure, read quietly, and look out with curiosity and wonder.

Varied Furnishings, Fixtures, and Finishes

Each activity zone has very distinct spatial features and qualities.  As such, the interior design elements, including furniture, fixtures, equipment, and finishes become exceedingly important.  For furniture, this means having a variety of seating arrangements and types, including a range of soft and hard seating options as well as tables of varying sizes and heights.  Important fixtures and equipment to consider include, most importantly, lighting, but also audio-visual equipment and technology-enhanced furnishings for presentations and collaboration.  Last, but certainly not least, finishes provide a crucial differentiator.  From acoustic treatments to floor and wall finishes, the look, feel, and overall atmosphere of a space is defined by the finishes.  For this reason, it is critically important that the finishes are intentionally selected with the activity zones in mind.

In the image below of Norma Rose Point Elementary, we see that the areas in front of the sink and within the learning studios have easily cleanable flooring that make this zone ideal for wet and messy projects.

Sound Attenuation

One spatial characteristic that can make or break a Learning Commons is the acoustic design.  Because a Learning Commons is an open, multi-zoned space, dampening the transmission of sound is critical.  And yet, we often find this to be one of the most overlooked design elements.  During a recent discovery visit, the importance of sound attenuation was reinforced over and over again. In advance of our arrival, school board leadership had toured an FI-designed school, Saint Francis of Assisi, and they were blown away by how tranquil the learning environments felt.  In regards to the learning commons, they noted how easy it was to have a conversation on one side of the commons at the same time that a group of students was working in another part of the commons, while simultaneously an entire class had the garage door to a learning studio open and was moving in and out of the space as they transitioned from activity to activity.

All of the activity within the commons was able to co-exist because the sounds from each activity did not reverberate throughout the space; the sound was attenuated through the design and material selection for the ceilings, walls, and floors.  In contrast, when we toured the newest school in their district, everywhere we went there was a cacophony of noise–even the spaces that were designed to be calming breakout spaces.  As a result, many staff members were reticent to recommend open commons areas in future schools within the district.  However, since the leadership group had experienced what a well-designed commons can feel like, they became the biggest advocates again and again countering any claims of how distracting open commons areas are with how effective and beneficial they can be when sound is well addressed in the design.

Access to Water and Storage

As noted earlier, for learning that is best achieved when students get out of their chairs and engage in hands-on activities, we provide Project Zones.  These are areas that have easily cleanable flooring, a sink, and storage. For earlier grades, the project zone may serve as a place for wet and messy play. Whereas for older students, the same area can be designed as a place for small projects or a small kitchen, a universal feature that builds community and belonging

In the image below of Sinarmas World Academy, students are mastering Sumi-e, a type of Chinese ink wash painting, in the Commons.

Conclusion

When a learning commons is designed with an emphasis on strong indoor-outdoor connections; visual and permeable connections to adjacent spaces; diverse activity zones; varied furnishings, fixtures, and finishes; and good sound attenuation, it naturally becomes the thriving heart of the learning community.  As the thriving heart, the learning commons becomes a place that fosters a sense of love, support, and belonging, making learners truly feel at ease and at home in their school.  And, when students feel loved, supported, and included, it’s possible to imagine the cascading catalytic effects this can have on learning, creativity, mental health, social-emotional growth, and so much more!  So…despite a rocky history, don’t give up on the promise of vibrant Learning Commons. When you go into a school where they are well designed and teachers know how to use them, it is magical.

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For years, designer and Stanford d.school educator, Dr. Susie Wise has coached overwhelmed school and community leaders across the country who didn’t know where to start.

Intro by author:

“In my work as a designer in education and equity, I have come to believe that belonging is the thing that matters most. It is the key that unlocks the best in everyone. It is the feeling that helps us all to persevere when things are difficult. I wrote Design for Belonging to encourage people to change, right away, the culture of their schools and organizations for the better. I was inspired by school leaders who were taking up design mindsets to improve their schools to be powerful places of learning and growth for young people. I also saw how they sometimes struggled when the breadth and depth of equity challenges seemed overwhelming. Designing for belonging is perfect for these challenges. To get started, choose which meaningful moments–moments that your group values–to design and then expand your set of design tools to help shape those moments into experiences of belonging. If we can feel, see, and shape belonging, we can turn schools, organizations, and groups into places where everyone, especially those furthest from opportunity, can thrive. With the incredible disruption of the pandemic, schools have an opportunity to redesign their processes and systems with students at the center. For this moment of emergent change to flourish we need to embrace the identities, stories, and strengths that students bring so that they know and feel they belong. This is true for young people and the adults that support them.”

Below is an excerpt from Design for Belonging:

Culture is built every day in the behaviors of a group and in the meanings that accumulate from them. A culture of belonging happens when no one is explicitly watching, on days when there isn’t a special meeting to work on it. Examples of belonging are:

• Picking up a piece of trash so wheelchair access is not obstructed.
• Asking everyone to introduce themselves and ensuring that all voices are heard.
• Avoiding esoteric acronyms when they aren’t necessary.
• Using the pronouns that people prefer, and sharing your own, if and when you are ready.
• Showing respect through actions that support everyone to be their best selves.
• Honoring each other’s contributions.

To change culture, then, is about everyday acts. This means you can start small, try lots of things, and see what works. Not because your aspirations are small, but because this gives you the opportunity to tune yourself to see, feel, and notice what is changing, how it’s changing, and for whom. Noticing what is working and for whom, who belongs and who doesn’t, and when and under what circumstances gets you ready to design to change culture, to craft everyday acts of intentional design toward belonging and away from othering.

Moments of Belonging

Tuning in to how belonging feels gets you acquainted with the end goal: more belonging and less othering. To create change and build more belonging, you also have to be able to see how belonging is constructed in your life and in the systems you dwell in—your school, workplaces, and communities. This effort matters for you and for others positioned differently by race, class, history, ability, or experience.

To see your own context afresh, start by exploring your moments of belonging. These are the key points in your day, month, or year when something begins or ends. I call this period from start to finish the belonging journey; it could apply, for example, to the experience of joining your company, being a part of a school community, starting to volunteer with a new organization, or engaging in civic discourse. As you explore your own life, observe how the following moments make up the flow of your experience, how they are constructed, and for whom they are working (or not). Recognizing and exploring these moments is a key step toward digging into design. Some may be easy to identify, while others might be hiding in plain sight.

The Invitation: Implicit or explicit, formal or informal, it cues you for what is possible.

Entering: A portal, threshold, or welcome mat, it sets the stage.

Participating: Mechanisms for authentic participation are manifold.

Code Switching: This can be a nuanced moment of moving between aspects of identity.

Contributing: Perhaps the holy grail, contributing is also a circle—the more you belong, the more you can contribute; the more you contribute, likely the more you belong.

Flowing: Feeling the rhythm and the dance of the group or your role within it.

Dissenting: No community can thrive without understanding how to work with conflict and disagreement.

Repairing: Hurt happens; how you recover from it is a profound indicator of belonging.

Diverging and Exiting: What feelings should exist for those who leave and those who stay behind?

Even if you weren’t explicitly aware of these as design moments, you have likely already intentionally designed some of them. Right now, as you read about each moment, direct your attention to identifying and then feeling into the moments that you have to work with in your program, organization, or gathering. Which moments have you already thought about? Which have you not yet considered? Each one has different possibilities that are worth noticing and exploring. Pay attention to which ones are provocative, and ask yourself why.

Dr. Susie Wise is a designer and Stanford d.school educator.

“Reprinted with permission from Design for Belonging: How to Build Inclusion and Collaboration in Your Communities by Dr. Susie Wiseand the Stanford d.school, copyright© 2022. Published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House.” Illustrations copyright © 2022by Rose Jaffe.

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