Design schools as learning tools

THE EDITOR: I observed that the recent budget gave attention to quantitative improvements in education with the building of more schools (although the figures from the Ministry of Education indicate a 25 percent decline in primary school entrants over the past ten years). I believe that there is need for qualitative improvements, and one way of doing so is to improve the design of schools, classrooms, and school furniture, and to modify our existing schools accordingly. Learning theory suggests that effective learning takes place when individuals and groups of learners can actively participate in real-life tasks; when they can critically reflect on situations and devise improvements; and when they have opportunities to inquire, debate, discuss, critique and negotiate, to attain meaning and understanding. The school environment can affect behaviour and either facilitate, or hinder learning; therefore schools should be designed to perform as effective learning tools.

School design:  We need smaller schools and larger classrooms. Research suggests that schools should cater for no more than 75 students at the pre-school level, 400 at elementary, and 800 at the secondary level. Our mammoth secondary schools should be sub-divided, either on the basis of gender, or by setting up new management systems such as the school-within-a-school concept where schools are organised into smaller units around programmes, or house systems. All schools should be modified to facilitate the disabled. Schools should be set back from the road so that the familiar traffic jams that characterise our schools will be minimized. The school layout should be such that the classrooms are placed as far as possible from traffic noises. The principal’s office should be strategically located to allow supervision and access to management resources. An area for public display of outstanding students’ work should be located in the main reception area to motivate students and remind them of the essential purpose on their schooling. Likewise there should be an honour roll to highlight both academic and non-academic achievements.

There should be a large multi-purpose auditorium that could instantly be converted from a basketball court, to a seated assembly hall, to a dining area. A communal dining facility is essential if the school feeding programme is to go beyond feeding students, to teach them gratitude, cooperation, politeness, table manners and respect. Furthermore, the school environment can become educative if it includes a wide selection of the trees and shrubs of this country, creating as well, an ambience for thoughtful reflection and discussion. Classrooms:  The classrooms must lead easily to the outdoors to provide an extension to the natural environment, a basic requirement for certain projects. The lone chalkboard, the immovable students’ desks and the large barns sub-divided by chalk boards that are prevalent today, must give way to large sound-proofed classrooms where students can engage in group work and differentiated activity attuned to their abilities, managed by a teacher.

There should be multiple chalkboards, storage facilities for teaching aids and students’ work-in-progress, as well as display areas for students’ work. Each classroom must be provided with teaching aids and Internet-ready computers to be used as tools to facilitate learning. These classrooms should well lighted, and well-ventilated, air-conditioned where necessary. There must be individual students’ desks which can be easily rearranged for discussions, debates, and role-play, and which could be combined to provide larger worktops for practical work. Our craftspeople should produce all furniture locally from indigenous materials. To import school furniture from abroad sends a message of inadequacy and dependency to students. The time has come when we must look at schools not as mere accommodation, but as facilitators of learning and incubators of ideas.

DAVID SUBRAN
Chaguanas