The Power of Flexibility

Photo Credit: Fleetwood Furniture

By Murray Hudson

There is evidence, both anecdotal and empirical, that the learning environment can have a significant effect on children’s progress and development.  Murray Hudson, Managing Director of Gratnells, looks at some of the innovative ways that environment is changing for the better

A teacher on his or her feet is worth two in the seat. It’s the latest call to action from an education world in the midst of transformation. Things are on the move. Indeed, there is no more front of the classroom, according to the new wave of educationalists. Among them is Alan Rheault, Chief Furniture Designer at Fleetwood Furniture, a Holland, Michigan-based manufacturer of school furniture since 1955 and one of the industry’s early adapters.

“There’s a legacy of innovation here,” says Rheault, pointing to Fleetwood as one of the first companies to make school furniture mobile by using wheels.  “And today, schools want teachers interacting with students and moving around different spaces,” he explains. “There’s also a strong desire for standing height desks. Sitting is the new smoking.”

The benefits of flexibility and mobility in the classroom are well documented, placing teachers in a better position to inspire students and create an environment conducive to achieving excellence.

“Good teachers know that however much they have learned in the past, today is a different day and you cannot ride yesterday’s horse,” commented Sir Ken Robinson, New York Times bestselling author, TED speaker, education and creativity expert. “This sort of responsiveness can rarely be achieved by standing in front of a room talking at a group of 25 or 30 kids for lesson after lesson…Such an approach to teaching by its very nature limits the possibility of connecting with each student individually.” (Creative Schools)

Another trend shaping the modern classroom takes its cue from those staple features of daily American life — the main street and the mall. Collaborative design is on the rise — library and cafeteria layouts are blending together and common areas like cafeterias are becoming the new study areas. This trend reflects an understanding that students learn well from other students. “It’s funny we’re catching on so slowly to this,” observes Rheault. “If you’re a parent trying to teach your child something, you see that as soon as they watch another kid do it they learn immediately. The question is how do you support that behavior?”

Supporting peer-to-peer learning by increasing flexibility in classrooms and study areas is one in a series of innovations already gaining traction. An increase in the flipped classroom — one that focuses on learning and study at home, followed with homework and collaborative projects at school — is changing the educational dynamic, as well.

“In the flipped classroom, rather than having a teacher stand in front of a group of students and lecture on a topic, the students get online instruction at home,” explained Sir Ken Robinson. “The class time is then used by the teacher for peer instruction to help students individually if they are having trouble, to engage students in conversation about the topic, and to challenge students who are already showing mastery.” (Creative Schools)

An increase in project-based learning is also blending disciplines together, creating a new climate that demands maximum flexibility in classroom design. Cabinet manufacturer Whitney Bros of Keene, NH, is responding to the trend. “Mobility trends are very popular and all the cabinets we’re making now are mobile,” says owner David Stabler. “Putting cabinets and storage on casters and organizing classrooms so you can put things away easily and change learning disciplines quickly — that’s where Gratnells trays come to the fore in terms of quick pull-out and put-away.”

Whitney is just one member of a community of progressive American manufacturers recognizing and responding to innovation in the learning environment. Similar innovations are occurring at Paragon, where are desks customized with front casters, permitting students to wheelbarrow stations across the room to fit the needs of the subject or project. Teacher desks are also mobile so they can be moved around or into other rooms by the teacher.

“Learning doesn’t just happen in the classroom,” observes Cindy Eggebrecht-Weinschreider of Paragon. “It can happen anywhere.” For this reason, Paragon’s entire product portfolio is mobile, reconfigurable and customizable to enhance learning, allowing teachers to engage students and students to become more engaged.

“It is remarkable what you can do if you’re given the right kinds of furniture,” commented Chicago-based architect Trung Le in the ground-breaking book The Third Teacher. “How agile you can make the space, how media-rich you can make it, how you can engage different modes of learning.”

One of the design world’s best-known disrupters, Le has been designing remarkable schools around the U.S. and the world for more than 25 years. He collaborated on the research project that became his internationally-regarded book on how design can transform the ecology of learning.

“It opens up many things,” says Le who we met at The Art Institute of Chicago. “We create places of learning like this and only once in a while do we take our kids there, ninety percent of the time they sit in a square room. My perfect vision of a classroom is that there are no classrooms. Maybe we can go back to the idea of sacred spaces like churches and plazas that connect people together. Imagine if a school is not a series of self-contained closed classrooms but a place of exploration and wonder. We create these spaces all the time, we just don’t call them schools.”

It’s quite clear that we all need space to learn. Professor Peter Barrett is the lead author of Clever Classrooms, an authoritative report on the link between the learning environment and academic improvement. “There is clear evidence that the physical characteristics of primary schools do impact on pupils’ learning progress in reading, writing and mathematics.”

In 2012, I set up the Learning Rooms project — www.learning-rooms.com — to investigate and promote best practice in the classroom environment. What we’re seeing now is a fundamental shift in attitude which has rapidly taken on a global context. As the organization sponsoring the appearance of Sir Ken Robinson at EDspaces this year, we are seeing a positive response from the U.S. market to our Learning Rooms philosophy within the classroom and beyond.

Education is happening everywhere and being everywhere demands flexibility.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 

Murray Hudson is Gratnells Managing Director and Chairman. He was Chairman of the British Educational Furniture Manufacturers Group from 2012 -2016. He spent a decade as a news and current affairs producer and reporter for the BBC, covering three U.S. elections and joined the family business in 2000.

EDspaces Education: Sir Ken Robinson is the plenary session speaker at EDspaces 2017. He will be speaking on “Creative Schools: Revolutionizing Education from the Ground Up” on Wednesday, October 25 at 9:30 am in Kansas City, MO. Sir Ken will be drawing on his ground-breaking books Out of our Minds: Learning to be Creative and Creative Schools: The Grassroots Revolution that’s Transforming Education, urging schools everywhere to rethink their basic assumptions about intelligence and achievement.

SOURCES:

• Creative Schools Revolutionizing Education from the Ground Up – Sir Ken Robinson and Lou Aronica ALLEN LANE; Penguin Random House 2015
• Clever Classrooms Summary Report of the Head Project. https://www.salford.ac.uk/cleverclassrooms/1503-Salford-Uni-Report-DIGITAL.pdf, Professor Peter Barrett, Dr Yufan Zhang, Dr Fay Davies, Dr Lucin da Barrett, University of Salford 2015

The Need for Global Citizens

by Jaime Casap

You often hear people say, "It's a small world," when they tell a story of running into someone they know in some distant land. We like to believe it doesn't matter where we live, work, and play, somehow, we are all connected, and the challenges we face are the same, regardless of where we are. While it may be true that the common denominator we all have is being human, we must acknowledge it isn't a small world. It is a complex, multifaceted, diverse, and complicated world. Most of us hardly understand it or know what is happening in it, yet the growing availability of the Internet and low-cost devices to connect to all the world's information brings the complexity of this world to your fingertips. We need to think like global citizens.

In 1995, just 1% of the world was online. Today, it is half the world's population. In a little more than 20 years, we have connected more than 3.5 billion people to information, to products, and to each other! This monumental achievement calls for a realignment of what it means to be a global citizen. If you are a business, understanding the complexities of a global marketplace is even more important. 

Local Companies, Global Competition

One of the common mottos we have heard in the business world since the beginning of time is, "focus on your customers," or "understand your customer's problems." That axiom made sense when all your clients were local. If you had an education company in downtown Phoenix, it's most likely your customers were school districts in the Phoenix metropolitan area or even the state of Arizona. Today, with the access to the world's information and products, the world becomes your potential customers! Customers are no longer local. Also, competition can come from anywhere in the world. Gone soon are organizations that do not compete on a global scale. Even Paul Bond Boots, a small rural cowboy boot store in Nogales, Arizona, has a global customer base! Companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and others who are U.S.-based, operate 24 hours a day on a global scale.

In education, we often talk about how it's critical it is to teach our students the "Four C's": communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. While I agree these are essential competencies our students should master, what we miss in this discussion is an emphasis on another important skill, global competency. There is a good chance our students will work for a global organization at some point in their careers.

Even if a graduate never works abroad or for a global organization, we still need to expose students to learning global competency skills. Since its inception, the United States has been comprised of people from all over the world. Whether you just arrived in the U.S. or are the fifteenth generation, all of us have one common characteristic: we all have a first-generation story. And it doesn't look like this trend is slowing. The U.S. continues to become more diverse. For example, one in four students in our public-school system is Latino, and that includes states like North Dakota and Vermont! If you look at states like California, Arizona, and Florida, for example, it's already more than one in four! By the year 2045, the U.S. will be a "minority majority" country, meaning there will be more Americans who identify as minorities as a group than whites. My daughter, who is three years old, belongs to that generation. 

Organizations who will thrive in this global, diverse economy will understand how not only having a diverse workforce will be a competitive advantage but having a workforce that understands and appreciates people from other cultures and one that can identify and acknowledge different points of view will stay relevant. Companies who focus on awareness and understanding of cultural issues at home and around the world will continue to expand and remain competitive. Having this knowledge and understanding will help organizations to design products and services that appeal to a culturally diverse, global audience.

What is a Globally-Competent Student?

Globally-competent students can see and understand the interconnectivity and interdependence between what we do here in the United States and the rest of the world. It means they will know how problems facing the rest of the world impact us here at home and vice versa. Students who are globally competent have in-depth knowledge and understanding of international issues, an appreciation of people from culturally diverse backgrounds, and the knowledge, skills, and experiences to call themselves global citizens. Most American students and especially low-income minority students are behind their peers in other countries in their knowledge and understanding of world issues, world geography, and cultural understanding and experiences.

We like to ask our students, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I do not believe that is the right question. First, all the labor forecasts predict that most jobs of the future are not defined yet. Second, we already have jobs most students wouldn't recognize, like "Bio-Medical Engineer" or "Sustainable Materials Architect." Instead, we should ask them what problem they want to solve. We should ask them to think about what knowledge, skills, and abilities they need to address the problem they want to solve. We should ask them to think about where they can get the knowledge, skills, and abilities they will need. We should ask them to reflect on how the problem they want to solve fits into the context of the world.

We need to create a generation of critically-thinking, collaborative problem solvers:

• Students who know and understand world issues.
• Students who understand political and socioeconomic systems on a global scale.
• Students who recognize and appreciate cultural diversity.

If we want to face and solve the problems of this complex, multifaceted, diverse, and complicated world, we need a generation of students who are strong in all the C's: communication, collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, and global competency.

Education is happening everywhere and being everywhere demands flexibility.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 

Jaime Casap is the Education Evangelist at Google. Jaime collaborates with school systems, educational organizations, and leaders to harness the power and potential of technology and the web as enabling and supporting tools in pursuit of promoting inquiry-driven project-based learning models.. In addition to his role at Google, Jaime serves on a number of boards for organizations focused on education, innovation, and equity.  Jaime is also an adjunct professor at Arizona State University, where he teaches classes on policy, innovation, and leadership.

EDspaces Education: Jaime Casap is the plenary session speaker at EDspaces 2017. He will be speaking on “Iteration and Innovation in Education” on Wednesday, October 26 at 9:30 am in Kansas City, MO. Jaime will be speaking on the topic of preparing students for global problem solving for issues that have yet to be defined yet, using technology that hasn't been invented, in roles that do not exist. 

Charitable Reuse: A Four-Win Solution

By Mark Lennon

Every school has excess furniture. It may be hundreds or thousands of pieces when you build a new school and empty the old one. It may be the odd stream of items that find their way to basement storage areas. It may be old cafeteria tables that you’re replacing, or old bleachers from the gym. Every day, every month, every year, schools have excess furniture.

What to do with it? That’s a painful question. You can put it up for auction or look for a reseller, but there’s not much demand. You can give it away to teachers, or have a yard sale for the community.  But there’s not much demand. There’s just not much demand for used school furniture. So most of the time, it gets thrown away.

There’s an alternative:  charitable reuse.

June 2002.  Chestnut Hill, Boston, Massachusetts 

A parking lot filled with dorm furniture. That was the beginning of IRN’s Reuse Program. IRN was founded as a recycling cooperative for education and healthcare institutions. IRN’s role was to take over their members’ loading docks and find a home for all their recyclables:  paper and cardboard, cans and bottles, scrap metal, plastics, computers, fluorescent lamps . . . . .

And then furniture. Boston College was the first to call, with all that dorm furniture in the parking lot.  IRN’s COO Dana Draper recalls: “We looked at it and said, ‘This is good stuff. Why aren’t you giving it to a halfway house or a homeless shelter, someone who can use it?’ Our friends at BC replied, ‘We’re in Boston. Inside ten miles there are 40,000 dorm rooms and three dozen schools. We all have this stuff to get rid of, and we’ve filled up every shelter and halfway house and thrift store in three states. We just need the furniture to go away and not thrown out.”

So IRN recycled it.

But they knew there had to be a better solution, and started making calls. Not to local charities, but to national and international organizations that provide relief and development aid on a large scale. Perhaps they would be able to use good quality furniture in the quantities that were available from IRN’s members — hundreds or sometimes thousands of pieces at a time.

IRN’s CEO Mark Lennon picks up the story. “We discovered a market failure. In fact there was a huge need among relief organizations for usable furniture — to rebuild after floods and earthquakes, to give families a better home than a tin shanty, to give kids the chance to study at a real desk. There was more need for furniture than we could ever hope to supply. But there was no one making the match.”

Among the generators — the schools that IRN worked with — no one had the time and resources to network with dozens of charities who might be able to use their surplus furniture. Among the potential recipients no one had the time and resources to network with the thousands of schools that might have usable furniture to offer. Neither side had the capability or resources to manage the projects to make the transfer happen — setting up logistics (moving crews, transportation, packing trucks, filling out paperwork, and freight tracking).

Meanwhile good furniture kept going into dumpsters, while kids kept doing their schoolwork on wood planks.  

So IRN kept making calls, and started making matches, and began moving surplus furniture to charities.  In 2002 IRN shipped two trailers of furniture. In 2003 they shipped 20. Then 85 in 2004. Then 259 in 2005, and from there the program has kept growing. Through mid-2017 IRN has shipped more than 5,500 trailers filled with furniture, provided by 535 organizations in 28 states, and supplying more than 125 nonprofit schools and charities in 43 states and 60 countries around the world. That’s charitable reuse.

How Reuse Works

According to IRN CEO Mark Lennon, simplicity and cost are the keys to IRN’s Reuse Program. “We know that nearly every school is overwhelmed, understaffed, and working within a tight budget. We know we have to make sure that reuse is just as simple as throwing old furniture away, and costs less. Reuse has to be the easy choice.”

The first step is to get an inventory of the furniture to be disposed of. This is what IRN offers charities.  “A great thing about working with K-12 schools is that so many charities need the furniture,” says Lennon. “Education is the best route out of poverty, but it’s hard to get much education sitting on a dirt floor. The charities we work with are desperate to acquire classroom furniture and everything that goes with it — libraries, cafeterias, science rooms, teachers’ desks. K‑12 is the gold standard of all the furniture we handle — we can’t get enough of it.”

With the inventory, IRN makes a match with the most appropriate charity or charities. Says COO Dana Draper, “Shipping costs are the important variables. Charities working in East Asia want shipments from the West Coast; those in Africa and the Middle East want shipments from the East. Shipments to the Caribbean and South America are most cost-effective from the East Coast or Gulf States. We do a lot of projects in New Mexico and Colorado, and those shipments can go in any direction, into Tribal Schools, or overland into Mexico. And we work with charities that support schools in American cities and in Appalachia. They’re looking for freight to originate as close as possible to the recipients.”

Labor is the next resource required. Sometimes IRN hires movers, but they prefer if the school or district contracts directly. “Most districts have movers that they already rely on,” says Draper, “people who know their schools and know how they operate. We don’t want to get in the middle of those relationships. And if the school contracts directly, we don’t take a markup, and that helps keep costs low.”

With recipients and a labor force lined up, the project is ready to go. IRN coordinates with the charity to set up transportation, with the mover to get the crew onsite, and with the school or district to make sure the doors are open, lights are turned on, and parking space is reserved for tractor trailers. A small project may involve a crew of three or four men loading a single trailer in the morning. A large project may span a week or more, with multiple crews loading trailers simultaneously from different doorways, or crews moving between a dozen different schools loading 20 or 30 trailers over the course of three weeks.

“No two projects are the same,” says Lennon. “Large and small. With elevators and without. In 90 degrees and roasting, or minus-10 and freezing. But the goal is always the same:  keep it efficient, keep it cost-effective, finish on time, finish within budget.”

The Bottom Line:  Schools Saving Money; People Helping People

IRN did its first K-12 project in 2004:  two trailers, 18,000 pounds total, from schools in New Hampshire and Connecticut. Since then, IRN has worked with 96 more schools and districts from Maine to Southern California and from Florida to Washington. IRN’s biggest K-12 project recovered more than a half-million pounds from a school district near Denver; the smallest captured 640 pounds — a few desks and file cabinets — from a small independent school in the Boston suburbs. In 2017 IRN has another 40 K-12 projects on their schedule, and expects to fill another 300-350 trailers with desks, activity tables, bookshelves, and other furniture for children around the world.

“IRN gave us a four-win solution,” says Donna Woodcock, principal of the Greenfield High School in Massachusetts, where IRN removed more than 1,100 pieces for charitable reuse. “Our community and taxpayers win, we send the right message to our students, the environment wins, and children far away get the biggest benefit of all. It’s not often that a single project can do so much good.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Mark Lennon is founder and CEO of IRN-The Reuse Network, which matches surplus assets from US organizations with charities worldwide. Before IRN Mark was recycling coordinator for the State of New Hampshire, where he created and implemented the state’s first recycling plan. Earlier, Mark was a consultant to the U.S. EPA and other clients in waste and energy issues.

Learn more about Charitable Reuse at EDspaces 2017. Mark Lennon will join a panel on Thursday, October 26 from 1:30 pm - 2:30 pm for a presentation on “Charitable Reuse: Managing Surplus Furniture for Financial, Social, Environmental, and Community Benefit”.

Changing Instruction and Today’s Classrooms

by Travis Dunlap, M.A.

The designs of K-12 classroom are evolving in light of emerging instructional practices and the diverse learning needs of our students. Many people still conceptualize classrooms as square boxes with rows of desks and chairs, cabinets and bookshelves along the walls, and a teacher’s workspace to the side. However, this view of learning environments is changing. The designers and builders of today’s classrooms are interested in creating clean, functional, and flexible learning spaces that accommodate varied instructional activities. Today’s classrooms are a departure from traditional notions of the built learning environment — they are dynamic and created to support an array of instructional practices and to prepare students for the demands of an evolving and globalized economy.  

The designs of classrooms are changing due to new instructional practices. Traditionally, teachers employed direct instruction that centered on the actions of speaking, listening, reading, memorization, and writing. This approach to instruction could be viewed as content-centric with an emphasis on ‘what’ students think. Traditional instructional methods heavily relied on structure, pattern, and predictability. Clear expectations from classroom instruction mirrored the anticipated economy facing learners in the world awaiting them outside the classroom walls. In the traditional view of instruction, classroom design featured the familiar elements of fixed seating, a lectern, and a front board. These elements were necessary to carry out the aims of instruction. However, the traditional models of instruction and classroom design are quickly fading away. 

Today, effective instructional practices are a departure from a traditional view of teaching. Currently, instruction is better understood as process-centric over content-centric, and the emphasis is on ‘how’ students should think as opposed to ‘what’ they should think. Now, instructional priorities center on themes such as deconstructionism, collaboration, effective communication, adaptation to new information, and the promotion of critical thinking skills. The dynamism of the today’s instruction follows from the innovation and unpredictability of a globalized economy. 

The world is changing, fast, and instruction must change to equip students with the physical, cognitive, and interpersonal skills demanded in today’s world.  Instruction is now concerned with skills and techniques such as comparative thinking, design thinking, project-based learning, game-based learning, strength-based learning, personalized learning, collaborative learning, blended learning, kinesthetic learning, and outdoor learning. Consequently, classroom design must change as well to support the emerging instructional practices.  
The changes in instructional priorities are shaping how we conceive of the design of learning spaces.  

In fact, a great deal of today’s instruction is dependent on new kinds of classrooms. For example, many teachers need outdoor classrooms, makerspaces, tech labs, and multipurpose rooms to ensure the successful implementation of instructional strategies. The symbiotic relationship between instruction and space is more crucial now than ever, and classrooms can be designed to maximize the instructional options of teachers. 

For example, teachers today can engage students in the global community — in many classrooms, students can chat with individuals abroad through live video streams. Teachers can also offer students an authentic conversation experience to discuss reading assignments over a hot drink in a learning space with the look and feel of a coffee shop. Additionally, classrooms may be designed to look like a conference room with a large table and swiveling leather chairs to support instructional strategies aimed at business or negotiations. 

Some classrooms may feature an industrial character with wood and metal and serve as an inspiring makerspace. Furthermore, as many instructional trends tend to embrace outdoor learning, we can design outdoor classrooms to be wigwams, tents, yurts, tree houses, greenhouses, or boats for courses in sciences, especially. There are really no limitations in thoughtfully designing learning spaces that support the instructional needs of our teachers and students. 

As we think about what today’s classrooms should look like, we must give a great deal of thought to the changes in instructional sensibilities, goals, and strategies. Teachers today are concerned with providing students experiential learning opportunities that are engaging and differentiated according to their needs.   Classroom designers have a great opportunity to think about and create the kinds of learning spaces that support the changes in instructional priorities and strategies and give students every advantage in their learning.  

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 

Travis R. Dunlap is a research associate for the George Washington University in the Education Facilities Clearinghouse (EFC). After having worked as a foreign language educator, he now researches topics relevant to education facilities and their improvements. For more information about the EFC, visit: www.efc.gwu.edu

A School for Every Person on the Planet

by Dick Thomas, SHP Architecture

It’s time to radically rethink education and the places learning occurs. That’s the mission behind the 9 Billion Schools movement, which seeks to deliver truly personalized learning to every person on Earth. Is this vision achievable? Put down your No. 2 pencil, step away from the whiteboard and join me, the movement’s Wonderer in Chief, as I give Essentials readers a closer look at the future of education — a school for every person on the planet.

There’s never been a more exciting time to be an architect, designer or consultant to the education industry. The rapidity of change — including significant cultural, economic, pedagogical and technological shifts — over the next decade will place new strains on and demand new requirements of educational systems. At the same time, these changes present untold opportunities; even the very way we imagine when, where and with whom learning occurs will evolve and adapt. 

All signs clearly point to an increasingly greater degree of personalization, to learning that is radically more individualized than it is today. And there will be a far greater emphasis on and facilitation of learning in every facet of life — in the classroom, at work and even at play. “School” will cease to be a Kindergarten-to-college prescription and evolve into a life-long, life-wide and life-deep endeavor. 

This is an exciting prospect for SHP Leading Design — which has designed and engineered schools, colleges and other places of learning for more than a century — and I’m sure it’s exciting for many EDspaces Insights readers, as well. But it raises the question: How can architects, designers and consultants to the education industry prepare for this exciting future?

Enter 9 Billion Schools, a movement that launched in March at SXSWedu. Approximately two years ago, SHP Leading Design challenged itself to reimagine education so that everyone may stand a better chance of realizing his or her best and fullest self. Our entire staff asked questions, like, “What is school? What does it mean to be a student? What does the future of educational spaces look like?”

During this discovery process, something curious happened. We realized: We don’t know. But this intense, year-long exploration — which included experimental design exploration and a "futurecasting" exercise by former Intel (and current Arizona State University) futurist and author Brian David Johnson — led to 9 Billion Schools. 

The movement is so named because, by 2050, there will be 9 billion people on Earth. We believe each and every one of those people should be a school unto him- or herself. A "place," so to speak, of learning and teaching. And that opportunities to learn and teach should be just about everywhere, one’s whole life long. 

The 9 Billion Schools movement is rooted in three principles:

1. Learning is nothing short of a “womb to tomb” journey and, ideally, an adventure too. In recent years, others have advanced the notion that learning needs to be “Life-long, Life-wide and Life-deep.” (What we call "L3 learning.")

2. Learning is a highly personalized experience and, in fact, no two people best learn in exactly the same way — or with the same purposes and motivations. In fact, learning is as unique as one’s fingerprints with every arch, loop and whorl representing an exciting, individual journey. 

3. Mind, brain and education (MBE) sciences have revealed new insights into how we learn throughout life. We should apply these findings to how we teach kids at school, adults at work and ourselves through our hobbies, interests and leisure activities. 

These three principles can be summarized like this: Learning should be tailored to each individual and supported as long, wide and deep as life itself. 

This is not to suggest it will be easy. It will be anything but. However, human dignity and a flourishing society depends upon the effort (and expense) required to realize this vision. SHP Leading Design launched the 9 Billion Schools movement on March 8 at SXSWedu in Austin, where it was enthusiastically received. Now, we want to take it a step further. We want to challenge others in our industry to join the movement as well. 

Picture that famous World War I-era poster of Uncle Sam in his star-spangled top hat: We want you. We are actively recruiting thought leaders to join the movement, write guest posts for our blog or submit essays for possible publication in the first edition of our forthcoming book, 9 Billion Schools: Why the World Needs Personalized, Lifelong Learning for All. You can read current blog posts, preview the pre-release book and submit your own essay for consideration at 9BillionSchools.org. 

The rallying cry behind this movement, the 9 Billion Schools manifesto, is included below. If you find yourself nodding along as you read it, we hope you will join us in realizing its vision. We believe it will lead to a markedly better world. We hope you agree.

9 Billion Schools Manifesto

• It’s time to radically rethink education and the places where learning occurs. 

• It’s time to recognize that each and every learner is radically different in ability and interests, in hopes and dreams — and act upon that. Standardized anything should give us pause. 

• It’s time to stop talking about learning as a lifelong, cradle-to- grave endeavor — and act upon that too. 

• It’s time to recognize that our world is never going to become any less complex and fluid, any less specialized and nuanced. In this still emerging new world of ours, school never ends. It can’t. Learning must be life-long, life-wide and life-deep. 

• It’s time to think of school not as a singular place or experience, but as many places and many experiences. 

• It’s time to think of each person as needing a school unto him or herself, each with the exact right teachers and curriculum, guidance and opportunities. 

In short, it’s time to conceive of — and deliver — education that recognizes the dignity and singularity of each learner and, to the fullest extent possible, caters to their specific needs and hopes, talents and dreams: Be it a 7-year-old with a learning disability and an interest in digital games or a 77-year-old Nobel laureate with an interest in Chinese art. 

We’ll soon have nine billion people on the planet, which means we should have nine billion schools. Please join us and the 9 Billion Schools movement as we seek to take education to the next level, providing greater dignity and brighter futures to each and every learner. This will be a giant step forward for all of humanity—all nine billion of us. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dick Thomas, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP, is Wonderer in Chief for the 9 Billion Schools movement. He is also the co-author of the forthcoming book, 9 Billion Schools: Why the World Needs Personalized, Lifelong Learning for All (Wordsworth Press, summer 2017). He has a keen interest in how technology can facilitate the rapidly changing paradigms of learning in all its manifestations. In addition to championing the 9 Billion Schools movement, Dick serves as vice president of architecture for SHP Leading Design, where his education portfolio reflects a wide spectrum of facility planning and design solutions. Dick can be reached at Dick@9BillionSchools.org. 

Empathetic by Design: An Inclusive, Research-based Process for Designing Schools for Children with Autism

By: 

Bethany DeLine, Designer, HDR
Bethany Friedow, MS, EDAC, Researcher, HDR
Brian Giebink, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, EDAC, Architect, HDR

We live in a world where the public often judges architectural merit on pure aesthetic.  Architecture as an art undoubtedly contributes to our cultural capital, and expertise within the field is a valuable tool.  Yet, great architectural design results not just from the art associated with the aesthetic, but how well the building supports its occupants.

When it comes to designing schools for children with autism, art and experience are no longer enough. Even the most well-meaning designer looking to inspire creativity or foster positive feelings must re-examine what it means to be empathetic in design. In this case, the best way to be empathetic is to reduce assumptions and be as open-minded as possible.

An empathetic person traditionally may practice active listening, asking questions, and looking to connect to the feelings of another person. This all makes sense in a situation where the architect and the building’s users are neuro-typical functioning individuals, and the largest hurdles may be overcome through discourse and further clarification. When it comes to designing for children with autism, we must overcome communication challenges while simultaneously accounting for the fact that the child’s sensory experience is vastly abstracted and magnified in comparison to the neuro-typical adult. White may become blinding; green may become red; and a simple wall sign may become the difference between a successful and unsuccessful trip to the bathroom. Between the communication barrier and differing experience of the world all-together, achieving an empathetic design must look to additional methods to cater to these users.

Spero Academy: A Case Study in Empathetic Design

“If you think of the primary problem of autism being understanding, coping with and responding to the sensory environment, you can grasp the power of architecture in their everyday lives.”
– Magda Mostafa

Spero Academy, located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, provides a safe space for students with autism to build confidence — a place to learn how to regulate and manage their emotions, behaviors, and disorders so they can experience the type of accomplishment that so many take for granted. The school provides a national model of tailored education for children with special needs. In 2018, a newly constructed building will help accommodate planned programming expansion intended to meet growing demand for the Academy’s services, replacing a small rented space just a few blocks away. The new 64,000-square-foot school building will house 21 classrooms, a gymnasium, cafeteria, kitchen, administration, and various specialist rooms.

As our team began the planning phase of this new home for Spero Academy, one of our highest priorities was to ensure we upheld an empathetic approach to design decisions large and small. To accomplish this, we needed to understand how students process and respond to the sensory environment to the best of our ability. We knew it would not be possible to customize a school to fit each individual’s specific needs, because each student is unique and copes and responds to the sensory environment in different ways. We did know, however, that the physical spaces where students learn have an active role in shaping their experience and that certain design strategies have been found to have an effect on student learning and behavior (Khare, 2010; Khare & Mullick, 2009; Mostafa, 2008; Yates, 2017).  This drove us to seek out more specific research and recommendations on designing for autism and to speak to educators to glean their insights into the needs of students at Spero Academy.

A focus group was held with 10 educators, including classroom teachers, a music therapist, speech therapists, occupational therapists, and a behavioral specialist. Questions included probes into the specific behavioral, educational and environmental challenges each participant faced in the current building and what environmental qualities their ideal learning or therapy environments would embody in the new space. Their insights and recommendations were then vetted with the research recommendations that were uncovered in order to determine what would be included in the proposed design.  While many of the specific strategies identified from the research require more research to determine effectiveness, our team was able to uncover several expert theories and recommendations on which to formulate our design.


Sensory Sensitive vs. Neuro-typical Approaches

One of the first sets of theories we uncovered was the sensory-sensitive and neuro-typical approaches to designing environments for students with autism. Of the two theories, the sensory-sensitive approach is the approach most typically employed and studied regarding design for the autistic population. It involves tailoring an environment to best accommodate the needs and sensitivities of students with autism. However, we also uncovered several advocates of the neuro-typical approach. This is essentially the philosophy that children with autism should experience “typical” environments for all activities, including education, with the hypothesis that it will help with overall integration into society. There are strong arguments for each approach, but, as of now, there are no definitive studies comparing the sensory sensitive approach to the neuro-typical approach (Mostafa, 2008, Henry, 2011). Henry (2011) concludes that the best approach to designing for students with autism may be a combination of both theories.

While our initial design philosophy for the new Spero Academy building primarily followed the recommendations of the sensory-sensitive approach, our design team has ultimately integrated strategies from both neuro-typical and sensory-sensitive theories into the design where deemed appropriate.  Many of these theories were inspired by “Interior Design for Autism” written by A.J. Paron-Wildes.  Below are just five of many different ways these approaches are being realized in the final design.


Putting Theory to Practice

1.) A Welcoming Entry Sequence
First impressions are very important, especially for charter schools, where students and parents have the choice whether or not they want to enroll.  Parents visiting the school have to determine if this is the right school for their child to spend nearly every day for the next few years of their life; therefore, creating an inviting and comfortable entry sequence is crucial for Spero Academy to realize their growth goals in Minneapolis. As a result, the entry sequence follows a neuro-typical design approach, creating a sense of familiarity.  The exterior design is warm, inviting, and playful.  We wanted the school to look like a school and inspire excitement for the students and comfort for parents. The design of the main entrance includes a two-story space with ample exterior glazing to create an open space and bring daylight and nature into the space, creating a welcoming and comfortable environment for parents and visitors, without hindering the students’ ability to focus and learn.

2.) Sensory Zoning
The overall floor plan of the school was inspired by a sensory-sensitive design consideration which suggests that children with autism tend to be more comfortable in spaces zoned according to “high-stimulus” and “low-stimulus” qualities (sensory zoning) as opposed to those zoned by function of space (functional zoning).  By distinctly separating high-stimulus zones from low-stimulus zones with transition zones in between, children are able to recalibrate their senses as they move from one zone to the next.   To design for the student population at Spero Academy, we divided the school into sensory zones, separating the high-stimulus, low-focus areas such as the gym, cafeteria, entrance, and gathering areas from the high-focus, low-stimulus zones such as the classrooms, media lab, speech room, specialist rooms, and restrooms. Sensory zoning occurs in the classrooms as well.  Each activity within the classroom is allocated to a “station” that is physically distinguished from other areas of the room through changes in furniture, flooring and lighting levels appropriate to the “station’s” function.

3.) Lighting for a Calming Environment
Lighting is another important consideration. In addition to substantial natural daylight with window shades to adjust natural light levels, the overhead lighting plays an important role in creating a sensory sensitive environment.  Similar to many schools, classroom lights are on occupancy sensors.  However, lights must be manually turned on upon entering the room.  In Spero Academy’s current school, many teachers do not use overhead lights at all, rather they use only natural daylight or a combination of lamps and natural light.  Giving the teachers the ability upon entering the classroom to leave the lights turned off creates a calming affect for the students.

4.) Subdued vs. Vibrant Color Palettes
Individuals with autism can be hyper-sensitive to color or light intensity, so bright color and sharp contrast can be distracting or disorienting.  Reinforcing spatial zoning, the high focus, low-stimulus areas have soft natural light and a subdued color palette and that is calming and comfortable, avoiding over-stimulating or vibrant colors.  In contrast, the high-stimulus, low focus areas utilize larger expanses of natural light and a slightly more vibrant color palette, while still ensuring the colors are not overly stimulating.

5.) Non-toxic Chemicals in Furniture, Equipment, & Building Materials
A final consideration that relates to both neuro-typical and sensory-sensitive environments is the importance of using non-toxic chemicals in furniture, equipment, and building materials and eliminating off-gassing to the greatest extent possible.  Children with autism can be more susceptible to toxic chemicals due to a weakened immune system, so eliminating the exposure of chemicals to the greatest extent possible can prevent medical and behavioral problems.

Conclusion

The new school will begin construction in the coming months.  While we know there’s still much to learn when it comes to designing spaces for children with autism, the supporting research and design strategies integrated into the planning and design of the new school give us confidence that the school will be a safe, comfortable, and inviting learning environment for students to learn, grow, and succeed.  Students of Spero Academy deserve to experience successes in school and in life just as much as everyone else.  Our goal was to combine art, science and empathy to design a new building that will provide opportunities for success for current students and many more within the community.
 

Authors:

Bethany DeLine is a designer at HDR, and human advocate, an eclectic creative and an impassioned creator of happy places.

Bethany Friedow is a researcher at HDR who brings a unique skillset, with strengths in both design and research and an innate curiosity which drives her work and allows her to focus on cultivating a greater understanding of how design impacts health, wellness and user experience.

Brian Giebink  is an architect  at HDR dedicated to creating safe, healthy, empowering environments for children and adults in healthcare and education settings. His leadership in behavioral and mental health design inspires a unique approach to school design for students with special needs.


References

• Paron-Wildes, A.J. (2014). Interior Design for Autism: From Childhood to Adolescence. Hoboken, New Jersey, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

• Yates, M. K. (2017). Building Better Schools: A New Model for Autism Inclusion in Seattle (Doctoral dissertation). 

• Khare, R. (2010). Designing inclusive educational spaces for autism. Institute for Human Centered Design.

• Khare, R., & Mullick, A. (2009, October). Designing inclusive educational spaces with reference to autism. In Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting (Vol. 53, No. 8, pp. 517-520). Sage CA: Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications.

• Mostafa, M. (2008). An architecture for autism: Concepts of design intervention for the autistic user. International Journal of Architectural Research, 2(1), 189-211.

• Henry, C.N. (2011, November 3). Designing for autism: The neuro-typical approach. ArchDaily. Retrieved from: http://www.archdaily.com/181402/designing-for-autism-the-neuro-typical-approach

• Mostafa, M. (2015). The Autism ASPECTSS™ Design Index. Retrieved from:  https://www.autism.archi/aspectss

• Quirk, V. (2013, October 9). An interview with Magda Mostafa: Pioneer in autism design. ArchDaily. Retrieved from: http://www.archdaily.com/435982/an-interview-with-magda-mostafa-pioneer-in-autism-design