What educators want to put in the schools of the future
Atlanta Business Chronicle - by Jennifer Rampey Paire Contributing Writer
Schoolteachers and principals want to trade cafetoriums and windowless classrooms for natural light and interactive environments.
They also want schools to be safe, according to the Heery Millennium School Study, commissioned by Heery International, an architecture, interior design, engineering and management firm headquartered in Atlanta.
Teachers, principals and assistant principals from seven cities, including Atlanta, were surveyed to find out how school design can help the learning process as the new century approaches. The nation's cities offer plenty of places to try new designs: Engineering News-Record magazine, which provides business and technology news for the construction industry, reported that school construction totaled more than $11 billion in 1997.
In Atlanta, 98 percent of the survey's participants stressed that safety is crucial to school design. For example, access to school grounds and buildings should be considered. Atlanta was second only to Dallas in its concern for security, although educators in all of the surveyed cities ranked safety as a top concern.
Accessing information
Atlanta educators felt strongest about creating a learning environment where teachers can be part of an interactive learning process. Atlanta educators see the classrooms of the future as laboratories that can be adapted to changing technologies, especially computers.
"We can't just teach information anymore," said Tom Harper, principal of Allgood Elementary in Stone Mountain. "We have to teach our students how to get information they need, which means they have to use technology."
Allgood has about 700 students housed in a 40-year-old building and portable buildings. Eventually, Allgood will build 13 more classrooms, and Harper said he plans to emphasize to architects the importance of security and the need for wiring for computers.
"If I were to design a building, there would be a separate meeting place, like an auditorium, and a cafeteria," said Harper, whose school has a combination of both: a cafetorium. "If we have a program for the student body, it's too small for everyone. It also limits us to the time frame. We serve lunch starting from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. There's no option for programs during that time frame."
Multipurpose cafetoriums are one of the "most hated design features" in schools, according to the study.
Rearranging rooms
Lin Redden, a Heery vice president, said the classroom of the future is a little larger than what has been built.
"The furniture itself is where the flexibility comes in, so you can move it," Redden said. "You can have groups interacting in different ways in the room by the arrangement of the furniture."
Heery's diagram of a school prototype has a self-contained, two-room layout with lots of windows, shared restrooms and teachers' offices, and a mechanical area that allows service technicians access to technical support for computers and other facility systems without disrupting class.
Teachers share the planning area, which has interior windows so the classroom can be seen. Redden said this is ideal because if one teacher needs to leave the classroom, it is easy for the other teacher to monitor students.
"It's an area to share lessons and ideas; it promotes collaboration," Redden said. "It also gives a nice area to meet with parents and gives [teachers] an office-type space."
Including sinks, restrooms and communications capabilities in classrooms would reduce time spent on non-teaching tasks.
The greatest challenge facing schools is taking the interactive concepts and building them into new and existing facilities. Of course, this will take money.
"We're not just trying to get schools to spend more money," Redden said. "We need to think more about those issues before we throw those people in a box."
Redden said he plans to work harder to convince clients and education board members of the benefits these elements bring.
"Some of these elements cost more money per student," he said. "But, if you're gaining benefits in the education of the child, the cost of the facility is amortized over 30 years, so it costs very little per child."
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