Description
Book SynopsisThe United States has about $10.5 trillion tied up in aging school facilities. School districts throughout the country spend about $30 billion every year keeping this infrastructure going. Yet almost all of the new money we pour into school facilities reinforces an existing - and obsolete - model of schooling.
In
Blueprint for Tomorrow, Prakash Nair - one of the world’s leading school designers - explores the hidden messages that our school facilities and classrooms convey and advocates for the “alignment” of the design of places in which we teach and learn with twenty-first-century learning goals.
Blueprint for Tomorrow provides simple, affordable, and versatile ideas for adapting or redesigning school spaces to support student-centered learning. In particular, the author focuses on ways to use current spending to modify existing spaces, and explains which kinds of adaptations offer the biggest return in terms of student learning. The book is organized by area - from classrooms to cafeterias - and is richly illustrated throughout, including “before and after” features, “smart idea” sidebars, and “do now” suggestions for practical first steps. It outlines key principles for designing spaces that support today’s learning needs and includes tools to help educators evaluate the educational effectiveness of their own spaces.
Blueprint for Tomorrow will open educators’ eyes to the ways that architecture and learning are entwined and will challenge them to rethink the ways they teach and work together.
Table of ContentsCONTENTS INTRODUCTION
The $2 Trillion Mistake 1
How Traditional School Design Fails Our Kids CHAPTER 1
“Reading” School Buildings 25
A Visual Literacy Primer CHAPTER 2
A Welcoming Message 45
Entries and Common Areas CHAPTER 3
Capturing More Space for Learning 61
Reconfiguring Classrooms and Hallways CHAPTER 4
Integrated Learning Areas 83
Labs, Studios, and Do-It-Yourself Spaces CHAPTER 5
Making Room for Collaboration 105
Professional Space for Teachers CHAPTER 6
Putting People and Ideas Together 115
The Changing Role of the School Library CHAPTER 7
Beyond the Classroom Window 129
Bringing Learning Outdoors CHAPTER 8
From Cafeterias to Cafe´s 145
Celebrating Community CONCLUSION
Putting Theory into Practice 159
Where Should Schools Begin? APPENDIX A
Educational Effectiveness Survey 175
Elementary School Facilities APPENDIX B
Educational Effectiveness Survey 179
Middle and High School FacilitiesNotes 185
Acknowledgments 197
About the Author 199
Index 201
