"Architecture and the Culture of Learning"
American society, over the years, has developed a tradition of how
its children should learn. This tradition is the current school systems as we
know it, where the teacher lectures to rows of unquestioning students. This
has been American education since the 1600s. In the past few decades, the
demand for school reform has increased. The emphasis moves towards the school
being a place where children can think on their own and develop themselves as
individuals. To respond to this demand, I would like to develop an
architectural environment that promotes and encourages learning in the
primary grades of a child's education. I believe the key to understanding
what a "school" can be lies in our better understanding how a child thinks,
develops, and learns.
The next step is to find out what exactly does promote and encourage
learning. Many theories and discoveries have been made by members of other
disciplines involved in childhood development. Their observations have
cultivated into an undertsanding of what role the culture of learning has in
an individual's development. By understanding what these professionals have
already discovered about children, it is possible that many presuppositions
about what "school" should be and is can be rethought. Traditional schools
have been building for learning to occur but do not necessarily inspire
learning. "School" architecture can often best be described as a series of
boxes inside a bigger box where children sit at little boxes to learn.
Contradictory to that analogy, my goal is to develop a learning environment
that will inspire and support an individual's most natural way of learning.
So, can we reformulate many of the thoughts and feelings about what the
institution of "school" can be? It is important that a vas, new rethinking of
"school" emerge now and that we begin to question whether American childrens'
learning capabilities are really being "tapped into" by the architectural
environments they are subject to.
Well, that is my thesis. I am curious to find what everyone thinks.
I want to thank many memebers of this group that have helped to get to this
point.
Thank you.
--Stephen
-- Stephen Van Hoose 5th Year B.A. Architecture Student Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute School of Architecture Troy, NY mail: vanhos who-is-at rpi.edu web address: http://www.rpi.edu/~vanhos