[I-1] [I-2] Innovative Design Vs. 'Old Education'

(On Left--Excerpt from 1973 Standard for Classroom Design)


My Model for charter school design was as follows: The visionary would outline the Mission (hopefully one based on research and experience), an organizational structure would be created to support that vision, an effective pedagogy would then be devised, and lastly, the environment would be fashioned to support that teaching method. I oftentimes thought that problems with designing innovative charter schools mainly occur when the sequence is not as prescribed above (It then becomes much like “the tail wagging the dog”) or when research has not been at the planning table from the beginning or even not at all. However, my thoughts were challenged by Mr. Richard F. Elmore’s article on redesigning organization and the challenges of reforming existing school organizations. He highlights impediments to innovation in existing structures of education -constraints of the framework of the organization to innovation and the lingering remnants of the traditional concept of learning. He implores that you cannot fit innovation into the framework of the existing structure. This is, I believe, another area of concern for new charter schools.

To what degree does the traditional organization of education haunt new charter schools? Despite the interviewing process, does many of the teaching staff rely on their old frameworks to teach (behind the classroom door)? Have I tacitly bought into conservatism in teaching, of which I am a product, when it comes to my own son? Have principals and teachers assumed that the traditional school layouts - the groupings and proximities and amenities of the space (that were previously designed for another methodology) are the appropriate frameworks to provide each student with a conceptual understanding (as oppose to the more traditional general coverage of the material)? In Texas, where there is little or no money for charters schools for capital improvements other than charitable giving, new charter schools are oftentimes shoehorned into defunct parochial schools of traditional design.

Remembering my ideal Model for charter schools, one might say that you simply did not proceed from the Vision to fashioning the environment. And that is true, but one also needs Resources and a real Visionary (the messenger, not the message) to drive full adherence to the Mission.

As an aside, what should the educational spaces be? I now wonder if the key is to design spaces that are not so rigid as to support the school vision of a ‘science room’ or a math’ room, but rather a space so flexible that it can allow some latitude for each teacher to “work the magic”—especially if the object is to provide each student with a conceptual understanding –no matter how uniquely the information needs to be presented to the child or how quickly the child gets it. I wonder. --Mikael Powell