The Bridge Between Interior Design and Education

While I was working through this module, thinking about organized space, I was making connections in my mind to educationally organized space. One of the most important and critical aspect of teaching, aside from the actual teaching, is the classroom in which we teach! A question that often reoccurs in job interviews is, "What does your classroom look like?" A classroom, enables learning to take place, so the way this environment is designed is crucial. Some things to consider:

How are the desks going to be arranged? Will the students sit in groups or at individual desks? What will the classroom library look like? How will the furniture be arranged so there is space for "traffic to move" safely and conveniently? Where will the teacher's desk be placed? How does technology play a role in the arrangement? Is there enough storage space? How will students access materials?

Because I do not have my own classroom yet to base this off of, I think about my past experiences in classrooms, most fresh is my student teaching internship. I really appreciated Susanka's point about "light to walk towards." In the classroom I interned in, we had a large wall of windows, which I liked to open the blinds and let the sunshine in. After the students came back from lunch (this was 2nd grade), I would close the blinds and turn one set of lights off during silent reading time, to calm the students down after a rowdy lunch recess. I also think about Susanka's point with "shelter around activity." This reminds me of our reading area. It was located in the corner of the classroom, with the bookshelves used as mini walls to separate the reading corner from the rest of the classroom. There were beanbags in the reading corner for students to use to get comfy as they curled up with their books. Every part of a classroom is designed for a particular learning experience. I guess you could add architect to the many hats a teacher wears!!