What is in a space?
At our place, our buildings may be a little
older than others, but it is what you find on the inside that counts. Not only is our community varied, but our
classroom and learning environments are also varied, oftentimes reflecting the
teachers, teacher aides and students that you find in them. It is not a ‘one size fits all’, and this is
how it should be.
For this #EdblogNZ challenge, I chose to
focus not on my office, instead, I wanted to show a snapshot of our whole
learning environment.
What I like best about our learning
environment is how much of it is co constructed alongside our students. I love how you can go from one room to
another, and each space is set up to cater for the students that live
inside.
If we had an unlimited budget, then I can
imagine that our team could create an amazing learning environment with all
manner of nooks and crannies, much of which would be co designed with our
students and our community. However,
despite the lack of an unlimited budget, we are still able to utilize what we
have and new furniture to create interesting learning spaces. ‘Stuff’ (and I have blogged this before which
you can read here) does not make great learning opportunities – people (as in
the teachers and the students) do! A
lack of a futuristic learning environment did not stop us from having an ‘alien
landing’ or bringing in snow. All that
required was a willing mindset and a firm belief that behind great learning is
engagement and fun! That is right –
FUN! It is because we know how to bring
learning alive for our students that I am confident that if we had the funds to
dream big – you would see one of the best learning environments in the
galaxy!
In the meantime, hats off to the team for
creating fabulous learning without all the fancy bells and whistles! To all those teachers and leaders who year
for what the other schools have, remember this – all you need is your vision
and some ingenuity. I think sometimes,
the fact that you are able to be creative with what you have means that you are
far more innovative than the fancy ‘modern’ classroom that still shuts its
doors!
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