Physical Environment and Learning: the learning design

“We spend a lot of time trying to change people. The thing to do is to change the environment and people will change themselves"

Les Watson, pro vice-chancellor, Glasgow Caledonian University

In the Integral education scheme of things, environment is critical in the building of an Integral school. The architecture and the environment of the school will have a direct impact on the shaping of the personality of the children and their psyche, for that matter, it will shape the psyche of any one who will be the part of the school. It is about creating a psychophysical environment simply because the psychological elements of the environment is inseparable from the physical.

An Integral school enables real life learning, so whether it is an extension of classrooms to outdoors, recycling area, frog ponds, kitchen gardens, building solar kitchens, learning spaces for children, an outdoor lab, it finally culminate in a learning matrix or what may be termed as a learn-scape. Nature has the capacity to nurture. A learning environment must be and truly wedded to all the universal constituent elements of the nature and because they are universal, they are deeply related to the human psyche. These elements are: Earth, Space, Air, Fire and Water symbolising stability, freedom, movement and mobility, illumination, knowledge and power, flexibility, fluidity and creativity.

Traditional school buildings fall short when evaluated against the goals of student-centred learning since these schools are designed to only transfer information to students and then by way of examination assess how much has been assimilated by the student what was ‘told’ or ‘explained’ by the teacher. This may be termed as ‘Content based model of schooling’ and is very much ‘Teach- er-centred’. It is then obvious that the school building or the design will reflect this particular style of learning and schooling.

Integral education is about life, it’s about freedom, and expression, creativity and is ‘learning-centred’ therefore the design of the school must be reflective of these aspects.

Learning Environment Research (LER)

In the rapidly evolving field of learning environments research (LER), discipline such as educational philosophy, cognitive psychology, evolutionary biology and architecture are studied deeply and widely to establish a direct relation between physical environment and learning. An exploration of relationship between physical and social dimensions would demand answers to questions such as how does one define place to learn? Why is it that children learn more effectively when there is a clear connection between the place of learning and the world in which they live?

Startling developments in the field of neuroscience have also shed new light on earlier conclusions in the past two decades, on the biological and cultural dimensions of learning. In some cases, these insights into how the brain functions along with the growing body of evidence on how physical conditions and social interrelationships affect learning. (Gerald Edelman – second nature 2006)

The importance of creating optimal conditions to enable and sustain learning has most of the times been overlooked as a ‘peripheral’ factor the provision of quality education. The mainstream education has kept itself too occupied with ‘syllabus’ textbooks and ‘career’ for children and in the process, at times becoming profoundly oblivious to the ‘connection with nature’, ‘learning from nature’ and extending the entire learning experience outside the school ‘walls’. This is emphasised in UNESCO publication (A place to learn: Lessons from Research on Learning Environments):

In today’s world, education systems must constantly evolve in order to effectively respond to the rapidly changing demands of the societies they serve. Innovations in curricula, methodologies, materials and technologies may require major changes in the design and organization of the environments in which they are housed. Innovations can be relatively simple and inexpensive, such as re-arranging schedules and seating patterns to allow additional time and space for guided group practice or collaborative problem solving. In a school garden environment, community members skilled in traditional methods can be invited to participate as mentors and teachers at a relatively minimal cost.

The Classroom

• The classroom has to be open, friendly and a warm place for children.

• The classrooms need to have enough space to accommodate fifteen children.

• The classrooms may have half-walls or pony walls and if necessary huge windows (ideally, window may be done away with).

Learning centred environment

The design and space of the school should be designed keeping in mind the learner (student) as an active participant in learning. This essentially means that the space and design should be such that allows freedom and accessibility for the child and promote and provide opportunities for learning practices, such as project based learning, personalized learning, learning in the outdoors, indoors etc. The design and space of the school should promote exploration, enquiry and opportunity to solve real-life problems-suitable for this kind of applied learning.

Inclusive design

By inclusive design it is implied that the learner can use the building, can play with the structure, feel empowered and not get trapped by the design. The design should not make the learner to conform with strict routes and permissions, this-way or that-way. The design should include the learner and in no way exclude the learner. No one classroom or any room should represent exclusivity or exceptionality; it must represent inclusivity and openness to embrace.

Natural

The building and design should be natural and without a least stress on functional and structural beauty. Whatever can be used or leveraged by the land available should be leveraged and used to the maximum. The learning environment should find space in the already available natural habitat. The presence of nature must be brought to the senses of all living beings to be able to see, smell, hear and feel the nature in every little part of the building. The design of the integral environment must be wedded to the nature so that the constituent elements of the nature can be brought into dynamic play. The following elements of nature need to be considered in the design and building of the structure: Air, Space, Light, Water, Earth.