Sitting on the floor; how we designed 100 playful classrooms
This blog post is part of our series sharing learnings from the Kenya Play program in partnership with IREX and generous support from The LEGO Foundation. You can find out more about KPLAY here.
What happens when you ask an educator to sit on the floor and try to look at their classroom from the point of view of a child? One might start to notice that the big closet in the back looks intimidating or the window is too high up for a child to see the beautiful Baobab tree outside.
Despite significant advances in the field of education, classrooms around the world largely remain stuck in an outdated model that has persisted for more than a century. The traditional classroom setup looks very much the same; desks in rows facing a teacher at the front of the room.
Two years ago, we began working with our partners IREX on the Kenya Play program. We recognized that introducing a dedicated space within schools would be crucial to our holistic approach of introducing playful learning through technology in schools. We proposed the idea of Play Labs, customized school-based spaces for playful interactions and creativity that support the K-PLAY program.
The task was daunting; we needed to create spaces that reflected the values of play and creative learning in a scalable way, despite the limited resources available in the context of rural schools. Furthermore, the design of the space had to be integrated in both the teacher training, that is the main pillar of the program as well as any community outreach, like engaging with parents.
Design-Build Studio; Introducing a participatory approach
We decided to host what in architecture we call a Design-Build Studio; a form of participatory architecture that involves designers working collaboratively with people who will use the space. But how do you ask teachers to imagine a playful classroom if they haven’t seen or experienced one before? To begin, we focused on the universal experience of play that we all share.
We asked educators to talk about playful objects that connected to their own childhood and list values they feel would reflect a classroom that promotes ideas like collaboration and creativity. We looked together at several images of children playing, outside and inside a classroom and asked them to describe what they see? Once teachers felt confident in their own interpretation of how playful learning might look, we invited them to sit on the floor with us and imagine their classroom from the point of view of a child. We offered collage materials and asked them to create different versions of their dream playful classroom, a Playlab.
What did they come up with? A fascinating pattern was how they envisioned the space to be organized in stations, with a central station being dedicated to play, a sign that they were both eager to incorporate play in the space but also still viewed it as something separate.
The idea of stations became central to the layout of Playlabs resulting in a more thoughtful and responsive design, while fostering a sense of ownership and pride in the final product among the teachers and students.
Learning from Pedagogical Models
As we started to further imagine the design of Play Labs, we looked to pedagogical models for architectural spaces that promoted child-centered and creative learning and spoke to several partners in the Lego Foundation Tech & Play community.
Here are some of the pedagogical models that influenced the final design:
1. The Lifelong Kindergarten
“we need to make the rest of school, the rest of life, more like Kindergarten” Mike Resnick, founder of the Lifelong Kindergarten at MIT
Resnick believes that the way the space of Kindergarten is organized, with children learning through experimentation and exploration, is “ideally suited to the needs of today—and not just for five-year-olds.”
We asked what if Playlabs reflect the design of a Kindergarten? where objects and furniture are placed on the eye level of a child, activities are organized in stations, and walls are covered with children’s work. In essence, building a space of creative freedom and playful exploration, designed with the child at the center of it.
2. The Prepared Environment of a Primary Montessori Classroom
In the Montessori Classroom the interaction of the child and the space revolves around tangible experiences and is organized in several areas such as Practical Life, Sensorial Learning, Language, Mathematics, Science, Geography, Arts, and Peaceful Citizenship. In a Montessori classroom, different activities are organized in stations across the different areas of the classroom, engaging learners in “work cycles”.
In the Montessori classroom the child is treated as an equal in society
These are curated frequently, giving learners choices and opportunities to focus on completing tasks. The Montessori Classroom is designed as a minimal, almost bare space for the child to interpret the world, become an independent learner, and is a space where the child is treated as an equal in society. We asked how do you design a space that centers around student choice?
3. The Environment as the Third Teacher in Reggio Emilia
In the Reggio Emilia approach to the designed environment of the classroom, the environment is considered the Third Teacher.
Children’s work is not only showcasing a final project but also the documentation of their process as learners. Reggio classrooms are often designed with spaces for learners to sit around a circle and share their ideas and work process. Reggio promotes the 'Pedagogy of listening:' listening to the child as they would like to be heard raises their self-esteem.
4. Maker Education Spaces & The Tinkering Studio
A space should be comfortable, as learning can be uncomfortable - Tinkering Studio
Maker Education Spaces and Children’s Museums inspire the design of our Play Labs. According to our partners at The Tinkering Studio, a space should be comfortable, as learning can be uncomfortable. The space doesn’t have to look incredible or fun, it has to feel great to be in, so that learners can linger and take their time to work on their projects. Communicating expectations through visuals can set expectations that projects don’t have to be perfect, but simply to be. Making tools readily available, sitting at the same table with learners, and providing neutral tables all support the learning mindset.
Image of a Playlab featuring our wonderful IREX collegues in Mombasa
As we continue to iterate and apply a participatory design approach for the development of Play-Labs, we invite you to join us in ask these questions when thinking of how you can introduce space design into learning programs
How might you involve children, their teachers, and caregivers in a design process when building for them?
How can space communicate their dreams and desires?
How are your design values reflected?
How do you introduce new concepts while respecting and reflecting the local context?
What questions would you ask? Let us know over at hi@humanswhoplay.com