maandag 11 oktober 2010

The 21st-Century Classroom


Slate organiseert een prijsvraag vergelijkbaar met de schoolprojecten van One Architecture. Vrije invulling, eigen inrichting, ruimte voor de leerling; en dit alles gestuurd vanuit het onderwijs -zoals in Nieuwe Leren- zijn kernelementen van de prijsvraag van Slate waar One Architecture al langer aan werkt. Zie onderstaand excerpt uit de prijsvraagomschrijving:

Very little about the American classroom has changed since more than a century ago. In her school, children sat in a rectangular room at rows of desks, a teacher up front. At most American schools, they still do.

Slate wants to change that, and we need your help. Today Slate launches a crowdsourcing project on the 21st-century classroom. American classrooms are outdated. Slate seeks your great ideas for how to modernize them.

This, of course, isn’t the first effort to remake archaic school buildings. The most famous example was the "open classroom" movement of the 1970s. Walls were removed, so where you once had, say, four classrooms of 20 students each, you now had one room of 80. It was never clear what teachers were supposed to make of these new spaces. They were instructed to teach children in small sections, or maybe monitor them as they moved among hands-on activity stations, or maybe to do away with age-based groupings and teach each child at his or her level. The goals were rarely clear, and even more rarely met. Teachers taught as they always had, just with far more noise to shout over. The lesson was obvious: Education reform must begin with educators, not architects.

You can submit your design between now and Friday, Oct. 29. You can vote and comment on the ideas below. In early November, our expert judges and readers will choose a dozen finalists, and we’ll select a winner in mid-November. Read our terms and conditions, then please enter your great idea below.

Bron: Slate