New Horizons for Learning: Teaching and Learning Strategies

Creating a Safe Space in Which to Grow

This article first appeared in Architecture: Back . . . to . . . Life: Proceedings of the 79th Annual Meeting of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture.

by Dr. Sharon E. Sutton, FAIA

Without a doubt, the humanness of urban life has decreased dramatically during the last decade. Garbage dumps are overflowing, hordes of homeless people line the city's public spaces, violence and crime are lurching out of control -- beyond the boundaries of ghettos. Environmental, social, and law enforcement programs are as ineffective to improve conditions as are ordinary citizens who seem to lack the collective will that is needed to bring about social change. Struggling with extreme differences in wealth and deprivation and with the conflicts of increasing ethnic diversity, Jane Jacob's "eyes of the street" have withdrawn into the electronic privacy of VCRs and cable televisions. It is not uncommon to hear someone say, "My sense of compassion is worn out," or "I can't get upset about every issue that comes along." What effect does a constant state of emergency have on people who lack a clear sense of collective identity? What effect does "tuning out" have on the way we conceive of ourselves as human beings?
In my work with children I have become increasingly concerned with these issues. How will children develop as caring, responsible citizens in an environment that is so out of control? How can they develop a collective identity that is powerful enough to combat the destructiveness of drugs and poverty? How can I, as an architect, help children to build a safe space-whether real or imagined -- in which to grow?
Morris Rosenberg studies how people develop an idea of who they are. He writes:

"Ordinarily we think of ourselves as bounded by our skins: there we start and there we end, and ever it shall be. And yet each of us knows that the self stretches out to encompass elements external to it. We at once recognize the independent identity of these external things, people, or groups but at the same time feel they are part of us -- indeed in a sense, they are us." 1

Providing a clue for the relationship between creative activity and feelings about the self, Rosenberg continues:

"Few external objects are experienced as so central to the self as those representing the outcome of our own efforts. The artist's painting, the author's book, the furniture maker's chair, the shop owner's store are felt to be a part of their selves." 2

Given the increasingly polluted, unjust, and violent quality of urban life, it seems critical to involve children in creating positive outcomes-a task suited to all artists, but especially appropriate to architects who have the capacity to help children create functional as well as esthetic elements that can be used and admired by people who are important in their lives. The Urban Network, a national urban design program that is an incubator for the ideas presented in this paper, helps children to gain a sense of control over the urban environment by creating external objects, but also by developing the collective identity that is essential to growing up as compassionate, responsible citizens. The current participant group includes individuals, elementary and middle schools, and nonprofit organizations representing nine states. Data were collected during the 1989-1990 academic year through a variety of techniques including site visits to sixteen schools in four states, in-depth observations at three schools in one city, pre and post testing at twelve schools in seven states, and a wish poem written by twelve classes in three states.
To show a causal relationship between the external environment and children's self concept is beyond the scope of this paper. However, the data indicate that children have pressing environmental concerns and feel a sense of powerlessness to manage these concerns. They also suggest an intolerance for racial differences. To address these issues in a meaningful way, a transformation of prevailing concepts of schooling is in order. My concern in this paper is how architects can participate in such a transformation.
A PROGRAM THAT BRIDGES THE ABYSS OF SOCIOECONOMIC DIFFERENCES

A national team of designers and educators initially conceived of the Urban Network as a program for so-called disadvantaged children. However, since we did not want to sort children out according to socioeconomic characteristics, a program evolved that is offered to anyone who wants to improve the "school community," defined as the school building, the block that the building sits on, or the neighborhood. This decision had the effect of introducing me first hand to tremendous differences in the quality of education in this country.
Some Urban Network schools are in vital urban areas while others are amidst a sea of the unemployed, deteriorated housing, vacant lots strewn with empty drug vials. Some schools are large but underutilized; others are so overcrowded that lunch begins at 9:30 am. One school has a student-to-teacher ratio of twelve-to-one while another has constantly shifting classes of thirty-five to forty children. A variety of instructional approaches range from cooperative learning to individualized instruction to a behavioristic model of reward and punishment.
More than a curriculum to increase awareness of the urban environment, the Urban Network aspires to help children learn to live together by generating an exchange of ideas among these vastly different schools through workshops, newsletters, and computer conferences. Students make a critical analysis of their school-community environment, create idealistic visions, select an area of need, develop a plan, then raise money to implement the plan. This critical, participatory process helps children to understand problems in the larger environment, to imagine a better world, to create practical solutions to problems in their immediate purview. The intended focus is outward -- on serving one's community -- on understanding the diverse communities that are part of the Urban Network.
Urban Network teachers receive an instructional portfolio that includes guides, cue cards, posters, and a video tape, all of which reinforce fifteen urban design concepts related to the physical and social characteristics of cities. Students apply definitions of landmarks, patterns of land-use, circulation systems, colors and textures, street life, food, art, and so forth to their own neighborhood. They further explore concepts through hands-on projects that are most often idealistic (for example, an ideal neighborhood or school) or fantasy projects (for example, a magic castle or secret play place).
Idealistic or fantasy projects, which take place during the first semester, are followed by practical problem solving during the second semester. Participants use a combination of three tools-architectural design, environmental design, and advocacy-to improve their school community. Among the completed projects are a cleanup campaign in New York City, a celebration of urban life in Detroit, a re-creation of indigenous mural motifs in Watsonville, a tree-planting in Atlanta, an archaeological dig in Brooklyn, a wildflower center in Chicago.
WISHING THERE WEREN'T SO MUCH TROUBLE

Urban Networkers participated in a wish poem project at the end of the first year of the program in which each child completed the sentence: "I wish my school community... " placing in a single format children's ideas on what needed improving. On a scale of one to ten, with one representing the best learning conditions and ten representing the most deprived, schools that completed a wish poem fall between five and eight -- not the worst situations, but clearly less-than-desirable ones.
Two independent researchers categorized about 400 sentences written by third through eighth graders according to eighteen themes that were grouped into five categories. "Drugs and Violence" includes wishes about drugs, drug addiction, drug-related violence, a variety of other crimes, and personal safety. "Poverty and Inhumanness" includes wishes about housing and jobs, helping the poor, and generally being helpful and kind. "Environmental Degradation" includes wishes about natural or caused violation of the earth, lack of cleanliness or landscape, deterioration, and ugliness. These wishes, which account for fifty-three percent of the responses, suggest that major social and environmental problems were a central concern in the critical analysis which Urban Networkers made of their communities.
The remaining two categories, which account for forty-seven percent of the responses, refer to more benign needs. "Community Facilities "includes wishes about the school or other public buildings or spaces. "Fun and Play" contains wishes about play including having water fountains on playgrounds, recreation, art, and other miscellaneous amenities. Table One lists the frequency of wishes in each of the five categories according to grade level while Table Two provides a sampling of wishes from each category.

Table 1. Frequency of Wishes by Grade Level

Table 2. A Sampling of Wishes in Each Category.

DRUGS AND VIOLENCE

I wish there was no drugs.

I wish my school community would stop all of the drug traffic that we see all day.

I wish my school community had no killing.

I wish my school community could stop the violence and start peace.

I wish my school community would be a better place to live and stop all the chaos and the fighting.

I wish everyone could have a bodyguard.

I wish my school community was a safer place to be.
POVERTY AND INHUMANNESS

I wish my school community would help the homeless kids.

I wish my school community had more jobs and homes for the homeless in our town.

I wish my school community would help those who are in need.

I wish my school community had new homes with less rent.

I wish my school community was fair and not unjust.

I wish my school community could respect one another and get along.

I wish people would be kinder and not so rude.

ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION

I wish my school community looked more clean.

I wish my school community looked better than it do.

I wish my school community didn't have so many boarded up buildings.

I wish there were no abandoned buildings.

I wish my school community didn't have trash all over it.

I wish the earthquake never happened.

I wish we had no more power plants

FUN AND PLAY

I wish my school community was nice and fun.

I wish there were more stores like Toys-it-Us.

I wish my school community had a swimming pool.

I wish my school community had a basketball team.

I wish there were more parks with long slides.

I wish there was a music hall in our community.

I wish we could be at the boardwalk.

SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY FACILITIES

I wish my school community would put tissue in the bathroom.

I wish my school community would have more books in school.

I wish we had elevators in the school.

I wish we could fix the lights in the classroom.

I wish we had a bigger school.

I wish we had a nursery school.

I wish my school community would build some smart things like churches, more schools and museums.

WHEN ONLY A BODYGUARD CAN HELP

The prominence of pathological problems in the Urban Networker's world view which is apparent in the wish poem began to surface earlier in the year when I visited ten New York City schools, none of whom participated in the poem project. These schools are sharply contrasting, including a private suburban campus, a religious school, several enriched public schools, and a number of schools in the city's worst ghettos.
During my visit, I asked students to identify problems in their school community and heard the same kinds of responses that the poem would later evoke. Despite extreme differences in their circumstances, there was a similar concern about violence among both poor and affluent children. Poor children spoke of the violence they experienced first hand while expressing disdain for "rich white folks." Affluent children spoke more abstractly about what might happen -- and not infrequently associated their fears with people of color. When I asked students in each school what they could do about the problems they had identified, both groups rebuffed my suggestion that people can change anything in a peaceful way. They insisted that only war, the police, vigilantes, the National Guard, bulletproof clothing, surveillance equipment, or bodyguards could help. Affluent children were especially insistent that the school should be forced to protect them.
These conversations are startling because they express such an utter sense of powerlessness, not just among the poor, but among those people who will grow up to be leaders in our society. Many people believe that low scores on achievement tests are a threat to national security. I suggest that feelings of powerlessness and lack of empathy are an even greater threat to our continued existence as a democratic society. As Martin Luther King said: "When an individual is no longer a true participant, when he [sic] no longer feels a sense of responsibility to society, the content of democracy is emptied." 3
I can not offer a magic formula for eliminating the fear of violence, sense of powerlessness, feelings of racism and environmental exploitation that are brewing in the minds of the children I have been working with. I can describe a role that architects, as makers of positive external events, can assume to help future citizens become more empowered participants in their school communities.
LEARNING FROM AND IN AN UNJUST WORLD
There are numerous design education programs all across the country: The American Institute of Architects' Learning by Design, Architecture in Education at the Foundation for Architecture in Philadelphia, Architecture and Children in Seattle, the Salvadori Educational Center on the Built Environment in New York City, the Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment in Brooklyn, just to name a few. In addition, many classroom teachers use the richness of architecture as a focal point for interdisciplinary teaching. Charlotte Frank summarizes the benefits of design education: "The whole child is being taught, learning not only from the printed page but, perhaps, even more from the physical world-the world of streets, buildings, parks, bridges, play grounds, trees, and plants."4

These words may have been positive ones when they were written, but my findings suggest that what is being learned from today's physical world is, in fact, frightening. Many children are being taught by streets that are full of trash, buildings that are abandoned, parks that are homes to the homeless, bridges that take the well-to-do to the suburbs, playgrounds that are made of concrete and steel, trees and plants that can not survive the pollution. Rethinking what it means to learn from and in a menacing environment seems in order. In fact, it is critical to rethink the very purpose of schooling in a democracy that is being assaulted by increasing asymmetries of power.
Paulo Freire provides a bold reconceptualization of the schooling process-a boldness that is so lacking in the many reform proposals for U.S. schools that resulted from publication of A Nation at Risk . In his literacy efforts in Brazil "[Freire] pushed to shift the teacher to facilitator, the student to active learner, the materials to be relevant and meaningful, and education to be linked directly to action.... It was no longer permissible to leave education isolated and unconnected from the world. Schools would be challenged to become active conduits for change."5 Change, according to Freire, is possible when action or engagement is combined with an objective understanding that is rooted in individual perceptions of reality.

"Action is work not because of the greater or lesser physical effort expended in it by the acting organism but because of the consciousness the subject has of his "[sic] own effort, the possibility of programming action, of creating tools and using them to mediate between himself and the object of his action, of having purposes, of anticipating results."6

These are not new ideas-to a degree they echo those expressed by Dewey at the turn of the century. However, they are revolutionary ideas and ones that are difficult to implement in a country where the concentration of wealth and knowledge among a privileged few leaves a large portion of the population without any possibility for the creativity that Freire describes. Where a college education is required for most jobs but only one in five gets one. Where grouping, tracking, and labeling early in the educational process determines who will be able to access the most basic rewards of human existence.
If schools were to set out to create safe, nurturing spaces for children, they would need to disrupt the concentrations of power that ultimately create the kind of pathologies that children in this study observe. They would need to eliminate the bell-curve model of student achievement in which one person's success depends on another's failure, because the less powerful always lose. They would need to eliminate the linear grading and ranking of students, because a democracy requires that all its citizens be able to participate. They would need to replace the rung-by-rung climb to status and power that is the center of the educational enterprise with a humble struggle for meaning and purposefulness because these are inseparable from humanness.
AN EXAMPLE OF HOW STUDENTS CAN GET SMART

If this is the task at hand, how can we designers help? When viewed idealistically, design studio learning seems to complement Freire's shifts of power. Students learn from peers, from active manipulation of materials, from personal reflection, as well as from expert sources. An example of how this process works in a classroom is provided by a fourth-grade class where children with second-grade reading scores set out to learn six urban design concepts: Circulation systems, neighbors and neighborhoods, landscape, color and texture, land use, and landmarks. The teacher briefly defines each Concept for the class, provides some examples, and asks the children for other examples. This takes about fifteen minutes.
Students then form six teams with each team being assigned one of the concepts. Each team is to Create a book of poems and drawings about all six concepts. However, the team can only write poems about its assigned concept, making it necessary to get the remaining poems from the other teams. For example, the landmark team can write its own poem about landmarks, but needs to secure a poem about the remaining five concepts from each of the other teams.
The students, who normally follow a very restrictive "order and discipline" regime, become quite engaged by the negotiating process and by deciding whether the poems that they are bargaining for are good enough. Teams members assume different roles with one person making drawings, another writing, still others negotiating for poems, critiquing other teams, or assembling the book. During this group process, which lasts about one hour, the children's understanding of the six concepts becomes quite imaginative. Table Three compares the definition that was given by the teacher for a particular concept to a poem taken from one of the completed books. In addition to being correct, the children's poems are imaginative, humorous, and insightful. In a school that is ranked in the lowest of four categories on achievement tests and school attendance, in a class where children are reminded constantly that they are behind by two years, the quality of the outcome is remarkable. Unfortunately after the Urban Network session, students return to their normal mode as failures. Below is a comparison of teachers' definitions to children's poems:

CHILDREN'S POEMS TEACHER'S DEFINITIONS

Circulation System
All cities have a system of roads that function like the arteries of the body. Passing through the arteries are people, bicycles, cars, buses, and trucks. Some arteries have names while others have numbers. Circulation System
A circulation system has streets, tunnels, roads, railroads, alleys, airways, sewers, bridges, sidewalks, boulevards, highways, and avenues. This is the circulation system in our world today. We all need it to get us here and there by car, truck, bus, or even in the air. I hope you knew about this. If you didn't know, you know about it now.

Neighbors and neighborhoods
The place that is close to your home is your neighborhood. It's the place were people share activities and get to know each other. Some neighborhoods have fuzzy edges that make them hard to see. Others have sharp edges, such as a big street or a lake, that make them easier to see. Neighbors and Neighborhoods
A neighborhood is a place with nice people. Some neighborhoods are little, but some are big. My neighborhood is big and the houses on my block are big. I learned more about neighborhoods than I ever knew in my whole life thanks to a wonderful person from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Landscape
Good cities have parks with shaded areas for sitting or playing. Water in a lake, fountain, or even an open fire hydrant make hot days cooler. Even though it's crowded in a city, people find tiny spaces to plant trees, bushes, and flowers. Landscape
We can all make a landscape, some big or some small. If you put your mind to it you can do it when you landscape. You can take a piece of land and turn it into what you plan. The best thing about a landscape is that it's the prettiest of them all. That's why I like a landscape.

Color and Texture
Beautiful cities have many colors and textures to see and touch. Some things are very bright and shiny. Others things are dark and rough. Still others might be transparent like windows or reflecting like mirrors. Color and Texture
Color is something that is bright. Texture is the feel of something. Like the feel of a cloth is the texture.

Land Use
At one time, designers thought that it was important to keep different types of buildings separate. All the houses were separate from businesses and industries. Now it is popular to have "mixed use" so that a downtown area may have housing and a residential area may have small industries. Land Use
We have mixed uses in neighborhoods so we won't have to go all across the world just to get somewhere.

Landmarks
Some buildings, like a court house or church have special uses. Sometimes these buildings are very beautiful or old. Special buildings are called landmarks. Landmarks
A landmark is something that stands out from other things to let you know where you are.

Table 3. Comparison of Teacher's Definitions to Children's Poems

This example is but one illustration of how hands-on approaches of studio learning can bring about a complex interactive process in the classroom. Architects have a way of knowing that is social, subjective, and rooted in the concrete experiences of children, as Dewey said learning ought to be. We offer a hands-on process of discovery that bridges cultural and intellectual differences so that people with varying skills and interests can work together. Clearly, the studio process creates one pillar for Freire's approach. But, alas the other pillar-linking learning to social change-is all but nonexistent in the consciousness of architectural education and practice. As a group we are distanced from the whole of society, serving a privileged few, lacking a moral imperative, absorbed with appearance rather than with the broader context of human relationships. We can begin a hands-on process of discovery, but how do we get to the next step of having the process of discovery make a real difference in the lives of children?
What would it take to help these low-achieving children remain in a successful mode of operation? Looking at the opposite end of the spectrum, what would it take to help high achievers who are absorbed in their own success to see things from another's point of view? What would it take to help both groups become participants in the arduous process of creating a just society?
LINKING LEARNING TO SOCIAL CHANGE
Amitai Etzioni, a social theorist, identifies three factors that allow people to bring about positive change: knowledge, shared values, and goals that involve individuals in a collective purpose.7 I would argue that all three are lacking in the educational system and in the larger society that the educational system serves. Education today requires production and assimilation of enormous amounts of information, but information becomes knowledge only when it is put to a higher use. According to Wendell Berry " . . . our problems tend to gather under two questions about knowledge: Having the ability and desire to know, how and what should we learn? And, having learned, how and for what should we use what we know?"8 This latter question requires a moral debate-a debate not acceptable within the technocratic framework of Western Civilization where neutrality and objectivity have unquestioned status. Henry Giroux explains our fascination with rationality:

"Knowledge . . . is situated above and beyond the social realities and relationships of the people who produce and define it. It is fixed and unchanging in the sense that its form, structure, and underlying normative assumptions appear to be universalized beyond the realm of historical contingency or critical analysis. Appearing in the guise of objectivity and neutrality, it is rooted in the precious adulation of the fact or facts, which simply have to be gathered, organized, transmitted, and evaluated."9

This out-of-context construct of knowledge creates classrooms filled with meaningless information. It leaves teachers and children unable to see themselves as agents of change. It leaves professionals without a sense of personal responsibility for-the way things are.
The deification of objectivity also gets in the way of creating shared values and goals as does a survival-of-the-fittest mentality. Our enculturation tells us that laws of nature have created a bell curve-perhaps its somewhere in the Garden of Eden-- so that only a few people are able to rise to the top. Nonsense! While nature may make some individuals stronger or healthier than others, people-you and I-create the context in which some fail and others succeed. You and I design the tests, issue the grades, and decide which few will get to the top. Our testing, grading, and ranking devalues countless human talents and abilities. It pits one person against another, undermining the collectivity that is required to bring about change. It creates a norm among professionals for being narrow, rather than expansive-exclusive rather than inclusive.
If we were to help create a safe space for children, we would have to take responsibility for the way things are-- for the inequitable distribution of housing, educational facilities, energy, transportation, security, and so forth. For surely we have participated in the present distribution. We would have to create an expansive, inclusive view of ourselves as people not only involved with the craft of building, but also involved with the politics, economy, and sociology of those who use our buildings. We would have to get off our individual ladders of success and come together to examine our basic moral commitments to one another, to the earth, and to the peoples we serve.

Acknowledgments

Thanks go to Lauren Isenberg-Zinn who developed and taught the lesson on urban design concepts, and to Amy Laverty for her assistance in the thematic analysis of the wish poems.

References

1. Rosenberg, M. Conceiving the Self. New York, New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1979, p. 34. back
2. Ibid, p. 36. back
3. King, C. S. The Words of Martin Luther King, Jr. New York, New York: New Market Press, 1983, p. 19. back
4. Board of Education of the City of New York, Office of Curriculum Development and Support. Architecture: A Design for Education, 1979, p. iii. back
5. Timpson, W. M. "School reform: Forging a progressive path," in the Peace and Justice Journal, Vol. 5, No. 2, December 1990. Back
6. Freire, P. The Politics of Education: Culture, Power, and Liberation. South Hadley, Massachusetts: Bergin & Garvey Publishers, Inc., 1985, p. 71. back
7. Etzioni, A. The Active Society: A Theory of Societal and Political Processes. New York, New York: The Free Press, 1968. Back
8. Berry, W. "People, land, and community," in The Graywolf Annual Five: Multicultural Literacy. Simon and Walker (eds.). Saint Paul, Minnesota: Graywolf Press, 1988, p. 42. Back
9. Giroux, H. A. Theory and Resistance in Education. A Pedagogy for the Opposition. South Hadley, Massachusetts: Bergin & Garvey Publishers, Inc., 1982, p. 178. back

About the Author

You can contact Dr. Sharon E. Sutton, FAIA at the College of Architecture and Urban Planning, 208T Gould Hall Box 355720, The University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195-5720. Her e-mail address is: sesut@u.washington.edu
Telephone: (206) 685-3361

Copyright 1998 Sharon E. Sutton, all rights reserved.

This article first appeared in
ARCHITECTURE: BACK ... TO ... LIFE:
Proceedings of the 79th Annual Meeting of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture.
It is posted by permission of the author.

New Horizons for Learning
URL:http://www.newhorizons.org/
E-mail:info@newhorizons.org

CHILDREN'S POEMS	TEACHER'S DEFINITIONS
Circulation System All cities have a system of roads that function like the arteries of the body. Passing through the arteries are people, bicycles, cars, buses, and trucks. Some arteries have names while others have numbers.	Circulation System A circulation system has streets, tunnels, roads, railroads, alleys, airways, sewers, bridges, sidewalks, boulevards, highways, and avenues. This is the circulation system in our world today. We all need it to get us here and there by car, truck, bus, or even in the air. I hope you knew about this. If you didn't know, you know about it now.
Neighbors and neighborhoods The place that is close to your home is your neighborhood. It's the place were people share activities and get to know each other. Some neighborhoods have fuzzy edges that make them hard to see. Others have sharp edges, such as a big street or a lake, that make them easier to see.	Neighbors and Neighborhoods A neighborhood is a place with nice people. Some neighborhoods are little, but some are big. My neighborhood is big and the houses on my block are big. I learned more about neighborhoods than I ever knew in my whole life thanks to a wonderful person from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Landscape Good cities have parks with shaded areas for sitting or playing. Water in a lake, fountain, or even an open fire hydrant make hot days cooler. Even though it's crowded in a city, people find tiny spaces to plant trees, bushes, and flowers.	Landscape We can all make a landscape, some big or some small. If you put your mind to it you can do it when you landscape. You can take a piece of land and turn it into what you plan. The best thing about a landscape is that it's the prettiest of them all. That's why I like a landscape.
Color and Texture Beautiful cities have many colors and textures to see and touch. Some things are very bright and shiny. Others things are dark and rough. Still others might be transparent like windows or reflecting like mirrors.	Color and Texture Color is something that is bright. Texture is the feel of something. Like the feel of a cloth is the texture.
Land Use At one time, designers thought that it was important to keep different types of buildings separate. All the houses were separate from businesses and industries. Now it is popular to have "mixed use" so that a downtown area may have housing and a residential area may have small industries.	Land Use We have mixed uses in neighborhoods so we won't have to go all across the world just to get somewhere.
Landmarks Some buildings, like a court house or church have special uses. Sometimes these buildings are very beautiful or old. Special buildings are called landmarks.	Landmarks A landmark is something that stands out from other things to let you know where you are.