Student Lounge
Yesterday our accommodating postman parked a giant Dell computer box on our doorstep. Inside it was my latest ebay purchase: a sun-and-moon-on-navy beanbag.
"It's for the student lounge?" Shane huffed. "When I was in high school, we worked. We didn't lounge."
"They work now too." I answered mildly. "They just get to do it in comfortable positions now. The lounge is just a few spots next to the wall. The spaces are divided from each other by a bookcase," I continued. "They're in plain sight of a teacher all the time, and the same rules about whispering and goofing-off apply as if they were anywhere else. We've already got several big floor cushions, but I decided we needed at least one beanbag."
I didn't deem it wise at the time, given Shane's attitude, to add that we have also begun to allow anyone, even those on zero privilege in our individualized program, to get out of their offices to go work while standing at one of the two speaker's stands we have set up to face a learning center wall. At least one of them has been in use most of the time since we hit upon this idea.
The principal I teach under, and I, are blessedly likeminded. He's less given to enthusing than I am, but I have long held that making classrooms as homelike as possible is a good thing.
I base my thinking on what I observe in Scripture about the assumed environment for the instruction of children. Verses surrounding the shema in Deut. 6 tell me that an everyday environment is just right as an instructional environment. In that environment you can sit down and rise up. You can walk by the way and you can lie down. And always, teaching happens while you are also doing something else. What a concept!
And how foreign to the rigid, sterile sameness espoused by the business tycoons of the mid-1800's who saw the school environment as a golden opportunity to develop a workforce accustomed to mindless acceptance of the status quo. These students would someday make excellent assembly line factory workers, willing to do monotonous tasks day after day, because they had become accustomed to functioning like robots, and expected nothing better from life. The industrialists had a largely unknown, but clearly documentable, influence on American educational traditions. (See The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto.) Knowing this background gives me a huge sense of freedom to explore other educational choices.
I feel no obligatory loyalty to educational traditions that our Christian schools have copied from the state schools around us. But I am very thoughtful about another obligation--that of turning first to the Word of God for direction. What I read there seems to leave room for speaker's stands, floor cushions, and beanbag chairs in an instructional environment. My observations so far indicate that the ancient directives are sound and serve us well in a small Christian high school setting.
So Shane will just have to sputter away, and for once, the students can chortle with pleasure as they compare their lot with those who are already out of school.
"It's for the student lounge?" Shane huffed. "When I was in high school, we worked. We didn't lounge."
"They work now too." I answered mildly. "They just get to do it in comfortable positions now. The lounge is just a few spots next to the wall. The spaces are divided from each other by a bookcase," I continued. "They're in plain sight of a teacher all the time, and the same rules about whispering and goofing-off apply as if they were anywhere else. We've already got several big floor cushions, but I decided we needed at least one beanbag."
I didn't deem it wise at the time, given Shane's attitude, to add that we have also begun to allow anyone, even those on zero privilege in our individualized program, to get out of their offices to go work while standing at one of the two speaker's stands we have set up to face a learning center wall. At least one of them has been in use most of the time since we hit upon this idea.
The principal I teach under, and I, are blessedly likeminded. He's less given to enthusing than I am, but I have long held that making classrooms as homelike as possible is a good thing.
I base my thinking on what I observe in Scripture about the assumed environment for the instruction of children. Verses surrounding the shema in Deut. 6 tell me that an everyday environment is just right as an instructional environment. In that environment you can sit down and rise up. You can walk by the way and you can lie down. And always, teaching happens while you are also doing something else. What a concept!
And how foreign to the rigid, sterile sameness espoused by the business tycoons of the mid-1800's who saw the school environment as a golden opportunity to develop a workforce accustomed to mindless acceptance of the status quo. These students would someday make excellent assembly line factory workers, willing to do monotonous tasks day after day, because they had become accustomed to functioning like robots, and expected nothing better from life. The industrialists had a largely unknown, but clearly documentable, influence on American educational traditions. (See The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto.) Knowing this background gives me a huge sense of freedom to explore other educational choices.
I feel no obligatory loyalty to educational traditions that our Christian schools have copied from the state schools around us. But I am very thoughtful about another obligation--that of turning first to the Word of God for direction. What I read there seems to leave room for speaker's stands, floor cushions, and beanbag chairs in an instructional environment. My observations so far indicate that the ancient directives are sound and serve us well in a small Christian high school setting.
So Shane will just have to sputter away, and for once, the students can chortle with pleasure as they compare their lot with those who are already out of school.
posted by Mrs. I at
6:21 AM
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