The Third Teacher: Environment

Chapter 8: Rewired Learning

We should keep redesigning and updating schools. We should not just design once and then sit back and watch. Now, teenagers spend on average six hours a day in front of a media screen. We should incorporate this technology into the classroom. NASA technologies are available in some schools. Microsoft partnered with the School District of Philadelphia and although Microsoft provided human capital, strategic planning tools and organizational best practices, it did not donate anything. The Microsoft school is almost completely paperless. An interactive learning center replaces a traditional library and students carry laptops instead of textbooks. At the Denver School of Science and Technology, all of the students received laptops or tablet computers for free thanks to an HP grant. We need to look to these schools and plan for the unknown because right now we are trying to teach students for a future that we are not sure what they will need to know but bridging the digital divide should help us to teach in the future. 

Chapter 7: Learning For All

Chapter 7 of The Third Teacher covers three major topics: 1 Teaching Techniques, 2 Buildings, 3 People Power. Let’s look at each category and see what they have to offer us. Teaching Techniques. An idea was put forth that we should encourage adults to adopt a younger child as a mentor. This helps us understand how a younger mind and body see’s the world and helps us relate to their world by allowing them to speak their minds and provide input on how things within the schools might be changed in order to make schools better during the learning process. This same process might lead to a child shedding light upon why certain approaches haven’t worked in the past and how you might be able to salvage the situation. Most of all you need to have fun with this mentoring! The kids will respond better and more candidly if they feel at ease with you. Make use of open questions when talking to children. Often times they will tell you more about a subject if they don’t have to answer yes or no. Buildings. We need to try to create diversity in our classrooms. In order to do this we need access for all students, faculty and community so that we might break down social barriers between these groups. We need to find open areas within the schools were kids can congregate and interact, and connect to each other. We also need to get the kids interested in their classrooms. Let the kids come into a classroom two weeks before school starts, and let them all help repaint the room in bright, vibrant colors that will give them pride in their room and a sense of belonging. Let those kids help create a feel good environment and organize the layout of the room so it suits their needs. People Power. Politics can be helpful. Get local and regional politicians on board early and often. Having them participate in an event that brings the community and the school together in a positive way sparks continued interest on the part of the politicians so that if their support is needed, they can lend a hand, and facilitate a clear picture of what is needed to help schools and get them moving in a positive direction. By engaging all aspects of the community into a cooperative whole, we can better serve both the schools and the community as a single growing and dynamic entity.

Chapter 6: Realm of the Senses

Chapter six talked about the realm of the senses. Throughout the entire chapter they talked about the senses being used in the school. Studies have shown that using visual, hearing, touching, tasting and smells in school have stimulated learning. One point that was made in the chapter was the colors for different rooms. They painted classrooms and hallways in different colors and that has the power to influence the facility’s atmosphere and the performance of the students. Having different colors in the classroom will encourage students to work more diligently and will also give students eyes a visual break from the boring white and cream colored walls. Also, having color in the hallways or stairways will make them not seem so long and dreary. It can also reflect school spirit. Another point that I thought was really interesting was that students should take off their shoes in the classroom and just wear socks or slippers. If you have students are in their slippers or just sock it creates a comfortable and safe environment for them to learn in. It mentally prepares a student for learning. The last point is triggering the senses. Sounds, smell, taste, touch and movement stimulates memory, an environment that has a lot of sensory experiences help students remember what they have learned.

Chapter 5: Sustainability

Who would have ever thought that buildings could be one of the most sustainable practices known to man? It’s not to hard to imagine when school buildings represent the largest construction sector in the United States, 80 billion dollars. Not to mention Buildings being responsible for 38% of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States.

In this chapter environmentalists as well as experts of sustainability, chorused by children voice the dire needs for sustainable schools. The reasons:

• Economic
• Educational
• Environmental
• Moral

One practice being adopted by sustainability experts is that the Iroquois Confederacy, when chiefs were making decisions for their Nation, they would consider the effect of their decision on peace, the effect on the natural world, and the effect on seven generations in the future. In the chapter sustainability is explore through multiple different angles including:

•  The LEED “leapfrog” certification (Design to be better then todays top rating for environmental school)
• Revealing how stuff works (“Make school infrastructure literally transparent, to display flows of water and waste, teaches kids the workings of the real world”
• Getting eco-educated (When planning a green school, learn what things work best and what counts)
• Highlighting the site (Calling attention to a school’s unique site through design, construction, and signage)
• Attracting like minds (Sustainable school’s are billboards for compatible parents, students, and staff.)
• Letting Students lead ( “Hands on experience is a powerful teacher.” Encourage students who wants to adopt sustainable practices, and let them go for it)
• Rallying the numbers (using the numbers to make the case for an energy efficient school)
• Do your homework (aligning schools sustainability goals with families to create a wide community of support for sustainable schools)
• Get out of the City (being in the natural world provides learning opportunities that can never be shown in the city)
• Slow the Place (Discouraging high speed traffic by creating places for pausing to sit down and talk in hallways)

In this chapter of the book, I believe the authors really hit home that environment is the third teacher, through the use of sustainability. There is a very strong emphasis towards connecting with the environment in this chapter by protecting it and keeping it around for the next seven generations.

Chapter 4: Community Connections

Chapter 4 was based on the connection between a school, and it's surrounding community. This section of the book focused on children needing more than JUST a typical school day and school routine to properly and sufficiently educate a child. School is more than just a step in our lives to teach us facts and routines, it should be teaching us life skills to carry out throughout our lives. One factor that brings community and school together is having a school within walking distance of a child's neighborhood. This being done in a safe way, for example, having parents looking out along the walking route to insure safely, allows a child to experience their own neighborhood and be a part of the community outside of school walls every day. From my own experience, I lived about a mile from both my high school and my elementary school. I either walked or rode my bike when weather permitted. I loved it, it woke me up in the morning, and I got to see so many people driving by and waving. It made me feel comfortable in my town. On the other hand, I had to ride a bus 15 minutes to get to my middle school. That was awful! Scenery just flies by with no indication of where I was, it being an over crowded bus with tiny windows. All I saw every morning was the bus driver and the kids I would be with all day. The Third Teacher suggests that parents get together to make this goal happen for their neighborhood, if it is important to them. Ask for a different location for the school, make up a safe walking route, get involved! An example the book gave was of a group of parents who took the initiative to go ahead and build a new school themselves, with donated or re-used materials. This connects the community in a great way, the reason being that the community built the school, or just that they were involved in the planning and voicing their needs. The community will forever want to be involved with the school, feeling that it is a part of them. Another way to get community to mesh with schools is to have community facilities IN the schools. For example, a pool could be open to the public, maybe even including after school and evening programs to get kids from poor environments into healthy ones. Adults from the community would use this facility, and be a part of the school itself. When building a school, listening to the voices of the children and parents is super important. It will help make the children feel comfortable with their surroundings. They will want to come to school everyday. This could include bringing differing cultures into the school through teaching as well as decorating. If a diversity of cultures is represented on the walls, those minorities will feel included. That is SO important for healthy learning. To sum it up, environment is key to a child's learning, and community can make that happen. By getting community involved, children will become feeling safe and comfortable and accepted, hopefully guiding them toward being excited for school and learning. The children will begin to learn about community and how to be a productive member of their own communities! That is an important life skill.

Chapter 3: Bodies in Motion

Movement is life, life is movement! Throughout chapter 3, keeping students active in the classroom will help increase their concentration during the school day. Their concentration can be trigged by simple movements. Scary thought: a child in elementary school will lose concentration after five or, at the most ten minutes, an adolescent after 15 to 20 minutes. Try this: challenge their balance systems For example: standing on one foot after 5 to 10 seconds they will be able to concentrate afterward. During my EDU 185 I experienced this in the classroom with Mrs. Schoel’s first grade class. We would do three exercises around 9 a.m. to activate our brains. The students called them brain exercises. They were simple things such as touching elbows, balancing on a leg or touching their knees. The students were excited to pick the three activities they did every day. After the brain exercises they were more focused and ready to learn. Being able to move the furniture in your classroom easily will create a different learning environment which can help students keep their concentration if you switch around the learning environment.

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Chapter 2: Minds at Work

Chapter two of The Third Teacher, makes the point that the space students learn in need just as much attention as what students learn.   Many classrooms today do not allow for creative thinking of students nor should students be learning in classrooms that force students to learn only one way.  In this chapter it states, “free teachers from the traditional desk at the front of the classroom and encourage new settings for teaching and learning” (59).  Students do not all learn the same way, so chapter 2 also addresses why do we still not allow students to learn in different ways.  In one section the book tells the story of Gillian Lynne, she is a famous choreographer.  As a child she was thought to have problems because she would not sit still, until a doctor discovered she was creative and just liked to move.  So why do we continue to force students to sit still all day when many students cannot focus in this environment.  We learn of some schools that have addressed this issue and have found more interactive ways for students to learn.  One school is Henry Ford Academy.  This school is literally in a museum where students are able to interact with different parts of the museum.

“Diversity of learning spaces allows students to learn based on individual strengths” (72).  A remarkable country that is trying to create better learning environments is in the Cayman Islands.  The schools allow for plenty of group study spaces that allow in natural light, which is suggested to help learning (27).  This school shows what every child should have access to in the building where they are supposed to learn.  This chapter shows the importance of designing a room that the students feel comfortable in because students have different thoughts than adults. Students need to feel good about where they are learning, the thoughts of a student in Germany, “we want our school to feel more like home-safe, colorful, with lots of natural light: (74). 

Chapter 1: Basic Needs

“The air is unfit to breathe in nearly 15,000 schools” (27).  This is one of the many startling facts given in the first chapter that suggest that we are not giving our students productive learning environments.  The information given through the facts and studies present the idea that many learning environments actually hinder the learning ability of many students.  If we want children to have the best possible education we need to supply students with healthy environments.  This means that we cannot allow for faulty air ventilation, chemical cleaners that make kids sick, and we most create spaces that foster creative thinking in students.

The quote that starts of the first chapter states, “I am entirely certain that 20 years from now we will look back at education as it is practiced in most schools today and wonder how we could have tolerated anything so primitive” (John W. Gardner).   Gardner said this in his book No Easy Victories, and the reason this is important to understanding The Third Teacher, is because we cannot continue to put students in danger everyday they go to school when school is supposed to be a safe environment for students. The Third Teacher shows the importance of students to feel safe through Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs” (34).  This theory states that there are 5 needs that must be met for optimal growth.  The most important is physiological needs, the second safety, followed by belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization (34).  Therefore if a child cannot feel safe due to the environment they are forced to learn in, how can we accept them to have a “healthy development” (34). 

This chapter does not just tell us what is wrong with our school system but it gives us positive ways to fix the problems, and examples where people have succeeded in creating a positive learning environment.  Schools must commit to “make health and safety a classroom project and develop lesson plans that will produce real improvements to the learning environment” (39).  One example was making sure everyone is involved in this process from teachers to janitors, even students; everyone must work together just like a school in Canada.  The school had everyone testing the air quality; they even turned it into a project for the students.   Other ideas included cleaning schools with chemicals that can make kids sick.  This chapter expressed the safety needs that are not addressed as much as they should be.

“A society that honors its young its young is one that has a chance of creating a humane, peacemaking, sustainable culture.”

Reform in Washington Schools

Goes to show that you can't change this much without getting lots of attention....Washington Education

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