Images of the Classroom and Visions of the Learner

Almost within sight of my office are four school buildings. In one, dating from the turn of the century, the spaces called classrooms are rectangular in shape, the pupils' chairs are firmly bolted to the floor in straight rows, and the teacher's desk is front and center. In the second building, dating from the 1930s, the classrooms are square, the pupils' chairs are movable into various patterns around the room, and the teacher's desk is out of the way in a corner. In the third building, dating from the 1950s, the classrooms are also square but the pupils' movable desks are now trapezoidal in shape so that when they are placed next to each other they make a circle, and the teacher's desk has vanished! In the fourth building, there is a classroom, constructed a year or so ago, that is four times the size of the ordinary classroom. It has no teacher's or pupils' desks at all but is filled instead with odds and ends, from fish bowls and birds' nests to drawing boards and Cuisinaire rods. If one were not told it was a classroom, this space might be mistaken for an overgrown playroom or a warehouse full of children's paraphernalia. I shall refer to the spaces in the first building as the "rectangular" classroom, in the second as the "square" classI am grateful to Professor Benjamin D. Wright, who contributed valuable comments on an earlier draft of the paper.