This is Studio 8 (two more photos), the room where I spend most of my day. The eighth graders decided how to arrange the place at the beginning of the school year. It includes a variety of options for working, meeting, making, discussing, relaxing, watching, listening, playing, etc. Another class would have set up the space in a different way.
Susan Cain describes “The Rise of the New Groupthink”, concerned that we have made it impossible for individuals to find solitude in the places they go to work and to learn. Towards the end, she writes:
But even if the problems are different, human nature remains the same. And most humans have two contradictory impulses: we love and need one another, yet we crave privacy and autonomy.
To harness the energy that fuels both these drives, we need to move beyond the New Groupthink and embrace a more nuanced approach to creativity and learning. Our offices should encourage casual, cafe-style interactions, but allow people to disappear into personalized, private spaces when they want to be alone. Our schools should teach children to work with others, but also to work on their own for sustained periods of time. And we must recognize that introverts like Steve Wozniak need extra quiet and privacy to do their best work.
We’ve aimed for that, and we think that we’ve succeeded. Headphones can also help create some privacy.
For further insight about the studio classroom approach that we’ve taken in our middle school (an for that matter, play and learning in general), watch this interview with Eike König, founder of Hort.
Update: Now realizing that it makes sense to point to another recent post of mine, “Our middle school is an art school?” That should make things even more clear.
