Page 76 - EdViewptsSpring2020

Updating School Designs 2020:

A Review of the Literature

By Gary R. Snyder, Ed.D., Retired NJ High School Principal, NJEXCEL
Instructor and Mentor

One can easily swipe and and advances in brain science that first Apple computers in the 1970s and

search on an iPhone to have influenced 21st century teaching the limitations on today’s technology
and learning, our school buildings have
(function), if the designs (form) had not
find the National Center largely gone unchanged for nearly half changed over the last 44 years.
for Education Statistics a century or more. School leaders can’t upgrade schools

2018 report that states the In his seminal work, A Place Called as quickly as an iPhone upgrade, but
with the average age and conditions
School, John Goodlad described
average age of schools in the familiar classroom setting with of schools across the state, more and
the U.S. is 44 years old. desks in rows, oriented toward the more districts will be forming committees
teacher, and students predominantly
to consider school renovation and/or
Forty-four years ago, in 1976, the in a passive role (Goodlad, 1984). new construction projects.
country celebrated the nation’s While advances in the function of Articles in the popular press and
bicentennial, Jimmy Carter was elected today’s pedagogy toward a more other recent publications by futurists,
president, and the Apple Computer student-centered and active learning architects, and educators espouse
Company was established. Fast- environment are evident in many the nexus between school design
forward to 2020, where the form and classrooms, the form and structure of and education as a 21st century
function of computing has evolved school building designs constructed phenomena, but the connection has
beyond the imagination of 1976. in a different era present limitations. long been established. In Dewey’s
Despite changes in society, technology, Consider the form and function of the seminal work, Democracy and

Educational Viewpoints -74- Spring 2020