Heading back to old familiar places (Paul McCartney/Wings)

Photo by oakie on Unsplash

We're engaged in redesigning our teacher work space and old library area for 2020.

Coincidentally, I came across this piece of great advice from an article in EdSurge:

The impulse to tackle aesthetics first is often premature, according to Rebecca Hare, who teaches art and design in St. Louis and has served as a design consultant for various schools. 

“So often I work with schools across the country going through this process, and everybody comes to me with the catalog and says, ‘We love these tables, what do you think?’” says Hare. “Nobody comes to me and says, ‘We have this incredible vision for learning, what do you think?’ So you really have to walk people back to the higher vision.”

This is a great challenge (my emphasis in the above quote btw) and it helps by reminding me of previous higher visions like our redesigned staff area. The focus was to create a calm space that took your mind of teaching; I wanted it to be more like a cafe/lounge at home than a staff room.

With that in mind, I bought some occasional chairs, a cafe style table and chairs, and asked the staff for some art (turns out we have gifted artists in our midst).  It really worked out well!

Now my attention is turning to the old library and the terribly claustrophobic teacher work room next to it.

Bottom line: I'll now go back to the staff and trustees and ask them to give me their vision for this space.

Thanks for the reminder, Rebecca.