Buildings have long been providing us with messages. Some messages are conveyed by signs (like "Open 9 to 5") and some by more subtle means (for example, a large inviting doorway suggests that visitors are welcome). Architects are always trying to make their buildings convey more information about more and more subjects. Applied to schools, this effort can give us buildings that do more than just shelter learning: They can actually help teach.
Most school buildings feature plaques, bulletin boards, display cabinets, and flagpoles that provide information. It is possible, however, to add range and depth to this information by employing "built teaching aids." Examples include several types of signs and displays, painted pavements in playgrounds, flagpole clusters, very large letters, and even bas-reliefs and free-standing sculptures.
Large Displays in Entry Areas
A bulletin board announcing coming events is a common built teaching aid. It can reach parents who never get closer to the school than its dropoff point. Educators can tape messages to a solid board or pin them to a cork board with tacks. Regardless of the type of board, staff should locate the board where parents will see it and should make sure that it is large enough to contain messages that will get the parents' attention.
A large display case is another common type of teaching aid. Placed near the school's entry area, the case can tell students, parents, and visitors what's offered inside. At high schools, science classes can use the large cases to display student projects about continental drift or animal habitats, for example. At elementary schools, math classes can use them to show how to find the area of a circle or the volume of a house.
Most schools already have display cases near their libraries to tell about new books. By adding several larger cases, educators can introduce students to new subjects and remind them about old ones.
In the entry area, changing display cases can be complemented by large, colorful permanent information panels. Takoma School, in Washington, D.C., has a panel with a series of sections made of blue and white porcelain steel. The panel displays the name of the school and includes a giant map of the District of Columbia area, with its rivers, bridges, and museums, as well as every street in the Takoma community.
At Lowell School, also in the District, a mural painted by local artist George Sommoriba displays the Western Hemisphere, several constellations, a family, birds, and special features of daily and seasonal change. Its colorful images are inviting and cheerful, but could be made even more informative if some of the objects had labels.
Permanent information panels can also be small. Takoma School has several glazed clay tiles that are only 12 inches by 12 inches but still contain numbers, letters, and information on hemispheres.
Signs in Lobbies and Corridors
Some schools also use permanent information panels at interior locations. One example would be an immense measuring tape, painted along a corridor or up a tall wall. It might include both metric and nonmetric dimensions, allowing students to measure school spaces as well as books, strides, friends, and themselves.
Many schools also have student information boards at highly visible spots along a hallway. In classrooms, smaller student information boards often illustrate class activities and prompt class discussions.
A lobby or corridor is also a good spot for an interior window into a classroom. Usually, windows are used only on exteriors, for light and views. A window into a classroom, which can be either a series of small windows or one large one, teaches by allowing students passing by to see class activities. The ability to look in on these activities—and even on school boiler rooms, for that matter—adds information and interest to lobbies and corridors, making it possible for students to both learn and be entertained as they walk the halls.
A window looking into a carpentry class, for example, can help students learn by watching. The art room at Langley School in Virginia has just a few windows looking into it, whereas Harvard University's Carpenter Center has a glass-lined path that leads pedestrians through studio classrooms. Although some building codes restrict windows into classrooms at certain locations, often the architect can comply with the codes by specifying special types of glass or fittings.
Not every class activity is suitable for this purpose, and some teachers are opposed to a window into their classrooms because of concerns about distraction. Most of these distractions are due to noise, however, and a well-oriented window made of insulating glass—which cuts sound transmissions substantially—can alleviate typical problems.
Aids for Exterior Areas
The pavement in a playground can become a gigantic marker board that supports both play and education. For example, a polychromatic snake with claws, one of which held a north arrow, was painted on the pavement of a playground at the Mann School in Washington, D.C. Had the artist added more claws to hold more symbols, the snake could have conveyed even more information. (Unfortunately, the painting has since been lost to building expansion.)
"Greater D.C. Cares," a volunteer group in Washington that assists the needy in such areas as housing repairs, tutoring, and food, has painted maps—some showing the entire world—on school playgrounds. These maps add color and information without impeding the games.
Such pavement paintings can last as long as 10 years, even with bad weather and rough use, if paints designed for this purpose are used. Paints with shorter design lives can be good choices for designs needing to be changed frequently. A playground Spanish/English word list, for example, could be revised weekly or even daily.
Flags are often a school's most cheerful elements, offering movement and color. They also teach because they tell about the school's nationality and, sometimes, its state and local identity. Flagpole clusters can do even more. Installed in or beside school playgrounds, they can display information in a colorful and spirited way.
Students can design flags for a cluster using only scissors and adhesive. Because the flags can be replaced easily and frequently, the clusters can provide information on almost anything: botany, local history, even geometry.
A flagpole cluster should include enough poles—at least six—to offer a series of related images. The poles should be short enough—approximately 16 feet—to facilitate flag reading. To make use of a flagpole cluster, the teacher begins by selecting a topic, such as whales. Students lay out whale patterns on sheets of paper, correct them, and pin the finished patterns on flag material for cutting and attaching.
When professionals make flags, they use fairly heavy nylon, sew the edges to resist unraveling, and use grommets to hook flags to pole ropes. For flags that will be used only occasionally or temporarily, the teacher can use cheaper fabrics and simply tie the flag corners to pole ropes. By experimenting with different fabrics, adhesives, and knots, educators can develop flags that are either temporary and inexpensive, or durable but costly, depending on their needs and budgets.
The walls of the building itself can contain another teaching aid, a bas-relief group. Masonry walls are usually built of two or more layers of material, each about four inches thick. A four-inch-thick bas-relief group can replace part of the outer layer. A bas-relief group, made by either sculptors or students, can illustrate machinery, ocean life, and many other images. Coordination with an architect and a builder can help make installation safer and more durable.
If students make the sculpture, they can form clay into chosen words and shapes, then make a mold around them. They will need to smooth the rough areas of the mold and coat its surfaces to prevent its bonding with concrete. Vibrating concrete before it sets can reduce bubbles. After a few days of curing, the bas-relief can be removed from its mold and installed.
Students can also make a bas-relief without molds (except for edge molds) by applying concrete directly to the masonry surface. First they should coat the surface to make it easier to remove the concrete. A bas-relief can also feature durable objects partly buried in the concrete. For example, students might use thick sea-shells or pieces of rock to illustrate local geology.
Playgrounds for preschoolers are good locations for groups of very large letters. The group could begin with the letter A, followed by as many other letters that available space and budget permit. Another group might include letters significant to the school. Whatever the letters, they can become a part of play as well as a part of the classroom curriculum.
These letters are made of a building material called "exterior insulation system." This consists of a weatherproof coating applied over fiberglass mesh onto a thick layer of rigid insulation, such as Styrofoam. This in turn is attached to a framework held fast to solid footings. The object can be soft enough to allow young students to bump into it without serious injury. Parents or older students who are handy with tools can build these letters.
Educators can use this same technology to create statues of their school's own local heroes. Cities usually reserve statues for generals and politicians, but others deserve the honor as well, including neighborhood leaders, characters in myths, special animals, and favorite teachers. A statue that relates to the school or its program can help students to develop a territorial bond with their school.
Schools and the Environment
We and our institutions—particularly our schools—need to find ways of collaborating more closely with the environment. A school building designed to be environmentally responsive can teach by example, and a permanent information panel can help make the lesson clear. Together these can be the most important teaching tools of all.
To start with, educators might use deciduous plants to conserve energy used for air-conditioning. These plants, placed on the southern exterior of the building, can provide summer shade for windows and walls. In winter, when their leaves have fallen, they will let the sun warm the building, saving energy used for heating. A commemorative plaque can credit the donors and explain the issues.
School repairs and improvements offer opportunities to teach about environmental topics, such as water conservation, air quality, or recycling. Site developments could include urban gardens and rural foliage, or perhaps ponds and meadows. An environmentally responsive building and its permanent information panel connect students to their environment and present a philosophic bridge between buildings and nature.
Built Teaching Aids Are All Around Us
These are just a few examples of built teaching aids. Educators can discover others by looking at all types of buildings, including museums, malls, gas stations, and supermarkets, and noting what types of information they offer and how they present it.
Some teaching aids are age-specific. Preschoolers would benefit from very large letters, for example, whereas older students, whose complex projects have much conceptual content and detail, would have the most use for large display cases. As with other aspects of their programs, educators should design these teaching tools around the ages and concerns of their students and the neighborhood in which their school is located.
Choosing which built teaching aids to use, and where and how to employ them, should not be difficult. Educators face similar choices whenever they choose books or develop programs. These aids are different only in that most teachers and administrators have had only limited experience with them.
School staffs can take advantage of these tools by adding what they can, when they can. Whenever their schools are expanded or remodeled, they can write their project programs to make sure they produce buildings that teach.
