I recently revisited my old (private) high school, which had finished building a new >$15 million building for its football team (and misc. student activities & classes).
I suddenly remembered that when I was much younger, the lust of universities and schools in general for new buildings had always puzzled me: I knew perfectly well that I learned more or less the same whether the classroom was shiny new or grizzled gray and that this was true of just about every subject-matter*, and even then it was obvious that buildings must cost a lot to build and then maintain, and space didn’t seem plausible (because I passed empty classrooms all the time and they were often the same classroom pretty much all day). So this always puzzled me as a kid—big buildings seemed like perfect white elephants. I could understand the donors’ reason, but not anyone else’s.
When I remembered my childhood aporia, I suddenly realized - ‘Oh, this is status-seeking behavior; big buildings are unfakeable social signals of wealth and influence. I was just being narrow-minded in assuming that if it didn’t have your name on it, it couldn’t boost your status.’
(I don’t really have any point to this anecdote, but I thought it was interesting that OB/LW reading solved a longstanding puzzle of mine.)
* Obviously a few subject-matters do require specialized facilities; it’s hard to do pottery without a specialized art-room, for example. But those are a minority.
I knew perfectly well that I learned more or less the same whether the classroom was shiny new or grizzled gray and that this was true of just about every subject-matter*, and even then it was obvious that buildings must cost a lot to build and then maintain, and space didn’t seem plausible (because I passed empty classrooms all the time and they were often the same classroom pretty much all day). So this always puzzled me as a kid—big buildings seemed like perfect white elephants. I could understand the donors’ reason, but not anyone else’s.
I don’t know about that. I know that there are several buildings at my university that I hate to have classes in, because they’re either too hot, too cold, or poorly ventilated. Yes, you’re correct that in the majority of cases, the age of the building makes no difference (e.g. no one recognizes the difference between a two year old building and a twenty year old building), but in extremis, the age can make a difference (e.g. if the building does not have proper ventilation or temperature control). Its very difficult to keep focused when the classroom is 30 degrees Celcius and the lecture is two hours long.
Well, I can’t really object to the extremes theory. You aren’t a Third-Worlder or a highly driven Indian or Chinese or pre-20th century American child who wouldn’t be bothered by such conditions, after all.
But most school building is not about avoiding such extremes. I can cite exactly one example in my educational career where a building had a massive overhaul due to genuine need (a fire in the gym burned the roof badly); all the other expansions and new buildings.… not so much.
Its very difficult to keep focused when the classroom is 30 degrees Celcius and the lecture is two hours long.
This reflects a failure of pedagogy more than the value of architecture—I’ve never seen any research saying students can really focus & learn for 2 hours, and the research I glanced over suggest much shorter lectures than that. (IIRC, the FAA or USAF found pilot-education lectures should be no longer than 20 minutes and followed immediately by review.)
Yes, you’re correct that in the majority of cases, the age of the building makes no difference (e.g. no one recognizes the difference between a two year old building and a twenty year old building) . . .
My dorm building has the number 2008 carved conspicuously into one of the stones in its facade. It’s pretty easy to tell that it’s a two year old building.
My town has fairly recently (in the past ten years) added several new school buildings. The old buildings had problems (leaky roofs, no air conditioning, etc.) and the town’s school-age population was growing.
Now, if they would only be willing to expand the library. :(
So make the classes bigger, perhaps. In a Hansonian vein:
“But while state legislatures for decades have passed laws — and provided millions of dollars — to cap the size of classes, some academic researchers and education leaders say that small reductions in the number of students in a room often have little effect on their performance.” ... Dan Goldhaber, an education professor at the University of Washington, said the obsession with class size stemmed from a desire for “something that people can grasp easily — you walk into a class and you see exactly how many kids are there.” “Whether or not it translates into an additional advantage doesn’t necessarily matter,” Professor Goldhaber said. “We know that teachers are the most important thing, but teacher quality is not stamped on someone’s forehead.” http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/education/22class.html
(I don’t think I ever met someone who failed to learn something because somewhere in the school there was a leak. Because of no air conditioning, maybe, but puddles or leaks?)
Well, classrooms are of limited size. I know that the classrooms at my old high school were only designed for thirty kids each. Now they hold nearly forty each. There is a significant cost from having correspondingly less space per person. The corresponding reductions in mobility and classroom flexibility have an impact on learning.
This is especially pronounced in science labs. Having even one more person per lab station can have a surprisingly detrimental impact on learning. If there are two or three people at a lab station, then pretty much everyone is forced to participate (and learn) in order to finish the lesson. However, if there are four or more kids at a lab station, then you can have a person slacking off, not doing much and the others can cover for the slacker. The slacker doesn’t learn anything, and the other students are resentful because three are doing the work of four.
I recently revisited my old (private) high school, which had finished building a new >$15 million building for its football team (and misc. student activities & classes).
I suddenly remembered that when I was much younger, the lust of universities and schools in general for new buildings had always puzzled me: I knew perfectly well that I learned more or less the same whether the classroom was shiny new or grizzled gray and that this was true of just about every subject-matter*, and even then it was obvious that buildings must cost a lot to build and then maintain, and space didn’t seem plausible (because I passed empty classrooms all the time and they were often the same classroom pretty much all day). So this always puzzled me as a kid—big buildings seemed like perfect white elephants. I could understand the donors’ reason, but not anyone else’s.
When I remembered my childhood aporia, I suddenly realized - ‘Oh, this is status-seeking behavior; big buildings are unfakeable social signals of wealth and influence. I was just being narrow-minded in assuming that if it didn’t have your name on it, it couldn’t boost your status.’
(I don’t really have any point to this anecdote, but I thought it was interesting that OB/LW reading solved a longstanding puzzle of mine.)
* Obviously a few subject-matters do require specialized facilities; it’s hard to do pottery without a specialized art-room, for example. But those are a minority.
I don’t know about that. I know that there are several buildings at my university that I hate to have classes in, because they’re either too hot, too cold, or poorly ventilated. Yes, you’re correct that in the majority of cases, the age of the building makes no difference (e.g. no one recognizes the difference between a two year old building and a twenty year old building), but in extremis, the age can make a difference (e.g. if the building does not have proper ventilation or temperature control). Its very difficult to keep focused when the classroom is 30 degrees Celcius and the lecture is two hours long.
Well, I can’t really object to the extremes theory. You aren’t a Third-Worlder or a highly driven Indian or Chinese or pre-20th century American child who wouldn’t be bothered by such conditions, after all.
But most school building is not about avoiding such extremes. I can cite exactly one example in my educational career where a building had a massive overhaul due to genuine need (a fire in the gym burned the roof badly); all the other expansions and new buildings.… not so much.
This reflects a failure of pedagogy more than the value of architecture—I’ve never seen any research saying students can really focus & learn for 2 hours, and the research I glanced over suggest much shorter lectures than that. (IIRC, the FAA or USAF found pilot-education lectures should be no longer than 20 minutes and followed immediately by review.)
My dorm building has the number 2008 carved conspicuously into one of the stones in its facade. It’s pretty easy to tell that it’s a two year old building.
My town has fairly recently (in the past ten years) added several new school buildings. The old buildings had problems (leaky roofs, no air conditioning, etc.) and the town’s school-age population was growing.
Now, if they would only be willing to expand the library. :(
So make the classes bigger, perhaps. In a Hansonian vein:
(I don’t think I ever met someone who failed to learn something because somewhere in the school there was a leak. Because of no air conditioning, maybe, but puddles or leaks?)
Well, classrooms are of limited size. I know that the classrooms at my old high school were only designed for thirty kids each. Now they hold nearly forty each. There is a significant cost from having correspondingly less space per person. The corresponding reductions in mobility and classroom flexibility have an impact on learning.
This is especially pronounced in science labs. Having even one more person per lab station can have a surprisingly detrimental impact on learning. If there are two or three people at a lab station, then pretty much everyone is forced to participate (and learn) in order to finish the lesson. However, if there are four or more kids at a lab station, then you can have a person slacking off, not doing much and the others can cover for the slacker. The slacker doesn’t learn anything, and the other students are resentful because three are doing the work of four.
Leaks damage things. Such as ceilings, for example.