Book Review

"To Live in an environment that has to be endured or ignored rather than enjoyed is to be diminished as a human being."
Sinclair Gauldie (1969). Architecture: The Application of the Arts. London: Oxford University Press. (p. 182)

Book Review
by
C. Kenneth Tanner (July 2000) -
There appears to be a gap in the significant amount of attention given to physical learning environments. The literature is sparse on the topic (see other articles on this web site) of how the learning environment may influence students on the affective, behavioral, and cognitive dimensions of learning. This book, although published in 1988, is worth reading because it brings a fresh approach to how physical learning environments and people interact. (My comments). This book (out of print) may be backordered from several electronic web sites and local book stores. It received a 5 star rating from Amazon.com readers.

In the Forward of Caring Spaces, Learning Places: Children's Environments That Work , Elizabeth Prescott notes that "It has been said that fish can tell you little about water." (p.3) She contends that people can tell you little about their physical environment. Dr. Prescott admitted that the information in 1988 about childhood environments was scarce, except for standards for square footage, amount of light (which is still largely ignored today), number of toilets, and fire safety. Unfortunately, minimums, instead of optimum program quality, were established in the areas of square footage and space relationships. We all know that minimum often becomes the standard. The significance of this book lies in the author's skill in showing how ordinary, everyday work with children which may be deemed dull and burdensome can be transformed into meaning that can last a lifetime.

Geenman begins by sharing one of his experiences (a Maalox moment for sure). "My first experience as a teacher came in 1967, in a summer day Head Start classroom located in (where else?) a church basement. I waited for my 18 four year olds to come in off the bus, putting the finishing touches on my classroom: tables with assorted activities, block corner, dress-up area, and bookshelf with colorful books. In they came, some shy, most excited. Then in came Carlos, two feet tall, with a foot high Afro, and a look and bearing about him that proclaimed: here was a man among men.

The other children clearly looked up to him (figuratively speaking). Carlos coolly surveyed the room where he was to spend eight hours a day, five days a week, for the next twelve weeks. A sinister uneasiness hung in the air. I began to get nervous, because it was clear that the children were waiting for Carlos's judgment on my efforts. It came soon. "This place is dooky," Carlos pronounced. (Carlos always pronounced, he never spoke.) Soon all the children began chanting, "This place is dooky," and I saw my summer rapidly deteriorating.

Well, I survived that trial by making Carlos my main man, planning some great experiences, and establishing a good rapport with the children. But it took me ten years to learn all the implications of the lesson Carlos taught me. Carlos recognized at a glance that the church basement was a crummy place to spend the summer. My cheery presence and imaginative activities helped only a little. Carlos knew that places are not containers for experience nor simply stages for interactions between people, large and small. They are, in Elizabeth Prescott's words, "regulators of our experience" (1979, p.1)
[Elizabeth Prescott, (1979). The Physical Environment - A Powerful Regulator of Experience," Child Care Information Exchange, April, 1979.]

The book is filled with illustrations. There are approximately two illustrations per page (These are images of children doing something relative to the topic of the section being presented). In addition, there are numerous vignettes placed appropriately to make points relevant to the text. Some of these are research based literary sketches related to the topic of discussion. Sketches and drawings such as the three linked in this review are also prevalent. The text offers a collection of poems. I have presented two in this review. Finally, the author has a sense of humor as you discovered while reading about Carlos, the pronouncer.

Greenman acknowledges that an environment is a living, changing system. More than physical space, it includes the way time is structured and the roles we are expected to play. It conditions how we feel, think, and behave; and it dramatically affects the quality of our lives. The environment either works for us or against us as we conduct our lives. In the Head Start setting, it worked against the children and me and placed a burden on our talents, patience, good will, and energy. The environment at a given moment in time is either a pleasing place to be or it isn't. The basement wasn't that day in June and all the other summer days, for the children or for the adults.
The book is for planners, designers, educators, architects, and decision making boards as I see it. Greenman stated that the book was written for teachers, directors, parents, and children - all those who have a stake in having settings work for them and be reasonable places to be [I agree with that also.] He contends that the all too ubiquitous church basement is a symptom of the lack of resources this society allocates to its youngest members. Programs become used to working with minimal space, minimum [Perhaps the author means maximum ratios?] adult-child ratios, minimal equipment, and so on and so on.

Much of the focus of the book is on all day child care settings. These settings encompass nearly all the environmental issues and needs of other early childhood settings: nursery and preschool programs, playgrounds, and playrooms. A central tenet of the book is that we need to view these settings as places where children and adults live together.
I could continue with these statements, but perhaps we should look at this reference as a guide to thinking about school design and planning and how these elements influence learning. First, Greenman establishes a context:
Part One: Understanding Children's Settings

Are the environments oriented toward children or adults? Do the settings bring feelings of personal power or significance, of security, or fear?
"Space Speaks to each of us. Long corridors whisper "run" to a child; picket fences invite us to trail our hands along the slats." (p.16)
"Hot colors like reds and oranges stimulate; they are used in restaurants because they stimulate our appetites and speed up our eating." (p.16)
"Our experience of space and time is individual, but it occurs in a cultural context." (p. 19)
This chapter ends with 3 exercises, one of which is: List settings where you feel relaxed and relatively at home and settings where you feel awkward. Look for elements that seem to affect your feelings.

What are some of the life styles that children live? Various descriptions of days in children's lives provide an understanding of what the life of a child might entail. One significant conclusion is that children are over managed. They have fewer and fewer opportunities to simply mess about and follow their dreams. Consequently, each successive generation is loosing opportunities for delight and wonder.

Next, the nature of schooling* is discussed and the factory model is called into question. One assumption supported by a Carnegie study cited in this chapter is that schools are mindless, joyless, rigid, and petty. They destroy the hearts and minds of children in them. Back to the basics is regarded as back to old methods and old materials - back to the factory emphasis on worker productivity (teachers' accountability) and quality control (student testing).
Other components include:
-Children need an environment rich in experience.
-Children need a childhood rich in play.
-Children need a childhood rich in teaching.
-Children need a childhood rich with people.
-Children need a childhood where they are significant.
-Children need a childhood with places to call their own.
*[Mark Twain said, "I never let schooling interfere with my education."]

Open and closed program structures are discussed. Closed centers offer the hardest setting and the fewest opportunities for sensory play, exploration, discovery, and experiences with ranges of materials and people. Open structure centers are significantly higher in these dimensions, but family day care homes are rated the highest. (p.39)

According to research reported by Elizabeth Prescott "The advantages of effective closed structure lie in its clarity of expectations, its opportunities for a child to experience him- or herself as an important part of a group, and the practice involved in attending to adult input. Its hazards stem from the restrictions necessary to maintain the structure: requirements to maintain specific body positions, limits on mobility, absence of opportunity for tactical sensory stimulation, and performance demands that may undermine self-esteem (for example, 'All right children, sit up straight, don't wiggle, don't touch your neighbor, and be ready for my question'). In addition, structured transitions tend to consume large amounts of time (p. 40).

The advantages of open structure lie in its ability to foster initiative and reward child-child relationships and in the opportunities for mobility and tactile sensory stimulation. Its hazards lie in the difficulties of maintaining focus for individual children, in providing sufficient complexity for meaningful choice, and the tendency toward diluted adult input. (p. 41)

The nature of babies (children under two) and toddlers is presented with an eye on the physical environment. What babies and toddlers do is clearly defined. For example, babies "experiment endlessly." (p. 49)

Paradox # 1
A. The most important ingredient in good care for babies is the child's caregiver.
B. What separates high quality programs from others (adult-child rations and group size being relatively equal) is often not the caregivers but the environment.

The play environment, for example, should be developed as a wonderful, interesting place that continually captures a child's attention and is laid out to ensure individual and small group experiences, without the continual presence of many watchful adults. The learning environment should include built-in opportunities for motor and sensory experiences, the ranges of places to be with different visual and auditory stimulation, the number of protected spaces for young babies, and the problem solving opportunities for small detectives of varying interests and skills. Lying on the floor you should see pathways and small divided spaces - opportunities to go in and out, up and over, and so on; to be alone, to be enclosed on three sides, and to peer over thirty inch walls. (p.55)

Paradox #2
A. The caregiver's knowledge and sensitivity to children is the single most important quality to consider.
B. In centers the adult relationships are central to good infant and toddler care.

Space characteristics are important to the child's physical environment. Size and scale give a space its feel and sense of workability. Scale is the proportion of an object relative to its surroundings. The most significant objects to consider as reference points are people. Scale is as aspect of size, numbers, and even time. It is an important dimension to children's programs where inhabitants may range from 18 inches tall and 10 pounds to 6 feet, and let's just say very large.

Scale affects how we feel. In a sports arena we feel part of a mass or, if we are down on the field, we feel the focus of mass attention. These feelings, of course, can be exhilarating or frightening.. Children, who operate most of the time in outsized surroundings, gravitate to the tiny in spaces, objects, and living things. But children grow big before they grow well coordinated, and their need to move and exercise makes larger spaces desirable as well (pp 61-62)

Scale affects our behavior and our ability to act competently. Try sitting in a preschool chair or climbing a child's stairway to experience awkwardness as an adult.
Child scaled furnishings, equipment, and toys allow children to behave competently and feel powerful Child scale is critical where we expect children to become independent and competent. (p. 62)

Social density refers to how many people inhabit the space. If there are too many people in a given space, we usually react negatively. Children react both by withdrawing, physically and socially, and by acting aggressively. The number of people affects the size and quantity of the objects possible in a working space. The more people, the more empty space is necessary for people to feel comfortable. The feelings of being crowded is the feeling of being observed, of being in the continual presence of others. Visual separation in space reduces the sense of crowding. (p.63)
But there is an individual and cultural dimension to density as discussed by Kitchevsky et al (1969) and Hall (1969).
Kirtchevsky, S., Prescott, E. and Walling, L. (1969) Planning Environments for Young Children: Physical Space Washington, DC: NAEYC.
Hall, E. (1969). The Hidden Dimension. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
Children of certain ethnic groups, Mexican Americans, for example, function well in what to most middle class Americans is relatively crowded and congested space. (p. 63)

Our perception of crowding is affected not only by space but by smell and sound, and even more importantly, temperature and humidity. A crowded, hot room is much less bearable than the same number of people in the same size cool room.

There is a time element as well to social density. Spending a large part of the day in a large group is wearing, whether in a school or family gathering. (p. 63)

The aesthetics in children's settings are, as is everything else, a tradeoff of cost, convenience, and health concerns. Plants and animals require tending. Fluorescent lighting is cost effective, uniform lighting results in maximum flexibility. Washable surfaces are healthier and more functional: water, earth, and clay are messy, and so on. Too often the tradeoffs don't take into account equally important concerns - appreciation for the rich stimulating nature of children and the importance of beauty in our lives. (p. 64)

Under "aesthetic" heading Greenman reviews lighting, art and display, and texture.
Other significant design patterns include:

On the topic of dimensions of children's settings the reader will find enlightened discussions on:

Structuring Space
"The path of learning is more like a butterfly than that of a bullet." (p. 82)

There go the grown-ups
To the office,
To the store,
Subway rush,
Traffic crush,
Hurry, scurry,
Worry, flurry.

"Why do we think humane learning can go on in buildings that look as if they were designed to hold atomic secrets?" (p. 96)

"The outdoors has weather and life, the vastness of the sky, the universe in the petals of a flower. But many programs, following the model of schools, have seen the very qualities that make the outdoors different as obstacles or annoying side effects. The openness is tightly constricted; weather provides a reason to stay in, and landscape and life are things to be eliminated. A playground, considered the primary, if not the only outdoor setting, performs the same function as a squirrel cage or a prison exercise yard - it is a place for emotional and physical release and a bit of free social interchange". (p. 175)

"Social design is working with people rather than for them; involving people in the planning and management of the spaces around them; educating them to use the environment wisely and creatively to achieve a harmonious balance between the social, physical, and natural environment; to develop an awareness of beauty, a sense of responsibility, to the earth's environment and other living creatures; to generate, compile, and make available information about the effects on human beings. Social designers cannot achieve these objectives working by themselves. These goals can be realized only within the structures of larger organizations, which include people from whom a given project is planned/" (p. 199)
From:
Sommer, Robert. (1983). Social design : creating buildings with people in mind. Englewood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice-Hall.

This has been a rather atypical review and I hope that I have stayed within academic bounds. However, the work is so relevant to the works of the SDPL, that it was impossible to put the book down. This is an outstanding book that should be revised and reprinted. I strongly recommend it to all architects, facility planners, school leaders, and educational decision makers.