Geography Colloquium 11.12.99 (fwd)

[Linda Bich-Kieu Wasson]

This Friday's speaker in the Geography department . . .  Remember that
there is also food afterwards in the seminar room across from the main
office.  It's a great chance to meet faculty and mingle with grad
students as well.

-Linda

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Linda Bich-Kieu Wasson
Undergraduate Adviser
Department of Geography
University of Washington
Box 353550
Seattle, WA 98195-3550
(206) 543 7793
FAX: (206) 543 3313

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		Department of Geography Colloquium

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THIS FRIDAY: 

Speakers: Susan P. Kemp (Assistant Professor, School of Social Work)
          Sharon E. Sutton (Professor, School of Architecture)

Title:	  CLAIMING AND CHANGING EDUCATIONAL SPACE: A Case Study in the
          Processes and Outcomes of Children's Environmental Appropriation

Time:     2:30 - 3:30pm on Friday 11.12.99
Place:    304 Smith Hall

ABSTRACT:

The question we explore in this presentation is whether children's
appropriation of their school environments - through participation in
school design, construction, and management - can enhance their academic
and social development, while also improving school safety and sense of
community.  Our focus builds on and extends the growing literature on
children as active participants in and shapers of their environments. Many
educators have intuitively recognized children's natural fascination with
their surroundings and have used those surroundings to promote learning.
Because they tap a variety of skills and ways of knowing, environmental
design activities can be especially effective among reluctant learners. At
the same time, there is evidence that the appropriation (claiming and
changing) of space is a vital component of childhood, one that can
increase children's sense of ownership, efficacy, and even safety in their
immediate environments.

In contemporary schools, however, many teachers are physically situated in
outdated or overcrowded facilities.  At the same time, they are held
accountable to prepare their increasingly diverse students for the work
place of the future, while being ever more consumed with maintaining a
safe, secure learning environment for those students. Although the
sociocultural context of learning is inseparable from its physical
setting, the tasks of supplying well designed, secure facilities and the
educational and social services that students access within them are
typically dealt with as disconnected issues.  While staff, social service
workers, and parents focus on children's growth and well being,
architects, facilities planners, and custodians are charged with creating
a safe and functional physical backdrop for educational activities. We are
interested in linking these two enterprises by conceiving of school
buildings and grounds not as brick and mortar but rather as dynamic
settings that provide an active and multidimensional context for child -
and adult - participation and learning.

In this presentation we discuss a participatory research study that we are
currently formulating which provides the opportunity for linking the
sociocultural and physical contexts of learning, through the medium of a
school redesign project.  We begin with an overview of the study's
conceptual framework, which includes theories of learning and childhood,
social capital and resiliency theory, theories of participation and
empowerment, and ecological theory.  With this conceptual framework as a
backdrop, we describe the site, as well as the practical strategies set
forth by the school staff for interacting with the school construction
process.  We also describe our intentions to involve the school community
in a participatory self-evaluation process, albeit one that is based on
our own empowerment perspective.  We acknowledge that while empowerment
theory aligns with certain aspects of the study site, it is in stark
contrast with traditional approaches to education and, thus, can be a
means of transformation.  We conclude with a set of expectations for
positive changes in the behavior and perceptions of individual students,
staff, and parents, the school as an organizational structure, and the
community.