One size fits no one

I tried to imagine the shape of the child-shaped school.

This was hard.

I needed help because the provocation itself, while evocative, was actually quite rigid. It needed to loosen up.

And then, as it always is when simplicity disperses the dense, claggy fug of overthought, the notion revealed itself, and it really was quite simple.

So it was not about the shape of the school after all. Not in any substantive, physical sense. It wasn’t about footprints or recommended square meters per child, or of bricks and mortar, or ones and zeros, or canvas shelters, or log cabins, or tree houses, or repurposed industrial units. No, the shape of the school is actually the shape of expectations, of purpose, of relationships and mutualism, and the shape of care and conversation. It’s the shape of stories and shared endeavour, of giving a lot and getting a lot. Perhaps more than anything, it’s the shape of listening and hearing and acting.

So I guess this building here will do just fine. We just need to be careful about what we bring in from the outside and what we leave at the door. And how we behave when we are here.

In Steven Levy’s wonderful 1996 book ‘Starting from Scratch - one classroom builds its own curriculum’ he describes how he and his young charges started with an empty room and voted in everything they needed. Nothing was assumed. The educational necessity of every item - however trivial - was interrogated. I particularly loved that they voted on whether they should bring pencils into the classroom. Nothing escaped scrutiny.

I tried again to imagine the shape of the child-shaped school.

It was a little easier this time, and full of hope.