IN THE BUBBLE JOHN THACKARA - witz cultural

148 Chapter 7
Marlborough College that he was the ideal person to build a school for
teenage boys. Maybe they were right—but I cannot recall being bothered
by my school buildings one way or another. What I do remember (fondly,
for the most part) are teachers and fellow pupils and some of the things we
did together.
What matters most to all learners is activity, not architecture. We all deserve
to spend time in safe, pleasant, and comfortable surroundings, rather
than their opposite. Beyond that, most buildings will do. What learning
needs most is a lot more space, as well as time, than it gets right now.
There’s no need to purpose-build huge numbers of schools and colleges.
Fine calculations about square meters per child or the relative merits of discrete
classrooms along corridors versus communal halls are secondary
issues. We need double, triple the space we have now, for learning. The
world is filled with abandoned or underused cinemas, gas stations, power
plants, warehouses, and railway yards. We should commandeer them for
learning. As I suggested in chapters 3 and 4, we can use the resource management
systems pioneered in the logistics industry to combine learners
and spaces in new ways and at new times.
Design Principle 3: Meaningful Projects
Metacognitive skills—judgment, understanding, the capacity to reflect—do
not lend themselves to being taught by rote. Nor are they easy to download
from a website. Active learning happens when we participate in projects
that are meaningful to us and engage with the real world. We need to believe
that the task we are about to tackle is important and meaningful. As
Charles Hampden-Turner and Alfons Trompenaars so wisely counsel, we
often overlook ‘‘the extent to which needed applications give meaningful
zest to our work and learning: Without shared purposes and moral meaning,
we end up with a culture of self-absorption and narcissism.’’ 40 Those
words resonate uncomfortably when I think about some of the projects I
see during my frequent visits to universities and design and architecture
schools. Projects that enable self-expression by the individual student, but
are otherwise pointless, are depressingly common.
The design of meaningful projects is not easy—particularly if an instructor
tries to do this on her own. A success factor for projects is that learners
should help to design them. Precooked projects are usually uninspiring.