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(Continued from Schools 2)
These created forms or environments can
be called “Life Frames,” and they are usually site and situation
specific, and integrate the local diversity: human, ecological, historic,
economic. These “Life Frames” involve the local people in the
design/development/use/ maintenance/communication of whatever is created.
In this way, the place and the program become strong force within the community
and the resulting situation can endure. The environment can both serve to
beautify and enhance a physical space, and its process of creation/use/maintenance/communi- cation
can add immeasurably to a community's education, growth and maturation.
Furthermore, these individual “Life Frames” can be electronically
linked so that the layering and interconnections will occur simultaneously
at a local level and at regional, national, and international levels. This
communication can be achieved by using new technologies directly in the
park/open space setting. Such a relationship presents extraordinary opportunities
for counterpointing ecological and technological diversity and, even more
importantly, for linking cultures - people, places, events, and ideas of
great diversity - at home and around the globe.
Examples of “Life Frames” include the ideas to create A Living
Library, an interactive international culture park that would be linked
with like places around the world; A Garden of Knowledge, a traveling exhibition
that was a mini- demonstration for A Living Library; and Living History
Garden Rooms, a proposal for a university campus...[for descriptions of
A Living Library and A Garden of Knowledge, see above.]
The Living History Garden Rooms, proposed as an extension to a university
arboretum, would move us through time and different locations around the
globe in order to understand the environments and cultures of different
periods and places - past, present and future - through plants, garden design,
methodologies, and tools. Each Living History Garden Room would also function
as an artwork and would include visual artworks within it created by students
and professional artists as well as programs and lectures, demonstrations
and performing artworks that directly relate to the curricula and research
resources of the university. In addition, each Garden Room would have computer/video
capabilities, also developed by students, to give greater detailed information
in each subject area.
The educational and recreational, as well as the aesthetic implications
of such a project are astounding, not only for the university and its students
but for the community at large. It is an innovative way to bring a community
together in a celebration of learning, creating, and maintaining the environment
and our rich diversity - cultural and ecological. The gardens would link
artists, environmentalists, historians, horticulturists, ecologists, engineers,
professors of al subjects, students of all ages and disciplines, new technologies
experts, families, foreign dignitaries, senior citizens, and corporate and small
business people. The Living History Garden Rooms would bring the humanities,
sciences, and social science to life through dynamic environmental and integrated
programs.
Proposed topics for Living History Garden Rooms include: Ancient Egyptian,
Persian, and Chinese; Greek/Roman; Japanese Zen; Medieval; Italian Renaissance;
17th Century French; 18th Century American;19th century Naturalistic with
Victorian alcove; Native American; African; Late 20th Century International
Peace Garden, with elements from different cultures; and Gardens of the
Future - an opportunity for artists and students to create changing garden
environments/installations/exhibits.
The detailed designs of each garden room would be developed in conjunction
with university student's research for credit, as applicable. Students could
participate as project coordinators, interns, research associates, and volunteers.
Not only would the resulting gardens be innovative as arboretum additions,
but the process of creation and maintenance would present new opportunities
for interdisciplinary studies, serving as an educational adjunct to the
curriculum giving students and others and unusual opportunity to gain practical
experience with plants and design as well as knowledge of how ideas and
events from different cultures are connected. These three examples of “life
frames“ are vehicles that will help us to achieve peace; first, through
involvement and understanding at home; then through interaction with other
places. It is through involvement and interaction, and understanding connections
and analogies that we will grow and evolve as a species.
III. A Vision of the School of the Future
(from A Living Library as the School of the Future;
Education as an Ecological System, © 1990 -1991)
The school of the future can be an indoor/outdoor living, learning laboratory
open days, evenings, and weekends. It will function as a community magnet that
attracts and involves a multigenerational public. Students. Teachers,
historians, artists,
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environmentalists, ecologists, horticulturists,
business people, scientists, foreign dignitaries, media technologists, senior
citizens, families, and others will be involved in the creation, use, maintenance,
and communication of its richly varied environments and programs, curricula,
and creative research institutes, All of the programmatic elements will
be integrated with its diverse environments, both built and ecological.
Students will want to learn because learning will be
experienced as fun, useful, fascinating, and “the thing to do”.
Teachers will want to teach because they will be appreciated and supported
- and they will come from all fields and sectors of the community.
“… a profound appreciation...of
the synchronicity, similarity, and diversity that exists in the universe…”
In the school of the future all participants will be thought of as educators
- including the students - albeit demonstrating varying degrees
of expertise. Teachers will be guides, not authoritarian figures,
and love and support will be given to students. Teacher “control”
and student discipline which today takes up much precious class
time will become unnecessary and even obsolete.
Class size will be much smaller and many of the classes and workshops
will be multigenerational with children and adults participating
together and in some cases working as research teams. Students
will be respected and given many choices and they will be held
responsible for their choice - in behavior and subject matter.
The school of the future will integrate and balance technology,
culture, and ecology with the traditional school subjects, through
environments integrated with programs and curricula designed to
foster observation, creative research, creation, communication,
and understanding of the interconnections between biological,
cultural and technological systems. There will also be a profound
appreciation fostered of the synchronicity, similarity, and diversity
that exists in the universe.
Gardens and landscapes will be an important feature of the school
of the future. Their planting and care will be built into the
curriculum and other programs, Different styles, methodologies,
nutrition of plants and people, climates, geography, aesthetics,
and social studies from around the world can be studied in relation
to the growth and care of plants. Computers, video, all the arts,
language arts, science, math, and other disciplines can be related
to the work in the outdoor environment. Local parks and bodies
of water that are near the school of the future will also be incorporated
into the program with community/student/teachers involvement in
the care, nurture, study, and programming of these living environments.
Animals too will be integrated into the program. Urban, suburban,
or rural wildlife (as the case may be) such as birds, fish, frogs,
and insects will studied individually and as they interrelate
with the natural setting. When possible, other species will be
introduced such as rabbits, chickens, ducks, and sheep. Agriculture
will be seen in relation to the communications technologies and
the built environment, and will be understood as being an early
form of technology.
At first, the resources themselves, like the land around the school,
will be studied directly and the library and other local resources
will be used by the students extensively to supplement research.
For example, questions that relate to the local ecology might
include:
- What is the ecology of this place? How and when was it formed?
- What are the sources of water in the area? Where does it come
from?
- What can we grow here in this climate?
What do we need to maintain what we Attention to creative research,
analogies between cultural and biological systems, communication
with other places, integrating subjects, and looking at them
as interconnected systems will always be the main thrust, And
vital resources, such as NASA's new Mission to Planet Earth
program, among others, can provide important research and communication
links. Visual artworks and artifacts found and created by the
students, artists, scientists, and others that relate to the
subjects under investigation will also be manifest in the indoor
and outdoor environments.
Note: further information about the school of the future can be obtained
by contacting Bonnie Sherk, Creator and Director, A Living Library, 32 Cornelia
Street, New York, NY 10014 |
