Dynamics & All That

What should the ideal School of Tomorrow be like? Over the years, the U.S. has heard some pretty wild ideas from educational reformers, but not many have gone so far as the school-architecture firm of Caudill, Rowlett, Scott & Associates of Bryan, Texas. One of the top firms of its kind in the U.S., Caudill & Co. describes in the current School Executive a model school which, however exciting architecturally, would make U.S. education all but unrecognizable.

If Caudill et al. built their school, there would be no more set schedules for classes, no separate grades for different age groups, no barriers between subjects. Nor would there be any definite dividing line between the school and the home. Their ideal campus is in the shape of an octopus whose tentacles stretch out from the Center into the residential areas, providing pupils and adults alike with "tennis courts, baseball, football, soccer fields, skating rinks, as well as bird sanctuaries, botanical gardens and nature-study groves."

Friends & Family. Under the concrete canopy of the Center, there will be an open-air Friendship Promenade which can serve as an exhibition hall, concert hall or picnic ground for the whole community. Indeed, parents are expected to hang around the school almost as much as the children--which is why the outdoor theater is called the Family Bowl.

Instead of classrooms, Caudill & Co. have Learning Labs, with light plastic walls that can be put up and taken down in a trice. Along with the Learning Labs are Teaching Elevators that can be equipped by Central Service in any way a teacher wants. Suppose, say the architects, a teacher wants "an aviary with six different species of birds and a soundproof booth where recorded birdcalls can be played ..." What does she do? She simply rings up Central Service, which lowers a Teaching Elevator, equips it as requested, then sends it back up again--"and the teacher has a tailor-made environment in a matter of minutes."

Wanna Build a Boat? Then there is the case of ten-year-old Billy, who today would be in the sixth grade but in Caudill's future school is in something called the 27th Self-Improvement Level. Billy and his dad, it seems, want to build a boat. "A project is set up which involves much subject matter--reading, writing, spelling, science, mathematics, and even music--based on the theme, 'Making a boat.' " Finally a Learning Lab is prepared, and when dad's vacation rolls around, he joins his son--and possibly his daughter, who is in the 52nd Self-Improvement Level--in "another exciting learning experience involving the entire family."

If all this were not enough, Tomorrow's School would have a model farm, a domestic zoo, greenhouses, pond, a lake for "kiddie fishing" and a Man-Made Mountain "for children to climb and explore to their hearts' content." And what sort of education will these children be getting? "Dynamic education," say Caudill & Co. grandly. "This must be, because education, like the American way of life, is ever changing, never static."

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