by Over my career, I’ve enjoyed the great opportunity to work with many of my education heroes and sheroes. During Educon 2009, I met school architect and designer Prakash Nair. I was so impressed by his passion, insight, and deep understanding of how learning occurs that I whisked him away to dinner. It is rare to find a non-educator who “gets it” like Prakash. For my money, he is the best school designer in the world.
Over the past decade or so, I’ve been proud to be his colleague and have collaborated on fantastic school design projects. Prakash does not suffer from what Dr. King called the “tranquilizing drug of gradualism.” There have been times when I’m the conservative when working with him, but Prakash shares my drive to make the world a better place for kids.
In a desire to help schools navigate the chaos of COVID-19 and beyond, Prakash Nair authored a white paper, Outdoor Learning: Leaving the Classroom Behind. It may be purchased from Amazon.com. Since readers to my blog know that I am all about the love, you may download your very own copy here, free of charge. I’m pleased to share this important work with you and proud to have played a small role in its creation.
With COVID-19 seemingly here to stay, there is now a serious move to take learning outside to maximize school capacity. Social distancing is easier outside than within the confines of a classroom. It is likely that outdoor learning, until very recently a novelty, will soon become quite widespread. This white paper is the most comprehensive treatise on the subject of Outdoor Learning presented from the perspective of educators, architects, neurologists and environmental scientists.
Anyone interested in school design or architecture should read these books by Prakash Nair. They are the gold standard.
- Learning by Design: Live Play Engage Create
- The Language of School Design: Design Patterns for 21st Century Schools
- Blueprint for Tomorrow: Redesigning Schools for Student-Centered Learning
Veteran educator Gary Stager, Ph.D. is the author of Twenty Things to Do with a Computer – Forward 50, co-author of Invent To Learn — Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom, publisher at Constructing Modern Knowledge Press, and the founder of the Constructing Modern Knowledge summer institute. He led professional development in the world’s first 1:1 laptop schools thirty years ago and designed one of the oldest online graduate school programs. Gary is also the curator of The Seymour Papert archives at DailyPapert.com. Learn more about Gary here.