In Chris Van Dusen’s book, If I Built a School, a young boy named Jack tells his teacher: “This school is OK, but it’s pitifully plain. The builder who built this I think should be banned. It’s nothing at all like the school I have planned.”
As you turn the colorful pages, Jack reimagines classrooms, desks, technology, libraries, gymnasiums, lunchrooms, playgrounds, music/art rooms, and transportation (that can take you to Mars, too). He ends his pitch by saying, “My school will amaze you. My school will astound. By far the most fabulous school to be found! Perfectly planned and impeccably clean. On a scale, 1 to 10, it’s more like a 15! And learning is fun in a place that’s fun too.”
One of the best things about being a K12 architect is giving kids a voice in design. Students give great insights that inform design. We learn about daily challenges, how they feel about their current school experience, and how we can make design decisions to improve their lives and get them more excited about coming to their school and excelling.
How Kids See Their World
Some silly moments happen when kids ask for KFC and Starbucks in the school cafeteria. Still, there are more serious moments, too, where kids ask for a place to get free hygiene products, shower, do laundry, have access to free water and ice, and ask for more space and help for their teachers.
Kids don’t always know how to express that they need special services to maintain their dignity and focus on learning during the day. With this understanding, architects and interior designers can begin to identify those needs and how to implement them best in terms of space. This can be a community center with its storefront entrance so parents can easily pick up food and clothing from the donation pantries or access a washer and dryer.
Van Buren fifth-grade senior leadership team students display creative ideas for a new elementary school. Inspirational words for their future school included awesome, fun, new, colorful and exciting.
Seeing the student behavior and interactions organically helps you visualize the school’s identity, culture, and story. This eventually translates into the visual identity or theme we develop for the design. What it looks like, colors, and patterns can all come from inspiration in these interactions and observations. It is a way to capture the essence of the students and staff that breathe life into the school. The design is a way to tell their story; it is their place.
At Van Buren Elementary School fifth graders learned how to improve school experiences with design thinking. The process kids in the video went through is similar to what architects and designers do—we solve problems.
The existing Van Buren Elementary no longer meets their needs. The challenge is to discover what the new school needs to be to fit today’s needs.
The first question we ask students is to tell us in one word or phrase that they want to represent the new school. Students said, “Awesome, fun, new, colorful, and exciting.”
Next, we asked what they like about their current school and what doesn’t work well. Students love the walking trail, interactive boards, playground amenities, built-in storage, and the interesting building style, to name a few. In the new school, they want a bigger nurses’ office, bigger gym, room for daycare, bigger restrooms, bigger hallways with less noise, bigger/quieter library, more sinks in the restrooms, an auditorium, a ramp for accessibility and a room for a therapy dog, Ashe.
Students drew pictures of a space or element to represent/show what they want for the new school. The overall theme was that the students were not thinking of themselves but of how to improve the lives of their teachers. It was evident how much their teachers have had a positive impact on their students’ lives.
Make the World a Better Place with Kids
“Awesome, new experiences, fun, colorful, exciting” were all words used to describe the places where Hoover and Van Buren students want to learn. Design thinking with the voice of kids will solve the world’s toughest problems with creativity and fun. Let’s continue to listen to the youngest among us.
