architecture and teaching

The past week I spent wandering through my thoughts on the bridge between the art of architecture and the art of teaching. I have had a hard time narrowing down the ideas to one main point so I will instead list out the several thoughts I had on the topic. 

1) Art history - I have had a whole series of Art history courses in which architecture is not only closely related to teaching but it is the topic of the course. I enjoyed these courses so much that I almost switched my major to art history in hope of focusing on architecture of the past. 

2) Classroom design - The classroom is where learning takes place. Who designs them? I spent last term teaching at the University of Oregon and the four classrooms I had to teach in were all uniquely different. Thinking back to those rooms I couldn't help focus on my first classroom being the most traditional with the chalk board/white board at the front of the rectangular room, desks in nice straight rows and students facing the front with focus on the subject. On the other side of the spectrum was my afternoon classroom. This room was a newer room in one of the newest buildings on campus. Who designed this room? The tables (not desks) were polygon shaped putting some students facing one wall or the other instead of the front of the room. The classroom was still a rectangle, but instead of the front being at one of the short ends the front of the room was one of the long sides with white boards stretching from one end to the other. The teacher's position was not at the center, but the podium was set all the way to one side of the front. This made going back and forth to teach my classes with power point while not standing behind my computer all of the time very difficult.  

The point to this topic was the question of who designs the classroom? Does that person or person's discuss the possible design ideas with educators? The architecture of the room can have a great effect on the students in the room. Some rooms give students a place to hide in the way back, or to face the window rather than the front where attention needs to be given. What thought goes into this design?

3) Walking tours - I have been fully educated within the state of Oregon (minus my current time at MSU) and noticed something as I thought back to my experience with architecture vs. education. At each level of school there was a point in time in which the classroom moved outside. In those experiences I found I had an entirely different learning day. Outside bought the experience of the exterior of the building. Within the "walking tour" as I am going to label it, were beautiful and hideous exteriors of buildings. I felt like the connection between a beautiful building and the subject we were discussing was a great bond. In fact those subjects stuck with me longer and stronger than the topics discussed while standing in front of an ugly building. 

At the end of this week I hope to be able to connect Susanka with my experiences in architecture as of late. I will hopefully be able to bring my teaching experience into the retail realm and think about how I can then take it back to the classroom. There is a bond, but it is a strange bond between the art of architecture and the art of teaching...