Blueprint for Tomorrow: Redesigning Schools for Student-Centered Learning by Prakash Nair

The United States has about $2 trillion tied up in aging school facilities. School districts throughout the country spend about $12 billion every year keeping this infrastructure going. Yet almost all of the new money we pour into school facilities reinforces an existing--and obsolete--model of schooling. In Blueprint for Tomorrow, Prakash Nair--one of the world's leading school designers--explores the hidden messages that our school facilities and classrooms convey and advocates for the alignment of the design of places in which we teach and learn with twenty-first-century learning goals. Blueprint for Tomorrow provides simple, affordable, and versatile ideas for adapting or redesigning school spaces to support student-centered learning. In particular, the author focuses on ways to use current spending to modify existing spaces, and explains which kinds of adaptations offer the biggest return in terms of student learning. The book is organized by area--from classrooms to cafeterias--and is richly illustrated throughout, including before and after features, smart idea sidebars, and do now suggestions for practical first steps. It outlines key principles for designing spaces that support today's learning needs and includes tools to help educators evaluate the educational effectiveness of their own spaces. Blueprint for Tomorrow will open educators' eyes to the ways that architecture and learning are entwined and will challenge them to rethink the ways they teach and work together. Editorial Reviews Review Blueprint for Tomorrow demonstrates why and how school buildings influence pedagogy, curriculum and learning, and provides clear, practical and simple solutions that will enable schools to finally bring teaching and learning into the 21st century. --Anne Shaw, founder and director, 21st Century Schools The quest for great schools begins with Prakash Nair's Blueprint for Tomorrow. From modest do now improvements to complete transformations, readers will find the tools needed to rethink and reimagine everything from the playground to the teacher's lounge. A must-read! --Bruce Rockstroh, CEO, Educational Resource Center, Inc. In Blueprint for Tomorrow, Prakash shows educators how to create productive contexts for learning where students want to be and where their gifts may take flight. This is an important book by one of today's strongest voices for reinventing education. --Gary S. Stager, executive director, Constructing Modern Knowledge From the Inside Flap In Blueprint for Tomorrow, Prakash Nair--one of the world's leading school designers--provides simple, affordable, and versatile ideas for adapting and redesigning school spaces to support student-centered learning. Richly illustrated throughout, Blueprint for Tomorrow challenges educators to rethink the ways that we teach and work together. Prakash Nair is the first person to whom I turn for inspiration and guidance about the design of powerful learning environments for children and adults. His message is straightforward: the physical environment in which learning occurs should be designed and constructed around powerful theories of learning, rather than requiring that our theories of learning be adapted to fit into obsolete structures. In his work as an architect, and now in this book, he has transformed our ideas about the relationship between learning and physical space. -- Richard F. Elmore, professor emeritus of educational leadership, Harvard Graduate School of Education Blueprint for Tomorrow demonstrates why and how school buildings influence pedagogy, curriculum and learning, and provides clear, practical and simple solutions that will enable schools to finally bring teaching and learning into the 21st century. -- Anne Shaw, founder and director, 21st Century Schools The quest for great schools begins with Prakash Nair's Blueprint for Tomorrow. From modest 'do now' improvements to complete transformations, readers will find the tools needed to rethink and reimagine everything from the playground to the teacher's lounge. A must-read! -- Bruce Rockstroh, CEO, Educational Resource Center, Inc. In Blueprint for Tomorrow, Prakash shows educators how to create productive contexts for learning where students want to be and where their gifts may take flight. This is an important book by one of today's strongest voices for reinventing education. -- Gary S. Stager, executive director, Constructing Modern Knowledge Prakash Nair is the president and founding partner of Fielding Nair International, an award-winning school planning and architectural firm with consultations in forty-three countries. Prior to establishing Fielding Nair International, Nair worked as the director of operations for a multibillion-dollar school construction program in New York City. From the Back Cover In Blueprint for Tomorrow, Prakash Nair--one of the world's leading school designers--provides simple, affordable, and versatile ideas for adapting and redesigning school spaces to support student-centered learning. Richly illustrated throughout, Blueprint for Tomorrow challenges educators to rethink the ways that we teach and work together. Prakash Nair is the first person to whom I turn for inspiration and guidance about the design of powerful learning environments for children and adults. His message is straightforward: the physical environment in which learning occurs should be designed and constructed around powerful theories of learning, rather than requiring that our theories of learning be adapted to fit into obsolete structures. In his work as an architect, and now in this book, he has transformed our ideas about the relationship between learning and physical space. -- Richard F. Elmore, professor emeritus of educational leadership, Harvard Graduate School of Education Blueprint for Tomorrow demonstrates why and how school buildings influence pedagogy, curriculum and learning, and provides clear, practical and simple solutions that will enable schools to finally bring teaching and learning into the 21st century. -- Anne Shaw, founder and director, 21st Century Schools The quest for great schools begins with Prakash Nair's Blueprint for Tomorrow. From modest 'do now' improvements to complete transformations, readers will find the tools needed to rethink and reimagine everything from the playground to the teacher's lounge. A must-read! -- Bruce Rockstroh, CEO, Educational Resource Center, Inc. In Blueprint for Tomorrow, Prakash shows educators how to create productive contexts for learning where students want to be and where their gifts may take flight. This is an important book by one of today's strongest voices for reinventing education. -- Gary S. Stager, executive director, Constructing Modern Knowledge Prakash Nair is the president and founding partner of Fielding Nair International, an award-winning school planning and architectural firm with consultations in forty-three countries. Prior to establishing Fielding Nair International, Nair worked as the director of operations for a multibillion-dollar school construction program in New York City. From the Back Cover In Blueprint for Tomorrow, Prakash Nair--one of the world's leading school designers--provides simple, affordable, and versatile ideas for adapting and redesigning school spaces to support student-centered learning. Richly illustrated throughout, Blueprint for Tomorrow challenges educators to rethink the ways that we teach and work together. Prakash Nair is the first person to whom I turn for inspiration and guidance about the design of powerful learning environments for children and adults. His message is straightforward: the physical environment in which learning occurs should be designed and constructed around powerful theories of learning, rather than requiring that our theories of learning be adapted to fit into obsolete structures. In his work as an architect, and now in this book, he has transformed our ideas about the relationship between learning and physical space. -- Richard F. Elmore, professor emeritus of educational leadership, Harvard Graduate School of Education Blueprint for Tomorrow demonstrates why and how school buildings influence pedagogy, curriculum and learning, and provides clear, practical and simple solutions that will enable schools to finally bring teaching and learning into the 21st century. -- Anne Shaw, founder and director, 21st Century Schools The quest for great schools begins with Prakash Nair's Blueprint for Tomorrow. From modest 'do now' improvements to complete transformations, readers will find the tools needed to rethink and reimagine everything from the playground to the teacher's lounge. A must-read! -- Bruce Rockstroh, CEO, Educational Resource Center, Inc. In Blueprint for Tomorrow, Prakash shows educators how to create productive contexts for learning where students want to be and where their gifts may take flight. This is an important book by one of today's strongest voices for reinventing education. -- Gary S. Stager, executive director, Constructing Modern Knowledge Prakash Nair is the president and founding partner of Fielding Nair International, an award-winning school planning and architectural firm with consultations in forty-three countries. Prior to establishing Fielding Nair International, Nair worked as the director of operations for a multibillion-dollar school construction program in New York City. About the Author Prakash Nair is the president of Fielding Nair International (FNI), a renowned international architectural firm that specializes in the design of innovative schools. FNI has consultations in forty-three countries on six continents. Prakash is a futurist, a visionary planner, an architect, and one of the world's leading change agents in education and school design. He has helped dozens of communities globally to align their physical space with their pedagogical needs. He is the recipient of several international awards, including the prestigious CEFPI MacConnell Award, the top honor worldwide for school design. He has written extensively in leading national and international journals. His work has been published in Education Week, School Planning and Management magazine, School Business Affairs, School Construction News, Edutopia, Annenberg Institute's VUE, OECD's Programme on Educational Building, the United Kingdom's Schools for Life, Australian Education Union's Professional Voice, Teacher: The National Education Magazine of Australia, and Rethink!--Ideas for Inspiring School Library Design. He also coauthored, with Randall Fielding, the landmark publication The Language of School Design. He has been interviewed many times by print, radio, and television media and is a regular speaker and keynote presenter at international education conferences. You can learn more about Prakash Nair and the projects featured in this book by visiting http://FieldingNair.com, or contact him at Prakash@FieldingNair.com.