You are sitting in your classroom at 12:00 noon. The fluorescent lights glare down at you as your stomach rumbles and are being lectured by the teacher. You’re thinking that the only thing more uncomfortable would be a prison cell, but even that might be better. When people think of classrooms they almost always have desks with chairs, and a whiteboard or chalkboard, the school needs a new look. Schools should be remodeled so that they have a more relaxing, comfortable, and calming learning environment.
Comfortable and calm learning environments do not have linoleum flooring and fluorescent lights. When students move around on a hard floor they tend to make quite a bit of noise, when their classmates are trying to concentrate. Teachers can’t really expect kids to focus on learning when the bright lights blare down on them causing headaches. Every classroom should have carpet. Classrooms with carpet will help students relax with having less noise and not having the bright light reflect off the smooth, shinny floor, attacking people’s delicate vision. Because fluorescent lights are painful on people’s eyes, classrooms should have a more subtle light source, preferably by using eco-friendly light bulbs. Starting with these two simple steps there already is a more comfortable learning environment.
Relaxation starts with comfort and people can’t be comfortable sitting in a desk all day long. Desks are hard and uncomfortable, but serve a purpose. Instead of have desks that students must sit at classes should have lap desks, so students can move around the room and sit where ever they like and still have an easy to use writing surface. The chair in classrooms are also very hard. Uncomfortable chairs aren’t relaxing, a relaxing chair needs to be something that can just be melted into. In that case there should be sofa like chairs and possibly bean bags.
Crowded classrooms can’t be anywhere near as calming as they should be. There should be no more than twenty students to one teacher, so both students and teachers get more one on one time. Having one on one time will allow students to receive more help, which will lead to higher grade point averages, making the entire school above average schools in Wisconsin. Expanding classrooms onto two floors would also help with crowding issues. A larger classroom setting would be easier to the on lookers eye and allow more objects to live inside each classroom. Two floors makes it so there are a variety of activities to do once class work is completed.
Plants are a calming item to view when stuck in a classroom and plants remind people of the outdoors. Typical American classrooms have maybe one or two plants but not a forest of them. A forest or classroom full of plants is a relaxing and calming environment, that also happens to be very good for the environment and air quality. Plenty of plants gives students something interesting to view. This improves a lot about classrooms and helps classes learn more about nature without going outside or using a textbook.
Having unlimited access to books and resources is important for all learning students, though that does not happen all the time. In every classroom bordering all the walls will be books galore. Every single genre of book would be represented allowing students to have relatively an unlimited supply and selection of reading materials. Having books on hand will also encourage children to read. For resources there will be the usual books but also something that almost no other schools supply videos and DVDs that can be watched on the spot using one of the two plasma flat screen televisions. There will also be enough laptops for the entire class eliminating computer labs. This step might be quite expensive but if taken care of properly will last for a long time and in the long run very important and helpful.
During class time students get hungry and stop paying attention to learning. To solve this problem rooms will have a snack bar like area at the back of the classroom on the second floor, there will be an extra cost at registration so students never have to worry about handling money. Allowing there to be access to food so the not paying attention in class due to hunger is eliminated. When a person eats something they tend to get a little thirsty. The answer to this problem is solved by having an area where almost all types of Starbucks and soda drinks are served at the snap of someone’s fingers.
Schools should be remodeled so that they have a more relaxing, comfortable, and calming learning environment. All schools are supposed to prepare you for the real world and this environment cannot do that. This is also true because right now you could ask almost any student what they think about their classroom and they would answer that they dislike their classrooms. School layouts need to be rethought out!
