‘It makes my tastebuds cheer with happiness!’ - pupil
‘It’s a world of pioneers from Alice Waters’ Edible Schoolyard in the States to Collingwood College in Melbourne.’ Collingwood College was the site for the first kitchen garden established by the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation – http://www.kitchengardenfoundation.org.au/
The foundation which began in a Melbourne school pre-dates and inspired our own positive UK work by Jamie Oliver and is about real food planted, prepared and eaten by kids – light years away from the sausage roll and cookies that we as parents recently got used to seeing as part of Food Tech.
Inspired by foodies in the states and a belief in the joys and benefits of growing, harvesting, preparing and sharing food, this programme aims to provide edible, aromatic and beautiful resources for a kitchen.
Stephanie Alexander’s ‘The Cook’s Companion’, first published by Lantern in 1996, is the Australian food bible. It is an A-Z of lovely food - thankfully for the book they call things witlof and zucchini over here ! The bibliography is bigger than an academic treatise and testifies to this woman’s generosity of spirit. This book is the melting pot that is this country – influenced by every wave of immigration. Within its beautiful and lyrical pages are gifts of recipes from friends met and passed away. It reminds me of the fantastic Elizabeth David cookery books….
But, it is this book: ‘Kitchen Garden Cooking with Kids’ by Stephanie Alexander with Anna Dollard, Penguin Group, that proves a love of food has to be taught and nurtured. Buy it for the school or the cook you love or the Chair of Governors who doesn’t know why they are one….
As they say at St Kilda’s Community Garden, ‘Veg Out’, ‘Gardening is an act of faith in the future’.
Teachers, pupils and volunteers first built the Collingwood College garden in 2001 – now it’s a national model curriculum and international inspiration. This book sets out how we in the UK could also benefit from a kitchen garden as part of every school.
We don’t need heaps of money but hope, faith and charity.
My weekly telephone calls with Ian Fordham at the office and e-mails with members testify to the success of the recent SEN conference and the BCSE ‘Transforming Learning Environments Masterclass’ events. Throughout Britain, BCSE associates, Dr. Kenn Fisher and Sharon Wright have met a passion for creating great schools, a thirst for knowledge and an expertise from teacher to constructor that makes you proud. This movement is providing solutions and celebration.
Schools are special and the more we make them part of our everyday lives the better. Some say they can be the ‘village greens’ of a new generation- they are also ultimately the place where we begin to really develop relationships with ourselves and others outside of ‘family’. They are our ‘third teacher’.
The Victoria State Auditor-General, Des Pearson, reports on his overview of school investment. Despite praise-worthy investment efforts from the Victorian State Government, we’ve got similar resonances as back home.
He says, ‘The level of investment in school buildings has not been sufficient to renew and maintain facilities to provide the type of environment needed to develop students’ learning potential’
I like what Cheryl O’Connor, Australian College of Educators, says, in Melbourne’s, ‘The Age’ Newspaper - ‘ All students deserve capable staff, a safe and suitable school to attend, and conditions that allow them to learn if they are to build on, or compensate for, the quality of parenting and community support they receive from birth.’
Aren’t we all trying to define the new school?
As the world changes language, media and environment, let’s not throw out all of the ‘old’ to define the ‘new’.
But, also don’t be trapped by the, ‘ it did me no harm ’ syndrome.
A key question in private or public sector innovation is – why do new ideas fail? Is it always because they are actually not very good?
As ABC Learning’s, enormous Australian private-sector network of Early Years Centre’s, go bankrupt we are now bailing out babies not just bankers.
Yet, somehow nothing is ever more certain – wise and brave leaders invest in education and they do it ‘with’ people not ‘for’ people. New times demand new responses; but it’s also time that we built on what our Mum’s and Dad’s knew was important.
Great schools – it’s common sense.
Happy Christmas.
Thursday 11 December 2008
Smart Green Schools
The Smart Green Schools Project - http://www.abp.unimelb.edu.au/research/funded/green-schools.html funded by an ARC linkage grant is set to investigate the influence of innovative and sustainable school building design on the learning and motivation of students. Big part of the three year project is two doctorates, one for an architect and the other an educator -- they are going to dig deep in to the nature of 'agile' spaces. Fleshing out those key areas- the nature of sustainable 'low tech' design, innovation and learning. Working with schools they will collaborate to 'manipulate' space -- action research with depth and purpose.
If research can have an 'attitude' then this is positive, collaborative and unstuffy. Working with teachers to create and share skills to use space educationally and environmentally. I find Rod Bunn's BCSE http://www.bcse.uk.net/ sustainable schools pamphlet on the desk!
There's sharp debate across the sectors about the expanding use of PPP in Victoria. Good sense spoken by the Rep of the Government Architect at the meeting on the need for a good solid engaging process and care over design.
I can't find an ivory tower in my new Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning. The researchers are supported by Clare Newton , Dr Dominique Hes, Dr Sue Wilkes, Prof Kim Dovey and Dr Kenn Fisher alongside partners from industry including- H2O architects, McBride Charles Ryan, Mary Featherston Design and Hayball Leonard Stent. Most are at the meeting and some are old friends from my first visit in early 2006. Partners also include Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (Note the name change) and the Victorian Government Architects Department.
We are staying in Fitzroy with friends from NOW architecture. In June 2008 I visited their projects at Malvern Valley Primary -- sustainable school with large studio spaces with four/five/six classroom spaces off it and Westbourne Grammar hospitality and science blocks. Both projects have a respect for the user that is special. The designer's knowledge for teaching and learning shine through. Whilst we are with them the Westbourne Grammar science block renovation wins a prestigious sustainability award at a swanky do in Sydney. We drink Shiraz together at their home in Melbourne. Their friendship and warmth is the welcome we need as a family as we deal with trying to lease a place to live. We've never had to gather on a pavement with twenty- odd others to inspect places and then be vetted by estate agents.....Weeks later I'm still waiting a call back from someone called Margie Hawker.
Malvern Primary:
Westbourne Grammar
Meet folks from Catholic Diocese of Parramatta http://www.parra.catholic.edu.au/ to catch up on their projects. Talk of need to engage with teachers about the use of space and an approach to culture change that is sensitive but moves people. They quote a 'Heppell' at me -- the story about dentistry having changed, but not schools! That 'old' whisperer Stephen gets everywhere....The present Diocese Executive Director (and his teams) have been pushing boundaries and spaces from Oak Flats School (in Wollongong) that I saw in 2006 to now at Stanhope Gardens ( in Parramatta). Glanville Architects are on that journey too- http://www.cgarch.com.au/
Invited to participate in a 'Crit' of a student project at the Faculty. What's a Crit? Is it like being an Estate Agent ?
In fact, this is the last of fifteen student contributions to the design of spaces. Student, Kate Sutton's is an uplifting example of sensitivity to the aims of the foundation and use of materials. Her space is made entirely of cardboard and takes inspiration from the work of Shigeru Ban, the paper church -- http://www.designboom.com/ , the Artek Pavilion -- http://www.inhabitat.com/ and the Tea House -- http://www.dezeen.com/ . The Cardboard House by Stutchbury and Smith is also an influence. This space can be left 'unfinished' including the cardboard furniture to be finished and customised by the pupils. We all have a bit of a chat about durability and fire resistance. I nearly fall off my special 'crit' chair when Kate quotes paper pioneers, Westcliff on Sea Primary and the Westborough After-School Club.
It's a world of pioneers from Alice Waters Edible Schoolyard in the States to Collingwood College in Melbourne.
Lunch with Professor Kim Dovey. This is a two hour privilege and tour of a broad horizon. Kim's book, ' Framing Places- mediating power in built form ' published by Routledge in 1999, uses an analysis of spatial structure, how meanings are constructed and (lived ) experience to almost decode built environments. His work builds on and develops those that analyse space from our homes to the architecture of the Reich and the changes in the English Country house. It's a useful spatial syntax analysis that some have brought to an analysis of school design.
The shape of space does not happen by accident, nor does its uses or how it makes you feel as a person big or small. Or, as Oscar Wilde once apparently said; 'It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances.'
If research can have an 'attitude' then this is positive, collaborative and unstuffy. Working with teachers to create and share skills to use space educationally and environmentally. I find Rod Bunn's BCSE http://www.bcse.uk.net/ sustainable schools pamphlet on the desk!
There's sharp debate across the sectors about the expanding use of PPP in Victoria. Good sense spoken by the Rep of the Government Architect at the meeting on the need for a good solid engaging process and care over design.
I can't find an ivory tower in my new Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning. The researchers are supported by Clare Newton , Dr Dominique Hes, Dr Sue Wilkes, Prof Kim Dovey and Dr Kenn Fisher alongside partners from industry including- H2O architects, McBride Charles Ryan, Mary Featherston Design and Hayball Leonard Stent. Most are at the meeting and some are old friends from my first visit in early 2006. Partners also include Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (Note the name change) and the Victorian Government Architects Department.
We are staying in Fitzroy with friends from NOW architecture. In June 2008 I visited their projects at Malvern Valley Primary -- sustainable school with large studio spaces with four/five/six classroom spaces off it and Westbourne Grammar hospitality and science blocks. Both projects have a respect for the user that is special. The designer's knowledge for teaching and learning shine through. Whilst we are with them the Westbourne Grammar science block renovation wins a prestigious sustainability award at a swanky do in Sydney. We drink Shiraz together at their home in Melbourne. Their friendship and warmth is the welcome we need as a family as we deal with trying to lease a place to live. We've never had to gather on a pavement with twenty- odd others to inspect places and then be vetted by estate agents.....Weeks later I'm still waiting a call back from someone called Margie Hawker.
Malvern Primary:
Westbourne Grammar
Meet folks from Catholic Diocese of Parramatta http://www.parra.catholic.edu.au/ to catch up on their projects. Talk of need to engage with teachers about the use of space and an approach to culture change that is sensitive but moves people. They quote a 'Heppell' at me -- the story about dentistry having changed, but not schools! That 'old' whisperer Stephen gets everywhere....The present Diocese Executive Director (and his teams) have been pushing boundaries and spaces from Oak Flats School (in Wollongong) that I saw in 2006 to now at Stanhope Gardens ( in Parramatta). Glanville Architects are on that journey too- http://www.cgarch.com.au/
Invited to participate in a 'Crit' of a student project at the Faculty. What's a Crit? Is it like being an Estate Agent ?
In fact, this is the last of fifteen student contributions to the design of spaces. Student, Kate Sutton's is an uplifting example of sensitivity to the aims of the foundation and use of materials. Her space is made entirely of cardboard and takes inspiration from the work of Shigeru Ban, the paper church -- http://www.designboom.com/ , the Artek Pavilion -- http://www.inhabitat.com/ and the Tea House -- http://www.dezeen.com/ . The Cardboard House by Stutchbury and Smith is also an influence. This space can be left 'unfinished' including the cardboard furniture to be finished and customised by the pupils. We all have a bit of a chat about durability and fire resistance. I nearly fall off my special 'crit' chair when Kate quotes paper pioneers, Westcliff on Sea Primary and the Westborough After-School Club.
It's a world of pioneers from Alice Waters Edible Schoolyard in the States to Collingwood College in Melbourne.
Lunch with Professor Kim Dovey. This is a two hour privilege and tour of a broad horizon. Kim's book, ' Framing Places- mediating power in built form ' published by Routledge in 1999, uses an analysis of spatial structure, how meanings are constructed and (lived ) experience to almost decode built environments. His work builds on and develops those that analyse space from our homes to the architecture of the Reich and the changes in the English Country house. It's a useful spatial syntax analysis that some have brought to an analysis of school design.
The shape of space does not happen by accident, nor does its uses or how it makes you feel as a person big or small. Or, as Oscar Wilde once apparently said; 'It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances.'
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