Reflections from a school on a school

Abstract

School is one of the largest workplaces in Western society, and the school must be regarded as an important place in people's lives. A school materializes through the building, and today a lot of school buildings are in need of rebuilding and reorganization. A school does not get old only from a design and constructive perspective but also from a pedagogical perspective. In this paper we want to illuminate and discuss teachers' and pupils' reflections on significant spaces in the school. To develop an understanding of teachers' and pupils' reflections on the school building we gave some pupils and teachers the opportunity to use a digital camera to depict what they think are significant spaces within the school. With these photos as a point of departure the pupils and the teachers have been interviewed concerning their reflections on the space of the school. To conclude we want to emphasize that the architectural formation is experienced, interpreted and used in different ways by different people and that a building gets its significance first when people experience it, i.e., by looking at it, being in it, using it and reflecting on it.

Acknowledgements

The Swedish Research Council, Committee for Educational Science, supported this research.