CULTIVATING SPACE   
Lauren Sexton      
How can the design of the classroom support
learning and improve the well-being of students?

I am a recent graduate of the Yale School of Architecture and have been investigating this question through the lense of neuroscience and design. My study has led to the production of a teacher's manual that offers information, research and strategies for creating enriched learning environments that support the well-being of students. I believe that educators should have easy access to this type of research in a digestible and engaging format and hope the manual I create empowers and inspires teachers to make the most of the resources they have, but also advocate for the importance of the classroom environment on student well-being and success. This spring, I am continuing the research and hope to develop the manual to a level that it can be published. I plan to update this site with weekly posts related to the current research discoveries and questions I am working on. If you are interested in getting in touch, viewing more of my work, or supporting the research by completing a teachers survey, please refer to the links below!


 
link to teacher survey

02 Early Educational Theorists
01.30.25

How do educational theorists from the 19th and 20th centuries discuss the cognitive development of the child? What are the core values found within the writings of Friedrich Fröbel, John Dewey, Maria Montessori, and Rudolf Steiner, and how do they address the role of the classroom environment?
Friedrich Fröbel
(1782-1852)
John Dewey
(1859-1952)
Maria Montessori
(1870-1952)
Rudolf Steiner
(1861-1925)

 Friedrich Fröbel  opened the first Kindergarten - or child’s-garden - in 1837 in Blankenburg, Germany. Fröbel was the first educational theorist to recognize the importance of the developing young mind and sought to teach children through play. He based his pedagogy on years of observations and interactions with children, finding that the best development evolved through play. Many of these observations are recorded in letters he wrote throughout his life. 01

In a letter written to a friend in 1847, Fröbel wrote:

“Little children, especially those under school age, ought not to be schooled and taught, they need merely to be developed. It is the pressing need of our age, and only the idea of a garden can serve to show us symbolically — but accurately also — the proper treatment of children.” 01
kindergarden in LA (1900) 12
In his letters,  Fröbel desribes many physical manifestations of his pedagogy - the most notable being the gifts and the garden. To support his Kindergarten system,  Fröbel designed a set of “gifts” that expose children to a variety of shapes, materials, and tactile experiences. The original six gifts included knitted balls and a variety of wooden geometries that can be interacted with as individual sets or combined for further exploration. 

kindergarden gifts (1875) 12
Frank Lloyd Wright, a famous architect and designer, has been quoted attributing much of his creativity and intuition to his exposure to Fröbel’s gifts at a young age. If you continue reading, I briefly mention Maria Montessori’s classroom materials which were certainly inspired by Fröbel’s gifts.

The second most important aspect of Fröbel’s system was the garden. He used the garden as both an analogy to the way children naturally develop and a strategy for immersing children in nature. In his letters, he specifies that every Kindergarten should have plenty of dedicated outdoor space for gardening, play, and observing a variety of plants and trees. In another 1847 letter written to a friend,  Fröbel wrote:

“…we see how the tiniest bud, plant or flower seeks to bind itself in harmony with air, light and sunshine. But what the powers and operations of nature are to the growth of nature, the powers of the mind and the working of the soul are to the growth of mankind, to the growing child.” 01

At the time,  Fröbel’s research and methods were unheard of. His focus on play and hands-on learning sparked a shift in education that forced society to reimagine new methods for learning that better engage children’s curiosity and creativity. Although they have their differences, the theorists that followed Fröbel were surely influenced by his approach.
 John Dewey  founded the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools in 1896 to test his educational theories and methods in a controlled environment. With a background in philosophy and psychology, Dewey’s research in education focuses on a thorough understanding of the relevance of learning through personal experience. His theory is supported by the concept of continuity and interaction.


Dewey pedagogy diagram 15

laboratory school (1900) 14


laboratory school geography class 16



Through the laboratory schools, Dewey observed that experiences are continuous and build upon each other to enhance learning. He also found that hands-on learning and social interaction in the classroom offered the most potent experiences. In his book, Experience and Education, Dewey briefly mentions the role of the classroom environment:

“A primary responsibility of educators is that they not only be aware of the general principle of the shaping of actual experience by environing conditions, but that they also recognize in the concrete what surroundings are conducive to having experiences that lead to growth. Above all, they should know how to utilize the surroundings, physical and social, that exist so as to extract from them all that they have to contribute to building up experiences that are worth while.” 02 Like Friedrich Fröbel, John Dewey acknowledges that a student’s surrounding environment has an impact on their learning. However, neither go into as much detail on the physical conditions of the classroom as Maria Montessori. 
 Maria Montessori , perhaps the most well-known educational theorist from this period, opened her first school in Rome in 1907. Maria Montessori was both an educator and a physician, and her work with children revealed their capacity to absorb information at a very young age. Although her theory has since been proven by neuroscience, the idea that human brains develop the most within the first six years of life was a crucial discovery for early-childhood education advocates. In her book, The Absorbent Mind, Montessori states:

“Psychologists say that if we compare our ability as adults to that of the child it would require us 60 years of hard work to achieve what a child has achieved in these first three years.” 03

Through years of observations and research, Montessori developed a method for education that promotes child independence and movement. The Montessori Method relies solely on the interaction between the child and the prepared environment.

M. Montessori with class 17
In her schools, Maria Montessori found that young children absorb information from their surrounding environment and begin to develop their intelligence, language, motor, and social skills almost as early as birth. This capacity in young children is most sensitive within the first six years of life and what is learned through the environment and their experiences during this period lays the foundation for their future capacity to learn and grow. To nurture children during this crucial period of development, the Montessori Method proposes a prepared environment, or children’s house, that encourages independence, allows for movement and freedom, has access to nature, is structured and ordered, and offers a variety of sensorial experiences. 

 When describing the prepared environment, Montessori says:

“Our school is not a real school; it is a house of children, i.e., an environment specially prepared for the children where the children absorb whatever culture is spread in the environment without any one teaching them.” 03

There is so much more that can be absorbed from Montessori’s work that it probably deserves its own post. Between her research and the classroom materials that are consistently used in Montessori schools and homes across the world, Montessori has left a notable impact on the early childhood education system. Her work is inspiring to me and truly reveals the importance of the classroom environment on children’s development. I will undoubtedly continue to refer to her research as I develop my own.


selected images from Montessori schools 18

 Rudolf Steiner  opened the first Waldorf school in Germany in 1919. Steiner’s Waldorf pedagogy prioritizes a holisitic development of the child, focusing on both their spirit-soul and their life-body. Steiner believed that the best way to nurture the developing child holistically was to teach through the arts and crafts. While the spirit-soul can be stimulated by musical-poetic lessons, the life-body can be engaged in sculptural-pictoral lessons. Through a series of lectures to teachers, Steiner’s extensive and unique approach to education is spelled out.
Waldorf classroom 19




Waldorf classroom  20

Similar to the other three theorists described above, the Waldorf method values practical and hands-on experience over traditional teaching methods. While there are a lot of similarities, Steiner doesn’t really place an emphasis on the classroom environment to support his pedagogy. In fact, he dismisses it entirely in a lecture to teachers from 1919. The excerpt is a bit long, but I think it is useful to include:

“Compare this living way of teaching grammar with the way it is so often taught today. The Latin or French teacher comes into the classroom. The children get out their Latin or French books. They have finished their homework, and now they are to translate; afterward they will read. Soon all their bones ache because the seats are so hard. If proper teaching methods were practiced, there would be no need to take such care in designing chairs and desks. The fact that so much care has had to be lavished on the making of seats and desks is proof that education has not been conducted sensibly. If children are really taken up in their lessons, the class is so lively that even if they are sitting down, they do not sit firmly. We should be delighted if our children do not sit down firmly, for only those who are themselves sluggish want a class of children to remain firmly seated, after which they drag themselves home aching in every limb.” 04

This quote in particular made me question some of Steiner’s approach. He is developing his method around the same time as Maria Montessori, who has a drastically different opinion on how the environment affects children. Steiner stating that the teaching method is the only factor in a child’s development is a bit contradictory to some of his other statements and I am curious to explore this idea more in other posts.
If you are interested in reading another post like this, please refer to Educational Theorists II where I discuss the theories of Lev Vygotsky, Jean Piaget, and Loris Malaguzzi!


image and reference links

  1. Fröbel, Friedrich. Froebel’s Letters On the Kindergarten. Syracuse, N.Y., C. W. Bardeen, 1896
  2. Dewey, John. Experience and Education. New York: Macmillan Company, 1938
  3. Montessori, Maria. The Absorbent Mind. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967
  4. Steiner, Rudolf. The Foundations of Human Experience. Steiner Books, 1996
  5. Steiner, Rudolf. Practical Advice to Teachers. Steiner Books, 2000
  6. https://www.niche.com/blog/traditional-vs-montessori-preschool-and-kindergarten/
  7. https://www.privateschoolreview.com/blog/froebel-montessori-and-steiner-champions-of-children
  8. https://images.app.goo.gl/bJe2EXHwZwMsbNHQ9
  9. https://images.app.goo.gl/AXq2EyVPd6AS2kLC8
  10. https://images.app.goo.gl/xaMxyXVpfc57BJTU9
  11. https://images.app.goo.gl/1Hv8Ec8XCUqb5V3y7
  12. https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/9/brosterman.php
  13. https://remosince1988.com/en-us/blogs/stories/froebels-gifts
  14. https://images.app.goo.gl/SFHjuUNSvxFKVG6Y8
  15. https://images.app.goo.gl/HKPgxCjrvJwbvwhP8
  16. https://images.app.goo.gl/YshXPenywA56TKPx8
  17. https://images.app.goo.gl/rNuxFzKXVZcVEzw89
  18. https://vsamerica.com/montessori/
  19. https://images.app.goo.gl/UXoiCcqzeA5UumQ86
  20. https://images.app.goo.gl/Fc3yDFXa6y9sazVe7



YSOA SP25 Independent Study