< 'Open Schools' Made Noise In The '70s; Now They're Just Noisy

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

It's a perennial debate in American education - do kids learn best when they are sitting in rows at their desks or when they're moving around? Back in the '60s and '70s, that debate led to a new school design. Small classrooms were out, and big, open spaces were in. But after just a few years, the so-called open schools movement faded. Still, a few buildings with this design exist today. Steve Drummond of the NPR Ed team found one in Washington, D.C., and went to see what worked and what didn't.

STEVE DRUMMOND, BYLINE: Open schools were a response to fears that the U.S. was falling behind, that schools had become too rigid and were stifling imagination. What kids and teachers needed - less structure, more freedom.

CAROLYN JACKSON-KING: Yeah, I think it was mainly for collaboration for teachers. A lot of time teachers are in their silos, and we're by ourselves and we're doing our own thing.

DRUMMOND: Carolyn Jackson-King is the principal of Benjamin Orr Elementary School, built in 1974. She says this design lets students collaborate, too.

JACKSON-KING: If I'm a first grader but I'm working on second grade work, I can easily go over to that second grade classroom and work.

DRUMMOND: But in a lot of ways, open schools didn't work out that way. To find out why, Jackson-King hands us off to an educator who knows this building inside and out.

MARLON RAY: My name is Marlon Ray. I'm a director of strategy and logistics. This is my ninth year here.

DRUMMOND: He takes us upstairs to get a look at how the school works.

RAY: So here we have three first grade classrooms. And you can see it's just one huge space.

DRUMMOND: I'd say it's about 30 yards down there to the end?

RAY: Yep.

DRUMMOND: So envisioned as one big, giant classroom.

RAY: One gigantic open warehouse (laughter).

DRUMMOND: No walls or doors, math here, reading there, art over in the corner. Right in front of us? Dyanna Gardner's first graders.

DYANNA GARDNER: We're still discussing Dr. Martin Luther...

UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: King.

GARDNER: Very good. And your big job is to say your poem and your song to your parents. Are we ready?

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #1: Yes.

GARDNER: Let's go.

GARDNER AND UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: (Singing) Doctor Martin Luther King, a man who had a dream. D-R-E-A-M.

DRUMMOND: Down the big room a ways, another class, Marquitta Johnson's, is reading. But I notice you can still hear that first class singing.

UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: (Singing) D-R-E-A-M.

DRUMMOND: Marlon Ray leads us upstairs again. Same warehouse style, same big, giant room. These are second and third graders.

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #2: Hello.

DRUMMOND: By this time, I'm starting to notice something about this school. It's supposed to be open.

But you know what I don't see? A lot of openness.

RAY: (Laughter).

DRUMMOND: I see partitions...

RAY: Metal cabinets, bookshelves, hanging, dangling things (laughter).

DRUMMOND: Everywhere there are big bulletin boards on wheels and bookshelves stacked up to make barriers.

Even without walls they've kind of created through...

RAY: Created walls.

DRUMMOND: So what do you think about this design?

TOMIKO BALL: Oh, boy.

DRUMMOND: Tomiko Ball teaches kindergarten here. She loves the kids and the teachers and the principal, but the space itself...

BALL: When you have open spaces, like, oh, this is my noise level and that's another noise level, like, there's just a combination of a whole lot of things. You have to literally put it in your psyche to say, I've got to make this work. Like, I'm going to do the best with what I have.

DRUMMOND: Historians say that's pretty much why this open school design died out by the late 1970s. Bottom line - too loud, too distracting, teachers hated it. The open school model tried to tear down the walls and barriers, and for 40 years teachers at this school have been putting them back up.

JACKSON-KING: I don't know how the teachers do it. I actually taught on the second floor for half a semester.

DRUMMOND: Principal Jackson-King says it was hard. The kids often adapt much better than the grownups. So yet another education fad that never caught on. And Orr Elementary School is facing extinction itself. They're going to tear it down this year and build a new one.

JACKSON-KING: I think all of us are just going to be really excited to have a new building.

DRUMMOND: But the ideas behind open education - collaboration, independent learning - they're still a big part of what lots of schools around the country are trying to do. And here at this school, when they tear it down and get that new building, those things aren't going away.

BALL: So the openness is in the room, but I think, like, the collaboration of - with other teachers is still - it still exists.

DRUMMOND: Whether there's walls or doors or not.

BALL: Whether there's walls or doors or not, you know (laughter)?

DRUMMOND: Tomiko Ball says open education isn't so much about the floor plan but the way teachers work together and work with their students. Steve Drummond, NPR News, Washington.

(SOUNDBITE OF RICHARD HOUGHTEN SONG, "SAVING A LIFE")

Copyright © 2017 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.