Recently, I stumbled on a group of students collaborating while sitting IN the study carrels.\u00a0\u00a0 Each of them, snuggled up knees to chest, was comfortably making our library their home.\u00a0 I walked up to the group of students and said, \u201cI\u2019m not exactly sure why, but I need you to sit in chairs.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Priding myself on reasonable self-awareness, I started to question the situation.\u00a0 Why do I need them to sit in chairs?\u00a0\u00a0 What purpose does it serve besides calming my neurotic need for the appearance of order?\u00a0 \u00a0Side note: I also feel best when all of the chairs are pushed in at the end of each class period.<\/p>\n
The following day, I watched Sir Ken Robinson\u2019s TED Talk, Bring on the Learning Revolution<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 \u00a0In the talk SKR suggested that in order to have radical change, we need to disenthrall ourselves with current conventions in education.\u00a0\u00a0 Specifically he said,<\/p>\n \u201cThere are ideas that all of us are enthralled to, which we simply take for granted as the natural order of things, the way things are. And many of our ideas have been formed, not to meet the circumstances of this century, but to cope with the circumstances of previous centuries. But our minds are still hypnotized by them, and we have to disenthrall ourselves of some of them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Disenthralling ourselves of current conventions is easier said than done.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Considering the idea, I started to make a list of conventions about our physical space that I seem to hold dear and ones that I have let go of in the last few years.<\/p>\n\n