Centre for Urban Education (CUE): SPACE SHAPES LEARNING

Welcome to the Blog for the Study Visit to Copenhagen which ran between 18-21 March 2010.
Nancy Barrett, Creative Director at CUE collaborated with Artist Noah Rose and architect Ian Banks to develop the content and facilitate this study trip to explore how space shapes learning in Denmark.


Friday 12 March 2010

Westborough Cardboard School




Its not just the Danes who are clever you know!......this origami-inspired Cardboard Building is Westborough Primary School in Westcliff. It is Europe's first school (indeed, building) ever made from exclusively recycled cardboard materials. Click on the above image or this link to open a Teachernet video, filmed as part of the Inspiration series.

Monday 8 March 2010

We Have to Call it School



Black and white film portrait of the off beat Copenhagen unschool called Bagsværd Ny Lilleskole or The Little School. Filmed in 1972–74 by Holt Associates. John Holt the great pedagogue called it his dream school. It was one of the first Little Schools or Free Schools to appear in Denmark, a country with a long tradition of sponsoring alternatives to the public school system.

John Holt developed the notion that children learn best when the are learning what they want to learn. He also realized that this could not be accomplished in a traditional classroom setting. He started the magazine Growing Without Schooling and coined the term unschooling.