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Exercise: Workspace

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This from Good Magazine via Nancy:
http://www.good.is/post/winner-create-your-ideal-workspace-project/ 

Winner: ‘Create Your Ideal Workspace’ Project
By Christine Wong, Community Coordinator Intern, December 16, 2011


For our latest challenge, we asked you to create your ideal workspaceshowing us what makes for optimal productivity. From graphic design artists to elementary school principals, our readers convinced us that the ideal workspace would be anywhere other than a conventional room. We received so many creative submissions that we couldn’t decide for ourselves, so we turned to our GOOD community to vote on the final winner.

Our winner is Logan Hendricks, whose workspace embedded on an oceanside cliff is a reminder that the ideal work environment is an area we spend most of our time but more importantly, a space which we should enjoy. Hendricks describes his ideal workspace this way:

My ideal workspace brings the outside in. The space is embedded in the side of a steep ocean cliff. Most of the space is within the cliff face, with the rest cantilevering out over the ocean. The bright sunny side of the space is for working on and assembling my ideas, while the cool shady side is for thinking and napping on my day bed. The bright side would have my computer and large work table, while the back would have a couch for reading and thinking and a day bed for napping. The walls of the space have all the odds and ends I need to keep me going, and keep me thinking: Rows of books, a stereo, coffee pot, my cello, etc. Fresh water pours from a spout in the back wall and runs through the space into the ocean below, pausing for a second in a small reflecting pool in the middle of the room. I could get a drink or wash up in the reflecting pool whenever I need to feel a little fresher. This would be my Shangri-la, my Perfect work space.

Logan will receive a GOOD t-shirt and a year’s subscription to the magazine. Thank you to the GOOD community for bringing your talent and creativity to our projects. Keep it up readers—you guys are great!


Article: What Schools Can Learn…

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What Schools Can Learn From Pixar and Other Creative Companies

Liz Dwyer, Education Editor
Good (magazine)
August 30, 2011 • 5:30 am PDT


Schools aren’t businesses and shouldn’t be treated like they are, but a recent story at Fast Company Design has some pretty compelling suggestions about what they could learn from innovative private companies. The article focuses on the lessons of Google, IDEO, and Pixar, successful businesses known for using office design and corporate culture to maximize collaboration, creativity and playfulness. Those aren’t traits commonly associated with today’s classrooms, but perhaps they could be.

Imagine what learning could look like if more district administrators and education reformers adopted IDEO’s “culture centered on design thinking and interdisciplinary projects instead of siloed subjects”? Similarly, if Pixar’s culture of merging art and science together found its way to schools, students “might come to understand that the lines between music, math, physics, and art are much blurrier than textbooks make them appear.” And if Google’s emphasis on a playful and creative environment went mainstream in classrooms, we might not hear kids complaining that they’re bored.

That’s not to say the kind of ideas that rule Google, IDEO and Pixar are completely absent from schools. Places like High Tech High in San Diego, or Dubiski Career High School in Texas, are examples of what’s possible. Yet despite shining examples of other ways of doing things, the “school as a factory” model still dominates.

Most teachers, school administrators and other education reformers say that collaboration, creativity, and playfulness are desirable traits in schools, but for the most part, education reform isn’t going in that direction. The pressure of high-stakes standardized testing combined with budget cuts means that too often, school administrators aren’t thinking past rigorous math and reading curricula. Even kindergarten, which used to be the domain of learning through exploration and play, is increasingly taught in the same dry academic style that so often causes older students to check out of school.

Ironically, the article notes, executives at Google, IDEO and Pixar were probably inspired to buck the traditional stagnant, corporate culture by moving toward the more playful atmosphere that exists in schools when they’re at that best. We have to believe that schools can reclaim that spirit, and if it takes a little idea-borrowing from business to make it happen, so be it.

screenshot via YouTube user BIEBL