More Songs about Buildings and Food

Not only is the Talking Heads album “More Songs About Buildings and Food” one of my all-time favorite collections of music, but it reminds me of many of the challenges I come across in my work with faculty. And administrative people. For today, the buildings are classrooms and yurts. The food? Well, we all know who shows up for the workshop when there is food and drink.

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the Symposium 2018: Scholarly Teaching & Learning in Post-Secondary Education in Vancouver, BC. I attended two sessions about buildings and furniture. One focused more on the wheels and caster type of furniture so popular now with the “active learning” word puddles. The other was about a yurt.

The first session was about furniture and buildings.

I certainly see the need to make classroom spaces more adaptable to what might be a more student-centered space or at the very least, a place where everyone could sit in a circle and drum, or sing, or simply practice looking at others when they speak. Wheels on furniture is a good start. But putting wheels on furniture will not really create interactive communities. The vision individual faculty have about what constitutes a learning experience and how they choose to use class time is a far more challenging problem to solve. The first session described the “innovations” taking place at one school regarding casters, wheels, movable stuff, and smaller and less obtrusive lecterns. Of course, my points in the conversations were, “Well, that is nice, but what about accent walls, and plants?”

Someone mentioned how they needed to “put back the furniture into rows” and at some point, I mentioned the Fault of the Default and Lisa Lane.

Personally, I’d rather walk into a chaotic room than an orderly one.

The other session I attended described a yurt that was built as both a faculty learning space and a “new and innovative” class space. Initially, those that built it wanted faculty to simply experience an alternative space and wonder how the space altered the experiences that happened inside of it. Of course, the results were that there was more interaction between people in the space and that they “felt” more engaged in the activities. As a classroom space, they discovered that faculty had more interaction with students, students spoke more, and interacted more with the course content. Of course they did.

I think I realized that it is not that standing in front of others and saying things, public speaking that is, is so scary or difficult, it is just that we have had like 15 years of schooling where we practice largely looking at the backs of others. Perhaps, if we had all had 15 years of looking at others in the eyes as we speak, we would not find it so frightening.

• Move the frickin furniture!
• Make sure no one is talking to the back of anyone’s head. Ever.

And the Food? Well, sharing of food helps create a shared experience beyond just being in the same room together. And that is what we are looking for right?

And here are some some songs about buildings and food.