Changing the Organization: Architecture and stories as Material- Discursive Practices of Producing “Schools for the Future”

Abstract

I work with the concept of apparatuses of material storytelling as a way to study the enactment of ‘the future school’. The article analyses a project at a school that involved students, teachers and leaders building models for learning spaces to inspire the architect who were to design a new building for grades 4-6. The analysis is theoretically informed by ‘new materialist thinking’. The analysis show how the project, while producing differentiated learning spaces and ideas about the learning student, configures and reconfigures the organization known as ‘a school’ in ways that highlight contemporary problems concerning authority, management and the constitution of ‘the student’, in an education system which is increasingly focused on learning-centred educational management on the students desire and motivation for learning.

Figure 1. Left photo: Model of a working area at school, produced by a student. The green puffy things are large beanbags. The yellow dots on the walls arewindows. They are meant to be deep so students can sit on the windowsills. Right photo: The text is connected to the left side model and describes the space and how it may be used: “My space is a space for both group work and individual work. Here you can sit comfortably on beanbags and windowsills. There is also a platform. If you want some quiet time, you can sit there”.i