It was 1998 and I had just landed my first permanent teaching position four days before the start of the new school year. It was a full-time job teaching Kindergarten in a beautiful inner city school built in 1844. The school was led by Principal Judy Gard Puddester and I still remember her lovely laugh as she opened the door to my new classroom. I also remember her reading the look of wide eye surprise on my face as she said, "this room needs some love, sorry it's not much but I know it will be" as she dropped the classroom keys into my hand.

It was an old basement room with chained egress windows looking out at tires of the parked cars in the staff lot. The ceiling was low, the lights were fluorescent, the floor was glossy pine hardwood with noisy, large old school Spanish Grey water heaters under the windows. There were five small round tables and chairs piled in the centre of the room, a large teacher's desk, a chalkboard, three empty bulletin boards and a few paint chipped bookshelves. After assessing the situation, I headed upstairs and asked if there was a "decorating" budget. There wasn't but $100 in cash was found to help me get started. Off I went to the local hardware store where I bought bright red, yellow and blue glossy paint. I then headed to the teacher supply store and bought a massive pre-laminated, brightly coloured teddy bear image to cover a series of unpainted spots on one of the walls. I loaded my basket with laminated bulletin board banners themed for the holidays of each month, posters of sight words, a massive alphabet chart where the letters were personified, and a cute daily calendar. Upon returning to my new school, I then visited my colleagues' classrooms asking if they had anything extra to spare for the new Kindergarten room. I took anything that the other generous teachers donated and I proceeded to spend the entire weekend scrubbing corners, painting bookshelves and designing a warm, caring space for the children. I built a classroom with the mantra of "bigger, brighter, better" and after a busy Labour Day weekend I was thrilled to welcome the children to their second home on that first day of school.

Looking back on that experience, there were so many things wrong and yet so many things right about my design processes. As a brand-new teacher in the late 1990s, while I had zero experience in setting up a classroom what I did know was that all children coming to school deserved warmth, care and a safe, comfortable classroom to land in. I designed that classroom, and many more to follow, through my adult eyes with good intentions and a loving heart. I filled the walls with posters and the children's curated artwork. I did not know anything about the impact of sensory overload and dysregulation on the developing brain. While I invited the children to select what they wanted to share, and I always sought their permission before posting their work on the walls, my classrooms were visually jammed.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, I can't put my hands on pictures of my beginning classrooms, but the image below isn't too far off from the vibe I was working towards back then. Everything about my nineties classroom design screamed attention, totally bright, totally colourful and totally full. I used to think this was how to create a stimulating learning environment but now I think otherwise.

Fast forward to my discomfort today as I prepare for the 2024 LearningSCAPES conference and the BC-ELN Learning in the Primary Years series. I am travelling down memory lane and realizing that I designed learning environments for an adult by an adult. I used my adult mind to generate and create a space that I thought would be nice for children. I designed my classrooms as my classroom, a place which I organized, nicely maintained and welcomed my students to every day. I used to think that this was how to set the stage for success and excellence. I now think that if classrooms are to be ecosystems of educational excellence and care, then our students need "educational-say" in the design process.

Cultivating educational space that welcomes courageous caring conversations about equity and inclusivity alongside of excellence begs educators to think deeply about how intelligence is fostered and nurtured. This begins in our classrooms with our students as we engage them in the creation processes, asking them what they need and listening to their hopes. My classroom was never actually mine; classrooms should be collective, shared spaces; in my beginning teacher mind I did not fully realize that. Unknowingly the ethos of power and adult control lurked below the surface as I, the classroom teacher, took charge of the design process shaping it the way that I desired it to be. As I created my classroom environments, I was operating individually in the present moment, creating comfort which by essence is critical but lacks sustainability and collective responsibility.

The term future proofing is emerging as a buzz word in recent educational and parenting circles. When we think about the social, political, technological and environmental complexity of the world around us it is imperative to think more about how schools can minimize the shock and stresses of future happenings for the students we are entrusted with caring for. In education and child care, future proofing needs to emerge as a critical consideration in the the curricular, instructional and environmental design processes. These are bold moves in a landscape where school design has traditionally followed a clear algorithm of industrial, staid school buildings and box-like classrooms. While I like to think that rigid rows of heavy desks are being replaced with flexible seating arrangements and self-regulating micro-environments in many Canadian classrooms, I wonder how deep the adult design schemas actually are. On a similar vein, while I'd like to think that the design of child care spaces are also evolving, I wonder how many designs across Canada perpetuate adult generated cute and cuddly themes.

Some might say my pondering in this early October post is coming a month too late, I would press against that with this is the perfect time for redesign. Students are settling into classrooms now, relationships are rooting, and this is the perfect time for brave, bold, curious educators to invite students into co-designing their learning space. As I travel across my own school district, I am so excited about what I see and feel in our classrooms. There is innovative design ongoing in real time that is focused on bringing the outside in, reducing clutter and visual noise, working with less is more, infusing technology into curricular design and building universal, inclusive and joyful educational practices to support each and every student.

It is time to delve into the essence of sustainability and its profound impact on fostering real change within educational setting. Here are a 5 future proofing tips for innovating classroom design in real time:

1. Flexible learning spaces: The use of modular furniture and the creation of multiple learning zones with adjustable layouts are aspects of classroom design allowing for collaboration, hands-on exploration, quiet study, self-regulation, personalized learning and individualization. Creating dynamic physical space for each child matters if all really means all in today's classroom.
2. Sustainable practices: Whenever the opportunity and budget allow, make energy efficient, eco-friendly decisions and use sustainable materials to reduce environmental impact allowing for classroom designs space to evolve with future changes. Bringing the "outside in and inside out" presses educational design into organic considerations where the incorporation of outdoor spaces become extensions of the classroom allowing for increased flexibility and deeper connections with nature.
3. Technology integration: As AI become integrated into our classrooms, equipping classrooms with interactive opportunities to learn how to safely use technology is essential. Upgrading infrastructure, smart technology and creating tech-friendly space for organized storage and usage are essential design considerations.
4. Inclusivity and accessibility: Considering human variance and designing learning spaces for students of varying cultural backgrounds and learning styles requires strategy, skill and sensitivity. Universal design alongside of culturally responsive sensibilities ask educators to incorporate instructional designs alongside of creating environmental designs to ensure all children have access to meaningful learning and participation. Again, all means all and every individual deserves educational excellence and representation in today's classroom.
5. Safety, well-being and human connection: Health-conscious designs that incorporate physical and mental wellness into the creation of learning spaces is an essential faucet of future proofing classrooms. Thinking about quiet zones and human wellness, alongside of building hope and beauty into classrooms must be part of comfortable and comforting classrooms.

A friend recently shared David Orr's research and writings with me. Until then, I was not familiar with his research on ecological and environmental literacy. I am very grateful for this new connection, and I wish I was exposed to this twenty-five years ago. As I now think about the construct of future proofing educational designs, I am learning that there is a deep symbiotic relationship between our understanding of the world around us and our interconnected relationships as humans residing on this massive planet, that we must talk more about in educational designs. Classroom design in real time calls for brave, bold and impactful educational designs where equity, inclusivity and excellence are the core of decision making and creation. This is work we can do together for every child with intention, compassion and intelligence.