Living through education The care of the “living environment” in the training of teachers in kindergarten

Abstract

This contribution deals with the relationship between the school as a place of education and the quality of being at school. It aims to emphasize the pedagogical importance of where education takes place, and it is meant to encourage those who are responsible for education and training to give proper consideration to the opportunity for a closer collaboration between educational studies and those relating to the design/architectural reflection.
Building a school requires technical expertise, together with knowledge of physics and science of construction; but it requires also taste and style in order to make a building unique, or hopefully so in a now abused landscape of public and private buildings – either secular or religious – that do not convey much to the citizen. The same care should be given to the training of school teachers, especially of children, since the space for human growth and civic education of students should not take the form of an everyday repetition of working practices in a monotonous environment
which is free from fruitful stimuli. It is not just a matter of facades, windows and doors, hallways and dining rooms. It is, rather, a matter of learning to live within the places of education, so as to increase even in the youngest a taste for study, research and community.