Schools during a pandemic

In the 21st century, there hasn't been a phenomenon that has shaken our way of life as profoundly and comprehensively as Covid-19. After the initial shock and fear, our society cautiously and thoughtfully tries to return to its regular rhythm, with everyone anxiously awaiting one event that has the potential to flip our world again: the reopening of schools.

In March, amidst a climate of crisis and panic, the natural response to education in the face of the rapidly escalating pandemic was to close schools, isolate the possibility of contact among students, and switch to home-based education through online platforms. A wave of pride and astonishment followed, as schools established a digital mode of operation without any breakdowns. Teachers managed in almost no time to transfer their curriculum "to the cloud," and the academic year wasn't cancelled. Indeed, the quick response and the capabilities of digitization prevented leaving students at home in a state of shock and aimlessness, halting the momentum of education, and leading only to inertia and lack of motivation. However, the results from the isolated digital education are far from brilliant, and the problems can be examined in three main directions:

A model where the educational material is poured onto the student from a screen all day for months naturally leads to a loss of concentration and motivation to learn. Information assimilation dwindles to nothing when there's a lack of stimuli and curiosity in the student, and it's especially important for children to perceive information through all their senses.

Home-based learning as a solution against the spread of Covid-19 poses a long-term danger: it kills the progress that the educational system had just begun to achieve in recent years. Specifically, the integration of:

• Project-based learning, where students study subjects in an integrated way through experiments and real-world experiences, which stimulates their curiosity and motivation much more effectively than traditional lessons.
• Working in differently sized groups, which not only teaches them teamwork as a primary method for solving various types of problems but also develops their leadership, social, presentation, and communication skills.
• Effective communication among students: verbal, physical, and emotional, both in formal and informal environments.

It's essential in the context of COVID-19 not to allow a return to traditional teaching methods, where the teacher appears as the sole source of knowledge, unilaterally controls the students' behavior, and does not encourage other types of learning and communication.

Another negative aspect of excessive digitalization is the lack of movement and the constant sitting in front of a screen: arguably the worst combination for the physical health of all people, especially children whose bodies are still developing. The problem is exacerbated by the increasing number of overweight children in Bulgaria. According to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Elena Georgieva, head of the pediatric department in "SofiaMed", this is one of the factors complicating the course of the disease.

In pandemic conditions, the few sports hours are severely concised, and in many cases - absent. The opportunity for movement, which break times grant students - to play, run, and take walks with friends - is also taken away. In their rush to deliver valuable material, teachers often overlook the need for a break and changing the body's position, leaving students sitting for hours.

The apparent consequences of this sedentary lifestyle - immobilization, spinal deformities, and eye damage are clear. The hidden consequences of this condition are precisely those that home-schooling seeks to prevent: a lack of motivation and any interest in learning. It's a known fact that movement is a natural prerequisite for the "learning" process: ensuring changes in body positions during learning and more serious physical activities, the brain gets better blood flow, making students more receptive, alert, and concentrated on a purely biological level. Based on numerous studies on the subject, more and more schools in Bulgaria are providing opportunities for movement not only in their common areas (corridors, lobbies, etc.) but also in classrooms where they integrate physical activities during lessons.

However, in the context of screen-based communication, this is not only hard to achieve, but often the lack of physical connection with the students doesn't allow the teacher to sense the drop in energy and react in time.

In addition to the obvious purpose of acquiring knowledge, school plays another crucial role in shaping a child's personality: it's the first social institution many of us encounter. It's where we learn to become an integral part of society: for the first time beyond the family circle, we establish friendships and relationships with peers, younger or older students, we communicate formally and informally with teachers and other authorities, and become and sustain a part of a community.

Social isolation strips much of this away. The extent of its psychological repercussions remains unknown, but one thing is clear: digital technologies cannot replicate analog communication, just as social media cannot replace friendship and physical closeness.

21st-century education rests on three pillars: curriculum and methodology, technology, and physical environment. In times of crisis, requiring rapid measures, the environment was left out. But it's time to address it once again. If we can predict one thing about our uncertain future, it's that even if every student in Bulgaria receives two laptops, it won't make up for the need for physical closeness, full-fledged communication, sensory presence, and vivid, real experiences. Now is the time not only to transform the educational environment to ensure the safety of students but to elevate the educational experience and learning to a level that was never as evident before Covid-19 as it is now.

The main challenges facing the learning environment during a pandemic are:

1. Ensuring safe access to the school and avoiding crowding at entrances and other key spaces - gymnasium, dining hall, snack areas, etc.
2. Providing more space within classrooms.
3. Ensuring the possibility of maintaining personal hygiene, as well as requirements for easy disinfecting of the spaces.

Here are several trends from around the world that address the challenges of the learning environment and are applicable in Bulgaria:

Shared Spaces: Maintaining Distance and Avoiding Crowding

In May 2020, a large-scale project by Brooklyn Laboratory Charter Schools (LAB) and six architectural and urban design studios collaborated with students, teachers, and education professionals to create a guide. This guide examines the risks of reopening schools for the new academic year and solutions to prevent their reclosure.
It identifies two primary critical areas: ensuring safety in shared spaces with large gatherings and introducing new changes in the classroom. A significant issue is the school entry process: to maintain distance, adhere to control measures (hygiene at the entrance, temperature checks, etc.), the time it takes for 100 students to enter a school can reach up to 45 minutes (3 students per minute)!
This problem can be managed by opening as many school entrances as possible and staggering the start times for different grades. Beyond these procedural solutions, there are more alternative approaches: while classes are queued up waiting to enter, their time can be utilized for "on-the-go" lessons, such as conversational Spanish, various discussions, and practical games.
In these types of solutions to avoid confusion and establish order, a clear signage system is necessary. This system should intuitively guide people and smoothly direct them. Here are a few examples:

In the installation "StoDistante" at Piazza Giotto in Vicchio, Italy, the challenge of social distancing is addressed by marking out the square itself.

2. The classroom doubles in size and is spread throughout the school

The classroom is the space that will undergo the most significant changes under pandemic conditions, and this might be the best thing that could happen to it. The educational model in which students are lined up in rows of desks, with the teacher standing on a podium in front of them as the sole source of knowledge in the classroom, has long been proven as a learning regime that retains concentration for a maximum of 15 minutes and does not support the development of 21st-century skills in any way.
Ironically, Covid-19 can achieve what many educational practices and proclaimed authorities in progressive education failed to do. The way it will happen is beautifully ironic: to achieve a distance of 2 meters in classrooms between individual students, the rows of desks need to be evenly offset. The space between desks increases, rows adopt a checkerboard configuration, and ... well, there's just not enough room. Small classrooms, designed to accommodate 30 students packed in a line like soldiers, don't have the capacity for such spacing.

Here are two actions that partially address this problem:

1. Removing the podium from the classroom.
2. Rearranging the rows to form groups, which will not provide complete and even distancing between each student but will at least achieve group-based distancing.

Overall, distancing individual desks in the classroom is not a good solution for effective distancing because uniformly distributed students, all being taught a lesson in one space at the same time, means a bottleneck at the door for all these students the moment the lesson ends. Here are some better alternatives:

Using Common Areas:
Common spaces in schools like corridors, foyers, auditoriums, dining halls, and gyms have long been an active part of academic life in the most educationally advanced countries. The need for distancing provides an opportunity for Bulgarian schools to touch upon modern trends, adopt them, and make them permanent.

Coworking Space Principles:
Today, the environment that inspires and stimulates human creativity and productivity is organized on the principle of the so-called 'coworking space': flexible and diverse spaces that facilitate the work of groups of different sizes in different modes and give people the freedom to frequently change their setting and body position. An increasing number of schools worldwide are organizing their educational space similar to a co-working environment, allowing for work in different learning modes and offering specialized places for individual work and concentration, quiet work in small groups, noisy discussions, and work in larger groups, presentations before many people, for socialization, and for movement. This naturally cannot happen in a 50 sq.m. classroom - it requires opening up to the entire school.

Why this method is suitable during a pandemic:
Unlike the class-period system that brings many people together in one place, this type of organization allows groups of fewer people distributed across more locations to work. Of course, teaching under these conditions requires a different approach than a single teacher dictating a new lesson to 30 listening students. It is unpredictable and requires flexibility and constant attention - sometimes even more than one teacher dealing with a single class. This aligns with the trend of introducing teacher assistants, especially for children with special needs. In addition, if the space is well-designed, it should allow constant changes in the teacher-to-student ratio (from 1:30, through 1:1, even 1:100 or 0:1) depending on the required learning mode.

In conclusion, the function of the school is to prepare students for real life, which requires working in different groups on different real-world problems instead of the generally accepted quiet listening, assimilation, and reproduction of information. Now we have a good excuse to test it in our schools.

**Creating separate 'corners' for group work using lightweight, movable partitions and other furniture. **

The long and wide corridors in Bulgarian schools, which are used solely as walkways from room to room, have the potential to become extensions of classrooms, offering students and teachers opportunities for learning in various modes and flexible space transformations according to their needs. Cafeterias, auditoriums, and other common spaces are also a source of valuable square footage that can engage students in project-based learning and team collaboration without endangering their health. This can be achieved by moving furniture out of classrooms, providing different types of seating, 'cornering off' spaces with mobile partitions, furniture, and plants. The floor should not be underestimated as an active part of the educational process: it's no accident that small children draw and play on the floor; it allows for easy body position changes and thus keeps the body and mind in constant motion. The need for constant sanitation can finally free this valuable area from prejudices that it is dirty; schools can introduce policies for using home slippers in the building, using carpets, yoga mats, etc.

It is necessary to plan for more lightweight, movable furniture that prevents the gathering of many people in one place. This includes lounging and recreational furniture, as it is especially difficult to ensure social distancing during breaks. The more flexible and easily movable the furniture, the safer and more diverse the environment will be. Providing more individual utensils and storage furniture for educational materials, which can be moved around the school by the students themselves, also limits contact surfaces. The model where one classroom has one whiteboard that everyone looks at and where each person passes by to be examined can be replaced by one where each student has an individual small writing board that they can show to others from their place. New technologies also contribute significantly to the dispersion of children gathered in one space already constrained by new standards. Good internet connection and the ability to power devices from various points in the school make the learning process more flexible.

Our knowledge about Covid-19 and how it spreads is still not complete and categorical, and with each passing day, we learn a little more. One thing that many scientists agree on is that the spread of the virus outdoors is much more limited than in enclosed spaces, which is why outdoor events have increased around the world during the summer season.

If only we could apply this knowledge in the context of the 2020-2021 school year... We can. The best measure against the spread of the coronavirus among children and teachers is for them to study outdoors, rather than wondering how to provide adequate social distancing in ill-suited classrooms. And the schoolyard is big!

This idea is innovative and largely unknown in Bulgaria and is likely to provoke a wave of fears and concerns about 'What if the children catch a cold.' But this is a topic that is not unknown worldwide, and in places where climatic conditions involve much lower average annual temperatures than ours:

Moving the educational process outdoors is not an insurmountable task, and the beneficial effects are enormous: the yard offers clean and fresh air, natural light, vitamin D, space, and countless opportunities for movement, as well as the opportunity for project-based learning through direct observation of nature and experimentation.

To create an outdoor classroom, lightweight, movable furniture is needed, which can easily be transported by the students themselves, light surfaces that can be written on, good internet connection, and mobile technologies, and of course - willingness.

The development of modules for outdoor classrooms is currently underway worldwide, including in Bulgaria. Here are some examples from different countries:

1. In a project by Glasgow architecture studio O'DonnellBrown, the leading concept is to encourage "creative and independent learning in a healthy, flexible, and fun environment."[1] The construction is wooden, extremely lightweight, easily assembled, and even portable.

2. Covid-19 will inevitably affect the design of future educational buildings. In a project by Spaceoasis and Learniture, the classrooms represent a combination of indoor, semi-outdoor, and entirely outdoor spaces that blend into each other.

3. Tensile membrane structures, also known as "tents," offer a possible solution. A similar proposal for resuming the educational process in the UK comes from architecture studio Curl la Tourelle Head Architecture (CLTH), which focuses on developing a fully outdoor school.

4. In Scandinavian countries, and particularly in Finland, the so-called "Forest Schools" have long been rooted in kindergartens, preschools, and primary schools as a leading concept. Children spend nearly 95% of their school day outdoors, learning directly from nature.[2] In this way, they are much more engaged in the educational process, which is a combination of play, direct observations, and exploration. Contrary to expectations and fears here, according to the Finns, such an approach has only a positive impact on children's health. Spending more time outdoors ensures clean air and a safe environment in which infections and viruses spread extremely difficult, and the body toughens up.

These are just some examples from around the world that can be integrated here as well. We all remember how during the quarantine in March we longed to go out for fresh air in the park or the mountains, where we feel calm, vital, and healthy. For children, this connection is even more important because it is precisely during this period that they are developing - vision, physical endurance, and a sense of balance are directly dependent on the opportunity for contact with nature, and as we found out while locked indoors, it's essential for mental health. The global pandemic gives us an opportunity to return to true values, which we have forgotten in the course of modernization, ubiquitous screens, and fast-paced life, and to reintroduce them into our daily lives. As a start, we could afford some more moderate changes, but short-term interventions will turn out to be less economical and less effective than a thoroughly thought-out design strategy that ensures sustainability in the long run.

The changes after the coronavirus will be and should be significant - we will not allow ourselves to bury our heads in the sand and wait for the storm to pass because this storm may turn out to be a precursor of something larger and permanent. It is said that if the 20th century was the century of wars, then the 21st century is most likely going to be the century of pandemics. Every generation fights battles and adds to the 'wisdom of the ages' life experience for coping with various challenges, and today it is our responsibility to prepare the children for the unknown and to find a way for them to preserve their humanity and curiosity.

There will be no one-size-fits-all recipe for how to easily and instantaneously adapt teaching, space, and technologies. But just because the trial-and-error process is difficult doesn't mean we should cut corners or wait for ready-made solutions 'from above.' We—the architects, teachers, parents, principals, education professionals, and institutions—need to collectively walk the path toward the right solution for each school. No one has been in a situation like this before, so it's important to collectively gather as many ideas as possible for coping with it, which each school can assess and apply according to its own context.

What's more, we currently have at our disposal the most incredible, fresh, and bright minds glued to their phone screens—these same minds will be sitting apart at individual desks from September 15th, hidden behind masks, wondering why nobody thought to consult them and hear their perspectives before making decisions over their heads. And their opinions are fundamental. Many people have doubts that the prescribed social distancing rules will be followed by students—and rightly so: top-down directives that are not communicated to all parties are often boycotted. A process that actively engages students in devising measures to prevent the spread of the infection makes much more sense and produces better results for the simple reason that when a person takes ownership of a mission, they follow it with their own motivation.

In the spirit of COVID-19 and the learning environment, consider the examples we've gathered, discuss them, test them out, but don't forget their real users: the teachers and the students. They not only have the potential to improve them but also to guide the school through the pandemic, creating enduring practices for a better education.

Sources

[1]. URL: https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/buildings/odonnellbrown-designs-community-classroom-prototype, посетен на 18.08.2020 г.
[2]. URL: https://theculturetrip.com/europe/finland/articles/what-we-can-learn-from-finlands-forest-schools/, посетен на 18.08.2020 г.
[3]. URL: https://www.who.int/whr/2007/overview/en/index1.html, посетен на 14.08.2020 г.
[4]. Back to school facilities toolkit
URL: https://e82589a9-6281-40c3-81a5-087eb2ac5db9.filesusr.com/ugd/e57059_d64e448f76bf487a8152f87f50589a82.pdf
[5]. Planning learning spaces, Issue 3: Education meets Covid-19
URL: https://issuu.com/gratnells/docs/7596_pls_journal_3_v3_2