ABSTRACT
The point has been made in previous chapters that context matters. We respond to the environment in which we find ourselves in very different ways, but never neutrally. What makes a classroom a place for learning is never a simple matter, as seen in the length to which some teachers will go to make it a more congenial place to be, a comfortable and enjoyable place in which to learn and a stimulating place. Classrooms may be seen as ‘behaviour settings’, and even when they are empty of people they send quite clear messages about how people will behave when they enter. Children will go straight to desks and only the cheekiest or uninformed will presume to occupy the largest chair at the front of the room. While there is a predictable similarity of classroom space from country to country, the Learning School students also documented differences in classroom layout and furniture, raising questions about why such differences exist and what underlying pedagogy they assume. These are some examples.
