This week, my educational media services colleagues and I have been touring as many of the classrooms on campus as we can to make sure they are up to snuff for fall classes. Some of them are beautifully set up, such as the language classes. They’ve all been richly decorated in a theme befitting various countries. Spain has tile floors and a gorgeous mural on all walls painted by our art professor, and clay tiles and objects lining the perimeter of the ceiling, blackboard and doorway. Germany has a carved wood and steel ceiling with recessed lights, and a matching trim. Japan has sliding window screens, mats and hanging kimonos – all truly wonderful. I’ve been here a year now and somehow never saw them, perhaps because I’ve focused on the larger teaching spaces and technology.

Later we toured some of the older, more dismal classrooms that had poor ventilation, ugly holes in poorly finished walls, ripped and stained screens, unworkable windows, and desk chairs that are unspeakably uncomfortable.  Who would want to spend five minutes in such a room, much less feel like a respected and cherished learner? I’d just want to get the hell out of there asap, no matter who the teacher was.

Aesthetics clearly matter a lot, and treating students like valuable investments in the classrooms makes a huge difference to a student in terms of attitude and enthusiasm. We made a long list of things to fix, threw away some ancient junk, and started planning for ways to improve the technology in each of these rooms. We’ve already begun installing good projectors and controls in many of the rooms. Now we’ll be able to find a wall-mounted Pixie control for projectors instead of fumbling around for a remote that may or may not have working batteries, and which may be similar to something I’ve used in the past or not. Of course, nowadays we have to begin by figuring out which remote works which device. I hope the faculty notice the difference, but more importantly, I hope it helps smooth the way for an improved learning environment.