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What Works in Public Education

Space Craft: Giving Your Space the Right Design

by Amy Standen

When Nic Taylor returned to his classroom at Bancroft Middle School, in San Leandro, California, after a two-year leave, he immediately felt his spirits sag. The room was long, narrow, and white, with doors at either end. With no windows, and just a few skylights exposing gray skies, "it felt so sterile," recalls Taylor, "not like a creative space." He made an emergency call to Deborah Gee, a Bay Area feng shui consultant, who quickly confirmed Taylor's suspicions: His classroom was suffering from a case of very bad chi.

Feng shui is the art of designing for good chi. "Chi is a vital life-energy force," says Gee. "It's what makes trees grow, mountains form, rivers run; it's what makes your heart beat." Feng shui consultants such as Gee specialize in affordable decorating changes that help chi move fluidly through a room. Good chi, she says, promotes good health, good spirits, ability to concentrate, and creativity.

Over the remaining few days before school started, a transformation took place in Taylor's classroom: A friend painted the walls bright green and blue, and Gee put his desk in the far corner, situated toward the door, and students' desks in a semicircle facing the whiteboard. A metal chime and a crystal were hung in the center of the room. Two Ikea lamps gave a soft glow to the back of the room and framed what Taylor's students have come -- in a testament to the power of human imagination -- to call their "window": a 4-foot-by-6-foot poster of an alpine lake surrounded by snowy peaks and wildflowers. "I sometimes ask the kids to open the window and let the smell of wildflowers come in," he says.

Feng shui principles informed all these changes. Blues and greens have both a calming effect -- critical for hyperactive sixth graders -- and inspire creativity. The two facing doors were a "major no-no," says Gee, because they allow "energy to enter into the classroom and immediately shoot out." Students caught in the crossfire, she says, are likely to be "tense, restless, unable to focus, overactive."

To counteract this sensation, Gee and Taylor placed paper over the outer door's window, effectively closing it off. Classroom walls were cleared of most student work, posters, and other clutter. Furniture was placed according to the feng shui system, which separates space into quadrants for specific functions, such as quiet study or creative work. The metal chime and the crystal "awaken the mind," says Gee, and bring kids to focus. "Because there are no windows in the room," explains Taylor, "it really feels stagnant, so the crystal kind of stirs the pot."

Together, the changes add up to a classroom that feels markedly different from others at the school -- calmer, more like a living room or a library than a sixth-grade classroom. On the first day, Taylor watched his students react to the changes. "It was amazing to see," he recalls. "Kids are usually jumpy and nervous on their first day. But instead, they walked more slowly, calmly to their seats." According to his students, the effect has lasted. "It's pretty and colorful," says a sixth grader named Celina. "It's easier to learn in here."

Taylor says there's much about feng shui he doesn't understand but that the results are palpable. "Sometimes, I feel like I've been in California too long when I explain it. But then, you know what? I don't care, because it works!"

Creating a Focused Learning Environment by Renée Heiss

Poison Arrows

Did you ever notice that the corners of Chinese pagodas are always turned upward? That is because in feng shui, pointed objects are as detrimental to health and wellness as actual weapons. The Chinese turn the corners of the pagodas upward so as to deflect the poison arrows from people who pass by.

Which of these poison arrows or sheng (good) chi influences do you have in your classroom?

• Long, overhead beams
• Desks in rows
• Objects that point downward from the ceiling
• Classroom door at the end of a long hallway
• Sharp corners on tables and cabinets
• Square pillows

If you have any of these, you may use some of the following remedies:

• Add a mirror to reflect the sharp corners of pillars or cabinets back to the object, thereby containing the poison arrows within.
• Rearrange your desks so that they are not in a straight line.
• Hang garlands from the overhead beams.
• Wrap seasonal fabric strips around pillars.
• If your classroom is at the end of a long hallway, hang a mirror outside of your classroom to reflect the sheng chi.

Where Is Your Clutter?

There is both obvious and disguised clutter in a classroom. Obvious clutter is what you try to put away before Parents' Night. Disguised clutter is the file cabinet filled with old dittos, desk drawers that hold confiscated items from five years ago, and storage cabinets that have never been organized. Both forms of clutter affect the movement of chi.

Tackle the obvious clutter first. Ever wonder why corners become clutter traps? It's because we naturally try to soften edges and round corners, filling in the area made by a right angle. Chi also likes soft edges and round corners. Chi emanates from the center of a room in a circular pattern, much like the ripples in water when you drop a pebble into the lake. What happens when this swirling chi finds a square corner? It becomes psychically sticky, trapped with no way out. As more chi becomes trapped in the corners, less is available to energize your classroom.

How can you soften those corners? You can try a number of suggestions:

• Hang a drape from one side of the corner to the other (remember to use the appropriate color and pattern for that corner as it applies to the controlling element). Behind that drape, neatly stack your labeled boxes, preferably on shelves so the custodial staff can easily clean the floor.
• Use a Japanese-screen style of barrier. This is very effective in a reading corner where you can use the screen to post pictures related to the text.
• Place wood or metal shelves (again, consider the controlling element for the corner) diagonally. If you are concerned about the visible cavity formed behind the shelves, string holiday lights behind them.
• Hang knotted rope or a bead curtain from the ceiling across the corner. Attach clothespins at regular intervals and hang student work. This is especially good in the recognition or possessions area of your room.

Excerpted from Feng Shui for the Classroom: 101 Easy-to-Use Ideas, by Renée Heiss © 2004 by E. Renée Heiss. Used with permission of Zephyr Press, Chicago.

Classroom Feng Shui Fundamentals

1. Both teacher and student desks should be in what feng shui considers the "command position," facing the entry of the classroom to absorb chi as it enters the room.

2. Bright greens and blues encourage learning and development, particularly in younger students. Older students will benefit from darker colors, such as brown and black, which encourage wisdom and deep thinking.

3. The entry to the classroom should be unobstructed, leaving a clear path for chi to flow. Obstructions to the path, says Gee, "create tension and stress with the students and the teacher."

4. Bookshelves should be placed in the far left corner of the classroom, from the perspective of the front door. According to feng shui principles, this area encourages learning and critical thinking.

5. Windowless classrooms lead to stagnant energy and stagnant minds. A painting or a scene of nature creates a sense of bringing outdoors in and has a very strong life-energy force. Plants can have a similar effect.

Amy Standen is a former contributing editor to Edutopia. She reports on science and the environment for KQED-FM, in San Francisco.

This article originally published on 3/9/2007

This article was also published in the March 2007 issue of Edutopia magazine.