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ENA New Kind of Kindergarten Design
- Category: Video
Architect Takaharu Tezuka explains in his TEDx Kyoto talk how one school created a kindergarten that does not fight against children’s natural impulses; it embraces them.
The roof forms a wide ring that encircles the playground. Why? Because children love to run in circles.
The kindergarten is a single, unending classroom with no walls.
Children can feel confined when they are surrounded or hemmed in by walls. That cannot happen here. And since little dynamos thrive in lively, noisy settings, they have come to the right place: a place with no acoustic barriers.
Parents often struggle to decide how much protection is too much. Tezuka argues that children need to encounter the occasional scrape; it helps them navigate the world. They should experience a certain, yet small measure of risk.
Should every kindergarten follow this model?
That is difficult to assert. What is certain, and what echoes through every debate about learning standards and the worry that our children are not learning as much as they should, is this:
This refreshingly creative and successful reimagining of the kindergarten serves as a reminder that there is still much we do not know, yet ought to learn, about educating children, especially those in that magical age.
Take a look at how the children spend their day in this kindergarten:
