The second Learning Spaces Aotearoa was recently held in Wellington. This was organised by the Learning Environments New Zealand Wellington group, including our own Kara and Murray. This is Kara's blog, which covers her day's experiences.
On Friday 9th of August Learning Environments New Zealand hosted the 2024 LSA conference in Wellington. The day was packed with information, challenges, and lots of catching up and connecting over kai.
We kicked off the day with a beautiful Mihi Whakatau and Waiata from Mt Cook School.
We then heard from Dr Julia Atkin who presented us with various ways of challenging our thinking. She touched on the importance of differentiating between learning science vs the science of learning.
Julia talked about ‘adding value’ with every decision we make. Who is it helping/ hindering and how can we be more mindful about the decisions we have the power to make? That is where true innovation is going to come from.
As she told me afterwards – she aims to get us thinking about our work and applying her challenges to our current and future projects, so much so that we actually forget what she said and just remember what we were thinking about while she was talking. A powerful intention of public speaking that I hadn’t considered before.
Splitting up into 5 different wanangas we heard from professionals across a range of disciplines. I sat in on Craig Cliff’s session (from Otago University), which got us thinking about the impact schools are having on the climate crisis and what actionable steps we could take away. My takeaways were how Tamariki are getting to and from school – active transportation is always best.
There are so many small things that add up, like the life cycle of the resources that teachers are given. Such helpful insight without the usual veil of making everyone feel bad about the state of our climate! It can be exciting and inclusive to do better.
After lunch, I went on Site Tour toru where we visited Wellington East Girls College and saw the incredible preservation of the heritage protected façade and the unique open plan teaching/ staff area on the ground floor.
Then we popped over to Northland School to see how their new build was constructed on such a tight site, all while the school remained operational.
After some more kai and a bit of a rest we all clambered back into the theatre to hear Nicola Ngarewa, Spotswood College’s principal, talk from a cultural perspective on wellness and inclusion.
That hour long session which is typically a bit rough to get through at the end of a long day (before you get to go and have a wine) was brought to life by Nicola’s enthusiasm and crowd engagement.
Nichola made us think about unconscious bias and making decisions which are culturally considered when so many spaces currently don’t have any reflection of her (Māori) culture represented in them. How can we expect our kids to be as successful and supported as possible if they don’t see this part of themselves in their spaces or their learning.
It ties back into Julia's point of adding value – who are we adding value for and how do we know they’re receiving the value we intend for them? I’ll leave you with this quote from Nicola, which I think applies to a lot more than just learning space design.
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