Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 24, 1994 TAG: 9404250132
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By MARA LEE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
In Montgomery County, four of the county's 12 elementary schools were built in the early '70s when this architecture and teaching philosophy were in vogue.
But open schools didn't stay open long. Teachers started moving bookshelves, file cabinets, blackboards and cubbyholes where the walls would have been.
But what goes around, comes around. Although Montgomery County's newest elementary schools are not open, they do have a hybrid construction, where half the classrooms have movable walls.
Cooperative learning and team teaching, now in vogue in educational circles, seem to dovetail with the open schools' layout.
The issue of open schools came up this winter during redistricting hearings for the Blacksburg area elementary schools. Some parents opposed moving their children to an open school, fearing the open classrooms would distract their children from learning. Others, whose children were in open classrooms, praised the family atmosphere the open spaces fostered.
Some teachers say the openness encourages teacher cooperation.
Children benefit, too, said Harding Avenue Principal Belva Collins. "It's amazing how independent our children seem to be. They'll be focused. They don't have to have someone standing here."
Visits to open schools across the county - Shawsville Elementary, Riner Elementary, Harding Avenue Elementary and Christiansburg Primary - show a wide variation in just how open these classrooms are today, both physically and in instruction methods.
"You'll see some teachers that teach totally as a team, and you'll find teachers, while they may plan with their teammates, they have traditional delivery," said Collins.
Riner Elementary
Riner Elementary School has been the most modified since construction. All the classrooms along the main hall have walls that reach nearly to the ceiling. These walls have a foot-wide gap because the vent systems cannot function with full walls.
Sharon Hendricks' third-grade classroom is along the back of the school, the only area where bookshelves and cubbyholes still hold sway.
Hendricks looks at the class, most reading silently, with one or two fidgeting. "You need to get settled down before the day starts," she says quietly and firmly.
Hendricks is the type of teacher with eyes in the back of her head. No giggle, or child perched instead of sitting in her chair, escapes her attention. She doesn't scold much. A look, a mark for the table, to be used against privileges, usually does the trick.
She lectures, and a couple hands go up at every question. "Let's see some people come alive," she urges. "Wake up, and I don't need a lot of noise."
As the children listen, tidbits of the lecture next door are audible. "... All people created equal. ... So when you see the word CIA...|"
"Ok, we're going to change gears again," Hendricks says. With the Nintendo generation, she switches gears more than once an hour. The only time the class is spellbound is when a slow-speaking program on monarch butterflies runs for 15 minutes on the TV. But marks and mild reproaches keep any infractions pretty minor.
Harding Avenue Elementary
Early in the day, two of the three third-grade classes join for math. Children roll away the blackboard that separates Donna Shelburne's class from Marjorie Hise's.
Forty-something children gather on the floor where the "wall" used to be. "I want everybody to quietly scrunch forward so I can see what color everybody's eyes are," says Shelburne, sitting above them. The class listens to the rhythmic rhymes of "Seventeen Kings and 42 Elephants" and looks at the bright pictures. She asks the class to divide 17 into 42, using pictures and teamwork.
The children return to their seats and work quietly, with surprisingly little squirming. So quietly, that Shelburne reminds them, "Don't forget you can talk to a friend."
Across the open divide, Hise says the same thing to her silent class. Finally, they begin.
Two blond heads bent over a paper bob with each count.
The conferring swells slowly into a loud murmur.
"All right, stop and listen," she says, and everyone stops cold.
Now Hise sits in the breach between the classes and asks for solutions. "They own them all," Nicole says. "I thought it wouldn't be fair, a couple got three, a couple got two, so they all share."
Another child says the kings each have two, and the last eight elephants are killed by jaguars.
In Barbara Straub's third-grade class, the children make Antarctica posters in pairs, and the course of cooperative learning does not always run smoothly.
One girl-and-boy pair can't agree on who gets to write and who gets to draw on the poster.
Soon they're arguing about block letters or bubble letters.
"You know what I don't like?" Straub says. "Not getting an assignment done."
As they continue to fuss, their classmates try to arbitrate. Another group holds up a poster swarming with penguins and seals. "Look what teamwork does," they say smugly.
One little girl explains why their teacher has paired boys and girls in the class. "She wants us to learn how to work with them." She makes a face. "Like I'm ever going to do that."
Shawsville Elementary
Donna Jones' third-grade classroom at first seems more like a dorm room. A couch with an Indian throw, a loft, beanbags, fish and Iggy the Iguana.
Once an open classroom, her space is separated from other classes with bookshelves and partial walls. Her class functions much like a traditional classroom.
Jones starts the day at the front of the class with a combination spelling quiz and handwriting lesson. "Turn your chair around, Kevin," she says, "A lowercase 'f,' Jay, watch."
She directs traffic more expertly than a white-gloved traffic officer. She motions to chair tippers, and whispers to those fiddling.
Soon the children move to the floor, sitting around Jones' red rocking chair. She reads a book about desert ecosystems. Hands wave, and children blurt. "I've seen one of them things!"
"What did I say about when I was talking to someone else?"
The children break into groups. Jones circulates.
"Ooh. Very cute. I don't know whether rattlesnakes are supposed to be cute or not."
After working on this exercise, it's time to move on to another subject. When the children take longer to settle in again, she warns, "OK, we have two minutes off of play time today. Three ... four minutes."
Christiansburg Primary
In Rita Irvin's second-grade class, almost as soon as the day starts, the kids split into groups. The school's once-open space is divided into separate classrooms, even though noise from the surrounding classrooms filters over the dividers.
"Boys and girls, too loud, too loud," calls student teacher Debbie Wilkins, a Virginia Tech master's student.
Math lesson begins, and kids furrow their brows, grab their hair, count on their fingers intently. Fifteen minutes there, and it's into groups again.
Noise surges next door, with a series of crashes. "We need to remember our whisper voices," the teacher says.
Children don't even turn to look when another class files through to go outside.
The 15-minute rule is law here, enforced by a baking timer. It's writing time, and she says sternly there will be 10 minutes with no talking. "Then you can go out for recess, you can scream and run."
Afterward, the class is no calmer. One boy chases another around the table.
The noise escalates. "Go sit down. Go sit down. Put your heads on your desks," Wilkins orders.
At the end of the day, children line up to go home. Jason shoves Marlin into Wilkins. Jerry kicks Marlin. Samantha shakes Jamie, then gives her a hug.
"I don't know what it looked like to you, but for us, it was a good day," Irvin says.
Conclusions
When educators talk about open classrooms, teacher cooperation was often mentioned as a plus. "Here, you either get along with them, or you fake it," Jones said. But Dale Margheim, her principal at Shawsville, said he didn't see much joint planning.
Jones worries that the noise and distractions hurt children with short attention spans. They tune out noise, and teachers, too. "We do have a lot of tuner-outers. You don't know [if] they would've been like that anyway."
by CNB