6. SETTINGS
(Rearranging the furniture)
Rupert Sheldrake's controversial book A New Science of Life# 9 put forward the idea that the more a thing happens, the more likely it is to happen again - that the physical as well as the living universe behaves as though it can form habits. Whether or not this is true of the physical world - as he argues for such diverse things as rats' learning behaviour and the crystallisation of complex organic chemicals - it is a commonplace of social life, where it is called not morphogenesis but tradition and fashion. More prosaicly we can say that, on the one hand there is a weight of inertia in many social arrangements which prevent flexibility; and on the other, a strong influence on people towards doing what everyone else does. (There have of course been many periods of history when inertia and slowness to change have been useful: when a culture is well adapted to its surroundings the innovator is likely to make things worse.) One of the aspects of this inertia can be seen in the assumptions of educational administrations in many countries that the classroom with desks and a blackboard is the best (or indeed the only) setting for all kinds of learning.

This may be least true of language learning. The English Block was a good example of learning taking place in a different setting. The settings in the two schools were not exactly the same. The differences were caused by differences in buildings. In each school the resources which happened to be available were made use of.
In Kololo the space used was five classrooms with removable partitions (a design of classroom which was once popular with architects, but seldom with teachers, as the partitions do not provide good sound insulation). These partitions were folded back to open up a large space. In this area were enough tables for the groups of students coming from six classes. One adjoining room was arranged as an acting space surrounded by benches (for drama surrounded by an audience).

The space outside - grass under shady trees - could also be used when it wasn't raining for activities requiring speech, including play rehearsals, discussions and debates. The advantage of this was that noise was diverted away from the places where people were reading and writing.

In Kakamega two rooms were used. One was normally used as the school library. Its advantage was that it was already supplied with tables and was therefore more suitable for group work than the classrooms with their desks. It also gave easy access to books. Later, when an extension was built on to this library the extension was used as the book room and the other part as a reading room and English Block room. The other room used was a large classroom which had probably been at one time converted from a store room. This also was equipped with tables for group work. Part of the school hall was used for drama work and, as in Kololo, the grass outside could be used for noisy activities.

One can only speculate about the influence the arrangements of furniture and room shapes have on what goes on, but clearly if people are going to work in groups it is useful if they can sit so that the members can see each other, which requires they sit round a table. (For a similar project in Botswana I was able to cause half hexagonal tables to be designed and built in the school workshops. However, almost any small table seems to work.)
The standard classroom with its rows of desks and blackboard in front seems to urge the teacher into a position where he will lecture, or at least talk too much (see below: Teachers).

# Rupert Sheldrake A New Science of Life (Blond and Briggs) London (1981)