Could classrooms be designed differently? (illustrative)
Could classrooms be designed differently? (illustrative)Yoni Kempinski

On the eve of the Israeli school year beginning, Arutz Sheva visited the Gogya Center of the AMIT network schools in Ra’anana. Gogya is a formalized program instituted to train all of AMIT’s teachers on how to adopt and implement the various innovative teaching methods which have led to the tremendous success of the AMIT network of schools.

Arutz Sheva spoke to architect Prakash Nair, President of Fielding Nair International, this week about the design for Gogya, and how the design for classrooms worldwide is evolving beyond the typical setup. 

"The building is very important because the building sends a very strong message about what we believe education is," Nair stated. "The buildings traditionally have said that education is something that happens when a group of students listen to a teacher, transfer information to them, but information is not only available from them." 

Nair elaborated that the schools of the future will have spaces that are activity-based - different setups for individual learning, hands-on learning, outdoor learning, etc. This is in stark contrast to the current model, which he noted was designed in the US and UK in the late nineteenth century. 

"The traditional model, where children are treated like parts of a factory, doesn't work anymore, because they don't need to come to school for information," he explained. "The building needs to look different to reflect today's teaching and learning needs."