Education at Its Finest

Education at Its Finest

June 7, 2015 0 By EVA

We all know that feeling. You slowly blink your eyes open as the sunlight filters into your room, alarm clock blaring beside your head and your mother or father standing in the doorway informing you that yes, it is indeed required that you leave the cosy sanctity of your comforter in order to dress for school. You groan and attempt to turn over and go back to sleep, but seconds later your warmth is snatched away by an irate parent, and you resign yourself to another seven hours sitting in a chair in a stuffy classroom.

Not so for those lucky children that happen to attend the Fuji Kindergarten in Tachikawa, near Tokyo, Japan.

The children that are enrolled in this groundbreaking approach to education are not required to stay inside their classrooms; in fact, one may wonder if there even is an inside. The entire school is simply a roof in the shape of an oval, with no walls and only furniture to partition the classes. Three zelkova trees pierce the ceiling, the square holes covered with safety nets, and climbing them at any time the children wish is quite alright, and even encouraged. If a child is strong enough, they can reach the upper level without using the stairs at all!

school
Designed by Tezuka Architects, the premise is to tire out the children so they will not be restless in class. Fidgety children equate to inattentive children, the Fuji school says, and so they allow the children to tire themselves out in any way they wish. When they are finished with their play, the children always come back to the classroom to learn, if only because they have nothing else to do. This leads to more attentive children, because they simply do not have the energy to goof off, and has the added benefit of more athletic children. Grades are up because of this new approach to education, and the children themselves are reported to be more athletic than usual due to all the running around they’re allowed to do.

Designed by Takaharu Tezuka and his wife, Yui, they say that the key to creating something so groundbreaking is simple: think like a kid. Channeling the habits and desires of their own children, aged twelve and nine, was the only thing they required to come up with this breakthrough in education. One wonders what other projects, if any, the Tezuka couple may still have in store.