Okay. I am really excited to have, uh, Robert Dillon as part of the Transformative Leadership Summit. Uh, he has been a longtime, uh, friend online, and someday I will get to meet him in person, and I can't wait 'cause it's gonna be awesome. And, uh, I'm excited to have him here today to talk about learning spaces. He's just finished a book and has another book coming out soon about learning spaces, and he's currently the director of Bright Bytes.
And welcome, Robert, thank you so much for being a part of this. Hey, thanks Jethro, and, uh, it's great to be here and great to be a part of this bigger, uh, summit. I love this idea that we can learn mi- uh, asynchronously from quality people all over the country. And so if we're not modeling that, um, then, um, I don't know how we can ask others to do that, so thanks for having me.
Well, speaking of models, you are a great model for that, and you've always been someone who has pushed learning into different areas, and so I'm excited to talk to you about that today, and especially about, um, learning spaces because I think that that is so important to what we're doing.
And the, the... just this last year at my school we got some treadmill desks and some standing desks and, uh, different seating arrangements for, uh, all of our classrooms, and it's really been exciting to see how the kids have gotten excited about that. So, so let's start there, um, with furniture and- Yeah talk about how, how furniture impacts kids' learning. Yeah. Well, let me back up just for a second and then I'll go there.
Um, I, you know, I've been thinking lately about, um, the big levers of disruption in education, and I don't think there are too many. I think that we have a lot of doing the wrong stuff more right, as Will Richardson says. Um, and when we really, really wanna shake a system, we've got a few things. We've got the schedule, um, we've got grades, and I think you can put learning spaces in there as well.
I think when people visually see school as something different, uh, it can be a disruptive force. And so I think over my last 10 years as a middle school principal and, um, CTO, and now as the director of the Bright Bytes Institute, I've been looking for those big levers. And so it's been nice for the last couple years to play in the learning space, uh, arena. And I do think that furniture's a big part of, uh, what you talk about.
Uh, we've been stuck, literally at times, stuck in desks, um, in rows for way, way too long. Um, and we know that, um, you know, energy, productivity, the type of collaboration we're all begging for can't happen in that type of arena. And we actually know that one-to-one technology fails, uh, in that same sort of space. And so I think that- Um, this is a big lever also in making sure that, uh, technology integration is going to be maximized in schools as well.
And why do things fail in that space so much, Bob? You know, I think it fits in the other, in the other buckets, right? Like, uh, we've al- we always do what we've always known. Uh, sometimes it's hard to build a sense of urgency around, um, things like facilities and operations. And, um, and so I think that all of those things, uh, just create momentum more than anything else. Uh, I think when there's momentum one direction, uh, systems naturally just want to keep going that direction.
Yeah. That's very true, and one of the things that I've seen in, in my experience is that if you change a space or change a schedule or change how you grade, then everybody starts talking about what that actually means, and if everything is the same as it always was, then it doesn't really mean anything, right? Yeah. And so being able to have that conversation of what does it mean is very powerful and informative as you, as you start these conversations.
Yeah, and one of the things we talk about in the book, uh, The Space, is that this isn't about decorating classrooms, um, that it's not about Pinterest pretty classrooms, if you want to put it that way. Um, it's truly about redefining, um, the habitat in which kids build learning habits, and I think that's one of my kind of favorite buzzes out of the book is that idea is that we're really looking at, uh, learning habitats.
Um, you know, kids are eight hours a day, um, in classrooms that either support their learning or inhibit their learning, and I think we have a responsibility to make those the best we can. Doesn't mean we need to pull up the money truck, doesn't mean we need to back up everything and, uh, um, you know, not be able to do something, but, um, we need to do something there.
Yeah, absolutely, and you know, that idea of money, it sounds very expensive to do anything with, um, learning spaces as in a physical location because buildings are so expensive, furniture is so expensive. What are some easy, simple ways that we can start adjusting our learning spaces? One of the first things I do when I talk about learning spaces is ask what we can take out, and there, there's something that doesn't cost, right? Is there an old bookshelf? Are there old blinds?
Are there an extra table that inhibits the way we walk through the room? Is there a teacher desk we can remove? I mean, the list goes on. So I think before we talk about putting more things in, we really have to be critical about what we take out. I was in a classroom of a 42-year veteran teacher in Delaware, and, uh, I think in year three she told someone she liked frogs. So you know what happens, right? It becomes an episode of Hoarders. And, um, we've got to do better than that for kids.
Um, and y- sometimes it's even about taking things off the walls that are laminated. It's about taking posters down. It's not about making it so primitive that it doesn't entice kids, but we ask why kids can't focus in the classroom, and then we put tons of stuff around them to stimulate them. So sometimes it's about addition through subtraction. Uh, but I also do think that there's some addition, um, when it comes to, um, you know, writable spaces.
I mean, if anybody's got a Lowe's or a Home Depot, they can create a 4x8 writable space for, like, 12 bucks. So if you weren't gonna do anything else in your classroom, how could you two-fold, three-fold, four-fold the writable spaces that are available to kids? 'Cause when kids start putting their ideas on the wall, it actually helps teach other kids. And so it just multiplies upon itself. And why are those writable spaces that impactful?
Well, you know, we give lip service a lot of times to student voice. And, uh, you know, when student voice through words are on walls, uh, we're validating and celebrating what kids really believe. Um, you know, it's one thing to put it in a Google Doc. It's the next thing to put it up for the public to see it and to live with that. And so that's a big part.
And one of the things we stress in our book is that, um, classrooms need to become more of a showplace, where you're really looking at the concept of process as opposed to final product. We usually have a lot of bulletin boards with a lot of anchor papers, with a lot of student, uh, 100%s with gold stars on them, but how can we create that writable space that shows learning process?
Uh, and so we think that's a really, really important, uh, step forward, if you can really go from product to process when you kind of take a walk around the room with your eyes. And I've, I've seen some of that myself, and kids are sometimes hesitant to put up works in progress, um, because they, they're not done or they're not good enough or whatever. And, you know, I've seen that, that helping empower them to do that, to be okay with that in certain situations really makes a lot of sense.
Can you talk about some of those times, especially where the process is valuable and should be shared? Yeah, I was a high school English teacher, so value the writing process. We'll start right there. And being able to let kids know that draft one and draft two, um, don't even come close to draft 50, right? And so that piece. Um, we also don't want the same kids making the same mistakes. Like, if kids can help each other not make the same mistakes, that's an important piece.
And then, you know, uh, again, uh, can we keep folks from, uh, really despising failure, if you want to call it that. Like, to really believe that life is really in beta Um, is a pretty cool idea if we can get that instilled in kids. And I can tell you, teachers still struggle with that too.
We've been asking a lot of teachers to share into the open education resource marketplace, and I hear from teachers, "Eh, my stuff's not that good. I don't know. Why would someone want my work?" H- you know, uh, at the same time, we know bits and pieces of ideas actually spark fresh ideas for other folks. And so I- it's all of those things combined. Yeah, absolutely.
You know, one of the things that I saw in a math classroom this year was a, a math class that was, uh, for students who were struggling and weren't on grade level. And we saw incredible gains in their confidence and ability, uh, from being in that class, and had huge growth, and it was very exciting to see. But one of the things that I found totally fascinating was that the students did all of their work on a whiteboard. Every single day, all of it was done on a whiteboard.
And at first I thought, "Well, how do the kids ever record what they've learned? How do they ever, like, put that down and know that they've actually learned it?"
And through talking with the teacher, I f- I learned that they have a little folder where they write down what they learned that day in this separate folder, but they look at that folder only briefly at the beginning of class and at the end of class, and in the middle to do a little assessment to see how they're doing on their specific learning target. But the rest of the time, everything is on this whiteboard.
And I thought about how powerful it is for those kids to erase their mistakes very easily, and to erase their successes very easily as well. And to realize that i- on a whiteboard, they're both the same thing. They're writing on a whiteboard, and it's gone as soon as you rub a cloth over it. And that, to me, was a powerful example of how that can really change a classroom. And she never made copies, she never had, um, worksheets. It was always this whiteboard.
And the gains of those kids, that's not the only thing she did, obviously, but that idea that it's not permanent and we're gonna move on, it was really powerful. Yeah. I, I, I love that idea. And just, uh, e- yeah, each of those pieces, that n- even your successes aren't permanent, right? Yeah. Like, we're moving on.
Uh, you know, we hear sports stars say all the time, like, "Hey, we're gonna celebrate this one tonight, and then tomorrow we're gonna get back after it." And so I don't think it's any different. And, you know, ex- you know, I think about math also, and, you know, I think we have to teach kids that hard work is fun. Sometimes learning isn't fun, but hard work is fun. And, um, there's a difference there.
It's semantics in some way, but the other part is we always tell kids, "Learning's fun. Learning's fun." Kids are like, "No, it's not. It's hard work." So learning's hard work. Hard work is fun. Uh, and so we've gotta break that down. Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, one of the things that, that I like about this approach is that we're talking about really simple things that any school can do right now.
And, you know, a $12 purchase is not gonna break the bank, and you can also just take a little, uh, paper page protector and put a white piece of paper in there and have something like that. Let's talk a little bit to the next level of what other kinds of things can we do to change our learning spaces. We've talked about taking things out, addition through subtraction, writable spaces. What else can we do?
Yeah, I think the book does a nice job of, uh, putting hacks in a few different ways, so if you want to put those in buckets, one is about collaboration. And one of the things we do there is being v- uh, very purposeful about seating arrangement, that there are times where you want folks to be in stools so they're leaning forward into a conversation. There's times when you want folks sitting back so they're in a more reflective stance.
And I think, uh, really thinking about the purpose of what you want for the different places in your classroom. Uh, oftentimes we don't have a chance to think about that. We may say, "Oh, there's a station over there. There's a station over here." But being really, um, thoughtful about that, uh, makes a difference. Um, there's a school district in Virginia that says that any space they redesign has three different types of seating in it.
They don't dictate what the type of seating are, but they say, "Hey, that's the amount of variance you need to really feel like something's different." So I would encourage teachers to think like that. Uh, is it okay for kids to sit on the floor? Is that, does that promote collaboration? Do we have kids sitting around a table that's a writable surface? Uh, can we have kids standing up against... Whatever that looks like, um, there's a lot of easy hacks that go along with that.
And then the other piece is hacks around creation. So if I was thinking about the purpose of my classroom, it would be about collaboration and creation. And I think that, um, too often the purpose becomes how do we get kids more excited or how do we keep them more engaged or less distracted, but I think you have to go to that second level of saying this is about collaboration and creation. And I think in the creation sense, you're talking about how do you put prototyping materials in the room.
How do you put up pilot cardboard in a way, how do you create studio space where kids can work on things and truly create and step back and come back to it the next day? Uh, and in the book we describe some places, uh, ways to do that, as well as a lot of pictures. Um, it's a very, very, um, design-rich and picture-rich book, which I think, you know, uh, none of us really have that time to sit down with a 120-page book of that's all text, and so, uh, we tried to help with that as well.
And, you know, I don't have the skills to You know, I can never get feng shui in my house- Yeah or my s- bedroom or my school office or classroom or anything like that. So I don't have the aesthetic awareness to be able to make some of those decisions. What do I do in that situation? Yeah. And you know, we talk about, uh, building a designer's mindset. I think that's an important piece. And we have to do a couple things.
We have to get folks, uh, either seeing other spaces virtually or physically in those spaces. Uh, too many teachers exist in two schools a year, the one where they teach and the one where their kids go to school, and that's a piece of the process. If you wanna be a designer, uh, you've gotta either go look at classrooms or look at them virtually.
Um, and I think that one of the things I'll add to this, uh, podcast here will be a, a big array of photos of things that people have tried, and I think that'll be a nice value add for folks to be able to say like, "Hey, here's 50 pictures. I'm bound to be able to grab some idea here that I can bring back." And you know, the other piece is, um, a lot of learning space design isn't scalable. It really is customizable. Um, every variable matters, and no variable's the same in any classroom.
And so we want folks to feel like designers, have a sense of what design is, and then be able to bring that back in a real authentic way into their space. Very cool. Adding those photos, uh, getting those photos as part of the All Access Pass will be very awesome, and just being able to see from your experience what you've been able to, to capture will be good. As we're thinking about these things, what questions should we be asking ourselves, um, about our current spaces?
You know, I'm in a f- 40, 30, 30 year... No. Yeah, 30-year-old building right now, and um, we just had a brand-new beautiful high school built right next to us, and, you know, the envy is, is pretty high, I'm not gonna lie. 'Cause that's a beautiful building with a beautiful view of the ocean, and we don't, we hardly have any windows.
And so my assistant principal, who's very insightful, has a, um, a way of looking at that where he says, "The good news is we're in an old building, so we can do whatever we want, and we can repaint walls, and we can, you know, do different things." So what kinds of questions should we be asking about redesigning our spaces? Yeah. I, you know, the first one might surprise you, but, um, how can you use your hallways as learning spaces?
Um, I told teachers the other day that, you know, maybe they should just annex the hallway, uh, and take on piece of that. Uh, I was at a school in Alabama that had a maker station out there in the hallway. I've seen, you know, Lego boards in the hallway. So the first and foremost is that's a lot of square feet to not be used for learning, so how can we leverage that? You know, the second piece is about sound for me.
Um, you know, some folks say 50% of all things that are said in class, either by students or a teacher, are lost because of the acoustics.
And there's some things we can do there as we soften the room with softer seating, uh, and when we're thoughtful about where we're standing in the room, and when we're thoughtful about, um, just some of the things that make ambient noise in the room, things like refrigerators, things like, you know, we can- can't always impact HVAC and that sort of thing, but being at least thoughtful about that. And some of the, um, you know, amplification systems.
You know, if you were gonna say, "Hey, you know, it's really loud in here. We really do need a speaker where a teacher can be heard at a different level." Uh, things like that, and then also, uh, just the clutter. Um, you know, what 10 things could you remove next year that wouldn't impact learning? Um, those types of questions go a long way to making people, uh, think different.
And then, uh, the question that always comes up for me is, "I've got 28 desks in my room. My principal won't let me get rid of them. What do I do?" Uh, you know, they don't have another place to put them. Um, I encourage folks to ask their parents, "Does anybody have a storage unit?" Uh, you know, storage units in the United States, what, an $8 billion industry? Someone's bound to have some space. Uh, so take those out, uh, put some six-foot tables in.
Uh, go to Walmart and buy some six-foot tables, and just see if it changes things. And if you don't like it, bring them back. It's fine. Um, and one of the things that we can't get caught in the trap of is like, "Here, well, here's where we were last year, and then we're gonna redesign it, and it's done." Um, learning spaces can't be done. They can be ready for next year.
I say... To some people I said, "Make an alpha." But if you don't have a next four versions of your room, you're just as bad as when you started. So you can't go from one to two. You have to go to one to two, and then have a three, a four, a five, and a 10 in the same school year. And what does... Where does consistency come into that?
Um, we talk a lot about, in education, about how consistency is important, and I tried to find quotes about consistency, and all I found were, "Consistency is a horrible thing that you should never worry about." And so- ... go look up brainyquote.com and, uh, and, and try finding something good about consistency, but that's what we crave in schools. Yeah. How about consistent procedures and norms on how we operate in learning? I'm okay with that.
But the idea that kids need the same looking type of space to exist in, whether they're in a social studies class or a math class or an art class, um, I don't know, I think that's folly, and it doesn't give justice to the fact that that subject in and of itself lends itself to a different type of space. And so, um, I, I'm, I'm for consistency. I worked in a middle school for a long time. I get it, right?
Like, norms matter- But it doesn't have to be about, um, the way we stack kids in a classroom. Um, now, if we take this to, to another level and talk about designing, um, a school from the ground up, what, what would you say n- needs to stay the same as what we're currently doing, and what do we need to absolutely change if we're starting fresh? Um, wow. And that's, yeah. I, it, I think access to the outdoors came up right away, which is kind of interesting.
I love that classrooms and, you know, some environments lend itself better than others, but love that classrooms have exit doors, that kids can go outside and continue their learning beyond the school walls. I think it sends a powerful message. We also know that natural light does a lot, and so whatever we can do. And one of the beautiful things about LEED-certified buildings is the natural light that's in those buildings.
And, um, I think that's a big deal, and we've had way, way too many stories of folks not bringing quality water to kids, right? Like, let's, let's get that locked down before we get too far down. Like, we can't have lead pipes, uh, in, in our new buildings. And so, um, and then the other thing is common spaces, open learning spaces where kids can go and do project work. Uh, audio visual studios where kids can take green screens and, you know, their cameras and make, um, you know, create.
I think those should be a big part of the process as well. So there's a few things. Okay. I think that's a, that's a good start to get us thinking, and some of us may be able to do some of those things with what we currently have, which is why I asked that question, to be able to say, "If we could design from the ground up, what would we change?" But really, what can you do with your current situation?
So in, let's say I'm a principal and I've got a classroom that is not being utilized fully this year. Where would you suggest I start to make that a usable space for next year? Yeah. First, I would get a group of students in that room. Uh, we do such a poor job in education of designing for kids and not with kids. Um, I would take a group of students in there and begin to vision, um... And I would... We oftentimes solve for problems that really aren't kid problems.
And so, how can we get kids in there and start asking them the right questions? Like, you know, "What makes you comfortable learning? Um, what, or do things differ in the morning and the afternoon? Um, how do you hear best?" You know? "What about your fellow students?" So asking students a ton of those questions, uh, is a big, is a part of that. Um, the second part is if you're gonna buy some things and you've gotten to that part, and I'm kind of jumping ahead, don't buy it all at once.
Uh, we recommend, like, a 30/40/30 process. So buy 30% of maybe what you think could be right based on student feedback. Let students start to interact with that. Uh, be a sociologist of the room. Learn what really works, learn what doesn't, and then buy the next 40%. And then you'll have almost the mothership of everything in there. And then, you know, six months, a year later, the next new thing's gonna come out, or something that can really supplement what you're doing.
Then you have a little bit of cash in the back to do that. I think sometimes there's such an urgency to say, "We have this pool of money, we need to spend it all today." And I love the idea of when universities don't put sidewalks in, and they let kids walk wherever, and then wherever they wear things down, they put sidewalks. Uh, same sort of theory. Uh, I turn that over to kids, and, um, I, I think it, it's a, it's a magical experience when you're able to pull it off.
We were able to do that in the Affton School District with six or seven spaces, uh, over the last two years, which was kind of the genesis of the book, was that we were really doing the stuff. We were really making a difference, and we were really seeing cultures change, and we wanted to make sure we shared that with everyone.
Yeah. We did something similar with that at our school with those treadmill desks that I was talking about, and with the standing desks, and with the, um, wobbly stool things. And what we did essentially was we got a bunch first and put them in different spaces, saw that kids were enjoying them, and then, um, bought some more. And then we still have an opportunity to buy some more for next year so that we can, you know, increase the, the different things that are in there.
One of the, uh, frustrations that we've had is that people, um, uh, mistakenly believe that because it's there, then the kids have free access to it whenever and however. Can you talk a little bit about procedures and systems put in place to help teachers know how to deal with those things? Yeah. Learning spaces are not going to help teachers that have poor classroom management.
Just like if you bring one-to-one into a school, uh, both of those things amplify excellent teaching and expose mediocre teaching. And so, um, there is a fear, um, with like, "Is this going to, you know, break the way I've done things before?" Uh, but I, you know, I think kids are pretty respectful.
We dropped a bunch of high school kids off in a library that was brand new with couches and wobbly stools, and, and we... You know, sure, we had to remind kids, but no different than we did with the wooden chairs in the library about don't lean back in them. Um, we really d- don't see a huge amount of breakage or a huge amount of abuse. But, you know, I think teachers that can just be honest with their students. And we're not doing that today.
Just like we do with our computers where we say close the lids, you know, whatever that is. We're not saying that 24 hours of it being there means 24-hour access, and just being honest about that's important. Yeah. It, you know, I've learned a ton from this conversation with you, and, um- One of the things that you said was getting kids to talk about their vision of the space.
And, you know, part of this summit is Amy Fast talking about how she got all of her students at her school to give feedback on how they felt about school. And using those same strategies that she talks about I think would be really good for this, for the spaces. Um, what parting piece of advice do you have for, um, principals who want to take this to the next level in addition to buying your book? 'Cause that's, that's a given. There's a link down below. You gotta make sure you get that.
I, I think, um, not going slow but with a sense of urgency. Oftentimes we hear, "Go slow, go slow, go slow." I think there has to be a sense of urgency. I think that you need to break the mental model of what folks think about school. And so that's one space in your school, if that's a library, if that's an old computer lab, if it's an unused classroom. Really go in there and be disruptive. Make it very different.
Uh, and the rest of your classrooms won't be that different, but that's okay because it... Just like a rubber band, you've gotta stretch people out pretty far to get them to move. And so I would encourage principals to do that. And the second would be, um, to say yes a lot. Uh, there'll be a lot of teacher ideas, a lot of small teacher ideas along the way that if you can say yes to during that process, that you're gonna have all these little micro changes happening too.
So just remember that culture of yes, saying yes, and, um, just kind of leaning into being a, the lever that it is, and let it be disruptive for your school. Awesome. That's, that's great advice. Thank you so much for your time, Bob, and it's been awesome talking to you, as it always is. You're incredible, so thank you very much. Thanks, Jethro. It's been great, and, uh, have a great vacation the rest of the summer. Thank you.