So much to inspire from ........

After visiting two retail spaces, that in my case are these famous Indian restaurants in Dubai that are Bikanerwala and Bombay Chowpatti, I am trying to make a connection with the compelling experience of these two food joints with my teaching /classroom environment.

I had to ask myself what makes these spaces special for me as a costumer and also as food lover, and in what way I can connect these experiences to my classrooms to make it more compelling. There can be countless analogies that can be drawn. How do I draw analogies from them and make a meaningful connection to my classrooms. Prof. Wong advised us to wear NDCE glasses and look through that angle and try to make a more meaningful connection and try connecting them to our classroom.

While doing NDCE reading I read Big Ideas behind Not So Big Houses Sarah Susanka mentioned a very good point that it is the quality and not quantity which makes the difference. So these places that I visited were not that big but the way the interiors were done, the food displayed, the seating arrangement done and the way everything was arranged in a particular manner made it pleasing and a very compelling experience for me.
Being an Educator of 21st century we had to do some soul searching to try putting passion and taking inspiration from many fields and from the work of different professionals. For example when I tell my students let’s do some more calculus problems or one more problem of trigonometry or let’s keep extra class on geometry they tend to give me excuses or they just do not seem that interested. But when I tell the same students let’s go out for a class lunch at a restaurant students are more than happy. This is how we can apply such meaning full experiences to enhance classroom learning. What makes a visit to a restaurant or fast food joint more compelling than a math class? This is what I want to find out?
In my school all classrooms are similar, all the furniture and fixtures follow the same pattern and the whole school follow similar monotonous prototype model in terms of number of desks, the white boards, windows, lights, curtains and even ceiling fixtures, fans and A.C are same in all the rooms. So how do we make it different and more compelling? Definitely we have neither the budget to decorate every classroom in a unique way nor is it possible to have different classrooms for different subjects. The only way I think this can be achieved, in fact we are actually achieving it, through our classroom boards.
These boards that are done once every month helps to enhance the classroom interiors and give every classroom a unique look. Ever classroom has a very different and distinctive look depending on the level and subjects offered and the design of these boards depend on the creative quotients of the teachers and students. I will post some of the board photographs on my blogs so that you can tell me if you find them compelling or not.