I read this blog post from the Washington Post this morning entitled Smart design + school = health. It described beautifully why atmosphere is important in the classroom. The final quote stood out to me:
“We really focused on what kids need. What I see in that space are kids gravitating to that atmosphere because they know it’s for them, about them. Everything is tailored to their needs.”
Dina Sorensen, project designer, VMDO Architects
When I drew this cartoon I was thinking about the pressure to perform that some kids face. I am not from a sports-minded family and I probably passed that same lack of interest on to my kids. It’s not that I wasn’t interested in competition. It’s just that there weren’t very many traveling art competitions and ultra competitive writing conferences at my elementary school. (sure, there were spelling bees. I never made it past “pneumonia.”)