Read Transcript:

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Jessica: Welcome listeners to the radically Student centered podcast series where we dive into how a design of learning spaces directly shapes how students experience curriculum.

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We’re excited to welcome Susan Morgan, education Practice leader at Canon Design.

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Her expertise includes architect design, project management, and faculty advisement.

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Susan has successfully led projects in higher ed as well as in Boston public Schools.

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In her work, she focuses on client leadership, community engagement, and commitment to student success.

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Welcome, Susan.

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Susan: Yes.

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Thank you so much, Jessica.

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Glad to be here.

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Jessica: Amazing.

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So, why don’t we start with a little bit about you, um, and how you got into, you know, school design and your journey here.

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Susan: Yeah, so I, I loved thinking about how this all started, and I often say that my story goes back to Montessori school, and I realized it literally goes back to Montessori school because my first participation in a building project.

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Was to support our, and at that point, right, I was 10, right?

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I’d been with the school for, goodness, seven years at that point, and we were moving from a lease space into creating a ground up new construction school.

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And the two founders of the school invited students to participate in that process.

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And so on the one hand, they were drawing from.

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How Montessori generally organizes spaces, but that they invited us.

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What do you want to see?

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How do you want to use the spaces?

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And so I did that before I left elementary school, and that was my first one.

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And then I realized I was also a student leader for my high school’s renovation and expansion.

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So before I left school, I was already starting to help design schools, which is such a treat.

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Jessica: That’s amazing.

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Did you have, like as a 10-year-old walking into that new school, were you able to walk into the new Montessori school and have like an aha moment of like, wait, like I said this, or I was, I was really looking for this.

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Tell me about that.

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Susan: So what’s interesting is I see parallels between my grandfather who was an architect, and in one of the houses he designed, you would walk into the hallway and the end of the hallway was actually a mirror.

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And so you were looking back at the forest behind you.

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And the kind of aha moment I had in the Montessori school is the first thing you see when you walk in the door is the playground.

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Visible at the end of the hallway.

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So you’re looking out to nature, you’re looking out to something, you’re looking out to a place you want to go.

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And so those two things came together even at that first stage.

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Jessica: Oh my God, that’s amazing.

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And that even goes back to even, you know, younger than 10 years old with your grandfather having that design process too.

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And so you have always been in design.

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I know that you worked for a few other firms prior and architect and design.

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Talk to me about the schools, um, and the school design that you have been able to kind of engage in over the course of your work.

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Susan: so as somebody who decided to become an architect at three and a half, and I never changed my mind, I was connected to the idea and I’d had these great experiences in buildings that were a part of my learning, like my schools.

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Had designed features that I connected with my schools, took me to museums where I learned things.

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the first K through 12 school that I worked on was actually here in Boston.

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at the time it was called the John P. Holland School.

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It’s now the UP Academy, and we were working with an 1970s open plan school.

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That just didn’t work anymore.

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Students couldn’t concentrate, teachers couldn’t teach, and because it was designed during the energy crisis, it didn’t have many windows.

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And so as this young designer just out of graduate school, we were fortunate enough and I, my firm at the time, Schwartz Silver, was great enough to give me the opportunity.

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To help redesign the exteriors.

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’cause we took off the exterior walls.

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We wanted to make them more insulated, and my first step was to make sure there were windows that were at the height of students.

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Because before they had been these windows that were so high and they were at adult only levels.

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And so kids couldn’t see outdoors.

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And so it was so fun because we were able to create this animated facade, and as part of enclosing the classrooms, make sure that each classroom was connected both inside and out.

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Jessica: Absolutely.

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And I, I love that, that like, we’ll talk about Montessori a little bit more because I have, um, one of my experiences was being a director of an early childhood center at Bright Horizons, which is across the nation.

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And part of our development was every week me and the teacher, the lead teacher of that classroom got on her hands and knees.

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And we saw what the students saw because you know, putting things together when you see it from an adult level, it was just, okay, great.

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Like I see these tabletops that have wonderful, you know, textures and colors, but like that bottom level, like what are our students actually seeing in terms of texture And yes, absolutely.

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And it.

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So it was such a nice reflection, I think, for teachers and for students too, when students realize that something new had been put out, right?

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Because at that age, you’re just looking for, that distraction or that, you know, kind of engagement and curiosity.

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And so I love that you, you know, thinking about immediately I need to, the students need to be able to see what’s going on, right?

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Which brings us to like this radically student centered approach, which, you know, uh, K 12 is all about Talk to me.

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About your experience and what radically student centered means and how you take your experience as being brought into the process, into now the design experience and bringing other students into that process.

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Susan: So I, I love that, that k twelve’s maxim of radically student centered design, it connects with canon design.

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We talk about whole student.

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Every student.

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we talk about people are everything, and in both of these invitations, when we consider that design is not about creating objects, that design is about creating places for people, then the step that goes into that is to say, I’m helping.

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To form someone’s life and their experience out in the world.

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And it’s one of the reasons I became an architect, is because my environments shaped me.

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They inspired my curiosity and my hunger.

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And so for me, radically student-centered design is about what does each human need to show up with their best self every day?

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Jessica: I

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Susan: And you, you don’t put any more limits on that.

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Like what do you need to be your best self?

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Jessica: Absolutely.

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And I’m so curious of when you talk to schools, right, and you’re in that vision phase, what kind of responses do you get when they’re, when you’re asking them to like take design and furniture out of the conversation?

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What do you want your kids to experience every day?

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What type of feedback do you get from those conversations?

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Susan: So you’ve, you’ve hit the nail on the head, which is, it’s such a natural tendency for all of us, whether we’re designers, whether we’re administrators, whether we’re teachers.

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We wanna start to talk about the problems.

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Here’s what doesn’t work with my classroom.

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Now.

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Here’s what needs to be changed from what I have now.

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And this invitation with radically student-centered design to say that we’re focused on what are these emerging humans.

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Need.

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What’s really beneficial is you have teachers who’ve been in the business for decades.

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My mother was a public high school English teacher for over 35 years.

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Right.

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She was dedicated to teaching.

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Right.

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And the way that teachers and administrators talk about their students is so different than how they talk about their work.

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Because when they talk about their students, they talk about seeing somebody flourish.

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Thrive.

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They talk about what it means for a student who has a handful of siblings at home to come to school and have a place to focus.

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And so that, that’s such a restructuring of the conversation, and that’s what we try to do is, hey everyone, there’s a place where we
can put the challenges you have with your existing environments, but let’s park that and let’s start from what do your students need?

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Because you know your students, you know your community.

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Jessica: Absolutely.

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And that’s why it’s so important for us to include the teachers into the conversation because they can almost, like you said, they can kind of turn off.

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The stresses of curriculum and you know, parent conversations and everything they have on their to-do list.

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I was an educator for 15 years in New York City.

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I a hundred percent have felt it.

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And you’re right.

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I love that you can name that, that.

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How you think about the world around you as a teacher in your classroom versus how you think about your students is completely different.

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And just the language you use and how you really do want the best for them every single day.

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And that comes with the learning designs, right?

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And, and the, and the, and, and the learning spaces that we’re putting in front of them.

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But being part of that conversation is just so vitally important to us and, and, and to my role as.

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Of just being able to be in the school and hear from the teachers and hear from the district and the community and and, and what they need.

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So, absolutely.

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Um, thank you so much for sharing that.

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And I would love to dive into one of the projects to actually hear that full circle experience.

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Right.

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Because I, I did get to, um, to listen to a panel.

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I know you had, um, is it Arum

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Susan: Herman Crest.

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Jessica: Thank you Irman Crest School.

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I have watched that hour panel because, and I’ll let you speak about it, but I think it’s a really great example of doing something progressive.

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Right.

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In a way that made sense to them, right to the school, because every school is individual and every school wants the best, but not everyone can dream of the best or maybe come to that compromise.

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and I, I think that they talked a lot about active learning everywhere and just these.

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I would, I’m really curious to hear about that whole experience from your team, how you bring in, you know, the Children’s Museum a school, and still know that, right.

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They still have the same tests that everyone in the districts has.

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They still have the same expectations and curriculum.

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So I’m gonna pause so that you can, you can talk to me about that project because it was, it was really something different that I would love to highlight for our listeners.

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Susan: So I appreciate that invitation.

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We as a group are really collectively proud of our continuity with the Seneca Valley School District.

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It started with Irman Crest, which is their elementary school.

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Right.

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So you’re doing K through four.

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Um, it’s now continuing with our work with the independent high school.

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That’s seven through 12.

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And what it started from was the school district saying, what if,

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Jessica: Yes, I heard that.

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Susan: that invitation and what became a, a true three-way collaboration with the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh anchored.

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And I kind of love that there’s a throughway here, for me and my background.

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A through way to asking what if a building could be a tool for learning?

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It’s not just a place you learn, but what if the building was a part of your learning?

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And I just want that to sink in in a little bit because when we think of buildings as places where you do things, then we think of them as boxes that you put activities into.

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And a radically student centered approach says, what if the building is a part of your learning pathway?

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Your learning tools and your learning framework?

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And that invites every constituent from the superintendent to the principal, to the faculty, to every, every aspect down to the students, to the families that use it to say, what if.

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Jessica: That is incredible, to really take a pause and to think about not, not only the, the what if, but the learning tool that was really, really powerful to think about your school, you know, as, as
a tool, as a way to learn, you know, and, and we talked about Montessori quickly, but vertical horizontal learning, never something that I see in a normal K through, you know, K through six school, but.

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We know with younger generation in child development and neuroscience, that when a child walks in the classroom and before they even get to the classroom in the hallways,
they’re, you know, engaging in, you know, maybe a track on the hallway or a Lego building and they’re pausing with their family to build a quick house before they go in.

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It completely changes the student’s experience with school.

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Um, and that is incredible that you’re, you’re not only doing that work, but that it was successful at the school, so much so that you’re bringing in the high school.

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And this is a K through six range school.

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So were there any specific examples of maybe like balance of this is what we want and this is what we can do, um, in terms of it being, you know, a K through six school, uh, if there was any barriers or, you know, complications.

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Susan: Do you know what’s interesting?

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Which is I think because each of the three stakeholders was brought to the table from the start.

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wasn’t the kind of expansion and contraction you sometimes have during design where you talk about everything you absolutely want to have and then you have to put it back in a box, right?

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The team was fully aware of the budget, they were aware of the space available and how to develop it, and so in that sense, the most powerful.

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In addition to the what if question, I would say the second most powerful.

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Anchor for the team’s work was to think of a school not as something which is static.

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And that becomes like a heritage building over time.

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Right.

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Um, one of my colleagues talks about the mural on the wall that was painted 30 years ago and you can’t change it.

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But that when you take that mindset, the museum mindset, that your environments are planned to be adaptable and to change over time, and that your environment is living because your learning is always evolving and growing right?

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Whether it’s with technology, whether it’s with the kind of topics you wanna focus on.

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Setting that foundation allowed us to be really focused in how we planned the school.

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So I, I, I know you’re looking for like a really great struggle, but

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Jessica: No.

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Susan: ways by setting clear expectations, there was actually less of a struggle.

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You know, when we work with schools at K12 it’s not just about furniture design, it’s about impact.

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Our radically student-centered approach puts students at the center of every decision.

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From that first conversation to the final walkthrough, we’re focused on creating spaces that actually work for the kids.

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Teachers and the community.

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So if you’re looking to do more than just check a box on your next project, let’s talk Visit k12.com.

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That’s K-A-Y-T-W-E-L-V-E.com and see how we’re helping schools transform learning one student at a time.

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Because at K12 it’s not just about projects and furniture, it’s about purpose.

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Jessica: And, and that brings me to one curiosity, one curious moment I had, I love, someone had mentioned like, you know, they wanted to just to ensure that everyone felt safe right in this building.

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Safe to take chances as well.

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And I think of, you know, something that is so radical.

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What, uh, was the, you know, if you knew, ’cause the district, I’m sure probably did it, but was what was like that teacher training to get them to understand how their actual practice might change a little bit.

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And there’s so much, you know, turnover and, and teachers come from all different, you know, backgrounds.

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But was there any specific teacher training that you guys, either you were a part of or maybe not a part of, to get them ready to like.

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This is gonna change your practice.

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It’s gonna feel uncomfortable.

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I’m sure your mom knows it right?

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When new initiatives come out, um, there’s moments of like, fear of that control.

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I feel it too.

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Um, if you knew of any insights, if you could talk to me about that, that, um, something I’m really curious about with a project like that.

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Susan: So this was also a case where, and I’ll, I’m gonna use the term bravery because it was actually also kind of a maxim that the superintendent, um, Dr. Viel had, had developed it.

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It was an anchor for the team’s work.

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So it was brave to include staff from the beginning to end.

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So.

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We all know about the stories that sometimes a school is delivered and teachers just show up, right?

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That was not this experience.

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So the bravery was.

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To involve key staff along the way to have them participate in the planning to be sharing what this was starting to become.

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But really importantly in this case, uh, the way in which we work with the museum staff is they were actually teaching all of us.

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So it wasn’t about the architects telling the staff and the teachers how to use the building.

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It was the museum teams inviting all of us to understand how environments really can be used.

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What does it mean, to bring loose objects right into the space?

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What does it mean to take advantage of the things that are embedded in the walls?

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Right?

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And that was one of the exciting parts about this building is.

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There isn’t a single plain white corridor anywhere.

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Every corridor has interactives, every corridor has color.

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And this invitation for the museum to not be afraid because we were sharing that with staff along the way.

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there didn’t need to be one moment of exponential learning or transformative mindset change with the staff because that was actually happening along the way.

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Jessica: Yeah, absolutely.

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And they, they probably felt very empowered being part of the conversation to share it with others, right?

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Because not every teacher is available at every second, but.

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Being able to manipulate and feel it and get excited about it.

00:19:11.380 –> 00:19:12.580
We’ve seen it in schools.

00:19:12.580 –> 00:19:14.290
That’s what trickles to everyone else.

00:19:14.290 –> 00:19:18.970
And then when everything is unreal, no matter how involved you are, you feel involved.

00:19:18.970 –> 00:19:25.744
And I, and I love, that, that was such a priority I think in the project and I’m sure led to it being as successful.

00:19:25.744 –> 00:19:32.764
Um, I know the high school, is there anything that you’re kind of taking, um, from that experience onto.

00:19:32.947 –> 00:19:35.615
you know where, uh, how, where you’re starting with the high school now,

00:19:36.995 –> 00:19:37.385
Susan: Yes.

00:19:37.475 –> 00:19:41.705
Uh, great, great question, right, because they’re different learners, right?

00:19:41.765 –> 00:19:43.415
So you’re, you’re not gonna.

00:19:44.555 –> 00:19:52.925
How you visually and spatially engage older learners is different and they don’t want to be talked down to, and they don’t want to be pandered to.

00:19:53.195 –> 00:19:53.525
Right.

00:19:54.005 –> 00:19:58.295
So it, it isn’t cut, set, print, repeat, right?

00:19:58.295 –> 00:20:00.035
That is not this process.

00:20:00.432 –> 00:20:04.332
the linkage between the two is the idea of discovery.

00:20:05.322 –> 00:20:09.132
So at Irman Crest there is this invitation.

00:20:10.107 –> 00:20:20.817
For young learners to simply discover, to connect with ideas and content, and to just engage with the world, right tactically in the way that those young learners do.

00:20:21.807 –> 00:20:31.767
And for IHS, discovery is about starting to see yourself in the world in ways in which you maybe haven’t imagined.

00:20:32.307 –> 00:20:37.077
And so, quite literally, and again, I’m gonna kind of harp into corridors.

00:20:38.667 –> 00:20:44.547
You don’t have quarters, you have intentional perspectives and views at a given moment.

00:20:44.667 –> 00:20:49.827
You can look to the athletics field and that allows you to say, oh, I, hey, that looks like fun.

00:20:49.827 –> 00:20:50.637
I want to do it.

00:20:50.997 –> 00:20:54.927
And, and another part of the building, you’re looking into the performing arts area.

00:20:55.376 –> 00:21:02.426
in older school design, everything would live in different wings and there could be parts of the building you would avoid.

00:21:03.491 –> 00:21:10.091
You might choose to avoid it, but you wouldn’t realize that you were missing that chance to be exposed to something that you might be interested in.

00:21:10.691 –> 00:21:28.421
And so in that invitation to discover that is a literal spatial plan, spatial connection that’s happening in this building so that every student in the course of a day is exposed to science, to fine arts.

00:21:29.636 –> 00:21:41.631
Into making and crafting into moving their bodies and athletics right into health sciences, and so no one is gonna have their possibilities limited.

00:21:43.076 –> 00:22:02.426
By lack of exposure or The other way to put it is every student, their mindset is opened because they are literally visually connected to can see, can participate, can be invited to engage in everything that the world has to offer.

00:22:04.061 –> 00:22:09.011
Jessica: Oh, and I, and I, I love that it’s not only built from that, right?

00:22:09.011 –> 00:22:11.711
In this idea of facilitating this student experience.

00:22:11.711 –> 00:22:13.811
I know that said often of like, that’s what we wanna do.

00:22:13.811 –> 00:22:15.611
We wanna facilitate the student experience.

00:22:15.611 –> 00:22:22.661
But also, I believe I read a little bit about the school, that the auditorium and the theater program is pretty famous for the school.

00:22:22.661 –> 00:22:25.961
You know, like it’s something that they’re very, very, very, very interested in.

00:22:26.321 –> 00:22:28.781
So I love that not only like.

00:22:28.821 –> 00:22:34.251
Kind of giving that the grace that it needs because it’s obviously, there’s tradition there, there’s history that comes with that.

00:22:34.796 –> 00:22:43.046
But expanding them to like, yes, this is one thing our school could do, but look at the possibilities if you’re not interested in that, or look what else you can do.

00:22:43.046 –> 00:22:50.666
And that age group developing and that age group, that’s why I’m a big fan of CTE and everyone that is kind of going into that direction because.

00:22:50.791 –> 00:23:00.271
You’re developing so much at that time, and you said you knew you wanted to be an architect and I’ve been blessed to know that I wanted to be a, you know, in education, but a lot of people don’t know that.

00:23:00.331 –> 00:23:09.211
And you miss out on those years of developmental curiosity before you get to, you know, either trade, school, college, you know, workforce, wherever you wanna go after that.

00:23:09.216 –> 00:23:09.636
Mm-hmm.

00:23:10.511 –> 00:23:32.561
Susan: Well, and I’m just gonna highlight right when many of us, and particularly let’s say at our younger ages, when we think about
joining the drama club, right, or joining a production, we say in a very binary way, am I somebody who wants to be on stage or not?

00:23:33.011 –> 00:23:38.171
And if we say no, then we think there’s nothing else for us, but a production.

00:23:38.876 –> 00:23:42.026
Includes oftentimes musicians.

00:23:42.236 –> 00:23:45.776
So you could be somebody who plays an instrument and participate.

00:23:46.376 –> 00:23:48.896
It includes your technical team.

00:23:49.286 –> 00:23:54.086
You could be somebody who’s really good at painting and you actually join with Set development, right?

00:23:54.116 –> 00:23:59.541
You could be somebody who dreams of being a music producer and you’re gonna be in the sound booth.

00:24:00.506 –> 00:24:16.556
And that’s how IHS and our design of it is changing and shifting, which is by making these things literally visible and accessible, nobody’s stopping at that single binary assumption of either I’m on stage or I’m off because there’s so, and.

00:24:16.766 –> 00:24:16.946
Right.

00:24:16.946 –> 00:24:19.766
And of course that applies to other disciplines and departments too.

00:24:20.606 –> 00:24:21.026
Jessica: Right.

00:24:21.236 –> 00:24:22.496
Yeah, absolutely.

00:24:22.556 –> 00:24:24.236
Um, it’s opening the doors for them.

00:24:24.236 –> 00:24:34.286
Which brings me to, you’ve been in this industry for, for a very long time, and, you know, social emotional learning, this idea of, you know, curiosity in school, it’s all new for us.

00:24:34.286 –> 00:24:39.896
It’s, I’m sure very normal, but how has your, you know, design approach maybe evolved?

00:24:40.516 –> 00:24:44.176
All of these changes to teaching and learning on like a personal level.

00:24:44.176 –> 00:24:48.346
Is there anything that you know you had to reflect on or maybe even change in your practice?

00:24:48.376 –> 00:24:53.596
Because we’re just realizing and developing all these new ideas of what schools can be and are.

00:24:54.776 –> 00:24:59.576
Susan: What I have appreciated, and I’m somebody who always wants to learn and grow.

00:24:59.576 –> 00:25:04.496
So I’m gathering information from researchers, from teachers and from others.

00:25:05.276 –> 00:25:23.786
What has felt like a door that’s unlocked is all of the science that tells us that when different bodies engage the world in different ways, they are able to tap into their best self, right?

00:25:23.846 –> 00:25:24.056
So.

00:25:24.926 –> 00:25:33.476
In days before now, everybody had to sit in a chair and we would get mad at those students who had challenges focusing.

00:25:34.661 –> 00:25:38.831
What science shows us is that small ability, right?

00:25:38.831 –> 00:25:46.991
The reason why we have these chairs that rock and move is a small rock and move unlocks the ability to pay attention.

00:25:46.991 –> 00:25:49.991
And once you’re paying attention, you’re engaging and connecting.

00:25:50.291 –> 00:26:03.191
And so what I really love is that for all of us in the galaxy and the ecosystem of education, we all now know so much more about how student bodies, both young and old.

00:26:03.986 –> 00:26:15.356
What they need to be present in the learning environments, and it’s so much more than we thought was possible, and these very small things have very, very big impacts.

00:26:16.736 –> 00:26:17.876
Jessica: Oh, absolutely.

00:26:17.906 –> 00:26:33.086
Ab the role of, you know, educators has changed so much, and that just sparked, um, I, I, I, again, a little bit new to the industry, but I recently read the end of Average and I continuously go back to Todd Ross, like continuously.

00:26:33.266 –> 00:26:36.296
I mean, I, I was reading it and there were moments where I was like.

00:26:36.881 –> 00:26:37.811
Wow.

00:26:37.811 –> 00:26:42.221
Like I have very recently started to living in New York City, right?

00:26:42.221 –> 00:26:49.331
You don’t, you, you, you, you don’t think about the things that are very geared towards like right-handed people or, you know, able bodies.

00:26:49.391 –> 00:26:58.031
And from reading this, I feel like I’m constantly reflecting on this idea of, you know, what biases do I have of this average knowing that.

00:26:58.316 –> 00:27:00.176
The children are like, we’re not average.

00:27:00.176 –> 00:27:00.866
None of us are.

00:27:00.866 –> 00:27:05.366
In fact, in fact, if you take 10 of us, none of us fit into that category anymore.

00:27:05.696 –> 00:27:08.006
Um, and I, I think that’s so incredible.

00:27:08.096 –> 00:27:15.986
Um, when you think about teaching and learning and, and just the dynamics around what is changing and what people are adapting to.

00:27:16.016 –> 00:27:16.376
Right.

00:27:16.376 –> 00:27:19.886
It’s not a, I, I love that it’s not a, you know.

00:27:20.221 –> 00:27:22.261
Black, white kind of, um, area.

00:27:22.261 –> 00:27:34.801
It’s very much like everyone seems to be on board to where we’re going in education and that’s why they need people like us to help them through that design process and just make sure that their goals and priorities are really seen throughout these buildings.

00:27:34.856 –> 00:27:35.336
Susan: yes.

00:27:35.461 –> 00:27:36.571
Jessica: yeah, absolutely.

00:27:37.331 –> 00:27:38.741
Uh, but we talked about social media.

00:27:38.741 –> 00:27:40.211
I love your social media presence.

00:27:40.211 –> 00:27:42.071
I know we talked very briefly about it.

00:27:42.431 –> 00:27:48.191
Um, as an always learner, you know, I, I am on the track to continue learning too.

00:27:48.251 –> 00:27:57.731
Um, do you have any resources, um, or insights that you would like to share with the audience and kind of leave them with, uh, to explore, you know, after they listen to our session?

00:27:58.031 –> 00:28:11.651
Susan: So as I reflected on radically student-centered design and radically student-centered learning, I came back to my foundations and I was thinking about right, we’re, we’re all different.

00:28:11.651 –> 00:28:13.601
Our communities are different.

00:28:13.601 –> 00:28:25.511
And so what is a tool or a resource that I go back to time and again, and the one I’m gonna share is one that I share with my colleagues, but also with my students because I also teach architecture and that is.

00:28:26.051 –> 00:28:28.721
The Montessori patterns.

00:28:28.721 –> 00:28:38.712
And so if you go to Montessori, architecture.org/patterns, and in fact if you just go to montessori architecture.org, you’ll kind of get there.

00:28:40.272 –> 00:28:50.442
It actually walks you through, and this came from an analysis of Montessori spaces and schools globally, which is like such a wonderful thing, right?

00:28:50.442 –> 00:28:53.652
It isn’t just a Western approach, but it’s globally.

00:28:55.152 –> 00:29:01.722
It talks about tools and techniques that are radically student centered, right?

00:29:01.722 –> 00:29:09.462
One of them is the difference between acoustics as you think about it as noise versus acoustics and thinking about it as sound.

00:29:10.212 –> 00:29:15.229
And so for folks who are like me, hashtag always learning, This is great.

00:29:15.229 –> 00:29:16.939
It’s easily digestible.

00:29:17.299 –> 00:29:24.649
They provide visual references to projects from around the world, so you actually see images of each of these patterns in practice.

00:29:24.919 –> 00:29:37.939
But one thing that Montessori does so successfully is it creates environments of invitation, and that’s what we’re now trying to do in mainstream schools, public schools and schools for learning of all ages.

00:29:37.939 –> 00:29:39.829
So, um, that’s one of my go-tos.

00:29:41.164 –> 00:29:57.334
Jessica: No, and I very much appreciate that, uh, and, and sharing with the audience as well, because I think there is a language barrier sometimes
when you, when, when people are thinking of, like you said, uh, a sound versus noise versus loud, and they’re like, oh, I want it to be quiet.

00:29:57.334 –> 00:30:00.424
And it’s like, do you want it to be quiet or do you want it to be productive?

00:30:00.674 –> 00:30:01.004
Right.

00:30:01.304 –> 00:30:04.154
Or do you want it to be debating?

00:30:04.364 –> 00:30:04.724
Right.

00:30:04.724 –> 00:30:09.730
Or like, you know, a, a big debate versus like group work is wonderful to bring up that.

00:30:09.730 –> 00:30:11.230
So thank you so much for sharing that.

00:30:11.230 –> 00:30:19.600
On the radically student centered is, um, do you have any takeaway that you want our listeners to remember about being radically student centered?

00:30:19.630 –> 00:30:23.770
Uh, either a piece of advice or just, you know, a one-liner that we can leave the audience with.

00:30:24.663 –> 00:30:26.013
Susan: it’s tough to pin it down.

00:30:26.163 –> 00:30:29.223
I will admit, and I’ll, I have two things to share.

00:30:29.313 –> 00:30:32.583
One of them is we’re all structurally patterned.

00:30:33.513 –> 00:30:36.603
At a biological level to learn and grow.

00:30:37.050 –> 00:30:44.040
the best way that we can support that is to remove barriers to our natural curiosity and compassion.

00:30:44.928 –> 00:30:45.248
Jessica: Absolutely.

00:30:45.513 –> 00:30:46.923
Susan: what a beautiful invitation.

00:30:46.923 –> 00:30:55.203
And that links to my second point, which is maybe the short and sweet one, which is when learners thrive, communities flourish.

00:30:56.658 –> 00:30:59.928
That is what it means to be radically student centered.

00:31:02.918 –> 00:31:03.408
Jessica: Beautiful.

00:31:03.708 –> 00:31:04.728
Thank you so much, Susan.

00:31:04.728 –> 00:31:05.928
I very much appreciate it.

00:31:05.928 –> 00:31:08.433
Thank you for your time, your expertise, and your insights.

00:31:08.748 –> 00:31:09.108
Today.

00:31:09.108 –> 00:31:10.668
It was a pleasure learning with you.

00:31:11.028 –> 00:31:19.428
If listeners would like to hear more or share their own radically student centered moments, we invite you to like, comment and share@betterlearningpodcast.com.