The open education experiment starting from 1990s, also known as “open education,” is becoming important. The reform on campus was first just ideas outside the educational system, and then it was put into practice by the educational system. The idea of open education was then formed and later officially adopted by all the elementary schools in Taipei in 1996. Since then new elementary schools―such as Jian-Kang, Yong-An, Hsin-Sheng elementary schools―will be the most important places for the educational experiment., according to the open education policies, while traditional schools managed to adjust to this movement.
The past studies on open education in Taiwan highly rely on statistics, surveys, behaviorist post-occupancy evaluation and elemental, standardized views on space, from which they form standardized use of space in schools that give students open education. Those studies lack discussions about the relation and the fracture between educational content and space in school. The assumptions and discussions of those studies are limited to the form of space of class group and the function of being standardized. They also fail to regard schools as members of the society, so they ignore the influence the community would have on open education. Another mistake those studies have is they rarely discuss the past education policies in Taiwan, which still have influence over today’s open education. Therefore, it is necessary to take a retrospective look at the education policies in Taiwan.
The purpose of open education is to shake off the ideology imposed on children by the government, so that children can think on their own. Here I would like to compare Hsin-Sheng elementary school with Long-An elementary school. The former is newly built and run under open education policies; the later is a traditional school built when Taiwan was ruled by the Japanese, but it is also giving open education. Through this comparison, we can understand the relation between educational activities and space of open education, and clarify the relation and the fracture between open education and the real space. Then the discussion can be re-examined in reality, and it can offer suggestions for spatial design, instead of remaining as wordplay on spatial issues.
In Chapter 3, my studies focus on the organization and meaning of space in school in the past. I want to find out the changes in the culture, organization, and meaning in school space by chronological, historical analysis, so I can have the possibilities to establish the dialogue with traditional school space, as well as the basic data for examining the space in open education. In Chapter 4, I start analyze and compare Hsin-Sheng and Long-An elementary schools’ overall structures, including the strategies (programs) employed in open education, and the difference between the types of open space and traditional space. Then I can find out the changes in spatial role and spatial field by the changes in programs and types. Chapter 5 is mainly observation of the behavior of educational activities in spatial environment, by which we can understand the multiple relationships and the new spatial meaning, derived from the understanding of the relation between educational activities and space in Hsin-Sheng and Long-An elementary schools.
In my conclusion, I will focus on educational programs, spatial types, and relation in roles. Then I will analyze the features of open education thatHsin-Sheng and Long-An elementary schools have, caused by the differences in spatial types after they both started open education. We found that students at Hsin-Sheng elementary school have more open space and facilities for extracurricular activities than students at Long-An elementary school do. However, Hsin-Sheng elementary school is heavily guarded by security system, so it is still off limit to the community, just like a castle where common people are denied the entrance. On the contrary, students at Long-An elementary school have enthusiastic parents who are deeply involved in teaching and eager to offer help. Long-An elementary school has a strong connection to its community, though its space is not well used as the open education policies do.
Through this analysis, I realize open educational environment doesn’t necessarily lead to standard space formed by class group. For instance, the use of space at some schools is still significantly influenced by the schools in Japan, England, or the United States. The result of this influence is Taiwanese students are forced to have open education the Japanese, British, or American way. Improvement in open education in Taiwan can be expected, but first the ideal of standardized open education should be cast away. Furthermore, when traditional schools face new educational content, they will have to tear down the old frame of education policies and to reach and interact with the community, which reinterpret old school space by the new ways of using space. Second, schools with open space surpass traditional schools with their spatial types and equipment, but the place for expressing and realizing open education are usually limited by presumed open spatial types, and this open spatial model is mainly the imitation of the units of open educational space in foreign countries. However, the whole organization of campus and the views on space still cannot escape from the idea of a school kingdom.
The space in open education is an open answer, and my studies is trying to bring up another way of thinking for the reuse of traditional space and the idea about what an open school should be like, and then my studies can offer suggestions on spatial design.
