Hugh Reilly: Please sir, I need to go to the innovation hub

Published on Tuesday 24 January 2012 12:14

WHEN the Egyptian pharaoh Khufu applied for planning permission to build a 500ft-tall pyramid in Giza, the ten jobsworth officials on the Greater Cairo Environmental Committee recommended refusal on the grounds it would impact negatively on the desert habitat of the saw-scaled viper.

However, following – how can I put it? – extensive lobbying by the Egyptian leader’s sword-wielding legal team, the sole surviving official enthusiastically overturned the original flawed decision. Private tenders to erect the granite edifice lost out to an in-house bid by the pharaoh’s direct labour organisation, a construction force of captured Semites with an exemplary record of bringing in public sector projects on time and on budget. In terms of cost, the pyramid would be as cheap as Cheops. Hemon, the pyramid’s architect, was tasked with producing a burial chamber that would be safe from tomb raiders. Unfortunately, Horus of Horus, hardly had the last piece of brain matter been pulled through Khufu’s left nostril when robbers stole all his earthly possessions, a sacrilegious act that had the pharaoh turning in his sarcophagus.

In my opinion, Hemon had it easy compared to the luckless architect who has been asked to design a new Edinburgh school built around the principles of the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE). Drawing up a blueprint for a building that fits in neatly with the woolly concepts of CfE would be a challenge to the Great Architect Himself. Apparently, the new James Gillespie’s High will feature pioneering “open spaces” to encourage collaborative working between different classes. In the early Eighties, a Glasgow comprehensive experimented with open-plan classrooms, endeavouring to bring down perceived barriers to learning. Whitehill Secondary, or White Hell as it quickly became known, abandoned this initiative. Apprehensive staff at James Gillespie’s should be worried at the prospect of shared teaching areas; after all, in space, no-one can hear you scream.

The new campus will have “learning gardens”. I suspect the rationale is that, surrounded by a sprinkling of soothing flora and arboreal treats, young learners will blossom. In this education Eden, students will sit under an apple tree, Newtonesque, and hope a Golden Delicious on the napper ends their teenage torpor. Meanwhile, on a bench behind a bush, a frazzled teacher about to teach an S4 Foundation class of 30 excitable boys sits weeping like Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. Any teacher not experiencing suicidal ideation may contemplate that a flower bed would make an ideal shallow grave for a particularly unruly scamp. Of course, plants thrive in compost and this is why spreading the pulped remains of the CfE guidelines on to the land is desirable for optimum growth.

Teachers and pupils who wish a venue to exchange thoughts can meet in an “innovation hub” (I initially thought this was rhyming slang for pub). The very name arouses deep suspicion that the architect has been nurturing Class C drugs in the “learning garden”. There will also be “collaborative research spaces” which, clearly, are not to be confused with “innovation hubs”. The headteacher is looking forward to “taking ownership of a first-class educational facility that is suited to achieving the aspirations of a CfE”. Indeed.

But what if CfE goes the way of other pioneering school programmes, such as Standard Grade and Higher Still? Would Edinburgh city council divert scarce resources from the tram project to reconfigure James Gillespie’s to accommodate a faddish, classroom-centred curriculum? I applaud any change to a school’s environment that results in happier teachers and pupils, but I cannot be alone in detecting an air of pretentiousness here.

The best teaching environment I experienced was a 1950s school with large classrooms fitted with huge windows that opened more than three inches, a stroke of architectural genius that allowed fresh air to readily dilute the pungent smell of pupils’ body odour, even on a summer’s day when they had just finished two hours of PE and found the dressing room showers inoperable. The same school had a landscaped area where kids could relax and share a packed lunch with a squadron of squawking seagulls.

Staff and pupils at the new Gillespie’s will be praying intelligent design improves teaching and learning.

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Eliz

Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 03:29 PM

Brilliant as ever, and so true. Thanks for giving me a really good laugh.

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Eliz

Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 03:26 PM

Thanks for that - brilliant as usual. Gave me a really good laugh and it's so true.

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Rabigyin

Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 12:52 PM

Hugh always brings the jaundiced view of a hardened teacher to bear on such things. Never mind Hugh, there's always the old happy pills!

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Sawney Has-Been

Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 06:53 AM

Brilliant!

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