Blueprint for Tomorrow

The United States has about $10.5 trillion tied up in aging school facilities. School districts throughout the country spend about $30 billion every year keeping this infrastructure going. Yet almost all of the new money we pour into school facilities reinforces an existing - and obsolete - model of schooling.

In Blueprint for Tomorrow, Prakash Nair - one of the world’s leading school designers - explores the hidden messages that our school facilities and classrooms convey and advocates for the “alignment” of the design of places in which we teach and learn with twenty-first-century learning goals.

Blueprint for Tomorrow provides simple, affordable, and versatile ideas for adapting or redesigning school spaces to support student-centered learning. In particular, the author focuses on ways to use current spending to modify existing spaces, and explains which kinds of adaptations offer the biggest return in terms of student learning. The book is organized by area - from classrooms to cafeterias - and is richly illustrated throughout, including “before and after” features, “smart idea” sidebars, and “do now” suggestions for practical first steps. It outlines key principles for designing spaces that support today’s learning needs and includes tools to help educators evaluate the educational effectiveness of their own spaces.

Blueprint for Tomorrow will open educators’ eyes to the ways that architecture and learning are entwined and will challenge them to rethink the ways they teach and work together.

“"This book will be a welcome addition to the library of any school administrator who wants to look beyond standardized testing and prescribed curricula for ways to improve learning. Teachers will be enthused by the emphasis on removing barriers to learning that inhibit their efforts. Parents will notice and welcome the improvements. And, most importantly, students will be stimulated by their new environment and motivated to expand their learning." --John C. Fagan , School Administrator”

"Nair gives a Blueprint for Tomorrow, thoroughly explaining how today's education dollars can be spent for tomorrow's success." --Jackie Craven, ThoughtCo.
"His intriguing and informative book Blueprint for Tomorrow: Redesigning Schools for Student-Centered Learning successfully proves that the effective use of space is of paramount importance and needs to be prioritized...Regardless of a school's budget for renovation, this is a book all educators need to familiarize themselves with." --Matthew Pariselli, Green Teacher
"This book will be a welcome addition to the library of any school administrator who wants to look beyond standardized testing and prescribed curricula for ways to improve learning. Teachers will be enthused by the emphasis on removing barriers to learning that inhibit their efforts. Parents will notice and welcome the improvements. And, most importantly, students will be stimulated by their new environment and motivated to expand their learning."--John C. Fagan, School Administrator

Prakash Nair is the founding president of Fielding Nair International, an award-winning school planning and design firm with consultations in thirty-eight countries. Prior to establishing Fielding Nair International, Nair worked as the director of operations for the world’s largest school construction program in New York City, USA.

In Blueprint for Tomorrow , Prakash Nair--one of the world's leading school designers--provides simple, affordable, and versatile ideas for adapting and redesigning school spaces to support student-centered learning. Richly illustrated throughout, Blueprint for Tomorrow challenges educators to rethink the ways that we teach and work together. "Prakash Nair is the first person to whom I turn for inspiration and guidance about the design of powerful learning environments for children and adults. His message is straightforward: the physical environment in which learning occurs should be designed and constructed around powerful theories of learning, rather than requiring that our theories of learning be adapted to fit into obsolete structures. In his work as an architect, and now in this book, he has transformed our ideas about the relationship between learning and physical space." -- Richard F. Elmore , professor emeritus of educational leadership, Harvard Graduate School of Education " Blueprint for Tomorrow demonstrates why and how school buildings influence pedagogy, curriculum and learning, and provides clear, practical and simple solutions that will enable schools to finally bring teaching and learning into the 21st century." -- Anne Shaw , founder and director, 21st Century Schools "The quest for great schools begins with Prakash Nair's Blueprint for Tomorrow . From modest 'do now' improvements to complete transformations, readers will find the tools needed to rethink and reimagine everything from the playground to the teacher's lounge. A must-read!" -- Bruce Rockstroh , CEO, Educational Resource Center, Inc. "In Blueprint for Tomorrow , Prakash shows educators how to create productive contexts for learning where students want to be and where their gifts may take flight. This is an important book by one of today's strongest voices for reinventing education." -- Gary S. Stager , executive director, Constructing Modern Knowledge Prakash Nair is the president and founding partner of Fielding Nair International, an award-winning school planning and architectural firm with consultations in forty-three countries. Prior to establishing Fielding Nair International, Nair worked as the director of operations for a multibillion-dollar school construction program in New York City.

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