"Outside Expectations"

—2021

In 1943, Carl T. Sørensen proposed the first Adventure Playground in Emdrup, Denmark. The idea was simple but radical: provide an uncontrolled space for children to do whatever they want; a landscape “in which children could create and shape, dream and imagine a reality” in the city. In 1969, Paulo Freire wrote Pedagogy of the Oppressed, arguing that for education to be truly liberating the student must play a self determined role in assembling knowledge as a “practice of freedom”.

If Sørensen aimed for children’s self determination of play, and Freire for children’s self determination of knowledge, this proposal embraces both. Rather than children following a teacher’s prescribed curriculum, here the teacher supports the child’s adventures. Education becomes a tool for realizing the imagination of one’s environment: “How many wood planks do we need, and how do we put them?” the child asks. “Well let’s try counting, and use some gravity!” offers the teacher.

Around children’s busy activity, The Classroom structure serves as a calm and functional backdrop. Walls provide the children’s domain. Occasional flaps, nooks and bulges in plan offer attention to the landscape or the beginnings of a new project. Towers act as gateways between the child-led interior, and the adult-led exterior.

Opening up only when parents have left, the walls and towers contain a double secret. What appears externally to adults as a respectable school, is internally a landscape of freedom. And what feels to children as freedom, is really their growing education.