quanticle comments on Open Thread: January 2010 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: Kaj_Sotala 01 January 2010 05:02PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Article Navigation

Comments (725)
Tags: open_thread

Comments (725)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: quanticle 03 January 2010 03:03:48AM 0 points [-]

I knew perfectly well that I learned more or less the same whether the classroom was shiny new or grizzled gray and that this was true of just about every subject-matter*, and even then it was obvious that buildings must cost a lot to build and then maintain, and space didn't seem plausible (because I passed empty classrooms all the time and they were often the same classroom pretty much all day). So this always puzzled me as a kid - big buildings seemed like perfect white elephants. I could understand the donors' reason, but not anyone else's.

I don't know about that. I know that there are several buildings at my university that I hate to have classes in, because they're either too hot, too cold, or poorly ventilated. Yes, you're correct that in the majority of cases, the age of the building makes no difference (e.g. no one recognizes the difference between a two year old building and a twenty year old building), but in extremis, the age can make a difference (e.g. if the building does not have proper ventilation or temperature control). Its very difficult to keep focused when the classroom is 30 degrees Celcius and the lecture is two hours long.

Comment author: gwern 03 January 2010 01:58:41PM 1 point [-]

Well, I can't really object to the extremes theory. You aren't a Third-Worlder or a highly driven Indian or Chinese or pre-20th century American child who wouldn't be bothered by such conditions, after all.

But most school building is not about avoiding such extremes. I can cite exactly one example in my educational career where a building had a massive overhaul due to genuine need (a fire in the gym burned the roof badly); all the other expansions and new buildings.... not so much.

Its very difficult to keep focused when the classroom is 30 degrees Celcius and the lecture is two hours long.

This reflects a failure of pedagogy more than the value of architecture - I've never seen any research saying students can really focus & learn for 2 hours, and the research I glanced over suggest much shorter lectures than that. (IIRC, the FAA or USAF found pilot-education lectures should be no longer than 20 minutes and followed immediately by review.)

Comment author: [deleted] 03 January 2010 08:35:02PM 0 points [-]

Yes, you're correct that in the majority of cases, the age of the building makes no difference (e.g. no one recognizes the difference between a two year old building and a twenty year old building) . . .

My dorm building has the number 2008 carved conspicuously into one of the stones in its facade. It's pretty easy to tell that it's a two year old building.

Powered by Reddit Powered by Reddit