The Rationale behind Open Space Education.

While youth and the world have changed greatly, most high schools have changed only slightly. School programs and settings can be opened, individualized, and dispersed, but still provide a sense of community, by adopting open education and open space. Perhaps the best known example of open education is Chicago's Metro High School: the city is its curriculum; the community is its learning laboratory; and its lesson is freedom, choice, and responsibility. Open space schools are designed to allow evolution in educational philosophy and to accommodate the vast variety of instruction relevant to present and future world conditions. However, teachers and principals must begin to consider open space in terms of the potential manipulation of many subspaces, a manipulation directed by innovative learning activities. Flexible design alone cannot guarantee flexible use. (Author/MLF)