The Open Classroom Reconsidered

The open classroom fad has come and gone. There was much that deserved criticism in the way many open classrooms were implemented. Yet the nature of open classrooms was frequently misunderstood. The term "open" was often confused with the arrangement of walls and furniture, and many people thought that open classrooms were unstructured environments. However, open classrooms that were carefully organized by adequately prepared, committed teachers had much to offer students. Research indicates that students in open classrooms were more independent and less conforming, acted more cooperatively, and displayed more creativity than students in traditional classrooms. I contend that, in the current era of school reform, educators should reexamine the philosophy underlying open classrooms and, in revised form and far more carefully than in the past, create open classrooms in schools. In this article I describe open classrooms and summarize their history. I discuss how the structure of open classrooms is likely to affect a variety of schooling outcomes and I review research on the academic and nonacademic outcomes for students in open classrooms. In the final sections of the article I examine the problems of open classrooms and reasons for their decline and then discuss ways to avoid at least some of these problems.