How open-air kindergarten works in Tokyo


  • December 9, 2015
  • /   Shannon Nickinson
  • /   early-learning

A kindergarten in Tokyo, designed by Takaharu Tezuka reimagines what early learning can look like.

Takaharu Tezuka is the architect who designed a Tokyo kindergarten classroom that should make all of us want to go back to school.

It is designed as a circle, open for the most part to the sky with a low roof designed to let the children explore from all perspectives. His April 2015 TEDTalk highlighted the school.

"The kindergarten is completely open most of the year. There is no boundary between inside and outside. There's no boundary between classrooms," Tezuka says. "When you put many children in a quiet box, some of them get really nervous. But it is kindergarten, there is no reason they should be nervous."

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Because of the open design, the noise of the city is always present. But Tezuka says the children learn to concentrate despite the noise.

"They need noise. You're not supposed to be in silence," he says. "These days we are trying to make everything under control. Children were supposed to be outside, so that is how we should treat them."

And they run — about 4,000 meters on average. "They have the highest athletic abilities among many kindergarteners," he says.

The children learn to help each to her, they learn to survive getting a bump on the head.

"This is society," Tezuka says. "My point is, don't control them, don't protect them too much. They need to tumble sometimes. That makes them learn how to live in this world."

Watch it here.

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