The sense of place - voices from a schoolyard

Abstract

In what way does the place, in the form of a schoolyard, influence students and teachers in school? Is it possible to understand and describe the relationship between the activities and the place? In this paper we explore some aspects of the schoolyard as a place from a phenomenological life-world approach. The aim of this paper is to elucidate and develop greater understanding of the significance of the schoolyard. The following research questions have guided the study: (i) how can the relationship between humans and the place be understood and described? (ii) how is a schoolyard experienced by children? We will highlight and discuss these questions by exploring previous research from a general perspective concerning the relationship between a human and places, but also with a special focus on children’s relationship with places. We will also explore children’s own experiences. Altogether, 28 children in grade 6 reflected, both in writing and verbally, on their experiences of the schoolyard. Furthermore, we will discuss how place-based education can use children’s experiences of the schoolyard as an anchor for pedagogical work. The paper should be viewed as a theoretical contribution to the field of educational research, but with the theory exemplified by, and connected to, children’s experiences. According to the analysis of the children’s written and verbal responses, three themes emerged: (i) The schoolyard as a place for learning, (ii) The schoolyard as a facilitator for social relations and (iii) Beyond the boundaries – desire for freedom. The place acquires its significance when people experience it. Consequently, there is a mutual interplay between human beings and places. One consequence of taking the life-world as a point of departure is that a place must be understood as a lived place – it is neither purely mental nor purely material, but actual experienced reality in all its complexity. Monday morning – an ordinary day in an ordinary school is about to start. Some children come to the school by the school bus or bike, and some are walking. The children are running through the schoolyard to get to the first lesson on time. A broken basketball and some hockey sticks are lying beside the wall of the school. The schoolyard is empty during the lesson until the first break begins. During the break, the children and some of the teachers, use the schoolyard for different activities. They are all involved in different kinds of social, emotional and, to some extent, learning activities. They are playing, running, talking, thinking, feeling, reading, writing and dreaming. This mix of activities and modes influences many different things and is, in turn, influenced by many things. The above paradigm case, illustrates the ordinary activities that take place in a schoolyard 1 in a small city in the northern part of Sweden. A ‘paradigm case’ is an illustration of a 1