Abingdon Elementary's Architecture Class Builds Success

“Can houses made of hay be strong?” asks teacher David McDavitt as he

holds up a miniature straw hut before a group of second graders at Abingdon

Elementary School.  “Yes!” they respond.  And they’re right.  If you’re

talking about huts on lake Titicaca, Peru, where as eight-year old Waleed

explains, the secret is “bundling.”  The “Three Little Pigs” were wrong.

Deconstructing myths is one way McDavitt captures the attention of

kindergarteners through fifth graders in his Architecture class.  A mix

of architectural history, cultural studies, art, mathematics, and even literature,

it is one of three extra classes at Abingdon that provide real-world contexts

where children see academics come to life.  Using measurement and

geometry skills, kids build scale models of castles, cathedrals, tipi and

totem poles.  But the class is “not so much to groom students to become

architects,” says McDavitt, “as explain how and why the Egyptians built temples.”  

McDavitt,an Arlington resident and Abingdon teacher of 13 years,

believes his course is the only daily elementary-level architecture class in

the country.  It is part of the school’s unique curriculum called

Project G.I.F.T., which stands for Gaining Instruction, Fostering

Talents. The program was designed in 2002 by a team led by Principal

Joanne Uyeda to help close the achievement gap between children of

different socio-economic levels.  With special project funding from

Arlington Public Schools, Uyeda was able to eliminate almost all

early-release Wednesdays (normally used for teacher-planning) and use

the time to offer hands-on learning courses:  Modern Communications,

Science Lab, and Architecture.

Why architecture?  Not only is it interdisciplinary, explains McDavitt

(who came up with the idea for the class), but it gives kids a reason to

learn math, social studies, and physics.  Nowadays, he argues, math and

science have been largely divorced from the activities where

they originated:  measuring land for agriculture, recording commerce and

taxes,designing buildings.  “It makes no sense,” he points out,“and

kids ask, ‘Why do we need to know this?’  So we decided to reunite the

context with the disciplines and have an authentic, vocation-based way

to study the concepts we cover in the Virginia Standards of Learning,”

McDavitt explains.  “And I think we’ve been very successful,” he says.  

“Kids know exactly why they need to learn what we are studying.”

Posters of geometric shapes and formulas for circumference and pi share

classroom wall space with floor plans, arches and cantilevers, and

diagrams of city patterns. Colorful images of people in traditional

garb and posters of famous sites like Stonehenge, the Roman Coliseum,

Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower, Machu Picchu and the Golden Gate Bridge

seem to convey the message:  Look how we are different, yet aren’t we

all the same?  

“Instead of simply saying,” McDavitt drones mockingly, “’A pagoda has five bowed

roofs, ’we discuss how odd numbers are lucky in Japan, and how the roofs are

curved because the Japanese felt demons inhabited straight lines.”Architecture is

a vehicle to explore culture, history, physics, art, math, nature, and different

world-views, he explains.

Another way McDavitt engages children in history is through ‘weird

facts.’  “Look at this roof beam painted like a two-headed snake with

a face in the middle,” McDavitt says, pointing to a Northwest Coast

Indian house, “this is a sisiutl- a powerful spirit among the Kwakiutl

used to protect houses of humans and gods. Sisiutl could kill with a

look, twist your joints, move though land, water, air, and the ‘land of the

dead’, give warriors strength, turn into a self-moving canoe, and be made

into magical amulets to rescue lost souls.”

When talking to McDavitt about his class, one gets the impression of its

depth. He has created five times the curriculum needed for each grade and

has bursting file cabinets to prove it. He often tailors his lessons to cover different

angles of what students are learning in their homeroom classes. This broader

knowledge base, he believes increases the chances children will internalize the

information. For example, while kids are studying Ancient Mali in third grade social

studies classes, they simultaneously explore the 14th century spread of Islamic

architecture into Mali during McDavitt’s class. Students build a model of Djenne’s

mud-brick mosque and synthesize knowledge to write a griot song recounting the

story of Mansa Musa, the Malian king who traveled to Mecca and brought new ideas

for architecture and learning.

First graders enrich their understanding of George Washington by asking questions

about the Washington Monument.  Why does George Washington have an

Egyptian-style monument?  What are obelisks and why were they built?  Who are

the Masons?

“While some kids are going to museums and having books read to them,

others are not,” McDavitt explains.  Like the other special classes at

Abingdon, Architecture was chosen because it would give disadvantaged

children diverse experiences and background knowledge, or “more concepts

to hang new information upon,” he says.

McDavitt is apt to integrate music into lessons as he plays in several African

bands, and leads the “Abingdon West African Rhythm Ensemble.”  The use of

music and other non-traditional routes to learning fits in with Abingdon’s adoption

of the theory of Multiple Intelligences.  Developed by Howard Gardner at Harvard,

the theory states that people employ eight forms of ‘intelligence’ to solve problems:

not only linguistic and mathematical-logical (most valued by our society), but also

music,spatial/art, body movement, social skills, self assessment, and classification.

McDavitt appreciates how M.I. theory teaches students to solve real-world problems

and supports children’s natural talents by approaching the material in various modes.  

“Kids that love music,” McDavitt explains, “will retain more with musical avenues to

explore what they are studying.”

If student enthusiasm is any judge, Abingdon’s Architecture class is a

success. “Kids LOVE Architecture,” says Principal Joanne Uyeda, who

believes that the building and creating get children engaged and

challenged. Building a tower that can hold 100 pounds, for example,

gives children “immediate positive feedback which is wonderful,” she

says.

Kindergarteners, talk about constructive learning centers like giant

tinker toys, drafting tables, legos, and wooden dollhouses, which they can explore

freely after a more structured lesson.  “My favorite center is blocks because once

I built a big castle,” says Maura.  McDavitt says children often create structures related to

what they are learning in class.  

McDavitt’s creative teaching style is another factor in the class’s

popularity. To keep kids listening, he sometimes breaks into a Scottish

accent or starts talking like Grover from Sesame Street.  “Odd voices

area good hook.  Kids really listen when you start talking like Elvis,”

remarks McDavitt.  “Teaching is very much a performance art.” Parent

Cheryl Goodman, laughs about what an influence he has on her

first-grader,“Angelika says we have to go to Mount Vernon this weekend

because Mr. McDavitt said so.  And whatever Mr. McDavitt says, goes.

He’s like a rock star!”

Marti Mefford that for her third-grader, Elisha, it was McDavitt's

stories and fascinating facts that made history, geography and

architecture come alive for him.  “He now knows more about the Roman

Empire than I will ever know!”  Mefford appreciates how “alive” and

“interactive”McDavitt renders material that could be dry to a young

person.  “It takes a very gifted individual to capture the attention of

a room full of eight year-old boys,” she says  “and have them making up

songs about history.”

Since Abingdon’s Architecture class and Project G.I.F.T. were instituted

in 2003, the school’s scores have skyrocketed.  Abingdon third-graders’

Virginia Standards of Learning scores in math and social studies jumped

from77% in 2003/04 to 97% in 2004/05 and stayed at those levels in

2005/06. “I think the best compliment is the fact that kids make

connections constantly,” says McDavitt.  He says this happens across

disciplines (from architecture to social studies to literature) and

across time (from year to year).  This, he says, shows that children are

not just storing information in their short-term memory, but truly own

the knowledge.  Which is important if children are to put their education

to use.  

“You know that three times four is 12,” explains Uyeda, “but when you’re

in a real situation, when do you use multiplication?”  Classes that have

real-world applications like Architecture promote higher-order thinking,

or “being able to pull on all that knowledge to solve a problem, which,”

Uyeda says, “is really what we’re trying to teach kids.”