The article, “Willkommen an Der Garden City School” in last week’s Herald the educators of Frankfurt International School in Oberursel Germany, Jean-Marie Kahn principal of the school and Becky Jobes assistant head of the school made this comment regarding Garden City School.

“Most noticeable things about the school is something is absent - excessive noise.”

Nathan Strenge, a senior learning designer with Fielding International who designed the Garden City School, also stated, “That the generally quiet, calm feeling of the school is partly the result of acoustical design and also the fact that the interior space makes it easy for students to be relaxed and engaged in learning”. 

I feel this 21st century learning environment sounds amazing for these students at the Garden City school, but not all the public schools in the city have this same type of learning environment.

The students at Western Hills and Cranston West have a different learning environment they hear gunfire outside of their classrooms and are told it’s “Good Gunfire” you will get used to it, don’t worry it won’t affect you at all.

How can a city and school department be so hypocritical, to have some schools focused on a 21st century learning environment “as the way of the future”, but other schools their learning environment is with gunfire as part of the curriculum and will not change “because it’s always been that way”.

All of our children deserve to have a 21st century learning environment and the first step is to stop the gunfire from echoing through the halls and classrooms of Western Hills and Cranston West schools.

Patricia Schoeninger
Meshanticut