Just putting tables and chairs in a room isn’t enough any more.
Just putting tables and chairs in a room isn’t enough any more.
Interview with Frederik Flötotto,
CEO Flötotto Einrichtungssysteme GmbH.
The interview was conducted by Thomas Laqua.
Mr. Flötotto where did you just come from?
I got back from the Czech Republic this morning. We put a new furniture production
factory into operation a few months ago. In addition to furniture for learning, and everything
that entails, we also manufacture products for customised interior solution construction in the education
sector. In contrast to Germany, the proportion of female colleagues, at approx. 80 percent, is
very high there which is positively reflected in the extremely low error rate. With the new production
line, we are supplementing our final assembly, quality control and logistics departments here in
Gütersloh. This proximity and dependency is, of course, highly beneficial to us considering the
global interruptions in supply chains we are currently experiencing.
Scientific findings, flexibility and combinability with respect to function and
layout are topics we pursue in our daily work.
In the 50s and 60s, FLÖTOTTO developed pioneering school furniture, like the
contoured-seat school chair which was sold more than 21 million times.
Where does FLÖTOTTO stand today?
Yes, you are right about that. I get asked about that a lot. But we don’t rest on our past laurels.
Ergonomic design, high finishing quality and durable, haptically pleasant materials are still the
prmary focus of our product development. They also demonstrate our responsible use of the
resources we use. But we want much more. Scientific findings, flexibility and combinability with,
respect to function and layout are topics we pursue in our daily work. This creates the necessary
investment security for our customers who, today, often don’t know how they will be using our durable
furniture in five, ten or more years. Particularly the framework conditions and processes in which we
work on the content-related aspects of products and furnishing concepts relevant to the users have
completely changed. The speed at which the requirements of education which we have to meet
change is no longer comparable to the 50s or 60s.
Society in Germany has acted against the interests of children and youths
in many areas in the past few decades.
What do you mean by that?
If we consider the climate crisis, the loss of biodiversity, demographic changes, digitalisation and other
challenges, we realise that society in Germany has acted against the interests of children and youths
in many areas in the past few decades. The young generation justifiably wants a safe and worthwhile
future on this planet. What we offer them, as a starting point for a start to the most self-determined life
possible, is a world that is marked by volatility, insecurity, complexity and ambiguity. Every pupil should,
of course, be offered a stable academic foundation during their educational career appropriate to their
individual potential. But that alone is no longer enough to be fit for the future.
Simply conveying and assessing testable knowledge can no longer be the core purpose of school.
What else is part of this fundamental set of tools?
In addition to the ability to read, write and do arithmetic, it also includes data-related and digital literacy, physical and mental health as well as social and emotional skills. However, the ability to resiliently adapt to changes is becoming increasingly important. Children and youths should be able to learn to autonomously navigate unfamiliar terrain and find their way in a sensible and responsible manner instead of simply following a set of instructions or orders from their instructors. Simply conveying and assessing testble knowledge can no longer be the core purpose of school. It will become more and more about training children and youths to think critically about the information available all around them by being able to categorise and assess it. Our target should be schools that prepare pupils for “life-long learning” with joy and curiosity. Otto Herz calls it: “Learn in life, live in learning.” It will depend more and more on how content is taught in schools and not on what exactly is learned in detail.
That sounds like a school revolution. Can you explain it in more detail?
“To me, school is a place that makes success possible and doesn’t document failure.”
This quote is also from Otto Herz and makes the point quite well. Today, FLÖTOTTO is a
relevant development partner of school authorities and is in close, daily contact with the
responsible teachers at the respective schools. Together, we set up flexible, age-appropriate
educational spaces for a close-knit communal life between learners and teachers. The living
and learning rooms we have developed improve learning successes and, in the best case scenario,
together with the architecture, will also have a positive impact on the immediate vicinity around the
school. I also sense, during my visits, that in many cases, schools often do more organising for the
teaching of classes and less frequently something for learning.
The world no longer rewards us exclusively for what we know, but for what we
can do with what we know.
Is school then a simulation of a reality that no longer exists?
That’s the impression sometimes. I would like to substantiate that please: The school curricula in
the individual states are still developed based on a standardised, linear model for learning progress.
However, in this system, we start losing many children, starting in grade school. The current
“IQB Bildungstrend 2021” [IQB Education Trend 2021] study shows that, among fourth graders,
up to thirty percent do not reach the minimum requirements, depending on the competence area.
(Note from the editor: competence areas in the subject of German: “reading”, “listening” and “orthography”.
Competence areas in the subject of mathematics: “numbers and operations”, “space and shape”, “patterns
and structures”, “sizes and measuring”, and “data, frequency and probability”.)
And we can’t simply improve this situation with more funding because the greatest challenge right now in the
education sector is the lack of qualified specialists and teachers, from nursery school to trade school. If you
take the political reform projects for full-day, inclusion and support of children in challenging social situations
into account, there will be a deficit of up to 158,700 trained teachers by 2030. The coronavirus catch-up
program and the integration of the children from Ukraine aren’t included in that calculation.
We no longer live in a world in which the things that are easy to teach and test can also be easily digitalised
and automated. The world no longer rewards us exclusively for what we know, but for what we can do with
what we know. That is why we need schools that allow for democratic negotiation processes and promote
social interaction. That is often not possible in traditional classrooms with the current, minimum equipment.
What makes room concepts from FLÖTOTTO different?
In summary: the content-related and physical quality. With the educational rooms and spaces designed by FLÖTOTTO, we want to promote human development and cooperate with school authorities and teachers to develop solutions that sensible support the learning process. We want to inspire others to act, experiment and be amazed and promote joy and community at schools.
Our new concepts for learning spaces and open learning areas support children and youths in an age-appropriate manner, from playful learning in the lower grades through to deep learning in secondary level II. That means, pupils can autonomously design their own learning process and familiarise themselves with creativity, critical thinking, cooperation and communication. We offer various coordinated learning environments that allow for a variety of working methods. Rooms that can be used in modified or different ways to support interdisciplinary pedagogy. Mobile furniture and various surface heights that allow activities to be conducted while seated or standing. Larger and smaller room constellations for various temporary settings with soft, padded modules that take the floor into account as a workspace. In cooperation with the multi-award-winning designers and education experts from wonderlabz, we have made major strides and further developed every aspect of our so-called Flex furniture program. It will be available at the end of 2022. The Gießen-Ost integrated comprehensive school and the boarding school and full-day high school run by the Louisenlund Foundation were our development partners and they are already furnishing the learning spaces and open learning areas in their new buildings.
We thus consciously and actively promote more diverse pedagogic practices and explorative, interactive, playful and in-depth learning experiences.
We make intensive use of the conclusions of the affordance theory for our facility design concepts. The qualities with which we create rooms, objects and people are decisive. They are the initial impetus for teaching and learning activities and certain behaviours. Simply put: The things in a room tell us what we should do with them based on how we perceive them; they are of a demanding nature. The ability to perceive and utilise affordances an depends on the intentions of the teachers or learners and is influenced by their individual backgrounds, social environments and cultures. We thus consciously and actively promote more the diverse pedagogic practices that make explorative, interactive, playful and in-depth learning experiences in schools possible. We encourage the teachers and learners to think more critically and creatively about the relationship between pedagogy and space to be involved in the design of their learning environment.
How can we make schools future-proof?
We know that school principles want more autonomy and freedom to design. They want a more comprehensive authority to make decisions regarding staff selection, the use of resources,
and the development of the organisation and lessons. Many school principles want to get away from the “hallway school” model and move toward innovative, flexible and open learning spaces. In my opinion, we have reached a point at which we should be talking about the reorganisation of schools on a socio-political level. Today, classes are motley groupings random people with a shared fate in which age and place of residence are the decisive criteria. Unfortunately, talents, knowledge, skills and competences do not play a role when putting classes together. If we recognise the diversity among pupils, we will promote their individual learning process at their own, personal speed and carefully and incrementally hand the responsibility for their own learning path over to them. This way, we can relief the burden on the systems in schools, further develop the role of teachers and improve communal life at schools. The traditional classrooms should open up and be combined with open learning areas. The examples of schools that have already started the process prove that and bolster my spirits.
Schools, in the best sense of the word, are organisations that learn. For the further development of schools, we require the implicit skills of the teachers.
Schools, in the best sense of the word, are organisations that learn. For the further development of schools, we require the implicit skills of the teachers. The OECD recommends not equating learning with instruction and assessment, but instead, with co-construction. That means, teachers and pupils become joint designers in the teaching and learning process. The school family and the communal environment should work together on assisting children and youths in realising their shared goals. FLÖTOTTO supports these developments with everything it has to offer.
In summary, what do you think the future of education will look like?
Our future, as people, is not predetermined. We have control over how things develop in schools.
Every child should therefore have experienced self-efficacy in school. With respect to the future,
that simply means making a desirable future the standard for our actions today. Far too often,
we only see things from the perspective of our experiences or our learned knowledge from the
past in development projects in the education sector. We should hope for more for ourselves in
the future and dream of that future.