The government has published its critique of the national curriculum. Teenagers should be encouraged to be curious about the community they live in. Empowered to participate in politics. Armed with the eloquence and confidence to challenge and form opinions. Equipped with the skills to identify information and polemic that’s malicious or misleading. Teachers should have the freedom to ‘bring the curriculum to life’ in ways that chime with their students’ experiences and lives.

A little late in the day, it seems we are to embrace Loris Malaguzzi’s mantra that learning and teaching should “embark together on a journey down the water” rather than “standing on opposite banks and watching the river flow by.” Having grown up under Mussolini’s regime, Malaguzzi took the view that traditional education – with its emphasis on conformity, obedience, and an uncritical accumulation of a pre-approved body of knowledge – resulted in a compliant citizenship; fertile ground for fascism or extremism of any kind. The network of schools that he founded in Reggio Emilia in the 1960s reflected a belief that education should focus on creativity, critical thinking, free expression and debate. That democracy and freedom flourish when children – and consequently adults – are not just ‘receptacles or knowledge’ but proactive citizens.

Now a global movement, the Reggio Emilia approach has spawned extraordinary buildings, most recently a fun factory/rainforest hybrid in Encinar de los Reyes by Spanish architect Andrés Jaque, that reflects Malaguzzi’s view that the learning environment is the ‘third teacher’, as fundamental to childhood development as teachers and peers.

The Labour party didn’t get the memo. Ever since Michael Gove axed the Building Schools for the Future programme back in 2010, successive governments have been blind or indifferent to the symbiotic relationship between education and the design of the learning environment. In the wake of the RAAC crisis, the schools building programme has been reframed in terms of ‘rebuilding our crumbling building stock’. Its strategy for re-imagining the schools of the future has been reduced to working through a backlog of outstanding repairs.

It’s one of the many reasons Architecture Today is supporting the Hummingbird Learning Lab in its quest to design a new kind of learning environment. You can find out more, and submit an expression of interest using this link. It’s a rare opportunity to show what can be done when architects and educators work hand in hand.