IN FOCUS
Patrick Horne He’s helping districts redesign education from the inside out By Nicole Krueger
Photography by Brian Powers
Walk into any California classroom, and you might see neat rows of rectangular desks with the teacher standing at the front – or you might not. As educators increasingly challenge established pedagogies and long-held assumptions about how kids learn, classroom designs are becoming more fluid, flexible and freeform. Patrick Horne’s team at MeTEOR Education, which helps school districts reimagine their learning environments, is at the forefront of that transformation. “Our philosophy is that the environment is never neutral. It’s either helping teaching and learning, or hurting it,” Horne says. As managing director of the California Studio, Horne works with teams of designers and former educators to show districts what’s possible and help them create classroom environments that support their learning goals. They also provide training and guidance for teachers who aren’t quite sure how to make the most of agile desks or flex seating. “When we talk about traditional classroom instruction, you have the ‘sage on the stage,’ or the teacher-expert up there lecturing to students,” he says. “But in many
healthy classrooms, you get to where the teacher is more of a guide, steering the conversation during small-group learning. There’s time for lecturing a bit, but it’s not all day, every day.” Horne didn’t initially set out to revolutionize classrooms. He began his career selling school library furniture in Sacramento, until the company he worked for was bought out and his division eliminated. With a recession on the horizon and just two months’ notice to find another job, the father of two connected with some folks in Florida who were looking to expand their school furniture company nationwide. “For the next five years, it was almost a traditional startup story: expanding too quickly, hiring too many people, trying to make it work,” he says. “Now we’re a privately held company in over 35 states, with significant sales in California and across the nation.” By 2015, however, the company’s leaders realized that although their unique furniture designs were a cut above the competition, something was getting lost in translation. “We were developing these really cool designs and selling them to district admin-
istrators, and we would go back six months later and they were using the new furniture exactly how they used their old furniture,” says the CASBO Premier Partner. “The desks were set up in rows, and the teaching and learning style in the room was no different than it was in the ’60s. We had to be honest with ourselves and say if we want to make a difference and make it better for students, we need to do something different.” They began recruiting educators and curriculum experts to help emphasize the connection between the classroom environment and the learning that happens within. CEO Bill Latham, who purchased the business with his partner in 2001, is co-author of “Humanizing the Education Machine,” leading MeTEOR to become a company with a mission. “We’re trying to make learning better across the country,” Horne says. z z z
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