Learnspaces are en vogue for giving young people real-world examples of what they study in subjects. Bringing the Education Landscape (Bildungslandschaft) to life gains much attention, but is yet largely unachieved.

Young changemakers and Changemaker Student Clubs show us what teenage youth are capable of and what they love doing.

“When we asked for opportunties to volunteer, we were told to come back when we are old enough.” Feeling belittled and outraged over the loss of potential for a world in need, 12 year old Jake and Simone Bernstein reponded by founding Volunteen Nation, an online platform for early teens to find thousands of opportunities in all fifty states of the USA.

Critical assessments show that in most initiatives for Education Landscapes students are guided by teachers to spaces where they are to listen to lecturers, administrators or practitioners. Students are still treated as passive listeners and viewers. They are not involved in activities, and if so, it is only for exercise, but not in activities that manifest results of relevance to society.

An example of relevant results is an edible school garden that produces edible legumes used in the school canteen. This is not what students are involved in at learnspaces they visit. In fact, youth find very few such opportunities in society. Their creative activities with ‘quality impact’ are limited to sports or music, the impact of which is intangible, fleeting and irrelevant for people and planet.

This leads us to asking the question

Nowhere? Without such spaces, there cannot be an active citizenry, and no relevant comprehensive positive change in society.

This led us to look more closely at learnspaces and to distinguish between three forms of learnspace.

We seek to nurture awareness and vision for creating such spaces, and to assist in creating them, and to map them to bring together their purpose-driven creators, passionate young people, as well as caring educators, parents and citizens.