When Space Teaches: Reflections on Campus Renewal and the Third Teacher 

This summer Forest Ridge was anything but quiet. While our students and faculty enjoyed a season of rest, our campus buzzed with the energy of painters, landscapers, construction crews, technology specialists, and our own facilities team. The work they accomplished was extraordinary. Classrooms were refreshed, gathering spaces reimagined, and technology was updated, all in preparation for the year ahead. 

And while our campus is beautiful, our decision to refresh our campus was never solely about aesthetics. Beauty alone is not the point. At Forest Ridge, we approached each decision through the lens of the Reggio Emilia belief that the environment is the “third teacher.” 

This approach names three teachers in the life of a child: the adults who guide them, the peers who accompany them, and the environment in which they learn. Too often, the third teacher is overlooked, treated as background rather than as a central force in the shaping of identity and imagination. 

Space is never neutral. Our hallways, classrooms, and shared places communicate with meaning. They proclaim belonging or exclusion, empowerment or restraint. 

When we set out on our campus renewal, we framed our decisions around four guiding questions: 

• Does this space communicate belonging? 

• Does this space foster curiosity? 

• Does this space reflect our Sacred Heart values? 

• Does this space inspire leadership and confidence? 

Whether we were debating paint colors or furniture configurations, those questions kept us rooted in the purpose of the work. The outcome is not simply a refreshed campus, but a re-energized environment that aligns our daily rhythms of teaching and learning with the boldness of our mission.  

If we take the third teacher seriously, we are compelled to see our campuses as living curricula. A classroom can be a box that confines, or it can be a canvas that inspires. A campus can feel static, or it can serve as a breathing partner in the formation of young people. 

This is why decisions about design, light, color, and flow matter. They are pedagogical choices as much as architectural ones. They tell students what kind of thinkers, collaborators, and leaders we believe them to be. When a gathering space is warm and inviting, it signals that collaboration and belonging matter. When natural light fills a classroom, it tells students their ideas deserve illumination. 

As schools, we often talk about mission, vision, and curriculum. But our spaces, quietly, persistently, embody those same commitments every day. 

Forest Ridge has been educating girls for 118 years. Rooted in the courage of the Religious of the Sacred Heart who founded the school, and reaching boldly toward the future, our renewed campus is a visible sign of our current place in our story: honoring our past while preparing for what comes next. 

My hope is that our work might also prompt a wider reflection among educators and leaders. If we believe in forming students for a world that demands creativity, resilience, and empathy, then we must ask: do our spaces teach those values as clearly as our lesson plans do? 

The third teacher is not an accessory to education. It is education. The environments we create are not neutral containers; they are active participants in shaping who our students become. 

As leaders, we cannot afford to overlook the formative power of place. Our campuses are more than grounds and buildings. They are teachers themselves, steady, subtle, and deeply influential. 

Mary Rose Guerin

Head of School