Students and teachers photograph the best–and worst–places in their schools.

Linda Perlstein

While designers are busy creating the classroom of the future, many students are stuck in not merely unimaginative school buildings but actually disgusting ones. The 21st Century School Fund and Healthy Schools Campaign, which work for improvements in education facilities, and Critical Exposure, which uses student photography as an advocacy tool, believe that no one can show what is and isn’t working in school buildings better than the people inside them. Each year, they ask students and teachers to shoot the best and worst of their surroundings. The “Through Your Lens” exhibit features an awful lot of peeling paint and broken windows–the kind of environment you wouldn’t want your kid in for an hour, much less a childhood. But the photographers also highlight examples of spaces that work, flashes of color and sunlight and order in otherwise chaotic surroundings.