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Comment by _ph_ | Hacker News Reader

I am surprised about your comment. What do you find hard to believe? I am from (western) Germany, and I find it hard to believe, that there are class rooms without windows. Except for one or two special purpose rooms, in my school time, I have never ever seen a class room, which didn't have windows on one long side. The other long side would be towards the hallway. The rooms almost never needed artificial lighting (unless in the first hour in the Winter or really bad weather) and plenty of fresh air when opening the window. Daylight and fresh air are the best ways to keep the pupils awake.

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It 's "not having windows in the US" part that is surprising, not the "having windows in Germany".

I live in the US, I don't think my highschool had windows in any of its classrooms. They're may have been one or two that I don't remember, but the majority only had a "window" in the door that was a small rectangle, about 6 inches wide and 2 feet tall. Some didn't even have that, or the teacher had it covered with poster board.

Is it specific to schools or is it common to have many rooms in buildings without windows?

Rooms designed for presentations often don’t have windows so that they can be easily darkened for projectors to work better. Where I grew up, it was quite common for classrooms to have an overhead projector [1] equipped with a long scroll of transparent film. The instructor would give their lecture sitting at the projector and writing on the film instead of at a blackboard.

[1] https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overhead_projector#/media/...

Since the other commenter didn't answer your question even remotely.. It's mostly schools that are lacking windows. Most places (that my tired brain can think of) at least have a window, not necessarily one that opens though. Might be different for other places, only speaking from personal experience.

Our high school had many interior classrooms with no windows, and the perimeter classrooms only had one or two small ones each. It was relatively new (at the time) so was built with air conditioning in mind.

Sorry, then I misunderstood you. I thought your request was to see photos of classrooms with with windows.

I'm from the US and classrooms without windows were very common in public schools. I didn't know this was surprising or unusual.

I'm from the US and went to public schools in the midwest. The only rooms I can think of that didn't have windows were: the theatres (read big and small auditoriums), and the science labs. Heck, if you had a class on the first floor they usually had doors on the wall with windows leading outside too.

It depends on the region, the age of the school, the wealth and demographics of the community. The poorer the area, its more likely the schools are overcrowded concrete boxes built in the 60s-80s.

US Schooling is very inconsistent and varies a huge amount by municipality.

All the schools I attended here in Scotland had huge windows - both in Victorian era builings and ones built in the 1970s.

Day dreaming looking out the windows at the hills or sea was a favourite activity of mine!

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