>Interesting responses from Jay, Phillip, Lara,
>Imaj, Mike and Andy (the links of Andy's show
>some variations in utilising classroom space,
>for those who haven't looked). I was initially
>intrigued both from the point of view of power
>relations between teacher and students, as well
>as the potential for more timely and sensitive
>interventions from the teacher during student to
>student interaction. I take people's points that
>the metaphor of surveillance can be critically
>applied in very useful ways. However I just
>wonder, from the point of view of the teacher
>being able to provide assistance contingent upon
>small group needs (rather than the control over
>student behaviour that the author lent toward),
>whether, as Imaj says, the "social activity
>itself that is the dominant spatializing force"
>be afforded greater guidance and support from
>the teacher in this, or a similar use of
>space????
Interesting examples and conversation. In a
wireless school I've done some research in, I've
noted how classroom physical arrangements have
been transformed in order to allow teachers more
surveillance of student "off task" behavior--an
attempt, as Iraj notes, to achieve a Deleuzian
control society of connecting up multiple spaces.
I tend to agree with Iraj's note on how produced
physical spaces or the built environment in some
sense supports or hinders the social activity it
is associated with. A wireless school can be a
good example of how spatial conceptions (e.g.,
how school pedagogy and authority are
spatialized) can dominate material spaces.
But--there are slippages/thirds/fissures/openings
in these new productions. Material spaces and
embodied arrangements are not separate from
power/knowledge in their histories and they are
not separate (or made static) from
power/knowledge in ongoing practice. How to
create social-semiotic-learning maps of these
new/old spaces is a real challenge. I wonder how
it's being done in this case, and if what's being
evaluated will make evident whatever change there
may be.
Like Lara, one of the things I would be
interested in knowing about more in the original
example is how the "boards" are used as common
objects of representation and how they circulate.
Kevin
>
>I say this from the perspective of a classroom
>language teacher still struggling with the most
>useful ways to intervene in a "social
>interactionist/constructivist" (gulp)
>teaching/learning environment (I have held
>myself back from linking the metaphors of
>scaffolding and the zpd for obvious reasons ;-)
>- and one who remains in a crisis with respect
>to teacher-student power relations.
>
>Thanks all for some stimulating thoughts, and
>thanks to a colleague not on the list who sent
>the text from the Guardian.
>
>Phil
>
>On 01/03/2005, at 4:50 AM, IRAJ IMAM wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>Phil posted The Observer, Sunday February 27, 2005
>>
>>
>>
>> "A new teaching system, revolutionary in more than one sense, has been
>>
>> developed and tested in secret."
>>
>>
>>
>>Why a teaching experiment is tested in secret?
>>Teachings are more associated with and for
>>public, and involve public. Only things that
>>deal with control usually are kept in secret.
>>Is this a new 'revolutionary teaching' for
>>controlling the students?
>>
>>
>>
>>"Instead of simply standing at the front, their
>>teacher, circles them on a curved 'racetrack',
>>occasionally taking up a position on a podium
>>in the centre of the room. No longer can
>>reluctant students skulk at the back of the
>>class or plant themselves on the periphery of
>>the teacher's field of visionŠ
>>
>>
>>
>>Mirrors mounted at three points serve as eyes
>>in the back of the teacher's headŠ.
>>
>>
>>
>>This classroom works so well because the
>>racetrack around the room means there is no
>>back of the classŠ
>>
>>
>>
>>The round classroom also eradicates the
>>so-called 'attention zone', a triangle
>>immediately in front of the teacher which
>>inevitably receives 90 per cent of his or her
>>attention."
>>
>>
>>
>>Why one needs to produce a space for
>>controlling the children in education? Is
>>classroom a hostile territory to be occupied by
>>the teacher (with help from technology)?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>Jay said it very clearly:
>>
>>"in fact it all sounds a great deal like
>>Foucault's account of Bentham's prison
>>panopticon, in reverse (surveillance from the
>>periphery rather than from the center), and as
>>much concerned with control and surveillance as
>>with anything to do with the positive side of
>>learning (i.e. learning what you want to learn,
>>vs. what the state wants you to learn)"
>>
>>
>>
>> Yes, it looks like the student space is
>>designed in order to provide complete
>>transparency for the teacher--both from center
>>and periphery . He 'circles them' he is 'in the
>>centre of the room' and he also has 'eyes in
>>the back of [his] head'.
>>
>>
>>
>>It also seems to me that the 'old classroom'
>>more corresponded to Foucault's Bentham of
>>discipline society, while this one resembles
>>more Deleuze's control society.
>>
>>
>>
>>In the former, social space was segregated
>>between more or less isolated multiple
>>disciplined spaces --of family, work, military,
>>hospital, leisure, etc. In the latter, all
>>social spaces are connected-one does not have
>>to leave one space before entering the other
>>space. One can be in all of them all the
>>time-with the help of technology--we work at
>>home and on vacation. Surveillance existed only
>>within each separated space in discipline
>>society (in military, in jail, in hospital).
>>Once you left the 'prison,' you were out. Now,
>>there is not any outside to surveillance space.
>>Since 911 this kind of controlled social space
>>is pronounced, legislated, and normalized in
>>our daily life. Scenes that were found only in
>>the '3
>>rd
>> world' countries are now accepted here by
>>most--militarized social space and
>>glorification of it in public by government and
>>the media.
>>
>>
>>
>>But all of this brings resistance and
>>opposition too-though less visible so far.
>>
>>
>>
>>On the positive side of this spatial experiment
>>with classroom, students seemed to like their
>>mobility, access to the teacher in their visual
>>fields, and ability to cluster and work
>>together.
>>
>>
>>
>>'It is much better than other classrooms, the
>>chairs are better, you can spin around and see
>>the teacherŠ 'It is also much more fun. We get
>>the boards down all the time and work togetherŠ
>>This has made maths much more fun than it used
>>to be.'
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Jay mentioned:
>>
>>"I'm all for experimentation in learning
>>environment design, even this one, but there is
>>also the matter of evaluating the results of
>>the experiment critically, and comparing
>>alternative designs."
>>
>>
>>
>>Coming from the evaluation field, I am for
>>experimentation and evaluation of the design
>>along the issues suggested by Jay such as
>>"control, information delivery, dialogue,
>>inquiry, curricular authority, Š"
>>
>>
>>
>>To me, the criteria by which to judge a social
>>space such as a classroom begins with the
>>degree of presence (or absence) of a 'trust
>>space.' The kind of social space is
>>spatializing and producing relationships of
>>trust. That is a space that projects symmetry
>>of mutual relationships similar to the social
>>space that spatializes friendship and dialogue.
>>A learning environment in this way becomes the
>>opposite of jail space- the spatialized (and
>>spatializing) complete asymmetrical power
>>relationships of order and obedience (eg, Abu
>>Gharaib).
>>
>>
>>
>>Finally, Jay said: "No amount of good design is
>>going to save a fundamentally dysfunctional
>>institution." Put differently, a produced
>>physical space can only support or hinder the
>>kind of social activity that goes inside it. It
>>is the social activity itself that is the
>>dominant spatializing force that overrides the
>>already built environments and creates its own
>>space(functional/dysfunctional). Space is both
>>producing and produced, it is both produced and
>>destroyed.
>>
>>
>>
>>Thanks to Phil for 'spatializing' XMCA, even for a few moments -posts!
>>
>>
>>
>>iraj imam
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>The Center for Applied Local Research
>>
>>5200 Huntington Ave., Suite 200 Richmond, CA 94804
>>
>>Telephone: (510) 558-7932 FAX: (510) 558-7940
>>
>>e-mail: iimam@cal-research.org
>>
>> Web: www.cal-research.org
>>
>>
>>
>>"The defence of free speech begins at the point
>>when people say something you can't stand. If
>>you can't defend their right to say it, then
>>you don't believe in free speech." Salman
>>Rushdie, 7/2/2005
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
-- Kevin Leander, Ph.D. Vanderbilt University http://www.vanderbilt.edu/litspace
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