Interesting, interesting. I have never been in an open classroom school
myself, although ther were some built in this region (for primary
education). From the school lore I have heard these educational "office
landscapes" were failures in much the same way as Peter describes: i.e.
the spatial openness may have rather counteracted open dialogue, open minds
and collaboration in general. The anecdotically displayed typical
behaviours of teachers, administrators and students point to some of the
contradictory affordances of open space -- i.e. for people differently
positioned in the social space the open classroom carries different
sociospatial affordances: it allows surveillance (by administrators) as
well as subversion (by students) but it counteracts the efforts at
educational control by the systematic carriers of tradition. I take the
construction of barriers to be something not just figural or organizational
but also literal: moving shelves and other screening objects into strategic
places.
The scenario also makes me wonder: were there NO attempts at organizing the
structure of groups and curriculum in a corresponding fashion? As far as I
understand the original ideas were much more of a package covering both
"the hard and the soft", to import some computer jargon. But as it was
implemented here, building decisions aren't made at all in connection with
curricular decision making etc. Not at all the same institutional levels
etc. Was that the same in the case you described, Peter?
Eva