Re: Boundary object

Eva Ekeblad (eva.ekeblad who-is-at ped.gu.se)
Mon, 27 Oct 1997 19:46:45 +0100

At 06.27 +0100 97-10-27, Peter Smagorinsky wrote:
>The first high school I taught in
>had an open classroom design which was justified in terms of how it would
>end restrictions on how we think about learning, disenclose our minds,
>promote open dialogue, etc. Yet teachers did their best to construct as
>many barriers as possible between their class and others. Administrators
>used the structure to keep tabs on teachers with "bad attitudes." Students
>used the structure to wave to friends in other classes.

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