>
>Ok, well it seems that a majority of teachers (from what I've been reading)
>feel like they can't do anything they want to do unless they are behind a
>door, locked up in their little box. I completely agree that this is a
>political thing, subject to external controls like the school boards and
>other administrations.
...and internal controls, like the desire for privacy,
and the "whatever it is that brings that teacher to the school everyday",
there are ideology molecules, of course, scattered everywhere,
in the air we breathe, operates as an internal control - I only
mention this because the space of the teachers and the students is more
than a classroom, it's all of those microscopic interactions that
participate in the bodies and in the space those bodies fill...
from an architectural perspective, I mean, the complexities of
space has a lot of significance?
>But why do we make assumptions about how a school
>should be structured rather than trying to find new ways to enhance the
>learning environment?
how do we distinguish the two?
>As usual, I am still always thinking about the
>architectural design of the school. How do we begin to question what is
>happening today in schools and start to breakdown many presumptions that are
>made about learning? I think this follows along the same lines as something
>Diane mentioned last week, asking how does one break apart existing
>institutions and restructure them to a new level.
being the kind of gal who drifts into philosophical forays on occasion,
I'm thinking that this is still about space,
and structures based on socially-naive conceptions of what space is -
I mean, from a sociocultural perspective (she said like she knew! HA ha!!!)
space is a mediating feature of every interaction - and here I would add that
even within internal spaces, there are mediating characteristics to that
innerspace,
the "between" - we were all talking about this a while back,
that "space between" in Vyg's "zone" of proximal development
(and can we do something about that term? Zone. Like, get the yellow tape
out and let's rope this here place off: thar's some proximal develly-ment
goin' on thar'...)
...I, uh, well ya. That space between, as I was saying, is a very complex
utterly *discursive* space... if an architectual design could account for
that, for the discursive space that mediates all interactions, between
people and people,
and people and technologies, and doors and glass (and glass doors)...
It seems to me that a sensitivity to that feature of the scape would
inspire a very
different approach to "buildings" as structures.
I mean, if we ever do get around to blowing up all
the institutions, y'know, and we get to make new places to be...
phew where the hell am I going here? sorry Stephen. Must be the acid. ha ha.,
>
>Someone else has also asked why new, innovative ideas and ways of teaching
>about our world necessarily need to be done in cooperation with another
>colleague. Being an architecture student, it often seems essential for me to
>engage with fellow classmates or colleagues because it seems the best way to
>learn, and many times you find things out about a design that you may have
>never realized before. So why wouldn't teachers be able to do the same thing?
>sharing a classroom to explore new teaching methods and become innovative
>teachers. Is it still all politics?
ah-yup. It's built into the system, a reproducing mechanism - we
learn it in school as children, grow up, go to teacher's college,
and have it all reinforced. It's built into the practice. Interpellated into
the profession. Not impossible to change - never impossible - but
there are so many features to the organism - to me the trick is to
get to know the complexity without getting sucked into paralysis. Sounds
fun eh?
>Would it ever be possible for a drastic
>change in the Learning Institution to occur rapidly? What would it take?
hm. rapid change. , I think
that's kinda how we got ourselves into this mess in the first place.
diane
"Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right."
Ani Difranco
*********************************
diane celia hodges
faculty of education
university of british columbia
vancouver, bc canada
tel: (604)-253-4807
email: dchodges who-is-at interchange.ubc.ca