You asked,
>With the new development of the open classroom school, why is it that all
the
>teachers tried to construct as many barriers as possible to create for
>themselves "new rooms" ? My fiancee, an El. Ed. major at the College of
>Saint Rose, also mentioned something to me about how teachers created rooms
>of their own by putting up barriers and such. She shared with me a little
>fact that these schools were built around the ideas of team teaching, but
>yet, teachers did not want to be part of this method of teaching. Is this
>true? What are some of the underlying problems to this spatial arrangement
of
>the open classroom? What are some of the current philosophies on education
>these days and where it might be heading in the future?
>
I think it helps the teacher to survive. I think teaching in a traditional
school (and university) is a lot about teacher's survival because very many
teacher's decision making is guided by the survival. For example, by
knowing how many students and TAs a university professor has it is possible
to predict whether he or she uses multiple choice exam. The situation is
sad but I do not think that teachers are primary responsible for the
situation.
What do you think?
Eugene