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Potential MessagesThe location of classrooms and the symbolic meanings of these locations were also consistent with observations. Urban High’s New Media classrooms were separated from one another, and particularly the Studio was isolated. (See Appendix C, Map 4.) The potential message of disregard by the administration is supported by administrative actions that disregarded reform efforts toward an Academy. By contrast, the television production classroom at Suburban High was centrally located in “Room 1” with a music composition classroom on one side and the administrative offices, the theater, and the rest of the classrooms off in different directions. (See Appendix C, Map 2.) This compels television production to be part of the school. Similarly, the art classroom at Boarding High, though not centrally located, looked on to the central quad, facing a dormitory and near the student building. It had a degree of separation but was not off in a corner of the campus, away from well traveled paths. These locations facilitated a connection to the rest of the school. The presence or lack of material representation of student identity was an issue within classrooms as well as on the campuses. The students in the Boarding High art classroom were noticeably reserved during the video program, but they were materially present in their art work and in Native icons around the classroom. At Suburban High, the walls had official “ROP” (Regional Occupational Program) posters, a handmade poster created for a career day, an array of more personal pictures including pictures of grandchildren, newspaper clippings, and a “Star Trek” poster, and numerous functional schedules and signs. Both classrooms had walls that were nearly covered with “decorations,” information, and tools. Boarding High had materials that were more personal to students, but Suburban High offered a Tech identity that included humor, “Star Trek,” and a great deal of technical equipment. That “The X Files” was shown most Fridays—the down day—was no doubt entertaining to students, but may have helped communicate aspects of the Tech identity that was not attractive to everybody, especially given the lack of recognition to the roles gender and ethnicity have and do not have in the mass media. Urban High classrooms, being a near opposite to these, had very little on the walls of either classroom. The Media 1 classroom had posters about social studies and the equipment for cooking but nothing that represented either media or student ethnicities. The studio seemed like a warehouse in its size and uses, though a set of hand prints around the door, a couple posters about standards, and a poster about a video contest marked the existence of a class with students. Both rooms maintained their institutionally designated purposes, giving the Media Academy a similar status as the students. “Spaces, too, imbue and are imbued by the kinds of persons who frequent them” (Holland et al., 1998, p. 127), but a reading of these walls suggests mostly an absence, which is consistent with the observed disconnect between students and school. The typical model of desks lined up in rows facing the chalkboard, according to Sommer and Becker, implicitly tells students to look straight ahead and ignore everyone but the teacher (1974, p. 75), and the lack of this arrangement at Urban High contributed to the difficulty the teacher had in leading class discussions. The large, round tables were ideal for group work in many ways, though they were a little too large and they definitely took too much of the room, but they made it impossible for all students to comfortably look at the chalkboard and hindered the teachers efforts at maintaining their attention. The art classroom at Boarding High addressed these two needs by having two separate areas, using the tables that faced her desk as the area for structured class activities and the other tables for projects. The Suburban teacher rearranged the student tables. Most of the time, fitting his teacher led activities, they were in rows facing forward. Twice he changed them to form a square, which he said was to give a little variety, but this arrangement clearly facilitated the introduction of the audio equipment during one such arrangement. When I once visited the advanced class the following year, the entire room had been rearranged, and the tables were arranged to facilitate group work. If the arrangement had been this way the previous spring, some of the issues arising in group projects, discussed in Chapter 3, may have been resolved. Schwebel and Cherlin (1972) found that teachers were not taught about seating issues and that they did not discuss them but that they used similar strategies—particularly that of “achieving classroom control” through the strategic placement of disruptive students (p. 548). This was not prevalent at any of the schools, possibly because Schwebel and Cherlin had studied elementary schools rather than high schools. One exception was when a substitute instructed a disruptive student to sit in a particular place. The Media 3 teacher returned for a moment from the sporting event he was leading and told her that he did not like where he was sitting because things had been stolen from back there. This suggests an awareness of seating but a different set of priorities. The placement and use of teacher desks seemed to reflect the level of authority presented by the teacher: The teachers in Urban High’s Studio unevenly used their desks and did not have items on them to assert their ownership, but students were not permitted to sit at the teacher desks, in line with the formality they maintained when talking with students. In the Media 1 classroom, the teacher’s lack of asserting authority was reflected in the freedom students enacted in using his desk. At Suburban High, beginning students never sat at either of the teacher’s desks (he had two) at the beginning of the school year, but as students had greater autonomy in classroom activities—because they were working on their projects—the desks were more likely to be used. At times the teacher easily and effectively reclaimed his desk, with the student’s use seeming to be unimportant. One video shot recorded such an exchange. Thus particularly at Suburban High, the uses of the teacher’s desks reflected membership in the community without threatening the teacher’s authority. Perhaps the existence of two desks contributed to these dynamics. The use of places and movement in classrooms provided provided evidence of relations and their changes. Particularly at Suburban High, there was a gradual change in beginning classes from students going to their seats and staying there to sitting at the anchor desk, the teacher’s desk, and the areas on the edges. (See Appendix C, Map 3.) This shift was not related to the particular activities but reflected the sense of entitlement students seemed to have: The students who identified themselves as members of the Tech community (as witnessed in discussion) moved more freely around the classroom and sat more frequently away from the rows of tables. At Urban High, the movement away from the main part of the classroom in the Studio seemed to reflect the opposite—the desire of students to resist class participation. In the Media 1 classroom, there were few places for students to go, but the occasional use of the teacher’s desk was more like the uses in Suburban High. These differences reflect the different meanings of the places away from student seats. At Suburban High and in the Media 1 classroom, some students moved toward the action, while as in the Studio, some students moved away from class activities. |
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