The Classroom Space: A Problem or a Mystery?

Abstract

Ian Munday’s chapter ‘The Classroom Space: A Problem or a Mystery?’ (Chap. 11) pays attention to another educational practice context. Though researchers from different backgrounds may perceive the classroom space in different ways, they arguably share one thing in common, namely, that they see it as a site for solving problems— teachers and children will be emancipated and students will become more effective learners. In this chapter, he considers what it might mean to think of the classroom as a space of mystery rather than a site for problem-solving. Here, he draws on the work of existentialist philosopher Gabriel Marcel: ‘A problem is something met with which bars my passage. It is therefore before me in its entirety. A mystery, on the other hand, is something in which I find myself caught up, and whose essence is therefore not before me in its entirety. It is as though in this province the distinction between in me and before me loses its meaning’ (Marcel, 1949, p. 109). What might the loss of a distinction between in me and before me mean for teaching and classroom research? This is discussed in relation to his own experience of both school teaching and working on a practitioner research course that employed the pedagogical model of blended learning (where most of the teaching took place online). He argues that the virtual spaces (forums and chat rooms) are suited to a pedagogy that favours problem-solving at the expense of mystery. During the paper, he considers the notion that cyber pedagogies fit in (too) neatly with both current conceptions of practitioner research and school teaching more generally. All three are bound up in a libidinal drive to solve problems and delimit the classroom space.