Abstract
The modern learning environment (MLE) is a particular technology that serves to create an environment that will best cultivate a moral self in line with state bureaucratic needs. This chapter uncovers the genealogy of the MLE and interprets its meaning from the perspective of the classroom teacher. The emergence of the MLE demands critical inspection. This chapter compares the new school architecture and new teacher for twenty-first-century learning with their antecedents. This process of analysis will critically analyse subjectivity and bureaucracy in the changing educational landscape. Theorists who work in the tradition of genealogical study established by Foucault: Jan Masschelein, Maarten Simons, and architectural critic, Kenneth Frampton who share Foucault’s understanding of the fusion of knowledge and power, are considered. Of particular interest is the scholarship of Ian Hunter who studied the twin origins of the compulsory school in bureaucratic technologies and in pastoral technologies of the self. In this context, attention is drawn to the MLE’s perpetuation of pastoral technologies in a contemporary context. A focus in this study will be the role of the OECD in these changes of the educational landscape and the implications thereof. The history of school architecture as representative of schools’ fusion of subjectivity and bureaucracy is analysed in concert with the work of Marc Augé, to determine the extent to which the MLE with its emphasis on connections, change, and flexibility is, in fact, a non-place.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Translated literally as ‘rear guard’, Frampton’s stance in his critical regionalism at once attempts to distance architecture’s trajectory away from an unwavering embrace of Enlightenment progress while at the same time discouraging a reactionary return to a simpler, pre-industrial past.
- 2.
Māori meeting house.
References
Abbiss, J. (2011). Social sciences in the New Zealand curriculum: Mixed messages. Curriculum Matters, 7, 118–137.
Arendt, H. (2006). Between past and future. New York, NY: Penguin Books.
Augé, M. (2008). Non-place: An introduction to supermodernity. London, England: Verso.
Care, L., Evans, H., Holder, A., & Kemp, C. (2015). In P. Chiles (Ed.), Building schools: Key issues for contemporary design. Basel, Switzerland: Birkäuser.
Coombs, P. (1992). Recalling the origins of UNESCO’s international institute for educational planning. In G. McDonald & R. Benton (Eds.), The Beeby fascicles (pp. 33–52). Wellington, New Zealand: Te Aro Press.
Cox, B. (1969). The crisis in education. London, England: Critical Quarterly Society.
de Carlo, G. (1969). Why/How to Build School Buildings. Harvard Educational Review, 39(4):12-35.
Dewey, J. (1934). Art as experience. New York, NY: Minton, Balch & Company.
Dudek, M. (2000). The architecture of schools: The new learning environments. Oxford, England: Architectural Press.
Frampton, K. (1998). Towards a critical regionalism: Six points for an architecture of resistance. In H. Foster (Ed.), The anti-aesthetic: Essays on postmodern culture (pp. 17–34). New York, NY: The New Press.
Gargano, E. (2008). Reading Victorian schoolrooms: Childhood and education in nineteenth-century fiction. New York, NY: Routledge.
Gilbert, J. (2013). What should initial teacher education programmes look like in 2022 and why? Waikato Journal of Education, 18(1), 105–116.
Hertzberger, H. (1998). Lessons for students in architecture. Rotterdam, Netherlands: 010 Publishers.
Hunter, I. (1994). Rethinking the school. NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin.
Hunter, W. (2015). The best office in the world? Selgas Cano’s new workspace in London. The Architectural Review. Retrieved from http://www.architectural-review.com. November 22, 2016.
Huyssens, A. (1981). The search for tradition: Avant-garde and postmodernism in the 1970s. New German Critique, 22, 23–40.
Ibler, M. (2006). Global Danish architecture #1. Standparken, Denmark: Archipress M.
Jonassen, D. & Land, S. (2012). Theoretical foundations of learning environments. New York, NY: Routledge.
Koolhaas, R. (1998). Small, medium, large, extra-large. New York, NY: Monacelli Press.
Lipmann, P. (2010). Evidence-based design of elementary and secondary schools. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Masschelein, J., & Simons, M. (2011). Rancière, public education and the taming of democracy. Malden, MA: Wiley.
Masschelein, J., & Simons, M. (2013). In defense of school. Leuven: Education, Culture & Society Publishers.
OECD. (2010). European design types for 21st century schools: An overview. Paris: OECD.
Report from Select Committees on the Education of the Poorer Classes with Minutes of Evidence Appendix and Indices. (1834). British parliamentary papers: Education of poorer classes (Vol. 6). Shannon: Irish University Press.
Schemlzer, M. (2016). The hegemony of growth: The OECD and the making of the growth paradigm. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Stow, D. (1850). The training system, the moral training school, and the normal seminary. London, England: Longman, Brown and Green.
Tully, J. (1988). Governing conduct. In E. Leites (Ed.), Conscience and casuistry (pp. 1–25). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
United States Department of Education. National Commission on Excellence in Education. (1983). A nation at risk: The imperative for educational reform: A report to the nation and the Secretary of Education. Washington, D.C.: The Commission.
van Eyck, A. (1970). The interior of time. In C. Jencks & G. Baird (Eds.), Meaning in architecture (p. 171). G. Braziller: New York, NY.
Virilio, P. (2001). Virilio live: Selected interviews. London, England: Sage.
Watkin, D. (2001). Morality and architecture revisited. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press.
Young, M., Barab, S., & Garrett, S. (2012). Agent as detector: an ecological psychology perspective on learning by perceiving-acting systems. In D. Jonassen & S. Land (Eds.), The theoretical foundations of learning environments. New York, NY: Routledge.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Thompson, A. (2018). MLE as Non-place. In: Benade, L., Jackson, M. (eds) Transforming Education. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5678-9_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5678-9_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-10-5677-2
Online ISBN: 978-981-10-5678-9
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)