The "Feel" of the Pedagogical Environment
Finally some long overdue blog posts. This particular one has been brewing inside me for at least a month.
As someone who spends a large majority of her time researching tactility and how one feels or doesn't not feel, in the broadest sense of the terms, I have recently returned to the idea of how our environment "feels". This is something that is deep-seated that precedes my current research interests.
It comes from the same place, the same "feeling" I would get when I would write/read/research on Saturday afternoons with NCAA football on TV and the sounds of "cheer, cheer for old Notre Dame" or "Hail! to the victors valiant". It is a "feeling" and a feeling. I use the "feeling" in scare quotes to represent that unquantifiable sensation that makes your body respond to all the sensory queues and rejoice in the illation that this is how academia is supposed to feel; this IS academia. This is sometimes coupled with feeling, sans scare quotes; the actual tactile interaction with the academic built environment. Touching ivy walls, leafing through old books, touching an old bench where generations of academics sat before.
I present exhibit A:
This past semester I was teaching at Seneca's King City campus. One hour out of the GTA, King City campus has none of the "feel" that a stereotypical post-secondary institution would have. It has no ivy-ed walls, no stately buildings, in fact even the library closes at 4pm in the summer! The main building is, from all apparent visual cues, an old farm building. The "feeling" I had when teaching in this environment could be summarized as practical/efficient: I wanted all my pedagogical work to have some overt utilitarian function. There was an disconnect between the academic and the pedagogical, which was briefly bridged when I realized that I would be teaching using a chalk board, which I had not done in years. This all changed when on a stroll I found this bench. There behind the main building were three or four of these benches that said "colleagues all". Instantly the "feel" of this place became different for me. Don't get me wrong I love teaching at Seneca, I really do, and King City is a lovely campus, beautiful in fact. What this experience made me realize is that my pedagogy is very much influenced by my interaction with the built environment where this teaching/learning is taking place.
I realize as I am writing this that I must sound like a snob. This is probably exacerbated by the fact that as I am writing this I am listening to PBS classical radio which is one station away from the NPR station I listen to. But isn't this all part of it? This "feeling", what makes me feel like what I do is important. As I have come the realize this "feeling" is related to academe and not necessarily related to pedagogy.
I just finished reading a lovely essay collection edited by Jane Gallop called Pedagogy: The Question of Impersonation. In it the authors suggest and demonstrate that the role of teacher and student is both performance and performative. It made me realize that in order to perform my role as a teacher efficiently, I require a stage that makes me "feel" like I am a teacher. This was lacking at King Campus until I saw that bench and realized in fact, that yes, we are all colleagues, partners in the educational journey.
My default academic "feel" place is exhibit B:
This is the courtyard of University College at the University of Toronto. When I think of how academia "feels" this is exactly the picture that comes to mind, complete with said fall colours. This picture also evokes the feel of academe, and simultaneously the feel of pedagogy. From this picture I can literally touch the educational experience. A block away is Robarts and 13 glorious floors of books. A few short steps away on the grass of front campus is where I used to play interfaculty soccer. A few short steps on the grass of the back campus is where I watched my friend George who played rugby for UofT receive a concussion during practice. All of these were part of the learning experience which came together to provide my complete experience as an undergrad at UofT.
I have come to discover that these "feelings" and feelings perpetually echo within the classroom environment. It is what motivates me, makes me confident in the level of learning that goes on in the class. I know that this is also extremely problematic because pedagogy does not have to necessarily equate to academia, but I think what links the two is this overarching idea of community. I want to create a community with my teaching practices, just as academia is a community of scholars engaged in research and education.
Another place that sort of screams academia is exhibit C:
What is this?, you ask. Well I will let this quotation from the Yale Daily News explain: ""I have some advice if you want to be admitted at Yale,” remarks the tour guide to an eager cadre of prospective students and their parents: “Rub this foot.” Leaning against the bronze likeness of Theodore Dwight Woolsey, the ambassador reaches his hand to the heavily polished boot of the statue and, in a gesture of almost religious gravity, graces his finger along its smoothed surface. A vicarious shudder of ecstasy washes over the enraptured audience: this, finally, is the secret to the college admissions process. Grueling SAT preparation, endless studying and extracurricular endeavor at once lose their all-encompassing significance — the panacea of Ivy League acceptance now stands literally an arm’s length away. " (Lansman, Ben. "A Stoke of Good Luck." Yale Daily News. October 17, 2006. www.yaledailynews.com/magazine/short-feature/2006/10/27/a-stroke-of-good-luck/)
When I was at Yale for a conference in 2007, I took this picture and rubbed Woolsey's foot. I have not attended nor been admitted to any Ivy League institutions but my participation in this ritual was again a culmination of "feeling" and feeling.
I will come face-to-face with this feeling again when I starting teaching in the fall because I will be teaching at my alma mater. I present exhibit D:
Ah brutalist architecture. Why is there something so comforting in your concrete walls? Nothing here overtly screams ivy, old, books, academe, pedagogy. But it does to me. Not in the same way that UC or Yale does, because I always already feel at a distance from these spaces despite the tactile proximity I may have had. This is because I never attended St. George campus (except for one summer course which was amazing...thank you Dr. Graff) nor Yale. These are only places of brief encounter, perpetually idealized, stereotyped, as being the pinnacle of academe in the community of research sense, not necessarily in the pedagogical sense.
I suspect that my love and fascination with architecture and built environment is what brought on these "feelings" in the first place. Thus, I continue to enact this love of built environment when I couple it with my pedagogical practices within my classroom environment to create a safe space, an environment that feels comfortable for my students and myself, to maximize learning potential. In the fall I will see what happens within the dynamics of this space when I teach in a place that already feels like home. :)
As someone who spends a large majority of her time researching tactility and how one feels or doesn't not feel, in the broadest sense of the terms, I have recently returned to the idea of how our environment "feels". This is something that is deep-seated that precedes my current research interests.
It comes from the same place, the same "feeling" I would get when I would write/read/research on Saturday afternoons with NCAA football on TV and the sounds of "cheer, cheer for old Notre Dame" or "Hail! to the victors valiant". It is a "feeling" and a feeling. I use the "feeling" in scare quotes to represent that unquantifiable sensation that makes your body respond to all the sensory queues and rejoice in the illation that this is how academia is supposed to feel; this IS academia. This is sometimes coupled with feeling, sans scare quotes; the actual tactile interaction with the academic built environment. Touching ivy walls, leafing through old books, touching an old bench where generations of academics sat before.
I present exhibit A:
This past semester I was teaching at Seneca's King City campus. One hour out of the GTA, King City campus has none of the "feel" that a stereotypical post-secondary institution would have. It has no ivy-ed walls, no stately buildings, in fact even the library closes at 4pm in the summer! The main building is, from all apparent visual cues, an old farm building. The "feeling" I had when teaching in this environment could be summarized as practical/efficient: I wanted all my pedagogical work to have some overt utilitarian function. There was an disconnect between the academic and the pedagogical, which was briefly bridged when I realized that I would be teaching using a chalk board, which I had not done in years. This all changed when on a stroll I found this bench. There behind the main building were three or four of these benches that said "colleagues all". Instantly the "feel" of this place became different for me. Don't get me wrong I love teaching at Seneca, I really do, and King City is a lovely campus, beautiful in fact. What this experience made me realize is that my pedagogy is very much influenced by my interaction with the built environment where this teaching/learning is taking place.
I realize as I am writing this that I must sound like a snob. This is probably exacerbated by the fact that as I am writing this I am listening to PBS classical radio which is one station away from the NPR station I listen to. But isn't this all part of it? This "feeling", what makes me feel like what I do is important. As I have come the realize this "feeling" is related to academe and not necessarily related to pedagogy.
I just finished reading a lovely essay collection edited by Jane Gallop called Pedagogy: The Question of Impersonation. In it the authors suggest and demonstrate that the role of teacher and student is both performance and performative. It made me realize that in order to perform my role as a teacher efficiently, I require a stage that makes me "feel" like I am a teacher. This was lacking at King Campus until I saw that bench and realized in fact, that yes, we are all colleagues, partners in the educational journey.
My default academic "feel" place is exhibit B:
This is the courtyard of University College at the University of Toronto. When I think of how academia "feels" this is exactly the picture that comes to mind, complete with said fall colours. This picture also evokes the feel of academe, and simultaneously the feel of pedagogy. From this picture I can literally touch the educational experience. A block away is Robarts and 13 glorious floors of books. A few short steps away on the grass of front campus is where I used to play interfaculty soccer. A few short steps on the grass of the back campus is where I watched my friend George who played rugby for UofT receive a concussion during practice. All of these were part of the learning experience which came together to provide my complete experience as an undergrad at UofT.
I have come to discover that these "feelings" and feelings perpetually echo within the classroom environment. It is what motivates me, makes me confident in the level of learning that goes on in the class. I know that this is also extremely problematic because pedagogy does not have to necessarily equate to academia, but I think what links the two is this overarching idea of community. I want to create a community with my teaching practices, just as academia is a community of scholars engaged in research and education.
Another place that sort of screams academia is exhibit C:
What is this?, you ask. Well I will let this quotation from the Yale Daily News explain: ""I have some advice if you want to be admitted at Yale,” remarks the tour guide to an eager cadre of prospective students and their parents: “Rub this foot.” Leaning against the bronze likeness of Theodore Dwight Woolsey, the ambassador reaches his hand to the heavily polished boot of the statue and, in a gesture of almost religious gravity, graces his finger along its smoothed surface. A vicarious shudder of ecstasy washes over the enraptured audience: this, finally, is the secret to the college admissions process. Grueling SAT preparation, endless studying and extracurricular endeavor at once lose their all-encompassing significance — the panacea of Ivy League acceptance now stands literally an arm’s length away. " (Lansman, Ben. "A Stoke of Good Luck." Yale Daily News. October 17, 2006. www.yaledailynews.com/magazine/short-feature/2006/10/27/a-stroke-of-good-luck/)
When I was at Yale for a conference in 2007, I took this picture and rubbed Woolsey's foot. I have not attended nor been admitted to any Ivy League institutions but my participation in this ritual was again a culmination of "feeling" and feeling.
I will come face-to-face with this feeling again when I starting teaching in the fall because I will be teaching at my alma mater. I present exhibit D:
Ah brutalist architecture. Why is there something so comforting in your concrete walls? Nothing here overtly screams ivy, old, books, academe, pedagogy. But it does to me. Not in the same way that UC or Yale does, because I always already feel at a distance from these spaces despite the tactile proximity I may have had. This is because I never attended St. George campus (except for one summer course which was amazing...thank you Dr. Graff) nor Yale. These are only places of brief encounter, perpetually idealized, stereotyped, as being the pinnacle of academe in the community of research sense, not necessarily in the pedagogical sense.I suspect that my love and fascination with architecture and built environment is what brought on these "feelings" in the first place. Thus, I continue to enact this love of built environment when I couple it with my pedagogical practices within my classroom environment to create a safe space, an environment that feels comfortable for my students and myself, to maximize learning potential. In the fall I will see what happens within the dynamics of this space when I teach in a place that already feels like home. :)
Hi there, I wanted to let you know I really enjoyed reading your thoughts about the pedagogical environment. I too have a love of architecture and the study of place science and find it fascinating how places make us feel. I was a high school and middle school teacher for 10 years and felt very strongly that the 'silent curriculum,' or all the physical things which are part of the room, play a huge role in how students perceive learning, teaching, relationships, content, etc. Thanks for sharing, it's great to meet another like-minded teacher.
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