Foucault’s metaphor of the Panopticon is relevant to our course in an ethnographic approach to classroom observation in that it emphasizes the “disciplined” infiltration of “the all seeing eye” into society as a whole, and in particular, into the schools.  This is of particular interest to me in my role as Graduate student because it has made me aware of the fact that we are all “rats” in someone else’s pedagogy; we are prisoners, unable to tell when or by whom we are being watched.   I don’t want to sound paranoid, however, for your who are teachers, why do the school administrators have to perform observations in your classroom? And, for the Administrators, why does WASC have to come into your school to perform it’s performance evaluations? After all, accreditation by WASC is voluntary, certainly not compulsory.

The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) prisoners without the prisoners being able to tell whether they are being watched, thereby conveying what one architect has called the “sentiment of an invisible omniscience.”

So, let me see if I’ve got this right.  Is WASC the “omniscience” supervisor,  looking through the glass building.  Then, the school is the tower at the center of the metaphorical panopticon.  Then, the Administration is the observer.  Our students are the “prisoners.”  Where does that leave us, Graduate students?  What part are we? What role do we play in this schema?