Joel Manfredi
Journal Entry “Panopticon”
Dr. De Vries
English 5870
In reading Michel Foucault’s “Panopticism,” I get a strong sense of the type of discipline that most teachers are looking for in their classrooms. It is, that type of discipline that becomes internal, an imposed sort of governance that the student will be responsible for without the teacher’s influence. The influence from the teacher would be one that is of the perceived notion of constant observation at the head, or back, of the classroom.
In the classroom, the students will always outnumber the teacher, and therefore have a perceived advantage when it comes to some sort of power relation. It becomes the job of the teacher to first neutralize that power, in a sense, and harness that power toward the students’ education, rather than as a notion that they will be able to control what happens in the classroom on a behavioral level. An important aspect of teaching is not to disengage the student from learning, but rather to enhance the idea that learning can be collaborative in process.
The Panopticon model helps to even out the power structure in the classroom when it comes to the students by portraying that the student is always under constant supervision by someone (the teacher) who is judging them. Foucault says, “It (panopticon) is an important mechanism, for it automatizes and disindividualizes power.” So this model creates a level field of power between the subjects and again, internalizes their need to produce. If someone constantly feels like they are being watched, then that person will more than likely behave in a way that does not conflict with what is expected of them.
Foucault goes on to say about this that, “He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power.” In an educational mode, this takes away time that the teacher would have to deal with discipline problems in the classroom, and creates more time for learning. Adam talked about this when he said that he sits at the back of the classroom during his quizzes so that he can monitor the students from out of their field of vision. This gives the students the feeling of being watched without ever knowing if they are being watched or not. He is implementing the same phenomena of the Panopticon, which is, as Foucault says, “The Panopticon is a machine for dissociating the see/being seen dyad: in the peripheric ring, one is totally seen, without ever seeing; in the central tower, one sees everything without ever being seen.”
The Panopticon seems “easy” as Foucault states, but for such a long time there was no model for it. He talks about how leper’s were quarantined and thus began the idea of segmenting areas of the population to deal with plagues. It’s interesting that schools, hospitals, and prisons all resemble the same sort of concept and design when it comes to architecture. But it makes sense because in all of those institutions, there are people that observe, and people being observed.
Should the teacher be the all seeing eye in the classroom? I know that this is the way that we traditionally think of the classroom power structure but in a student-centered class their is a shared power dynamic.
And, even beyond that, do we want to continue to reinforce the power dynamic created by the system at a college level? Most of the people must conform to the requirements of the system, or the system breaks down. As rebellious as I am by nature, I am also smart enough to recognize that that would be VERY BAD for everyone…at least in the short run.
However, do we want people in power to unquestioningly accept the dictates of an obviously flawed system, just to maintain some sort of social stability? The implications of the panopticon have become global, and go way beyond the doors of our own individual classrooms. Remember, we are caught in the mesh of the networks, as certainly as our students are. The only difference is that we, at least some of us, might be aware of it, and use it to our advantage in certain ways. That does not remove us from the system. You might be a .exe instead of a .doc, but you are still programmed just as surely as anyone else. That is the scary part of Foucault’s realization.
Do you think that we forget that we are always being wathced? I sometimes am driving a little to fast and suddendly start looking around for the police officer who might stop me. I have forgoetten that he/she might be there.
I read a newpaper article about how they have cameras to watch people (like the cameras we have at traffic lights). This reminded me of the panopticon.
“An important aspect of teaching is not to disengage the student from learning, but rather to enhance the idea that learning can be collaborative in process.”
I completely agree with this statement Joel, when students are part of the learning process alonside the instructor, they achieve agency in their own education. The trick for a high school teacher is to create this environment in the classroom when they are using the same curriculum they’ve used for the past 8 years. In many ways, its more about your approach to curriculum so that it comes across as collaborative rather than didactic. Of course, a classroom where learning is collaborative is the ultimate goal, but none of it can be achieved if the students cannot regulate their own behavior (internalize it as you say), and understand the power hierarchy that exists in the classroom.