"The classroom" is like "the stage" in theater, a space that may be filled (temporarily) by any number of dramas.
Some classrooms are specialized to a specific subject and/or age group. Some "belong" to a specific teacher. Sometimes teachers, trainers, workshop leaders "reserve a classroom" (might be in a hotel, church, university or office building) and people meet there, but there's no sense of ownership on the part of the students or teacher. Some classrooms are small and intimate. Others large and crowded. Many classrooms have special furniture, called desk-chairs, with writing surfaces. Sometimes these desk-chairs are sized for small people such that most adults could not sit in them. In some classrooms, the writing surface gives way to a tablet (an electronic one, not clay), and up front there may be a projector screen or an HDTV (back lit), on more than one. There may be one or more web cams. Some classrooms feature more than one teacher. There may be an assistant who wanders the room, helping individuals. There may be a two or three teachers. They converse with each other as well as with students. Sometimes classrooms are a place where treasured memories are formed and where one comes to respect and bond both with the teacher and with one's classmates. Sometimes a classroom is a living hell, where some nasty buffoon lords it over the smaller people, those with fewer rights and no authority. Sometimes the teacher is little more than a bully. Some classrooms are more like studios, where the teacher contacts experts, professionals, storytellers, and interviews them on-line in front of students, encouraging students to jump in with questions or comments. In some classrooms, the teacher is younger than any of the students, because the subject area is one that the younger person knows better. Some classrooms provide just a component of the education, and perhaps not the most important component. In flight school, you need classroom time and time in an airplane. Same with scuba diving. Learn about Boyle's Law in the classroom, but then actually dive in the ocean as well, to get the credential. Many skills and types of knowledge cannot be taught in classrooms alone. Many whole cultures as well as individuals have bad memories of classrooms. When Anglophone immigrants came to our area, people already living here had their children herded into boarding schools, where they were taught that the ways of their parents and grandparents were wrong and/or backward. These students did not learn the language of their people and were made mentally handicapped and physically awkward, more like the Anglos themselves. The classroom is many times a tool of the state, used as a bully pulpit to instill the values of a particular ruling elite. In some of these dramas, the ones to romanticize and respect are the students who rebel and say "no" to the status quo. We probably all know such dramas. The students walk out, boycott. We applaud. Gandhi was a master of the organized boycott. Nowadays, we have classrooms *and* we have so much more. We are blessed with more freedoms. Today, if you live in a state where the classroom ethics and etiquette are not to your liking, you may band with other parents and home school, creating classrooms in different homes or finding space in churches and sympathetic office buildings. You may even form your own school and get it chartered. I have been a classroom teacher (full time) and a distance education teacher (full time). Each has its pluses and minuses, nor is it either / or. The classroom is not going to disappear, but nor is education the exclusive monopoly of the classroom based. I look forward to many more interesting configurations for learning as time goes on. The classroom with one teacher and 30-40 students is a familiar format / template, but is just nevertheless but one of many staging options. Many well educated people will not and/or have not spent much time in such rooms. More power to 'em. Kirby On Fri, Feb 1, 2013 at 4:34 AM, Sraban Bag <[email protected]> wrote: > > Classrooms are important in-fact plays an important part in the whole > process of education. > > > It is so because classroom helps the child to learn the social etiquette > and nurtures him all the attributes that helps him to adjust in the > society, which reflects the true meaning of education. No doubt collection > of information can be possible through different ways and sources to expand > wisdom but it is in this setting that instills the true spirit of > education. Where the child is not a passive listener but an active > participant making the use of his cognitive, affective and psycho-motor > skills. (Of course teacher has a very crucial role to play). In the present > society where there is tough competition and rapid slow down in the human > values making the child ‘stereotyped’ classroom are important but with > proper setting in terms of curricula, methods of teaching, examination > system and nevertheless a motivated and educated teacher one can do justice > to the child keeping the principle of “equality and equity”. To conclude > with Jown Dewy, “School (Classroom) is the mini nature of the Society”. > > > > Regards > > Sraban > > -- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WikiEducator" group. To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org To visit the discussion forum: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WikiEducator" group. 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