Teachers in the Schoolhouse Panopticon:

Complicity and Resistance(Mary Bushnell, 2003)

BY LaTrenda Terrell

The article discusses educational reforms subordinating elementary school teachers and reducing their opportunities for professionalism

It also reflects a Foucault’s image and discussion of the panopticon, educational administration and the public participation in monitoring teachers practices, leaving teachers in an untenable position for professional autonomy and therefore opportunities to become professionals

Author used qualitative data of new and veteran New York City schoolteachers

Author’s Discussion

(February 15,1748 – June 6,1832) was a British philosopher, jurist, and social reformer. He is regarded as the founder of modern utilitarianism.

He called for the abolition of slavery, the abolition of the death penalty, and the abolition of physical punishment, including that of children

Developed the panopticon design for the modern prison

Jeremy Bentham

Allowed the prison guards to be able to look into the individual cells of every prisoner at will

Prisoner never knew when she was going to be watched and so had to monitor her own behavior and obey the rules

Because at any moment she might be observed

Panopticon Design

Bentham's idea of the panopticon has been taken from the prison and applied in every domain of modern life as the principal technology by which power operates

It was copied in every other institution of modern life that developed in the same era

Factory Immigration SystemMilitary barracks HospitalsModern schoolGovernment Department

Panopticon Idea

Michel Foucault born Paul-Michel Foucault (October 15, 1926 – June 25, 1984) was a French Philosopher, historian of ideas, social theorist, philologist and literary critic. His theories addressed the relationship between power and knowledge, and how they are used as a form of social control through societal institutions

French Philosopher Michel Foucault

Foucault says the panopticon is a physical and social structure designed for the observation and regulation of its resident’s activities.

Foucault

Teachers are in their cells observed and monitored by administrators, parents, politicians, and boards of education.

Teachers themselves are complicit in their own subordination and are left with limited opportunities for resistance

Teachers as the Objects of Power Relations

NCLB exemplifies the current climate of externally constructed teacher accountability measure

Losing sight of those teachers who are doing a great job- and who could do an even better job in the absence of inappropriately constricting regulatory structures

Accountability Discourse- Presumes that without the state educational administrator’s establishing such controlling measures, teachers practice would be inadequate. We presume that external regulation of teachers is necessary because we cannot trust teachers to regulate themselves.

No Child Left Behind Act

The daily activities of teachers, principals, and other school workers remain under close monitoring by school and nonschool-based persons and institutions. State education agencies, unions, parents, and citizens are only some of the groups who oversee the work of teachers.

Panopticon of Surveillance

Is there a need for teacher surveillance in elementary schools? (Yes/No role play). Can teachers be trusted to educate children without being closely monitored? Who would know or care?

Panopticon of Surveillance

Surveillance restricts the power of school workers and constructs teaching as a semi-profession

Teachers who are externally monitored do not enjoy the decision making autonomy, collegial community, and trust characteristic of professionals

National study indicated that Catholic school teachers were more likely to be satisfied with their jobs because of the degree of autonomy despite getting paid less and larger class sizes

Surveillance as Restricting

How are teachers being monitored?

Monitoring includes but is not limited to:

Curricular Standards- which detail what shall be studied and when in public schools

Pedagogy- Method of teaching. The use of curricular packages. “Teacher proof” materials script every interaction between teachers and students. One lesson will be precisely duplicated in multiple classrooms with no variation for the unique students or teacher in each classroom

Standardized Tests- Justified by the discourse of accountability. Test scores put in newspapers (API scores online)

School loud speakers- One way communication allows administrative personnel to interrupt classroom activities and secure the attention of everyone in the classroom.

Teacher Monitoring

A work force of experienced, committed, well qualified teachers who find their work very satisfying and who enjoy the support of their principals and are reasonably comfortable with the resources provided for their work and the harmony they enjoy with their colleagues (Meek, 1998 p.16)

Is this true of all teachers…

Meek, 1998

Teachers are burnout and prematurely leave classrooms

One third of beginning New York teachers leave teaching within their first 5 years

Think about your own organizations

How has teaching changed since NCLB or in the last few years? (share)

Refuting Meek, 1998

Teachers are imagined and represented as decision makers and professionals, but their autonomy is limited. Teaching maybe a profession, but it can be considered “the profession that eats its young” (Halford, 1998 p. 33)

Teaching as a Profession

Is there a hierarchy present among teachers?

Certain teachers particularly those who are male involved in the sciences, teaching wealthy students from elite schools operate within a discourse of greater power and authority.

A physics teacher from an elite high school is regarded as a greater educational and intellectual authority than a female public school teacher in the Bronx

Why is this so? What makes one better than the other? Can this discourse be changed? Does money talk? (Discussion)

Knowledge-Power Relations

Teachers are passive participants in systems of power, which occurs with both the willing compliance and the active refusal of its own victim.

Panopticon participants engage in behaviors that maintain their subservient status.

Social Reproduction

Teachers resist individually and collectively

Unions are their primary form of collective resistance

Union efforts have been hampered by accusations of communist activity and underdeveloped labor movement in the United States

Water cooler discourse-Teachers complaining about their lack of autonomy, decision making, and authority that did not evolve into action

Resistance enables transformation in society (*&%$# no we won’t go! Civil Rights Movement)

Resistance

Teachers choosing to ignore the implications of surveillance and conduct their work within the prescribe limitations and not disrupting the system.

Gender assumptions-Female teachers are answering to the authority of mostly male administrators.

The system institutionalized (Discussion).

Complicity and Constraint

Is framed in gendered terms as embodying male authority, privilege, and control over women’s work in teaching (Weiler,1998 p. 80)

The authority structure remains consistent and is often embedded in teachers themselves.

Ex. Ralph Ellison on the complicity of African American in their own discrimination during the Jim Crow era; Three general ways they confronted their destiny 1. accept it through hope and religion 2. Repress their dislike 3. Reject the situation,

Professionalization in Education

Teachers should actively construct resistance through developing the practice of questioning to become “awake” to the social construction of their work- and therefore the possibility of altering that construction (Greene,1978)

Continuing to Rethink Professionalism

Conclusion

Bushnell, M. “Teachers in the Schoolhouse Panopticon: Complicity and

Resistance” (2003). Education and Urban society, http://eus.sagepub.com/content/35/3/251

Reference