Other Classrooms: Beyond the Disciplinary Spaces of the Past

Abstract: The following thesis is at once a somewhat rudimentary attempt to relate the history of the classroom while describing the potential impact on the space of learning by the introduction of a new type of computer program into a school setting. It asks the question: how is the space of learning affected by the use of this specific type of computer program as an educational tool? In order to begin to formulate an answer to this question I have drawn upon the theorizing of Foucault and Deleuze in particular. Establishing the modern classroom as a relative of sorts to the disciplinary spaces of the past, I conclude that the means and practices by which pupils are being controlled within the space of learning have shifted from discipline being extorted exclusively by the teacher – who in turn is aided by the physical and temporal constraints of the classroom – to control being applied by each individual pupil through technologies of the self. This, in turn, led me to the conclusion that although there are certainly quite tangible effects on the space of learning itself, the actual mode of learning may very well be kept intact through techniques designed to control the behavior of the individual pupil beyond the disciplinary spaces of the past.