The Flowing Power in the Classroom and How Can Teachers Utilize Power Techniques to Improve Teaching
- DOI
- 10.2991/assehr.k.210617.109How to use a DOI?
- Keywords
- Power, power relations, power flow, power techniques
- Abstract
In the documentary film Are our Children Tough Enough? Chinese School, the phenomenon of blocked power flow in the classroom was exposed. This paper focuses on the flow of power in the classroom and emphasizes Foucault’s understanding of power relations. “Power is everywhere”. “Power comes from everywhere” [1]. Power does not belong to individuals, but is constantly flowing in various roles of society. The same is true in the classroom., where the main bodies of power are teachers and students. This essay suggests that, in order to improve the effectiveness of classroom teaching, teachers should be fully conscious of the necessity of the flowing power in the classroom and take the initiative to utilize their roles to promote the cycle of power in the classroom. Teachers and students are supposed to share the power in the classroom so as to improve the effectiveness of classroom teaching. Drawing on Jennifer M. Gore’ paper [2] and Catherine F. Brooks’ findings in his research [3], this paper further analyzes the power techniques that teachers can utilize in the classroom. In Core’ paper [2], she investigated eight major techniques of power (namely, surveillance, normalization, exclusion, classification, distribution, individualization, totalization, and regulation). In addition, Catherine F. Brooks examined how classroom roles reflect power relations in a course, how they are taken up, shift across time or are always in play and presented his findings [3]. By combining his findings with power techniques proposed by Core, this paper presents two suggestions for teachers. One is to choose an appropriate way of classroom interaction, using appropriate interaction to drive the flow of classroom power instead of mastering absolute power. Another is for teachers to reduce the use of advice-sounding directives, thus providing teachers and students with an equal position in the classroom dialogue in order to improve the experience of schooling for students and teachers.
- Copyright
- © 2021, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.
- Open Access
- This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).
Cite this article
TY - CONF AU - Jiale Song PY - 2021 DA - 2021/06/20 TI - The Flowing Power in the Classroom and How Can Teachers Utilize Power Techniques to Improve Teaching BT - Proceedings of the 2021 2nd International Conference on Mental Health and Humanities Education (ICMHHE 2021） PB - Atlantis Press SP - 415 EP - 419 SN - 2352-5398 UR - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.210617.109 DO - 10.2991/assehr.k.210617.109 ID - Song2021 ER -