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Abstract
This article considers the emergence and meaning of a particular kind of surveillance in classrooms: the one represented by the gaze of the teacher. Drawing on teaching manuals and other normative material published between the 1820s and the 1960s, it is argued that the optical regime of the classroom underwent a decisive change during the second half of the nineteenth century, when monitorial teaching was superseded by teacher-led whole-class teaching. This new method of teaching implied a new kind of surveillance in which the teacher was expected to remain at his/her desk in order to see the class. The meaning of this optical regime is discussed in relation to Foucault’s concept of the panopticon and Mathiesen’s concept of the synopticon. While both concepts highlight important aspects, it is argued that they do not fully capture the essence of specific features of surveillance in the history of the classroom.
Notes
1 On the shift from monitorial teaching towards whole-class teaching, see Agneta Linné, ‘The Lesson as a Pedagogic Text: a Case Study of Lesson Designs’, Journal of Curriculum Theory, 2 (2001): 129–56; Joakim Landahl, ‘Ljudet av auktoritet. Den tysta skolans uppgång och fall’, Scandia 77 1 (2011): 11–35. Landahl 2011 is also available in English translation, as ‘The Sound of Authority: The Rise and Fall of the Silent School’, at http://www.tidskriftenscandia.se, under the headline ‘articles in English’.
2 Betty Eggermont, ‘The Choreography of Schooling as Site of Struggle: Belgian Primary Schools 1880–1940’, History of Education 30, no. 2 (2001): 129–40; Eric Margolis and Sheila Fram, ‘Caught Napping: Images of Surveillance, Discipline and Punishment on the Body of the Schoolchild’, History of Education 36, no. 2 (2007): 191–211; Philip Gardner, ‘The Giant at the Front: Young Teachers and Corporal Punishment in Inter-war Elementary Schools’, History of Education 25, no. 2 (1996): 141–63.
3 Sjaak Braster, Ian Grosvenor and Maria del Mar del Pozo Andrés, eds., The Black Box of Schooling: A Cultural History of the Classroom (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2012); Harold Silver, ‘Knowing and Not Knowing in the History of Education’, History of Education 21, no. 1 (1992): 97–108.
4 See Bertrand Russell, Power: A New Social Analysis (London: Routledge, 2004).
5 Hannah Arendt, On Violence (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1970).
6 C. Kastman, ‘Om disciplinen’, Tidning för folkskolan, no. 19 (1880): 256.
7 Ibid. 256.
8 Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews & Other Writings 1972–1977 (New York: Pantheon, 1980), 155.
9 Martin Jay, Downcast Eyes: the Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century French Thought (Berkeley: University of California Press).
10 Kevin D. Haggerty, ‘Tear Down the Walls: On Demolishing the Panopticon’, in Theorizing Surveillance: The Panopticon and Beyond, ed. David Lyon (London: Routledge, 2006), 25.
11 Haggerty 2006, 23–45.
12 C. Fred Alford, ‘What Would It Matter If Everything Foucault Said About Prison Were Wrong? “Discipline and Punish” after Twenty Years’, Theory and Society 29, no. 1 (2000): 125–46; Michael Gallagher, ‘Are Schools Panoptic?’, Surveillance & Society 7, no. 3/4 (2010): 262–72; Roy Boyne, ‘Post-Panopticism’, Economy and Society 29, no. 2 (2000): 285–307; Chris Otter, The Victorian Eye: A Political History of Light and Vision in Britain, 1800–1910 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008).
13 Thomas Mathiesen, ‘The Viewer Society: Michel Foucault’s “Panopticon” Revisited’, Theoretical Criminology 1, no. 2 (1997): 215–34.
14 Mathiesen, 1997, 231.
15 Viola Chambert, ‘Södermalms högre läroanstalt för flickor’, in Minnen från privatläroverk och om lärd undervisning i hemmen m.m., by Ragnh. Brolinson et al. (Lund: Föreningen för svensk undervisningshistoria, 1938), 197. This and the following quotations have been translated from Swedish by the author.
16 Vilhelm Moberg, Sänkt sedebetyg (Stockholm: Bonnier, 1935), 145.
17 Caitlin Donahue Wylie, ‘Teaching Manuals and the Blackboard: Accessing Historical Classroom Practices’, History of Education 41, no. 2 (2012): 257–72.
18 Norbert Elias, On the Process of Civilisation: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations (Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2012).
19 Thomas Neidenmark, Pedagogiska imperativ och sociala nätverk i svensk medborgarbildning 1812–1828 (Stockholm: Stockholms universitet, 2011); Thor Nordin, Växelundervisningens allmänna utveckling och dess utformning i Sverige till omkring 1830 (Stockholm: Föreningen för svensk undervisningshistoria, 1973).
20 Landahl, 20.
21 Adolf Fredrik Rådberg, Praktisk handbok för vexel-undervisningsscholor (Linköping, 1820), 35.
22 Anders Oldberg, Praktisk handbok i pedagogik och methodik för swenska folkunderwisningen, 2nd ed. (Stockholm, 1846), 112.
23 Rådberg, 1820, 30.
24 P.R. Svensson, Praktisk handledning för vexelundervisningen i folkscholor (Stockholm, 1823), 64.
25 Svensson, 64.
26 Thorsten Rudenschöld, ‘Svenska folkskolans praktiska ordnande’, in id., Skrifter, iv: Andra delen, II–IV (Lund, 1921).
27 Gunnar Richardsson, Torsten Rudenschöld. Samhällskritiker och skolreformator (Stockholm: Carlssons, 1998), 166.
28 Ibid. 110.
29 Författningar rörande folkundervisningen, 3rd ed. (Stockholm, 1869), 23–6.
30 Linné, 2001. Change itself came gradually. According to Åke Isling, it was only in the wake of the normalplan of 1878 (the first national curriculum) that the transition to class teaching became appreciable. Åke Isling, Kampen för och mot en demokratisk skola, II: Det pedagogiska arvet (Stockholm, 1988), 129.
31 Normalritningar till folkskolebyggnader jemte beskrifning på nådig befallning utarbetade af Kongl. Öfver–Intendents–Embetet (Stockholm, 1865), 7.
32 We do not know exactly to what extent the standard drawings were obeyed when it comes to the classroom, but it is evident that the tradition of school desks in straight lines came to be well established in Swedish schools, and already in the 1870s teaching manuals recommended that pupils should be placed in a way that made it possible to see the teacher constantly. Christofer Ludvig Anjou, Carl Kastman and Knut Arvid Kastman, Bidrag till pedagogik och metodik för folkskolelärare, Parts III & VI in one volume (Linköping, 1880), 52; Sandberg, 1875, 115.
33 Anjou, Kastman and Kastman, 90.
34 Fredrik Sandberg, Uppfostringslära med särskild hänsyn till folkskolan. Anteckningar och bidrag (Stockholm: Palmquists aktiebolag, 1875), 148f.
35 Martin Bäcklin, Att vara lärare (Stocholm: Geber, 1951), 263f.
36 See also Emanuel Martig, Lärobok i pedagogik för seminarier och själfstudium (Kristianstad, 1903), 163; Alf Hildinger, Folkskolepedagogik (Stockholm: A.-B. Magn. Bergvalls förlag, 1944), 124; Sven Lundqvist, Uppfostran under skolåldern. 3, Tukten (Stockholm: Norstedt, 1901), 247; C.O. Arcadius, Handledning i folkskolepedagogik för seminarier och lärare (Stockholm: Norstedt, 1919), 166.
37 Carl Kastman ‘Ögat i skolan’, Tidskrift för folkundervisningen 8 (1889): 182.
38 Anjou, Kastman and Kastman, 90.
39 The headmaster Carl v Vriesen quoted in Carl Svedilius, Tänkt och talat om pojkar och pedagoger (Stockholm: Norstedt, 1930), 68.
40 Lundqvist, 350 (emhasis in the original).
41 Arcadius, 164.
42 A.O. Stenkula, ‘Skoldisciplinens mål och medel’, Tidskrift för folkundervisningen 8 (1889): 23 (emphasis in the original).
43 Sandberg, 148.
44 Eie Ericsson, Läraren, eleven, disciplinen. Ett försök till konkreta råd för lärarkandidater samt förslag till diskussionsämnen (Stockholm: Norstedts, 1967), 5.
45 Skolöverstyrelsen, Arbetstrivsel i skolan (Stockholm: SÖ-förlaget, 1965), 15.
46 Arcadius, 165.
47 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1991), 201f.
48 Svante Bohman, ‘Det personligt pedagogiska förhållandets psykologi och pedagogik’, Pedagogisk tidskrift (1939): 89.
49 Kastman, 186.
50 Stenkula, 17.
51 Hildinger, 1944, 124.
52 Jon Naeslund, Allmän undervisningsmetodik (Stockholm: Sv. Bokförlaget, 1961), 135.
53 Läraren och klassen, Avdelningen för audio-visuella medier, KB.
54 On the ideal of blackboard writing, see e.g. Martin Bäcklin, ‘Vi behöver en fortskridande skolreform’, Tidning för Sveriges läroverk, no. 11 (1960): 355; Nils Håkanson, AV i skolan (Stockholm: Natur och kultur, 1964), 111–16.
55 Kastman, 182 f.
56 Helge Haage and Sven Wikberg, Hur skall jag undervisa? Kort handledning (Stockholm: Svenska bokförlaget, Bonniers, 1951), 22.
57 Pelle Ödman, Ur flydda tiders skollif (Stockholm: Fahlcrantz, 1909), 94.
58 Nils Håkanson, Bild och ljud i undervisningen. Handbok om audio-visuella hjälpmedel (Stockholm: Natur och kultur, 1953), 32. See also Hjälpmedel i skolarbetet. Betänkande avgivet av 1957 års skolberedning (Stockholm, 1961), 161
59 Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, Vol. 1 (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1978).
60 Kastman, 183.
61 Ibid.
62 Kastman, 183f.
63 Foucault, 1980, 156.
64 Foucault, 1991, 202.
65 Sandberg, 1875.
66 For example, Inger Eriksson, ‘Re-Interpreting Teaching: A Divided Task in Self-Regulated Teaching Practices’, Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 53 (2009): 53–70; Marianne Dovemark, Ansvar – flexibilitet – valfrihet. En etnografisk studie om en skola i förändring (Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, 2004); Kjell Granström, ‘Arbetsformer och dynamik i klassrummet’, in Kobran, nallen och majjen. Tradition och förnyelse i svensk skola och skolforskning, ed. Staffan Selander (Stockholm: Myndigheten för skolutveckling, 2003), 223–43.
67 Erik Söderberg, Skola utan kateder! (Stockholm: LT, 1978).