Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone

I got to Social Capital Ottawa late. Not surprising. It’s Saturday, and homemade buttermilk pancakes with fresh berries and maple syrup take priority for me over almost anything. Then my main commuting bike had a flat, so had to change plans for the bike. Anyway, I arrived late.

As I walked into the room, I realized that this felt… awkward. As conference organizer and  poohbah Lara fake-scolded me — “You’re late” — it felt like a time machine. Eyes swiveled toward me, and I had to make my sheepish way to an open seat to get into the keynote speech that was underway.

I had changed worlds. Someone wiser than me once said that “we shape our buildings, then our buildings shape us.”

There’s a long tradition in education, from kindergarten up through post-secondary. The teacher goes to the front of the room. Then the students sit in orderly rows and columns and listen with varying degrees of attention to what the teacher is saying. People raise their hands when they have a question. People are chastised for talking in class.

The worlds we live in aren’t like that any more. We’re anarchists. We surf from place to place, we chat in three places at once. We don’t sit in rows. We obey the law of two feet. What am i saying? I’m saying that classrooms are not designed for conferences. At least these classrooms, for this type of conference. Why?

• Because the multimedia is focused on the front of the classroom, where the REAL experts are.
• Because the entrances to the room are behind the speakers, the doors are loud when they open and close, and people have to walk past the speaker and in front of the entire room when they enter. If the doors are propped open, alarms sound.
• Because the furniture is bolted to the floor, and chairs mounted on swivels squeak incredibly loudly when you cross your legs, you shift in your seat, or otherwise behave like a sentient being.
• Because there’s excited chatter in hallways that you hear when the doors open up that makes you want to be there.
• Because if you sit in front, the rest of the room has to stare at the back of your head, and if you sit in back, you stare at the backs of the heads of everyone else in the room.

I spent the majority of a decade doing PR in the education field. And until I did this conference, I hadn’t really thought about the experience of classroom education in this way.

If I were back in school, how would I find this space? I suspect I would find it awful. How do those who teach in that space find it? Do they like it? Is there another way?

Regardless of the thoughts the physical setting inspired in me, the conference itself was a smashing success. Some great sessions, and it was especially refreshing to see some UN-familiar faces in the audience and on the stages. Not that I don’t like the people who are relatively well-known in the social media community here, but it’s also great to see it expand. Congratulations to the whole conference committee on their work.

(Special note to Amy Boughner: I was happy to type this post with BOTH hands.)