Sunday, May 9, 2010

The Classroom as a game of soccer!

I had heard about Brian Massumi's translation of Deleuze and Guattari's philosophies and became intrigued to further develop these ideas into the classroom setting. In Massumi's book, Parables for the Virtual, I came across the essay titled, The Political Economy of Belonging.


Massumi dissects a game of soccer and tells how the organization combined with the disorganization on the field contributes to the emergence of each and every game played. The game has specific rules that develop itself and keep cooperation among the players, but it also has a disorganization or unknown that makes the game happen. If the observers of the game knew what would happen before the game, they would not watch the game, it would lose all of its excitement. If before the game, the players knew how the game would play out, they would quickly lose interest and not have a desire to play soccer. The fun and excitement on the field is not knowing what will happen next.

To better understand Massumi's article, I replaced the soccer field with a classroom. To begin, Massumi looks at the individual and society and uses the chicken/egg metaphor. Discussing what came first, the individual or society. Massumi argues that it would be absurd to separate the two - the individual and society. They coexist together and influence and reflect one another in each other.

I imagine the classroom as a society or body and each individual in that classroom is an important part of the emergence of creative energy, ideas, and knowledge. I found Massumi's essay particularily interesting because it focused on the game of soccer as having rules to abide by, but also disorganization and rules to potentially break that contribute to each and every game played. With my previous focus on the Classroom without Organs, I struggled with my passion for emergence through disorganization and limited rules and how to balance that with rules and organization. I have always naturally been drawn to organization, which can be very helpful, but sometimes realize that I gain the most when I allow disorganization to happen, when I do not follow strict guidlines.

Some notes from Massumi's dissection of the soccer game:

  • The rules of the game capture and contain the variation

  • Subject/object - player, ball, disassociation of subject/object can allow for emergence

  • Circumstances arise that force modification of rules

  • Condition of games emerge

  • What is the "condition?" The field.

  • The field is minimally organized and polarized by two attractors - the goals. They function to induce the play. What are the attractors in a classroom? The teacher?

  • The game itself is activated by the presence of bodies on the field, goalposts, and the ground. These aspects induce the play, the ball catalyzes it. Ball = focus of every player.

  • What catalyzes a classroom? The teacher? Knowledge? Structure?

  • Parameters of actions are regulated by rules

  • "When the ball moves, the whole game moves with it." (73)

  • "Any player who is conscious of himself as he kicks misses." (74)

  • Players in relation to each other are openings of potential

  • The player looks past the ball to the field of potential

  • "Any and every movement of a player or the ball in that space modifies the distribution of potential movement over it." (75)

  • "Change is emergent relation, the becoming sensible in empirical conditions of mixture, or a modulation of potential. Post-emergence, there is capture and containment. Rules are codified and applied. The intermixing of bodies, objects, and signs is standardized and regulated. Becoming becomes reviewable and writable: becoming becomes history." (77)
Without rules, the game of soccer would not exist, nor would any other sport. Without rules a classroom would not exist. Rules are not the enemy, although, they often are more successful with room for alteration. The rules in a classroom keep the ideas and emergence on track. Rules do not necessarily mean organization. I could create a classroom rule that states, "Allow emergence to take place." Another that declares, "Respect your own ideas and those of your classmates. They help us to learn and be curious." These are awesome rules! And without them, my classroom would not know how valuable each individual is in contributing to the knowledge that is gained each day.

Teacher/Student. Who is the subject? Who is the object? Hopefully neither. Allowing for a barrier to be broken for all subject - object relationships in the classroom can open many doors for emergence to happen.

What is it that keeps a classroom polarized? In the game of soccer, it is the goals. They are a key focus in the game. Ideally, the players will make a goal, but it does not happen effortlessly. They rely on themselves and each other to get there. In a classroom, ideally the students will succeed in learning something new. So, I will say the the attractor in the classroom is the possibility of learning something new. And in the classroom, the students and teacher should rely on themselves and each other to get to that point of learning something new. Along the way they will ask and answer questions, gain curiosity, and pass ideas back and forth. Much like in soccer, as they would pass the ball back and forth, they contemplate the path and their own curiosities.

What is the "game" of the classroom? Knowledge. And the metaphor for the ball in the classroom is ideas. The flowing of ideas should catalyze the classroom, just as that ball catalyzes the game of soccer. The students, teacher, activities, and classroom itself induce the society of the classroom. The flow of ideas catalyzes it. When ideas move and flow among the classroom, knowledge (the game) moves with it. Any player who is conscious of himself misses when he kicks! In a classroom, any student who is conscious of herself will miss! When the classroom environment encourages ideas to flow and emergence to happen, hopefully, self-consciousness will be less likely to occur and there won't be as many misses. I think of all the times my self-consciousness got in the way and I missed in class. There were so many things I wanted to share, but didn't because I was afraid they didn't make sense or I didn't make sense.

Just as in a game on the field, in order for the classroom to be successful there needs to be a balance of structure and rules that closely share the space with minimization of rules and allowance for modification of those rules. There needs to be a common attractor that the students are aiming for, in the case of the classroom, the attractor is the possibility of learning something new. In both the field and the classroom, the attractor should be attainable and exciting and challenging to attain. Questions need to be asked and curiosity needs to happen to get to that point. There needs to be a catalyzer (the ball) that is passed between the students and the teacher. It is something that is shared and respected and moves throughout the classroom. The catalyzer of the classroom is ideas. Ideas should be bounced back and forth until they reach the goal of becoming knowledge.

When this knowledge is attained it should be exciting, just as it is to score a goal in soccer. It is valued as a team effort. When the goal is not attained, the team keeps trying and they eventually make the goal.

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