Visual culture in the classroom

The visual aspect of classroom culture is becoming more important because students now have much greater access to the means of producing, viewing and manipulating images. Using a framework adapted from Foucault and taking a myth-making position, this paper puts forward six propositions as means of explaining how images in the classroom might be read. Theory relating to this emerging literacy is further explained through reference to three dominant classroom narratives. It is argued that the interesting elements of an image are often those that link the classroom metanarratives to wider, hegemonic concerns. Interesting research directions are proposed throughout the paper. The visual has risen steadily in importance in our culture. The presence of visual images has progressed from the high art of the painting through various media such as still photographs, broadcast free and pay television, VHS video, video games, digital versatile disc (DVD) and Blue Ray® until it is now a commonplace attribute of popular culture. This progression has been inexorable. The increasing availability of various technologies has led to a similar increased presence of the visual in schools. These technologies give teachers and students easy access to the means of production and manipulation of images in their classroom. We are all aware of Generation Y and its reputation for proficient use of technology. It is not surprising that this generation expects technology to be part of its learning. This generation is now in the last stages of its schooling and the members of the generation following are often referred to as ‘digital natives’. The term is being applied to individuals who have grown up immersed in technology. Prensky (2005) claims to have coined the term. He states: Our students ... are so different from us that we can no longer use either our 20th century knowledge or our training as a guide to what is best for them educationally. They are native speakers of technology, fluent in the digital language of computers, video games, and the Internet. (p2) The digital native’s easy use of new technologies, all of which are capable of handling digital images, makes it imperative for educationists to start to deal with the issue of how to teach students to ‘see’ these images, how to ‘look’ at them and how to ‘read’ them. While these issues are not necessarily new, and are often part of courses dealing with visual literacy, they are becoming increasingly relevant to the current generation in schools. This paper is an attempt to conceptualise part of an emerging literacy that is about dealing with images, combinations of images and words and combinations of words, images and sound. The paper seeks to develop an understanding of images in the classroom culture and how they can inform the making of meaning. This is an important topic as this emerging literacy is part of a changing visual classroom culture. Culture and classrooms Before conceptualising the use of images in the classroom and its effect on classroom culture, it is necessary to clarify what is meant by “classroom culture”. Australian Journal of Teacher Education Vol 33, 3, June 2008 18 Culture is a term that is often used vaguely and generally and when applied to the classroom it does not offer any great increase in clarity. Gibbs (1994) provides an interesting definition: she describes the culture, or the climate, of the classroom as an atmosphere or feeling and as an energy that is related to a child’s opportunity to learn and social development. Other definitions centre on ideas such as mutual respect, a sense of belonging and an atmosphere of trust. Many definitions revolve around behaviour management and aspects such as shared control and the setting of expectations. Viewed this way, the term can have an element of normativity ‘such that it appears to account for human practices but...is used to control and prescribe these practices’ (McHoul, 1993, 47). Prescription, in terms of what is taught and when, is part of the essence of a student’s classroom life and is a dominant element of classroom culture. So whatever arises from this attempt to conceptualise visual culture in classrooms needs to embed prescription and control as an integral part. For the purposes of this paper, the classroom culture is regarded as encompassing the broad range of activities occurring within the classroom. So, following Sturken and Cartwright (2001, 3), it is defined as: the shared practices of the classroom through which meaning is made from the visual, aural and textual world of representations accessed in that classroom. Developing the discourse How can this visual classroom best be theorised? There are probably many different ways of going about this and many different lenses through which the field could be viewed. At first pass it may be tempting to draw upon pre existing theories from other fields and this may ultimately be useful, but before this can occur the topic has to actually become the subject of discourse. In tracing the development of another field, psychopathology, Foucault discussed the ‘rules of formation’ by which objects became the elements, or foci, of discourse. He proposed that, firstly, the ‘surface of emergence’ of the object must be mapped: “show where these individual differences, which, according to the degrees of rationalisation, conceptual codes, and types of theory, will ...be designated and analysed. (1972, 42). By identifying the theories and concepts, the discontinuities in theory and the limits of concepts, the domain can be limited and defined, assisting its emergence as an object of discourse. This useful first step is where possible relevant theories can be identified. Secondly, Foucault suggested that we must also describe the authorities of delimitation: we need to know who or what organisation of grouping is to be the major authority in society that will delimit, designate, name and establish the object. Part of this process will involve the emergence of the rules under which the individuals and body of knowledge will operate. Lastly, he said, we must analyse the grids of specification: “these are the systems according to which the different kinds of ...are divided, contrasted, related, regrouped, classified and derived from one another as objects of discourse”. Utilising these three steps is only one way in which to proceed but is attractive as it locates the role of pre-existing theory. The approach may also have disadvantages. Interestingly Foucault (1972) himself recognised the limits of his three-step approach: Such a description is still in itself inadequate. And for two reasons. These planes of emergence, authorities of delimitation, or forms of specification do not provide objects, fully formed and armed, that the discourse of (psychopathology) has then merely to list, classify, name, select, and cover with a network of words and sentences. (p4) So it seems that even after this process, there will still be considerable work to be done in order for any ideas to become useful in working with the visual culture in classrooms. This work would almost certainly involve empirical validation of any proposed ideas. However, this threestage approach seems at least tentatively workable. Australian Journal of Teacher Education Vol 33, 3, June 2008 19 Surface of emergence When we use words to represent our world, we use the rules and conventions that govern the production and reading of them. In the classroom, teachers and students understand generally the rules that operate when they use the written or spoken word (at least to a basic level) and these rules are taught implicitly and explicitly in schools. By using our experience with words and applying similar reasoning to the visual, we can ask what are the corresponding rules for the production and reading of images. Some possible rules are now suggested in the form of tentative propositions. These are not detailed, universal rules or laws, capable of predicting the response of an individual student when he or she reads or produces an image, but general ideas or frameworks that may help us understand how individual responses may operate. These propositions represent a starting point for theorising about the visual in classrooms and constitute the ‘surface of emergence’.