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The Activity Set-Up
The set-up, or the "disabling" of the environment, occurs before the students enter the classroom. I weave a ball of string throughout the classroom so that students must duck under and step over the obstacles as they enter the class and make their way to their seats. As one student described the scene, "When I opened the door to the classroom today, there was a challenge set before us. There was string entwined in and around desk legs, around the podium, etc. The string was high and low." I also rearrange the desks and chairs so that some are facing the wall while others are bunched very close together. Lastly, I prepare an overhead that is projected against a wall, rather than a projector screen, and is set to be very out of focus. The
photographs illustrate this classroom arrangement.
As the students make their way into the classroom, they are instructed not to touch the strings and not to rearrange the chairs; they must accommodate to the environment. Acting as though the set-up is nothing out of the ordinary, I proceed with the lecture using the out-of-focus overhead. Rather than stand where I am visible to everyone in the classroom, I sit down on the floor and speak softly to the three to four students who are seated facing the front of the class. As one student noted in her reflection of the experience:
The only open seats were pushed together in the back of the room and I squeezed in, and other people had to move their desks so I could get through. It was very uncomfortable and I was incredibly confused about the whole situation. The teacher started talking to a few students in the room but the rest of us couldn't hear what was being said. The images projected onto the screen were out of focus and I couldn't read them. I was frustrated that I couldn't see from where I was sitting that I couldn't take notes.
In the next two or three minutes, as the majority of the class become somewhat restless and amused with the classroom arrangement I ask them, "Why can't you hear or see me? These students [in the front] are having no problems with this arrangement." They often ask me to adjust the overhead, stand up, and/or speak louder. I suggest to them that the problems are not with the classroom or me but with them as individuals. I suggest that they might need to get glasses or hearing aids and that they need to be fixed, not the classroom. After another two minutes, as they continue to express some frustration and confusion, I begin to ask them for possible solutions to the problem. They suggest that I begin by standing up, talking louder, adjusting the overhead, rearranging the seats and taking away the string.
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