Class room management - 1. The Class Room as a social space

What is the structure of a class room?

What is its significance in the life of a student?

How does it shape the individual in a student?

What is the role played by the teacher in using this space to 'create' and 'shape' the qualities of a student?


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The arrangement of furniture offers a faithful image of the familial and social structures of a period

- Jean Baudrillard in 'The System of Objects'

The Fixed Furniture

The class room is arranged in rows of chairs /desks where the students are seated in two/three/four  columns or divisions. Some schools have allotted names to these segments. Colleges generally do not go by these small groups in the class room. The students are seated in their places from nine in the morning till three or four in the evening in schools. In colleges it may be from eight/nine in the morning to one/two in the afternoon. The teacher stands in front of the class room and teaches/lectures/explains/demonstrates. Some teachers keep walking and enter the Columns and go to the last rows. Most of the teachers in colleges do not do this as they have to stand and explain in detail. Some school teachers also never move out of their center position. 

Teacher as an Administrator

In general this is the class room arrangement that reflects a hierarchic model of class room administration. The teacher becomes the boss/manager/administrator/leader/guide/supervisor/patriarch/mentor/counsellor. Within this authoritarian structure the student's personality is shaped for 14 years in schools and minimum 3 years in college. This physical and mini-social structure in the class room has defined the type of teaching done and the type of learning done in the class rooms in the last 50 years. 

The Noisy class room of nature - painting - oil on canvas - Mr. S. Chellaiah

Route learning where the student sits and learns his learning materials thoroughly is the end this has resulted in. It has helped students learn vast amount of texts by heart as the sitting position has created the atmosphere for the student to memorise facts. 

Universities sanction 70 students per class in an Arts college as they are catering to the needs of the existing class room method. 

Complex Syllabi

Educators have been preparing their lessons addressing this facility provided and every year the syllabi for the schools have increased their complexity, as the students have shown enormous ability to learn any text given to them by heart and reproduce it in papers in the similarly arranged class room where they take their examinations. 

Engineering colleges also follow the same style in  preparation of the curricula and put students through maximum theories. Arts  colleges have diluted considerably that they give asylum to the students who cannot tackle complex curricula.

Student unrest

Engineering/Arts/school students come under the same frame work of learning materials sitting in a class room, listening to a teacher or just learning them by heart. It is a teacher centred education system, and if teachers do not do their lecturing in class rooms it creates student unrest. Colleges where teachers have not been ritualistic in class room teaching have seen great student unrest and these students also create civic problems. Excepting probably 5% of students who are self-learners, the rest of Indian student community is dependent on the teacher at the school/college levels. 

The Teacher as a Speaker

The teacher continues to rule standing as a public speaker, away from his audience. This is the hierarchical system and education has to be understood keeping this important fact in mind. The arrangement of the class room furniture is an unchanging factor that  describes the Indian mental structure. It is shaped by traditions and authority. Inter-personal relationships between the teacher and the student are formed within this structure. Every physical space is created by even thousands of years' practices, thought patterns and culture. 

The Teacher is next to God

The class room of today is only an extension of the ancient Indian system where the teacher was kept in the highest social order. Today in a capitalistic society the student knows that he is paying for his education and tends to show disrespect to the teacher, but only if the teacher does not deliver his profound knowledge resources well. The student in private education sphere has two expectations: the teacher should know the subject thoroughly; he should deliver it well. Even privatization of education has not changed the ancient Indian order of society that put great teachers at the top of the social order. The best teachers are celebrated everywhere in spite of globalised views and the exposure to the knowledge of the internet resources.  

This happens because the class room still gives space to the teacher who knows his subject thoroughly to stand and deliver to his student audience every day. This recognition given to the Indian teacher has to be utilized by the teaching community. The Indian class room does not have the space or ambience to convert the teacher into the facilitator. The teacher continues to be an authoritarian model, highly ethical, impartial, objective and updating himself every day. 

Innovation in the Class Room

To combine western methodologies with Indian methods every school/college has to allot one or two  larger class rooms with movable furniture/closed windows and doors/ internet enabled computers with a projector etc.  to enable the teacher mover around freely and facilitate the students into learning in an active mode. Teachers may not know how to use this larger room. They still might continue to stand, as they would feel sensitive of their 'loss' of position in the front of the class room. They need to be exposed to training as to 'use' of the larger space in the class room. 

The class room has emerged as a modern concept using chairs, tables, a platform etc. and customizing these to a traditional learning atmosphere. It has not replaced old values, belief systems or attitudes. To exploit the intellectual space it gives to the authority figure of the teacher, he/she has to understand its values and emerge as an individual fulfilling its expectations.