Space (un)seen: a discussion on the dismantled classroom and its effects on the pedagogical space as a result of COVID-19

Abstract

This study explores how the traditional space of education has entered a virtual pedagogical space due to the COVID-19 pandemic, redefining the power dynamics of the classroom. The outbreak of the pandemic forced the educational institutions in the country to be shut down, shifting synchronous teaching and learning to an asynchronous one. The ada/option of the virtual education system shifted the space of education from the typical ̳four-walled‘ classroom to the domestic sphere. In Michel Foucault‘s concept of panopticism, he states that a specific space is allocated for every function and that each of these spaces acts as a medium of power, discipline and governmentality. The pre-existed rigid boundaries of the classroom have now become fluid, thus demanding the need to reimagine the pedagogical space and the conditions that are associated with it. Hence, the objective of this study is to unpack how the disciplinary power that existed within the traditional classroom has now by and large taken a form of governmentality. This qualitative research has been conducted using the empirical method where information was gathered through interviews and informal discussions with ten members of academia and fifteen undergraduates from the Faculties of Arts and Allied Health Sciences of University of Peradeniya. It was observed that the pre-existed authority of the teacher has now dispersed among the students and the medium of teaching- technology. Unlike in the physical classroom, the flow of knowledge and the code of conduct of both the teacher and the student are under heavy surveillance in the virtual space through recording of lectures, social media and other technological agents such as third party recording applications. Therefore, this study provides a microscopic view of the new pedagogical space through the Foucauldian Eye.