Comfort

Okay, I'm actually really excited to post my thoughts on our meeting space so I'm going to pull them into sections to make sure I don't ramble too much

How I chose the space:

my thought process was a bit like this.... well, I wanted to take us into morris woods cause that's my site sit, but i dont want to repeat that twice in a row. plus, it's gonna be muddier. I like the labrynth a lot, and that would be taking someone else's site sit space.... but that doesn't have any good areas for us all to sit. Merion green would be good. easy to find, in the middle of campus but not in the way (like when we were in the basement) people could theoretically interact with our class, but they don't have to. the inside equivalent would be the common room. that's perfect cause merion is my home for the year. i get to share a home space of mine and feel comfortable, but we aren't in the way of others and it will be fairly comfortable to sit in. Enough seats so it's not cramped but not so large we are shouting across a room.

thoughts I wrote down while I was in class:

it's comfortable, but is it too comfortable? (in the end I decided it was perfect)

MY space: (when ariel talked about morris as hers) how can we own it though? do we own our spaces because we want to take care of them? we can feel possessive and protective without actually owning the land or space.

MY seat: this led to thoughts about other small space posessions. we all have that one seat in a classroom or lecture hall that we consider ours. it's weird if someone else "takes" it (intentional or not) even though we never verbally laid claim to that seat. We know others sit there all the time, but for that specific time slot of class we still consider it ours.

further thoughts:

what is a classroom? it's a designated space where we have the room to sit in some orderly fashion and set our things out for notes. for most subjects this includes a centeral space to write notes such as a white or black board that the lecturer can be in front of, but for more discussion based classes such as this one we don't need a single spot to be the focus, we can sit in a circle and share the focus amongst all the members as equals (though our teacher still acts as moderator) This is why we can take this class outside of the typical classroom and still have the same meaniningful discussions, perhaps even better discussions because we are taken out of the familiar setting where we have been taught to sit in rows and listen to the teacher (remember how hard it was to break the hand raising habit? or the habit of looking only at Anne when answering questions?) 

 

I love having outdoor spaces because it breaks the classroom pattern that lulls me into habits and sometimes means I zone out. There may be more distractions in the form of sounds or smells or sights, but it keeps me more engaged. I am really going to miss having a roaming classroom when this is done.