The Classroom ─ Encounter and Engagement

Though the contemporary classroom is often described as a site of contention and resistance, this book rethinks its nature and substance and posits that the classroom can be changed from its current state as a place for conventional learning to a place for encounter, exploration, and engagement. Learning in the classroom is generally directed and plotted by the formal curriculum and organized by the constraints of the teacher and the physical space. Block believes the classroom can be organized as a place for intellectual and emotional struggle in an environment replete with challenging material that inspires great effort but remains free from the feelings of failure. Organized in this way, the classroom may be transformed for us from a place of relative conventionality and familiarity to one of relative discomfort and possibility.

Alan A. Block is Professor of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Stout, USA, and Editor in Chief of the Journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies.