High School Students Want to Be in Third Place

I am still thinking about Konrad Glogowski's "Blogging Communities in the Classroom" workshop at NECC 2008 (06/30/08). Of all the workshops I attended, his was the most immediately relevant and, therefore, the most thought-provoking. I can't wait to share what I learned with my colleagues.

As accurately I can manage from my notes, Konrad Glogowski is a middle school language arts teacher in London, Ontario. He began blogging with his students in 2002. He just completed his PhD dissertation on blogging communities in middle school through the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. He is a terrific teacher/presenter!

Glogowski says there are three steps for creating a successful online classroom community:

1. Create a community.


2. Extend the classroom discourse.


3. Redefine your presence.

I am stuck on Glogowski's step 1. At SILSA, "relationship" is one of our New 3 R's, and we have felt quite successful with our school community. I think I have a much better handle on why we have good relationships with students, and the workshop has made me think about ways that we might improve what we already have.

Glogowski taught me about Ray Oldenburg's idea of the Third Place, the informal, public place for socializing, working, being with others. (Home is the First Place, and Work/School is the Second Place.) You can read more about this at the Project for Public Spaces website. Both physically and virtually, the classroom should be a Third Place, says Glogowski.

I have a much better understanding of why we have good relationships among SILSA faculty and students today than I did before Glogowski's workshop. Now I believe that it is in the Third Place that human beings move from childhood to adulthood. Too many students today do not have access to healthy Third Places, and school must, therefore, begin to provide them. At home adults tell kids what to do and how to think; in school adults tell kids what to do and how to think. By definition, people think for themselves in the Third Place. By definition, there is honest, unstructured, and not proscribed discourse in the Third Place. By practicing thinking for themselves and speaking for themselves, kids grow up.

Students and their families are drawn to SILSA because our small school provides greater opportunities for experiencing Third Place. We provide more opportunities for students, teachers and families to interact with one another in less formal ways. Our potlucks are Third Places. Our extended advisory events are Third Places. Our Turkey Day Feast (Thanks, Fleck, old friend) is a Third Place.

And, now I know that students want to go on field trips, in part, because they provide a Third Place experience during the school day. Field trips are less structured experiences. Teachers, students, and parent chaperons participate on field trips on a level of greater equality. When we go on the Ropes Course, I am no expert. My fear and my excitement are genuine. I ask students for help and am thankful when I receive it. Our cheers for one another are heartfelt. I love to go to Purchase Knob because I get to study biology and ecology along with my students. I don't wear "teacher clothes;" I marvel at every salamander, and we all eat lunch together.

A clarification: I am not AT ALL advocating that teachers and students begin socializing outside of school as friends. Because of our profession, we teachers must be careful to respect the boundaries of the formal relationship we have with our students.

Our schools, though, must intentionally create opportunities for teachers, students, and their families to interact in a Third Place. At one time schools were small because they existed within a geographically small community. These schools functioned as Third Places because their auditoriums provided community meeting spaces and their lobbies or libraries served as voting locations. In such schools, students, parents, and teachers enjoyed less-structured discourse. Students conversed with adults more spontaneously about a wide range of topics. Our small, redesigned high school should re-create the school space as a community Third Place.

We should have regular, monthly potlucks during which we showcase student work. We should have at least one field trip on a Saturday, with school transportation, where students and teachers bring their families for a shared learning experience. I understand that, in Year 1, all of the SILSA community read one book and discussed it together. We should do it again. We should have some more movie nights. Also, we need to begin thinking about how our small community will celebrate our first graduates in June.

Of course, Glogowski's presentation wasn't about potlucks, field trips, and book clubs. He spoke about online learning communities and how he made a Third Place for his students in the blogosphere. I have described his lecture as life-changing. I am sure that I will continue to reference it for a long time. (Note: He did not mention how he addresses issues around the Digital Divide. I intend to email him to ask about that.)

I am excited about SILSA's future online community. I intend to spend much of the rest of the summer thinking about how I can use Web 2.0 tools to achieve greater success for my students in all of the New 3 R's: rigor, relevance, and relationships. I had these same intentions last summer and was not able to implement much at all this last school year. I am confident, though, that this next year will be better. I am privileged to work with some fantastic people who will help me begin to realize my vision.