Week 3 Readings: Dancing Teachers


Dancing Teachers Into Being With a Garden, or How to Swing or Parkour the Strict Grid of Schooling
Susan Gerofsky & Julia Ostertag

Summary 

Gerofsky and Ostertag argue that schooling is saturated by “the grid” not just in classroom architecture, but in timetables, curriculum, assessment, and even the ways we learn to think. They trace how grids have also functioned historically as tools of territorial control and colonial ordering, and they question the common fantasy that outdoor or garden-based education automatically “escapes” these structures. Instead of rejecting the grid outright, they propose a playful, embodied response: learning to swing with the grid (like jazz rhythms that depend on a strict beat) or parkour it (moving creatively through structures that were designed to constrain movement). Through stories from garden-based teacher education and arts-based practices, they imagine becoming “ecological teachers” by working beside the grid, neither fully inside it nor pretending we can step completely outside it

Stop 1

The moment that really landed for me was their description of how the grid is “hidden in plain view” in schooling: tiled floors, desks in rows, charts, worksheets, marks sheets, schedules. It made me realize how often we treat these structures as neutral background, when they actually shape what kinds of learning feel possible. I also liked how the authors don’t romanticize the outdoors as a pure alternative. Even in gardens, we can reproduce the same habits of control and order, just in a different setting. That felt honest and a bit uncomfortable in a useful way

Stop 2

I was drawn to their idea of “swinging” and “parkouring” the grid, because it reframes resistance as creative movement rather than a simple yes/no rejection. The metaphors helped me picture teaching as something rhythmic and embodied: negotiating structure with balance, timing, and improvisation. At the same time, I kept thinking about how unevenly available this kind of play can be in real schools. Even if a teacher wants to “parkour” the system, institutional pressures (standardized assessment, strict pacing guides, classroom management expectations, limited space/time) can make experimentation risky or even impossible. 

I have also been thinking about how the history of education in India has been shaped by colonialism and how alternative models like Shantiniketan offer a powerful contrast to rigid, classroom-bound schooling. Founded in 1901 by Rabindranath Tagore, Shantiniketan was envisioned as a place where learning happened outdoors, in nature, and through art, music, storytelling, and community instead of rote memorization and strict discipline. 



Classes were often held under trees, and the environment itself was treated as an active part of learning, fostering curiosity, creativity, and a deep relationship with the world around the student rather than training for colonial bureaucratic roles. This historical model resonates with the multisensory and bodily emphasis in this week’s readings, and it makes me reflect on how colonial education systems shifted schooling toward rigid “grids” of classrooms, exams, and textbooks. Shantiniketan’s legacy reminds me that education can be rooted in place, movement, and community — ideas that connect not only to embodied learning theory, but also to my own family history and the broader project of decolonizing education.

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