Lecture Two: The Flipped Classroom

The flipped classroom is a model of teaching, in which students are in control of their education rather than their education being led by a teacher. The model allows for students to explore topics in greater depth, as the model is designed to place the student in the centre, and by doing this it opens up more learning opportunities. The teacher can still be present within these sessions, however, they don't lead the learning, but more provide content for the students to look at and explore for themselves.

French theorist, Jacques Rancière (b.1940) lived through the French revolution of May 1968, in which, primarily students, took an anti-authoritarian and radical stand against education, bringing forward the point that education was for all, not just the elite. Rancière challenged the role of the teacher and believed that educational theories were committed to preserving the power it brings to light, when in fact, he believed is it the teachers who need the students more than the students need the teachers. In his book The Ignorant Schoolmaster, Rancière conducts an analysis of the exiled french teacher, Joseph Jacotot, who was sent to Holland to teach. However, Jacotot was unable to speak Finnish and his students didn't understand French but were eager to learn. In order to bridge this gap, Jacotot gave students two copies of 'Télémaque', the original and a translated copy, and left them to figure out the differences themselves. This accidentally led to the principals of Universal Teaching, which propose that everyone has equal intelligence, that we are all able to instruct ourselves and that we can, in fact, teach what we don't know. Thus, it could be suggested that the teacher may, in fact, be holding students back from their learning by repressing students and socialising them into a reliance on a 'higher authority'.
This was referred to as 'The Distribution of the Sensible' by Ranciere, and was his most famous theory. Ranciere proposed that the distribution labels skills and abilities (e.g. illustrator, animator, etc) and decided where they belonged in society based on their skills and abilities. This 'distribution' is maintained by anyone who reproduces this theory. However, although Ranciere's theories are very popular, they will never take and so 'The Distribution of the Sensible' will always be in place, as it is not just the 'police' that keep this theory alive. By being contemptuous and behaving in a way we are expected to behave also enforces this theory and reproduces it. Despite this, Universal Teaching will not perish.

Although 'The Distribution of the Sensible' is present within the education of a creative practice through teacher led lectures and seminars, Universal Teaching is also present. Learning a creative practice involves a lot of self directed study through the exploration of techniques, skills and research and some may argue that an art students sketchbook could work as Telemaque did for Jacotot's students.
The overall principal of the flipped classroom is that the student is just as important, if not more, than the teacher and is also equal in intelligence.