The Bench - excerpted from A Storied Landscape as a Context for Teacher Knowledge
by Jean Clandinen - presented at the International Study Association on Teacher Thinking 1995

. . . . . In our first walk through Bay Street School with Phil Bingham, the newly appointed principal, we noticed the bench outside the main school office. It was a plain brown bench with no back. From our view it fit into the woodwork of the school and was hardly noticeable as a piece of furniture. As we walked by, Phil, noticing a child sitting on the bench, stopped, spoke to him briefly and the child went down the hall. We assumed he went back to class.

At that moment, on the first day as researchers in the school, the bench and Phil's exchange with the child seemed of little note. So much was happening in the school. Phil described the physical changes: new lighting, new paint, freshly painted lockers, displays of children's work and so on. Phil did not comment on the bench nor on his exchange with the child. As we continued to spend weeks and months in the school, however, we did begin to pay attention to the bench and to what happened to children who sat on it. And we did talk to Phil about it.

It turns out that the bench was called the punishment bench by the staff and students at Bay Street School. At the time of Phil's arrival at Bay Street, the school practice was that children were sent out of their classrooms and down to sit on the punishment bench to wait to be dealt with by the principal or assistant principal. The bench was situated in a very public place so that anyone walking into the school or walking down the main hallway of the school could see who was sitting on it. The school story about the bench meant everyone understood what it meant to be seated on it. It meant you were a student in trouble, and you were waiting, in this highly visible place on the out-of-classroom place on the landscape, for you punishment to be meted out by the principal or his designate, the assistant principal.

The story for children, teachers and administrators had been lived out many times. "Go and sit on the bench" was the common directive to children whose teachers were frustrated and unable to engage in more productive ways with them. After recess and noon break the bench was full to overflowing with children sent in for misbehavior by teachers on ourdoor and hallway supervision.

It was this school story that was being lived out when Phil arrived in the school. The bench was a symbol for the lived out story. A child seated on the bench meant a living out of the story was in progress. When no one was on the bench it meant everything was under control. No one but children sat on the bench.

Phil knew the school story of the bench and he knew what it symbolized in the school. He knew that sending a child there was an acknowledgment that something was not working between a teacher and a child and that the teacher wanted administrator intervention in punishing the child. The plot line was one that positioned children as objects to be acted on by teachers.

It was not a school story that Phil wanted lived out in Bay Street School. It conflicted with the plot line of the stories he thought children and teachers were to live out together. In Phil's story of school, teachers were to be in relationship with children. His story of school was lived and told, in part, around a personal philosophy which he often summarized in a series of points. We had seen him list these points and talk about his philosophy on several occasions such as professional development days and so on. The points he made as he spoke of his philosophy were:

1) the importance of other people:
2) and communication;
3) within a loving relationship or atmosphere;
4) with individuals holding a workable concept of self;
5) and having the freedom to function
6) with creativity.

This personal philosophy lived and told by Phil as principal created a story of school, a story with a storyline of relationships and community among children, teachers, administrators and parents. Sending children out of a classroom to sit in a public place as characters in a school story of misbehavior and punishment did not fit with his story of school.

Phil recognized this and began to work to change the school story for which the punishment bench served as a symbol. When students were sent to the bench Phil talked with them quickly, often in full view of any passerby. This is what we had observed that very first day we were researchers in the school. He did not mete out punishment for those on the bench but sent the children quickly back to their classrooms. He began to sit on the bench and encouraged others, us, teachers, children, to join him. We often were encouraged to sit with him as he chatted with us and greeted staff, students, and visitors to the school. Gradually teachers stopped sending children to the bench as the school story changed about relationships with children. Gradually the bench no longer was a symbol of the school story of misbehavior and punishment and became a useful piece of furniture to sit on in the front hallway. . . . .