THE “STUDENT MINUTE BOOK” DEVICE AS A PANOPTICON FOR DOCILIZATION

Abstract

This is an introductory overview of the theme proposed as part of the research into the Student Minute Book, a document currently used by school administration to record the phenomenon of tensions resulting from the relationships between subjects in the school institution. The theoretical perspective used to analyze the aforementioned documents is that of the philosopher Michel Foucault (1926 - 1984). We will look at the notion of the panopticon as a device for subjecting subjects in order to transform them into “useful bodies” for the state. We will discuss ideology with Louis Althusser (1918 - 1990), since the school, as an institution, is ideological and an apparatus of the state, and therefore constitutes the subject. Would it be possible for teachers and students to be affected by the fact that they were in the school boardroom, in front of the Student Minute Book, having their names and events from their interpersonal tensions recorded there? After leaving, would they still feel that they were being watched, or at least in their minds? The subjectivities of teachers and students could be negatively affected. Panoptism and school bureaucracy, which as Foucault and other contemporary philosophers have observed, resembles prison, hospital and psychiatric mechanisms. However, it is possible that if the same technologies are applied to education, they could generate counterproductive results, as freedom and creativity are taken away, limiting the possible learning events in the educational community.