What Schooling is and What it Could Be: Exploring How We Learn the Discourses and Technologies of Public Education in School-Adjacent Spaces

In the US in recent years, public engagement in public schools has become highly politicized, reflecting the polarized discourses circulating in media and inflamed by national figures. “Official” spaces for public input exist alongside multiple less officially policy-relevant spaces where youth and adults learn and negotiate the function/ing of public education. This symposium examines how diverse school-adjacent spheres of public life function as pedagogical spaces - spaces where the discourses and technologies of schooling are learned through the cognizant and non-cognizant design and organization of discourse and activity. The cases considered span from youth-centered spaces such as the school bus and a middle school debate team to a case examining the intersection of how news and social media is negotiated at a public committee meeting and closing with two contrasting examples of school district-sponsored public forums addressing issues such as overcrowding and budget.