“Open Concept” Floor Plan: Helicopter Parents’ Panopticon?

http://www.jwhomesblog.com/wp-content/uploads/open-layout-4-with-people.jpg

http://www.jwhomesblog.com/wp-content/uploads/open-layout-4-with-people.jpg

I’ve made some new (parasocial) friends.

My Canadian pals include income property expert Scott McGillivray, fixer-upper angels Drew and Jonathan Scott, designer & realtor nemeses Hilary Farr & David Visentin + (their junior counterparts) Jillian Harris & Todd Talbot, and even Type A reno maven Candice Olson. In Minneapolis, I’ve got my girls Nicole Curtis and Amy Matthews who absolutely rule. In LA, there’s home-makeover fashionista Sabrino Soto, real estate gurus Josh Flagg, Josh Altman, and Madison Hildebrand, and perfection stager Meridith Baer. Cuddly cousins Anthony Carrino and John Colaneri make housecalls in Jersey, David Bromstad keeps it colorful in Miami, Egypt Sherrod assists property virgins in Atlanta, Allison Victoria crashes Midwestern kitchens, and house hunters troll the country (and overseas) for turnkey bargains.

Clearly, I’ve got quite the social life.

When a debilitating cold couched my body but skirted my mind, I was in prime condition for (over)analyzing HGTV.

I’m thinking about if/how American parents’ belief in surveillance has influenced residential architecture and home purchases, specifically in favor of the “open concept.” Do parents really need unwalled kitchens so they can always see their kids in the living room? Talk to me.

I posted that status update to Facebook, a condensed version of this URL + comment I’d posted a few moments earlier:

Love this: “They [Japanese people] like for the children to spend a lot of time with each other with minimal adult intervention so that they can learn how to get along with each other. …children deserve a childhood where they’re able to walk around and have fewer adult eyes on them every moment, then really things can change. Parents can feel that trust in their children.”

Similar sentiments were voiced by a preschool teacher in Norway (not the nature barnehage, a teacher at a conventional preschool). They had a room that was ONLY KIDS ALLOWED, like a clubhouse, because they believe that kids need some time to themselves. In American preschools, there are no doors on bathrooms because teachers need to be able to see kids at all times (and, due to fear of predation, adults are never allowed to be alone with children at any time).

So I’m thinking about if/how American parents’ belief in surveillance has influenced residential architecture and home purchases, specifically in favor of the “open concept.” Parents (usually moms) claim that they need unwalled kitchens so they can see their young children in the living room. How much time do they spend in the kitchen, and why is this chiefly the woman’s concern? What would happen if their eyes were off the kids during their kitchen time? How might lack of privacy and the unimpeded carrying of noise adversely affect familial relationships or activities? Talk to me.

I tipped my biased hand by trotting out the term “surveillance,” which hardly has neutral connotations. It’s a credit to my FB friends that they didn’t totally bristle at this, and I’ll share their insightful comments a little bit later. But before we examine what my friends taught me, I’d like to explain my interests in child-rearing, home design, and surveillance.

My Background

During the spring of 2002, I observed and interviewed educators at several early childhood education and care (ECEC) establishments in eastern Norway, Paris, and Chicago. While my objective was to investigate dimensions of educating vs. caregiving, I couldn’t help but notice how different laws and philosophies influenced the activities of teachers and students alike. From 2003-2006, I had the great good fortune of working in ECEC at The Open Center for Children, Harvard Yard Child Care Center, and The Eliot-Pearson Children’s School; I also regularly visited my best friend Jenn at Garden Nursery School.

In 2008, I began my doctoral studies in Communication at the University of Southern California‘s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Two years later, as a student in IML 501: Digital Media Workshop, I worked with a couple of phenomenal classmates to record a satirical video about ceaselessly measuring and surveilling young children. We designed our video in order to hyperbolically emphasize both the ridiculousness of unremitting assessment and the toll it exacts in the form of overstressed parents and burned-out children. We argued that such a joyless, goal-oriented approach to life and learning, as well as its accompanying usurpation of the free time necessary for developing sensory, social, and emotional skills, may significantly hinder children’s capacity to negotiate in-school and out-of-school challenges.

For three weeks during the summer of 2011, I co-taught two classes of children (aged 5-7 years old and 7-9 years old, respectively) enrolled in a private enrichment program in Mumbai, India. A huge part of the job was educating my privileged students’ wealthy parents. From Monday through Friday, I wrote each class’s daily newsletter for distribution to the parent listserv. Not only did I enumerate our activities, I also explained how the children’s work facilitated their development of fine motor, gross motor, pre-literacy, pre-math, and social and emotional capacities. At the end of each week, we hosted an Open House for parents. I would narrate our slideshow of classroom images, again demystifying the connections between Activity X and Learning/Developmental Goal Y. Then my co-teachers and I would invite parents to both peruse their children’s products and recreate an art project/science experiment. We struggled to strike a balance between keeping parents convinced of the program’s “value-add” and keeping students engaged with projects of value.

The following fall, I was a Teaching Assistant for COMM 395: Gender, Media & Communication. From Dr. Alison Trope, I learned about Foucault’s theory of the panopticon (and then turned around and taught it to my students). Literally, a panopticon is a round, windowed guard tower in a prison yard; from it, rifle-aiming overseers can surveil inmates at all times while inmates never know if/when/who is watching. Foucault reviews societal institutions such as schools, factories, and hospitals and identifies “panopticons” in those environments — sites from which people in power can observe/control subject populations.

Today, I study and design pedagogy that endeavors to teach the whole child; dote on the children of pals and passersby; think about children’s toys and leashes and media and meaning-making; and yearn for (the right time when I can have) children of my own. Two weeks ago, I visited ECEC exemplar Stock School and the autonomy-supportive Chicago Quest Schools. Inspired by a recent in-flight conversation with a Swedish seatmate and friends’ posts of an article + a documentary about “forest kindergartens” (operational in Norway and Switzerland, among other places), I’ve lately been reflecting on European child-rearing. And also, don’t forget, I watch a lot of HGTV, especially since I got that pesky cold.

Research Questions

On most HGTV shows, the high-maintenance home seekers want “open concept” floor plans and rule properties/plans in or out of consideration according to this criterion. So, the Property Brothers, Love It or List It’ers, and other patron saints of home renovation blow out walls, install header beams, and design spaces in order to accommodate this “open concept” craving. Collectively, this adds up to a whole mountain of money.

And why? I hear a lot of parents on these shows claim that they need “open concept” because they have to supervise their children. And I wonder, Do you really _need_ to supervise your children? What happens if you don’t supervise — will the kids REALLY get into life-or-death situations and/or incorrigible patterns of danger-making? What happens if you do supervise — will the kids never learn how to self-monitor and/or entertain themselves?

I also hear parents contend that they entertain a lot, and I wonder what “a lot” means. How frequently do they really have people over, and to what extent should these occasional visits dictate how the house functions on all of the other days of the year?

So that’s how I got from “open concept” floor plans to parenting to panopticons. And now that you know the context, you might very well ask how I could have done otherwise.

Methods

From my two FB postings, I welcomed 20 fascinating comments from 13 friends (Jen, Christine, Grace, Sara, Mike, Diana, Melissa, Marci, Joy, Lauren, Mallory, Liz, Aylin), and also contributed to the conversations eight times in order to clarify, query, and/or share. Here are a few of my comments:

I remember when we were older — maybe it was when my brother was 14, that would make me 10 — my brother and I would be bothered by the light and noise coming from our mom in the kitchen because it interfered with our easy TV watching (poor us, right? anyway). So Benjy figured out that if he opened a storage closet door, it would block our sightline of the kitchen and help a bit with the light and noise… And so I wonder what happens when kids grow up in these homes — do these issues cause them to retreat even further, like to basements or bedrooms, foiling the “all together” rationale of open concept? Is that just a normal part of adolescence? Is open concept really about getting a grand room and not about “all together”?

and

I guess I just wonder about how often kids will get into unsafe stuff during food prep time, and I wonder about the consequences if/when they do. Is the frequency and/or intensity of either enough to justify expensive choices, and potential incursions into privacy? I also wonder if non-catastrophic consequences — like, a child gets a booboo — provide opportunities for learning about cause-and-effect and ultimately, self-regulation and self-efficacy. We all know, I DON’T HAVE KIDS and I’m an egghead for a living, so enlighten me, debate me. I’m just, as the pretentious call it, problematizing… Thank you, friends :)

I also did a very wee bit of online research (Brunner, 2013Hillukka, 2012) and continued to consume HGTV programming in gluttonous proportions.

Results

From these data, I identified opportunities related to “open concept” vs. “traditional” floor plans in terms of three areas:

  1. Sensory Access

  2. Proximity

  3. Lifestyle

Attached to each opportunity are considerations for “everyday” and “entertaining.” I cite the arguments (e.g., raw data) that support each perspective directly beneath them. I purposely leave my judgmental frame behind, instead using positive terms to describe the affordances and assumptions that come with each floor plan. This is not a table of pro’s vs. con’s; it is an inventory of pro’s and pro’s.

1A. Sensory Access (Sight, Sound, Temp) – Everyday:

  • OPEN CONCEPT: Monitoring safety, Lighting multiple rooms from common set of windows, Circulating sound from multiple rooms (e.g., children’s fighting, crying, querying), Universal heating/cooling

Diana: “Parents want to make sure their kids aren’t doing anything unsafe while the parent is trying to cook dinner.”

Melissa: “Right now, I wouldn’t be able to cook dinner if I couldn’t see my kids while I was cooking. Little ones are always getting into something. Not sure the open concept will be as important when they are a little older.”

Marci: “Also now that I have a boy, I have a new appreciation for how quickly a little one can get themselves into trouble. Lucy was easy peasy; James ends up on the coffee table ready to go over the edge in seconds and bruises and head bumps do not deter him – he’s an animal and totally born to be a running back.”

Marci: “In a world where even Lucy watches tv while on my iPhone with 3 other people in the room doing their own thing, I think your ability to hear changes for better or worse”

Hillukka, 2012: “You can also watch the little ones play while you are cooking or working in another room. Finally, an open concept allows more natural light into every room, making the entire area seem more spacious and welcoming.”

  • TRADITIONAL: Facilitating autonomy, Lighting each room from each set of windows, Creating sound barriers between rooms (e.g., TV in living room, food processor in kitchen), Specific heating/cooling

Liz: “the mirror on the wall to see into the living room from my place at the kitchen table works perfectly well. it has been there at least 25 years. i’m also a firm believer in “if it’s too quiet something is up.” especially having been the one making too little noise during childhood.”

Aylin: “dear laurel. hi. i am totally with you that kids need their own time and space to play.”

Jen: I absolutely agree with your thoughts on this, Laurel. American anxieties regularly interfere with play (is my child being bullied? is my child not talking enough? too much?) making it hard for kids to practice resolving things on their own. Honestly, this is one of the reasons we opted for a house without and open floor plan (that and cost–because nobody wants them!).”

Christine: “Very interesting to think about. I have a 5 and 3 year old (and one due any day now). I think what happens is that children’s abilities evolve so gradually, and parents don’t always see that growth because they’re in it every day. Parents may not realize their children can be trusted with the next level of difficulty. Also, I think our generation of parents prioritizes eliminating pain/suffering for our children and will go to great lengths (home construction, surrender of privacy, etc) to control their environment. It is physically and emotionally exhausting to try to keep this up for any length of time. We have tried to settle into a more comfortable style of mitigating risks so the kids can play unsupervised (we have a fence, we removed saws from the basement play area). It is so satisfying to hear the kids playing independently. We’re all having a lot more fun.”

Grace: “I remember childhood as a non-chaperoned experience. My parents were there but they would not have known to intervene unless we asked them to. They weren’t poor parents – they were parents in the 60’s and 70’s.

Today we have a number of issues that make this ideal difficult. -Heavily scheduled young kids. -Childcare – my nanny job often entails entertaining and daycare has a schedule to follow. When would most young children be able to experience this and living in America today – how would we facilitate it? Beyond safety concerns that have our hands tied – a group of cousins I know- spend time at gatherings away from prying parental units and every time, as their parents relate, they wreck the place or gang up and bully one or more of the group. I guess this might mean that they need more ‘alone time’ to work things out in a positive manner. But it could also just be Lord of the Flies. But as far as ‘open concept’ – in 30 years as a nanny working in other peoples homes, the last 15 years the homes are open -before that they were closed. I think you might be onto something!”

Hillukka, 2012: “Sight lines are challenging in an open concept plan. When painting the walls or decorating one area, you have to consider the way everything looks overall. Worst of all, sound carries throughout and it can cost more to heat and cool this type of home… If someone in the household wakes up early or likes to stay up late, keep in mind that the noise might carry throughout the house, keeping everyone else awake.”

1B. Sensory Access (Sight, Sound, Smell) – Entertaining:

  • OPEN CONCEPT: Revealing process, Maintaining cohesive design across rooms, Enabling continuous dinner party conversation, Wafting kitchen smells

Mallory: “But mostly, I believe that the open plan house is a reflection of American society becoming less formal and acknowledging where our time is actually spent. Instead of hiding away the messiness of meal prep, it is now out there in the open for everyone to see.”

Brunner, 2013:  “‘It also showcased a shift to a more casual lifestyle,’ says Andrea Dixon of Fiddlehead Design Group. ‘People weren’t afraid to expose reality — i.e., a messy kitchen.””

  • TRADITIONAL: Controlling spectacle, Establishing particular design per room, Enabling private tangents, Containing kitchen smells

Brunner, 2013: “‘There will always be some people who are uncomfortable with letting guests see their ‘unmentionables,” she [Andrea Dixon of Fiddlehead Design Group] says. ‘It’s definitely a more formal layout, but it ultimately comes down to personal preference.’

If you want to leave your smells and mess behind when serving meals, a closed layout could be for you.

[Said Andrea Dixon of Fiddlehead Design Group], ‘But a couple who loves to entertain might opt for a closed-concept space so they can prep courses ahead of time and not spoil the surprise. It totally depends on your lifestyle.'”

Hillukka, 2012: “For example, if you have lots of artwork, you will have little wall space to hang it. You also have to work extra hard to keep every space within the room clean; if one area is messy, it can affect the rest of the room.”

2A. Proximity – Everyday:

  • OPEN CONCEPT: Facilitating everyone’s desire to be close, Relying on multi-tasking

Diana: “Think about how much time working parents have with their kids on week nights. Hint: it’s not much, and a good part of it is spent frantically doing chores. Parents want to maximize their time with their kids. Open concept helps them do this.”

Marci: “For the kids, when you have what amounts to a second shadow, I imagine it helps decrease the number of times you hear mommy where are you and come in to the living room and watch me lol.”

Mallory: “I have three girls, so my take on toddlers is different than those with boys. My girls (2 and 4, the 4 month old can’t get away from me yet) can play in their bedroom or in the playroom in the basement if they would like to while I am preparing dinner, but they are at the age where they want me involved in their play a fair amount. And as Diana Tang pointed out, as a working mom I have to say no to those requests all too often, so having an open plan allows me to participate without sacrificing dinner. “

Mallory: “In terms of multitasking, you just get used to constantly doing two things at once.”

Marci: “Everything about parenting is tiring lol but if you are good at cooking, you will find you don’t need to devote as much of yourself to the process.”

Marci: “Lol, it’s also the best thing I’ve ever done and I’m sure you feel the same but it is tiring an involves a lot of multitasking. I can’t remember the last time I was able to focus on one thing for more than 30 seconds. I just don’t get that kind of free time anymore”

Aylin: “the open plan thing is helpful not so i can keep my eye on the kids but because they won’t go play somewhere far away from me. generally they want to be where the action is, where everyone is hanging out, where their mama is. if i put a playroom somewhere out of sight or hearing of me, my kids would never go in there. they would take their toys and come play by me, wherever i happen to be. my guys are little though so i’m sure it changes as they get older.”

Brunner, 2013: “Today this layout has become the go-to kitchen style, particularly for families. The combined layout allows for optimum multitasking — parents can prepare dinner, watch the news and help with homework at the same time.”

  • TRADITIONAL: Supporting everyone’s need for alone time, Boosting efficiency

Mike: “I also know that when I am cooking and people are over, I can only spend a small portion of my attention on others. So if the purpose is awareness of and connection to your children, I wonder how much this type of floor plan really allows for that. 

I mean, I really enjoy cooking as a hobby and like how I can focus on a task and lose time in it. I know hobbies go on the backburner in parenthood, but I would think that the act of cooking and watching your children would really change the process. In fact, i wonder whether it would make it even more mentally taxing to have your attention split between two things you really want to be monitoring. It seems like it could be tiring to keep track of everything.”

Jen: “But with 3 kids we really didn’t want to see/hear all of their secrets and play. We also let them play in the pantry (the fairy cave), bedrooms with doors closed (letting the cat out first!) and other “secret” spaces.”

2B. Proximity – Entertaining:

  • OPEN CONCEPT: Allowing all guests into their favorite gathering space– the kitchen, Avoiding host’s kitchen-based isolation

Marci: “I want an open concept floor plan but not because of the kids. It’s great for entertaining since everyone always ends up in the kitchen and since I cook a lot, I can still be part of the party or the kids playing or whatever.”

Mallory: “And as Marcy pointed out – entertaining is much more fun, which we do a fair amount.”

Brunner, 2013: “And it’s difficult to interact with friends and family while whipping up meals, since most of the room is reserved for the work triangle.”

Hillukka, 2012: “If you like to throw parties, you will never feel like you are stuck in the kitchen again.”

  • TRADITIONAL: Satisfying most guests’ comfort in plush gathering space(s)– living/dining room(s), Promoting host’s kitchen-based focus

No one made this argument but it’s the logical counterpart to the former set of assertions. By closing off the kitchen, one “forces” guests to relax in staged and comfy surrounds. This removal of all/most guests from the kitchen also frees the host’s focus from conversing and hosting and directs it solely to the kitchen-based tasks at hand.

3A. Lifestyle – Everyday:

  • OPEN CONCEPT: Making house/rooms seem larger, Welcoming everyone to join in projects

Melissa: “Definitely makes our living space seem bigger though.”

Sara: “We are building a house and designed an open floor plan with kitchen and family room. Not for surveillance, but those are the 2 most used rooms so why not combine them for use?!”

  • TRADITIONAL: Giving sense of coziness, Maintaining nooks for privacy or specific purpose

Lauren: “We lived with an open floor plan for 10 years, 6 of those with a child. We recently moved to an older home that is not open, and I love it. I like for every room to have its own purpose – with our open space, the kitchen and family room all blended together. So keeping food in the kitchen didn’t really happen. Papers were everywhere, toys were everywhere. I like separate rooms…but I do feel “old-fashioned” saying that. I’m clearly in the minority.”

Jen: “They [her children] have their own culture and complex power balance and we *mostly* try to stay out of it. Adults need to remember that we are less important than we think.  Thanks for posting!”

3B. Lifestyle – Entertaining:

  • OPEN CONCEPT: Hosting parties frequently, Preferring informal structures, Enabling unfettered flow between/among spaces

Mallory: “We actually entertain more than we did before we had kids. We don’t have to get a sitter, leave before bedtimes or try to keep toddlers entertained in a restaurant. It is somewhat backwards but it is actually easier than going out and we get to see our friends.”

Marci: “Most definitely but surveillance at least for me would be a very small component. It would mostly be for entertaining. We actually entertain more at home since having kids. It can be tricky to coordinate sitters and expensive so often it’s easier to have people come over after bedtime. It’s also impossible to eat out with small kids — you spend the entire meal wrangling them. But at home, they can play with each other while the adults have a civilized meal at the table with conversation and everything. It’s an entirely different world to have a meal somewhere the kids can run around and play.”

Brunner, 2013: “This layout doesn’t allow for direct access from the kitchen to the dining table, or vice versa.”

  • TRADITIONAL: Hosting parties infrequently, Preferring formal structures, Setting aside spaces for different types of energy/activity

Brunner, 2013: “‘You’ve got to consider the way you live in your home and the way you use your home,’ says Carrino. ‘How do you use your kitchen? How do you foresee using your new kitchen?'”

Say I, in terms of energy, especially when hosting, I think there’s value to having different “zones.” The gregarious need space to loudly cavort, introverts crave a less stimulating place to chat, and gamers might want a room to focus on their match-ups. While folks tend to use anchoring furniture to designate spaces within an open concept expanse, in practice I wonder whether these spaces get smushed or the potential for really getting loud/personal/competitive is limited by outsiders’ noise and eyes.

 Discussion

This work reveals both opportunities and unintended consequences related to design choices and parenting practices.

While I began this research by grappling with provocative questions about effects and implications, this study does not illuminate if/how architectural affordances impact child development. Rather, it is a descriptive study, illuminating everyday and entertaining opportunities that parents (and a few non-parents) consider in order to make floor plan decisions.

  • Future Research

Future research might examine whether and how floor plans are correlated with parenting practices and/or children’s self-regulation. If any correlation exists, which came first, the chicken or the egg — that is, did parenting practices inform floor plan acquisitions or did floor plans shape parenting practices? Did parenting practices lead to children’s self-regulation, or did children’s self-regulation inspire their parents’ practices? Obviously, working with a larger, non-convenience sample also would lend more credibility to my findings.

I was fascinated to discover how my friends introduced gender into the conversation. Rather than engaging with the feminization of housework and child care, which I briefly mentioned in my first unabridged comment, my (heterosexual female) friends talked about young boys’ and girls’ distinct play styles and subsequently differing “needs” for supervision. So how, if at all, would fathers’ and/or same-sex parents differently respond to my queries? Additionally, is my friends’ observation about boys’ and girls’ dissimilar behavior universally shared? How might expectations that sex/gender compel particular parenting practices then cause the manifestation of these particular parenting practices?

The question of class is the elephant in the (hybrid kitchen/living/dining) room. The “open concept” might be the exclusive province of the middle class — the upper class might prefer a closed kitchen in which their domestic help can invisibly toil, while the lower class might prefer several small rooms in order to shelter extended families and/or they may lack access to the newer construction in which “open concept” can be found. Gathering data on both rates of and preferences for “open concept” among families of various classes might be interesting. It’s also worth considering whether this entire examination is of limited import, reasonably chalked up to “first world” or “white people’s problems.” Like Ellen Seiter illuminated in Sold Separately, educated white women sometimes hand-wring over inconsequential issues that might affect their kids, instead of focusing on major issues (e.g., poverty, homelessness, broken public schooling) that do affect other people’s kids and, due to the vastness and ripple effects of the problem, them too.

My sorority sister Mallory observed, “What is somewhat interesting to me is that the open plan kitchen has risen while cooking meals is on the decline, or at least that is my perception.” Mike, my former classmate from both high school and college, replied, “I, too, have the impression that desire for this layout has increased when the actual amount of entertaining or cooking has decreased.” Is this inverse relationship borne out by the data? If so, does the decrease in cooking help to explain the permissibility of an “open concept” because the interference of cooking sounds and cooking smells, as well as the need for cooking concentration, no longer exist?

Finally, Mike went on to identify a few additional factors that also might have influenced the rise of the open concept:

“Right, so you could characterize the opening up of American floor plans to be about multi-tasking (or normalizing increased demands on attention) as much as you could surveillance. Although, you could also view it through the lenses of socialization, family interactions, electronics-centered entertainments, our approach to food and eating, etc. etc. People seem to be drawn towards it for a variety of reasons.”

Conclusion

I found that attributing the rise of the “open concept” floor plan to the surveillance needs of helicopter parents is too simplistic. Differing preferences for sensory access, proximity, and lifestyle in contexts of both everyday and entertaining help to explain parents’ gravitation towards or away from the “open concept” floor plan.

Thank you all for your contributions and inspiration!

Counting What Counts

lightbulbI am an eager learner, critical thinker, and sensitive communicator with a fervent desire to do work that matters. I believe in the value of inter-disciplinary collaboration for building, remixing, and extending theory, and constructing comprehensive, practical responses to multi-faceted, real world challenges. My methods are mixed, my style is collegial, and my aim is to support youths’ development.

How I got here is an easy story to tell. My loving parents, both caregivers by profession (dentist father, social worker-turned-housewife-turned-social worker mother), raised my two siblings and me in a town populated by “have’s.” While there were and still are richer folks financially, few have access to our community’s social capital – at least, that’s what both Reverend Jesse Jackson and then-President Bill Clinton said during their separate visits to my high school during my senior year. Later, as a college freshman enrolled in a sociology course entitled “Social Inequality: Race, Class, and Power,” I read Jonathan Kozol’s landmark book Savage Inequalities (1991), which pitted the privileges enjoyed by students in my town against the deprivations endured by students in East St. Louis, where schools couldn’t afford toilet paper. This made an impression. So too did my realization that, beyond creature comforts and access to power, I was given emotionally responsive contexts, both at home and at school, in which to grow safely and love freely. I became a Social Policy major because I knew such gifts were not my right, I was just born lucky; or perhaps such gifts are everyone’s right, and “luck” should be taken out of the equation.

For the past 10+ years, I have designed, delivered, and assessed curricula to support youths’ learning; importantly, these curricula facilitate not just cognitive development, but social and emotional development as well. With the support of my polymathic advisor, Dr. Henry Jenkins, and diverse university institutions — e.g., USC Joint Educational Project, USC Institute for Multimedia Literacy, USC Annenberg Innovation Lab, USC Shoah Foundation, and USC Impact Games — my interdisciplinary, community-focused work has been applied to educational settings in Los Angeles and around the world. My specific research interests include:

  • Empathy and social and emotional learning;
  • Interactive, inquiry-driven pedagogy and assessment (e.g., connected learning, participatory learning, experiential learning, participatory action research);
  • Productive problem-solving across no-tech, low-tech, and high-tech contexts (e.g., media literacy, new media literacies, digital citizenship); and
  • Powerful play (e.g., impact games, experimentation and improvisation for discovery).

Because I care about both maximizing the effectiveness of educational interventions and richly understanding program-related change, assessment is incredibly important to me. Twenty-first century skills, which I have identified in my publications as new media literacies (NMLs) plus social and emotional learning skills (SELs), are what I have sought to theorize, teach, and assess (see Felt & Rideau, 2012; Felt, Vartabedian, Literat, & Mehta, 2012; Vartabedian & Felt, 2012). Recently, I adapted the NMLs from a list of 12 discrete skills to a list of 6 paired skills, and then identified which NML pair plus two SELs collectively represent a characteristic of digital citizenship (see www.laurelfelt.org/skill-composites). The programs I have co-designed and evaluated (e.g., Sunukaddu 2.0, Explore Locally Excel Digitally, Summer Sandbox, PLAYing Outside the Box) outreach to educators and students via professional development and developmentally-appropriate curricula, respectively, and utilize both participatory learning strategies and media-making to enhance 21st century skill proficiency.
I always use mixed methods to study impacts, including pre-mid-post surveys, ethnographic field notes, interviews or focus groups, and analysis of participants’ works.

But for the past two years, I also have expanded my assessment toolkit in order to recognize traditionally overlooked data, which my co-authors and I have termed “cultural beacons” (CBs). CBs are culturally-embedded, user-defined measures for understanding communicative meaning(s), components, and sites of change; they illuminate (as beacons do) unique features of people and places (Felt, Dura, & Singhal, in press; Dura, Felt, & Singhal, 2012). Detecting CBs requires researchers’ sensitive listening and informed observation, made possible through respectful community partnerships and participatory methodologies. Accordingly, I embraced participatory action research with the PLAY! project, and am using this approach for conceptualizing my dissertation, “A Face is Worth a Thousand Words: Using Badges to Train Teachers in Non-verbal Sensitivity and Improvisation.” This dissertation investigates if/how training novice teachers in non-verbal sensitivity and improvisation impacts both the proliferation and management of “teachable moments” — critical points when students are poised to meaningfully learn because they perceive a connection between their studies and their lives. Crucially, this teacher training will be administered online via an original curriculum that uses digital badges to impact social and subjective norms, support community-building, and celebrate the journey.

In terms of my career, I am committed to keeping my mind and options open, for life (I hope!) is long and the world is ever changing. Because I love teaching and conducting research to enrich educational programs, I could remain in academia. I also could continue to provide consulting services for organizations domestic and foreign, based in the West, Far East, and Global South, who register as non-profit, for-profit, and governmental. To 20+ organizations over the years, I have delivered: curriculum and assessment development; training and professional development; program evaluation; media literacy for children and families; children’s media research; and impact game consulting. As long as we care to better support our children’s healthy development and expand their opportunities, there will be work for me to do, and I will want to do it.

Change Through Laughter

Viola Spolin and kidsIn the early 1940s, social worker Viola Spolin developed a suite of theater games to stimulate creative expression and build community among Chicago’s diverse immigrant populations. Spolin’s son Paul Sills, founder of legendary theater The Second City, offered up his mother’s games to his comedic ensemble; and ever since, improvisers the world over have played them in order to hone their craft.

But here in Los Angeles, since the founding of non-profit Laughter for a Change (L4C) in 2007, these games have returned to their original context and purpose: helping to build confidence and meaningful connections among residents of underserved communities.

During 2011-2012, L4C founder/director Ed Greenberg ran an after-school workshop with a dozen predominantly low-income, Latino high school freshmen; a trained improviser/doctoral candidate acted as a participant-observer during this year. Through analysis of ethnographic fieldnotes, surveys, and interviews, they found that improvisational theater games provided a no-tech context to practice skills vital to media literacy, such as negotiating trust and exploring identity. As articulated by Felt and Rideau (2012), developing these skills, even in no-tech contexts, prepares learners to apply them in mediated contexts.

In terms of products, participants reported less shyness, more self-confidence, increased comfort with public speaking, greater participation in academic classes, a broader view of teamwork, and fun. L4C’s use of games may help to explain its educational effectiveness. According to USC’s Project New Media Literacies, play “supports constant learning and innovative responses to our surroundings” (Reilly, Jenkins, Felt & Vartabedian, 2012, p. 6). Positive affective climates such as L4C’s also predict such educational boons as greater academic risk-taking and increased motivation (Meyer & Turner, 2006).

L4C’s website claims, “Laughter is powerful. Laughter heals. Laughter builds community.” This study’s findings suggest that L4C’s pedagogy is powerful too, and might help to leverage formal and informal educational settings for healing challenged communities.

Love, Josephine-style

To honor Valentine’s Day and again trot out one of my most beloved essays from ye olde blogge of yore, I share this inspirational and TRUE story…

What Would Josephine Do?

(originally published online 10/01/07)

Josephine was one big dating “don’t.”

She pushed too hard. She clung too tight. She regularly chewed her anus.

Josephine was a bitch – literally. 100% female dog.

If you don’t count the carnival fish or science class hermit crabs, Josephine was my only pet, the lone animal to capture my heart. Worms captured her heart, but that’s another story.

When it comes to matters of the heart, Josephine actually had a lot to teach. I didn’t appreciate this at the time, but now that I’m older and infinitely wiser, I can see Josephine for what she really was:

A love goddess.

It’s true. Don’t be fooled by the fact that she used to snarf her own turds – nothing more than a crafty ruse to throw us off-track.

Clever girl.

Josephine educated by example, both negative and positive.

NEGATIVE: Josephine used to bully us into giving up physical affection. She’d whine. She’d squeal. She’d bash me with her head, applying snout-as-lever force in order to send my hand arcing through the air and landing limply atop her head. Oh, how I’d dread her approach. Oh, how I’d bruise like a peach.

What’s the lesson in all of this? First, keep your elbows above muzzle level and always protect your extremities. Second, violence is no way to win love.

Today, when I find myself yearning for creature comfort (and know a non-blood relation who might consider giving it), Josephine’s teachings form the cornerstone of my strategy. I sideline my “grabby snout.” I put myself in my (hypothetical) boyfriend’s shoes by reflecting on what I would have appreciated: A reasonably worded rubdown request; a few upfront tit-for-tat pats. If Josephine had treated me with respect, I would’ve happily scratched behind her ears, and felt like a sweetheart instead of a servant.

POSITIVE: Josephine’s loyalty was limitless. True, her protective instincts could err on the side of excess. For example, there was the time that Josephine scared the neighbor’s dog so profoundly, it channeled its agitation by popping one of its eyeballs from the socket. The eyeball dangled free for a couple of hours, but that’s not the point.

The point is, if you look past that unfortunate incident, you’ll glimpse a lifetime of steadfast devotion.

Here’s the lesson: Get your crew’s back and show ’em some love. In this era of multi-tasking and compartmentalizing, time and love are increasingly rare. Basic supply and demand, my friends —being rare makes them valuable. So don’t skip out on the socializing or skimp on the sentiment. Josephine never did.

During her later years, arthritis in her hips made stair-climbing difficult. Dad built her a ramp, complete with carpet squares and wooden braces. During her later years, incontinence made bladder control impossible. Dad built her a dog house, complete with supplementary space heater. Josephine never used the ramp, though, and she never ventured into the dog house. Why?

“Because she was dumb” would’ve been my answer several years ago. But now that I’ve uncovered Josephine’s love goddess identity, I’ve changed my tune. Maybe she rejected the ramp because she was eager to accompany us and the ramp would’ve slowed her down. Maybe she bypassed the dog house because she wanted to watch us and the dog house would’ve limited her vision.

Or maybe she was dumb.

Regardless, the lesson we can derive is still a valuable one: Love your loved ones, and then love ‘em some more.

It’s been five years since Josephine died. Gone are the fur clumps that used to choke the staircase cracks. Gone are the neon yellow stains she leaked onto my carpet and my carpet alone.

But the heart’s a funny thing. Every time I walk through my parents’ door, I still brace myself for Josephine, inwardly cringing as I anticipate her full-on knee-rush, paint-peeling breath blast, room-clearing fart gas…

For nothing. Because Josephine is gone.

So I hang up my jacket in the vacuum of eerie silence, breathe in the scent of antiseptic cleanliness, and am always, unaccountably, disappointed.

Now I’m on my own, looking for love in this brave new world. As I negotiate the perils of online and face-to-freak dating— trashing misspelled come-ons from middle-aged foreigners, meeting up with bleary-eyed belchers for a cup of 7-11 Big Brew—I find I’m at a loss. How should I act?, I wonder. What should I do?

That’s when I intone my trusty mantra: WWJD, What Would Josephine Do? And I act according to her enlightened example.

So maybe I am still “single” and without a “prospect” between “here” and “Kingdom Come.” But I swear, it’s not because of interpersonal incompetence. Thanks to the love goddess, my dating deeds are not one big “don’t.”

And someday, they’ll end in “I do.”

Biometric Banality

Reading this article about PayPal+Lenovo’s nascent scheme to eliminate online passwords via, among other things, fingerprint identification, I was reminded of my old rant against quotidian biometric data capture. I wrote this silly (yet wicked smaht) post over 5 years ago and my position on the issue remains the same. Of course I’m interested in protecting property (financial, intellectual) and I’m more likely than not to forget my online passwords. But is our best and/or only recourse to give up our bodies? Surrender our skins to registration, classification, and verification? Unlike my 5-years-younger self, I now have the benefit of Foucaldian study behind me. And this physical intrusion just doesn’t, for lack of a better term, feel right… HOWEVER. For fans of irony, check out my postscript that follows this blast from the past.

Stealing Cybersouls 

(originally published online, 10/04/07)

Check my yard for bombshelters– you won’t find a one. I bank online, date online, and fly worldwide. All of this is to say, I’m hardly an alarmist. I let all sorts of personal data/”personal data” (wink wink nudge nudge) mingle with real and virtual strangers. It’s the post-9/11 twenty-first century, and I feel fine.

But I could feel finer.

And that is both the cause AND the effect of my registration with a new gym.

I was finally fed up, literally, with my excess paunch. So after work on Monday, I marched myself straight down to the gym I associated with the 1980’s. Obsessed with brushed steel, black leather, and conspicuous consumption, this is the gym where jagbag consultants self-possessedly sweat.

You read me right. They’re jagbags.

Approximately one year ago, this gym sent me scurrying to the kinder, gentler halls of the YMCA. The only thing is, the YMCA also has a kinder, gentler personal training program. And when you’re hoping to annihilate a lifetime of habits and accumulation, “kinder, gentler” just ain’t gonna cut it. If I were a small-town girl with big dreams, and my weight was a go-nowhere high school sweetheart, I would tell myself (in an unnecessary Southern accent) “Honey, ya gotta ditch that nice, aimless fella and hitch yourself to the cutthroat, ruthless guy high-tailing it outta town. And God forgive you.”

So I sold my soul to XSport Fitness.

Perhaps it’s only fitting that, in so doing, I also surrendered my identity.

Guess the method to cash in your personal training sessions. Is it:

A) Sign your name in a book

B) Swipe your membership card

C) Display photo ID

D) Answer a security question

E) Fingerprint scan

If you guessed A, B, C, or D, congratulations, you’re sane.

But if you answered E, then you’re correct.

A very matter-of-fact employee informed me of this horrifying system. I stared back at him blankly, waiting for him to say “Just kidding!”, trying to figure out an alternate meaning for the string of syllables that he just uttered… to no avail. Slowly my face registered horror and confusion. His remained blank.

The next day, I unwittingly surrendered my prints. My trainer asked me to tap my finger on a digital disc. No explanation, nothing, just tap your finger four times. I complied. Heck, the previous day I had held a digital device that measured my body-mass index, so I figured this disc was going to calculate my bone density or guess my cup size or something.

Not so. Its job was to steal my identity.

Dismayed, I brought my concerns to the gym manager.

Where and how is this data stored? I asked. What happens if hackers get a hold of this information? You’re a gym, not a high-security data haven. People worry hardcore about their credit cards, but they can always cancel their account and get a new string of numbers. This is not the case with fingerprints. I have been and will continue to be stuck with my fingers for life. If somebody lifts my prints, then I’m permanently screwed.

The gym manager went on the defensive. These are actual sound bytes:

“All the gyms are doing it!”

“It’s the only way.”

The only way?

Let’s say my lawn had a weed problem. Would the only way to address it be dousing it with Agent Orange?

No. There’s some middle ground between the status quo and “the nuclear option.”

So then he recommended that I call corporate. And when he gave me the number, he admitted that I wasn’t the first person to question the fingerprinting. Maybe they’ll repeal the system, he speculated.

Well, he didn’t say “repeal.” But that’s what he meant.

After the evil digital disc had captured my fingerprint, after I had completed my series of squats and lunges, I hit the showers. The report on the television in the locker room (pause to process “the television in the locker room”… and moving on) showed an adolescent girl named Alyssa whose Facebook profile had been stolen. In the Valley Girl tones of too many female adolescents, she bemoaned the obscene speech that had been posted in her name and bleated that her username and password had been changed, locking her out of her own account.

If the commercials of old men talking like bimbos with bustiers hadn’t done it, then perhaps this saga of a socially un-networked preteen will drive the message home: Identity theft is rampant! Even Web gurus are getting played. And my gym thinks it can keep fingerprints safe?!

I started to do some research on this topic and discovered that the use of sensitive biometric data for completely frivolous ends is on the rise. They’re introducing biometric measurement tools in school cafeteriasWalt Disney World lines, and airport security counters.

I listened to a podcast of NPR’s Talk of the Nation, originally broadcast on August 8, 2007, entitled “High-Tech Spy Tools Aren’t Just for James Bond.”

Host Neal Conant interviewed Walter Hamilton, director of the International Biometric Industry Association. In a nutshell, Walter loves employing biometrics. He thinks it’s great, safe, efficient, delicious. Eliza Du, assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Indiana University, also loves biometrics. She’s trying to manufacture the recognition technology that astounded/freaked the s*#$ out of us in Minority Report.

Then Neal and Walter took some phone calls.

Mark from San Francisco, a member of the Air Force Reserve, extolled the merits of the “Clear System,” or registered traveler program that provides a fast-lane security option for frequent fliers who have undergone background checks and submitted biometric samples (fingerprint and iris recognition).

For Mark, this amazing technology represents a “20-30 minute savings on a typical morning.” He opined, “It’s kinda a risk-benefit ratio. I think the convenience here, for me at any rate, far outweighs whatever concerns I might have that information will be misused…”

Sure, of course. 20-30 minutes… the integrity of your persona… potato, potahto.

Then Jim from California called in. He just got back from the Blackhead Defcon Conference in Las Vegas (don’t know what that is, but they use the term “Defcon” in War Games, so I’m impressed) where he had seen a demonstration of a new technology. It’s familiarly referred to as the “passport Smartchip” and basically, it’s a microchip loaded with biometric data that each person could put in his/her passport. At this demonstration, the data on the chip was cloned and, thus, compromised.

Here is an interchange between Jim and Walter:

JIM: Digital data can be copied readily. Once that digital blob is compromised, anybody can use it in the appropriate application by sending it into the system that wants that response from the reader… Biometric data, while it’s very sexy, is also very dangerous, so I have great concerns about it. And, having watched the source being cloned, and having biometric data on the passport, I think it’s a real danger.

WALTER: Biometric data, like any personally identifiable information, needs to be adequately protected in terms of how you design a system. It should be encrypted when it’s stored, wherever it’s stored. It should be sent over secure communication channels whenever it’s transferred—

JIM: It’s not, that’s the problem!

WALTER: When it’s not, that could be a problem.

JIM: The bottom line is the encryption method that is being used is inadequate for the purposes for which it’s intended and the systems in general are not really designed to take into account the sensitivity of this data. So it’s a matter of convenience rather than a matter of security. It’s a matter of system design, it’s a problem of implementation and understanding of consequence, and I don’t think we have a clear understanding of that yet…

So there you have it. Mark’s a tool, Walter’s a flunky, and Jim’s a prophet of truth.

Ironically, my fingerprint-greedy gym is the reason my print is currently impaired. Not that that’s gonna save me, the whorls are still readable, they just ain’t pretty. And THAT I blame on the gym.

I had risen at an ungodly hour to kickoff my new, early morning workout routine. Bleary eyed, I made my way to the kitchen, shoved a few soy bacon strips into the toaster oven, and shuffled back to my bedroom. Either squeezing into my Spandex took more time than I had anticipated, or I had torqued up the toaster setting too high. In any event, that bacon burned, baby. That bacon burned.

And I wasn’t about to watch my bean curd-based breakfast go up in smoke. I thrust my hand into the inferno and pulled out the charred remains. The fingertips of my right index and middle fingers paid the price. To this day, i.e., one and a half days later, they sport horizontal slash marks as if they’d been sliced by a Gillette Venus Razor For Ladies.

Now, I wouldn’t have been toasting that bacon, incinerating that bacon, or swiping that bacon if it weren’t for the gym. And frankly, I’m not sure how that bodes for my new stab at fitness.

On the bright side, if all of this working out doesn’t, well, work out, at least my identity will be gone. So that slightly pudgy girl won’t really be me.

POST-SCRIPT: I moved to Los Angeles in 2008. My gym in Glendale, CA, instituted fingerprint check-in almost immediately after I joined in 2009. And guess what? I’ve been giving them the finger — literally, the index — ever since. So much for living your values…