Essay On Panopticism

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Recommended: Education in the past and present

Luis Muniz English 103 Professor Hernandez 4-12-14
Educational Panopticism
The present educational system in our schools is based on a structure where the students must willingly abide to the authority of the instructors and of the schools administration. Within our educational institutions, society gives schools and its staff a certain amount of responsibility to watch over the students and teach them the material encrypted by the standards of the respective state government while simultaneously imposing discipline. Michael Foucault, author of the essay “Panopticism”, analyzes the prison concept originally proposed by Jeremy Bentham, of the panopticon, which was the idea of a prison structure where prisoners could be kept while giving the guards the ability to be able to see them all regardless where the prisoner is located at, in other words, under this structure, prisoners would be under constant surveillance and be disciplined. This concept of the panopticon can be explicitly seen in practice among our educational institutions across the country and many aspects of these schools resemble qualities of the panoptic idea.
Foucault, in his essay, “Panapticism”, emphasizes the idea of the panopticon, which originated as an idea to keep prisoners under constant surveillance. This idea, as Foucault says is “all-seeing”. This prison structure proposed by Bentham ...

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... breaking a rule.
Overall, Foucault’s “Panopticism” discusses the idea of Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon in which prisoners could be kept under constant surveillance with imposing discipline and displaying power. The ideas of the panopticon have been adopted over time by other types of systems. This notion is evident in the educational system, which strongly carries the traits of the panopticon which includes its surveillance of students and teacher and by the discipline instituted into the student body. In an educational system, students must comply with campus policies to avoid being punished. In the panopticon, prisoners must behave or else they will face consequences. Many traits of the panopticon are seen within the educational system. While the panopticon was created to be more efficient for the prison, it has also been efficient for the educational system.

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