[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":3,"doc-seo-599650-105":59,"doc-detail-599650-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,51,55],{"id":8,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":10,"show_sort_weight":11,"slug":12},1,"Document","Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":14,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":15,"show_sort_weight":16,"slug":17},2,"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":19,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":20,"show_sort_weight":21,"slug":22},4,"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":24,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":25,"show_sort_weight":26,"slug":27},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":29,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":30,"show_sort_weight":31,"slug":32},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":34,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":35,"show_sort_weight":36,"slug":37},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":39,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":40,"show_sort_weight":41,"slug":42},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":44,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":45,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":47},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":49,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":50},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":53,"show_sort_weight":52,"slug":54},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":56,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":57,"show_sort_weight":24,"slug":58},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":60,"data":61},"ok",{"site_id":62,"language":63,"slug":64,"title":65,"keywords":66,"description":67,"schema_data":68,"social_meta":123,"head_meta":125,"extra_data":127,"updated_unix":129},105,"en","places-of-belonging-awakening-a-zone-of-complacency","Places of Belonging - Awakening a Zone of Complacency","","A paper critiques industrialized, efficiency-driven education that treats student achievement as a static product and places teacher candidates in a “zone of complacency” resistant to questions, uncertainty, and risk. It argues that standardized testing, scripted lessons, and reduced arts education isolate aesthetics from learning and confine teaching to “sterilized neutrality.” The author uses an arts-based “Places of Belonging” assignment to restore personal context, connect understanding to lived significance, and urge communities of education to interrupt manufacturing ideologies.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/places-of-belonging-awakening-a-zone-of-complacency/599650/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/places-of-belonging-awakening-a-zone-of-complacency/599650.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"jayni","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-20","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":81},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"What does the paper mean by a “zone of complacency” in education?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"It describes an environment impervious to questions, uncertainty, and risk, where educational practices resist critical inquiry and maintain compliance through efficiency-oriented models.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"Which educational practices does the author criticize as replicating an industrialized manufacturing society?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"The author points to Race to the Top incentives, No Child Left Behind requirements, assessment linked tightly to standardized test scores, and reductions in arts and humanities coursework.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"How does the “Places of Belonging” assignment aim to change curriculum and learning?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"Students use the arts to communicate their place of belonging, linking personal context to understanding, honoring diverse experiences, and challenging the factory model by integrating aesthetics with ordinary lived experience.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},599650,1792209590,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":81,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":39,"language":139,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":143,"read_time":46},3985747859343,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_276721f389ce27ea32af1340a28f341c","Places of Belonging: Awakening a Zone of Complacency  \nJean Ann Foley, Northern Arizona University  \nEvery child born into the world should be looked upon by society as so much raw material to be manufactured. Its quality is to be tested. It is the business of society, as an intelligent economist, to make the best of it.  \nLester Frank Ward, Education, c. 1872.  \nIntroduction  \nAlthough education has seen trends of progressive ideologies that promote student and teacher empowerment (Ayers, 2011; Lyons, Catallozzi, & Benson, 1998; Spring, 2008), the dominant educational discourse mirrors a business model of efficiency expressed by the social economist Lester Frank Ward (1872) . Evidence of contemporary education replicating an industrialized manufacturing society can be seen in the recent Race to the Top (2009) incentives, No Child Left Behind (2002) requirements, teacher abilities tightly linked to standardized test scores (Nichols & Berliner, 2007), and courses in the arts and humanities dropped from the curriculum (Slouka, 2008) . I argue that these practices can hobble teachers and anesthetize students, in particular teacher candidates who sit in the zone of complacency. This is a zone that acts as an impervious field against questions, uncertainty, and risk.  \nCurriculum and pedagogy that are tightly tied to predetermined products, such as standardized test scores and scripted lesson plans, separate aesthetics from learning and entrap students and teachers within a discourse of sterilized neutrality. In my courses, I use art to challenge the factory model of learning and invite the dispassionate learner to link their understanding to their significance in the world and relationship to others.  \nThe purpose of this paper is to suggest a path that might help reframe curriculum to include personal context and in so doing pierce the zone of complacency. I share my Places of Belonging assignment not as a solution to the complex problems in education, but as an offering to call into question the ideologies that emphasize a factory model view of education where student and teacher achievement is measured as a static product (Nichols & Berliner, 2007) . My goal is to place emphasis on the human being as teacher and learner.  \nI begin with my background as an educator and then describe my account of experiencing student examples of Places of Belonging. Literature is reviewed throughout the paper and the narrative takes a central position. Following the student examples, I detail the particulars for the assignment including objectives and outcomes. I then discuss the use of art as a tool to integrate the dualism of modern culture, which seeks to separate the aesthetic from the world of ordinary experience (Dewey, 1934) . In conclusion, I make an appeal to communities of education to interrupt ideology that casts students as “…raw material to be manufactured”(Ward, 1872 , p. 132) .  \nBackground  \nWhen I began my career as an educator 35 years ago, democracy, empowerment, social justice, and freedom called me to the teaching profession. I fully believed that the purpose of education was to enhance human dignity for all human beings. Greene (1988) captured an essential intention for education that is still part of my educational mission:  \nIt is through and by means of education that…individuals can be provoked to reach beyond themselves in their intersubjective space. It is through and by means of education that they may become empowered to think about what they are doing, to become mindful, to share meanings, to conceptualize, to make varied sense of their lived worlds (p. 12) .  \nSuch a space requires an invitation within a safe environment to articulate multiple perspectivesand experiences or realities. This aim for education cannot be fulfilled through a linear perspective that requires one answer reduced to a bubble on an answer sheet.  \nI teach education courses to students from all content areas (i.e., science, English, history","cbCaiexb4ABGrRv0","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaiexb4ABGrRv0","pdf",662215,"English","# Introduction\n# Background\n# Student Examples","[{\"question\":\"What does the paper mean by a “zone of complacency” in education?\",\"answer\":\"It describes an environment impervious to questions, uncertainty, and risk, where educational practices resist critical inquiry and maintain compliance through efficiency-oriented models.\"},{\"question\":\"Which educational practices does the author criticize as replicating an industrialized manufacturing society?\",\"answer\":\"The author points to Race to the Top incentives, No Child Left Behind requirements, assessment linked tightly to standardized test scores, and reductions in arts and humanities coursework.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the “Places of Belonging” assignment aim to change curriculum and learning?\",\"answer\":\"Students use the arts to communicate their place of belonging, linking personal context to understanding, honoring diverse experiences, and challenging the factory model by integrating aesthetics with ordinary lived experience.\"}]","Places of Belonging - Awakening a Zone of Complacency | PDF",1792089184]