Emerging SpaceEducational Hub
Feed Overview

Invitations:
Design Methods
Arts Assignments
R-Discomfort
Warm Data
 Compass
 Process

Projects:
EduHubs
Students
Kids

Info:  
Exhibitions
Ressources
 A collective of educators and students engages in immersive art- and design-driven practice to reimagine higher-education and primary-school teaching and learning at, and beyond, the University of Teacher Education. 

Rooted in curiosity, care and attentiveness to diverse histories and voices, the collective offers open-ended impulses that anyone can adapt, question or extend across a growing constellation of educational hubs.

© 2025 Emerging Space Collective (CC BY‑NC 4.0)
Zak Stein on teacherly authority


 The concept of pedagogical atmospherics challenges the long-standing separation of thought and emotion in education, a view rooted in what is called Descartes’ fallacy. Rather than hindering thinking, emotion is essential to it; specifically, the right kind of emotion. Effective educators, like good therapists, create spaces where emotional experience is present but not manipulated, allowing learners to engage authentically with material and with themselves. These non-coercive emotional environments offer a rare kind of freedom, where students feel safe enough to think deeply and feel honestly.

This approach is closely tied to non-coercive forms of teacherly authority: authority that is granted, not imposed, and grounded in care rather than control. However, in postmodern contexts, such authority is often viewed with suspicion, and even supportive emotional presence can be misinterpreted as a subtle power play. The challenge, then, is to cultivate relational and emotional integrity without slipping into manipulation or dominance.

Ultimately, pedagogical atmospherics ask how teacherly authority can be reimagined and distributed in ways that are legitimate, relational, and responsive to cultural complexity. In this view, education becomes not just the delivery of knowledge, but the shaping of shared space; where emotional honesty, mutual respect, and cognitive depth are held together.