The Startled Classroom

“Today is a time for urgency. A creative urgency.” The author's statement can be read as an invitation to consider education not only in terms of what needs innovation, but also in terms of what needs to be rebuilt, protected, and sustained. In this sense, one of the least explored urgent issues facing the contemporary school is the progressive loss of certain minimal conditions that make teaching possible.

The problem arises when the classroom begins to turn into a space in a state of constant agitation: constant interruptions, difficulty maintaining attention, conflicts spilling into the lesson, the persistent challenging of boundaries, the teacher's vulnerability to scrutiny, and the ceaseless negotiation of rules that ought to be the starting point—rather than the constant subject—of pedagogical activity. When asking for silence becomes a battle, when starting an activity demands a disproportionate amount of energy, when explaining a concept takes a back seat to resolving successive conflicts, and when the teacher must constantly justify their right to lead the class, we are facing a phenomenon that goes beyond mere “classroom management.” At play here is a pedagogical, institutional, and political problem: what conditions does a school need to effectively guarantee the right to teach and the right to learn?

The classroom is not merely a physical space

Thinking of the classroom as a pedagogical space means recognizing that a lesson does not simply begin when the teacher enters and starts speaking. There is an invisible infrastructure that enables teaching to take place: attention, listening, recognition of pedagogical authority, shared rules, relatively predictable timing, care for bodies and words, the freedom to make mistakes, and—fundamentally—a shared space. These conditions are often so fundamental that they become invisible. Yet, when they disappear, they take on immense importance. A classroom may be equipped with connectivity, digital devices, interactive whiteboards, educational platforms, and artificial intelligence tools, yet still lack the basic conditions necessary to create a meaningful educational experience. That is why it is necessary to flip the usual question. Instead of starting by asking, "What technology do we need to improve the class?" perhaps we should begin by asking: What conditions are required for the class to exist in the first place? This question does not imply nostalgia for a disciplinary school system or a defense of authoritarian models. Rather, it acknowledges that pedagogical freedom requires specific structures to make it possible.

Pedagogical authority is not authoritarianism

One of the most common misconceptions is to posit an opposition between authority and democracy. From this perspective, any attempt by a teacher to set boundaries, manage the flow of conversation, or intervene in the face of disruptive behavior might be interpreted as a form of authoritarianism. However, authority and authoritarianism are not the same thing. Authoritarianism relies on arbitrary imposition and the subordination of others. Pedagogical authority, by contrast, derives its legitimacy from a responsibility: someone must take charge of guiding the educational experience. There is an adult responsible for teaching. There are students with the right to learn. And there is an institution that must safeguard that encounter. Pedagogical authority does not consist of shouting louder, constantly meting out punishments, or demanding blind obedience. It consists of establishing a framework, upholding it, explaining the reasons behind it, intervening when it is breached, and ensuring that no one is excluded from the shared experience. In this sense, setting a boundary can also be an act of care. Saying "now we listen," "aggression is not allowed," "no one can stop another person from learning," or "this activity requires silence" is not necessarily an authoritarian practice. On the contrary, it can represent a defense of the collective right to education.

When the teacher is left exposed

The unsettled classroom also brings about a silent transformation in the teacher's work. The teacher gradually ceases to occupy the role of someone who organizes a learning experience, becoming instead a constant manager of contingencies. Before explaining, they must regain attention; before proposing, they must resolve conflicts; before evaluating, they must re-establish agreements; before innovating, they must ensure the basic conditions for starting are in place. This situation creates a paradox. Schools are expected to deliver innovation, creativity, interdisciplinarity, the critical integration of artificial intelligence, emotional education, inclusion, critical thinking, and new forms of assessment. Yet, at the same time, material, symbolic, and... conditions may be deteriorating ..institutional frameworks that enable a teacher to carry out such practices. One cannot demand constant innovation—without symbolic or material rewards—from individuals who work daily to rebuild the basic conditions of teaching. Creativity requires a minimum level of stability. Urgency must not be confused with improvisation.

Here, the concept of "creative urgency" takes on special significance. Educational urgency should not mean chasing after every problem or responding haphazardly to every emergency. Creative urgency entails recognizing situations that can no longer be postponed and transforming that awareness into a capacity for change. In this context, creativity is not merely about producing novel activities; it can also mean devising new ways to reclaim what once seemed fundamental: reclaiming the act of listening, conversation, respect, and pedagogical time; reclaiming the ability to explain without interruption; reclaiming the teacher's authority as a professional; and reclaiming the classroom as a shared space. Educational innovation, then, begins before technology. It begins with the ability to establish the conditions that allow an educational experience to take place.

The minimum conditions for a class

We can tentatively identify a set of minimum conditions.

First: presence. Teachers and students must be able to be truly present in a shared experience. Presence is not merely physical; it implies a readiness to participate.

Second: listening. There must be a genuine opportunity to listen and be heard. Without listening, teaching becomes a one-way broadcast, and learning becomes a fragmented activity.

Third: boundaries. Every collective experience requires rules. Boundaries are not the enemy of freedom; they establish the conditions under which freedom can be exercised without destroying the possibility of the other.

Fourth: pedagogical authority. Someone must be able to guide the experience. Such guidance requires institutional legitimacy and professional recognition.

Fifth: care. No meaningful learning can be built upon humiliation, violence, threats, or constant exposure.

Sixth: time. Teaching requires pedagogical time. When an excessive proportion of class time is consumed by resolving disruptive situations, learning time is reduced.

Seventh: recognition. Teachers need to be recognized as intellectual workers and education professionals. Students, in turn, need to be recognized as rights-bearing individuals and protagonists of their own learning.

These conditions do not constitute a closed model; they represent a pedagogical baseline. And precisely because they are a baseline, they should not be confused with the ceiling of innovation. Artificial intelligence does not solve the absence of a classroom. The contemporary debate on artificial intelligence brings this issue into sharp focus. We can discuss which tools to use, how to design assignments that are resistant to automated answers, how to develop algorithmic literacy, or how to incorporate generative AI into learning processes. These are essential debates.

But there is a prior question: what happens if we fail to create a situation where teachers and students can focus together on a problem of knowledge? Artificial intelligence can expand capabilities and generate texts, images, simulations, questions, and scenarios. It can profoundly transform certain school practices. But it cannot replace the institutional construction of a shared space. Technology can mediate learning; it cannot, on its own, establish the pedagogical authority that makes organizing that learning possible. That is why the discussion on innovation needs to reclaim a frequently overlooked dimension: the social ecology of the classroom.

From the disciplined classroom to the habitable classroom

The challenge is not to return to a school based exclusively on silence, obedience, and homogeneity. The 21st-century classroom requires conversation, participation, movement, collaboration, debate, production, and intellectual conflict. A lively class is not necessarily a silent one. The problem arises when we must distinguish between pedagogical noise and noise that hinders pedagogy; between debate and aggression; between participation and monopolizing the conversation; between autonomy and a lack of boundaries. A democratic school does not need mute classrooms. It needs habitable classrooms. "Habitable" means that the student can express themselves without destroying the possibility of expression for others. It means that the teacher can teach without being constantly exposed. It means that conflict can be addressed pedagogically without becoming a constant interruption to teaching.

An institutional urgency

That is why the unsettled classroom does not .should be interpreted solely as the individual responsibility of the teacher. When a teacher faces situations on a daily basis that exceed their capacity to intervene, the response cannot simply be to recommend new "classroom management" strategies. The institution bears responsibility as well. Teacher authority requires institutional backing. Rules require consistency. Interventions must be predictable. Families need to be part of an educational community, rather than being summoned only when a problem arises. Leadership teams need the tools to support the handling of complex situations.

In other words, pedagogical authority is not built solely within the classroom; it is also built through the institution that supports the teacher.

A pedagogy of urgency

Conceiving a pedagogy of urgency entails moving past two temptations. The first is nostalgia: imagining that the schools of the past solved all these problems. The second is technocentrism: assuming that a new tool can solve problems that are institutional, cultural, and pedagogical in nature. Between the two lies a third possibility: creating new conditions for a new kind of school. Creative urgency should not consist merely of devising innovative responses to emerging problems. It should also allow us to ask ourselves what we might be losing sight of while we talk about innovation.

Perhaps one of the most urgent educational tasks is to reclaim things that seem too basic to even discuss: that a teacher can start a class; that they can speak and be heard; that they can set boundaries; that a student can learn without being hindered by another; that conflict can be managed without violence. That the school can sustain a shared space. It is not about turning back the clock; it is about building the conditions to move forward.

For no educational transformation is possible unless there is first a classroom where teaching and learning can actually take place. This is where Quiroga's idea gains its full force: urgency need not lead to paralysis. It can become a source of creation. It can compel us to examine things we had come to take for granted and ask ourselves once more what a school needs in order to remain a school. Today, perhaps, one of the greatest creative imperatives is precisely that: to make the classroom a place where the conditions for teaching to take place are restored.

Reference Quiroga, S. (2026). La Urgencia Creativa. Tinta Libre.