Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies (JCACS)

C.O.R.E.

English

WRITING CO‐RESPONDENTS: Teacher‐educators reflect on
‘orienting’ new students

Lund
					, Darren

Panayotidis
					, Lisa

Smits
					, Hans

Towers
					, Jo

Fragmenting Narratives: The Ethics of Narrating Difference

Sameshima
					, Pauline

51
Household at the Shore
PAULINE SAMESHIMA
Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies
Volume 4  Number 1  Fall 2006
Household at the Shore: 
A Marshall McLuhan Metaphor
PAULINE SAMESHIMA
University of British Columbia
One of the major tasks of the curriculum field is to demonstrate in consistent fashion 
the process of self-criticism and self-renewal. (Giroux, 1981, p. 27)
Rather than treat the body as a site of knowledge, a medium for thought, the more 
classic philosophical project has tried to render it transparent and get beyond it, 
to dominate it by deducing it to the mind’s idealizing categories. (Gallop, 1988, 
pp. 3–4)
Figure 1. The Tetrad Figure, Hempell, 1996.
Lakoff and Johnson (1980) contend that “no metaphor can ever be compre-
hended or even adequately represented independently of its experiential 
basis” (1980, p. 19) pointing to the fact that metaphors both presented by 
the user and interpreted by the reader always present ambiguity and thus 
provide openings for learning. The tetrad was developed by McLuhan and 
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Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies
Powers (1989) as an exploratory probe, a metaphoric means for discussing 
the effect of particular technologies on society. In the following poem, I use 
the tetrad graphic, which displays four elements as points of change on a 
continuum, as a metaphor for understanding how the body, head, heart, 
and spirit are inter-relational, resonating, and complementary, suggesting 
that when this foursome dances holistically as a collective, learning can be 
enhanced. 
I encourage the continued development of complicit curriculum dis-
courses based on paths of currere (Pinar & Grumet; 1976, Irwin, 2003, 2004). 
The word currere means to run and shares the same etymological root as the 
word curriculum. Here I use curricula of currere as meaning paths of running 
which together make up courses of learning. I want curriculum to serve as a 
déclencheur, the French word a pre-service teacher used at the end of an art 
education methods course to describe how art transformed her understand-
ings of teaching. Déclencheur means: “to release a mechanism, activate, set 
off, trigger off an alarm, press a button; to launch, start, trigger off a debate” 
(Coffey, 2006, n.p.). Teaching and learning in curricula of currere is to swim 
into and through dynamic, fractalling, opening spaces of relational rhizom-
atic conversations which hearten generative places of creative knowledge 
construction. To develop these spaces of complicit curricula, the boundaries 
of form must be troubled (see Sameshima, 2006; Sameshima & Irwin, 2006). 
Cohen and Stewart (1994) explain that complicit systems are not dependent 
on initial conditions which frame and limit the space of the possible. Sumara 
and Davis (1997) explain that complicity: 
in addition to sharing an etymological heritage with “complexity”, evokes 
senses of being implicated in or serving as an accomplice to and thus announces a 
need to be attentive to one’s own participation in events. (p. 303)
In reading the poem, the reader becomes complicitly knitted into the 
unfolding segments, assembling them from the particular and separate to 
the general and whole. The reader is invited to become the interlocutor: 
It is this enactment which paves the potential of creative research 
representation.
Cole and Knowles (2001) suggest that “when researchers have a 
particular commitment to pushing the boundaries of method and audience, 
representational form is central to the achievement of research goals” 
(p. 213). Eisner (1991) suggests that “the forms through which humans 
represent their conception of the world have a major influence on what they 
are able to say about it” (p. 7). Cole and Knowles agree that form itself has 
the power to inform. I use the poetic form to create what Laurel Richardson 
(2006) describes as a “social science art form”—a form of representation 
which seeks to meld the creative arts in social scientific publications (p. 
964).
53
Household at the Shore
PAULINE SAMESHIMA
Modality is the sensory preference introduced by McLuhan and Powers 
(1989). These researchers suggest that our current modality is visually 
dominant and to move toward an acoustic modality is to embrace holistic, 
creative thought based on relationships and patterns. Left-brain hemisphere 
Visual Space is described as rational/scientific thinking marked by lines, 
planes, and grids. Right-brain hemisphere Acoustic Space surrounds, has 
no demarcation, and approaches from 360 degrees. Visual Space speaks 
to perspective, linear conceptualizations and causality while Acoustic 
Space speaks to relationality through heightened response of the ear, oral 
culture, myth, and time as a cycle. Poetry dwells in acoustic spaces because 
it performs even when unspoken. Words are mindfully selected to stand 
for and to perform for the unwritten. Poetry draws different pictures for 
each reader thus supporting Bakhtin’s (1986) notion of heteroglossia which 
refers to the inclusion of all conflicting voices as having value, and Denzin’s 
(1997) view that postmodern research “values and privileges the authority 
and voice of the reader and thus changes the role and authority of the 
researcher as meaning maker and theorizer” (p. 36). 
In “Household at the Shore”, I seek to draw attention to the often 
ignored body, heart, and spirit which are historically “othered” by the 
head, to share that the body speaks if we would listen, to suggest that 
form creates meaning, and to encourage a movement toward sensibilities 
in Acoustic Space (McLuhan and Powers, 1989). I have attempted to make 
the poetic form itself a tetrad and to demonstrate the contiguity, complex 
interaction, and metonymy of head, body, heart and spirit. If the tetrad 
figure is imagined as the self immersed in a dynamic process of currere, 
curricula would be composed of a multitude of tetradic learners moving in 
an amongst each other—shape-shifting figures which speak to the mobile 
identities, contiguity, reverberating complexities, and entanglements of 
learning in the dynamic space of relationality. 
 
HOUSEHOLD AT THE SHORE: a Marshall McLuhan Metaphor
My body
She speaks to me in sounds I cannot decode
with unfocussed signs and signifiers
non-linguistic signs so loose
they form a sparkling necklace
beautiful and boldly sentient 
a “floating chain of signifieds”1
some even empty clarity, flawless gems2
I feel her on my neck, cool jewels, radiance blurring
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Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies
as natural as the earth, charms of the land 
on the bridge between body and head
I hear her in me
tossing on the sound of sea
always moving
using rhythm as the anchor
of her poetic language3 
strong even beneath the languid surface
tension forever elastic
The body is poet
made of 75% water
writing the body’s liquid song
a vibrant nomadic body of text
not alphabetic nor Cartesian
She evokes
salty in my mouth
She moves and lulls
but I cannot still her logic
intuition, inkling, sensation, sagacity
all cloaked in the morning mist
without lexicon nor translation
So I let him have his way
My mind
Firm as the ground that stands
deep as history can be buried
he sorts and deduces
categorizes the stories and connects the webs
stretched out across the land
a meticulous illustration of precise details
of the surface features 
He is a Cartesian chart I can read
Being able to interpret topographical maps will help you
in choosing the best route with the least resistance
and will also help you to avoid 
natural barriers like swamps or terrain that is too steep.4
He justifies adjustments for declination
Many people do not know how to properly adjust for declination.
55
Household at the Shore
PAULINE SAMESHIMA
Adjusting for declination is important for accuracy in route finding. 
To have your map and compass speaking the same language,
north on your compass must equal true north on your map. 
To make them equal you need to either add or subtract the declination.5
My mind, he makes sense
even when sense seems amiss
sequential and linear
He has power
My heart
Their child, part of the family
so vulnerable, open, sensitive
listens to the parents push and pull
tentative in the din 
of the sea crashing on the land
Her love embracing so strong
eroding his edge
clawing at him
waves washing him to her
pulling him to become
a part of her
To become
To awaken to
comprehensive awareness
The not yet understood
drawing the understood
The child is silent
standing on the beach 
looking for home
My spirit
Completes the family of four
History, she swirls the fragrance of the past
through our house so I know my mother
grandmother and great-grandmother
without words 
She plays our homologous tetrad6
in a fugue7 made by the fusion of four strings on a Greek lyre
meiosis merged in double complementarity
in the text of the body, as an artifact, a 
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Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies
‘resonating interval’: an object which transcends time; and is affected 
by both its own attributes and the environment which surrounds it.8 
McLuhan and Powers explain:
The tetrad illuminates the borderline between acoustic and visual space as an 
arena of spiraling repetition and replay, both of input and feedback, interlace 
and interface in the area of imploded circle of rebirth and metamorphosis.9 
Irit Rogoff says art is the interlocutor,
a bridge to the next step of thought10 
on the neck between body and mind
I can learn the art11
of bridging the body and head
in motion and rhythm of the body poet 
paint colour on the clear jewels signified on my neck
find home for the child
Then we move from this place together
home wherever we are
winds weaving us through continents of
post-colonial, post-centralized
and post-modern notions 
liberalizing the culturally shaped 
though entangled symbiotic communication
to see curriculum and pedagogy
opened 
My Spirit, she’ll guide us as one
hopes and dreams hold me in 
four that belong
body, mind, heart and spirit
and I know our family will stay together
The self as the whole
weather the tumbling times
rushing and receding with the tide
delight in the frothy white12 
57
Household at the Shore
PAULINE SAMESHIMA
Notes
1. Roland Barthes (1977, p. 39) refers to non-linguistic signs as being so open that 
they constitute a “floating chain of signifieds.” 
2. “An ‘empty’ or ‘floating signifier’ is variously defined as a signifier with a 
vague, highly variable, unspecifiable or non-existent signified. Such signifiers 
mean different things to different people: they may stand for many or even any 
signifieds; they may mean whatever their interpreters want them to mean” 
(Chandler, 2002, p. 74).
3. Jeanette Winterson (1997) believes rhythm is the anchor of the poet’s language 
(p. 87).
4. Chris Conway (1999). See web link.
5. Ibid.
6. The concept of the tetrad as a theoretical model for assessing, analyzing and 
predicting the social effects of technology on society was proposed by Marshall 
McLuhan and Bruce Powers (1989). Tetradic logic as a cognitive model is used 
to refine, focus, and discover unknown and unobserved entities in cultures 
and technologies (p. 128).
7. The word fugue has two meanings. It is a musical form in which a theme is 
first stated, then repeated and varied with accompanying contrapuntal lines. 
Fugue also refers to a disordered state of mind, in which somebody typically 
wanders from home and experiences a loss of memory relating only to the 
previous, rejected environment. The use of the word fugue is a play on words. 
The latter definition is a reminder to the reader that the spirit will remember 
collective memories even when the head has not yet articulated the body’s 
knowing. Simultaneously, the musical definition of fugue suggests that we 
live in a storyline that is themed as normative, that the main theme often states 
our living.
8. A. Hempell (1996). See web link.
9. McLulan and Powers (1989), p. 9.
10. Rogoff (2000), p. 9.
11. Art is defined as the products of human creativity while an art is a superior 
skill that can be learned through study, practice, and observation. I believe 
we need to focus on the art of teaching in pre-service programs instead of the 
products of teaching.
12. Being in the frothy white of the sea is to be on the edge between liquid and 
land. The “edge” is the liminal place, the place where revelations and newness 
begins (see Sameshima, 2006).
References
Barthes, R. (1977). Image-Music-Text. London: Fontana.
Chandler, D. (2002). Semiotics: The basics. London: Routledge.
Coffey, N. (Ed.). (1996-2006). French linguistics: Site for the study of the French language. 
Retrieved June 13, 2006, from http://www.french-linguistics.co.uk/dictionary/ 
Cohen, J., & Stewart, I. (1994). The collapse of chaos: Discovering simplicity in a complex 
world. New York: Penguin Press.
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Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies
Cole, A. L., & Knowles, J. G. (2001). Qualities of Inquiry. In L. Neilsen, A. Cole, & 
J. G. Knowles (Eds.), The art of writing inquiry (Vol. 1. Arts-informed Research 
Series, pp. 211–219). Halifax, NS & Toronto, ON: Backalong Books and Centre 
for Arts-informed Research.
Conway, C (1999). Backcountry Navigation. Retrieved July 14, 2005, from http://
www.geocities.com/Yosemite/Falls/9200/land_navigation.html#Topograph
ical%20Maps
Eisner, E. (1991). The enlightened eye. New York: Macmillan.
Gallop, J. (1988). Thinking through the body. New York Chichester, West Sussex: 
Columbia University Press.
Giroux, H. (1981). Toward a new sociology of curriculum. In H. Giroux, A. Penna 
& W. Pinar (Eds.) Curriculum and instruction: Alternatives in education (pp. 98–
108). Berkeley, CA: McCutchan.
Hempell, A. (1996). The resonating interval: Exploring the process of the tetrad. 
Retrieved July 14, 2005, from http://www.anthonyhempell.com/papers/
tetrad/
 Irwin, R. (2003, October). Curating the aesthetics of curriculum/leadership or 
caring for how we perceive running/guiding the course. University of British 
Columbia, Department of Curriculum Studies, Artful Salon. Retrieved July 12, 
2005 from, http://www.cust.educ.ubc.ca/whatsnew/Papers/irwin/irwin1.
html  
Irwin, R. L. (2004). A/r/tography: A metonymic métissage. In R. L. Irwin & A. de 
Cosson (Eds.), A/r/tography: Rendering self through arts-based living inquiry (pp. 
27–38). Vancouver, BC: Pacific Educational Press. 
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Retrieved August 30, 2004, 
from http://www.theliterarylink.com/metaphors.html 
McLuhan, M., & Powers, B. (1989). The global village: Transformations in world life in 
the 21st century. New York: Oxford University Press.
Pinar, W., & Grumet, M. (1976). Toward a poor curriculum. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/
Hunt.
Richardson, L., & St. Pierre, E. (2005). Writing: A method of inquiry. In N. K. Denzin 
& Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of Qualitative Research (3rd ed., pp. 959–978). 
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Rogoff, I. (2000). Terra infirma: Geography’s visual culture. London: Routledge.
Sameshima, P. (2006). Seeing Red: A pedagogy of parallax. Unpublished doctoral dis-
sertation, University of British Columbia, Canada.
Sameshima, P., & Irwin, R. (2006). Rendering liminal currere. Unpublished manu-
script.
Sumara, D., & Davis, B. (1997). Enlarging the space of the possible: Complexity, 
complicity and action-research practices. In T. Carson & D. Sumara (Eds.), Ac-
tion research as a living practice. New York: Peter Lang.
Winterson, Jeanette. (1995). Art objects: Essays on ecstasy and effrontery. Toronto, ON: 
Alfred A. Knopf . 
 


Household at the Shore: A Marshall McLuhan Metaphor

Dobson
					, Teresa M.

Technologies of Text: Reflections on Teaching, Learning, and
Writing with/in Digital Environments

Moore
					, Susan

Mourning, Melancholia, and Death Drive Pedagogy: Atwood,
Klein, Woolf

Nellis
					, Robert

Trans/formational Spectral Narrative: Not Giving up the Ghost!

Young
					, Kelly

Curriculum of Imperialism: Good Girl Citizens and the Making
of the Literary Educated Imagination

Carson
					, Terry

Beyond Instrumentalism: The Significance of Teacher Identity
in Educational Change

Sumara
					, Dennis

On the Importance of the Eccentric Curriculum
DENNIS SUMARA
Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies
Volume 3  Number 1  Fall 2005
On the Importance of the Eccentric
Curriculum
DENNIS SUMARA
University of Alberta
When education forsakes the middle for the ends or the begin-
nings it is deadly.
– Madeleine Grumet (1995, p. 17)
In her response to the question of what is basic to education, Madeleine
Grumet (1995) argues that learning that matters to people is rooted in his-
tory, context, and practice. The basics of education emerge neither from the
learner nor the curriculum, but, as Jerome Bruner (1990) has explained, from
the subjunctive spaces of lived experience.
But what might this ‘middle’ be that Grumet suggests is the place of our
existence? In schools, one might imagine that the ‘middle’ could be con-
strued as the ‘core curriculum’—currently defined in terms of those knowl-
edge domains associated with literacy, mathematics, science, and social stud-
ies. The core curriculum is considered to be foundational (and central) to
the development of the educated citizen. Where knowledge of the core cur-
riculum is not seen as immediately applicable to daily life, it is understood
either in terms of preparation for some future existence or, more indirectly,
as supportive of ‘thinking’ abilities that will eventually prove useful. Even
when ‘learning processes’ are given primacy, knowledge is still conceptual-
ized as an attainable object that floats between learners and context. Fur-
ther, ‘core’ suggests that the important knowledge is not only static but that
iii
Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies
it is generalized and generalizable … to all populations, to all contexts.
Notions of ‘basics’ and learning goals can be traced back to the early
days of the modern, Western school, but it was the mid-20th-century psy-
chological theory of behaviorism that provided the theoretical impetus for
the current emphases on fundamentals and pre-specified instructional ob-
jectives. Even though it might be imagined that student-centered and/or
constructivist views of learning enable educators to critique and circum-
vent now-scorned behaviorist beliefs/practices, it is important to note that
both behaviorist and constructivist theories of learning are founded on a
shared assumption: the individual subject is the locus of all learning. As
such, within both frames, the characters of schools and other institutions
have tended to be examined in terms of aggregates of the individuals who
compose them. (Conversely, there has also been a tendency to understand
individuals as the products of the institutions they comprise.) The very ques-
tion, “What are the basics, and are we teaching them?”—that might be ar-
gued to inhabit most educational debates, as well as curriculum document
and policy development—only makes sense in light of such radical bina-
ries as mind-versus-body and individual-versus-collective. Occupying a
privileged place in between (or we could say in the center) of these binaries
is the core curriculum, the canon, ‘the basics.’
However, if an examination of the technological developments in West-
ern society over the last hundred years shows that they did not emerge
from the foundations of knowledge or even necessarily from persons con-
sidered to be authorities. Many critical events in the 20th century, were trig-
gered by the eccentricities of individuals who strayed from beaten paths,
pursuing personal obsessions that only a few could imagine would prove
so influential. In other words, the collective intelligence of any society is
rooted in the eccentricities of its (eccentric) citizens. In stark contrast, it seems
that the modern school is organized around the unquestioned assumption
that the collective good is best served by attending to a core curriculum that
draws on and perpetuates notions of basics and centralized control.
What is basic to education, then, is not so much the ‘core’ or ‘central’
curriculum, but, instead, what we might call the  ‘eccentric curriculum’—a
formulation that might at first seem oxymoronic. How might the most cru-
cial aspect formal schooling be ex-centered? This question is underscored
by contrasting some of the synonyms of central/core and eccentric: The
former include common, normal, sensible, familiar, and regular. The latter in-
clude idiosyncratic, abnormal, foolish, queer, and irregular. While there are al-
ways attempts to regulate and authorize certain knowledge to be central
(universal) to human existence, that, in fact, all knowledge is both simulta-
neously personal and collective, eccentric and, as Grumet argues, “in the
middle.”
iv
On the Importance of the Eccentric Curriculum
DENNIS SUMARA
•   •   •
The essays in this issue of JCACS, in different ways, make arguments for
the importance of de-centered knowledge and, together, make the case for
an eccentric curriculum.  Our lead article by Luc Prud’homme, André Dolbec,
Monique Brodeur, Annie Presseau, and Stéphane Martineau examines the
issue of student diversity and pedagogical differentiation. The authors jus-
tify the necessity to establish an îlot de rationalité to create a coherent repre-
sentation of the diverse elements to consider when the concept of peda-
gogical differentiation is at stake. Based on a dynamical conceptualization
of diversity, they offer an explication of the concept of pedagogical differen-
tiation that they link to an inclusive approach, which enables opportunities
to notice and respect the presence of the various elements and actors of
educational experiences.
What could be more eccentric than beside? ‘Beside’ is an orientation
that values non-socialized selves as a wellspring of creative potentialities.
Mary Aswell Doll suggests that getting “beside ourselves” is a natural way
to experience our bodies (our embodiment) outside the boundaries of con-
formity. While most institutions have effectively ruled out ‘beside’ behav-
iors, Aswell Doll argues that reclaiming these perspectives may indeed re-
store the ‘naturalness’ of humanity; that is, evoke those “human imaginary
powers expressed through the body.” Drawing on literary examples like
Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wall-
Paper,” and the novels of Toni Morrison, Doll concludes that the image of
womanhood in contemporary media is but merely  ‘thinly’ crafted around
socially constructed ideals that suppress this conception of natural embodi-
ment as the origin of creativity and transformation.
Arguing for the importance of ghost stories, Robert Nellis offers the
phrase “transformational spectral narratives” to describe those tales told
about “persistent but elusive characteristics of the world with a view to fa-
cilitating progressive change.” The power of ghost stories is in their ability
to evoke response without being visible in the conventional sense. To ex-
plore this theoretical intertwining of revelation and concealment Nellis asks:
“What is it that lurks in the dark corners, in the interstices of a text?” Draw-
ing primarily on the work of Derrida, Nellis is well aware of the relativistic
stigma attached to his theories. What he shares with Derrida, primarily, is a
desire to undermine the binaries inherent in Western metaphysics. As Nellis
warns: “Ghosts may haunt, but I believe they harm mostly when not recog-
nized.” In his view, writing/telling ghost stories is one way to address that
which is oft-unnoticed in order to promote transformative change.
In her essay, Alison Pryer critically reviews educational experiences
through the lens of silencing (normative) pedagogies. In the attempt to break
v
Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies
her own silence, she recounts a personal example of “curricular silencing,”
as evidence of an enduring normative curricular structure that tends to mute
difference, particularly the voices of abused children. Pryer envisions the
classroom, and the curriculum, as a space to resist normative discourses
and promote social justice. However, most school programs are designed
to respond to self-disclosure, even though fear and coercion likely prevent
most children from reporting their abusers. Currently, teacher education
programs do little to prepare neophyte teachers for the devastating and
pervasive nature of childhood abuse. Trained to be “bystanders” and trust-
ing that the language and practice of curriculum are “fair, neutral and trans-
parent,” beginning teachers are likely to perpetuate existing normative struc-
tures. Secrets and silences, the defining feature of childhood sexual abuse,
are “maintained and reinforced by routine experiences with the everyday
school curriculum.” Pryer concludes by outlining a “pedagogy of peace”
that refuses to reproduce the discourses of silence.
Drawing on her educational experiences in dance, Gail Matthews
announces the arabesque design as a metaphor for subjectivity. In the form
of a narrative self-inquiry she considers reflective practices in terms of two
main questions: What is curriculum? What is teacher development?
Matthews sees her “personal stories of lived experiences” as rich sites for
examining the ways in which teacher development and curriculum inform
one another in arts-based inquiry. Matthews weaves her storied reflections
around Schwab’s four commonplaces of curriculum: teacher, learner, subject
matter, and milieu. The underlying narrative assumption is that stories create
possibilities for further questions; they are part of an ongoing conversation
among learners, teachers, and researchers.
The notion of “transplanting sensibilities” organizes James
Nahachewsky and David Slomp’s critique of the Common Curriculum
Framework for English Language Arts (CCFELA) as envisioned by the
Western and Northern Canadian Protocol (WNCP) together. Reflecting on
the British history of Cannington Manor, Saskatchewan, Nahachewsky and
Slomp suggest that its short life was due to the rigid expectations of its
settlers who were unwilling to relinquish certain “Victorian institutions”
without regard for the particularities of the land and the economics of the
country. In terms of curriculum design, such misplaced intentions often are
those that do not reflect the demands of a rapidly changing cultural envi-
ronment. They argue that a predominantly modernist educational mind-
set limits the creative dynamics inherent in multi-literacy practices. This
critique considers the desired relationship between individuals, culture and
curriculum by drawing attention to the (spoken and unspoken) language
and philosophy of the Common Curriculum Framework for English Lan-
guage Arts (CCFELA).
vi
On the Importance of the Eccentric Curriculum
DENNIS SUMARA
Drawing on contemporary theory in cartography, Stephanie Springgay
develops an understanding of mapping as a dynamic process of un/fold-
ing that links space with qualities of corporeality and subjectivity. In this
view, space is not an “empty vessel,” but rather created in the process of
mapping and therefore is always “situated, contingent, differentiated.” From
an a/r/tographical research framework, Springgay critically reflects on stu-
dent videos produced during a six-month curriculum project developed to
investigate how secondary high school students “understand, explore, and
negotiate the lived meanings of their bodies through touch.” Specifically,
she explores her understanding of students attempts to use video to ad-
dress subjectivity, representation, and meaning-making relative to “bodied
space.” Exploring notions such as un/folding, un/writing, and erasure,
Springgay evokes the image of the palimpsest, where as she puts it, “in the
instance of erasure something else is created.” Her conclusions reassert a
conception of space as “embodied, relational, and intertwined” and argue
the need to approach curriculum studies “through touch”; that is, offering
ways of knowing and understanding that are more than merely cognitive,
but relational and intercorporeal.
In the “Curriculum Pedagogies” section, Teresa Dobson describes and
analyzes her experiences of developing and delivering the curriculum for
“Text technologies: The changing nature of reading and writing,” a course
designed to broaden perceptions around literacy and technology within the
context of a Master of Educational Technology program at the University of
British Columbia. In addition to establishing a critical and historical under-
standing of ‘technology,’ she surveys recent tools for writing in light of their
historical predecessors, arguing that hypermedia presents some interesting
challenges in terms of the ways in which it “both promotes and confounds”
certain assumptions about writing. Philosophically, the context and content
of the course prompts students to consider themselves both “agents and
subjects of change,” recognizing that as new technologies continue to modify
human experiences, human ways of knowing are also shaping the form of
the technology. Hypertext (or hypermedia) is considered in terms of its im-
plications for the future of literature, literacy, and teaching methodologies.
In the “Reviews” section, Marla Morris offers a critical reading of
Deborah Britzman’s (2003) After-education: Anna Freud, Melanie Klein, and
psychoanalytic histories of learning. In Britzman’s own words, “After-educa-
tion refers us back to an original flaw made from education: something
within its very nature has led it to fail” (p. 4). Britzman seems to be suggest-
ing that there is something harmful about education; something inherent in
education that necessitates an afterward. According to Morris, “the after-
ward to which Britzman refers is the poison of being mis-educated.” In her
view, one must endeavor to repair the damage caused by the toxins of school-
vii
Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies
ing. As Morris concludes: “An after-education burns with both eros and
thanatos, always already moving deeper within in order to do the work of
reparation and social justice”. We might also say that an after-education is
profoundly eccentric, suggesting that the learning that matters most to learn-
ers occurs outside the edges, the afterthoughts, of education.
References
Bruner, Jerome. (1990). Acts of meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Grumet, Madeleine. (1995). The curriculum: What are the basics and are we teaching
them? In Joe Kincheloe & Shirley Steinberg (Eds.), Thirteen questions: reframing
education’s conversation. New York: Peter Lang.
viii


On the Importance of the Eccentric Curriculum

Comeau
					, Lisa

Contemporary Productions of Colonial Identities through
Liberal Discourses of Educational Reform

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WRITING CO‐RESPONDENTS: Teacher‐educators reflect on ‘orienting’ new students

Fragmenting Narratives: The Ethics of Narrating Difference

Household at the Shore: A Marshall McLuhan Metaphor

Technologies of Text: Reflections on Teaching, Learning, and Writing with/in Digital Environments

Mourning, Melancholia, and Death Drive Pedagogy: Atwood, Klein, Woolf

Trans/formational Spectral Narrative: Not Giving up the Ghost!

Curriculum of Imperialism: Good Girl Citizens and the Making of the Literary Educated Imagination

Beyond Instrumentalism: The Significance of Teacher Identity in Educational Change

On the Importance of the Eccentric Curriculum

Contemporary Productions of Colonial Identities through Liberal Discourses of Educational Reform

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