Journal of Curriculum Theorizing
Not a member yet
455 research outputs found
Sort by
The Intersections of Africana Studies and Curriculum Theory: A Counter-Western Narrative for Social Justice
No full textThere has been much critique of globalization now circulating in curriculum studies both nationally, in the United States, and internationally, helps us understand some of the lethal effects of globalization. Nevertheless, little of such critique is grounded in a strong commitment to work beyond the Western epistemological perimeter. While we, as reconceptualists in curriculum studies, acknowledge the necessity to honor the multiple sources and perspectives of knowledge, we continue to operate in spaces and with intentions embedded in globalized, traditional notions of curriculum. This problem is especially heightened for socially marginalized learners, particularly Black/African American learners. In this article, I will articulate the influence of Africana studies in curriculum theory as a counter-western narrative for social justice. In doing so, I will articulate the ways in which Africana Studies provide underlying philosophies to reconceptualist notions of curriculum theory. I will begin with a definition and brief history of Africana studies in westernized/U.S. context. Following this, I will provide an outline of curriculum theory, focusing on reconceptualists’ notion of curriculum theory. Next, I will articulate the method by which I chose to focus on the three Black scholars --- DuBois, Woodson, and Davis --- highlighted in this work and discuss the work of these Africana studies’ scholars and the ways in which their work is related to and, potentially, influential in reconceptualists’ curriculum theory. Finally, this work will conclude with the ways in which such influences provide a counter-western narrative for social justice, particularly for westernized educational spaces
Book Review: Philosophies of Environmental Education and Democracy: Harris, Dewey, and Bateson on Human Freedoms in Nature, by J. Watras (2015). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
No full textn/
Making a Case for Teacher Political Disclosure
No full textK-12 teachers in the United States are often discouraged from disclosing their political opinions in the classroom, and those that do are often accused of indoctrinating their students. In this essay, the author attempts to make a case for teacher political disclosure, specifically the “committed impartiality” stance described by Kelly (1986), based on the potential pedagogical and civic benefits of disclosure. In short, this essay argues that teacher political disclosure should not be associated with the negative stigma often attached to it, and the decision whether to disclose one’s political views in the classroom should be an open issue that requires further study
Attention Please: Positioning Attention at the Center of Curriculum and Pedagogy
No full textThis paper explores two contradictory approaches to the concept of attention as it underlies curriculum theory based on conceptual analysis and empirical studies. The first approach depicts a common curricular-pedagogical conception based on the following premises: 1) Attention is a means for the acquisition of disciplinary knowledge. 2) Sustained voluntary attention is an unrealistic goal given the tendency of the mind to wander, hence the teacher is responsible for sustaining students’ attention. The second approach, stemming from theory and contemporary applications of ‘attentional training’ challenges both premises suggesting that: 1) Attention determines the quality of our life thus its cultivation is an end in itself. 2) The cultivation of sustained voluntary attention through self-practice is feasible and holds significant transformative educational potential. Based on the analysis proposed the paper suggests and exemplifies a balancing approach in which subject matter and attentional training can be integrated with each made subservient to the other at different times toward broadening the scope of education
Book Review: Teaching in the Terrordome: Two Years in West Baltimore with Teach For America by Heather Kirn Lanier
No full textIn the years since Heather Kirn Lanier attended summer institute, Teach For America has become a strong component of the debate surrounding education reform. At least until the conclusion of the narrative, Teaching in the Terrordome: Two Years in West Baltimore with Teach For America, Kirn does not attempt to lend aid to one side of the debate. Nor does she give detailed solutions on how to improve failing urban schools. Instead, Kirn eloquently describes her experience completing a task most recent college graduates would find incomprehensible: teaching for two years in a failing school with only five weeks of training for preparation. The narrative aims to educate those outside of the education field of the ineffectiveness which infiltrates all levels of urban education in today’s American city. However, Teaching in the Terrordome accomplishes much more, offering different forms of insight depending on the reader’s prior experience; the strength of the narrative is its relevance to a variety of reader demographics. For those who have worked at a school outside of an urban setting, the book can be used to compare successful and unsuccessful schools in a multitude of ways. Alternatively, those who have worked at a similar school to Kirn’s, such as myself, will appreciate reflecting on difficult experiences with a narrative that captures the daily and yearly frustrations only a high-needs school educator would fully understand
Metaphorical Awakening: Curricular Reconceptualizations of Aesthetic Experience
No full textThis article details the author’s efforts to become wide-awake while engaging with art during a semester in Maxine Greene’s course on an aesthetic experience. Juxtaposing narrative accounts with a close reading of Releasing the Imagination (1995), the author outlines some of the difficulties of this engagement by sketching the visual metaphors that appear throughout Greene’s work. She ultimately argues that the presentational immediacy of visual metaphors grounds the ways in which wide-awakeness can be experienced. The paper concludes with questions about what it might mean to dwell in the spaces in between, by gesturing toward the words of Ted Aoki
Postcards from prison: An Auto-phenomenological Inquiry
No full textThis article is an auto-phenomenological curricular exploration represented through the writing of a "postcard from prison". The postcard from prison construct was developed through a series of conversations with the late Donald MacDougall. It is meant to act as an opening and movement towards a reflexive hybrid inquiry combining the autobiographical method of currere and phenomenology, for the purposes of understanding the curriculum in relationship to pre-service teacher education. Framing this inquiry with the idea of a postcard being sent from prison is meant to, arguably, assist the author in making a Husserlian phenomenological satz (leap) from the questions and recollections that have up until this point constituted her perceptions and framing of life events. In the spirit of phenomenological forecasting (Magrini, 2014) and the phenomenological reduction, this auto-phenomenological engagement is an attempt to reawaken the self to ontological questions of Being. The outcome of this undertaking is to consider how to live in the world deeply, with appreciation for each moment and experience without trying to categorize phenomenon, real or imagined, in dualistic terms. Implications of this engagement are considered alongside the themes of education and teaching.
Indifference-driven Discontent to Empathy-led Development: What Globally Minded Educators Can Learn from Stiglitz
No full textGlobalization and Its Discontents is a must-read for those in higher education seeking greater understanding of global economic policy’s key role in shaping globalization’s unfolding. Candidly and insightfully composed by 2001 Nobel Prize winner in economics, Joseph Stiglitz, this personalized narrative presents a brief history of the complex dynamic among global economic institutions and key regions of the world these institutions have impacted, for better or for worse. This review highlights that cultivating a shared global value for reducing inequality is as vital as it is challenging. Organizing shared approaches for addressing inequality present even greater challenges, as international political and economic systems differ enormously. In accessible language, Stiglitz (2003) approaches this complexity with a perceptive eye for trends. This review draws upon neurological and sociological bases for empathy as an active healing agent not only for persons (micro-level), but also for nations and our emerging global society (macro-level)
Unguessed Gestures in Effective Institutions: Poetry's Threats to Urban Schooling
No full textThrough an exploration of the perspectives of Teaching Artists who teach poetry in New York City public schools, this paper considers the curricular implications of Giorgio Agamben’s (2000) notion of gesture as an undirected, unproductive movement and builds a connected theory of poetry as antithetical—even threatening—to schools as progress-driven institutions of learning. I treat Teaching Artist perceptions as nomadic lenses through which to critically see and aesthetically re-sense urban schools. By interweaving poetic interpretations of interviews conducted with nine Teaching Artists and my own teaching memories, both as an English teacher at a Title 1 high school and as a Teaching Artist at various K-12 schools throughout NYC, I wrestle with the tensions between poetry and schooling in relation to dominant constructions and felt senses of “poet” and “teacher” in U.S. urban schools. I theorize the powers of art/poetry as a gesture (unforeseeable and necessarily impractical) resisting the notion of progress so familiar to educational discourses and practices: a linear movement and targeted effort towards “success” most intensely projected onto minority bodies.
Teaching with Mindfulness: Pedagogy of Being-with/for and Without Being-with/for
No full text Mindfulness-based practice has growing notability in various disciplines. By examining the four foundations of mindfulness in Buddhist teaching, this paper calls for moving beyond therapeutic and mechanical use of mindfulness; instead, contemplating to the principles of emptiness and non-attachment of Buddhist teaching in mindfulness practice and pedagogy. Also, the paradoxical notions of being-with/for and without being-with/for of Taoism in understanding friendship are introduced to further examine emptiness and nonattachment in human relations. Unfolding important thoughts in Buddhism and Taoism these two Eastern philosophies, I start from exploring mindfulness as experience, the meanings and foundations of mindfulness in Buddhism, then move onto examining the Dao of being-with and being-for of Zhuangzi that emphasizes fasting the mind when attending to friendship. This article ends with pedagogical practices that embody mindfulness teaching of being-with/for and without being-with/for