What is my Coursing?--An Intellectual Diary

Dear Tim and Awad,

Sure. I am up for that. I thought more about our conversations this morning on bus 24. Each morning, during this commute into work, I have a good 30 minutes to self-indulge myself in “personal/autobiographical” reflection. Today it was while reading John S. Mann’s “Curriculum Criticism” in Pinar’s (1975/2000) edited collection of essays entitled Curriculum Studies: The Reconceptualization. Coincidently, Jim Sears made reference to it in his essay that just came out in the Division B, Curriculum Studies newsletter, of which was sent out today. A graduate student and myself having been working for some time with this collection of essays in order to analyze Frederick Wiseman’s 1968 documentary film High School for both the American Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies conference and its journal. We are trying to integrate clips from the film into our online article for the journal. We will utilize the aforementioned collection of essays among other works as a methodological filter for (re)reading the historical narratives on American education represented/absent within the film.

While reading Mann’s essay, I also thought about Awad’s question: “What is my course—my coursing, my currere,” here within the Faculty of Education at the university of Ottawa? What is it within the concentration of Organizational Studies in Education? I too, have asked that question Awad. As curriculum theorists with similar and different intellectual interests, I often wonder how to situate/find a place/space for myself within this concentration. Yesterday, Tim was able to help teach us about the historical context of how this concentration came to be. I am curious Tim how “curriculum theory” itself, its discourse, its historical narrative(s), evolved in order to lead us to where we are now at. What was the intent of partnering up curriculum theory with(in) organizational studies? I have to say that I am extremely happy that we do have “curriculum theory,” within organization studies because you would be hard pressed to find it within any other institution—York University excluded. Sorry Awad, not sure if OISE hires curriculum theorists per say, as their stated concentration of research—curriculum studies yes. As far as I am aware Awad, there is just you, Chloë Brushwood Rose at York, and myself who are currently hired to “do/take a course, coursing” in/toward/through curriculum theory. That is not to say others are not engaged nor self-identify themselves as curriculum theorists—yet, theses scholars’ research programs toward tenure is not institutionally en-titled as such.

So I wondered some more today, engaged in the activity of wonderment, on the bus (20 minutes into the ride)—about founding (foundational) projects that might bring us closer together as a community. Then I thought of Derrida’s push to establish an International College of Philosophy—at the time (in response to) when the minister of education in France was attempting to reduce/eliminate the teaching of philosophy from the elementary school system (see his interview on the matter in Points—interviews 1974-1994). Could we not create a similar institutional space, a virtual community, a virtual space, to respond to your question yesterday—what is my course, coursing, currere? We already have the platform with the A Canadian Curriculum Theory Project website.

What is needed, in order for this to be a collaborative effort is a painting/addition/integration of your vision(s) (mission statement) for the platform—of which is welcomed. What would a curriculum theory project at our university entail? How might it compare to ongoing curriculum theory project at Louisiana State University for example. Perhaps we could take that up in our intellectual discussions/diaries/blogs over the next few weeks. And perhaps our project on Empire—could be listed as one of the current projects undertaken by those involved with the development of this website’s content. We also spoke about having a place to work on media literacy projects with students in PED 3102, to research it, and this certainly could be the place. For an example, see the Radio Show link. I have its first podcast up there—a recorded lecture of Bill Pinar and Madeleine Grumet at Bergamo’s 25th anniversary in its chapel. But we could also have a space/link for students’ work. The site needs a lot of work in terms of adding to its content. The site is also providing a place for graduate students (only mine at the moment) to work on their writing projects—blogs. This can also be a place for us to work on them. The Canadian Curriculum History link needs a lot of work. My vision for that, was that students could conduct historical reviews of various curriculum scholars in Canada as part of their course work either in the Curriculum Theory course of Historical Narratives course—their selective works could then be posted up there. Future professors and graduate students could then use this site as a starting point to study such works.

Having said all of this—I can see through our discussions a potential paper emerging perhaps for the Journal of Higher Education and the Internet— entitled—What is my Course? Or, is the a more relevant journal that you can suggest. Where we create a blog to discuss it—and discuss the implication of trying to create such space to explore our coursing—currere.

Until, Nicholas