The George Washington University- GSEHD
Ed.D. in Curriculum and Instruction (C&I) & Educational Technology Leadership (ETL)
Curriculum Theory - TRED 325
Instructor: Dr. Brian Casemore
Spring 2010

"Nada's.Island"

Readings 1- Understanding Curriculum (Pinar & Huebner)
Readings 2- Curriculum as Historical Text (Pinar, Chap. 3-4) & Aoki
Reading 3- Teaching by Numbers (Taubman, Chap. 1-3)
Reading 4- Teaching by Numbers (Taubman, Chap. 6-end)
Reading 5- Curriculum as Phenomenological Text
Reading 6- Curriculum as Poststructuralist, Deconstructed, Postmodern Text
Readings 7- Curriculum as Poststructuralist, Deconstructed, Postmodern Text (2)
Readings 8- Curriculum as Autobiographical and Biographical Text
Readings 9- Curriculum as Autobiographical and Biographical Text (2)
Reading 10- Psychoanalysis and Education
Reading 11- Psychoanalysis and Education (2)
Readings 12- Curriculum as Aesthetic Text

• Emotions and Education as an Impossible Profession
• Emotions in Curriculum Theory: Based on Taubman, Powell & Barber, Salvio, and Silin
• Emotional Intelligence (EQ)
• Criticisms of Emotional Intelligence
• On Incorporating EQ Skills in Teacher Education
Presented at the "31st Annual Bergamo Conference on Curriculum Theory and Classroom Practice"
(Oct. 16, 2010)

Integrating Technology in the Classroom- TPACK
Handbook of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK) for Educators

Education, One of the Impossible Professions
Curriculum & Phenomenology

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Pinar’s “Understanding Curriculum”: Front Matter and Chapter 1
• Since I am a person who needs to situate things in time and space in order to better understand them, it was very enlightening for me to read the Preface and Acknowledgments section of the book. I wish I had done it before. What was specifically important to me is learning that:

o the authors determined this representation by examining:

- What is published by the scholarly presses and in the professional journals (p. xiii)
- Conference programs
- Some reprints (articles and essays) of prominent curriculum scholars (p. xiv)

o this book presents a “comprehensive and accurate portrait of the field (a one-hundred-year history, emphasizing the past twenty years) (p. xiv)
o the authors have included “the primary and much of the secondary scholarship in each sector” of the American curriculum field.
o the authors acknowledge that we should only view this book as an introduction to the study of curriculum, and they encourage us to further pursue ideas by referring to original sources. This might seem to be a given (for some), but I wonder how many (even serious) students actually do so.
o Pinar started working on the book in 1981, when the “Reconceptualization” movement had succeeded: the field had been RECONCEIVED from aiming to maintain practice to aiming to understand practice and experience. Then the reconceptualist movement came apart and was replaced by “balkanization” (where students and practitioners act as if their discourse of affiliation and labor is the most important > which is, according to Pinar, natural but false—and I totally agree with him: this seems to be the disease of the century!) => this book is an effort to correct this “balkanization” (pp. xvi-xvii).
o the next ‘paradigmatic shift’ in the field, according to Pinar, will represent “a shift to a more conceptually autonomous, intertextually complex effort to understand curriculum” (p. xvii).

• Chapter 1: An Introduction
o It just hit me (by “just” I mean when I first started studying about it) that Curriculum can reshape a whole country and, in our case, since the US serves as a role model for so many under-developed or developing countries, it can reshape a big portion of the world! So, curriculum theorists can reshape the world! Do all people realize that?
o  “Establishing a line of research and formulating an autonomous point of view are not our concerns in this volume” (p. 4). I cannot but “admire” this statement which, in my opinion, shows that the authors care more about us (conveying others’ ideas to us truthfully) than about themselves (owning up to other people’s work to make it look like theirs).
o “Any piece of writing, any author, is ‘filled’ with the writings of others” (Foucault) (p. 8). This is so true and I believe this is how we should approach teaching writing!

Huebner’s “The Tasks of Curriculum Theorists”
• “The curricularist must be concerned not only with descriptive or scientific theory, but also with prescriptive or normative theory” (p. 213) > not only describe what goes on, but also issue imperatives about what should be done.
• Three different activities engaged in by curricularists: educational practice, research, and talking (p. 213).
• Unique characteristic of the curricularist: ability to be caught in someone else’s web, to make his own web, + (more importantly) to stand back and behold its beauty and form, to study its structure and function, and to generate new weblike patterns => caught in it, transcend its confines, and build new snares (p. 214).
• Language: descriptive, explanatory, controlling, legitimating, prescriptive, and affiliative (pp. 215-217).

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Readings 2- Curriculum as Historical Text
(Pinar, Chap. 3-4) & Aoki

Pinar’s “Understanding Curriculum”: Chapters 3 & 4

• Chapter 3: Understanding Curriculum as  Historical Text: Crisis, Transformation, Crisis - pp. 159-185
o Pp. 159-160: Jerome Bruner: “Understanding a discipline’s structure enabled the student to understand how a discipline worked: how it understood its problems, what … tools it employed to solve those problems, and what constituted knowledge in the discipline… Teachers and students were to be included in the curriculum development process, but in collaboration with … discipline specialists.” A decade later, he realized that the curriculum should “address issues other than those associated with the structures of academic disciplines.”
> I do believe that students should understand how the disciplines work, and I cannot understand what other issues might not be associated with academic disciplines. Those disciplines can be comprehensive and can include everything… it all depends on the curriculum writer to fit those other issues under specific disciplines.
o P. 161: “In the Bruner/Schwab scheme, learning was to serve as a means for further specialized learning… The long-range purpose… was national power” (practical application being crucial)
>Here, I do not see how personal development and social reform would not lead to national power. I do understand the importance, though, of practical application.
o P. 163: Goodlad: “Little attention was paid to the unity of the overall curriculum.” (I do agree that this should not be overlooked).
o P. 163: Goodlad: curriculum reform = reaction to 30s and 40s curricular excesses > overemphasis on subject matter > breeding tomorrow’s counter-reaction!
> Why can’t we do things moderately, trying to take everything under consideration… acting instead of just reacting?
o Pp. 164-168 + p. 188: As a teacher, I strongly believe in writing objectives, following Bloom’s taxonomy and targeting the higher order thinking skills… after reading this chapter, I no longer know whether I should keep on believing in them or not!

• Chapter 4: Understanding Curriculum as  Historical Text: The Reconceptualization of the Field
o Pp. 189-190 + p. 195: Why can’t the structure-of-the-disciplines approach also be child-centered to a certain extent? Why can’t it also include informal education? Why can’t it also have self-actualization as a purpose and follow the student’s pace and learning style? Besides, doesn’t it give form to the human world?
o P. 195: “Schwab’s method consisted of a comprehensive mapping of a territory of a given subject matter…” > I do realize how important this is.

Aoki: “Toward Curriculum Inquiry in a New Key”
• I would adopt a combination of the empirical analytic orientation and the critical orientation which includes a reflection relating man to self and social world.

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Reading 3- Teaching by Numbers (Taubman, Chap. 1-3)

Click Here

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Reading 4- Teaching by Numbers (Taubman, Chap. 6-end)

Click Here

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Reading 5- Curriculum as Phenomenological Text
(Pinar chap. 8)
Point Form Notes

[Paper: Curriculum & Phenomenology-- based on chapter 8]
[Full text notes about chapter 8]

I- Introduction: A Poetic Activity
II- Critique of Mainstream Social Science: Aoki, Grumet, Jardine
* Phenomenological Foundations of Currere
III- Curriculum Language: Huebner and Smith
IV- Hermeneutics: Smith, Atkins, Reynolds, Martel, and Peterat
V- Teaching: Aoki and van Manen
VI- Reading and Writing: Grumet, Hunsberger, van Manen
VII- The Secret Place: Langeveld and Smith
VIII- Temporality: Huebner and Lippitz
Relevant Links

I- Introduction: A Poetic Activity
Phenomenologists view experience as a separate entity, separate from language and thought. They distinguish between experience itself and the way we interpret it, we think and talk about it (unlike poststructuralists who do not make any distinction between experience and thought, who view them as intertwined). Pinar et. al (2008) believe it is crucial, in our current educational crisis, to try to understand curriculum phenomenologically.

• Phenomenological curriculum theory:
• What is phenomenological inquiry?
• It is a form of interpretive inquiry "which focuses on human perception and experience" (p. 405).
• It investigates human perceptions then describes them.
• History of phenomenological inquiry: 3 studies
• Pinar & Grumet (1976) > intuitive but not sufficiently empirical study
• Van Manen (1978/79) > empirical study but did not manage to come up with good conclusions
• Willis and Allen (1978) > empirical study but not deep enough
• Problems of phenomenology:
• It can be messy, mystical, and superficial
• But Pinar et al (2008) believe it is "a disciplined, rigorous effort to understand experience profoundly and authentically" (p. 405).
• What phenomenologists reject:
• rationalism (logic)
• empiricism (statistics)
• why? because they
• "fail to account for the world as experienced by the human being" (p. 405)
• "fail to depict thought as it occurs in lived or 'inner' time"
• What phenomenological investigators question:
• "how phenomena present themselves," how things actually start to happen, how they are induced.
• Consciousness: It is very important for the phenomenologist, but it is taken differently from the way it usually is; it is related to the person's intention when performing a specific act: how they perceive, judge, believe, remember or imagine it.
• The lifeworld and one's biographic situation
•  Consciousness = experienced context = Lifeworld (Greene, 1973)- p. 406
• For phenomenologists, their consciousness/experienced context/lifeworld influences everything they do; therefore, they also "focus on the biographic situation of each individual" (p. 406). In other words, the fact that they believe that everything they themselves do revolves around their lifeworld makes them understand how important a lifeworld is and, hence, try to take everyone else's into consideration. However, since people are usually unaware of their lifeworld because they are "immersed in it" (p. 406), phenomenologists settle for people's 'biographic situation.' In order for people to become aware of their lifeworld, to reflect on (bracket- set aside) what they take for granted/preconceived notions, they need to be shocked, to experience difficulties and problems which take them away from their natural attitude, from what they take for granted, so that they can recognize their own lifeworld.
• ("Bracketing assumes people can separate their personal knowledge from their life experiences-" Understanding life experiences...)
• Five characteristics of phenomenological research: (Van Manen, 1984)
• investigates people's direct, lived experience, lifeworld (at a deeper level than the everyday world)
• "seeks the essence of experiences" (p. 407) with the objective of reflecting on what is taken for granted;  seeks the experience and meaning of events versus their frequency; asks 'what' questions rather than 'how' questions (Van Manen, 1984) focusing on the nature of the experience.
• focuses on thoughtfulness related to "what it feels like and means to be alive" (p. 407)
• produces knowledge only to shed the light on what it means to be human, and this knowledge is related to historical, cultural, and political traditions, stressing "subjectivity and intersubjectivity, especially attitudes, values, and beliefs..." (p. 407)
• always embodies a poetic quality... not interested in summaries or results, but in magical, enchanting, and original tellings.
• Phenomenological research methodology: 4 procedural activities: (Van Manen, 1984)
• select a phenomenon in which you are seriously interested
• investigate the phenomenon as it is lived, not only as it is theorized
• reflect on its essential characteristics
• describe it in writing
• > you need to understand it beyond the mere lived experience so that you can analyze this experience and extract new meaning to it from your synthesis.
• An outline of conducting phenomenological research (Van Manen, 1984)
• Formulating the question (+ assumptions and preunderstandings... in order to reflect on them and 'bracket' them!)
• Conducting an investigation to generate data (based on real life, personal experiences/answers, observations, interviews, written descriptions in addition to the phenomenological literature.)
• Reflecting on findings, analyzing data using coding and categorizing, then determining essential themes
• Writing, providing varied examples, then rewriting.
• The range of phenomenological curriculum research:
• The categories of phenomenological curriculum research are usually different from those of regular educational research. They can fall under language, temporality, consciousness; or under teaching (such as the "tone" of teaching in which van Manen is interested) and reading. However, the point of this type of research would be "to attune or orient ourselves to children and teaching" (p. 409). A large amount of phenomenological research took place in Canada, at the University of Alberta, under the supervision of Aoki (Department Chair from 1977 to 1985), van Manen, Jacknicke, and Carson, among others.
• Phenomenological themes: two important phenomenological themes: the secret place and temporality
• + teaching/pedagogy; reading and writing.


II- Critique of Mainstream Social Science: Aoki, Grumet, Jardine
Mainstream social science has been critiqued by many phenomenological researchers; one of them is Ted Aoki (1988) who accused quantitative educational research of being mainly interested in control, separating person and world, hence manipulating things and people who are considered objects rather than subjects, whose point of view is disregarded. The quantitative (empirical-analytic) method is also critiqued for the fact that it does not take into consideration "the socioeconomic conditions of the students, the historical moment, and the geographic-cultural 'place' where the class occurs" (p. 411).

Skepticism regarding prediction: Pinar states that human conduct cannot be predicted with certainty since humans have "will, imagination, and the capacity to choose in light of their own 'horizons'" (p. 411). Furthermore, he questions the ethics of those who try to predict with certainty, critiques the findings of empirical research with regards to "management by objectives, competency-based education, criterion-based testing, and behavioral objectives in which students become categories" (p. 411). Aoki (1988) also claims that mainstream research transforms people into objects and reduces their subjectivity.

First-order and second-order experience: Science is the second-order experience; academic disciplines and school curricula should be derived from first-order experience which is characterized by subjectivity, by the insider's experience of those who live within the here and now, within the situation. Reality is no longer separate from the observed.

Other critiques of empiricism:

Grumet (1976) claims that empiricism is not reliable because it focuses only on quantifiable behaviors and relies on passive people who cannot relate their own experience: it gives no value to the individual who is at the core of the research. On the other hand, phenomenological research focuses on the individual's understandings and attitudes toward behavior, instead of only on behavior itself which, outside its real context, is not worth much.

Jardine (1987) critiques the fact that mainstream social science relies on Piaget's notion of reflection, which Jardine considers an abstraction, and on Piaget's notion of self-understanding, which Jardine believes has nothing to do with the individual's interpretation that would guarantee real understanding. Jardine preaches instead phenomenology's practical self-understanding and reflection which are concrete, are embedded in the individual's life history, attitudes, beliefs and interpretations as they really are.

* Phenomenological Foundations of Currere
Currere ("the Latin infinitive form of curriculum means to run the course, or, in the gerund form, the running of the course" Henderson & Gornik, 2006) is a form of autobiographical curriculum theory, a form of phenomenological curriculum research which "focuses on the educational experience of the individual as reported by the individual" (p. 414).

Consciousness not passive: the research method of currere focuses on lived experience based on Edmund Husserl (1962, 64, 70) who claims that certainty does not result from passive consciousness (which is used in empirical research) but from active, immediate, and intense accounts of lived experience which any knowledge should be based on. Husserl criticizes the way empiricism portrays consciousness, claiming  that, in phenomenology, consciousness is not passive. Phenomenology studies immediate consciousness and tries, in its description, to understand concrete thoughts and connect them to other thoughts.

Lived experience: It covers what is happening in the present as related to the immediate past and future, emanating from what was retained or is foreshadowed. The research method of currere does not seek knowledge (conclusions and generalizations) as an end product; it seeks to dissect this knowledge, to uncover its foundations, where it comes from.

Distancing and the immediacy of experience: by following the method of currere, the researcher strives to phenomenologically describe both the lived experience (object) and the subject, going back in time to trace the path of what might have led to this experience, trying to ignore any preconceived concepts . The subject here is highly engaged in the world, actively trying to relate the lived experience to its probable foundation. According to this method, the researcher, who draws mainly on the subject's lived experience, also draws on the literature for secondary support in order to come up with a new conclusion, a new reality.

Grounded in context: The research method of currere offers the opportunity to study the lived experience and the context in which this experience was lived, taking into consideration the impact of the individual's environment and past experience.

The importance of self-report: It is very important and includes commitment to a subjective interpretation which includes personal experience and feelings, without recurring to any prestructure.

III- Curriculum Language: Huebner and Smith
Huebner considers learning and objectives two myths constraining curriculum language; they are outdated and need to be replaced by "valued educational activity" (p. 417).

• Huebner's five value frameworks: In order to assess the value of an educational activity, Huebner devised five value frameworks that curricular workers can use:
• the technical framework that he associates with the Tyler Rationale (setting objectives, selecting learning experiences, organizing those experiences, and evaluating them)
• the political framework associated with Michael Apple's work
• the scientific framework associated with quantitative research
• the aesthetic framework which includes 3 elements: psychical distance; wholeness, balance, design, and integrity; and symbolic meaning felt and lived by educators and which would portray vitality and significance of life.
• the ethical framework which is important since, in educational activity, people interact with each other. It can include metaphysical and religious language.
• Toward reconceptualization of curricular language: Huebner (1975) states that "the present curricular language is much too limited ... The present methodologies which govern curricular thought must eventually give way" (p. 419).
• The practical: Curricular language and research must include studies of the practical, day-to-day life as it is lived by teachers and students.
• Autobiography and dialogue: Smith (1988) criticized currere claiming it focuses too much on the exploration of the individual self and ignores dialogue and other people's experiences.
• The present as past and future: Gadamer and Smith state that in order for understanding to occur, we cannot only focus on the present; the past and future are also crucial. The past lies in the history (whatever is present behind appearances-- it is eidetic), and the future is characterized by hope.


IV- Hermeneutics:
Hermeneutics is the study of the methodological principles of interpretation. In phenomenological curriculum study, hermeneutics involves the social negotiation of meaning/dialogue, attunement to truth, interpretation, making sense of our lives, historical consciousness, phronesis (the capability to consider the mode of action in order to deliver change, especially to enhance the quality of life-- Wikipedia), community/social situation, and language. Atkins (1988) claims that "hermeneutics leads us to reframe curriculum theory in terms of practice, deliberation, and choice" (p. 424).

V- Teaching: Aoki and van Manen
Phenomenologists view teaching as an orientation toward "being," versus "doing." Doing implies just doing your job, impersonally; when you stop doing the job, you just stop being a teacher. On the other hand, being implies living the job. Even if you stop teaching, you will always be a teacher: it is just who you are: you love it, you are passionate about it, you practice it even when not in a classroom, even when not being paid. According to van Manen, pedagogy, or teaching, neither involves process (an art) alone nor content (a science) alone; it is a combination of both, more specifically, it involves constantly operating in between. According to Aoki (1986), curriculum-as-plan is very important for administrators, but it is curriculum-as-lived-experience that matters the most in the classroom; what matters is "how the teachers' 'doings' flow from who they are" (p. 428).

A lived relation between adults and children & Van Manen's phenomenological description: Unlike mainstream research which objectifies children, phenomenological research aims at restoring the relation between teacher and child so that teachers view the child biographically, as a whole, with his/her past experience and his/her future, and this "via the pedagogical relationship the teacher has with him or her" (p. 429).

Van Manen's (1988) four conditions necessary for "pedagogical textuality:"

the curriculum must be oriented, making theory inseparable from life as lived; teachers must play an active role in it (observe, listen, and relate to children)

the curriculum must be strong: teachers should tailor it to their students needs

the curriculum must be rich: filled with fascinating real life experiences

the curriculum must be deep: filled with rich descriptions that pave way to interpretations.

In 1991, van Manen adds the notion of tact and pedagogical thoughtfulness: being oriented to children, preserving their space, protecting what is vulnerable, preventing hurt, mending what is broken, strengthening what is good, enhancing what is unique, sponsoring personal growth and learning so as to leave a positive mark on the child. Van Manen also tackles the relation between pedagogy and politics, specifying that tact requires worldliness, standing up for political views in which we believe.

Hope and stability: Other researchers such us Margaret Olson (1989) recommend personalizing the classroom so that we make it our own and feel comfortable in it.

Lived meaning: Jardine (1988) recommends that teachers strive to do what is best for their students.

Ceremonies, celebrations, and atmosphere: Those are very important in a child's life. Bollnow (1989) talks about educational love which incorporates patience, hope serenity, humor, goodness, along with strictness and sensitive watchfulness. He also stresses the importance of trust which is "a foundation that must exist if the child is to develop properly" (p. 433).

VI- Reading and Writing:
Unlike mainstream reading research that is decentered and obsessed with procedure and protocol, a phenomenology of reading requires "centering" this activity to the reader, so that there will be interaction between reader and text. When deciphering the meaning of a text, both thought and action are involved: the reader's interpretations of the texts guide his/her understanding of it. According to David Bleich (1878), students draw from their own schema to constructively read and understand the text. So, understanding or interpreting a text involves a dual act between the reader and the text. The reader uses his/her background knowledge and the text suggests information. The outcome is affected by both. In this approach, students are more active and engaged.

As for writing, it can also be experienced phenomenologically. Van Manen praises the usefulness of anecdotes which are concrete, never abstract. Furthermore, writing involves thinking; it helps us put our thoughts into words, thus analyze and deepen them. Writing helps make us who we are. Van Manen (1989) lists five paradoxal aspects of phenomenological writing: first, it separates us from yet brings us closer to what we know; second, it distances us from yet draws us more closely to the lifeworld; third, it decontextualizes thought from practice yet returns it to praxis; fourth, it abstracts our experience of the world yet concretizes our understanding of it; finally, it objectifies thought into print yet subjectifies our understanding of what truly engages us.

VII- The Secret Place: Langeveld and Smith
Langeveld (1983) and Smith (1988) both talk about the importance for children to be able to create their own world in which they feel secure, in which they can find the time to observe what they do not understand and live in their own time and space. In order for that to be possible, a formal curriculum is not sufficient: they need freedom and openness to uncertainty.

VIII- Temporality: Huebner and Lippitz
According to Huebner (1975), man is temporal. His present is made up of both a past and a future both brought into the moment.
Present = moment of vision
Past = right before the moment of vision; the "having been" which makes it possible to believe in one's ability to do something
Future = right after the moment of vision; facing the past and anticipating ability to do something
=> The curriculum should tie the present to the past (tie present information/skills to past skills) so that understanding occurs + tie the present to the future in order to motivate students to learn.

Lippitz (1983) believes that, for a child, lived time cannot be reduced to "clock" time (as he claims Piaget considers it). He says that the way a child experiences time is always linked, not only to the present, but also to the past and the future. It is affected by childhood memories and an anticipation of the future.

Relevant Links:
Wikipedia- Phenomenology
Phenomenology Online
Phenomenology
Phenomenological_Research_Methods
Phenomenology as Research Method
An introduction to phenomenological research
Transformative Curriculum Leadership
Transformative Curriculum Leadership (3rd Edition) (2006)- Prentice Hall- James G. Henderson (Author), Rosemary Gornik (Author)
Understanding life experiences through a phenomenological approach to research

"Qualitative research examines life experiences (ie, the lived experience) in an effort to understand and give them meaning. This usually is done by systematically collecting and analyzing narrative materials using methods that ensure credibility of both the data and the results. Phenomenology is one of many types of qualitative research that examines the lived experiences of humans. Phenomenological researchers hope to gain understanding of the essential "truths" (ie, essences) of the lived experience."

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Reading 6- Curriculum as Poststructuralist, Deconstructed, Postmodern Text
(Pinar chap. 9)

• Poststructuralism, deconstruction, and postmodernism have been employed interchangeably.
• Deconstruction = rigorous method of analysis (Derrida), philosophical discourse (Descombes), a form of commentary (E. Said).
• Postmodernism = initially referred to radical innovations in arts/technology/science (Best & Kellner) (+ p. 468: ideas)
• There are distinctions between the terms (poststructuralism, deconstruction, and postmodernism) and their uses.
• However, they share a rejection of structuralism, humanism, and modernism + the traditional version of reality. (p. 452) > they share a rejection of reality, experience, language.
• Poststructuralism
• emerged in France in the 1960s.
• denies all appeals to foundational/transcendental/universal truths or metanarratives (meta = beyond)
• considers language, power, desire, and representation as discursive categories
• is against: structuralism, humanism (including phenomenology and existentialism)
• seeks to repudiate, dismantle, and reveal the variance and contingency of the system
• Phenomenology:
• describes education as it is experienced by an individual student or teacher
• sees reality/meaning as a result of the subject's world/perception
• Existentialism:
• sees reality as what our consciousness freely reveals; it is the meaning we choose to give it.
• Structuralism:
• analyzes education in terms of underlying structures that are invariant and that shaped the experience of individuals regardless of who they are (p. 453) > seeks to identify the system that creates meaning
• sees reality/meaning as what resides in the structures/systems/sets of relations that constitute objects/the content of the structured relations > structures constitute reality (p. 456). The subjects are not important > structuralism is against subjectivity (p. 457).
• decenters the subject, sovereign consciousness, and "man" as the origin of meaning (p. 460)
• "turns to languages as the medium through which structures reveal themselves. Language becomes the field of investigation" (p. 457).
• Poststructionalism accuses structionalism of (linguistic idealism, ahistoricism, and a misunderstanding of language (p. 461)):
• neo-Kantianism (only a partial break with humanism) > since it reproduced the humanist notion of an unchanging human nature
• being ahistorical > since it examines systems synchronically (in terms of structures, not in terms of history -- diachronically [p. 457])
• ignoring the fact that the underlying systems that structuralism articulated are themselves caught up in language > ignoring its own involvement in language > "failing to take seriously the idea that nothing lies underneath language" (p. 461).

Deconstruction: just like poststructuralism (=> Derrida)

equates language with reality

attacks origins, totalities, universals, metanarratives

claims that structures are never closed systems

claims that power functions the same way poststructuralism claims it functions (challenges the traditional ways of conceiving power [p. 468])

Deconstruction: unlike poststructuralism

radicalizes certain poststructural insights and incorporates certain phenomenological ones

"Derrida chooses to attack reason from the inside, but to do this he must also speak the language of reason, while at the same time maintaining a certain distance from it" (p. 466)

=> so interesting! This is how attacking things succeeds!

After encountering poststructuralism and deconstruction, it is difficult, perhaps impossible "to take for granted (p. 468)

the unity and autonomy of the self, of systems and structures

the phenomenological claims to present a prediscursive reality

the claims of humanism

the truth (Marxist or otherwise) of history [Marx > class hierarchy + power / upper class, lower class- notion of power is embedded in it]

the traditional ways of conceiving power

the possibility of a final or true or original meaning

any thought

which is based on or posits universals, foundations, origins, absolutes or essences, or

that does not take its own language into account."

"The scope of its influence (that of poststructuralism) suggests that its consequence for curriculum theory is still in an early stage" (p. 468).

"The first curriculum theorist in North America to introduce poststructuralism to the curriculum field was Peter Taubman" (p. 476). "He relied extensively on the work of Michel Foucault."

Poststructuralism is against

the structuralism of Tyler's Rationale/basic principles which "appealed to the field because they promised order, organization, rationality, error correction, political neutrality, expertise, and progress" (p. 486).

the structuralism of Schwab's "The Practical 4" (written in 1983) in which he identified 4 commonplaces of education: teacher, student, what is taught, and the milieu of teaching (pp. 486-487)

the structuralism of Bloom et al.s taxonomy (p. 487)

Poststructuralism, deconstruction, and postmodernism may have signaled the death of particular ways of understanding curriculum  (p. 514) => so we need new ways of understanding curriculum and, hence, of writing it.

Important questions to ask ourselves:  (p. 514)

What are the relationships among the different discourses (phenomenology, autobiography, feminism, multiculturalism, politics, poststructuralism)?

What criteria might one employ to choose one over the other at any particular moment?

Relevant Links:
Michel Foucault
Jacques Derrida
Roland Barthes
Post-structuralism- From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The 'Death of the Author'  is the 'Birth of the Reader,' which is the source of the proliferation of meanings of the text" (Barthes)

"To properly study a text a reader must understand how the work is related to his or her own personal concept of self. This self-perception plays a critical role in one's interpretation of meaning."

"Post-structuralism rejects the idea of a literary text having a single purpose, a single meaning, or one singular existence. Instead, every individual reader creates a new and individual purpose, meaning, and existence for a given text."

"... the meanings of a text shift in relation to certain variables, usually involving the identity of the reader."

"In the post-structuralist approach to textual analysis, the reader replaces the author as the primary subject of inquiry. This displacement is often referred to as the "destabilizing" or "decentering" of the author, though it has its greatest effect on the text itself. Without a central fixation on the author, post-structuralists examine other sources for meaning (e.g., readers, cultural norms, other literature, etc.). These alternative sources are never authoritative, and promise no consistency."


Class Notes:

Deconstruction: Identifies the way a text that argues against something actually embodies this same thing.

analysis of text/language to look for their ambiguity + show that they are not whole in their meaning > to prove that knowledge is incomplete.

Deconstruction as applied to curriculum development = deconstruct a curriculum, modify it, reconstruct it, and tailor it to students' needs.

Phenomenology vs. poststructionalsim:

Phenomenology: experience is there > then we put it into language > in order to get into the essence of this experience

Poststructionalsim: experience is already in language; it is already coded.

Poststructionalsim grew out of Saussure > signifier vs. signified > structures are radically unsettled and always changing.

Being vs. Meaning

Criticism of Tyler's linear structure => structure is OK, but it can vary from a person to another... it should not be linear.

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Readings 7- Curriculum as Poststructuralist, Deconstructed, Postmodern Text (2)

• “Foucauldian ‘Indiscipline’ as a Sort of Application” by Patti Lather - 2004
o I loved the quote she started with! “To change one’s understanding of the reasons for one’s practice, or the meanings of one’s practice—is it or is it not, under this understanding of theory, to change one’s practice?” (by Sedgwick, 1997). The most logical thing a person can do is change his/her practice after they change their opinion about it… this involves ethics, principles, even the whole meaning of our existence. But do we always act logically? Changing one’s practice… this involves changing a habit… and once a habit is formed, how easy is it to change it, just because we have changed our opinion about it? I would say easier said than done… but possible, with a strong will.
o Foucauld focused on denaturalizing the regularities that govern our thought; he emphasized the insurrection of subjugated knowledges through (p. 279)

-Contesting taken-for-granted categories and concepts
-Articulating post-humanist subjectivity

o P. 280: Foucauld refers to the positive basis of knowledge, that which makes knowledge and theory possible… empirical entities inhabit positivities… for Foucauld, the analysis of ‘actual experience’ ... is a humanism that denies the ‘Promise.Threat’ of Nietzsche’s notion ‘that man would soon be no more.’
o P. 281: The heart of modern thought is found in the interplay of what belongs to the order of foundations and what belongs to the order of positivities… “In post-foundational thought, one epistemologically situates oneself as curious and unknowing versus the more typical sort of mastery project.”

Is this the source of the changes that are preached in the teaching profession nowadays, those that advise us to steer away from claiming that we know everything, and pinpointing to students that knowledge varies from a person to another??

o The 3 technologies of governmentality: (p. 282)

-policy: it polices populations to do the right thing
-diplomatic/military
-economic

o “Here is where we learn to think again, ‘in the process of disappearing,’ opening ourselves to a future thought of the knowledge of things and their order” (p. 285). Disappearing… does it mean getting away from everything we stand for, everything we have learned/acquired so far, so that we empty ourselves in order to be able to accept new thoughts and ways of life?
o P. 292: About science… research… “To operate from a premise of the impossibility of satisfactory solutions means to NOT ASSUME TO RESOLVE but, instead, to be prepared to meet the obdurancy (difficulty) of the problems and obstacles as the very way toward producing different knowledge and producing knowledge differently.” And this is exactly what Foucauld did… he did not prescribe solutions… he just tried to address problems effectively (p. 282).

• “The Cosmopolitical: From the Deconstructive Point of View” by Peter Pericles Trifonas - 2008

• “Early Childhood Education: A Call for the Construction of Revolutionary Images” by Gaile Cannella - 1998

• “Let Us Say Yes to Who or What Turns Up” by Jen Gilbert - 2006

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Readings 8- Curriculum as Autobiographical and Biographical Text
(Pinar & Grumet)

Understanding Curriculum - Pinar Chapter 10- pp. 515-544 + pp. 564-566

12 effects of traditional schooling (Pinar, 1975)- Among them:


- hypertrophy (exagerated growth) or atrophy of fantasy life
- loss of self to others via modeling
- dependence and arrested development of autonomy
- criticism by others and loss of self-love
- thwarting (opposing) affiliative needs
- self-direction becomes... other-direction
- alienation from personal reality due to impersonality of schooling groups
- desiccation (draining of emotional or intellectual vitality) via disconfirmation (being denied)
=> So, fantasy life is abnormal, no real sense of self; dependence on others; no self-love; no need to connect with others; no sense of personal reality; draining of emotional or intellectual vitality...

This was written in the 1970s... where are we now? Is this still the case?
"Loss of self to others via modeling"... why is modeling bad? we all need role models... even regular models. We all need to see how other important figures in our lives behave in specific situations. How are we expected to learn how to do anything if we have had no models? Just like writing... in order to be able to write well, we have to read extensively what other people have written. If we don't, can we write well?
Why does modeling have to be negative? Others model, we learn and, more importantly, we synthesize; we choose what we like, what we want to keep or repeat, and what we want to discard. The only instance where modeling might be bad is when it is devoid of choice, of options, of variety. Only when we are expected to, or even obliged to replicate the modeled behavior exactly as it is, without being given the chance to make any judgment or have any input, or even have different behaviors to choose from, only then, will we lose self. Hence, as long as we have the freedom of choice, I guess we can say that modeling cannot be but good.

"Retrospective: Autobiography and the Analysis of Educational Experience" By M. Grumet - 1990

I enjoyed reading this article so much that I did not even give myself the time to highlight the key ideas. Writing our thoughts in a journal... autobiography... I just value that!

"All language is social, all thought historical, all form predetermined, all invention shared, all intention sabotaged" (p. 1). I can understand how all language is social, how all thought is historical (--both meanings: "based on history" or "used in the past and reproduced in historical presentations"), and how all invention is shared, but I cannot understand how all form can be predetermined and all intention sabotaged. Especially in journal writing, we can adopt the form that we want; just any form! If the form we adopt is "free," does this make it predetermined? As for intentions that are sabotaged... we might indeed have difficulty expressing our thoughts and intentions, putting them into words, but why sabotage them? In some cases we might, but can we say ALL intentions are sabotaged?

"I cannot speak of autobiography without relating it to some conversation real or imagined which I have had with someone else" (p. 2). This sentence just makes me think of all the conversations we can have in our heads with people we love, people who have hurt us, people who did not give us the chance to talk, to explain ourselves. Can you imagine how powerful it would be to write those conversations or feelings down in our journal for us to reread in the future? According to Grumet, "To reread the journal is to see oneself seeing" (p. 3). And seeing oneself seeing cannot but promote cognitive growth, and the journal becomes, as Huff & Kline (1987) stated, a vehicle for cognitive development. So, rereading our journal is so beneficial because it helps us reflect and learn from our mistakes; how about reading other people’s journals or autobiographies? Wouldn’t this help us learn from other people’s mistakes, which is, as they say, the smarter thing to do? So, I totally support the curriculum as autobiographical and biographical Text.

"Any writing and reading of our lives presents us with the challenge that is at the heart of every educational experience: making sense of our lives in the world. Autobiography becomes a medium for both teaching and research..." (p. 4). We all spend our whole lives trying to make sense of our lives... we go to school for so long, we go to college, we can even earn doctorates, and all this with one main purpose in mind: making sense of our lives so that we give them a meaning without which we can only find emptiness... void... then we might become suicidal. So, since making sense of our lives in the world is the most important thing for all, why not focus on it in education?

"Strange Fruit- Race, Sex, and an Autobiographics of Alterity" by W. Pinar - 2000

The story of Ed McCoy who was lynched is so sad! It reminds me of another story which is, according to my friend Julie, making the news now in France; it is that of a Somalian top model, Waris Dirie, who was excised when she was a young girl. Dirie tells her story in a movie titled “Fleur du Désert" || "Desert Flower" (1998). Excision is not, of course, the same as lynching, but it is also horrible and unjust!

Relevant Links:
Rehearsing in the Writing Curriculum
Including the Journal in the Composing Curriculum

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Readings 9- Curriculum as Autobiographical and Biographical Text (2)

"Reading, Writing, and the Wrath of My Father" by Jonathan Silin - 2003
 

P. 261: "... learning often involves unspoken forms of loss AS WELL AS the acquisition of new skills and ideas."

learning often involves loss... loss of what? Of ignorance? Of time? Of something within ourselves that used to tell us to do or think of things differently? Of loss of old thoughts/of prejudice/of biases?

P. 263: Here we understand what kind of loss he is talking about... and he puts is differently, in an active/action verb: give up > so WE give up

the coherent self

the omniscient parent

the caregiver's solace

> The more we give up, the more sophisticated our representational strategies become.

Pp. 266-267: Another explanation of loss: loss of connection to people and ways of being that feel good and right.

Effective teaching: (p. 261)

honors student imagination

seeks authentic engagement

creates spaces for difficult emotions

=> works through HINTING and POINTING rather than naming and telling.

Does he mean here indirect/inductive teaching? Hinting and pointing so that students can infer, can be active learners?

Effective teaching creates spaces for difficult emotions: can teachers afford to do that? Is this allowed in schools nowadays? If it is, then who helps students deal with those emotions so that they don't have a negative impact on them? Can teachers take the role of psychologists? Although I love the idea, it just scares me a little...

Literacy (the curriculum as text) becomes pleasurable when it: (p. 261)

exceed social utility

leaves behind the familiar and the well rehearsed

moves into unchartered territories where loss, discomfort, playfulness--even sexuality--can be fully expressed.

Grumet described the curriculum at large as a "mediating space": a place in which we try to reconnect to

the people from whom we have been separated

the things that we have lost

the person we once were (p. 262)

          => a place that helps us to make sense of who we are... of why we have become who we are.

P. 262- "Language resonates with first relationships and early emotions"-- Kristeva

"... it does seem to me that often the world we desire is far more real to us than the world in which we actually live" (p. 263). I do feel the same way! The world itself is so huge for one person to be able to grasp... so many types of people; so many problems; so many diseases. What we desire is what we actually choose to see, so our world becomes restricted to the world we desire. (Idea to be further explored... I had never thought about my world this way!)

Stimulating students' curiosity is very important in the classroom > curiosity about something leads to motivation to learn about it => When are children curious? (p. 263)

when they have a sense of insufficiency, a desire for wholeness

when they become aware of a disparity between what they apprehend and their ability to make sense of it (Piaget)

when their theories of how the world works are no longer consistent with their observations

when they acknowledge a sense of loss > wanting the world to be different is a sign of life.

P. 264- Britzman: Teachers should seek to foster in their students the ability to tolerate ambiguity, complexity, and uncertainty, rather than false notions of truth, knowledge, and linear paths to learning.

P. 265- "Ellsworth posited teaching as a performative act, at its best serving a catalytic function that incites students to construct their own meanings. Pedagogy is unpredictable, incomplete, and immeasurable in its impact." This is so true!!! (Also cf..Haim Ginott)

To add:

Learning takes place ... p. 265

Proust... p. 266

Teachers need to... p. 267

Pointing and hinting... p. 267

"In Ellisonian Eyes, What is Curriculum Theory?" by Denise Taliaferro-Baszile - 2009 (chapter 23)

P. 484: The field of curriculum theory is just as much about self-making as the curricula about which and through which we theorize. > Indeed, I do believe that everything in life revolves around the “self.”

+ "Response to Denise Taliaferro-Baszile: The Self: A Bricolage of Curricular Absence" by Petra Munro Hendry - 2009 (chapter 23)

"Autobiography and the Necessary Incompleteness of Teachers' Stories" by Janet Miller - 1998

P. 53: One goal of autobiography… is to create, use, and explore readings and writings of autobiography that … simultaneously call attention to interpretations as always incomplete- > And this is what knowledge is: always incomplete; always relative.

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Reading 10- Psychoanalysis and Education
Britzman, D. (2009). The Very Thought of Education- Chap. 1-2-3 (Limited Preview of the Book)
.
• I couldn’t but read the Preface of the book. I found it extremely useful to understand where Britzman is coming from.
• P. ix: “In any learning one feels pressure, without knowing from where it comes, to make knowledge certain and so to stabilize the object lest it escape one’s efforts.” The need for certainty… this is such a big problem… I thought I had it more than others, but here I see that it seems to be universal! Besides, is it a problem?
• “Where psychoanalysis departs from other styles of understanding may be in its willingness to create within its practices a love affair with what is at most difficult to love: our uncertain beginnings and times when understanding must fail.” > create a love affair… so well put!
• Educator’s dilemma: all this confusion between
o Good and bad
o Help and authority
o Past and present
o Words and things
• “.. the work of education is as difficult for us as it is for our students… a great deal of what occurs in seminars and classrooms seems beyond conscious reach… in the midst of unfolding pedagogy… we become undone”
• “However much we plan in advance… the pedagogical encounter and what becomes of it are radically unstable.”
o > I just could not stop reading that Preface!!! So valuable! I identified with every word she says here… I wish the rest of the book was as direct and clear!
• P. 1: “It is as if the very thought of education will never let us go beyond what has already happened and so refuses to grow up.” Why is it so? Is it because we are so imbued with other people’s ideas that we cannot have our own? But this then becomes a vicious cycle! If we have no idea about what others have written, then we cannot know what the problems are.
• P. 7: “… education begins with the anxiety of dependency, helplessness, and fears of separation… the anxieties of having to relive the profound helplessness of one’s infancy.” I would have never thought of linking education to the helplessness of my infancy!
• P. 11: “In Bion’s view, thinking contains the emotional pain of thoughts, but also is the means for tolerating affect.” Definitely! The only way to control emotions is to rationalize them!
• “Bion classified thoughts into three areas:
o Preconceptions or innate ideas
o Conceptions
o Concepts”
• P. 15: “Thinking is how the body tolerates its needs, wants, and desires.” So, in addition to tolerating affect, by thinking, we also get to tolerate our needs, wants, and desires. Are those separate from affect or included in it?
• P: 17: “Education will have a PSYCHIC life through transference and countertransference and a SOCIAL life with its impossible insistence on adapting to reality.”
• P. 21: “Because we cannot give reasons for our reasons and because reasons are not what cause our dilemma, our best approach will be to read between the lines and even read what is not there at all.” Wow! So powerful!

Relevant Links:
Melanie Klein

"Melanie Klein’s life was full of tragic events. Allegedly the product of an unwanted birth, her parents showed her little affection. Her much loved elder sister died when Klein was four, and she was made to feel responsible for her brother’s death. Her academic studies were interrupted by marriage and children. Her marriage failed and her son died, while her daughter, the well-known psychoanalyst Melitta Schmideberg, fought her openly in the British Psychoanalytic Society. Mother and daughter were not reconciled before Klein's death, and Schmideberg did not attend Klein's funeral."
Joan Riviere
Joan Hodgson Riviere (28 June 1883 - 20 May 1962) was a British psychoanalyst who was Freud's earliest translator and an influential writer on her own account.




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Reading 11- Psychoanalysis and Education (2)
Britzman, D. (2009). The Very Thought of Education (Limited Preview of the Book)
Chapter 7: The Impossible Professions

Paper: "Education, One of the Impossible Professions"

Notes about chap. 7
Random thoughts about teaching
Relevant links
Glossary/definitions

Notes about chapter 7
• .P. 127: "... Klein proposes that our emotional ties expand when we add to the fray the additional factor of education."
• "Life in school is a veritable carnival of projective identifications and there are ample opportunities for love and hate to grow into ideas and new projects."
• Education's own artificial illness: the transfer neurosis
• The impossible professions > about the internal conflicts those professions would rather disclaim (deny)
• "Can the impossible professions learn to tolerate their own internal conflicts--their love and hate--and analyze their education?"
• P. 128: Freud first mentioned "the impossible professions" in 1925, in his preface to August Aichhorn's educational text "Wayward Youth: A Psychoanalytic Study of Delinquent Children."
 
=> the 3 impossible professions are: educating, healing, and governing.
=> they are impossible because they deal with internal conflicts of love and hate that they prefer to deny.
=> they deal with emotions!


[Patrick B. Kavanaugh- 1996: "The profession of psychoanalysis qualified as one of the "Impossible Professions" as a consequence of the frustration of the analyst as the patient never quite reaches the analyst's theoretically anticipated goal of the analysis: that which "ought" to have happened did not. There are always unsatisfying results as the "ideal outcome" is never quite realized."]
 

• How we are affected by what the impossible professions demand of us: Resistance > we resist those professions, namely psychoanalysis > because, Freud claims, our feelings are hurt by the subject matter of theory. > so we resist the profession in order to avoid having our feelings hurt.
• [A problem can be: choice between teaching what we really feel we need to teach and what we are required to teach.]
• Reactions against psychoanalysis (Freud, 1925):
• resistance
• our feelings are hurt by the subject matter of theory > p. 133: we do not know and do not want to know why we have theory> 'passion for ignorance' (Lacan, 1998, p. 121) > p. 138: it is difficult for us to admit that there are things we need to know about that we might not want to know, but that we need to know.
• we (or our unconscious- p. 133) do not want to know what our ego does not want to know, including its mechanisms of defense against anxiety (intellectualization, repression, negation, and resistance).
• we refuse to go into the uncertain ('give up the pleasures of certainty'):  psychoanalysis questions "everything once felt as true and intuitive" and exchanges it for "something far disturbing and uncertain." We need certainty.
• we refuse to let go our human narcissism > psychoanalysis challenges feelings "that sustain and idealize self-regard, agency, and omnipotence. > it casts doubts over our ideals, over everything we think we stand for.
• P. 129: The Impossible Professions:
• Are Subjective and cannot do without their subjectivity.
• avoid critique ("there is no education without a critique of education" p. 138)
• are accused of narcissism > not altruistic, not neutral, not objective, unlike what they claim.
• propose a discontinuity, a lack those professions repress, negate, and project into others.
• remind us of what is most incomplete, arbitrary, and archaic in us > they might remind us of our infancy; they might subject us to our own unanswered questions.
• are affected by transference, "an unconscious exchange of knowledge and love but also hatred and aggression" (p. 136).
• are depressive since they are highly affected by our personal quest for love and desire for knowledge, which is where we feel most "incomplete, lonely, and alienated" (p. 130).
• consist of "finding our selves with others" (p. 131)
• depend on (p. 135)
• enlivening emotional life
• our susceptibility to the other
• our capacity to passionately attach our love to anything or anyone for no reason at all.
• Exhibit an affective logic that proceeds from emotions. (p. 130)
• education does not tolerate uncertainty, but learning is vulnerable and uncertain.
• Attempt to handle the uncontrollable (p. 134). "One can be sure beforehand of achieving unsatisfying results" (Freud, 1937, p. 248) in (Britzman, 2009, p. 135). The analyst will fail, states Freud, "particularly if he/she has expectations and a plan to impose" (p. 135).

• What do impossible professions ask of us?
• to think of knowledge as whole
• to question the validity of our actions and reflect on the unrepresentable, the inexpressible
• to consider what else occurs when we feel certain and without our questions
• to think of alternatives that haven't occurred to us and reason about our thinking and what we are thinking about, trying to point out our inhibitions, our suppressed thoughts and our fears.
• to be aware of the possibility of wishful thinking being mistaken for real progress
• to think about and beware of our egocentric reasoning that makes us only focus on our own needs and urges
• to work despite our lack of knowledge

• Although this chapter might seem for some to be overwhelming, demoralizing, and depressing, it does, on the contrary, give us the perfect excuse for not knowing all in our profession. The realization that it is perfectly legitimate, and even critical to accept the fact that we do not know it all, that there is no absolute knowledge, that the content we know is and will always be, as Britzman said, "under construction" (p. 141), makes it much easier for us to practice our profession: it totally relieves the anxiety that we would definitely feel when we are expected to be, as Mr. B. thought, THE source of knowledge, that perfect authoritative figure who always knows how to act and react, who is always calm, and who innately has the right solutions to all kinds of problems, and is always certain of what to do (pp. 141-142). No more stage frights, no more anxiety, no more anger and frustration, no more aggressivity and feelings of inadequacy... just an acceptance of our imperfection and a constant endeavor to learn more. We no longer worry about our qualifications and our right to teach (p. 143). We are now able to strive to overcome all kinds of barriers to learning (p. 144) since we know that we need to work with uncertainty, with trial and error. We can now accept the idea of being incomplete, of no longer being "the subject supposed to know" (p. 144), who is the ideal person who has mastery and expertise. Error and accidents do and always will exist.

• Emotional contact is essential: trying to further it (p. 147) EQ
• Educational challenges: constant need for self-analysis (p. 147) We need to admit, understand, and accept our own ignorance. We need to seek the wisdom of accepting imperfections.

• Solution> EQ > P. 131: "If education is our transference playground of love and hate, learning one's emotional situation provides the means for tolerating the very means of this education."
• Question: How can we make education--which consists of the transference of desire for knowledge and love--how can we make it tolerate uncertainty?
 
• P. 145: "The very act of thinking invokes the limit of thought."

 
• Silin, 2003- P. 265- "Ellsworth posited teaching as a performative act, at its best serving a catalytic function that incites students to construct their own meanings. Pedagogy is unpredictable, incomplete, and immeasurable in its impact."

• Is learning to be an educator the Achilles' heal of education, the impossible profession? Can this profession "escape the compliance, paranoia, and destruction of questions, which also occur under the name of education?" (p. 136)


Random Thoughts about Teaching...

Being a teacher, an educator, is no easy task. It is a very sensitive, delicate job that echoes in eternity … in our students’ lives… it shapes them into the future men and women that they will become.

Just like parenting… everyone can be a parent, but not everyone can be a good parent… why? Because it is one of the hardest things to do… so sensitive… every single thing we do as parents has a great effect on our kids. Few are the parents who realize that, especially those with no experience, with no maturity, and, most importantly, those who are still kids themselves (not necessarily age wise… but kids at heart who still need self-fulfillment, who still need the care of an adult, who are still searching for their dreams… for who they are. Sometimes, we spend our whole lives trying to do so.… but as a parent, so that we can really give our infants, we need to feel satisfied about how much we, ourselves, have already received. If we feel that we haven’t received enough, then we will consider our child as a hindrance, we will have no patience to show them, we cannot give them enough to be who they should be, because we are not yet who we want to be. We wouldn’t be bad parents, just not ready for the big responsibility of parenting.

So many feelings a mother can detect in her infant child, but never have I ever detected feelings of hatred!!! Never! I do not even believe that hatred exists in a baby’s limited dictionary of feelings! Need, ok… want, anger, desire, sadness… but not hatred! Hatred is such a big word… I do not even think it exists in my own dictionary.

Teachers and educators are just like parents… whenever they get angry, it is never with their students; it is with their own inability to understand the students’ behavior and deal with it in a way or another. I do not believe that we are ever angry with others… anger only comes from within. Only our feelings of weakness make us angry… otherwise, if we do understand the reasons of the behavior and manage to analyze it, it doesn’t make us angry anymore. As Britzman said, we think in order to deal with our emotions. And the more mature we are, the better we can think, hence the better we can situate our emotions and deal with them (Aristotle’s ANGER). Here is where I think that the teacher needs to have a high emotional intelligence… self awareness, impulse control…. I do believe that teachers should be trained to become emotionally intelligent so that they, themselves, can train their students to become so…. Since it is the measure for success. Maturity is so important, but at the same time, is not something we can just acquire because we want to or we can train student teachers to have. But EQ training can help a lot. Besides, teachers (just like parents) are supposed to have authority and prerogatives… use them! Learn what they are and apply them! Be consistent… but, more importantly, show love (we all need love). It never fails. Everyone understands the language of love and responds to it similarly… maybe not always at the beginning, but eventually (here link to the story of the echo in the mountain).

Meet students half way; do not shove the "truth" in their face.

Teaching is a science and an art.

Teaching is the Art of being able to admit

That we do not know everything
That we learn from our students as much as we teach them if not more
That we should always do our best
That we only get angry when we feel guilty
That we can only get rid of those feelings of guilt when we have admitted and accepted our imperfections
Teaching is the Art of
showing empathy and love
being able to show our human side
putting ourselves in our students' shoes
Goes hand in hand with EQ, and leadership skills: win/win, begin with the end in mind, mission statement.
No pedestal we are here together to see how u can learn best
Like mother is angel, teacher is another one placed on earth to serve best, to make lives easier by sharing knowledge as much as possible and more imp to instil curiosity and the yearning for learning and knowledge... that learning does not stop here
Not selfless we have to accept the fact that we too have needs for growth so that we reach fulfilment.

I am here to serve you, however so that I can do so you have to serve yourself first by abiding by the rules that enable us to function as a mini society
You should know that by choosing one end of the rope, you are also choosing its other end.

Students need to see clearly what's in it for them.
Involve them in setting rules/syllabus.

Just like when writing... we always have to write drafts ... read and reread... our writing is always a work in progress.
If we had to produce a final (perfect) draft from the first attempt, then we would get the "writer's bloc"... we would panic... and the result would be far from acceptable.
 

Relevant Links
Psychoanalysis today
Psychoanalysis today is an embattled discipline. What hope is there in the era of empirically validated treatments (1), which prizes brief structured interventions, for a therapeutic approach which defines itself by freedom from constraint and preconception (2), and counts treatment length not in terms of number of sessions but in terms of years? Can psychoanalysis ever demonstrate its effectiveness, let alone cost-effectiveness?

World Psychiatry. 2003 June; 2(2): 73–80.  Copyright World Psychiatric Association
Psychoanalysis today by PETER FONAGY1
 
 

Book; Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession by Janet Malcolm- 1982
On one level, the book is about the state of psychoanalysis in New York in the late 1970s.
On another level, the book is an opportunity for Janet Malcolm (herself the daughter of a psychiatrist) to analyze (indeed psychoanalyze) psychoanalysts, psychoanalysis, and Freud himself.
On a third level, the book is a meditation on themes of knowing and learning.

Description of an analyst and his office:

"The room was like an iconoclast's raised fist; this analyst's patients didn't come here to pass the time of day, it told you. Cross himself looked like the gnarled, tormented stubs of men that Bacon paints. You felt that he didn't sit down to meals but furtively gulped his food, like a stray animal; you fancied that his wife had left him years ago, and that for several days he hadn't noticed she was gone. He was a man without charm, without ease, without conceit or vanity, and with a kind of excruciating, prodding, twitching honesty that was like an intractable skin disorder." (p. 81)


Ms Malcolm says, "The job of the analyst isn't to offer the patient sympathy; it's to lead him to insight" (p. 75).
 

SIDE EFFECTS : (27) ESSAYS by Adam Phillips  (psychoanalyst), pp. 317, ISBN 0241142113 - 2006
"What happens in therapy has more to do with the therapist's past than the patient's." Source

"Psychoanalysis as a form of therapy works by attending to the patient's side effects, that is, 'what falls out of his pockets once he starts speaking'. Undergoing psychoanalytic treatment is in many ways like reading a powerful work of literature - a leap into the dark, an opportunity to think the strangeness of your own thoughts. It is impossible to know beforehand the effect it will have. All we can do, as the essays in this book suggest, is see where the side effects will lead us. And that is part of the excitement of being alive." Source
 

'The impossible professions': Freud and Foucault on doctors, educators, and ethical subjectivity
by Luxon, Nancy Lynn, PhD, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO, 2005
 
"I argue that the 'impossible professions' of politics, pedagogy, and psychoanalysis each elaborate a project both educational and political in nature: that of preparing individuals to cultivate and ethically exercise their political liberty as citizens."


The Impossible Patient Meets the Impossible Profession Under Impossible Conditions- Implications for Psychoanalytic Education
by Patrick B. Kavanaugh, Ph.D.- 1996

 
The profession of psychoanalysis qualified as one of the "Impossible Professions" as a consequence of the frustration of the analyst as the patient never quite reaches the analyst's theoretically anticipated goal of the analysis: that which "ought" to have happened did not. There are always unsatisfying results as the "ideal outcome" is never quite realized.


LETTER; The Impossible Profession- 2009

"Parenting is one of those impossible professions like, in Sigmund Freud's view, politics and psychoanalysis."
"The Sources of a Science of Education"
By John Dewey- New York: Liveright, 1929


Is Teaching a Science or an Art?

By A. Makedon- 1990


Glossary/Definitions

 
Nicolaus Copernicus:  Polish astronomer who is best known for the astronomical theory that the Sun was near the center of the universe and that the Earth and other planets rotated around the center.

Phantasy vs. Fantasy

Phantasy
Phantasy is a state of mind of an infant child during the early stages of development.
They are largely unconscious in that they are not differentiated from conscious reality. In their early, pre-linguistic existence, infants differentiate little, if at all, between reality and imagination.
Phantasies stem from genetic needs, drives and instincts. They appear in symbolic form in dreams, play and neuroses.
They are constructed from internal and external reality, modified by feelings, and emotions, and then projected into both real and imaginary objects.
Phantasies are the means by which infants make sense of the external world and hence relate to it through Projection and Introjection.

In Klein’s concept, phantasy emanates from within and imagines what is without, it offers an unconscious commentary on instinctual life and links feelings to objects and creates a new amalgam: the world of imagination. Through its ability to phantasize the baby tests out, primitively ‘thinks’ about, its experiences of inside and outside. (Mitchell, 1986)

Fantasy
Fantasy is a reverie, a daydream, an imagined unreality that anyone can create.
We fantasize consciously about future possibilities and fulfilment of our basic needs and wishes.
Fantasies may well include elements of the deeper unconscious phantasies.
 

Cartesian subject:
Unified through act of conscious awareness of self: je pense donc je suis. Being’s unity (Je-subject position) defined by/constructed through unified act of thinking (je pense).  Cartesian subject> rational, scientific, united in consciousness and awareness of self. for Descartes united through divine guarantee (God would not fool him/us); but god positioned outside of je pense donc je suis, > elevation of rationality over faith as center of being and consciousness. Consciousness located in mind, not body. Elevation of mind in importance as center of being, over body and its desires, its sinfulness. Elevation of human mind, not only with respect to divine mind, but independently—so that Deism comes to replace Feism.

Freudian Subject: entry into 20th Century shift away from unified subject conscious of self. Along with Marx’s divided consciousness of worker, with false consciousness/ alienation instead of conscious awareness of self; along with Nietzschean Will To Power also not present to self-consciousness. All these forms of divided, alienated, or unconscious subject positions are counter-intuitive, as opposed to unified, centered, conscious subject-identity we feel ourselves to have. we speak of having an identity, as though the “we” were naturally, obviously there. This is based on misrecognition, like that which Althusser refers to when the subject recognizes himself/herself in the interpellation of the Subject-Other. The act of constructing the subject’s self of itself, its position, is not viewed, only that which is called forth is viewed, is the object of consciousness.


Neurosis:

A mental and emotional disorder that affects only part of the personality, is accompanied by a distorted perception of reality, and is accompanied by various physical, physiological, and mental disturbances (as visceral symptoms [trouble swallowing, frequent belching, spells of coughing or vomiting, all carried to an uncommon extreme], anxieties, or phobias)-- (M-W)


Immanuel Kant (22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804)

 
Kant was an 18th-century German philosopher and epistemologist. He was the last influential philosopher of modern Europe in the classic sequence of the theory of knowledge during the Enlightenment beginning with thinkers John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume.

One of his most prominent works is the Critique of Pure Reason, an investigation into the limitations and structure of reason itself. The other main works of his maturity are the Critique of Practical Reason, which concentrates on ethics, and the Critique of Judgment, which investigates aesthetics and teleology.

Kant suggested that by understanding the sources and limits of human knowledge we can ask fruitful metaphysical questions.

Kant believed himself to be creating a compromise between the empiricists and the rationalists. The empiricists believed that knowledge is acquired through experience alone, but the rationalists maintained that such knowledge is open to Cartesian doubt and that reason alone provides us with knowledge. Kant argues, however, that using reason without applying it to experience will only lead to illusions, while experience will be purely subjective without first being subsumed under pure reason.


Aporia

Philosophical puzzle or a seemingly insoluble impasse in an inquiry, often arising as a result of equally plausible yet inconsistent premises.

The expression of real or simulated doubt or perplexity. Source


Dasein

The word Dasein has been used by several philosophers before Heidegger, most notably Ludwig Feuerbach, with the meaning of human "existence" or "presence". It is derived from da-sein, which literally means being-there/there-being, though Heidegger was adamant that this was an inappropriate translation of Dasein. In German, Dasein is the German vernacular term for existence, as in I am pleased with my existence (ich bin mit meinem Dasein zufrieden). According to Heidegger, however, it must not be mistaken for a subject, that is something definable in terms of consciousness or a self.


Oedipus complex

Unconscious (dynamically repressed) ideas and feelings which centre around the desire to possess the parent of the opposite sex and eliminate the parent of the same sex... According to Sigmund Freud, the Oedipus complex is a universal phenomenon, built in phylogenetically, and is responsible for much unconscious guilt.


Transference

A phenomenon in psychoanalysis characterized by unconscious redirection of feelings from one person to another. One definition of transference is "the inappropriate repetition in the present of a relationship that was important in a person's childhood."[1] Another definition is "the redirection of feelings and desires and especially of those unconsciously retained from childhood toward a new object."[2] Still another definition is "a reproduction of emotions relating to repressed experiences, esp[ecially] of childhood, and the substitution of another person ... for the original object of the repressed impulses."[3] Transference was first described by Sigmund Freud, who acknowledged its importance for psychoanalysis for better understanding of the patient's feelings.

Transference occurs when a person takes the perceptions and expectations of one person and projects them onto another person. They then interact with the other person as if the other person is that transferred pattern. Source

Transference in psychotherapy is typically an unconscious process where the attitudes, feelings, and desires of our very early significant relationships get transferred onto the therapist. Source
 

Countertransference
Redirection of a psychotherapist's feelings toward a client -- or, more generally, as a therapist's emotional entanglement with a client.

It occurs when the therapist begins to project his or her own unresolved conflicts onto the client. While transference of the client’s conflicts onto the therapist is considered a healthy and normal part of psychodynamic therapy, the therapist’s job is to remain neutral. At one time, counter-transference was widely believed to contaminate the therapeutic relationship. Current thinking is more complex. Source

Countertransference is a therapist’s counter- reaction. Source


Projection

Projecting our own feelings, emotions or motivations into another person without realizing our reaction is really more about us than it is about the other person.


Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud (6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was a Jewish-Austrian neurologist who founded the psychoanalytic school of psychiatry.[1] Freud is best known for his theories of the unconscious mind and the defense mechanism of repression, and for creating the clinical practice of psychoanalysis for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient, technically referred to as an "analysand", and a psychoanalyst. Freud is also renowned for his redefinition of sexual desire as the primary motivational energy of human life, as well as for his therapeutic techniques, including the use of free association, his theory of transference in the therapeutic relationship, and the interpretation of dreams as sources of insight into unconscious desires.


August Aichhorn

He is considered a founder of psychoanalytic education. He wrote "Wayward Youth: A Psychoanalytic Study of Delinquent Children."
Read the Foreword by SIGMUND FREUD.


Wayward

1 : following one's own capricious, wanton, or depraved inclinations : ungovernable <a wayward child>
2 : following no clear principle or law : unpredictable
3 : opposite to what is desired or expected : untoward <wayward fate>


Sine qua non

Something absolutely indispensable or essential.


Techne

It is derived from a Greek word which is often translated as craftsmanship, craft, or art. It is the rational method involved in producing an object or accomplishing a goal or objective. The means of this method is through art. Techne resembles episteme in the implication of knowledge of principles, although techne differs in that its intent is making or doing, as opposed to "disinterested understanding."


Episteme

It is etymologically derived from a Greek word for knowledge or science.


Hegel

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (August 27, 1770 – November 14, 1831) was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism. His historicist and idealist account of reality as a whole revolutionized European philosophy and was an important precursor to Continental philosophy and Marxism.

Hegel developed a comprehensive philosophical framework, or "system", to account in an integrated and developmental way for the relation of mind and nature, the subject and object of knowledge, and psychology, the state, history, art, religion and philosophy. In particular, he developed a concept of mind or spirit that manifested itself in a set of contradictions and oppositions that it ultimately integrated and united, without eliminating either pole or reducing one to the other. Examples of such contradictions include those between nature and freedom, and between immanence and transcendence.

His website: http://www.gwfhegel.org/
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
The Absolute Truth vs. Absolute Freedom

In theory Hegel's Absolute Idea is the Absolute Truth; in practice the latter is not known and grasped yet. Here we can see the contradiction between Cognition and Volition and its sublation (elimination)- presumably, both are sublated by the Absolute Idea despite the fact that the latter is defined as Absolute Truth only. In his highly cognitive and intellectual philosophy Hegel tries to examine the Volition conscientiously and methodically but he abides by his Science of Logic in which he grasps the Volition as Notion.


Wilfred Bion

Wilfred Ruprecht Bion (8 September 1897 – 8 November 1979) was a British psychoanalyst. A pioneer in group dynamics.
Bion's training included an analysis with Melanie Klein following World War II. He was a leading member in the Kleinian school while in London, but his theories, which were always based in the phenomena of the analytic encounter, eventually revealed radical departures from both Kleinian and Freudian theory.[1] While Bion is most well known outside of the psychoanalytic community for his work on group dynamics, the psychoanalytic conversation that explores his work is concerned with his theory of thinking and his model of the development of a capacity for thought.

Bion uses as his starting point the phenomenology of the analytic hour. He selects two principles as his underlying assumptions, “the emergence of truth and mental growth. The mind grows through exposure to truth.”

Read excerpts from Bion's "Taming Wild Thoughts"

Bion, W.R. (1979a). Making the best of a Bad Job. Bulletin British Psycho-Analytical Society, February 1979. Reprinted in Clinical Seminars and Four Papers(1987). [Reprinted in Clinical Seminars and Other Works. London: Karnac Books, 1994].


Esoteric

1.understood by or meant for only the select few who have special knowledge or interest; recondite: poetry full of esoteric allusions.
2.belonging to the select few.
3.private; secret; confidential.
4.(of a philosophical doctrine or the like) intended to be revealed only to the initiates of a group: the esoteric doctrines of Pythagoras.

Narcissism
1 : egoism, egocentrism
2 : love of or sexual desire for one's own body

It refers to the personality trait of egotism, which includes the set of character traits concerned with self-image ego > denotes vanity, conceit, egotism or simple selfishness.
Freud believed that some narcissism is an essential part of all of us from birth.
Andrew P. Morrison claims that, in adults, a reasonable amount of healthy narcissism allows the individual's perception of his needs to be balanced in relation to others. Source


Sarah Kofman

Sarah Kofman (September 14, 1934 – October 15, 1994) was a French philosopher. She was the author of numerous books, including several on Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud. Her book, L'énigme de la femme: La femme dans les textes de Freud (1980), is perhaps the most thorough consideration of Freud's ideas concerning female sexuality.


Teleology

The philosophical study of telos, i.e., of purpose, aim, end and/or design.


7 Ps (military adage)

5 Ps: Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance

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Readings 12- Curriculum as Aesthetic Text
(Greene- Ellsworth- Paley- Pinar Chap. 11)
.
1. Maxine Greene: "Releasing the Imagination" (Chapters 1-3) - 2000 [Worth Reading! Esp. chap. 1]
• P. 9: "Traditional notions of ways to achieve efficiency feed into claims that schools can be manipulated from without to meet predetermined goals" with teachers and students having to comply and serve without stating
• how they think things out to be
• what they can do to affect restructuring
• what they can do to transform their classrooms

=> So this is the problem!!! From without!!! When we critique all the standards, all the standardized tests, all the goals and objectives that are already set, we are actually critiquing one thing: the fact they were set by third parties who have nothing to do with the particular school!
What is wrong with standards? What is wrong with tests? What is wrong with goals and objectives???
NOTHING!!! I do believe it is very good to have them... HOWEVER... they are only good after they have been tailored to the specific students' needs in each particular school! And in order for that to happen, teachers (and, if possible, students) should have a say in the curriculum and in the tests given.

• Pp. 10-11: Seeing the world big or small:

• Those who see things/people big:
- regular people > see the world as something great, glorious
- are concerned with concreteness of everyday life
- view humans in their integrity and particularity
- be in close contact with details and particularities that cannot be reduced to statistics or to the measurable.
- can be in all types of schools... can be all types of teachers (the good and the bad and the in between)
• Those who see things/people small:
- great men, leaders, generals > see the world small in order to be able to deal with lives and deaths
- see from a detached point of view
- see from the perspective/lenses of a system, the lenses of policy making
- are concerned with trends and tendencies
- see from a position of power or existing ideologies
- view humans as mere objects, chess pieces: screens out the faces and gestures of individuals, of actual living persons
- are not conscious of names and histories
- are preoccupied with test scores, time on task, management procedures, ethnic and racial percentages, accountability measures

=> One must see from the point of view of the participants > in order to see the plans they make, the initiatives they take, the uncertainties they face.
 

<=> Teachers need to move back and forth between the 2 domains. They should:
• comprehend the domains of policy + long-term planning
• attend to particular children, situation-specific undertakings, the unmeasurable, the unique
• refuse artificial separations of the school from the environment, refuse decontextualizations, attend to the educational reality
> take account of connections and continuities that cannot always be neatly defined
> attend to the impact of street life
> be aware of students' family life
> be conscious of the dramas played out on the playgrounds, in hospitals and clinics, in welfare offices, in shelters... in every place that might affect students' lives (police stations, churches, drug-dealers' corners, parks, libraries, TV screens...)
.
• Pp. 12-13: Restructuring movement underway that does not require teachers to choose between seeing big and seeing small.
Howard Gardner (at Harvard'sProject Zero) and Theodore Sizer (among others): > the curriculum should be
• knowledge-based
• interdisciplinary
• capable of connecting with students


The factors that are important in teaching (under the new reform efforts):

• care
• end to violations
• connectedness
• moral commitment
• grasping total picture
• imagination (on the part of teachers)
• recognition that young people will require:
• a great range of habits of mind
• a great number of complex skills
• a capacity to deal with catastrophes (ecological disasters, floods, pollution, unprecedented storms, chemotherapy, life support decisions...)
• a capacity to deal critically and intelligently with demagogues, call-in shows, mystifying ads...
• the ability to perform adequate planning (organizational thinking, knowledge of how to see things small)
• treating students as potential active learners who can BEST learn if
• they are faced with real tasks
• they discover models of craftsmanship and honest work
• being reflective teachers who listen to their students > so that they entertain ideas for action that transcend the lesson plan (Donald Schön, 1983).
 
Only when teachers can engage with learners as distinctive, questioning persons--persons in the process of defining themselves--can they (teachers) develop "authentic assessment" measures that lead to the construction of new curricula (p. 13).
.
2. Elizabeth Ellsworth: "Pedagogy's Time and Place" - 2004

3. Nicholas Paley: "Remaking the Educational Imagination" - 2005

4. Pinar: Chap. 11




---

 
Relevant Books
• Curriculum Leadership: Strategies for Development and Implementation- by Allan A. Glatthorn- 2009
• The Autobiographical Demand of Place: Curriculum Inquiry in the American South- by Brian Casemore- 2008
• Transformative Curriculum Leadership (3rd Edition) - by James G. Henderson- 2006
• Turning Points in Curriculum: A Contemporary American Memoir- by J. Dan Marshall- 2006
• Bitter Milk: Women and Teaching- by Madeleine Grumet- 1988
• Le Deuxieme Sexe/ the Second Sex (French Edition)- by Simone De Beauvoir- 1976
.
Relevant Links
• Rethink Learning Now
• The Forum for Education and Democracy- Learning & Teaching
A central aim of the United States must therefore be to support public schools in their most important task— providing high-quality learning and teaching that foster the development in the young of the habits of mind, heart and being that make democracy possible.

To guide our work in this area, we believe in the following statements:
 

• School experiences should be designed to nurture in all children the habits of judgment that democratic life requires.  These habits are referred to as higher order thinking skills and include, but are not limited to, the abilities to read and think critically, to speak and write persuasively, to engage in inquiry and problem solving in the social world as well as in mathematics and the sciences, to be open to multiple points of view, to weigh and assess evidence, and to use advanced technologies as a tool for understanding the world around them.
• Instruction and curriculum should be developmentally appropriate, and should actively engage students in exploring their world.  Curricula should be relevant and of high interest to young people, and delve deeply into the conflicting claims inherent in democracy itself.  Instruction should engage students in actively working on ideas and concepts as they learn skills and content.
• Assessment of learning should be consistent with what we want our students to learn.  This means we cannot rely simply upon tests of rote memory or recognition, but must also use assessments that are performance-based – representing authentic tasks and products that assess what students can actually do.  These performances should be public so as to inform the community of student achievement and should be judged against high standards of competence.
• Our schools should reflect the diversity of our nation, both in the make up of the student body and teaching force, and in the content with which our children are engaged.  The school experience should be grounded in the world around our children, both local and global, in order to expand their horizons and understandings of the world in which they live.
• Schools should use the community as a learning resource, engaging students in work that makes a difference in their community as well as inviting the community to make a difference in the lives of their children.
• Those closest to children -- their families and teachers -- should be primarily entrusted with reassessing the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of school practices.  The balance and tension between professional and family judgment, and between national, state and local authority, must always be transparent and open to considered review.
• Our schools should be organized to be small and personalized enough so all children and adults are well known to each other and each is part of the various actions that contribute to the general welfare of the classroom, school, and the larger community.
• Educators should educate students to make thoughtful, informed decisions. They must not indoctrinate students in their own views.  Schools should support such critiques and protect students’ freedom to reason and express their own conclusions.

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Back to "Nada's ESL Island" ||  Back to Curriculum Theory
Foundations of Curriculum Theory: Notes & Reflections
Analysis of the Role of Teachers as Articulated in Kliebard, Tyler, and Apple Texts
The ESL Reading Curriculum: New Lenses
Education, One of the Impossible Professions
Emotional Intelligence (EQ) in Curriculum Theory: Why EQ Skills should be Incorporated in Teacher Education/Training
Integrating Technology in the Classroom- TPACK
Handbook of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK) for Educators
Instructional Systems Design - ISD

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