In the chapter of her book called “Monsters in Literature” Britzman (2006) describes one of her early teaching experiences where her prepared curriculum did not fit the students she met when she entered the classroom. She presents the difficulty of creating a curriculum without knowing the students. The work of French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas has been taken up in Education by people like Sharon Todd (2001, 2008) and he speaks to the (im)possibility of knowing the Other- who can be a person, a child, parts of our selves, groups, ideas, things, and more. Britzman and Todd both question the assumptions that are made in teaching literature to young adults: Books are often chosen for their ability to inspire specific thought and action. These reflections have helped me to question the assumptions made in early childhood education when we select materials and experiences that are expected to motivate particular learning outcomes.
As I was thinking about these ideas, I came across a few sources discussing Bloom’s controversial “Western Canon” (1994). This list of books forced me to confront ideas about the value held in a text. Sharon Todd says “reading embodies both a surprising transformative force and a time of belatedness. That is, we do not know prior to our reading of a book what effect that book will have on us; nor can we predict how others will or should respond to that book” (2008, p. 51).
Here is a power point presentation about the concept of a Canon that I found online (Mahmut, 2007):
As I thought about the Canon and questioned how our early childhood curriculums might make similar assumptions- I recognized how I have been talking about breaking down the gap between theory and practice without recognizing the space in between concepts, as a space of being and reflection. Levinas (Todd, 2001) speaks about ethical moments taking place in brief encounters when we are face-to-face with the Other and- despite the fact that we will always hear and see the Other through our own lens and interpretations- we can recognize that something is being said that is not a part of us and we must respect that gap- the Other’s complete alterity. I think it is in this gap- this void for being- that we can question the theories we have become blind to; that have been woven seamlessly into our practice. In the presentation posted above there is a quote about the value Bloom ascribed to literature- strangeness. I wonder how this idea can be taken up in our classrooms- if we look at, for example, how art in early childhood has become strange- different from art done in other environments. How does thinking differently help us to recognize different theories and meanings in our practice?
Bloom, H. (1994). The Western Canon: The Books and Schools of the Ages. Appendixes. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company.
Britzman, D. P. (2006). Novel education: Psychoanalytic studies of learning and not learning. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. Retrieved from http://books.google.ca/books?id=tppiMsRJ-N8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=britzman+novel+education&source=bl&ots=uQuOyTj8P5&sig=tLAGtnPTBHB6mG-IIMlzepJPdOg&hl=en&ei=38DpTJaiBobQsAPe4KWxCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Mahmut, K. (2007). Canon & Value [online powerpoint presentation]. Retrieved from http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/kedimahmut-26265-canon-formation-value-criticism-literary-david-hume-harold-bloom-education-ppt-powerpoint/
Todd, S. (2001). On not knowing the other, or learning from Levinas. Philosophy of Education, 67-74.
Todd, S. (2008). The belated time of reading, or inconsolable ethics. Philosophy of Education, 51-53. Retrieved from http://ojs.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/pes/article/viewFile/1341/91
Lucy your discussion of Curriculum created through assumptions made me reflect back to my readings with Gaile Cannella. She discusses the impact that developmental practice has made on the concept of curriculum within the classrooms of early childhood education. She writes of the influence of Jean-Jacque Rousseau and Frederik Froebel:
ReplyDelete"These individuals have at least dominated the discourse of both arly childhood education and liberal constructions of curriculum. As Pinar, Reynolds, Slattery, and Taubman(1995) have suggested: 'Before the Enlightenment, curriculum was assumed to be a spiritual journey; afterward, curriculum denoted a means of social engineering and progress'" (Cannella, 1997, p.94-95)
This quote speaks to the assumptions that curriculum have been designed through and the shift in thought about what education is for. The idea of curriculum as a "spiritual journey" is very provoking and reflects a very different time before ECE became dominated by the truths of Developmentally Appropriate Practice.
Cannella,S, G. (1997). Deconstruction Early Childhood Education: Social Justice& Revolution. New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing , Inc.