Bringing Out the Dead: Curriculum History as Memory (original) (raw)

2013, Journal of Curriculum Theorizing

If there requires further evidence of the rude, undeveloped character of our education, we have it in the fact that the comparative worths (sic) of different kinds of knowledge have been as yet scarcely even discussed-much less discussed in a methodic way with definite results. (Spencer, 1884 p. 10) Memory is the raw material of history. Whether mental, oral, or written, it is the living source from which historians draw. (Le Goff, 1977/1992 p. xi) Making fragile the causalities that present themselves as natural and given in daily life is to open spaces for possibilities other than those framed by the contemporary principles of 'the order of things.' (Popkewitz, 2011 p. 164) From this standpoint, reexamination of the historical operation opens on the one hand onto the political problem … and, on the other, onto the question of the subject … a question repressed … through the law of a 'scientific' writing. (de Certeau, 1988 p. xxvii) HERE ARE THE FRAMEWORKS WE CHOOSE TO USE, like Spencer's eternal question, and then there are those we do not choose, but which nevertheless operate, some subverting intent and others opening spaces for possibility. If the frameworks upon which we habitually rely serve to divert us from all but dominant forms of memory, then silenced or invisible frameworks become a form of surveillance from beyond the grave. The Reconceptualization of curriculum studies (Pinar & Grumet, 1976; Pinar, 2013) has long acknowledged the necessity of historical perspective for the purpose of revealing the ways in which history is, and has been, used to codify socio-political/ideological contexts. Nevertheless, curriculum history has largely averted poststructuralist deconstruction and has remained firmly wedded to a teleology of reason, T Hendry & Winfield w Bringing Out the Dead