Images of Curriculum:¦ The Formless

William E. Doll, Jr.

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¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ Before the sea and land had formed,

¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ there was one face of nature, called Chaos;

¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ it was just a rough and inharmonious mass.

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¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ Nothing had its own shape,

¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ and everything got in the way

¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ of everything else.

¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ (Ovid, Metamorphoses, lines 5-7, 16-18)

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¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ The metamorphosis, of course, is that out of this rough and inharmonious mass, shape begins to appear:¦ from chaos comes order. Ilya Prigogine and Isabell Stengers (1984) entitle their book, Order Out of Chaos, while Stuart Kauffman (1995) in his At Home in the Universe, calls this phenomenon, order for free. Fritjof Capra, in The Web of Life (1996), says we are now creating a new (ecological) synthesis, while Lynn Margulis, in Symbiotic Planet (1998), says emergent order is the process of symbiogenesis -- the miraculous transformation (over time) from everything getting in the way of everything else to wholistic cooperation among antagonistic parts, leading to a new sense of evolving¦ order.¦ In short, a number of contemporary, post-modern thinkers are taking seriously A. N. Whiteheads statements (a) that it lies in the nature of things for the many to enter into complex unity (1978/1929, p. 21) and (b) that this entering into process, that of becoming, is what being is all about (p. 23).

¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ The image of curriculum I have in mind is not that of a firm formlessness, nor of a firm anything.¦ Rather it is of form emerging continually, often out of antagonistic parts.¦ The curriculum, then, is in continual transformation, ever evolving, ever changing -- and yet having a sense of shape to it.¦ This shape, always fuzzy, always fractaled is actually created by the process itself.¦ To quote Francisco Varela (1995)¦ himself an interactionist:

¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ Autopoesis . . . is a circular network process that engenders

¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ a paradox:¦ a self-organizing network (that creates its own

¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ boundaries). . . .¦ (A) network produces entities that create

¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ a boundary, which constrains the network which produced

¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ the boundary. . . . (What is unique about this process is that) it

¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ has produced its own boundary.¦ It doesnt require an external

¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ agent. (p. 212)

To think in terms of a process which regulates, bounds, generates its own self -- Kauffmans order for free or Prigogines order out of chaos, or Margulis symbiogenesis -- is to think in terms radically different from those we have considered as natural to curriculum.¦

¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ Ever since Peter Ramus gave us the word curriculum in 1576 (see attached diagram, Appendix A, as well as Doll 2001, and Doll and Gough 2001) we have seen curriculum as a plan set.¦ We may indeed, and often do, change the curriculum, but it is we -- as external agents -- who do the changing, the curriculum does not change itself.¦ From Peter Ramus to Ralph Tyler, just about four centuries, we have seen curriculum as a set plan, indeed as a preset plan (Doll, 1993).¦ That is, the curriculum is set before the teaching begins, our lesson plans of material to be covered are devised prior to, not after, our teaching (except, of course, for those teachers who cheat).¦ The line from Ramus to Tyler is not direct, it does wander through Bacon, Comenius, Descartes, Locke, Herbart, Bobbitt and Cubberley.¦ Nor is the line one, there are overlaps and recursions.¦ Still it is possible, I believe, to see a series or pattern of interlocking threads running throughout these four centuries, four centuries during which the Western, modernist frame developed its unique qualities.¦ Thus I believe it fair to say that the Ramus--Tyler idea of curriculum fits nicely with modernist thinking, almost as a well turned glove fits a hand.¦ It might be possible to develop the following diagrammatic:

¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ R - T¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ ?????

¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ -------¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ ---------

¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦ Modernism¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ ¦ ¦¦Post-Modernism

As the Ramus--Tyler rationale has been to modernism, so, proportionally, ?????¦ will be to post-modernism; modernism and post-modernism being two quite different ways of viewing the world, reality, epistemology, education (see Doll, 1993, St. Julien 2001 for an explication of these differences; and Wright, 2000 for a fine indexing of the debate about the relationship between the modern and the post-modern).¦

¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ My own attempt to fill the void where the ?????s sit, to form a frame for the post-modern, has been to suggest, in a playful and apoiriatic manner, a Euclidean 3-4-5 right triangle:¦

¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦

¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ _________

The four represents the 4 Rs of a good curriculum:¦ richness, recursion, relations, rigor (Doll, 1993, Ch. 7); while the five represents the 5 Cs of curricula types: ¦currere, complexity, cosmology, conversation, community (Doll and Gough, 2001). The three represents the 3 Ss of our curricular ways of viewing the world; the curricular metaphysics we have adopted:¦ science, story, spirit.¦ All together this modernist, Euclidean triangle represents, in a playful way, our cosmological sense of curriculum:¦ criteria, types, ways of viewing or modes of thought.¦ It is the 3Ss that Id like to focus on in this essay, the others have been delineated a bit, as already noted.

¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ Since the Enlightenment at least, we in the West have used science -- the word expanded here to include logic and reason, not just the activity of doing science -- as the way to view the world in which we live.¦ Jerome Bruner (1986, Ch. 2) calls this logical, analytic, scientific way of thought paradigmatic -- it dominates and controls all our thinking.¦ When we speak of curriculum organization we naturally assume this mode of thought.¦ But this is limiting.¦ Again referring to Bruner, the analytic (rational, logical, scientific) is explanatory only (p. 12).¦ For the intuitive, imaginative,interpretative we need to turn to other modes of thought, other ways of viewing the world; ways which are complementary and co-equal, neither contradictory nor subservient to the scientific. In my alliterative sense I suggest, following Bruner, that we look upon these other modes of thought as the storied, and, not following Bruner, the spirit-full.¦ [Please refer to Appendix B for a diagrammatic vision.]

¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ In the diagram I am suggesting that story -- filled with narration, culture, personality, metaphor, interpretation, the subjective -- is a fine curricular complement to the scientific/analytic/rational/logical.¦ Neither of these modes outdoes the other, each complements the other, and each is needed for a curriculum to be alive -- not filled with those dead, inert facts, the examination knowledge, Whitehead so deplored (1967/1929, pp. 2 - 5).¦

¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ The aliveness of a curriculum, also refers to a curriculums spirit --¦ its vital integrity to borrow a phrase from George Santayana (1968, p. 190).¦ It is not usual to talk of curriculum having a spirit but I do believe that all our curricular disciplines have spirits, breaths of life, modes or ways of being.¦ For mathematics this spirit is that of logical consistency, for science it is that of discovery and prediction, for language it is that of interpretation, and for social studies it is that of being human.¦ Each of these spirits, I argue, leads to the mysterium tremendum of life, to the tremendous mystery of Being.¦ I believe curriculum should be filled with such a sense of spirit;¦ it should be spirit-full.¦ And that spirit-fullness should lead us ( Yes, I am being perjorative here) to an appreciation of lifes mystery, complexity, awesomeness.¦ Life began how ?¦ Some will say from the formless void, others will say by the hand of an uncreated creator, others will say by chance, others that it came naturally.¦ However it came, life is awesome.¦ I believe our image of curriculum should reflect that awesomeness and the sense of creation it inspires..¦ Further, I believe that as life has emerged, so should curriculum emerge, evolving into a complex wholeness in the process of becoming -- the formed from the formless.

References:

Bruner, J. (1986).¦ Actual Minds, Possible Worlds.¦ Cambridge, MA:¦ Harvard ¦¦¦¦¦¦ University, Press.

Capra, F. (1996). The Web of Life.¦ New York:¦ Anchor Books.

Doll. W. (1993). A Post-Modern Perspective on Curriculum.¦ New York:¦ Teachers ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ College Press.

Doll, W. (2001). Beyond Methods ? In P. Marochnick, ed.¦ Passion and ¦¦ Pedagogy.¦ ¦New York:¦ Peter Lang.

Doll, W. and Gough. N. (2001). Curriculum Visions:¦ New York:¦ Peter Lang.

Kauffman. S. (1995). At Home in the Universe.¦ New York:¦ Oxford University ¦¦¦¦¦¦ Press.

Ovid (1976). Metamorphoses. (S. Garth trans.).¦ New York:¦ Garland.¦ (Original ¦¦¦¦ publication, 1732)

Margulis, L.¦ (1998).¦ Symbiotic Planet. {XXXXXXXXXX}

Prigogine, I. and Stengers I. (1984). Order out of Chaos.¦ New York:¦ Bantam ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ Books.

St. Julien, John (2001).¦ Haunting Curriculum, or Visions of Curriculum Past, ¦¦¦¦¦¦ Curriculum Present, and a Vision of What is Yet-to-Come.¦ In W. Doll and N. ¦¦¦¦¦¦ Gough, eds. Curriculum Visions.¦ New York:¦ Peter Lang.

Santayana, G. (1968). The German Mind.¦ New York:¦ Thomas Crowell Co.

Varela, F. (1995).¦ The Emergent Self.¦ In J. Brockman, ed.. The Third Culture.

¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ New York;¦ Simon & Schuster¦ (pp. 209-223)

Whitehead, A. N. (1967).¦ Aims of Education.¦ New York:¦ Free Press. (Original ¦¦¦ publication, 1929)

Whitehead, A. N. (1978). Process and Reality.¦ (D. Griffin & D.Shelburne, eds).¦ ¦¦ New York:¦ Free Press. (Original publication, 1929).¦

Wright, H. (2000).¦ Nailing Jello to the Wall.¦ In Educational Researcher, Vol. 5, ¦ June-July 2000 (pp. 4 - 13).

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