The Hermeneutic Circle and Postmodern Community

Curriculum development in the postmodern era includes an approach to understanding the meaning of texts, language, relationships, historical artifacts, and schooling called hermeneutics. Simply put, hermeneutics can be described as the art of interpretations.

Postmodern curriculum inquiry is also concerned with the ambiguous and ironic dimensions of education: an unexpected question triggers an exciting and provocative tangent; the changing moods and emotions of individuals create a unique and often perplexing life-world in classrooms; the same methodology is not always successful with every group of students: atmospheric changes in the weather alter the atmosphere of the school. Teachers can’t predict the ambiguous and ironic nature of life itself, especially in the classroom, and postmodern understandings of hermeneutics as an investigation into the ambiguous nature of being and knowledge now inform and enrich contemporary curriculum paradigms.

Hermeneutics, in its broadest formulation, is the theory of interpreting oral traditions, verbal communications, and aesthetic products. Traditional hermeneutics was originally concerned with understanding religious texts, canonical scriptures, and non-canonical writings within their own historical, cultural, and social milieu. Postmodernists would say such an interpretive task is impossible because the worldview of contemporary societies cannot replicate ancient cosmologies and subjectivities in which the original text was produced. It is also understood as the art of understanding the sense of the text.

Semiotics, the study of the meaning of language and the relationship between signs, symbols, and historical representation, critiques, hidden assumptions, uncovers excluded meanings, and deconstructs religious interpretations. Semiotics has been defined as :the science of life signs in society.” Semiotics offers the promise of a systematic, comprehensive and coherent study of communications phenomena as a whole. It attributes power to meaning rather than meaning to power. Like hermeneutics it is concerned with interpretation of texts, contexts, or artifacts.

Postmodern curriculum development will no longer turn to bureaucratic authorities to dictate the official methodologies of instruction and the official interpretation of texts. Educators wil not be seen as passive receptors of a “teacher proof curriculum” who simply implement standardized goals and objectives. Instead a postmodern community of interpreters and teachers will enter the hermeneutic circle and engage each other in the process of understanding the text, the lived experience, and the self in relation to the other. This will support the three fundamental elements of inquiry that comprise the hermeneutic circle at work in all human understanding. 1-The inherent creativity of interpretation, 2-The pivotal role of language in human understanding and 3-the interplay of part and whole in the process of interpretation.

Curriculum scholars must be cautioned that hermeneutic inquiry has the potential of infuriating and inciting those committed to traditional authoritative and bureaucratic structures.

Postmodern hermeneutics uncovers, interprets, clarifies, deconstructs, and challenges all fields of study, including curriculum development models and methods that have been enshrined for decades.

The hermeneutic circle will inform the upcoming discussions of race, gender, ethnicity, philosophy, ecology, politics, aesthetics, autobiography, and science.

Part II: Contemporary Curriculum Development Paradigms

Part two of this book introduces us to the scholarship of various postmodern curriculum discourses that are emerging in the 1990s.

Postmodern Schooling, Curriculum, and the Theological Text

Modernity has gradually attempted to remove theology and religion from the canon of respectable fields of study in public schools and secular universities. Postmodernity seeks to restore the prominence of theology and spirituality in curriculum discourses and practices.

Modern schooling has enshrined the written word as a historical artifact to be memorized, comprehended, and regurgitated on a standardized test. In contrast the postmodern views the text as a phenomenological encounter between word and reader. Reading the text is more closely associated with the Latin Ruminare (to ruminate and think things over). “Meaning is something we make out of what we find when we look at texts. It is not the text. [Unfortunately,} the myth of the meaningful text still flourishes in the classroom.” The Reconceptualization has challenged educators to wrest meaning from the grips of behavioral knowledge and return it to artistic expression so that students have something to do with texts in schools.

Postmodern scholars propose a model of curriculum as theological text where the educational enterprise will include the metaphysical dialogue. In this proposal self-reflection, intuition, nonrational discourse, nonlinear teaching methodologies, meditation, and wisdom are all encouraged and nurtured in the curriculum.
Modernity has encouraged the isolation of the individual, frozen in quantifiable time and space, unable to establish personal relationships, unable to remember past experiences, and incapable of affecting the future course of global events. A modern intelligentsia that disparages self-understanding is no better than premodern fundamentalists who denigrate rigorous intellectual investigation. A constructive postmodern curriculum, however, integrates both theology and self-reflection.

Many public schools and universities believe the addition of a course in Bible as literature, a degree program in comparative religion, or a moment of silence at graduation ceremonies will fully address the theological question in the curriculum. These views are problematic. A vision of a new model that integrates spirituality and theology throughout the school curriculum and community is the alternative that is being proposed.

Students should be given time and space during the day, within academic organizations, and throughout academic experiences to question, reflect, investigate, mediate, and ponder. Leisurely and thought-provoking visits to museums, nature trails, historical sites, etc. should exist. There should be reflective dialogue with the community, politicians, activists, etc. Community involvement in environmental projects, health and social services, etc. will be a priority. The borders between school and community will dissolve and the quality of reverent relationships will replace the quantity of correct answers on tests. Curriculum theorists contend that in this environment prayer does not need to be mandated or prohibited, it will flow from within the individual’s experiences of life.

Creating stimulating learning environments is not dependent on the latest technology. Teachers don’t have to be actors, magicians, or technicians to interest young people in education. Teachers and parents are encouraged to be guides who will inspire students to seek wisdom and understanding as part of a community of learners. Teachers, administrators and parents aren’t experts with all the answers but fellow travelers on the lifelong journey of learning.

If the theological curriculum is the active process of seeking, running, and ruminating, then the evolution of postmodern schooling will provide the milieu where spirituality, mystery, intuition, poetry, ethics, and religious sensibilities can flourish.

The Reconceptualization of Curriculum and Instruction

As an administrator in different schools Slattery was bombarded with innovative reforms, new technology, district programs, and packaged curricular materials designed to solve his educational problems. He won an Excellence in Education (now called Blue Ribon) award for his school from the State DOE. Afterwards there was tremendous pride in the local community. During the next school year, there was bitterness and jealousy. It had the affect of generating distrust and friction. This set the stage for Slattery’s thinking around the importance of cooperative models to replace rampant competitiveness.

Traditional curriculum development programs have a commitment to organized goals, measurable objectives, and mastery evaluation to achieve a specified educational outcome. A central feature of the Reconceptualization is attentiveness to autobiographical and phenomenological experience. Pinar’s method of currere challenges educators to begin with the individual experience and then make broader connections. Postmodern curriculum is attentive to both interconnectedness of all experiences and the importance of the autobiographical perspective.

Slattery reflects on his teacher training programs for new teachers and recalls his own experiences as he selects textbooks, structures the learning experiences, and evaluates assignments. He uses Pinar’s autobiographical method rather then the Tylerian rationale. One tangible change Reconceptualization has had on his teaching is that students sit in a seminar circle and he encourages students to share their personal perspectives. Students concerns about their needs and expectations are valued and honored. He exposes them to autobiographical methods and assigns a jounal to be kept.

He states that curriculum development in the postmodern era will see the emergence of more journals, portfolios, and autobiographical methodologies. Reconceptualization has reminded educators that we can no longer remain ahistorical, detached, impersonal, and “behaviorally objective.” In the process of exploring meaning and knowledge, we can no longer separate the context of historical events from the autobiographical experiences of teachers and students in postmodern schooling.

Historical Perspectives on Curriculum as a Field of Study

Postmodern curriculum will encourage autobiographical reflection, narrative inquiry, revisionist interpretation, and contextual understanding. Knowledge will be understood as reflecting human interests, values, and actions that are socially constructed.

The postmodern curriculum resuscitates an authentic historicity. Educators in the postmodern area can not simply “teach” history as facts to be memorized. Because the autobiographical, local, and particular are essential in order to understand history, teachers have to listen to students and their life stories.

The postmodern curriculum challenges the teacher and students to enter into the historical process as participants rather than as observers.

Postmodern curriculum says history, like, knowledge, is socially and culturally constructed. A conflict centers around whether teachers should encourage or allow subjective interpretation of literature and history, or whether critical thinking should be directed toward a range of legitimate interpretations established by scholarly authorities.

Postmodern curriculum development challenges the concept of time and linear scientific progress. The conception of curriculum and chronology that pervade modern schooling inhibits the creative genius of the Einsteins in our school today.

Students often complain about the boredom they experience in social studies classes. History is often limited to a series of events on the linear timeline to be memorized and evaluated in the context of artificially contrived epochs of sociopolitical or cultural development. This model divides time into past, present, and future, and removes autobiographical connection to the historical events being discussed in textbooks or classroom lectures. It has been decontextualized by the modern curriculum, and as a result, an ahistorical and anti-historical attitude has emerged in the modern school. In desperation, as a justification teachers echo George Santayana’s warning that those who don’t remember the past are doomed to repeat it. National reports condemn educators because students can’t place historical events on a timeline. Chester Finn complained in “We Must Take Charge: Our Schools and Our Future” saying students couldn’t demonstrate competency in subject areas. Education was objectified. The standards were made to ensure American students could deomstrate recall of information that was determined by the reformers to be essential for cultural literacy, the socialization of American students and the reproduction of the dominant values of American society.

Teachers often agree that students don’t know the factual information required for progressing through the school system and passing standardized tests and blame boring textbooks, disinterested parents, etc. Still we use the same methods of teaching and evaluation that have dominated curriculum development for over one hundred years.

Some postmodern curriculum history research methodologies are narrative inquiry, hermeneutics, autobiography, ethnography, revisionist analysis, and primary source exploration. Predominant research methodologies are surveys of thought, surveys of practice, analyses of movements, case studies, revisionist critiques, and biographies.

A problem with the history we read about is that it’s fairly commonplace for writers of diaries to go back and rewrite them purposely to cast themselves in a good light, and the people they disliked in an even worse light. The lists of absolute facts in history is quite limited, and eventually all facts and accounts are influenced by subjective memory.

Slattery tells a story about how he never retained information he learned in school about the Civil War beyond his exams and never connected his families’ part in the Civil War that he knew from family to stories, to the Civil War he learned about in school. He maintains this was a result of having never been encouraged to make connectins between past and present, between his relatives who were shot by Union soldiers and his life as a student studying the Civil War.

Postmodern curriculum challenges the traditional curriculum which has been concerned with Ralph Tyler’s four basic questions:
1-What educational purposes should the school seek to attain?
2-How can learning experiences be selected which are likely to be useful in attaining these objectives?
3-How can learning experiences be organized for effective instruction?
4-How can the effectiveness of learning experiences be evaluated?

These principals have become goals, objectives, lesson plans, scope an sequence etc.

Postmodern curriculum is concerned with biographical and autobiographical narrative that will not only enhance the study of history but also make connections for long-term memory. Making Connections: Teaching and the Human Brain published by ASCD recognizes that, “Many capable youngsters are either so bored with their education or so stressed out by their experiences, that optimum learning cannot take place. They have also seen students “flower” in a learning environment that builds on their current knowledge base and personal experiences. Teachers must become facilitators of learning, and they must expect students to go beyond the surface kknkowledge frequently achieved through rote memorization and unconnected content. By integrating curriculum, we can assist students in their search for deeper meaning and thus enhance the brains quest for patterning.

Postmodern curriculum challenges the nineteenth century faculty psychology movement. Key concepts is that the aim of the curriculum is to expand the powers of the mind and store it with knowledge. This philosophy of curriculum seeks to arrange the information that the memory gathers like furniture in a room. It also proposes that the brain should be exercised routinely like other body parts and the brain is a muscle in need of rote memorization exercises and mental drills to enhance functioning of the mind which could accumulate more information, rearrange the data, and expand the knowledge base. Postmodern Curriculum calls into question that learning must take place through rote memorization. They assert that being too specific about facts to be remembered and outcomes to be produced, may prohibit students’ genuine understanding and transfer of learning.

The postmodern curriculum rejects formal, standardized evaluation instruments designed for universal application.

Introduction to Curriculum Development and Postmodernity

This postmodern shift involves rethinking some very sacred beliefs and structures that have been firmly entrenched in human consciousness for at least the past five hundred years. . . . humanity is moving to a new zone of cognition with an expanded concept of the self-in-relation" (p. 17). In this regard, postmodernism offers an explanation for the breakdown in the meta-narrative of history, to make room for non-mainstream viewpoints from multi-cultural perspectives. The shift, from a mono-cultural approach to education, to a multi-cultural approach carries with it curricular approaches in which learners are encouraged to construct meaning grounded in relationships of self to others, self to knowledge, self to nature. Emerging curriculum models emphasize interdisciplinary courses, open-ended systems, intergenerational and interprofessional relationships, socratic dialogue, multi-dimensional assessments. Technology is viewed as a useful tool in helping teachers facilitate and implement these new curriculums.

In short, postmodernism regards the world as an organism rather than as a machine, the earth as a home rather than as a functional possession, and persons as interdependent rather than as isolated and independent.

Introduction

Postmodern curriculum challenges the rationale used in most modern curriculum books which follow the Tylerian Rationale named after Tyler's book "Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction." Postmodernism wants to reconceptualize the field of curriculum. Traditional texts tend to ignore the Reconceptualization and new theoretical understandings of curriculum and instruction identified in the book such as issues of race, gender, hermeneutics, autobiography, critical theory, phenomenology, post structuralism, ecology, theology, and global education.

States an intended audience for this book are people in the schools who are interested in curricular philosophies such as whole language instruction, integrated language arts, interdisciplinary studies, curricular immersion ,

Refers the reader to many other resources to read more on this topic.

Preface

Education needs to remain focused on its primary purpose of learning and instruction for students. Slattery advocates reflection and action and a renewed understanding of curriculum and instruction in the global society.

Terms emphasized are:
curriculum development, postmodernism, hermeneutics, paradigm, chaos theory, poststructuralism, critical theory.

Three sections of the book are:
1Curriculum development as a field of study in a postmodern context
2-Issues with contempory curriculum discourses in areas of hermeneutics, race, gender, culture, philosophy, politics, demoncracy, ecology, aesthtics, autobiography, and cosmology.
3-Proposal for rethinking curriculum development for the postmodern era.

Front Cover Explained: Piazza D'Italia in New Orleans is an example of the eclecticism, irony, and playfulness of postmodern architecture. While the Piazza stands in stark contrast to the linear and functional skyscrapers of Downtown Nawlins, it is also intimately integrated into the modern milieu of the financial district on Poydras Street. The building has now fallen in disrepair and was slated to be destroyed for a major building near the largest land-based casino in the Nation.

Series Editors’ Introduction

Slattery pounds modernists. Modern Textbooks are typically a cold, impersonal compilation of facts inserted into the passive minds of students void of the personal or subjective. Slattery’s postmodern book allows him to inject radical love (a combustible spirit and passion that fuels our lives in areas such as work and relationships) into his work. The book is personal, reflecting human interests and values making it more interesting and meaningful than the traditional approach.

Slattery Blog Format

I will post comments about the "Big Idea" or "Main Idea" I am reflecting on as I read each chapters. You can get a sense of the book as you look at the Chapters:

Series Editor’s Introduction
Preface
Introduction

Part I: Postmodern Curriculum Development as a Field of Study
Introduction to Curriculum Development and Postmodernity
Historical Perspectives on Curriculum as a Field of Study
The Reconceptualization of Curriculum and Instruction
Postmodern Schooling, Curriculum, and the Tehological Text

Part II: Contemporary Curriculum Development Paradigms
The Hermeneutic Circle and Postmodern Community
Race, Gender, and Ethnicity in a Multicultural Milieu
Postmodern Philosophies in Curriculum Studies
Curriculum for interdependence and Ecological Sustainability
Utopian Visions, Democracy, and the Egalitarian Ideal
Qualitative Inquiry, Fine Arts, and the Synthetical Moment
Time Management and Chaos in the Infinite Cosmos

Part III Curriculum Development in the Postmodern Era
Postmodern Education: Kaleidoscopic Sensibilities
A Postmodern Postscript: Proleptic Prolegomena