Provoking Curriculum Conference
Spring, 2003
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like
to meet Ted T. Aoki.
Let me first of all thank and congratulate
CACS for holding this very, very unusual conference
for me, a conference titled Provoking Curriculum in an endeavor to move into a new era, or in encouraging
the current scholars and practitioners in education
to consider the main of curriculum possibly in the
new light or the new sound or the new key.
I would like to thank Dr. Terry Carson
for the way in which he supported Rita to organize
this conference and to support CACS in this endeavor
to create a new movement in curriculum. Before I forget,
I would also like to thank Dr. Terry for his remarks
with regard to the times that I spent in the Department
of Secondary Education where I got a mixed spark in
moving towards a domain which I did not consider too
much prior to my arrival at the university of Alberta.
I had not so much experience in writing
academic work. As you have heard, it was in 1964 that
I was invited to join the teaching staff at the Department
of Secondary Education at the University of Alberta,
and the thing that amazed me was the way in which
all the courses in the Departments of Elementary Education
and Secondary Education were all prefixed EDCNI, Educational
Curriculum and Instruction. And it was then that I
came to realize the significance of the term curriculum,
and if I were going to teach at a teacher education
institution dealing with EDCNI, I’d better come
to learn a few things about curriculum.
The very term EDCNI puzzled me very
much at first because the term curriculum was followed
by the term instruction. As a teacher, I always thought
I was teaching the curriculum, and the notion of instruction
was rather new to me. But the more I examined the
terms curriculum and instruction, together with the
graduate students who were on campus, we came to realize
the way in which the term curriculum had been: by
looking at the term instruction as technical kind
of action, the term curriculum was understood to be
a material thing that can be transmitted through a
process.
Various students, including Terry,
Linda Peterat, Walter Werner, and so on, began to
push this notion. “Hey, this is not good enough.”
And so it was rather interesting for me that the graduate
students in our department started to wander off to
other departments across campus, particularly, the
department of philosophy which most of us avoided.
It was from contact with the philosophy
department through the graduate students, that for
instance, I became very familiar with Dr. Mackenzie,
the head of the philosophy department, to the point
that I still remember a call he gave me. He phoned
me, when I was chair of the department, to ask if
I won’t hire a fellow by the name of Robert
Burch for one year because they were kind of afraid
to hire him for three thirds. So I told Dr. Mackenzie,
“That’s one third, one year. I think I
can explain that.” And then I, at that time,
created a course called Curriculum and Ontology, Curriculum and Being. Of course, Robert Burch was an expert in Heidegger’s
work, and we were just moving into that domain, but
it was the grad students who opened up the opportunity
for him like that.
Of course, in the Department of Curriculum,
department of Secondary Education, we got hell from
the Department of Foundations because we were moving
into their territory. I still remember. Dr. Birch,
I understand, is still there. It was at this time
that, as Dr. Terry indicated, that we became familiar
with the notion of European philosophy, continental
European philosophy, and that the possibilities that
had evolved with curriculum had been limited and restricted
because we had been unanimous in our discourse within
the field of education in curriculum.
But about the same time, we found
a fellow from the University of Rochester, who had
particular interest in curriculum and had identified
a term, a noun, and started to move it, Dr. William
Pinar. The term that he introduced us to was the word
currere. It was getting in touch
with that kind of notion, currere,
that helped us to move, to re-examine the notion of
the curriculum, particularly as it was constructed
by the Ministry of Education in our country. [To Bill
Pinar] I don’t know if I ever talked to you
about that, but your term currere has influenced us very, very much.
Another point that I would like to
mention, if I may, is with respect to the way in which
the whole notion of curriculum became meaningful for
us, and visible to us, particularly when we started
to hear. What I am trying to point to is the way in
which we endeavored together. Particularly the grad
students (who moved into the area of phenomenology
and hermeneutics and so on), who compelled the members
of the staff and the department to stay with the graduate
students because they were teaching us more than we
were teaching them.
And this, I think, is a very crucial
point. That’s why I am concerned with the nature
of the structure of the department, basically the
Department of Secondary Education which deals with
graduate programs and undergraduate programs. It needs
staff that are continuously examining themselves and
are transforming themselves in order to accomplish
this—the power and support of the graduate students
working together, of course, I feel, is very crucial.
So the way in which the administrators regard the
grad program within the faculty and within the department,
and the way in which the ideas discussed are being
promoted and discussed amongst the students and staff
can create a space of conversation more than a space
of instruction. I think I try to stick to that and
I think Terry will confirm that the students really
took over the running of the operation.
In this connection, I would just
like to mention one name because you [Bill Pinar]
attributed to me quite a knowledge of a word I didn’t
even know existed when I became a teacher/educator.
In our group, amongst the graduate students, there
was a young scholar, a teacher/student from the Netherlands.
Max Van Manen is who I’m talking about,
and it was he that brought to at
least to me and to the faculty and to the department
the possibility of pushing open the
main of phenomenology. I still remember the time when
he was in the midst of his dissertation. He was at
that time following the rules of the establishment
with respect to the language of the dissertation.
In the midst of the dissertation writing, he phoned
up and said he can’t write anymore unless he
can use the personal pronoun “I.” That’s
how objectively oriented we were then, at the time
when Max Van Manen came to become a member of our
graduate group. And for me, as a “young”
scholar trying to understand the way of phenomenology
through Max and to condone the writing of a dissertation
in terms of narration was a big undertaking and a
bigger risk for me. But I yielded to the argument
that Max presented, and we succeeded in pushing, and
I’m glad to know where he is right now.
Finally, to conclude with just one
word. After I came here to UBC, let me put it this
way: UBC is my alma mater, and when I came here as
a student, literally, there were 2500 students on
this campus, and the Japanese Canadian students, the
ethic Canadian students were not permitted to register
in the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Medicine,
and, of course, there was no Faculty of Education
because you got your faculty of education in 1953.
But prior to that there was the Vancouver normal school,
of course. Although the normal school was open to
Japanese Canadians, Japanese Canadian graduates were
not allowed to teach.
I just want to mention that because,
following that, I had unique experiences and interesting
experiences all the way through in order to become
a teacher in Alberta.
I mention that because today we spend
so much time remembering what you think I did and
honoring me so much, and would like to indicate that
I am here at my old alma mater. I am here, I am so
proud to be a UBC grad, and so proud to be a member
of CACS. And to be honored in such a way as you are
doing tonight is for me something beyond my ken.
I would like to thank you for attending
tonight, and thank you very much for re-texturing
my text, and Rita I would like to thank you and Bill
for coaxing me to put that book together, a bunch
of anecdotes and attempted theoretical stuff for you
to make sense of. I praise you and I thank you very
much. Thank you.
