Pinar+Summary

Pinar, William. (2004). Autobiography: A Revolutionary Act. Ch. 2 in What is Curriculum Theory? (pp.35-62). Mahwah: NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Press.

Summary:

Pinar (2004, p. 35) says: “The method of currere provides educators a strategy for students of curriculum to study the relations between academic knowledge and life history in the interest of self-understanding and social reconstruction.”

There are four steps in the method of currere, which is designed to examine and disclose one’s experiences: the regressive, the progressive, the analytical, and the synthetical.

1. Regressive – one re-enters (returns) to the past and transform one’s memories. 2. Progressive – one looks towards what is not yet present and imagines possible futures. 3. Analytical – one examines both past and present while one distances oneself from the past and asks: “How is the future present in the past, the past in the future, and the present in both?” 4. Synthetical – Everything is brought together as one re-enters the present and questions its meaning.

Autobiographies are no longer considered narcissistic, rather a pedagogical political practice vital to the growth of our era. Only through a genuine internal look at one’s life experiences and complete understanding, can the public sphere change and evolve. A sense of Nationalistic pride has led to the denial of truths in our current teaching methods, and educators need to look and teach beyond the cover stories, and search into the untold stories.

African-American writers have found the mode of autobiographies appealing because they inhabit both history and literature in telling their history as part of the American identity. What happened “before” is extremely important to understanding what is happening “now”, and cannot be simply ignored because one was not present at a certain time. Ida Wells’ autobiography is an example of how one woman’s crusade can defend the life of her people. Autobiographies tell our personal story so that we can understand the whole story of where we fit into the realm of the world. Autobiographies allow us, as educators, to think about what the world could become, and not what is currently here. Through the steps of currere, one might begin to realize his or her place in the broad sense of history as opposed to just a personal history, where a person places himself or herself separate the rest of society.

However, there are issues for an autobiographer such as finding and reporting a definitive authentic self, without being somewhat fictitious. During the progressive stage one can imagine what he/she wants to become or the world in which he/she wants to live, but these are fictional versions. Recently, there has been a lot of interest among scholars in psychoanalysis which allows the teacher to interpret various educational experiences, and build upon the learning so ideas are seen as interwoven and not isolated events.

Teaching, test scores, and communication, in our current curriculum, cannot be measured with just outcomes or scores on standardized tests. Students’ learning and education should be at the forefront guiding our curriculum goals and standards, and not influenced by political agendas with a business-like attitude. One way in which we might be able to reconstruct ourselves, our students, and the public sphere is through the use of currere “in which thought bends back upon itself and thus recovers its volition” (Grumet, 1976).

Quotes: “Currere seeks to understand the contribution academic studies makes to one’s understanding of his or her life (and vice versa), and how both are imbricated in society, politics, and culture,” (Pinar, p.36).

“African-American autobiography has functioned as a powerful means of addressing and contesting social, political, and cultural realities in the United States,” (p. 42).

“…autobiography represents an important strategy of cultural politics and the reconstruction of the public sphere,” (p. 47).

Terms: Fantasmatic (Laplanche & Pontalis, 1973): the unconscious source of dreams and fantasies, the structuring scenario behind social action, especially “overdetermined” (often ritualistic) actions (such as lynching) structured by transferences and other forms of repetitive behaviour.

Deferred action (Lukacher, 1986): a mode of temporal spacing through which the randomness of a later event triggers the memory of an earlier event or image, which might never have come to consciousness had the later event never occurred.

Psychoanalysis (Lukacher, 1986): dedicated to the labor of remembering the primordial forgetfulness that conceals the origin.

Misogyny: hatred or contempt of women or girls.

Above terms taken from Pinar (2004).

Discussion Questions: 1. Does one have the ability and capacity to fully understand his or her life critically? 2. What challenges does one face when trying to reconstruct the past? 3. How might the steps of currere be modified and implemented into our current educational system at the elementary, high school, and university level to fit students as well as educators?

William Pinar’s Biography (taken from (http://m1.cust.educ.ubc.ca/faculty/william_pinar.php)

“Before coming to the University of British Columbia, where he directs the Centre for the Study of the Internationalization of Curriculum Studies, Pinar taught curriculum theory at Louisiana State University, where he served as the St. Bernard Parish Alumni Endowed Professor. He has also served as the Frank Talbott Professor at the University of Virginia and the A. Lindsay O'Connor Professor of American Institutions at Colgate University. He has held visiting appointments at Teachers College, Columbia University, Ohio State University, the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, the University of Alberta, and the University of British Columbia, among other institutions. He has lectured widely, including Harvard University, McGill University, and the Universities of Chicago, Oslo, Tokyo, and Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Pinar took his B.S. in Education at Ohio State University, graduating in 1969. He taught English at the Paul D. Schreiber High School in Port Washington, Long Island, New York from 1969-1971, returning to Ohio State to finish his M.A. in 1970 and the Ph.D. in 1972. Dr. Pinar is the founding editor of the scholarly journal JCT, and with Janet Miller, the founder of the Bergamo Conference on Curriculum Theory and Classroom Practice, as well as the founder and now President of the International Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies and the founder of its American affiliate, the American Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies, for which he serves as Conference Committee chair.”