I work at Central Middle School in downtown Victoria where I teach grade eight, full-time, and I have generally had a focus on English, Math, and Science. I draw all my curricular direction from the current B.C. curriculum. Academically, I’m a critical reader and question the ‘point’ of why an author has chosen an argument or championed a particular point of view.

Case and point, Blades’ piece on The Rack in the Hallway. Blades narrates his interaction with various guests in his home as they discuss the validity of what is/was the Alberta science curriculum. A wild Foucault appears as a guest in Blades’ home, and over time, teaches Blades about the difference between ‘a frame’ and ‘enframing’, a concept imagined by Heidegger. Enframing continuously tethers us to a set of rules and to beliefs those rules stem from. I draw a connection to the film The Matrix, particularly this scene. In fact, I’ll put forward that enframing is analogous to the premise and philosophy presented in the film.

While I found Blades’ piece a thought-provoking journey, I have a problem with it. At the end of the narrative, Blades asks Foucault how to defeat enframing, and Foucault responds: “That is for you to discover,” […] “But, expect me to drop in for conversation unannounced and often” (Blades, 1995, p. 148). This backfires: If Foucault’s ideas and philosophies are the tether to what enframing is, then isn’t Blades just trading one mechanism of enframing for another? In a broader sense, isn’t the “constant effort to remove the frame whenever and wherever it appeared” (Blades, 1995, p. 150) a task which has its own set of rules, and imposes it’s own virtue? It’s a new frame.

Tapping my cynicism, I’m left wondering the point of Blades’ implied changes in the first place. While I understand that Blades wants curriculum to shift from a top-down to a grassroots model, I’m wondering if this is a good thing at all; Blades demonstrates that curriculum design by students is virtuous…is that what our society needs? I’m not so sure.

Shifting to Egan’s article, he argues for establishing strict templates that will prepare our students for the future. It is up to the educator(s) to determine the what of curriculum, as well as the how of actually delivering it (Egan, 1978). I would imagine Blades would say Egan is in a frame of what curriculum should be. I’m conflicted by Egan’s piece. On one hand, I do agree that our world as it is objective requires our youth to know certain things…but after reading Blades’ piece, and considering our present world, I would question Egan on who he believes should be the authors of curriculum.

With both these articles in mind, I want to engage with Blades’ ideas in principle, but believe that Egan’s ideas are the cards that have been dealt. To that point, thinking of curriculum makes me think about the auto industry.

A reactive entity, the only proactive actions are to poll what the consumers are going to want, or to imagine what will be required from the higher-ups. The industry has innovators. Some automakers break the mold and change the inner-workings of their product, up-ending the practices and expectations of related industries. Other automakers remain rigid and forge ahead with the notion that their product has always worked well, and it will continue to do so. Sometimes, automakers will copy each other, but place their own sort of flair or set of priorities on their products. This all results in some products being suited for different tasks…but they all usually come down to commuting.

As the individual consumer (educator) you will experience some typical situations: when acquiring an auto, you are sure that you are taking on extra things that don’t really need to be there. Later, when something malfunctions, a Mechanic (the expert) is going to tell you exactly how to fix it. They might be right or wrong…all you know is, you doubt their recommendations.

References:

Blades, D. (1995). Procedures of power in a curriculum-discourse: Conversations from home. In Journal of Curriculum Theorising (pp. 125-155).

Egan, K. (1978). What Is Curriculum? In Curriculum Inquiry (1st ed., Vol. 8, pp. 66-72). Blackwell.