The Method of “Currere”, Essay Example

Pinar says that one must return to the past in order to examine the future (Pinar, 1975, p. 6). My cultural background and history are tied to the country, Republic of Georgia. Who I am as a person and as an educator is greatly influenced by my life there. I was an English major in the Republic of Georgia and I had a dream to immigrate to the United States in order to pursue my language studies. I wanted to earn a BA in Spanish Language and Literature. I had previous experience tutoring students in languages; it was something that gave me great joy and purpose. Since I now how it is to study new languages and the trials and tribulations of such a task, I felt that when my students’ accomplished some small feat, this in turn was my accomplishment.

I taught a diversity of students. The Republic of Georgia is a melting pot of Jews, Turks, Greeks, Asians, Europeans, and Americans. This is because of the country’s history in trade routes. These mercantile roads allowed for a melting pot of cultures to spring up in the country and to remain and grow. Thus, the children that I taught were from all walks of life, backgrounds, and cultures. Thus, the way that I had to teach is perhaps a little bit different than in any other country. I had to be sensitive to all of these different backgrounds, or understand different religious traditions in order to accommodate and be respectful to my students. Teaching this way, however, taught me that habit, structure, and discipline were necessary in education. For instance, if some of my students couldn’t make it to school I still had to tell them I expected the work I assigned to be done—otherwise they would fall behind in their studies. I think that this is very different than a progressive educator’s point of view in which curriculum isn’t the catalyst to learning but rather the roadblock.

Pinar states that one must examine how one came to be by examining the past, “Since the focus of the method is educational experience, one takes special notice of one’s past life-in-schools, with one’s past life-with schoolteachers and one’s past life-with-books and other school-related artifacts” (Pinar, 1975, p. 8). My love of education isn’t something that I was born with really; it was something that was cultivated with my language teachers in primary school. I love learning, and language in particular, because of them; because of the care they took with me, and the way that they showed me how very possible language made the world. Language opens up gateways to new friends, travelling, and understanding the complexities of the world.

Progressive

When superintendent Carleton Washburne oversaw the Winnetka school district, he did so under a progressive standard of education. This standard called for individualized learning. To me, this means something beyond the route memorization of standardized testing. Washburne was a pioneer in workbooks and diagnostic learning. Washburne’s innovative progressive theories such as “scientific-curriculum building,” allowed students to apply knowledge to real-world scenarios. This real-world application allowed for education to be taught in something other than a vacuum. In standardized testing students are taught to memorize route facts instead of seeing how those facts are applicable to their world (i.e. trigonometry with carpentry or forestry—for with its use a person cutting trees knows where to stand outside of the “felling” danger zone). Progressive education, as pioneered by Washburne means a “commitment to measurement, accountability, and predetermined outcomes—”(Hertzberg, n.d., p. 145). The problem that I do have with progressive education approaches is that they are so anti-curriculum. Despite the style of proposed teaching that came along with Washburne, and John Dewey, there is no real content-driven material in such a style of education as Progressive. One of the reasons I’m drawn to be an educator is because of the rich cultural history and language I get to impart to my students. I don’t think that such an environment of sharing can be fully accomplished under the guise of a progressive educational approach. With language a structure in content must be laid out so that students advance through certain levels. This is because in learning a different language one things must be learned first such as pronouns, adjectives, and then more complex terminology can be acquired and applied through syntax and sentence structure. Curriculum is necessary to education especially when memorization is involved (and a lot of language learning is about memorization).

I think progressive also means how we think about our future, which was what Washburne was trying to accomplish, although, in a round about way. When I was living and teaching in the Republic of Georgia, all I could think about was getting an education in America, in order to be a language teacher. I was an polyglot with a dream. When I thought about my future, I couldn’t think about it without seeing an American university. My dream consisted of gaining my BA, then teaching—both in America. If I were pressed for a ten or twenty-year plan, I might say that I would return to my home to bring back the education I had in order to enrich my hometown, but I don’t think I can think that far ahead. For now, I think that my future goal is to focus on my education and then get a meaningful job.

Pinar states that progressive in the currere narrative is about recording where one is in the current moment, “Try to discern where your intellectual interests are going, the relation between these evolving interests and your private life, between these two and evolving historical conditions” (Pinar, 1975, p. 10). Pinar states that such a narrative is interdependent and has a lot to do with historical situations and context. I focus on my teaching and think that the relationships I have with my Catholic school students is unique because of who we are in a cultural sense. My response to my students and their responses back to me are built from our personal and unique frame of reference. My relationship with them is built from this uniqueness. Tomorrow I will wake up and teach and it will be a completely different day than the day before because my students are constantly growing and learning through that fostered relationship.

Analytical

Here and now, my education is the most important thing to me. I think that education is a way to be free as can be applied with the definition of dialogics, “the essence of education as the practice of freedom; dialogics and dialogue; dialogue and the search for program content; the human world relationship, ‘generative themes,’ and the program content of education as the practice of freedom” (Freire, 2005, p. 87). For me, education was a way to be free of a lot of things in my life. I felt like with an education, that is, with a degree under my belt, I would be able to travel, to have a job and therefore have financial freedom, and then have the freedom to teach other people. I think education is one of the only things that a person can have that no one else can take away from them. It is one of the most precious of abstract things. Many other things can be taken away from a person like their land, their family, or their life. But an education is something that not only is permanent, but is able to gain someone something more than the life they have. I pursued my dream of an education and it brought me to America. Already my pursuit of education has leant me freedom. If I’m thinking of the here and now then my here and now is me thinking of my future. I think that my education will lead me to even higher and better places and in turn, the people I teach, will find these places too.

Analytical in Pinar’s process has to do with thinking about the past and the future and the present (he explains it by using three photographs as an example). It is almost as if they live in a cycle in which one influences the other, influences the other even though analysis means a break or loosing. I am able to discern the past from the future but sometimes it does seem as if it’s a loop. My life in the Republic of Georgia centered around language—understanding it, using it, teaching it. My life in America is the same cycle. I think one of the best things to remember as a teacher is that you’re a perpetual student; if one forgets this, then they run the risk of being pedantic. There are always instances of learning when one is teaching. In that way, in being a teacher/student I can make peace with this cycle. I can understand myself as a teacher if I first remember that I am always a student. This isn’t me giving up my ability or strengths as a teacher, but rather me accepting the things I am and embracing them. I love learning, and I love teaching; these concepts to me go hand in hand. If Pinar says that the basis of this narrative is examining and analyzing where one was and where they’re going (past vs. future) then I say it’s a cycle in perpetuity if one is a teacher. For, all teachers start as students, but they never cease to be students.

Synthetical

I wanted to be a language teacher for a long time. It was a pursuit of my mine in the Republic of Georgia, and it is the dream that brought me to America. I took courses in human and adolescent development at a graduate school, and I delved into anthropology courses. These taught me that language classes are something that are enmeshed in a great many other things. If one is to study language, then culture, history, pedagogy, and the general span of human-ness must be studied as well. Language is about memorization, but after that, I’ve found, that it’s about tone. Tone is something that is harder to teach. There are inflections endemic in language that are so nuanced that a person has to truly have an ear for language, or be willing to truly immerse themselves in the culture to hear that subtle difference in meaning. It is the same with English and the difference between the word “gut” and “stomach”. A “gut” is an abstract concept—it is something you trust for a bet or an instinct. A “stomach” is something that ails you, something that gets sick. But one has to spend time in the culture to understand this difference. In my language classes (both the ones I teach and the my course of study) such nuances were the topic of many a conversation. I think that with this idea of tone and subtlety that language is something that’s evolving, both as it is spoken, and as it is understood.

I am working as a world language teacher at Catholic school (teaching Spanish) K-8 grade. What helps me in my curriculum is understanding this nuance and applying it early on with my students. I think that is the future of education in regards to language. I think a wider net of understanding these nuances, even on a cultural level (as I had to do in the Republic of Georgia) is necessary for education. I teach children whose cultural and ethnic backgrounds are diverse such as Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans, first literature generation, etc. And in this diversity I find a way to approach education that I would not have had otherwise. I teach through the scope of cultural understanding and sensitivity.

Pinar said that one must think of oneself in terms of the concreteness of being (Pinar, 1975, p.12). I have to say that the meaning of my present is a conglomeration of the thing from my past. The impetus to move to America was brought on by my desire to study language. My desire to study language was brought on because of where I lived and the cultural diversity of that place. The cultural diversity of that place was instigated by trade routs and geographical location. All of my being and my concreteness here now was brought on through cultural background that was contingent upon a multitude of factors. My education and desires are tributes to that diversity. I think language, teaching it, is the best way to pay tribute to that diversity. That is my contribution to my scholarly work.

In examining where I came from, where I am, where I’m going and how all of this ties into teaching, I think the best think Pinar said was that the past is the future. Meaning; the past makes the future, forms it, in some way. My frame of reference as a student and a teacher makes this maxim true, at least for me. My love of education lead me to teach, then lead me to America. Without my past, without my country’s past, I would not be here.

References

Freire, P. (2005). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum.

Hertzberg, H.W. (n.d.). Book reviews. New York: Columbia College.

Pinar, W. F. (1975). The method of “currere”. Paper presented to the annual meeting of the American Research Association.