Abstract
In this chapter we apply the matrix of mind toward a critical analysis of the construct of the ‘curriculum’. This begins with mindfulness explorations of the question ‘what is knowledge?’ ‘Knowledge’ results as what ‘society’ agrees to call ‘knowledge’, which brings contingency into ‘education’ and into our ‘curricular’ deliberations. In our particular ‘society’, ‘curricular knowledge’ resides out there within ideas that can be mobilized over the horizontal time axis. The ‘social curriculum’ is constructed as a ‘social normative map’ that carries the promise of the ‘good’. It suggests where we ought to be and when. The fundamental ‘curricular’ teaching we get is that here and now are not the right place and time to be at.
If a copy of Hamlet fell from the sky in a forest and no-one was there, would it still be meaningful?
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Notes
- 1.
Do consider the option that the question is posed incorrectly. Maybe ‘education’ is actually a process of subtraction. Perhaps it’s more like A – X = B? Thinking of Socrates for example, (or even Postman (1995)) one might certainly think of the ‘educational’ process as one of getting rid of wrong ideas more than of acquiring the right ones.
- 2.
- 3.
This version is associated with the twentieth century Burmese Buddhist monk, Mahasi Sayadaw.
- 4.
Some philosophers like Arthur Schopenhauer (1966) indeed suggested that our internal sense of embodiment grants us with a unique type of knowing that is both intimate and draws us closer to the realm of things as such.
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Ergas, O. (2017). ‘Knowledge’ and the ‘Curriculum’ in Time and Space. In: Reconstructing 'Education' through Mindful Attention. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58782-4_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58782-4_4
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