ABSTRACT. Members of the Editorial Board for the Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy will get an update on the journal from the editors and Taylor and Francis. There will be time to discuss the state of the journal and future directions.

ABSTRACT. About the Mentorship:

The Curriculum & Pedagogy mentorship committee is excited to announce an upcoming mentorship breakfast session. This exclusive event has been designed to connect students and emerging scholars with experienced professors and academic researchers, providing a platform for mentees to engage in meaningful discussions and receive guidance on various aspects of professional growth, including research, job applications, publications, and more. The hour-long session promises to create an encouraging and supportive environment for both mentors and mentees to exchange knowledge and insights, making it a fantastic opportunity to learn and expand your professional network.

If you're interested in participating in this valuable mentorship opportunity, please don't hesitate to get in touch. We welcome your suggestions and themes for discussion during the session, so please send an email to curriculumpedagogymentorship@gmail.com (Christen Garcia & Michelle Angelo-Rocha). Please let us know if you prefer to participate in-person or online.

Curriculum & Pedagogy Mentorship - Breakfast with Your Mentor

ABSTRACT. During the 2022-2023 legislative sessions, over 520 pieces of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation ¬– a record – have been introduced in state legislatures across the United States, disregarding the importance of these identity conversations in schools. However, immersed with/in the contentious political and social debates regarding LGBTQ+ representation/studies in school, preservice teachers (PTs) must navigate their own understanding of their past, current, and future roles as an educator in response to LGBTQ+ youth. This article examines how two secondary education PTs’ exploration of past, present, and possible selves through poetry regarding LGBTQ+ youth issues: 1) provides space for understanding different forms of crisis in a teacher education course; 2) allows PTs to reflect upon their own perspectives of the LGBTQ+ youth crisis in their own lives; as well as 3) prepare PTs to address LGBTQ+ youth crises in their future classrooms.

ABSTRACT. In this proposed presentation, I explore the indigenous iconography that pervades much of the conspiritual elements of the QAnon conspiracy movement, particularly focusing on Jacob Chansley, the self-proclaimed QAnon Shaman. Chansley, now-well-known due to his prominence and garishness in the failed January 6th coup, has been a central figure in the QAnon movement since its rise to public prominence in late 2019, producing several social media artifacts that illustrate both his conspiratorial beliefs (such as a video of him misreading faux indigenous signage at an Arizona shopping mall to signify pedophilia) and his co-option of indigenous culture and beliefs via his garb and discourse. Following his release from his January-6th-earned prison sentence, Chansley has returned to his alt-right conspiratorial ways via social media, a podcast, and a fully-merchandised web site, but he has done so under a rebranding that eschews his headdress and face paint in favor of a stark white suit and American flag necktie. The shaman, however, apparently still lives within Chansley’s self concept, as in his “return” video on Twitter, he appears before a large dreamcatcher adorned with the image of American Bison – the very animal his headdress’s horns sought to mimic.

Within this analysis of Chansley, I am not interested in the ethical problematics of these appropriative moves, as I feel that such an effort would be both simplistic (albeit correct) and reductive of the potential desire behind the desire in cultivating such an affect. Taking up Fanon’s articulation of white “alienation” as a poor mirror of Black suffering, I read Chansley’s dress, discourse, and practices as desires of and for the marginalized Other – essentially as a means of trying to articulate an ahistorical construct of white suffering within the actual suffering of the people whiteness has displaced. Whiteness – particularly within a US context - has no historical coordinates of oppression to draw on, no symbology of white struggle, and as such, no spiritual cause for this fight. Per Fanon, individuals such as Chansley expropriate the trappings of historical suffering, nudging out (hence my cuckoo metaphor in the title of this proposed piece) the actual historical indigenous peoples from the narratives therein and recasting indigenous genocide by whites as a shared struggle against an amorphous “evil.” Ultimately, I suggest, the consumption of the Other in this conspiritual regard is a form of teleological colonialism – one that colonizes colonization itself and recasts all struggle as a space for whiteness.

Moreover, it is important to remember that QAnon’s espoused ontology centers on a binaric, Manichean, and absolutist understanding of morality – they fight on the side of the angel(i)s, and the leftist cabal against whom they defend is an irredeemable, child-devouring evil. Given this polarity, as well as the omnibus capacities of QAnon as a conspiracy theory, I also argue that the deeper ideological work of conspirituality continues this process of displacement into the realm of belief. The appropriation of what Chansley understands as indigenous spirituality (whose shallow nature likely betrays its pop culture origins) under the rubric of heaven confirms what can be understood as the omnibus religion of whiteness. Chansley’s rebranded affect casts him in the mode of a Southern minister, with the aforementioned blindingly white suit and patriotic accessories, dreamcatcher in relief behind him. Further, his newly founded company/web site, The Forbidden Truth Academy (selling t-shirts; posters; iPhone cases; socks; infant onesies; and educational courses titled The Basics of Spiritual Warfare, The Truth about Climate Change, and We are All Star Seeds), announces itself with a highly stylized image of Chansley, spiritual energies crackling from his head and heavily muscled body, while phases of the moon spin around his logo: all beliefs mattering loudly. I argue that this veneer of (con)spirituality, flat and unintelligible to the beliefs on which it draws, is what the cuckoo leaves in its wake – the trappings of what the white west believes the Other to believe, a flattened conspirituality of purity, bodily transcendence, and faith in the mission of whiteness.

ABSTRACT. 50-Word Abstract: This presentation explores the “real life” vulnerabilities specific to teaching life writing—as both a practice and an academic field—within gender and sexuality studies. It focusses on the ways in which we might meet the threat of gendered violence through vulnerability and community, both within and beyond the classroom.

ABSTRACT. The Jewish concept of tikkun olam, or healing the world, provides a pedagogical framework for spiritual educational leadership. The framework consists of revealing the divine spark, engaging in acts of co-creation with the divine, and welcoming the stranger. It creates a school culture dedicated to social justice.

ABSTRACT. The primary objective of this conceptual paper is to examine whether approaching the indigenization of curriculums in Africa with a convivial spirit could create mutuality in the efforts of former colonies to reconceptualize curricula. This article takes curriculum reconceptualization to mean rethinking and redesigning educational curricula in previously colonized countries. This reconceptualization involves examining existing curriculum frameworks and content and considering changes to address historical biases, promote inclusion, and better reflect the local context. According to this article, in reconceptualizing curricula, it is crucial to address historical biases, decolonize knowledge, and ensure that the curriculum reflects the diverse perspectives, histories, and cultures of the local population. However, the article reveals that there is always a risk that certain aspects of colonial legacies, such as Eurocentric perspectives or power imbalances, may persist if not actively challenged during the reconceptualization process, even when conviviality is harnessed. To avoid disguised coloniality, the article advocates that involving a wide range of stakeholders, including educators, scholars, community members, and representatives of marginalized groups, in the curriculum development process is essential. The paper calls for including diverse perspectives and recognizing local knowledge, traditions, and concepts, such as the one behind indigenous weaving, to help prevent the perpetuation of colonial approaches to knowledge production.

ABSTRACT. This paper examines integrating community explorations as aesthetic disruptions in "Teaching Issues and Applications for Educators" at Purdue University. Situated in an anti-colonial framework, the practice empowers diverse voices, fosters critical reflection, and challenges traditional norms. Students exercise agency in selecting their explorations, engaging in introspection, and conveying reflections in mini-class-presentations.

ABSTRACT. Over the past 20 years, we have explored topics related to ignorance and not-knowing related to education. Some of our work has focused on state-based forms of ignorance, particularly how ignorance is created through contemporary interests as well as what we don’t know that we don’t know. Given the profound implications of such ideas, this session will offer an exploratory map of a new handbook on ignorance in education. We will offer our starter frameworks of the handbook and the lenses we will use to solicit contributions.

ABSTRACT. This Foucauldian genealogy investigates how literature has been used to shape society and the citizen-self, to promote and silence racial and gendered identities throughout America’s history, most recently in the ways literature is limited on school campuses, and the ways the female voice has been silenced. Literature’s parrhesiastic role engages readers with lived experiences, truths of being, both real and imagined, of self and others, promoting readers’ own becoming (Cixous, 1976) and giving voices to individual and collective identities (Rosenblatt, 1995). In this current political climate, women’s voices writing the truth of her lived experiences threatens white, heteropatriarchal power structures, revealing a temporal juxtaposition between politically polarized notions of equality and of literacy.

ABSTRACT. This presentation shares Teaching Testimonies from Censorville, an oral history project, encompassing a documentary, book, and website. Voices of K-12 public school educators enduring curricular censorship as a result of coordinated attacks, these testimonies add to resistances surfacing in the face of ongoing fascist forces germinating across the U.S.

ABSTRACT. This paper studies the impact of competitive policy debate and its inclusion of critical race theory on Asian American high school students. Through interviews with coaches and competitors, I prove that policy debate generates a unique education that promotes social and political consciousness in Asian youth.

ABSTRACT. In this session, we analyze how neoliberal discourses in common and local educational programs can reaffirm racist ideologies. We use qualitative research methods to analyze public-facing materials from three educational initiatives – SVPR, Accelerate, and EquityWatch (all pseudonyms) using a framework of colorblind racism, property rights, and neoliberal ideology. Our interests in these initiatives are personal. This is because we have each worked in positions as teachers and teacher-educators that encouraged or even mandated they we support or implement these initiatives. Each of these programs share a common foundation of serving neoliberal ideology in urban spaces. After our analysis, we provide a series of strategies in the form of critical questions for educators to engage in a process of critique of similar programs and policies. These questions are intended to help educators engage in dialogue that addresses and uncovers racialized language.

ABSTRACT. This paper offers intertextual discussion of Fanon’s (1952/2008; 1963/2004) concerted appeal for the existential invention of a new man relative to the challenge of Freud’s (1920/1961; 1930/2010) ontological delineation of human nature as dyadic. It provokes questions for how educational researchers and practitioners think about radical social change and freedom.

ABSTRACT. I am a PhD student in the Texas A&M University School of Education working with Dr. Patrick Slattery, Dr. Cheryl Craig and Dr. Claire Katz. Prior to being at A&M, I taught 7th grade history for five years in an urban public school in Chelsea, Massachusetts.

In the age of critical pedagogy, new attention is being paid to culturally responsive teaching and the hidden curriculum (Apple, 1979; Vallance, 1973; Gay, 2018) as it pertains to white supremacy, but questions still exist on how to best implement these ideas on a practical level in the classroom. The workshop will discuss and examine a series of lessons that I implemented as a public school teacher to teach students how to identify and examine the prevalence of bias and systemic oppression inside the 7th grade history curriculum. These lessons not only teach students critical reading skills, such as being able to recognize author both explicit and implicit author bias, but also to think more broadly about how these biases might reflect the goals and the power of the dominant culture. These lessons are transferable and replicable to other English Language Arts and Social Science courses, and, with the right teaching moves, these lessons can push student work into the level four of the Hess Cognitive Rigor Matrix.

In greater detail, the lessons highlighted in this presentation guide students through a close analysis of a chapter in the National Geographic World History Great Civilizations textbook, a recently published, highly regarded and widely taught text in the ancient history curriculum. This chapter covers the exploits and leadership of Alexander the Great, arguably one of the more important leaders in ancient history. In these lessons, the students learn to identify author bias and relate those to underlying themes of oppression present in this chapter and other chapters about major historical leaders they analyzed. With further discussion, the students are able to draw connections between the bias present in these articles and their own lives and knowledge of the world.

ABSTRACT. This paper aims to inspire preservice and in-service art educators and general educators to become upstanders in dismantling oppressive structures and discriminatory practices that negatively impact the learning outcomes of students with dis/abilities in school.I discuss how varied instructional approaches, classroom management, and routines are essential in creating a safe learning environment and equitable learning experience for students with dis/abilities.

ABSTRACT. Holistic education literature has long described the role of educator as being a vocation or calling. However, this ideal sets a particularly high bar for those of us in adult, community, and vocational education, where many – especially those of us outside of universities (and/or without the security of tenure) – may have come into the role of educator through atypical journeys of working in our professional fields without the acculturation into the “teaching as vocation” ideal that may be prevalent in the work of certain educational writers, thinkers, and practitioners.

Writings on holistic education also tend to critique the “[…] trappings of competitive professionalism: tightly controlled credential and certification, jargon and special techniques, and professional aloofness from the spiritual, moral, and emotional issues inevitably involved in human growth.” (quoted in The Chicago Group of Holistic Educators, 1993) Within this literature, educators are seen as "facilitators of learning”, and idea that is synergistic with adult learning theories, but that such learning should be “an organic, natural process and not a product that can be turned out on demand.” (quoted in The Chicago Group of Holistic Educators, 1993) An idea that is far from the reality on many if not most adult, community and vocational contexts. This same literature notes that educators “require autonomy to design and implement learning environments that are appropriate to the needs of their particular students.” Another idea that is synergistic with adult learning theories, if not much of what passes for practice in many contexts.

This paper will explore the principle of “new role/s for educators” that is synergistic with the assumptions of Holistic Education theories, that firmly grounds it contexts and issues that face humanity today and tomorrow, and that highlights educators as curriculum makers and enactors.

Reference The Chicago Group of Holistic Educators. (1990). Education 2000: A holistic perspective - A vision statement. In C. Flake (Ed.), Holistic education: Principles, perspectives and practices, a book of readings based on Education 2000: A holistic perspective (2nd ed., pp. 361-362). Holistic Education Press.

ABSTRACT. This paper draws together literature around emotions and white supremacy. Specifically, I draw upon the work of Reverend Thandeka (1999) and Ralph Ellison (1953/1995) to describe emotional configurations (Vea, 2020) of whiteness. Using storytelling, I describe the the emotional configurations of three White secondary science interns' participation in a secondary science program. In doing so, I argue white shame and white ambivalence are a part of learning to teach science for White secondary science interns and should be targets of learning for White secondary science interns.

ABSTRACT. This essay emerges within the context of the current legislative attacks on critical forms of pedagogy rising across the United States. This essay centers emotion and emotional forms of resistance in learning that may facilitate critical thinking in a socio-political context determined to foreclose critical discourses. Drawing on Deweyan pragmatism, this essay advocates for an expansion of the critical paradigm to include pragmatist philosophical conceptualizations of criticality through an arts-based enquiry using emotions and embodied knowing as central to the learning process. This essay presents an affective pragmatic inquiry that artfully “thinks-with” (Jackson & Mezzei, 2017) emotions and embodied experiences of learning that may inform pragmatic critical forms of pedagogy.

ABSTRACT. This proposal refers to the research which was carried out by a Brazilian teacher for her master degree in Education. It investigated how the development of a didactic proposal, based on the Social Historical Activity Theory and the multiliteracies pedagogy, contributed to the English language curriculum de-encapsulation during the pandemic.

ABSTRACT. National Art Curriculum Guide issued by government are important instruction for school art education in Taiwan from K-12. However, research shows that, among school-related factors, the teacher is the most important determinant in school efficiency. The main purpose of this study is to explore how junior high school art teachers in Taiwan implement their art teaching. Three types of research data were collected to answer the above questions: the significant variables that influence art teachers’ teaching practice; the challenges that art teachers encountered when teaching; the correlation between the difficulties art teachers encountered and their teaching practices.

ABSTRACT. What is social justice education, and why is social justice necessary to a democracy? How and why does art play a significant role in social justice work? How might we assess social justice curriculum and pedagogy? These questions drive the authors’ inquiry into philosophical and conceptual assumptions of curricula and pedagogies of social justice education. From an extensive study of social justice theoretical underpinnings and impactful practice, the authors present a set of six principles, Throughout the book are examples of art and artists whose work engages with one or more of principles of social justice presented in this book.

ABSTRACT. Double readings have been underexplored in the field of Curriculum Studies and fields of education in general. This paper functions as a map of doubled readings inside and outside the field and how they come into play in my work on the topic of Mahatma Gandhi, revealing new possibilities for how we come to understand theories and practices—embodiments—of non-violence.

ABSTRACT. Honors and Advanced Placement English courses teach students, through the practices of reading and writing, the breadth and scope of ideas, experiences, and peoples that comprise the narrative of the human experience. How does reading literature as rhetoric of the lived experience allow for meaning-making and cultural identity development? This study will explore how the transactional theory of reading literature as rhetoric, and critical theories of feminism, race, and labor, may disrupt the white, male hegemonies perpetuated in a primarily white, middle- and-working-class, conservative high school.

ABSTRACT. Across America, politicians and school boards are working to put God back in schools (Richman, 2023). To understand what is meant by putting God “back,” one needs to know the genealogy of religion and American education systems, reactions to said moves, and the silencing that resulted in God’s placement/removal from the classroom.

ABSTRACT. About midway through Trump’s presidency, as he gave contracts to foreign companies to mine our national forests, I had a conversation with a colleague about dwindling natural resources, globally. She wondered about what would happen when we, globally, are out of resources, and what would happen to the people in other places who have been exploited for centuries. My response to her to query was that we, Americans, are the resources they will come for next – and that we can already see it happening. Humans have always been expendable – but that expendability has been largely invisible to the masses unaffected by it – but now, it is creeping into the mainstream, more obvious in some places than others. Dueling pandemics, Trump’s administration and COVID-19, revealed to a greater degree that the quest for more money, more power, and more global control, has rendered humans disposable. For nearly two years, we have seen the demand for “essential workers” to continue in their jobs as store clerks and cashiers, fast food workers and restaurant servers. We have read the articles and watched the news cycles about essential workers attacked or murdered over attempting to enforce company mask and vaccine mandates. And we have witnessed corporate refusal to increase protection for their employees, or pay them increased wages, in spite of elevated health risks and potential for bodily harm – suggesting that not only do corporations often view their employees expendable – but that increasingly, we see each other as expendable in pursuit of personal gain and comfort. Additionally, I assert that market-driven public education in the United States functions in a manner that renders humans, children, disposable. In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, as schools closed down and teachers scrambled to gather and distribute technology and materials to children, deliver instruction online, and ensure students were fed, parents lauded their efforts and hailed them heroes. Now, many of those teachers have been physically and verbally assaulted, and have had their lives threatened, by parents opposed to mask and vaccine mandates in schools. Less obvious but just as sinister, are changes in classroom spaces. In the ethico-onto-epistemological perspective, our “entanglements are relations of obligation” (Barad, 2010, p. 265), suggesting we have an ethical obligation to each other, and to the Other. In this case, consider children in classrooms, teachers, and other school employees, as Others, to whom we owe consideration and care, but when confronted with the COVID-19 disaster, politicians, policy-makers, and corporate entities, chose profit. Politicians like Greg Abbott, Governor of Texas, and Ron DeSantis, Governor of Florida, forced schools to open, forced teachers and children back into classrooms, and then denied them health and safety precautions such as mask and vaccine mandates. School districts that pushed back in attempt to protect teachers and students, were threatened with lawsuits, with loss of school funding, loss of wages, and termination from jobs. Beyond those disasters manufactured in light of COVID-19, there are more recently manufactured disasters such as the upheaval over Critical Race Theory, curriculum covering historical events including slavery, book bans specifically targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as queer content, trans rights of children in schools and classrooms, immigration – Abbott specifically stated that immigrant children should have to pay for schooling to alleviate the burden on tax payers. All of these are examples of disasters manufactured for the sake of profit. Braidotti (2013) states, “Advanced capitalism is a spinning machine that actively produces differences for the sake of commodification” (p.58). For this paper, I suggest that advanced capitalism also manufactures disasters for the sake of profit. Education is already increasingly privatized, and teachers have less and less input about curriculum, lesson planning, instructional decisions, and instructional needs of children, but COVID-19 provided the opportunity to expand the business, the privatization of market-driven public schools by manufacturing short- and long-term disasters within educational settings. Forcing schools to open is a manufactured disaster itself, but also set the stage for other manufactured disasters. In the short-term, programs for classrooms, particularly technology-based, digital curricular resources, that often offer an inferior educational experience, are immediately profitable – when children are in schools to use the products. For example, a new law in Texas requires an extra forty-five minutes of instruction for all students who failed the STAAR test last year. This year, there are several new digital tutoring programs available and in use in public school classrooms, often in place of small group instruction with teachers. Long-term, the effects of less than stellar educational opportunities keep millions of children from reaching their highest potential, preventing them from becoming competitive wage earners, so they end up with no options except to work for, and maintain the wealth of, corporate billionaires. In the short- and long-term, forcing children back into schools amid the pandemic manufactured disasters that have, or will render children commodities – disposable.

References

Barad, K. (2010). Quantum entanglements and hauntological relations of inheritance: Dis/continuities, spacetime enfoldings, and justice-to-come. Derrida Today, (3)2, 240-268.

Braidotti, R. (2013). The Posthuman. Polity Press.

ABSTRACT. This Autobiography examines how the Maasai bead culture can transform education through a personal lived experience. Jackson Shaa, a Maasai, shares the traditional values and customs learned through his aunt's beading that altered his life. The bead culture integrated aesthetics, culture, commerce, politics, and religion into a global worldview. This knowledge instilled a feeling of environmental obligation. Beadwork helped the Maasai maintain peace and sustainability with nature. Beadwork also promoted Maasai togetherness, fraternity, and economic independence. The Maasai shared their culture via beading, fostering tolerance and respect. This Autobiography suggests incorporating the Maasai beadwork framework into the Kenyan curriculum to preserve and enhance students' cultural history, develop cultural awareness, and foster identity. It emphasizes educating students about environmental preservation and sustainability via nature's interconnection. Beadwork develops creativity, critical thinking, and critical thinking skills. Beadwork encourages cooperation and respect, creating an inclusive and varied learning environment. By embracing this traditional educational system, Kenya may provide its students with a culturally rich and complete education and prepare them for a sustainable future based on preservation, communication, uniqueness, and cultural pride. Jackson's life and love of beading demonstrate the Maasai bead culture's effect on education, culture, and sustainability.

ABSTRACT. Using the passage of new DC social studies standards as a starting point, this presentation shares teacher candidates developing classroom curricular cultures and ways of being social studies democratic curricular leaders through Currere, as they engage classroom observations, document analysis, and interviews with their mentors.

ABSTRACT. Content knowledge is one very important aspect of teaching that teacher possess. They spend countless hours studying the best practices of teaching the content they wish to deliver. What if knowing your discipline isn't enough. This multi case study seeks to explore how equitable teachers build critical dispositions towards their content through critical reflection both orally and through writing. This study chronicles the stories of two public school teachers' story to their criticality using narrative inquiry methodology. Through open coding analysis we found int these artifacts and oral interviews how different a journey to criticality can be and how this impacts culturally sustaining teaching. This presentation uses hip hop, spoken word and other texts to explore what it really means to be critical.

ABSTRACT. The objective of this presentation is to analyze the impact of U.S. curricular ideologies in the development of Mexican transnationals regarding racial identity. Particularly, I concentrate on the perceptions of transnationals who have returned to Mexico to pursue higher education and who previously attended U.S. formal education.

ABSTRACT. Transforming the US's ecological education curriculum is imperative to effectively address the ongoing ecological crisis (Jones, 2013; Karplus,1974). However, reestablishing a sense of connectedness with nature is vital. Forward-thinking educators aiming to tackle sustainability challenges and student disconnection with nature recognize that breaking free from the linear curricula, demands courage, creativity, and preparedness (Johnston, 2013). This paper draws on Bronfenbrenner's (1974) ecological systems theory and Humboldt's (1849) interconenctive nature theory. It aims to introduce and discuss the capitulum inflorescence model for transforming ecological education, interweaving various pedagogical approaches with individual responsibilities encompassing societal well-being, equity, environmental protection, and sustainability.

ABSTRACT. This symposium introduces “Critical American Language Praxis” (CALP) as an epistemological lens that examines the tensions of Global English in language teaching and learning contexts across North, Central, and South America. It explores CALP as a decolonial project of language teaching and teacher preparation in resistance to Eurocentric, colonial curricula.