Education, Faculty of
Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of
DSpace
UBCV
Bigloo, Fay
Doctor of Philosophy - PhD
University of British Columbia
Autobiographical/biographical research starts with my experiences of being in and with the world. This study explores the relations of my life experiences with my academic interests. Conversations are complicated not only by the singularity and complexity of the individual, but also by place, conceived here as historical and biospheric. This study is inspired by distinction between “the horizon of curriculum-as-plan … and the horizon of curriculum-as-lived-experience” (Aoki, 1986/1991, p. 161) as I strive to retain Aoki’s openness to future possibilities. Engagements with the worlds of within and without, and study through and on the method of currere structures the research. My question of being adds to the basic structure of currere, what I term cosmo-currere. This is a C++ threshold highlighting the diversity that exists in both historical and natural worlds, and the basic relations that exist between the two. Within the terrain of cosmo-currere and through my breath and air, curriculum reveals itself as biospheric text. The recognition of the Earth, as the main repository of all experiences, and the source of human epistemologies, discloses curriculum as terra-didactic text. The understanding of a complex inter-connectedness existing between the historical and the natural worlds places environmental justice at the heart of curriculum.
COSMO-CURRERE: TO UNDERSTAND CURRICULUM AS BIO-GEOSPHERIC JUSTICE AND TERRA-DIDACTIC TEXT by Fay Bigloo M.A., The University of British Columbia, 2012 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Curriculum Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) November 2021 © Fay Bigloo, 2021 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the dissertation entitled: Cosmo-Currere: To Understand Curriculum as Bio-Geospheric Justice and Terra-Didactic Text submitted by Fay Bigloo in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Curriculum Studies Examining Committee: William F. Pinar, Curriculum Studies, UBC Supervisor Rita L. Irwin, Curriculum Studies, UBC Supervisory Committee Member Sandra Scott, Curriculum Studies, UBC Supervisory Committee Member Barbara Weber, Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education, UBC University Examiner Anthony Clarke, Curriculum Studies, UBC University Examiner iii Abstract Autobiographical/biographical research starts with my experiences of being in and with the world. This study explores the relations of my life experiences with my academic interests. Conversations are complicated not only by the singularity and complexity of the individual, but also by place, conceived here as historical and biospheric. This study is inspired by distinction between “the horizon of curriculum-as-plan … and the horizon of curriculum-as-lived-experience” (Aoki, 1986/1991, p. 161) as I strive to retain Aoki’s openness to future possibilities. Engagements with the worlds of within and without, and study through and on the method of currere structures the research. My question of being adds to the basic structure of currere, what I term cosmo-currere. This is a C++ threshold highlighting the diversity that exists in both historical and natural worlds, and the basic relations that exist between the two. Within the terrain of cosmo-currere and through my breath and air, curriculum reveals itself as biospheric text. The recognition of the Earth, as the main repository of all experiences, and the source of human epistemologies, discloses curriculum as terra-didactic text. The understanding of a complex inter-connectedness existing between the historical and the natural worlds places environmental justice at the heart of curriculum. iv Lay Summary Feeling anxious for the political and environmental conditions of the world, I instigated an autobiographical research. Currere (Pinar, 1975) became the research method; I returned to my past experiences and looked for their possible meanings for the present and future through the interrelation of my life experiences and academic interests. The complex question of being highlighted the importance of currere too. Ultimately, I expanded currere by adding an environmental section to it. I call this environmental site cosmo-currere to emphasize the world as a place for humans and non-humans. Through contemplation of my own breath and the importance of air for the world, I suggest that curriculum is a bio and geospheric discussion. Pivoting on earth as the storehouse of all experiences reveals its terra-didactic role in humans’ knowings. The interconnectedness of the two worlds of humans and non-humans necessitates fore fronting environmental justice in curriculum. v Preface This dissertation is original, unpublished, independent work by the author, F. Bigloo. A different version of the concept of biospheric text, which is in the section of 5.3 of this dissertation, was published as an article in Prospect Journal in 2021. I was the first author of that publication; the paper was a collaborative work with two other authors, Dr. Sandra Scott and Dr. Douglas Adler. Yet, another version of biosphere and breath was also presented in the American Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies (AAACS) by the author, F. Bigloo, on May 1, 2021. vi Table of Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... iii Lay Summary ............................................................................................................................... iv Preface .............................................................................................................................................v Table of Contents ......................................................................................................................... vi Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... viii Dedication ..................................................................................................................................... ix Chapter 1: Introduction, Eccentric and Cryptic ...........................................................................1 1.1 Time: The Experiences of the Present .........................................................................7 1.2 Past and Present: Ongoing Juxtapositions .................................................................10 1.3 Being and Beings: Existential Framework of Circumstance .....................................11 1.4 Framework and Curriculum .......................................................................................12 1.5 A Method Embedded in Time and Consciousness: Apertures and Mirrors ..............15 1.6 The Language and the Method of Currere ................................................................28 Chapter 2: Revertive ..................................................................................................................32 2.1 Time and Tragedy: Immorality or Political Wrath ....................................................33 2.2 Kinship and Compassion ...........................................................................................35 2.3 Religion and the Concepts of Potentiality and Possibility .........................................37 2.4 Alluring Freedom .......................................................................................................39 2.5 A Note on the Forgetfulness Element of Progress .....................................................47 2.6 Connection, Disconnection, and Communication with Place ....................................49 2.6.1 Experiences of the New World………………………………………………..50 2.6.2 The Old………………………………………………………………………..52 vii 2.7 Norouz: A Perspective Inclusive of Natural and Cultural Beings .............................55 2.8 On-the-Edge Moments: Hakayat-e If, But, and However .........................................58 2.9 Back with the Whole ..................................................................................................60 2.10 Return to a Cultural Tragedy .....................................................................................62 2.11 Norouz and Natural ....................................................................................................63 Chapter 3: Migrative ..................................................................................................................67 3.1 Locus: Place is a Principle .........................................................................................69 3.2 Back to the Transplanted Phase of Currere ...............................................................72 Chapter 4: Contemplative ..........................................................................................................74 4.1 Interrelatedness Is Another Principle .........................................................................76 4.2 Third Principle: Justice Settled in Dam .....................................................................78 4.3 Past Parental Principles, Present Education, and New Technology ..........................80 4.4 Technology: Past and Present Imperialism, Colonialism, and Capitalism ................83 4.5 Activity, Instrumentality, and Human Consciousness ...............................................89 4.6 The Other in the Shadows of an Instrumental Consciousness……………………...91 4.7 Being in and With the World .....................................................................................93 4.8 Biospheric and Historical Relations in Norouz .........................................................94 Chapter 5: Artificial ...................................................................................................................97 5.1 Re-conceptualization: Coherent is the Earth..............................................................97 5.2 The Relations of Currere and Cosmo-currere.........................................................101 5.3 Future Implications of Cosmo-currere ....................................................................102 References ...................................................................................................................................119 viii Acknowledgements Though I cannot acknowledge all my debts for the help I have received in making my mud-pies, I do wish to express my thanks for few entities and some people. First and foremost, I am thankful to this land, i.e., the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Musqueam people. This land has allowed me to nurture my body and to develop my thoughts. I also have to acknowledge the importance of the world itself and its different places, which have made my existence and the broadening of my perspective possible. I thank my husband, Mohammed Eill, who, with insight and endless kindness, encouraged me to pursue my dreams and supported me financially to do so. I extend many thanks to Dr. William F. Pinar for introducing me to a world of knowledge through which I could understand and articulate some parts of my life. I would like to extend my gratitude to Dr. Rita L. Irwin for being very kind and generous; she always given me afresh perspective. I also would like to express my deepest respect for Dr. Sandra Scott for her extraordinary style of teaching, her warm and respectful reception for her students, and for opening her heart to me. I will never forget her understanding and care. I express my gratitude for Dr. Jeanne Kentel, whose friendship and knowledge has helped me much. Finally, I wish to thank Dr. Douglas Adler for his kindness and understanding. I have a feeling that he understands me even when I speak in Farsi. ix Dedication I dedicate this dissertation to every single breath that has ensured my life and the life of those who are dear and close to me, in specific my daughter and my husband. 1 Chapter 1: Introduction, Eccentric and Cryptic Sensing is this living communication with the world that makes it present to us as the familiar place of our life. (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/2014, p. 53) It is the intentional fabric that the work of knowledge will seek to decompose. (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/2014, p. 53) I was born in 1959 to this world; I am the middle child of five born to my parents, and also the first girl born into the family. Two boys before and a boy and a girl after me, form my siblings. Although my parents were high school drop outs, they were avid advocates for education, felt its importance in life, and did everything possible and sacrificed a great deal to advance their children through education. The same year that I received my high school diploma, I was also accepted into a public university, to which admission required rigorous and difficult examinations. I chose to enter the field of Physical Education because of the experiences I had with my body and my physical abilities. During my university education, I worked as a childcare worker at a university associated day-care for one semester, taught PE in an elementary school near my home for a year, taught PE in high school for another year, worked as an undergraduate teacher assistant for one semester, and taught a PE course at the same university in the last year of my undergraduate program. Being involved in sports organizations as an athlete and administrator, and becoming familiar with the challenging life of one of my female professors, who became paraplegic and confined to wheelchair, I realized that there was very little available for women with disability in sports in Iran. That understanding propelled me to set up the first swimming lessons and paraplegic 2 volleyball classes for women with disability in Iran. At the last semester of my studying, before graduation from my university, I was recruited and hired by another university (i.e., Sharif University) in Tehran to teach Physical Education I and II to female engineering students in that university. I worked at Sharif University for the duration of almost 6 years, as a faculty member in the field of Physical Education before leaving Iran. I have seen my former students at UBC and Vancouver many times. After moving to Vancouver, I worked as a childcare worker in a daycare centre in downtown, Vancouver. Later on, with a co-worker, who became and stayed a friend for the past 30 years, we opened our own after-school care at Vancouver College, an independent university preparatory Catholic high school for boys. We operated the after-school care for several years. Feeling burned out and desiring other things in life (e.g., more flexible time with my daughter), we explored other forms of occupations. This was until my daughter moved to San Diego to pursue higher education with an athletic scholarship. This was when time presented me with another pivoting moment; becoming an empty nester, I seized the opportunity to apply to a MA program in the field of physical and health education at UBC. Interested in the influence of physical and social environments on the quality of life for older adults, I conducted a research on the walkabout program of Dr. Joy Butler. The end of my program aligned with the completion of my daughter’s first degree and her return to Vancouver. After a year of work in Vancouver, she decided to return to San Diego for her graduate studies. I also decided to go back to school for my doctoral program. I sensed I was going to experience another paradigm shift at the beginning of my doctoral program; admitted into that program in the field of Physical Education and Health and the occurrences of some other events made me to realize that, I, no longer was interested in the field 3 at the time. Attending Dr. Pinar’s class during the first semester of my study unfolded this paradigm shift further. The kindness of Dr. Pinar and his acceptance to supervise me, moved me into the world of curriculum studies. The description of all these actions taken in the contexts of life and education, brings this research into the present time. It would not be an overstatement to claim that the research I articulate here through different narratives faces and exposes the complexities of being in and with the world. This is an autobiographic story, which threads together my experiences and my academic interests through the needle of curriculum with the hope of unveiling a different understanding that emanates from a life-long consistency. In other words, the main question which prompts and guides my study is to find out what contribution/s my academic studies make to understanding my own life and what my life experiences may offer to my academic field. In understanding, I reveal my pivotal experiences and weave the past, present, and future together. This research, being autobiographical, is also “an Explicit Repetition of the Question of Being” (Heidegger, 1953, p. 1), which comes through my elementary school experiences with hayat1 through Saadi’s2 poetry. Returning to the past and re-experiencing the experiences of my past reveals a “preconceptual”3 domain in which “experience is yet to be articulated” (Pinar & Reynolds, 2015, p. 4). Throughout this study, the emphasis remains on the “spheres of time, space, and experience that ontologically antedate all conceptualization” (p. 4). Although the 1 Hayat is a word in Farsi that has a double meaning. Without taking capital form, hayat means both being and Being. 2 Saadi is a well-known Persian poet of the 13th century. 3 The word preconceptual makes a reference to the past and a pre-mature state, in which the happenings of one’s life are not understood, nor are expressed yet. 4 focus is on my life experiences, other existential times, that is, other beings in the world, are also at the heart of the matter. Moreover, this autobiography, emphasizing both my academic interests and life experiences, weaves the contexts of life, education, and curriculum together. It is noteworthy to mention that this research develops in a relational way, as the narratives of my life expose links with the stories of other beings. This is also a research that ultimately expands the theory Pinar outlines in “The Method of Currere” (1975, p. 19). It widens the notion of interrelationality, which Pinar has always expressed through the concepts of private and public life and “sociality and subjectivity” (Pinar, 1975; Pinar, 2012; Pinar, in-press, p. 36). Pinar (in-press) revealed a profound understanding of this interrelationality when citing Silverman (2009, p. 65). In that quotation, Silverman (2009) explained that we: connect our lives to many others—to lives that are over, and to lives that have not yet begun, as well as to those proximate to us in time and space. Rather than a self-contained volume, authorized by us, our history is only one chapter in an enormous and ever-expanding book, whose overall meaning and shape we cannot even begin to grasp, let along [sic] determine. … This volume is written from the inside, through the analogies we acknowledge and those we refuse. (p. 37) In addition to what Silverman revealed and while working from the inside, I will disclose the interdependencies between the I, as historical, and the Others, as the natural. The expansion of the notion of the Other, encourages additional growth and leads to greater understanding of the concept of togetherness.4 4 Togetherness here refers to its etymological form of “to be present in one place, … in an accumulate mass” (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.). 5 This study has an earthly presence. Through different discourses, I re-present the different meanings latent in my own experiences. By going into the world of my own within, I open conversations concerning politics, science and technology, religion, and family. Through these discourses, I will eventually reach that which makes all contexts and discourses possible, that is, the world itself. Describing my past experiences will follow with my analyses of them in the present. All these processes happen in the contexts of time and the concrete world; hence, that which has already been, that which is, and that which is yet to come—all blended into one—take turns to come into view. This study does have a repetitive quality; the repetition is due to the developmental quality of my understanding. The research cannot exhibit, as Doll (2008) explained, “scientifically measured efficiency” and should not “be assessed via … fixed standards … validated in terms of results which could be scientifically measured” (p. 24). Representing life and the experiences of one, this study focuses on what Doll elucidated as “a quality curriculum” that is mindful of one’s range and depth of understanding (p. 27). Thus, it is “structured along the lines of Richness, Recursion, Relationship, and Rigor” (p. 27). Wandering and wondering within the threshold of currere and meditating on my own experiences of being in and with the world, I lament for many beings. Yet, I remain open as I wish for grief and angst to go away. Through contemplating the origin of these losses and by keeping the present in mind, my study unfolds in multiple meaningful directions. First, I find myself in the C++ terrain5 of cosmo-currere. The terrain 5 The word terrain, “from terra,” means “earth, land” (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.). The word terrain here is also to clarify the meaning of cosmo, which in its combining form relates currere to a world that also cares for the natural beings. 6 presents itself to me through contemplations of both historical and natural worlds and their interconnectedness. The suggestion is that respites from the social (however temporary) and focus on the natural (whatever supposedly short and trifling) can disclose the relations and connections that exist between human and non-human worlds in many different ways. Within the terrain of cosmo-currere, I realize the Earth is the repository of all experiences, including the spiritual ones. It is through the Earth that we have come to know what we know throughout history. Those realities conceive curriculum as terra-didactic6 text. Further contemplations lead to the disclosure of the Earth’s current form dependence on its biosphere. That understanding reveals curriculum as biospheric text. Lastly, my study suggests that humans’ future and fortune are bound up with the destiny of others, inclusive of the historical and natural. Having that vantage point, response-civility, respect, and admiration for others mandate including bio-geospheric justice in curriculum. The understanding is that seeking justice for the environment takes precedence to pursuing justice for historical. The unravelling of my experiences of being in and with the world begins with my experiences in the present. Although I will give a more comprehensive explanation of time in a later section of this dissertation, I briefly explain what I mean by time here. Time conveys different meanings throughout this study; it sometimes discloses its chronological meaning while other times it has an existential connotation. Yet, some other times, time encompasses both conventional and existential meanings. 6 The word didactic refers to its root of “apt at teaching” Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.). The word apt is in its adjectival use as the past participle of apere, meaning “to attach, join, tie to,” and it also is from Proto-Indo-European, “PIE root, *ap” meaning “to grasp, take, reach” (2021). 7 1.1 Time: The Experiences of the Present These days, the air is re-filled with tension, as the world seems simultaneously small and vast, close and distant, and slow and fast. Yet, that is not all; life is strained apparently in a “new” way, which is also familiar. Yet, that is not all; these days, the self is captivated by the questions of “existing and existent,” named by Levinas (1947/2013, p. 44) and re-turned in time. Yet, that is not all; these days, I am impressed by the world of soil, which in the garden speaks of kinship. As Aoki (1979) noted, in “the language of a dialectic world, a paradigm of reciprocity of differences, a dialectic world of positives and negatives, of things and no-things—a world that invites the viewer to become one with it” (p. 345). Yet, that is not all; these days, I am ashamed of being a part of the world overwhelmed and mad, once again, by the divisions; the “pathos of nobility and distance,” by the entitlement and “superiority” (Nietzsche,1887/2013, p. 15)7 that considers others from a different degree through the dangerous games of identity and the “rationale” of good. The good that “by virtue of its origin” is far from an altruistic act (p.15). Yet, that is not all; these days, my shift of focus from human, through a sense of “magnetic affinity” (Sobel, 1996, p. 4), toward the other being, the cat, the domesticated animal at home, forms a different kind of empathy. Yet, that is not all; nowadays, an unknown affinity draws my attention “to a host of non-human neighbors” (Jensen, 2013, p. 1), the “wild animals” and beings 7 I find it necessary to clarify that the use of Nietzsche words. Here, the reference is based on my understanding from his first essay on the Genealogy of Morals on the apparent duality of good and bad, and the role of history and religion in sustaining that particular binary. I found the citations appropriate in the context of describing my present, through which I am positioning myself and in which, at the same time, I am grappling with this positioning and the concepts of identity (in relation to species, race, religion, gender, and so on). The phrase of “Yet, that is not all” discloses such struggles. Through revealing these struggles, I intend to move the focus from nouns to the relations in and through multi-centrality of Being. 8 in the city (the raccoons, squirrels, coyotes, crows, birds, bees, butterflies, and much more). Yet, that is not all; the other source of enjoyment is “the crisp autumn” air awakening “my cheeks” (Irwin, 2006, p. 75). Yet, that is not all; the openness of the ocean, which with its mysterious caresses comforts and washes away the shores of life simultaneously evoking and repressing the possibilities of freedom and love, is also at my heart. Yet, that is not all; these days, this self is intrigued by the “small,” as I see the sophisticated conversations of the little plants and flowers revealing the warmth of the sun, the freshness of the air. I listen to their conversations that unveil their secrets: their nakedness covered by the breath of the night, the dew, their relations with the insects rolling on their bellies, the short lives they endure, their sudden death in the wind, and the long-lived history that they carry. Yet, that is not all. These days I—a collective of many things—see myself closer than ever to the fabric of life, the soil, in the connected zone of the “body and nature, in time and place” (Payne & Wattchow, 2009, p. 15). Yet, that is not all; these days, caught in the web of technocracy, at times disconnected and half human half machine, consumed by the virtual world, I forget what real being is. Yet, that is not all; through the world of “study” that “constitutes the process of education” (Pinar, 2015, p. 7), I aim to understand the meanings of my life. Yet, that is not all; other concerns, these days, are wars and conflicts, through which the banalities and cruelties of the past re-present themselves in harsh, crude, and obscene ways. I can see how these conflicts unravel through notions such as nation, state, and citizenship in the present humanity that supposedly is the symbol of the highest form of consciousness. Yet, that is not all; captured by the omnipresent media, subdued by a sadness, saturated in a fake sense of violent normality, I 9 witness and remember how an unfortunate “other”8 becomes a statistic. Yet, that is not all; then, reassured through distancing my life from the other, I skip the questions of why and whence. That way, I liberate myself from any liability for the happenings and place the blame on others. Yet, that is not all; these days happily and perhaps naively, I anticipate in the depositing of the present into the past for an exuberant future—an afresh gift of endearment and intimacy—a visit from one’s own progeny, who is far in a “strange” land. Yet, that is not all; these days, I am driven by ambition as I look for more in the possibility of relinquishing my own void. Yet, that is not all; dazed, tensed, pleased, saddened, frightened, and filled with so many other emotions and thoughts, conscious and unconscious, I constantly ask: what are these days, our present time, about? Yet, that is not all; with an intense desire to understand, I also realize that “while those understandings that can be grasped are uncannily correct, the essence of teaching” (Pinar & Reynolds, 2015, p. 20) and life escapes our understanding. Thus, I wonder if I should “break away from the attitude of grasping and seek to be more properly oriented to what” (p. 20) B/being is. That way, may I ‘attune’ myself to the world. Yet, that is not all. In following the footsteps of Aoki (1991), I ask: “does man deserve this earth?” (p. 383). This question arises from remembering a different form of human atrocity, the “sociocultural genocide of the indigenous people” and the expropriation and exploitation of their land (Korteweg & Oakley, 2014, p. 4), all of which mark the lowest point of the collective “consciousness” of this place. Yet, that is not all; “in the exchange between the world and [the] embodied existence” that I am, I also realize the formation of “an autochthonous sense of the 8 Other here appears within quotation marks because in the case of becoming a statistic, “other” represents me. Through this similarity between what I experienced and what another person experiences, the concept of other, indeed, is inclusive of I. 10 world” that shapes “the ground of every deliberate” (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/2014, p. 466) meaning-making that I attempt to accomplish. Expressing the complex relationships that exist in my being in being in and with the world also indicates the fragility of life, as the intentions are not only of mine. While present in the present reflecting on who I am today and the expansive relationships I have with and in the world, I notice long-stemmed fragranced peachy roses on the table. The pleasure with the view encourages closer encounter with the roses; through inhaling a single breath filled with “hidden ecological memory of the sensuous spells” (Abram, 1996, reflected on in Jardine, 1998, p. 92) of my olfactory sense, I am instantly transported to a place thousands of miles away, in a time that is long gone, in a place “distant”9 from here. I am also aware of the multiplicity of operations within this single breath; how it makes complex and concrete processes possible, making the generation and re-generations of my body and mind attainable. The split between the apparent dualities of here and there, present and past, and nature and culture (inclusive of my body and mind) prompts other juxtapositions. Caressing the roses on the table, I begin to study the memories of my own childhood in Tehran. 1.2 Past and Present: Ongoing Juxtapositions The memories of the past are mixed and perplexing; they are inclusive of taken-for-granted relations that I have with others. Numerous hesitations have already settled inside for visiting the past, as my understanding is that I am still captured by some of the horrors of what happened. There is this knowing that remembering my own past would retrieve a sense of being 9 I put distant in quotation marks because I also thought of that place stored in my memories, which are not distant to me at all. It indicates that in a sense, a long-gone past is not distant at all, as it is in me. 11 violated, “stripped naked, hollowed out, and disoriented” (Agamben, 2000, p. 120). Nonetheless, a hope that going to my past may lead to freedom propels me to visit it. Pursuing my “interest” in its etymological form of “interese”—literally “to be between,” forming from two parts of “inter” meaning between and “esse” meaning “to be” (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.), indicates that my interest lays somewhere between my being and the being of others. With that understanding, two other juxtapositions take place. One is between my existence and the existence of other beings. The second is between my body and that of the other, that is, the world itself. The initial scrutiny of my past and present for the sake of a future also reminds me to ground my research through a framework. What will follow is a framework within which I will study the connections and interdependencies of my being in being in and with the world. As the world of without also comes into focus, another form of temporizing and hesitation settles in. I realize the possibility of an illusion (i.e., my truth may warrant an understanding of me to others). With the acknowledgement of that limitation, I feel free and move forward to outline the framework. 1.3 Being and Beings: Existential Framework of Circumstance The hermit’s life passed by in the desire for Heaven, S/he did not know ceasing desire is the Heaven, What is the talk of Heaven being in the supra place? Wherever time (existence) is harmonious, that is the Heaven. (Bigloo, 2016 translation of Saeb-e-Tabrizi’s poem, A. Bostanchi, personal communication, March 23, 2017). 12 In the fall of 2014, “new” and lost in the world of curriculum and yet thankful for such circumstance, I instigated a comprehensive study which gradually made me courageous enough to explore my experiences in life with the hope of understanding what they may reveal. Understanding that “at any given moment” one is in a “biographic situation” (Pinar & Grumet, 1976, p. 51, cited in Pinar et al.,1995, p. 520), I realized my research was leaning toward phenomenology. That understanding brought an existential time, as I, other existential times—as other beings—in chronological time, as past and present, together. The temporality of my specific experiences also revealed me as “something ipso facto unique” (Jaspers, 1953, p. 241). Of course, not in the universal sense, but in the sense that they have been the realities that have constantly propelled me in many “different” directions in my life. Understanding that this reality also characterizes the lives of others required an inclusive framework that acknowledged this diversity. Within an existential framework, free from this or that, I can address my complex and diverse experiences in the grounds of the world. I, embedded in the world, await “the world as it opens itself to me” (Arendt, 1990/2005, p. 14 reflecting back on Socrates and his fellow citizens). Within an existential framework, the realities of my life are not just “subjective fantasy and arbitrariness,” even though they are not “something absolute and valid for all (p. 14). The inspirational and persuasive qualities of this work, which also address the public, refit this research in an existential framework. Finally, the question of my being and the beings of others justifies an existential framework can properly address this research. 1.4 Framework and Curriculum The framework of the study, with its worldly substructure, does not follow an abstract concept into which the subject disappears. An existential framework reveals that the concept of 13 being human is distilled from historical and natural relationships with the world. Such a framework allows for the disclosure of my experience from formal education contextualized in life, thus marrying “curriculum-as-plan” and “curriculum-as-live(d)” (Aoki, 2000, p. 322). This framework suggests that curriculum is a “complicated conversation” that aims to reveal “the truths of the present” not to manipulate “for job creation” (Pinar, in-press, p. 37). In this framework, analyses are on the particularity of one’s relations with that which, unclear and shadowy, “has been handed down,” and that which cannot be “clearly grounded” (Gadamer, 2013, p. 292) and firmly accepted. Such a framework describes that curriculum is “a complicated conversation” (Pinar, 2012, p. 193), which by being mindful of an individual’s experiences in the process of education, restores the role of pedagogy as partial (Pinar, 2009). That understanding makes the educator “a participant in an ongoing multi-referenced conversation” (Pinar, 2009, p. 11). This framework allows curriculum to focus on the concreteness of life and the complexities that it re-presents. Of course, this does not occur through “psychological manipulation but [through] the esthetic juxtaposition of academic knowledge” with the experiences of those who may already be knowledgeable (p. 11). It is not to forget, as Martin Jay (2005, p. 158) explained, “aesthetic experience” discloses “privileging of the subject, whether contemplative, productive, or self-fashioning, over the art object” (cited in Pinar 2009, p. 154). Thus, the study focuses on understanding the individual’s experiences as ends in themselves rather than a means to an end. Within the existing world, curriculum generates multiple conversations through which different juxtapositions may reveal diversity and difference and within which unpredictable interrelations disclose themselves between the matters that are apparently unrelated (Rancière, 2008, as reflected upon in Pinar 2009, p. 154). Within the dynamic framework of the world, this study, 14 through “intellectual labor rather than bureaucratic protocol,” stays open to the development of “an aesthetic-inspired reconfiguration of scholarship that invites complicated conversation among” all parties involved in education (Pinar, 2009, p. 154). The focus here is “on the texts that speak to” an individual; on this basis, one may also have a voice (p. 154). Within the existential framework, my study is also a “curriculum development” (p. 154) that simultaneously, as Cusset (2008, p. 240) explained, is a “theoretical practice” (cited in Pinar, 2009, p. 154). The curriculum expansion here may also transform current social understandings, standards, and norms. Both the existential framework and curriculum in this study remain open to a gendered knowing. The inclusion of my experiences as a woman in the world connects the two entities of my body and the world differently. This interconnectedness appears through the body of the earth, which has been the target of human control and exploitation, and through my body, which has lived “under the symbolic weight of law (paternal, familial, social, divine)” (Grumet, 1988, p. 3). The hope is that the inclusion of my experiences can generate a form of “knowledge from and about the body” that can also give a different kind of “knowledge about the world” (p. 3). Within the existential framework, complicated conversations re-present “a curriculum in which academic knowledge, subjectivity, and society become reciprocally reconstructed” (Pinar, 2012, p. 11). This setting allows for understanding curriculum as a collective conversation, formed by intense and diverse ideas that sometimes embrace one another and at other times are abrasive toward each other. The existential structure emphasizes a curriculum of multiplicity, of creative forces. This is an interrelated world through which curriculum can reject the domination of what Morin called “disjunction, reduction, and abstraction” (2008, p. 3). This is the dismissal of a “paradigm of 15 simplification” (p. 3). In the structure of this worldly framework, curriculum is not concerned with the “task of ascertaining history as a whole,” as Jaspers explained (1953, p. 231). Within the boundary of an existing world, understanding curriculum discloses that the totalizing of history is a wish; thus, it focuses on the understanding of one from it. Such scaffolding allows for a curriculum that is interested in the past peaks, beside which magnitudes, the beauties of the low valleys can also exhibit themselves. Within the existential boundaries of this framework, curriculum is to lay out different ways of being in the world; this is the disclosure of the curriculum of actions and reactions. This is an artful curriculum, which is eclectic, which cares for subjective, social, and more, which is affective as much as it is reserved, which is inclusive of the places on the planet and mindful of the spaces and the times in them, which is for this discipline and that discipline, and, ultimately, which is open to both historical and natural. In this framework, curriculum becomes alive through experiences, feelings, and connections. 1.5 A Method Embedded in Time and Consciousness: Apertures and Mirrors This is a voyage both out and back, … a voyage that carries us into the past but also ultimately returns us to the present, and points our way to the future. (Thoreau, 1849/ 1998, p. xviii) In this section of describing the method of my choice for this research, I return to the beginning of my study and remember my initial thoughts; at first, with my science background, I was thinking of an empirical research, which required field work and taking notes. Then with a paradigm shift, due to which I changed the field of my study, the choice of an empirical research became distant from who I was even then, at the beginning of my research. 16 Listening to a suggestion, I decided to research autobiographically; researching autobiographically turned out to be more complicated than I initially thought it would be. I say this because at some point into my research, I came face to face with another question: why am I not choosing narrative as an autobiographical method for this research? Looking into that question, I became aware that narrative inquiry, explained Clandinin, Pushor, & Orr (2007, p. 22) citing Connelly & Clandinin (2006), is “the study of experience as story,” which “is first and foremost a way of thinking about experience” (p. 477). The focus of narrative inquiry on the word story in that statement made me to refrain from such inquiry. I understood in its one etymological form, the word story changes meaning as we get closer in time to the present. The understanding that story means “sad truth” and “that requires different treatment” (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.), kept me distant from narrative inquiry, as I never wished to be treated with pity for telling the stories of my life. I find the subject I am is more than what happened to me in the past. Determined not only to provide an account of a series of events in my past, but also to take action and to create a different narrative for the future, I continued working with currere. The word story in its second noun form and its root of “floor of a building” as the outside of the building (n.d.), for me, had the implications of disregarding the world of within and the body and a total fore fronting of the mind. That, I also found problematic. Looking at my research now, I also remember knowing that this autobiographical research was a collaborative effort since throughout I also relied on the work and the experiences of those, who came before me and those who were with me, in the past. Auto-ethnography, was another autobiographical method, which came to my attention in the midst of my research. However, soon I realized the word forming element of auto- in its roots of “self, one’s own, by oneself, of oneself” as it is described in (Online Etymology Dictionary, 17 n.d.), embedded also had the concept of ethnicity. One becomes a self through the existence of others, traditions, and much more. The elimination of auto-ethnography maved me and the research closer to currere. As my focus remained on the worlds of within and without, the collaborative nature of my work was magnified for me. I re-membered Connelly & Clandinin (1990) reflected upon in Pinar et al., (1995, p. 524). They explained: Miller, Noddings, and Hogan mutually agreed time, relationship, space, and voice are required for a research to be considered as collaborative. My work here, for sure, has been inclusive of the three prerequisites of time, relationship, and space in depth and breadth. As for the voice, which, according to Grumet, (1990a, p. 279) cited in Pinar et al., (1995, p. 526), “is the medium for the projection of meaning,” has been a complex topic, to say the least. My voice, throughout the research and in life has moved between the three categories of Grumet explained: “situation, … narratives” and also “interpretation” (1990a, pp. 281-282 cited in Pinar et al., 1995, p. 526). Even though one may characterize my voice as deflective at times, I think, my voice even as deflective indicates interpretation more than anything else. Throughout the research, I intended to remain a reflexive subject, who took account of the self. That was the understanding, which brought me closer to the method of currere. Ultimately, the openness of currere to the subject, who is in relations with the social, cultural, and more and its focus on both narrative and narration solidified that approach as an action plan for this research. I see flexibility, which has allowed me to understand the plurality existing within the world of my own within and the world out there, as a fundamental aspect that currere values. I chose currere because through (openness) it privileges the subject I am, not 18 only my mind, not only the story I tell, nor only the ethnicity I have. With rectifying my decision for the method, I move forward to describe currere. The method of currere, according to Pinar, is “temporal and conceptual in nature,” meaning that “it aims for the cultivation of a developmental point of view that hints at the transtemporal and transconceptual” (1975, p. 19). Currere is “a strategy devised to disclose experience, so that we may see more of it and see more clearly” (Pinar et al., 1995, p. 518). The method highlights the importance of authenticity, and it focuses on a certain consistency, “not necessarily a logical one, but a lived one, a felt one” (Pinar, 1975, p. 20). The focus of the method is on time, both the existential and the chronological, emphasizing that understanding occurs in time (Pinar, 1975). The focus on the existence can unveil the strange game of chance, choice, and fate mixed in the concept of time, demarcated as past, present, and future. Realizing that “I am not the author of time, any more than am I the author of my own heartbeats” as “I did not choose to be born” (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/2014, p. 451) reveals the past, in part, as chance. Implied in the “past” is also “recourse against time itself” (p. 451), as the choices that one has made and will be making lead one into the present and the future. Therefore, it is correct to assume that the past is present in the present, as the present is in the past. Also, the future, the fate (i.e., the not yet), is conceived through the present and is informed by the past. All these realities disclose the complexity of time, its interrelations, and the fluid nature of past, present, and future. Another consideration that arises from the complex conversation of time is the concept of eternity. Does consideration of eternity as “without beginning and end” qualify eternity as the present—the existing world—as the only concrete and existing possibility? With that question, the complex nature of the present, that is, the world, surfaces carrying the meanings of immediacy, existence, at hand, here, and eternal, without any specific beginning and 19 end. Within this complicated conversation of time, the triple tie of what was given, what is, and what can be reveals the second meaning of present as human and non-human who have relations with the past, incur the present, and seize the possibilities of the future. The openness of this present (this time, the human agent) to the future refutes its summation in the past. The relations between chronological time and existential times may unfold: what is firmly known is neither complete nor objective, nor is it an isolated occurrence, as it is still embedded in a stretch of time. The human subject’s consciousness of the present depends on the individual’s experiences in the past and present in being in and with the world. Implied in the phrase of being in and with the world are, of course, the world and other beings existing in it as well. Moving from the past to the future is a challenge that Pinar expressed in the following question: “How to constitute the already constituted?” (Pinar, 1978b, p. 104, cited in Pinar et al., 1995, pp. 519–520). Embedded in that question of how is the concreteness of what, as not only the body, which appears as “data source” (p. 520), but also the original data source, that is, the world itself, in which all of our beings and knowings are embedded. Aware of the complexities of narrating a singular lived world in relation to the world, currere suggests that through responsiveness, one forms an understanding, placing one in a new position facing new complexities that require different understandings. For me, such a description of the process of understanding highlights downward, upward, and forward movements in understanding, all of which may enable one to draw a fuller sketch of a collective consciousness, as personified in one person. But why is this autobiographical method capable of making the flow of understanding possible? In my experience, the key is the flexibility that is fundamental to currere. This flexibility, which is freedom in time and in the style of proceeding, 20 eventually allows for a kind of detachment of the individual from what happened in the past. The second role of this freedom is in the ongoing nature of inquiry, which depends on the diversity of understandings and the developmental nature of understanding connected to the heterogeneity of individuals, their experiences, and their interests. The initial expression of the autobiographical suggests “an ontological shift from outer to inner” (Pinar et al., 1995, p. 519). Working from within implies “withdrawal from the public world as means of rediscovering both the private and public worlds” (p. 518). The method also emphasizes “a psychological-based humanities curriculum,” which is enriched with opportunities such as “intense interpersonal encounter, … solitude, … study in traditional areas of humanities: literature, music, dance, and so on” (Pinar, 1974c, p. 15, cited in Pinar et al., 1995, p. 519). The autobiographical method of currere also resulted from a felt frustration with a curriculum that focused too much on “design, sequencing, implementation, evaluation, and … curricular materials,” all of which are “abstractions emptied of concrete life” (p. 519). Prior to devising currere, Pinar discerned twelve effects of traditional schooling in “Sanity, Madness, and the School,” written in 1972 (Pinar et al., 1995, p. 518). As a mother, a student, and an educator, I identify with several of the twelve areas, including “self-direction becomes other-direction; alienation from personal reality due to impersonality of schooling group” and “atrophy of capacity to perceive esthetically and sensuously” (Pinar et al., 1995, p. 518). These considerations set the stage for the introduction of currere. Grumet explained that currere is “a reflexive cycle in which thought bends back upon itself and thus recovers its volition” (1976b, pp. 130–131, reflected upon in Pinar et al., 1995, p. 521). Bozaleck and Zembylas (2016) claimed that Barard and Harraway criticized “reflexivity” as it “remains caught up in sameness because of mirroring of its fixed positions”; instead, they 21 suggested diffraction “as a process of being attentive to how differences get made and what the effects of these differences are” (p. 112). In contrast to what Bozaleck and Zembylas suggested through the words of Barard and Harraway, I find that currere understands the matter as not a case of either/or by addressing both reflexivity and diffraction in multiple ways. For example, both reflexivity and diffraction are present through going into the individual’s past. A focus on individuals and their academic interests, currere, values many different directions, styles, and ends. In addition, by focusing on both without and within worlds, currere discloses diffraction, which Barard explained, is “epistemic” as well as “ontological and ethical” (Bozaleck & Zembylas, 2016, p. 112). In other words, diffraction is embedded in the process of reflexivity in currere. This is implied in obtaining information about one’s past that moves the individual “biographically, and not linearly, but multidimensionally” (Pinar, 1975, p. 20). Moreover, the focus of currere on the individual subject is already a sign of consideration and inclusion of diffraction and divarication. In this straining and searching in the happenings of the past, given time, currere may do something more profound: revealing archetypical communications, which make the manifestation of the ambitions, aspirations, and volitions possible. Such interrelation between the human subject and the world “forms the basis of renewal strategies” (Pinar et al., 1995, p. 519). Thus, would it be farfetched to assume that currere can change one’s life and the course of an individual’s future? Grumet (1988) claimed: “the possibility of procreation is inscribed on our bodies and on the process of our own development. … The intentions, assumptions, emotions, and achievements of educational practice and theory are infused with motives that come from our own reproductive histories and commitments” (pp. 6, 7). Such descriptions and the focus of currere on the worlds of within expose the method as a strategy that goes beyond the “monologic 22 epistemologies of cause and effect, of either/or constructions of truth, and of social science that denigrates the ambiguity and dialectical nature of human action to honor the predictability and control of physical and mechanistic phenomena” (Grumet, 1988, p. 22). In other words, it is the multitudinous qualities of individual lives, already recognized in currere, that can determine real change in the present and for the future. Currere, strategically, yields to and stays open to many possibilities without offering a specific end. According to Pinar, the first stage of the method is “regressive” (1975, p. 21). In this stage, the individual “goes back” (p. 23) and inhabits her biographic past, usually “ignored, but not absent” in the present (p. 22). Why should one go to the past? Explained Pinar: to “ascertain where one is, when one is, one must locate the past” (p. 22). Placing means “identification means bracketing the past” (p. 22). Bracketing is to make visible that which “is not ordinarily seen,” suggested Pinar (1975, p. 22). It is through the open passage to the past that one may “observe” and distinguish oneself “from one’s acculturated character” (p. 23). Pinar explained that this is fieldwork; this is to “observe and record” (p. 23). The detachment, although still indistinct at this stage, as Pinar elucidated, instigates a slow and steady process of “decrystallization” accompanied with a revelation, that is, the “disclosure of a nonstatic, nonarrested character always in transition” (1975, p. 23). As I am writing on this phase of currere, which Pinar suggested is a passage that allows “to see again what was outside of our windows” (Pinar, 1994, p. 14), I re-member a friend with whom I had dinner and conversation last night. Fred (pseudonym) is a hardworking man in his mid-sixties; he is an intelligent man, who at the age of 21, became a successful entrepreneur and a self-made multi-millionaire. He lost all his fortune because of a pattern that appeared and re-appeared in his life. What this pattern was is irrelevant to this paper. What is important, in this case, is that Fred explained how the past and the present 23 became clear to him only when he was incarcerated in Thailand. His imprisonment is another matter outside of the parameters of this paper. But what is important in Fred’s story is how he understood the obstacle in his life. Fred explained that he was so caught up in the web of life and constant preoccupation with the present that he had never had a chance to revisit the triumphs and failures of his past until he was in prison. There, he had hours and hours to contemplate the past. In a way, Fred seemed to be thankful for his incarceration and the time it gave him to understand his life. After that conversation with Fred, I wondered what my inquiry into the happenings of my own past in relation to my academic life would reveal. Thinking about that, I see that understanding is still at its early stages; it is fragmented, and it reveals more questions than answers. While thinking of currere and Fred’s incarceration story, I realized that freedom from the social, which resulted from his incarceration, was the most important element in self-understanding for Fred. The withdrawal from the world provided him with time and opportunity to contemplate. Through currere, though, the experience of social isolation is not necessarily dramatic. Working from within through the apertures and mirrors open to and reflective of the past can also disclose one’s being in the present. That reminder shifts my attention to the next phase of currere. This phase of the method is “progressive” (Pinar, 1975, p. 24). Detachment from the urgencies of the present may lead to “relaxation” (pp. 24–25). Through respite, Pinar explained, one can think “free associatively” (p. 25). The progressive and the regressive phases of currere have self-determining qualities, which are also emancipatory. The freedom from the social allows one to pursue one’s interests. Thinking of my own interest takes me to a not too distant past where my interest discloses itself. 24 Almost every afternoon in recent summers, my husband and I have been running from our home in Kitsilano to Jericho beach. At the end of our four kilometers run we are sweaty and overheated, and often swim for about half an hour in the ocean. We are both capable swimmers, so we go out to where the orange floating devices prohibit the boats from entering the designated swimming area. Usually, after reaching the floating devices and after getting used to the idea of floating in this universal cannibal, that is, the ocean, I lie on my back, look at the cloudless sky, and give way to the tranquility of the water. Eyes fixed on the azure sky I forget that my body is still held by a cannibal. After being lost for a while in neverland, in escapism and reverie, I come back to myself through the sound of my own breath. As is known, meditation, breath, and water have a long history together, and when other elements such as sky and sun join the pondering, the process becomes sublime and heavenly. In that condition, usually moving inward, I, an insular, who seems tranquil and jubilant on the outside but is filled with tribulation and sorrow for the horrors of the past on the inside, inquire: what is it that which has made me, this obstinate being, to leave the comfort of the familiar for the unknown? The intervals of alertness and relaxation, hearing and not hearing, appearing and disappearing, seizing and relinquishing, take me to belonging to a land, to being a “landless” being, and back again. I see how those experiences have set the stage for the present play between my private life and my educational interests. Turning the other way, as Pinar (1975, p. 24) suggested, I see why I am here (literally and figuratively). Then, I wonder what are the relations between where I am (here and now) to where I was before that, and before that of that, and where I aim to go in the future? Being open10 asks I from me: what would those meanings 10 By open, here, I mean being alive and conscious. It also means “up from under,” which is one of the word’s roots (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.). 25 be? Feeling a relation between the land, on which I have pondered, the water, in which I have swum, the air, from which I have taken my breaths, and the sky, at which I have gazed make it clearer that my own experiences in life must un-cover a reality not solely of my own, as the inquiry is embedded in being in and with the world. What is that truth? Lost in the world of within, both by what was given and structured by my own experiences in being in and with the world, I wonder, what is it that relates me to others? What is the relation between and among my experiences in life, my studies, life at school, and the subjects I studied with my present academic interest in curriculum studies? In the world of within, “withdrawn” from the world, the question is: what is my understanding that is “not yet” (in Sartre’s language, as Pinar 1975, p. 24 explained) here? What is that which allows me to have these interval engagements with the land, water, sky, and air? What is the relation between the seagulls’ sound, the tranquility of the ocean, and the whispering wind mixed with the sound of my own breath? Do they alter the anxieties and the fears I have? What is it that the narrative tries to convey in being in and with the world? While thinking of these questions, I become conscious of time—past, present, and future—more than ever. That consciousness takes my attention back to the method of currere. I can see although different images are developing here, yet it is unclear, what the relation between these visible outlines, me, as a historical being, and the natural, that is, the world itself, is. To understand that relation, my research moves into describing the next stage of currere, the analytical. “Analytical. One takes photographs and sets them aside” (Pinar, 1975, p. 25). One explains oneself “exclusive of the past and future” while replying to them (p. 25). Meditating, one asks questions of what and why, but one has to remember that the work of “interpretation” and analysis, as Pinar (1975, p. 26) posited, is to “make more visible what is lived through 26 directly.” Analysis is a part of the “lived present,” not its substitute (p. 26). Interpretations are secondary but hardly superfluous, as they can yield self-understanding while uncovering unknown psychic areas. Analyses indicate re-experiencing of the already experienced, but in ways that they can extend and even alter one’s understanding of what is already experienced. This understanding loosens the self from embeddedness in the present, Pinar (1975) explained. Once freed from the shackles of the present moment, one may also be able to see more of the complex relations between the past, present, and future. The final phase of the method is “synthetical” (Pinar, 1975, p. 26). This is when one looks closely at oneself, i.e., that is present. With that intimacy, one’s embodied self, unveils to “be a concrete manifestation of all that occurs in and through it” (p. 27). The attention to the concrete world of the body—a place itself—seems sufficient to bring to an end the description of this phase of synthetical at this time. Since the autobiographical method of “currere” refers to an existential experience of institutional structures, it validates each person’s experiences. Currere ventures to disclose “the ways that histories (both collective and individual) and hope” are to “suffuse” our consciousness (Grumet, 1981, p. 118, cited in Pinar et al., 1995, p. 521). Currere, thus, allows us to study and comprehend what we have cared for, as Grumet continued, “through telling our stories of educational experience” (p. 521). Currere places the individual in a self-analytic situation, through which the individual becomes more aware of their situation. Through currere, one begins a study that “involves the examination of manifest and latent meaning, conscious and unconscious content of language, as well as the political implications of such reflection and interpretation” (Grumet, 1976b, cited in Pinar et al., 1995, p. 521). What happens follows individual life history and History, both of which unveil the diversity at the heart of currere. 27 “Dialogue for Student and Teacher Development: My Persian Currere” of Saeed Nazari (in-press) and “Chinese Currere, Subjective Reconstruction and Attunement: When Calls My heart” (2020) authored by Wanying Wang are two recent examples of such consciousness and diversity. Another example of this consciousness manifests differently in The Currere Exchange, which focuses on the concept of complicated conversation of self-study. Along with a journal, there is an annual retreat designed to allow a diverse group of curriculum and education activists to engage with their life experiences and curriculum concerns. Grumet cautioned that currere “is not a form of therapy designed to treat symptoms” (1976b, cited in Pinar et al., 1995, p. 521). Currere “cannot employ self-reflection to the degree that psychoanalysis does to free the subject from the chains that objectivize” the subject (p. 521). However, “by bringing the structure of experience to awareness, one enhances the ability to direct the process of one’s own development” (p. 522). In other words, “the method of currere is an educational experiment, offering its practitioners the possibility of learning from experience” (W. F. Pinar, personal communication, July 17, 2019). At the heart of currere, I emphasize, is an openness to and respect for oneself and others, and that respect and openness bears the possibility of change. Currere allows for participation in a series of complicated conversations, through which one may unearth one’s deepest unconscious. Valuing diversity besides a wealth of knowledge about different disciplines such as psychology, science, history, art, language, and philosophy are behind the structuring of currere. Being autobiographical, the “method” focuses on individuation. However, encouraging the linking of one’s experiences to one’s educational interests, currere, exhibited that, as a method, it has already been aware of “a flight from the subject of the field” (Schwab, 2013, p. 603). By focusing on both the individual and the social, currere seems wide enough to address the 28 problems of the practical world, which was Schwab’s primary concern. Nonetheless, a closer consideration discloses that there is room for further expansion of the method with regard to the backdrop that connects the individual to other beings in being in and with the world. Insufficient attention to relational ways of being has presented the world with numerous environmental and cultural disasters. These catastrophes urge us to pay attention to the natural world and our embeddedness within it. After all, the worlds of the subject, the social, and the natural interpenetrate one another. Ultimately, currere distinguishes theory from practice through juxtaposing “curriculum-as-plan and curriculum-as-live(d) (Aoki, 2000, p. 322), interwoven through mind and body. Then, with a focus on lived experiences of individuals involved in education, currere presents a more comprehensive curriculum located somewhere between the subject matters and the experiences and the interests of the human subjects studying them. By focusing on the individuals’ lived experiences and interests, currere has been able to draw sustained attention to the body, the subjects’ experiences, and the subjects’ feelings that are the substratum factors on which the thoughts rely in forming language. 1.6 The Language and the Method of Currere Following the autobiographical method of currere, one is also faced with the complexity of the experience and the challenge of translating an often preconceptual “inner biography” (De Unamuno, 1921/1954, p. 2) into an expository “text” (Pinar et al., 1995, p. 404). Although the original experience and the conceptualization of it are both experiences, they are of different kinds. The process of thinking in the original experience differs from the process of the secondary experience (i.e., reflection) of it. In the original experience, the experience itself is at the heart of the matter, while in returning to the original experience, a knowledge that can 29 explain the “what” and the “why” of the happenings is being sought. The original experience is internalizing, while reflection leads an externalizing process, for example, translation. The complexity of interpreting the experience may become exponentially challenging. This is when the experiences that have occurred in a different backdrop (i.e., place-wise, culture-wise, and language-wise), are to be reflected upon, analyzed, and interpreted within a different context, culture, and language. The key to such complex operation is openness; there is no one way, no one context, and no one category in which a concept is expressed, nor can anyone fully express the experience. By too much focus on analyzing experience, one may fall into the trap of what whitehead phrased, as the “fallacy of misplaced concreteness” (Bateson, 1972, p. 64). This misconception arises from being unconscious that categories “are not real subdivisions which are present in the cultures we study, but are merely abstractions, which we make for our own convenience when we set out to describe cultures in words” (p. 64). Aware of the difficulty and the impossibility of categorizing the phenomenon and the reflections on it through either “phenomenology” or “poststructuralism,” currere, open to both, settles for the space “between the two” (Pinar et al., 1995, p. 404). Taking this position, however, implies no devaluation of phenomenological research and aesthetic (i.e., understanding by senses) properties of experience. In moving from the experience to the words that try to describe it, one is to be mindful that the phenomenologist sees that “the notion of understanding is a hermeneutical one” that is interpretational (Pinar et al., p. 404). It is important to take copious notes, as I and my readers may at times become disoriented; the text may seem unverifiable. Willis (1991, pp. 173–174) expressed that “phenomenological inquiry investigates the distinctly human perceptions of individual people” and also “results in descriptions of such perceptions which appear directly to the perceptions of the other people” (quoted in Pinar et al., 1995, p. 405). Hence, a 30 phenomenological inquiry may, as Pinar et al. (1995) explained: seem “messy,” not clean and rigorous as statistical studies have been alleged to be; it can seem mystical, aspiring to a truth that seems religious in nature, accessible only to those who believe. And when accessible, it can be superficial, risking a restatement of cultural clichés. (p. 405) Therefore, it is essential to acknowledge that phenomenological inquiry may not echo “a logical” continuity, as its “coherence” resides in “the biography as it is lived: the lebenswelt” (Pinar 1975, p. 20). In such inquiry, one discloses the structure of one in being in and with the world. Coherency may reveal itself in the repetition of one’s life occurrences. The other aspect that makes language an important part of currere is the power to return to the past, to reexperience it, and to remain open to the forms a research might take. Tillich (1948) thought, we “must continually protest against existing form lest it become an idol, that new form might emerge” (reflected upon in Huebner, 1975/2008, p. 228). Understanding that language is subjective, as it expresses the mind of the individual, also structures currere. The method neither aims at a scientific end nor intends to create itself as another “idol,” while eschewing “the application of mathematical theory” and its poster child “technology” (Jaspers, 1953, p. 82). Currere’s understanding of research aligns with Huebner’s examination of the term. He explained that the word “research” has not been sufficiently differentiated from the word “search.” Emphasizing the prefix of re in the word, Huebner identified research as “the use of the unformed to create form”; to emphasize “the unconditioned … to develop” new “conditions”; to shift the “attention to human events” to change and to further “human institutions” and educational places (1975/2008, p. 227). Currere is a research method that also understands “the dialectical relationship between criticism and creation” (p. 227). Like Aoki, Pinar was aware of 31 the inexactness of “this and that” rather than the apparent definitiveness of “this or that” (Aoki, 1996, p. 411). Pinar, too, focused on both “the visible and the invisible,” in addition to placing the attention between “narrative and narration” (p. 411). The semicolon, comma, and and in the previous sentences also disclose the understanding of currere from an aggregate of life, in which multitudinous and diversity call for inclusion. In conclusion, currere encourages us to move away from binaries as it enters the space of between, the space of multitudes, i.e., “the space between representational discourse and nonrepresentational discourse,” as Aoki explained (2000, p. 325). That way, one may find oneself in what Homi Bhabha, told us Aoki, termed a “third space of ambivalent construction” (p. 325). Hidden in the uncertainty is a form of detachment from the already known. This can constitute a form of freedom, which currere has already anticipated, enabling one to re-conceptualize and transform. Finally, a relation between the method and its language discloses itself through a double bond; it appears here in the infinitive maker of “to” and then in the hyphen between the prefix of “re” before the verb of “conceptualize” to unveil an allegiance to a non-stop commitment to understanding afresh. However, from the beginning through currere, Pinar has remained interested in the subject and place as social and historical (Pinar, 1975; Pinar, 1994; Pinar, 2015). In this research, to reveal other possibilities of currere, I return to my past and my experiences from those days. 32 Chapter 2: Revertive Whether the living river Began in bog or lake, The world is what was given, The world is what we make. And we only can discover Life in the life we make. (MacNeice, 1962, p. 183) The year 1981 was an awfully eventful year for many families in Iran. In the preceding few years, Iran had experienced a revolution. Instability was evident everywhere due to the changes that the Revolution instigated right away. Fixed on the idea that belief “in God is light: faith in God causes all the darkness confronting the believers to dissipate; faith in God immerses the believers in the light of God” (Khomeini, 1999, pp. 135–139, cited in Algar, 2001, p. 160), many went through the violent currents of the Revolution. While this immersion in the light of God for some meant merely losing a privileged life, it translated into pure survival for many others. It, of course, presented some others with power and prosperity. Ultimately in the light of God, or maybe in its lack thereof, deception became the standard of life. In a milieu in which the whole political-juridical structure was submerged in duplicity, it is not an exaggeration to state that the whole country became a “space of exception—a space in which the law is completely 33 suspended—that everything is truly possible in them”11 (Agamben 2000, p. 40). It was in this lawless territory that people found themselves in horrible tragedies. These tragedies were complex matters, and their magnitudes are outside of the scope of this research. However, in the next section, I underscore a personal tragedy to reveal one devastation of the Revolution. 2.1 Time and Tragedy: Immorality or Political Wrath On a day that seemed like any other day in 1981, the course of our lives changed. On that day, we received unbearable news that caused my mother’s immediate collapse. My father, on the other hand, trying to be strong (as fathers are expected to be) for the rest of the family, hearing the news, sat on the sofa in the living room with a face so pale and so drenched in the drops of his cold perspiration that it brought his presence in the world under question. Too vacant, he seemed to have no connections to the earthly world at the time. The news: my brother was dead. Soon our home was filled with other family members, relatives, and friends, all arriving somberly, faces filled with horror. It was the next day, on the six o’clock evening news, that my brother’s execution was announced. Approximately fifty others had also been executed, the news was blatantly announced to the world through the government’s networks. This was a normal occurrence in those days. The captured political activists were called Mofsed-e-filarz, meaning Villain of the Earth. This was a horrible brand that the Revolutionary government used to identify and eradicate any opposition. Attached to such a charge was something even more hideous, capital punishment, which in some cases, such as my brother’s, led to the savage act of 11 Agamben, for sure, is not speaking of Iran’s condition in his book. However, the similarities between what Agamben described in his book and what I experienced in that time in Iran discloses the use of his citations as an appropriate act. 34 hanging in public. The verdicts did not follow a judiciary procedure, as the ‘judges,’ who before the Revolution had been laypeople, moved quickly from accusation to conviction; it was similar to the process that led to the “lynching” (Pinar, 2015, p. 243) of people with black skin in America in the late 1800s. The times were barbaric again, reminding one that reoccurrences were possible and raising doubts about any supernatural connection that humanity may have. This time, the vilification was not racially motivated, as the ‘cleansing’ was of an intellectual kind; the targets in most cases were university students. Marking the opposition as Villains of the Earth was followed by numerous executions. The killings raised the question of who was the real villain? Some of the captured were hanged publicly to spread fear amongst the population. Others were tortured to death secretly, as the cruelty was too great and too graphic for public display. In those cases, the main motive was to gather information; secrecy was important. In those days, no one was kept a prisoner for long, and the killings were not coded as a “Final Solution,” which Arendt (1963/2006, p. 84) explained happened in the context of Nazism in Germany. Indeed, the killing was assumed to be the only solution. The regime announced its brutal actions with no discretion for the families through the government’s media and on daily basis. One can speculate that the first goal was shaming the families involved, so no other person would dare to put her/his family through the insanity of the authorities. The second aim was to break down the existing resistance through the spread of terror. The message was clear: surrender, repent, join us, stay ‘alive,’ and prosper, or else (die). The authorities, content with such brutalities, saw the atrocities as the requirement for the second phase of the Revolution, which was a cultural one. Of course, this cultural revolution had the underlying aim of a deeper destruction, which was no opposition was to be spared in sustaining power. For that ‘reason,’ there was no mercy. 35 2.2 Kinship and Compassion The air in our home was filled with the sympathy of people who came to visit us. The sympathy, one may say, was “linked in the first place to suffering, as in the etymological suffering-with,” as McCaffrey postulated (Jardine, et al., 2015, p. 24). What role did this compassion play in this painful time and place? Before contemplating that, I will echo the words of Graham McCaffrey: compassion, “suffering with,” is bound to suffering and arises in response to suffering. … If suffering is at least in some aspects pedagogic through its intimate place in ecologies of human life, then compassion also has to be honoured without idealization, along with its aporias, shadows, and absences. (Jardine et al., 2015, p. 19) Going back to those days filled with suffering and apparent compassion, I wonder if compassion is a thin veneer of civilization, whether it is, to borrow a concept from MacDonald, a “prayerful act”12 and that its focus is “everyday life” (1995, p. 130). Or whether (even inadvertently) it’s an act of trivializing other. In the case of those days filled with misery, compassion, for the most part, was a prayerful act in the form of a dynamic movement of extending one’s hand to reach and to receive the feelings of the other. Compassion, for the most part, was a prayerful act, which instigated conversations filled with a sense of relatedness. Compassion, for the most part, was a prayerful act of understanding. The understanding perhaps emanated from realizing, as Freud posited, “the struggle between Eros and Death” (1930/1975, p. 59) between life and the cessation of it. Compassion, for the most part, was a prayerful act of one to show consideration 12 MacDonald’s concept of the “prayerful act” is in the context of curriculum theory. However, since the focus of this research is on my own lived experiences (that form one part of curriculum presented here), I see the use of the concept as appropriate in expressing my lived experience. 36 for the other; it was linked to an earthly connection. Compassion was also just a passing reaction to someone else’s death. Devastated yet thankful for the care of the others, we received our beloved in the heat of one summer afternoon when we hid one of our most precious treasures in the heart of the Earth and watered his forever home with the freshness of the streams running down from our eyes. Dusty13 and exhausted from the mourning for our loved one, we drove back home in a deafening silence that was revealing an “unconscious” knowing, a “complicated conversation,” which was not only “Classroom Discourse” (Pinar, 2012, p. 193) as it spoke more loudly during the quietness of the nights, and which bore more feelings and insights than any subject through words can express. The silence was, to borrow from Burckhardt, a “wit, contemplative” (2008, p. 8), an understanding that was also skeptical, as it could see the hypocrisies in being and the possibility of mendacities that beings have meanings in their beings. This was a silence that mourned not only for the loss of him, who was loved, but also anticipated lamenting the loss of a morbid nation. Remembering those painful days reminds me of a different form of relatedness that I already hinted at in the past few sentences. To express that connection through the notions of potentiality, possibility, and freedom, my re-visiting of the past continues in a different realm. That is the sphere of a religion, within which I was born. 13 We were dusty because we did not have permission to bury my brother’s body in the developed areas of the cemetery. We had to entomb him in an undeveloped and deserted parcel of land at the end of the cemetery reserved for political activists and those whose burial sites, for whatever reason, had no markings. 37 2.3 Religion and the Concepts of Potentiality and Possibility The suffering was ferocious and triturating. My consciousness was fragmented and scattered in a vast area, and each piece of myself was wailing for the others. There was no way of gathering myself together. My heart was broken at the core and my reason was crippled most of the time. In between my morbid heart and my mortified mind laid my debilitated spirit; only my body could encompass them all. My days turned into nights, which are usually associated with danger but also contain, as Burckhardt (2008, p. 33) claimed, “the possibilities of manifestation in a total way.” Of the nights, the “night of predestination,” the lailatu’l-qadr, is the one that has a significance in the Qur’an since it is said the holy book was presented in full at that night to the Prophet Mohammed (Burckhardt, 2008, p. 33). At that night, Burckhardt claimed, the Prophet was in “the state of perfect receptivity,” in my terms, connectivity, love, and freedom. To study the notion of “potentiality” (p. 33) in the night of predestination places a focus on potentiality.14 Then, I can look into the possibilities that this night brought to the world of the believers. The notion of potentiality—probability and possibility—according to hasty rationalism, as Merleau-Ponty explained, is considered a pointless notion that “belongs to statistical thinking,” which “is a reified fiction that has merely psychological existence” (1945/2014, p. 467) and that “is not an ingredient of the world” (p. 467). However, potentiality is not a falsehood, as it is also experienced “in the perceived world” not only at the individual level but also at the level of every human (p. 467). “Generality and probability are not fictions,” suggested Merleau-Ponty, but “they are phenomena,” which need “phenomenological foundation,” an existent “who is fixed, situated, and surrounded in the world” (p. 467). Therefore, going back to 14 Potentiality remains a questioned term. 38 the night of decree, can one conclude that potentiality did not reside just in “a sum of events” (p. 467) in the night of predestination but also within the Prophet and through his states of freedom, love, and connectivity? Considering the diversity that exists in the world, can the latter comprehension reveal possibilities in the world are unlimited, as are the states of perfect receptivity? According to Guenon (1939), it was on the night of decree that the Qur’an was descended15 in whole to the Prophet. “This night, according to the commentary of Muhyi-d-Din ibn Arabi, is identified with the very body of the Prophet” (Guenon, reflected upon in Burckhardt, 2008, p. 33). Guenon continued: “the ‘revelation’ was received, not in the mind, but in the body of the being,” and the Prophet was “entrusted with the mission of expressing the Principle” (p. 33). My understanding is that accepting body and mind are two different entities does not suggest that one is severed from the other. Are not body and mind connected in constituting the so-called self? If so, I also wonder if the life experiences of the Prophet made him the special person he was. I wonder if such an understanding can highlight that no one event but rather a lifetime of events that the Prophet experienced led him to the “point” of culmination.16 15 The word descend is the translation for the word nuzzel. The latter is a word shared in Arabic and Farsi, meaning sending down. Nuzzel is used to describe the sending of the Quran to the Prophet Mohammed. Burckhardt has also used the word descend. 16 I was taught that the Prophet Mohammed became ready at age 40 for his responsibility. I was also taught in religious courses throughout school that a real Muslim starts with questioning the concept of God and the messengers he sent to the earth. This doubting is not heresy but a way of understanding and assurance. For some people, doubt is a passing thought, while it can impose a life-long questioning for others. 39 Another important issue here is the relation between the occurrences of the night of decree and the phenomenological foundation, the experiencing person, and his physical, psychological, emotional, mental, and so on and so forth conditions. In other words, it is vital not only to be conscientious of the worlds of without and within, but also the relations that exist between them. Such attention brings into the picture the multitude of possibilities, especially considering that the revelation was received, not in the mind, but in the body of the Prophet. The body that is the medium between the worlds of within and without; the body, the flesh, “the mother” that “is not an individual, but a category” (Trigg, 2016, p. 216, reflecting on Merleau-Ponty, 2003, p. 147). The body that also holds and sustains the proper functions of different organs and systems, and makes possible their harmonies within its inner world; the body that already carries a world within; the body that is made of multitude intelligent forms, aware of their connectedness with one another and their connections with the world of without; the body that is in connection with the mind; and the body that carries complexities of the worlds of natural and historical. The relations among the concepts of potentiality, body, and possibility in this religious debate disclose a complexity beyond the scope of my understanding. Thus, for now, satisfied with underscoring the relations between body and mind and the revelations of the possibilities these relations contain, my study leaves the concept of religion. I return to the other experiences in my life. The regressive (Pinar, 1975, p. 19) action, this time, highlights life in Iran before and after the Revolution. 2.4 Alluring Freedom A return to the year of the Iranian Revolution is necessary to understand the notions of freedom and possibility more comprehensively. In doing so, first, the process of a revolution 40 comes into focus; thus, some of the forces that propelled it may disclose themselves. Then, in question will be the notion of freedom before, during, and after such an event. While undergoing this process, the boundaries between the regressive and analytic phases of currere blur once again, and these two phases more clearly reveal their penetrations into one another. The difficulties are to separate the experiences of the time, the actions taken then, and the “afterthought, … after action” that “is not simply the calculation of means to obtain an intended or willed end, but is concerned with meaning in the most general sense,” which occurs “after action had decided and determined reality” (Arendt, 2005, p. 6). Of course, other times, I am able to distinguish between the two different forms of consciousness. Moreover, with every datum brought from the past into the present, the situation gets more complex. Hence, for clarification, I may simultaneously employ the four phases of “regressive—progressive—analytic—and synthetic” (Pinar, 1975, p. 19). Such conditions reveal the flexibility of currere in a different light—an experience with currere that Rita L. Irwin revealed as the “rhizomatic” character of the method (personal communication, August 31, 2017). That characterization discloses the depth of understanding that currere holds for the diversity of the historical world. The year is 1978. I was just about to finish my first year of study at the university. Walking on the clouds is how I felt and still do when I recall the experience because I was the first woman in my family and amongst all the relatives to experience the life of a university student, as I mentioned at the beginning of this research. I was admitted into a dual degree program (kinesiology/education), which was a part of educational reform to educate athletes and people with exceptional physical abilities at a higher academic level by focusing on the areas of the sciences and the humanities. This reform was happening as a pilot project in the Teacher’s Training University, one of the oldest internationally accredited universities in Iran. 41 Life at university was great and relaxing; the tuition fees were fully paid by the government because the university was public. The books and reading materials were also provided free of charge, and the students, who wished to work after graduation as teachers, received a considerable monthly allowance from the Ministry of Education after signing a contract with the ministry. Even better, my schedule allowed me to work part-time as a PE teacher in a high school near my home. All these privileges supported my sense of independence and made the future promising. However, the world was about to change suddenly and dramatically. While the country was blessed with a strong economy, a different force was pressing for (the illusion of) a better life. What made such a spectre so real was obscure to many including myself. In a matter of a few months, the atmosphere of the university changed from free and friendly into hectic and belligerent one. Suddenly, there were protests in small groups advocating for uprisings with no clear message; sometimes, they lasted only seconds. Riots came out of nowhere. I remember different groups of students threw the almost free food (only a few cents per full course, dessert and drink included) on the cafeteria floor and ran. Soon the uprisings became more organized, and the protests grew and lasted longer. Students’ chanting began with slogans demanding the freedom of a few distinguished political prisoners. Scattered protests were replaced with organized demonstrations planned and managed by left-wing students, in particular, students affiliated with a political party known as Toudeh, meaning people. This party was known to be communist and allegedly affiliated with the Soviet Union. The Toudeh ideology criticized the elite and the establishment, as it considered them to be corrupt, nefarious, and puppet of the West. 42 Next, spontaneous protests and organized demonstrations moved onto the streets and other public spaces. The working class, cleverly coined as mostazaffan—the weakened—ironically became the most powerful force that moved the revolution forward. Banks and movie theatres were set on fire. They were targets because they were perceived as centres promoting Western culture. With that violence, the revolution entered a more intense phase; a long period of violence began, aiming at the aristocrats and their allies, Westerners. Ironically, the West had been where several revolutionary “intellectuals” had been educated. Included in that group was Dr. Ali Shariati, who, according to Algar, was “a major ideologue of the Islamic Revolution” (2001, p. 85). Explaining Shariati’s major role in a movement that eventually became an Islamic Revolution may also reveal the two fundamental forces of science and theology, which were and are, in my experience, intertwined with the lives of that part of the world. Shariati was able to manipulate religion and science to engineer the bases of a movement that eventually arrived at a revolution. Shariati was born into a family which for “generations had cultivated the religious sciences” (Algar, 2001, p. 87). At Tehran University, he had been involved with the Islamic Students’ Association (p. 86). One of the key people forming that institution was Mehdi Bazargan. He served as the first head of the engineering department at Tehran University during the regime of Pahlavi; Bazargan was also the first prime minister of the interim revolutionary government (135). Bazargan was devoted to both science and religion as well. As for Shariati, he had been deeply influenced by the Western institutions during his education in Paris. There, he’d made ties with the leaders of “the Algerian FLN, the National Liberation Front of Algeria in exile” (p. 88). Shariati had even translated Fanon’s major works into Farsi (p. 89). Shariati was also acquainted with “the French Orientalists, Louis Massignon, Jacques Bergue and major 43 theoreticians of contemporary European sociology such as Georges Gurvitch” (p. 89). He had an understanding of Marxism, which, Algar claimed, Shariati used to elucidate the “certain problems at the forefront of Marxist dialect to be able to refute them” (2001, p. 89). Shariati, who was inspired by the Western institutions to an effective end, perhaps sought to surpass the achievements of the Western social system through another establishing another system. However, Shariati did not realize that the “collusion of modern industry and territorial power” (deeply rooted in human greed, I may add) is “a vice which is more profoundly real” than capitalism, communism, (Françios Perroux, 1958, Vol. III, p. 633, cited in Marcuse, 1964, p. 54) and I may say any other form of ism. This is a wickedness, “which no necessary dialectic necessarily eradicates” (p. 54). His search for an ideal world had drawn Shariati to “Husayniyyah-yi-Irshad” (Algar, 2001, p. 91), a centre that had manipulated the emotions of people during roze17 with a focus on the martyrdom (victimhood) of Imam Hossain, the third Imam in Islam, according to Shia’s tradition. Shariati became engaged with Husanyiyyah-yi-Irshad after he was imprisoned for six months and had been banned from teaching upon his return to Iran. His arrest was for “the role of leadership that he had exerted and because of the intellectual dimension to his thought and activity” (Algar, 2001, p. 90). Shariati effectively manipulated the minds of many enthralled by 17 This statement is based on my personal experiences and those I heard from other people in roze sessions. Roze is a religious session held in people’s homes or places such as Husayneyah-Irshad, or other mosques. In these religious sessions, the life of Imam Hussain is retold in a provoking way. People become very emotional at these sessions, and they usually cry. I have participated in numerous roze sessions. In my childhood and teenage years, I always felt ashamed because I could not cry for what was said in those sessions. However, later on in life, I have experienced and also heard from other people how it is possible to mistake the difficulties of personal life with that which Imam Hussain supposedly went through. Thus, it is not hard to understand how and why people get emotional. 44 the sciences and the heart of those also widely open to religion. Although Shariati died before the Revolution, his ideas influenced others who participated in it. At the dusk of Pahlavi’s power, deception increased exponentially. The image of Imam Khomeini was observed in the moon, and a sacred hair, a miracle which signalled the sainthood of the new power, conveniently appeared between Qur’an’s pages in the homes of people with lots of hair. A movement that had a mixture of populism and nationalism screamed for liberty; the intercourse of such movement with a total theologism, which promised the prosperities of earthly and heavenly worlds to its followers, gave birth to a revolution. Worldly prosperity was to come: capital gained from selling oil. Eternal prosperity, that is, a place in heaven, was reserved for martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the Revolution. Through the spread of such ideas, the Revolution moved the masses, whose chanting of “death to shah” became increasingly palpable. Ayatollah Khomeini triumphantly returned to Iran in February 1979. As soon as the name ayatollah,18 reserved for the elite cleric leaders, appeared in this dissertation, it exposes a radicalism latent in the language. Thus, intending to reflect on the already reflected, the language, I also remember the psychoanalytic foundation of currere, “the examination of manifest and latent meaning, conscious and unconscious content of language” (Grumet, 1976b, 1992, cited in Pinar et al., 1995, p. 521). I do this, again, to weave the two contexts of curriculum and life together and also to expose how my mind became familiar with radical situations. I draw attention to a shared determination in the languages of both Pahlavi and Islamic regimes. The obsession of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who had the Shahanshah (king of kings) title, is expressive of a radicalism that he shared with the elite clerics calling one another “ayatollah.” 18 Ayatollah is an Arabic compound word meaning verses of God. Top religious leaders in Iran have that title. 45 Perhaps the ego of the Shah distanced the Pahlavi dynasty from people, a disconnection that eventually led to its collapse. As for the “protagonists” of the day, only time can speak of the effects of their fixation on their own reveries. Going back to those years of the Revolution, I remember the transference of power to Mehdi Bazargan, the first Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He was a religious man whose thoughts were rooted in nationalism and idealism. A professional engineer, Bazargan passed and implemented many legislative acts restricting women, almost half of the population. He also excluded women from the government even though previously women were engaged in governmental affairs under Pahlavi’s regime. As Haleh Esfandiari also noted, only one woman, “Monireh Gorgi, a schoolteacher, was elected to the seventy-three-member” assembly of experts, whose responsibility was to draft new laws (Beck & Nashat, 2004, p. 154). This only female representative had already made it clear in advance that “she would promote laws regarding women’s rights only within the framework of Qur’an and shari’a” (p. 154). Thus, Iran, detached from the tyranny of the Shah and the superpowers of the time and the place (America and Britain), fell into the arms of other tyrants and powers. In other words, the only change was the exploiter. There remains no evidence that the Iranian Revolution liberated people, that it led to social equality and equity, or that it truly strengthened any form of connection. I think, indeed, the Revolution was a detour that reduced the possibilities of a nation; it deprived a people from comprehending their movement’s true capacities. The following explanation of Merleau-Ponty (1945/2014) may provide a clearer sketch of how a revolution begins and what circumstances can lead to it. He explained: 46 we are correct to observe that the most lucid revolutionaries are not produced by the most extreme poverty, but we forget to ask why a return to prosperity often brings about a radicalization of the masses. This is because the relaxation of the demands of life make possible a new arrangement of social space: horizons are no longer restricted to the most immediate of worries, there is some breathing space, and there is room for a new life project. (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/2014, p. 471) This was also the case for the Iranian Revolution, which occurred not only because its leaders found themselves in a free space due to relaxation of the demands of life, but also because ordinary people found themselves in that breathing space, where their horizons were no longer restricted to the most immediate of worries. That is how a two-fold freedom created a new life project and made the Revolution possible. The success of the Revolution leaders, of course, depended on them portraying easy solutions for the complex and multidimensional matters of governing a nation and its existential matters. The easiest solution was the scapegoating of the Shah; by portraying him as the main problem, his removal seemed to solve all the problems. That way, a movement that began many years earlier lost its way; this movement originally had started with the idea of resistance to the objectification of the world. It intended to celebrate the dynamic asterisks of each and every being in being in and with the world. Unfortunately, such a worthwhile advancement got caught in the madness of a religious revolution. The Pahlavi’s idealist approach, which ignored the masses and the conundrum that people faced in digesting the ‘ultra-progressive’ decisions made on their behalf, is another factor that contributed to the Revolution. However, thinking that the Revolution was the answer to the problems was naïve; the removal of the Shah did not lead to more freedom, could not offer 47 stability or betterment, nor did it unify the people. On the other hand, the fast-moving modernity and its negative effects on places and people in Iran somehow remained in the dark corners of the nation’s consciousness. Slogans such as “na sharghi, na gharbi, jomhorie Islami,” meaning no West, no East, Islamic Republic, and jingles like “esteghlal, azadi, jomhorie islami” that equated sovereignty and liberty with the Islamic Republic became the words on the streets. “Sovereignty”, of course, is a bogus declaration that assumes people are “mutually bound by promises, a certain limited reality” (Arendt, 1958/1998, p. 245). Individual’s freedom was also captured in the alleged shared promises of a religion. Ultimately, a religious government became the only option, forcefully securing its place in defining the state. Hence, a movement that was begun by intellectuals such as Al-I Ahmad (1984), concerned with the destruction of Iran’s topographical uniqueness and cultural diversity through the hastily imported technologies of the time, dissolved into slogans and jingles. The result was an oxymoron: a highly dependent sovereign system, which turned out to be a consumer of latest technologies of the world. 2.5 A Note on the Forgetfulness Element of Progress Of course, there is no objectivity here; the stories told here have a subjective view that is open to further interpretations and contradictions. However, what cannot be asserted is that researching autobiographically is self-indulgence. To make the matter clearer, I call attention to Pinar’s emphasis: “returning to the past rather than recalling it from the present” is “self-dissolution” (2015, pp. 304–305), not self-indulgence, since through such an undertaking, one’s “subjectivity becomes the site for social reconstruction, not its substitute” (p. 305). This process of interacting with the communities of the past also reveals how occurrences of the time and the place have constituted my present realities. Located at the heart of all these processes is a latent “social breadth” (Dewey,1916/2005, p. 42) which has possibilities of subjective and social 48 reconstruction. It is with such understandings that this research reveals its relational identity, a bond between one and others. Implied also is a connection between the events that I have witnessed and those with which others and the world have grappled. The prerequisite for revelation, of course, is consciousness of the past and awareness in the present, both of which can also be steps toward finding a future. However, that which makes connecting with the past and re-membering, that is, bringing back, increasingly difficult in our time, is a preoccupation with the present, which constantly forgets the past. This forgetfulness of the present about the past is further increased, as Grumet explained, by an “infatuation with technology” (1988, p. 21). In our time, new technologies and their speed, efficacy, and success leave no time for thinking and contemplation. Attending the past and reflecting on McClintock, Pinar suspected “that he would be excited by the educational potential of the internet and the appearance of cyberculture” (2015, p. 14). However, Pinar concludes that McClintock would now be less enthusiastic, “given the surveillance, commercialization, bullying, and stunted social development submersion in screens signifies” (p. 14). The undiscriminating affinity of the present with new technologies reminds me of MacDonald (1995), who eloquently exposed the effects of technology: With an industrial psychological outlook we are indeed powerless when we consider our destructive nuclear capacity and our dependence upon computer and power sources to simply maintain our existence. No longer are we dominated by the owners of the tool of work; they are also dominated by the need for survival and power sources. (p. 74) The effects of such cumulative dependence also imply that the insinuations of progress and its latest form, new technologies, far exceed the complications and difficulties that the world has experienced before. The attachment to the machine and its proliferation and use have created dependency on technology, which, by the way, does not require thinking. Furthermore, the 49 reliance on machine has increased the disconnection of humans from the concrete world and its realities. What is required to change our current situation? I suggest expanding the frame of reference and representation to bring into our view not only the diversity of the cultural world, but also the other beings in the world. With the intention of making the unseen visible, this inquiry contemplates place by returning to the past and studying it through the concepts of old and new. 2.6 Connection, Disconnection, and Communication with Place In February of 1991, rattled, heart-broken, insecure, yet hopeful, we arrived in Vancouver. The first noticeable aspect of the new place was its openness, something I perceived immediately, as I had been deprived of such feeling. The physical features of the landscape conveyed freedom, openness, and growth; the architectural characteristics of the city, though, seemed somehow cold. Based on these ocular cues, I believed what I was observing was an evidence to my claim. Of course, my situation, the long ordeal, and the processes we had endured to reach Vancouver were the realities that got lost in one gaze at Vancouver. In any case, the calm relaxed atmosphere of the city, the green mountains enveloping it, the juxtaposition of the vast ocean with the lush land, the extensive colossal open sky, the unfamiliar, and the puzzling language exchanged through the breaths of people, and perhaps much more unknowns beyond “the tangible” and “the visible”19 (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/2014, p. 224) formed a strange kinship between the place and I. 19 Through my statement about the place and by citing Merleau-Ponty and the two words of ‘visible’ and ‘tangible’, I convey that the generality of the world is more than what I can understand through my body and my mind. There is a depth and expanse in the world that no individual perception can understand comprehensively. However, that understanding does not dismiss the sensation and comprehension of any individual, as the realities existing in the 50 My connection with this “strange” land was immediate, but I also felt a sense of guilt for feeling that way. It seemed that my affinity for the ‘new’ world implied a betrayal of the ‘old’ that I’d left behind. Contemplation followed, dragging me into depression and sadness. I was not home-sick, as I’d immediately felt connected with the new. But having a history with another land and its inhabitants made me also aware of another relation I still had with the old. This experience was the experience of being at “home and away,” as Irwin et al. (2009, p. 62) explained. This growing sense of ambivalence strengthened my developing feeling of un-wellness. Understanding that I was going through a double struggle of not being able to withdraw from the old and an inability to communicate with the new, I focused on the natural aspects of place. In what follows, I juxtapose the cultural and some natural aspects of the old and the new. 2.6.1 Experiences of the New World One facet of the new world I noticed was how programmed and planned its life seemed to be; implied in the planning, of course, was a sense of control. This control was noticeable in the structure of the sidewalks, street crossings, which had crossing lights and push buttons, the signs on the streets, the structure of the streets, and much more, all conveying that life was straightforward and easy to navigate; everything was marked in detail. The other aspect of the new which stood out was speed; people were in a rush all the time. They raced through life even when no rationale required such speed. Coffee in to-go cups, hair wet, lunches on the go; these were indications of this rush. The speed was evident in something else, change, which was frequent and dramatic, ensuring an everlasting struggle for world. As Merleau-Ponty explained: it is for the particularity of sensation that the subject becomes “a specialized self, familiar with a single sector of being” (1945/2014, p. 224). 51 people to catch up. A pervasive faith in ‘progress’ positioned one in a closed-circuit race, in which there was no chance to break away and to reflect on what was happening and what really mattered. The third obvious aspect of the new was the availability of material things and food. Every kind of food was abundant at all times of the year; that made me wonder what the consequences of such plenitude would be for human and the Other, non-human, including the land. The rate of consumption was startling as well; more astonishing, it did not matter how much consumption occurred, advertising encouraged more. Then, it was the landscape itself; coming from Tehran, I felt I could literally breathe in Vancouver, as its air was clean and its scenery pristine. The low altitude of Vancouver, of course made breathing much easier. Looking at greenery everywhere, I became fond of place. In summer, after work, I took my child to English Bay; she played in the sand and water until almost sunset when my husband joined us. Then, it was time to go home. At that time, another question of mine was in regard to education, as I had a young child who had to attend school soon. Thus, I constantly thought about what could be the focus of education and curriculum in the new land and how would that education affect newcomers such as ourselves and our child. I noticed the notion of economy was everywhere; the matrimony between the market and education was very clear. I thought, perhaps, the long-time residents were already familiar with some of the history of this place. They probably had the experiences of the past in their memories; the 60s and its “sensuality, ambiguity, rebellion against paternal order,” the 70s and its trend of “back to basics, and teacher accountability,” and of course, they would understood the 90s, the new technology that so rapidly was making the things of the past obsolete, as Grumet (1988, p. 23) elucidated. I thought, having those experiences would put their 52 children in a different position. That understanding, perhaps, was true to some extent. However, working in a day-care centre and being in touch with an elementary school made it clear to me that even long-term residents of this place could not find a voice in the already established and official curriculum, which years later I understood, followed “Tyler Rationale” and its “bureaucratic interest” that had “little need to consult history” (Pinar et al., 1995, p. 42). While long-term residents suffered from believing the education system and its “scientific faith” of “the best was yet to come” (p. 42), obstacles were more complicated for newcomers such as myself. Of course, there were other impediments, such as learning the language and understanding the new culture and the new system, besides the challenges of acquiring knowledge about education and its curriculum for newcomers. Not to forget, providing for immediate needs is a constant and prodigious challenge for newcomers like ourselves. Insecure by the cultural challenges of the new, I consoled myself with the natural aspects of the place. Having one car and a small, modest central place became the norm for the family; we left the car for occasional use and walked everywhere since everything was close. When we used the car, it was to get away from the city and to spent some times in the nature. 2.6.2 The Old The old world, which I knew for half of my life, was slow; it always had time for others. There was always time to gather around and converse with one another. Indeed, it was inconsiderate not to have time for each other. The old world I knew did not have much planning for and in life, as it naively felt secure with its resources, which historically and ironically have always been prized in the eyes of imperialism and capitalism. Another characteristic of the old was its drama and instability; things could change quickly because the old was impulsive. The old was also chaotically ordered (another oxymoronic situation); thus, it was filled with 53 “tensionality” (Aoki, 1987, p. 354) and disparity. Tensionality had already formed through its multiculturalism that happened thousand years ago. Also, its modern tensionality exists due to its current cultural and political restrictions, which have resulted from openness to a number of ideologies. Tensionality, which bears risks and possibilities, builds resiliency, and in some cases, brings transformation and change. Another thing the old had but did not realize, was its connection with the land and the natural world. This connection was evident everywhere; it was still evident in the seasonal food availability that warned the consumer of change in time. And, of course, once a year, the connection with the natural world was renewed through Norouz, the Iranian New Year festival. Now I have highlighted some of the characteristics of the old and the new from my perspective. At this time in my research, I find myself between the old and the new in the world. Indecisive about which one holds the truth, I return to the new with a different outlook. As a newcomer to Vancouver, I witnessed the growth in the size and diversity of the city. With the immediate satisfaction about this openness also appeared a nagging concern: what if this rapid growth changes the tranquility of this place? For a long time, I did not even experience the sound of a car’s horn, which to me was one symptom of stress linked to living in a large city. But, over time, I have witnessed how the anxieties and restlessness of a large city also crept into Vancouver’s life. The preoccupation with the everyday, however, and the manifestation of life disguised the question of ‘what if’ for a while. In the recent years, the appearances of familiar social obscenities in this part of the world has re-ignited the question of ‘what if’. My thought, this time, is more inclusive, as the long exploitation of nature in the old and the new has led to the backlash of climate change. The environmental changes have also brought into light many existential concerns for humans and non-humans. I can see how prolonged disconnections from 54 and maltreatments of the natural world for the purpose of control, profitability, and power have raised conflicts and calamities in both historical and natural worlds. Looking outward, I understand that the present destructions are manifested through human actions. Turning inward with my breath, I can see a total obsession with my own well-being. Humans’ infatuation for progress not only reveals greed of many forms, but it also unveils the “markedly involuted or fortified” nature of humanity (Weston, 2009, p. 5). Discussion of human nature is another story, well beyond the boundaries of this research. However, since this is an autobiographical investigation that aims to weave together my life experiences and my academic interests to unveil a different form of understanding and knowing, all in the contexts of education and in being in and with the world, I also see a need to address something else. That is the reliance of the old and the new worlds on social sciences and the “monologic epistemologies of cause and effect” (Grumet, 1988, p. 22). That disclosure also reminds me that this reliance has moved the humanities “toward a subject/object dyad in which subject and object are not mutually constituting but ordered in terms of cause and effect, activity and passivity” (p. 22). This inward movement, with a focus on the outer world through a single breath, places the focus on epistemology at this time in the research. The focus on epistemology and knowing also brings into the picture another reality, the domination of fathers, as Grumet explained, in “communal activity” (p. 21). Grumet elucidated, when man tied “procreation and kinship to the exchange of capital” (pp. 21–22), he mastered the harmful “alchemy of turning people into gold, substituting the objectification of persons for the abstraction implied by paternity and amplified by technology and capitalism” (p. 22). The sole focus on technology brings into light the problem of “the human subjective consciousness, and the certainties of reason based on it, as the ultimate point of reference for human knowledge” (Palmer, 1969, p. 164, explaining Gadamer’s 55 understandings). The assumption of human reason as the utmost source unveils an arrogance that has already forgotten about the “dialectical” nature of understanding (p. 165) and being. In my participation in the world and in the openness of my being toward the world, I can see that my wholeness is more than just a thought. My being in being in and with the world also signals to the wholeness of every other being and the world itself. Through another breath—that is, in its etymological form “bring into existence” (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.), as to remember—I recollect something else: the reality that humans are Earth-born. That awareness brings my body and the Earth into focus. In my meditation, I remember Jaspers saying human is a “spatial-temporal” being (1953/2010, p. 263). Locating myself reveals that I am standing via my body on another existing concrete form, the Earth, which firmly supports me and other humans and other-than-human beings. Pondering the question of ‘what if’ from this vantage point connects me with another time and place and with a more ancient metaphorical standpoint. In addressing the interrelatedness between me and the other, that is, the Earth, both my question of being and the autobiographical method I have chosen for this research come into focus too. Through another breath, I also remember Pinar, who, in the context of curriculum, explained: “autobiography means being still, slipping back inside, being in this body, in this world, intact, whole. Alive, in time, death at hand” (Pinar & Reynolds, 2015, p. 93). Hence, I slip back inside, as Pinar suggested, once more and I set to uncover my memories further. The re-turn, this time though, is to Norouz. 2.7 Norouz: A Perspective Inclusive of Natural and Cultural Beings I recollect, with every inch of my body, the arrival of the spring in Tehran. I clearly remember enjoying the days that suddenly and gradually warmed up, visiting relatives and friends during Norouz, the Iranian New Year. I cherish the memories of collecting the brand-new 56 unfolded bills with signature,20 tucked inside a copy of Qur’an’s pages and handed over by an elder, who usually had vozou.21 I remember how, when a little older, I giggled at the sarcasm of receiving the new bills, as the greedy in me could see the irony of cleaning one’s hand to give out something that potentiality could be the dirtiest thing in the world. However, eventually, I had come to some understanding of the possibilities that such a gesture could have. I remember the tables in the homes covered with flowers, fruits, nuts, gold fish, and usually seven symbolic items, of which the first letter of their names started with the letter س , the fifteenth letter in the Farsi alphabet, sounding like the letter “s” in English. The air was filled with the commotions of Norouz. The new day brought tidings: the end of dreadful winter and the rejuvenation of spring for all beings, as the restoration of life and vitality was a reoccurrence everywhere. I loved Norouz; what I did not like was the duration of its holiday.22 This is because I loved school too; I enjoyed most of the subjects at school not because I was good at them all, but because they presented challenges, grappling with which was mostly energizing and satisfying. I enjoyed geography and history very much; I excelled in geometry. The two subjects that I enjoyed the most were poetry, part of the language study, even at the elementary school, and physical education. The former I enjoyed because it always taught something in a very gentle way that touched my heart. I loved the latter and excelled in it 20 When I was a child, it was customary to give small bills to children and adolescents who visit one’s home. These bills were usually obtained from banks, as they had to be unfolded and brand new. They also were signed by whoever gave them away as a gift. I think the tradition is still in place in some areas, and in other places, more expensive gifts have replaced the small bills. 21 Vozou is washing specific parts of the body in a specific sequence before praying, or in this case, touching Qur’an. 22 The Norouz holiday is officially 13 days. However, depending on what day the festival begins each year and how one arranges workdays, it can go far beyond 13 days. 57 because physically, I was different from the majority of girls and much stronger than many boys of my age. Although my physical advantages over other students were strengths, the differences also were my nemeses at school and even outside of it. At school, boys did not like me since they were confused by my height and physical abilities that led to my domination in many games. Hence, boys, who were supposed to feel secure and superior in a patriarchal society, felt insecure; they excluded me from their games. After all, girls were supposed to have “feminine,” delicate bodies and, to borrow from George Eliot (1871/1994, p. 9), “weak opinions.” I possessed neither. Girls also did not feel comfortable with my presence because they found me ‘abnormal,’ not fitting into their standards of ‘femininity.’ Truthfully, neither my body nor my activities and interests matched the norms of the time and the place. My tall, lanky physique was, perhaps by any standards, including my own, out of proportion. I looked strange and was frequently ridiculed and repeatedly called animal names.23 I was called Daddy longlegs, Giraffe, Ostrich, Camel, etc. These rememberings should not give the illusion that I was totally alone either, as I had my own defenders, a small circle of friends. They stood by my side whenever necessary. Despite all the difficulties that I had fitting in at school, the best part of the Norouz holiday for me was the end of it. The prolonged holiday planted in me a fresh appreciation for classmates and friends. By the end of the holidays, I had already forgotten all the challenges I faced at school. The first day of going back to school was monumental; wearing clean uniforms and brand-new shiny shoes, the gloss of which lasted, maybe, only until noon, students entered the 23 Calling someone by an animal name was a clear way of insulting one in the context of the culture of that time and place. 58 school with excitement. After a few days, the conversations about the new gifts received during Norouz and the exhibitions of clothes, shoes, and other gifts gradually subsided; the school resumed its normal functions. It was not until mid-spring that students started arriving at school with voluptuous, full petal velvety roses in exotic colours and mind-blowing aromas. The students brought roses for the teachers (an appreciative gesture then). After some years of resistance, following the rationale of ‘everybody else does it,’ and perhaps with an unconscious desire to fit in, I thought to bring roses to my teacher as well. There was one problem, though: the only rose bush in the yard of my parents’ house produced different flowers than those that usually showed up on the teacher’s desk. The roses in our home had small buds, were light pink, and had skinny stems. They took a long time to mature and open (and some of them never did). They had no chance in the landscaping competition that was happening on the teacher’s desk. Our roses had short, tiny stems attached in groups of four or five to a skinny, long stem. Too heavy-headed for their body, these roses usually broke off or leaned to the side, creating the illusion that they were not fresh. They were somehow out of proportion, too; those roses were of a different kind. They looked odd and would have brought me humiliation at school, I thought. Looking for a solution, I turned to the roses of the neighbourhood with, of course, a mischievous yet innocent thought: to take a large fragrant exotic, velvety, colourful rose to my teacher. Before narrating what happened next, I have to step out of the main story (something that by now I am accustomed to) to explain some other happenings. 2.8 On-the-Edge Moments: Hakayat-e If, But, and However These moments within moments imply a biography of my parents’ principles, which were complicated and multifaceted. Hence, they had to be attended to with care. The word 59 hakayat means allegory in Farsi. The word e, which is linked to the noun of hakayat with hyphen, has the role of article (the) in English. The appearance of this word in the title of this section is to emphasize the colloquial focus of this research, as hakayat usually indicates that an informal or/and unexpected educational occasion has occurred. Hakayat reveals that this study is also embedded in unplanned and unexpected occasions, which in this case is the principles I grew up with. These principles were taught by my parents, who were very hard on themselves, more forgiving with us as their children, and much more generous in their relations with others. Disobedience had serious consequences for us. My parents always explained these principles in general terms and expected us to follow them. These foundations, mostly, were about their immediate environment. Setting their own principle, my mum and dad prioritized others in the majority of cases. Ambiguity was a privilege reserved for other people; for their children and specifically for themselves, they had straightforward, plain, and clear rules, which in reality were neither linear, nor were simple and transparent. The boundaries, seemingly clear, were complex and conditional because there were always some specific situations through which the rules had to be considered very carefully. For instance, the neighbours had to respect our privacy—a principle that we had to reciprocate. Neighbours could pick the fruit from the tree we had in the yard. But they had to acquire permission to enter our home. Picking fruit of our tree from the branches in the public space or their property’s space required no permission. To follow the principles, one had to be detailed oriented and analytic since, in the given case, when reversing the situation, the principles changed. We were not allowed to ask anyone for material things, edible or otherwise, because, in my parents’ view, asking was an act of badgering others. In the example of the fruit tree, even under those principles, there were some hidden buts. For instance, we could pick the 60 fruit on the branches in the public domain, but only in the amount that we could eat right there, as we were not allowed to take the fruit with us and save it for later. It was an all-you-can-eat buffet; there was no taking. When asking my parents why we could not pick all the fruit and save some for later, the answer was that we have to share what is there with other passersby, animals, birds, insects, and many more. Of course, they had a concern for the provider—the tree—as well since they said we were not to overwhelm the tree by taking too much from it at once. In their reciprocal relationships with others, perhaps Mum and Dad were almost free when it came to the material things, as veiled in their rules was a reservation about accepting and taking. However, another perspective can reveal they failed to balance their principles and to see acknowledging others sometimes meant receiving from them. A different vantage point can also disclose that their concept of kinship reflects a more complex and expansive consideration of being in being in and with the world, as their care was inclusive of trees too. Their inclusive view of kinship, I understand, also unveils an equity they attributed to the being of each being in being in and with the world. Yet, another perspective can disclose, perhaps, being arrogant, my parents saw themselves above others and thus avoided asking for anything. These parental principles have crossed my mind many times. I often wondered how they had influenced the person I am today. To this day, I have not been able to justify the huge gap between the leniency reserved for others and the hardship given to oneself. Unable to fully comprehend or change those principles, I leave them alone for now and return to the story of finding a rose for my teacher. 2.9 Back with the Whole In the story of roses, I decided neither to pick any rose without permission nor to ask the neighbours for flowers, nor did I decide to take our own roses to my teacher. By not doing the 61 first two, I followed my parents’ rules and saved myself from unpleasant consequences. As for the latter decision, I thought I saved our flowers from being ridiculed for their physical appearance and their ‘abnormality.’ Perhaps, hidden in such consideration was a desire to rescue myself from possible acts of mockery. My engagement with roses, school events, Norouz stories, and the aforementioned familial principles have exposed some of the complexity of my interrelatedness in being in and with the world. Deep at the bottom of the story of roses, I see a dislodging that led into a transplanting situation. Comparing the ‘oddness’ I assumed in our home roses’ appearance with the oddity of my physique and interests, I did see myself in the roses. The story of roses gave me an opportunity to recognize roses and to understand that the world encompasses all kinds of beings. In other words, the experience with our home roses and those of the neighbourhood invoked thinking; I could sense differences and similarities between our roses and myself. Through the similarities I drew between my situation and that of the roses, I felt a connection with them. All these revelations, perhaps, have happened because of the initial rejections that I endured in the social realm. Perhaps my connection with roses also happened through some other entities that roses and I shared with one another. Through the concept of one another, I am reminded of another realm, i.e., the social. To reveal the influential social realm and to expose the occurrences that make a togetherness, or otherwise possible, I fast-forward in the past. This time, once again, I arrive at the year of the Iranian Revolution, during which the relations in being in and with the world took a turn for worse. 62 2.10 Return to a Cultural Tragedy The man that many have never even heard of until a few months ago was going to arrive in Tehran within the tumultuous beatings of the people’s hearts. Everything was so incredibly emotional and shocking. Several months ago, everything seemed calm and ordinary; the uproar began quickly, as if out of nowhere, affecting each and all. This was “The Year the World Really Changed,” said Niall Ferguson in Newsweek (November 6, 2009). The whole country was turned upside down within a short period. There were many lives sacrificed; with those losses, the question of who benefitted from them has been a pressing inquiry for me. The lost lives were heavy burdens for the living to carry; the question was ‘what if,’ as De Unamuno noted, those “who talk to us about this fantastic sacrifice, this dedication without an object,” also “talk to us … about the right to live” (1954, p. 12). The right of living that is for all beings became preposterously exclusive. While ordinary people were on the streets putting their lives in danger by protesting the regime and suffering shortages of food, fuel, and other necessities in winter, they were urged to do more and to place themselves further in harm’s way in exchange for a promise of salvation for their souls. Such redemption concealed the hidden agendas of the “extraordinaire.” While promises of heavenly salvation were made to the masses, the reclamation for the new elites of the time had different meanings: power and profit. In the heat of a battle between ‘good’ and ‘evil,’ divisions deepened between people. In a milieu filled with fear, reason and trust vanished and uncertainties crept into people’s lives. Hyper-awareness of one’s own needs deepened the chasm between one and others. Saturated with fear, greed, and confusion, people washed themselves off dignity; the ultimate ‘good’ got lost, as one’s survival was the only end. Questions of whence and whither—the meaningful force behind the original movement—disappeared, and the question of how became the maxim. 63 Relationships were thrown out, and others became suspect; in the chaos of us against them, a deafening claim to the prophecy announced itself to the world. This monumental retrieval of a cultural past may reveal another origin for my question of ‘what if’. Perhaps, doubtfulness,24 is my mode of existence: one in which my life experiences have been outlining for me. To elaborate on my mode of existence and the thoughts it evokes, I will go back to Norouz and its activities, which reveal my wonderment for another form of Other, that is, the natural world. 2.11 Norouz and Natural The first few days of the Norouz holidays were spent on hosting relatives as well as visiting them. These were gatherings where people ate together, played together, and shared stories of their lives. These gatherings were held to the highest possible standards of hospitality no matter how poor or rich a household was. After the visiting concluded, some families travelled to other places; the destination in most cases, for us, was the beaches of the Caspian Sea. Countryside trips were other favourites. It was during one of those countryside trips that we went to Marvdasht, a small city near Shiraz in the Province of Fars in the centre of Iran. Marvdasht is an ancient and historical place; the capital of Marvdasht once was the famous city of Persepolis. Currently, Persepolis sits at the 24 The question of ‘what if’ represents my doubtful thoughts. I have exposed my doubt about small matters such as receiving money in Norouz. I also expressed some doubts about my parents’ principles. I even expressed at the beginning of the dissertation that I was doubtful if any method is able to address the life I have lived. Thus, at this time in my research, I thought to explain how complex and multidimensional these doubts have been. Doubt, here in its etymological form of “fear, … hesitation, … and question,” emanated from thinking on and ultimately choosing “between two things” (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.). 64 margin of the city of Marvdasht. While visiting the city, we went to Persepolis and visited Takht-e-Jamshid,25 Naqshe-e-Rostam,26 and Pasargad.27 As a child, I was in awe with the size of Persopolis, its huge pillars soaring to the sky, its different animal shapes and heads carved from stones, and its vast elegant stairs leading, apparently, to nowhere. I enjoyed those visits to Persepolis even though I was, perhaps, too young, in the eyes of many, to appreciate the historical aspect of the place. I felt free and humble in that place; the freedom, perhaps, depended heavily on the experience with the vastness of the place. Feeling humble, I think, happened through the juxtaposition of my minuscule size with the gigantic place. As much as I was taken with the monuments of that place, I remember that the most enjoyable part of that holiday trip was staying in a little cabin in the natural and agricultural area of Marv Dasht, something that we did during most trips. Drinking fresh, boiled milk with cream formed on top of it (which we ate with freshly baked bread and boiled eggs for breakfast) made us ready for a day-long adventure. After breakfast, my siblings and I went off to nearby farmland. With no set plans, we roamed freely and slowly for hours in the natural landscape. We took in the fresh air and discovered many habitants: flies, grasshoppers, bees, birds, and domesticated animals such as donkeys, cows, hens, roosters, and sheep. For me, the most precious and amusing discoveries were the dragonflies; they were magnificent, their flying abilities were amazing, and their colour varieties breathtaking. My communication with them occurred through sight and touch; the game of the day was to watch for and find dragonflies and 25 Takhte-e-Jamshid means Throne of Jamshid. Jamshid is king in Iranian mythology, which reveals an ancient concern with nature and the beginning of the world. 26 Naghsh-e-rostam is Achaemenid’s square tower. 27 Pasargad is Cyrus the Great’s tomb. 65 to touch them. In this game, one’s fortune was linked to the number of one’s encounters with dragonflies, and that determined the winner of the day. At noon, we usually took a break for lunch and a nap, as the heat of the day was unbearable. Refreshed, we went right back to the cooler air and the game of counting dragonflies on the farm until sunset; unknowingly, we knew the time was precious. The prolonged proximity to the dragonflies created a bond between them and I, so by the end of the trip, a shadow of sadness casted everywhere; my thought was, ‘what if’ I don’t see the dragonflies anymore. However, by this time, the holidays were coming to an end, so study and preparations for school usually became the business of the day. Soon, it seemed that the dragonflies were the furthest things in my mind. This was the story of our life year after year during Norouz, even though, every year involved a different form of creature that frequently raised the question of ‘what if’ I won’t see them again. I remember that I had the same doubt about abdoztaks28 when we travelled to the Caspian Sea. Looking back, I can see the integral and constant parts of those years were the land, the air, and the water, all of which gave hope for future encounters. In the present, the land, the air, and the water are still here; however, their wellness is in question. The whole biospheric system seems to have gone through a process of resetting. The current concern of ‘what if’ presents much more serious doubts about the existence of humans and non-humans and the well-being of the planet itself. In the context of this research, still unanswered is a critical question of what may transpire from going through my life experiences in relation to my academic interests. It is also unclear what these memories have to do with my field of study, which is Curriculum Studies. 28 Abdoztak are very tiny creatures in the sands and waters of the Caspian Sea similar to Emeritas. One can feel and see them on the body when the waves go back to the sea if one sits on the shallow sandy beach in the water. 66 Therefore, here, I am to “part” with the happenings of the past to look toward the future, which like the past, is present in the present. In doing so, I may find the relations between my academic “interests and … private life, between these two and evolving historical conditions” (Pinar 1975, p. 25). To find what it is that the research may reveal, I move into the next stage of currere—the progressive. 67 Chapter 3: Migrative On earth, the unrealized, I can see Underneath the ground, the hidden, I can see At the endless arid land of nothingness as I plea The not yet comer and the already goner, I can see. (Bigloo, Translated, Khayyam, 2002, p. 126). Pinar suggested that in the progressive phase of currere, one intends to peer “at what is not yet the case, what is not yet present” (1974, p. 24). To look into the future demands one’s detachment from the urgencies of the immediate, the present. This phase of the journey is challenging for me for several reasons. The first problem is relaxing, since equanimity is a capacity that I am yet to acquire. The second obstacle and indeed the main challenge is comprehending time in terms of its uniting and dividing qualities and the relations between past, present, and future. Another complexity arises from the consideration of time as both existential and chronological, that is, the individual being in the context of life itself (time within time). This alleged double quality of time, here as time within time, suggests that to envision a future, I must maintain a focus on the relations I have had with my environment. These relations are inclusive of my engagements in cultural and natural worlds, both of which seem to be the re-generative source of understandings. While pondering my past experiences, not only those that were pleasant but also the ones that were unkind and, in fact, agonizing, I focused on the concept of relationship to show 68 interrelatedness between past and present. Taking solace in my inconclusiveness29 and the fading quality of the past’s events, which bear the tidings of non-existence (not, at least, in the way they were once), allow me to see the non-equivalence of who I was in the past and who I am today. This distinction of the present from the past liberates me. The emancipation, then, grants relaxation. After a big sigh of relief, I take a deep breath and move ‘inward’ with focusing on dam,30 which means a single breath, a lone moment, now, and present in Farsi. I emphasize dam, on which both experiencing and meaning-making depend, according to Saadi (Froughi, 1982, p. 18). Dam, as breath, not only relates my being to the being of other beings, but it also connects my being with the dam.31 The concept of the world transfers my attention to my experiences from another place in the world, this time America, my home away from home for more than ten years. Although I have visited Oregon, Hawaii, Arizona, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas, Maine, Massachusetts, and California (North and South), my focus here remains on my experiences in and from San Diego. I have travelled to the city during four out of the past five presidencies in the United States of America. I have not been there yet since the inauguration of the 46th 29 Inconclusiveness means not “close” (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.) and in my thought, here, means being alive. A feeling that at some periods in the past was absent; although I lived then too, I did not feel I was alive. 30 Dam is a word with multiple meanings and great significance in Farsi. It has regularly appeared in famous literary works in Iran. Different poets have used the word to convey different meanings of it in life. The meanings of dam are a minute between the past and the future, as present time, breath, and it also is equivalent to the meaning of present in English in its etymological root of “existing at the time” (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.). 31 Here, dam’s meaning is present in Farsi and that meaning conveys the etymology of the word, “existing at the time”, in English (Online Etymological Dictionary, n.d.). This also should reminder that I live between the two languages and the thoughts in them. 69 President. My engagement with the city as a temporary resident has been extensive. My regular visits to the city were initiated with the move of our daughter to San Diego for education and work. I narrate my experience with that place to express the other relations I have in being in and with the world. For that purpose, I will move into the past from this progressive phase to disclose the relevance of myself and this research with that place. 3.1 Locus: Place is a Principle In public and on the streets of this place, San Diego, California, I am engrossed in my inter-actions with the beings of the city. I am both excited by the diversity of this place and deflated by the sheer number of courthouses, bail bond companies, and homelessness on the streets of downtown. Walking the streets, I see the diversity of sights; diversity and variety are evident in the mixture of the historical architecture of the city as well as its geographical and natural settings. The museums and the historic buildings juxtaposed with the koi fish ponds, the exotic, aromatic, colourful, and voluptuous flowers and plants, ducklings that year after year I look forward to seeing, and of course, visitors from all over the world, all together, reveal the multiplicity of this place at Balboa Park. I can see why this park has a special place in my heart. A section in the park reminds me of a cemetery in Tehran, in which my grandparents’ graves are. We went to that place every last Thursday of the year; that is a ritual before Norouz. Going to that spot in the park brings tears to my eyes every time, as I remember my father and his parents’ graves. Another factor of this place that reminds me of Tehran is the sun, which has powerful effects. It seems to me that as the sun leaves its footprints on people’s faces, it instills in them a submission and a laid-back attitude, which slows and energizes the pace of life at the same time. The structure of downtown San Diego, on the other hand, reminds me of Vancouver. And, of course, there is the Pacific Ocean that joins both Vancouver and San Diego shores. The 70 memories that come to life when I am in San Diego and the similarities that I experience between Tehran, San Diego, and Vancouver make this place a home away from home for me. Overwhelmed with all the public experiences, simultaneously unpleasant and soothing, I take shelter in the private. At home, in San Diego, my early mornings begin with watching news on CNN, which is a substituting form of masochism for watching CBC in Canada. Watching the fear-mongering news with a mind already familiar with extreme situations, I see similarities between the past in another place and the present in this place. I see the connections through the radical attitudes of the 45th President and his administration. The unrest happening in America reveals similar divisions, inflictions, and alienations that I witnessed through the Iranian Revolution. The similarities of what happened with what is unfolding in this place raise other forms of ‘what ifs’: what if liberty in this place means a sharp turn toward vulgarity; ‘what if’ nobility remains embedded in patriotism; and ‘what if’ relatedness in this place means only allegiance through biological means. One does not have to think hard to find that the world of politics in this place more than ever means “higgling and haggling for power—with the rabble”32(Nietzsche, 1896/1995, p. 97), as the 45th President’s politics and policies have private benefits at their cores. In my view, the avaricious 45th President and his involvement in worldly affairs reveal a pure form of sensationalism and instrumentalism, both of which have always carried the concerns of one’s own benefits. Utilizing the new technology and its self-promoting 32 Here, I am making a reference between the similarities of how I felt and the expressed thoughts of Nietzsche on the second part of Thus spoke Zarathustra on the concept of rabble and ruling. I felt the quotation eloquently expressed the core of what was unfolding under Donald Trump ruling in the complex context of different ideologies and people. I addressed technology, another important aspect of Trump’s ruling, in the following sentences. 71 opportunities, this egocentric33 President, with hyperbolic language, takes advantage of liberty to chirp excessively, to falsify, and to sign executive orders, including the one that ended the Paris Climate Change agreement (Andrews, 2020; Qiu, 2020; MacGrath, 2020). Exhausted from watching the news, I turn to my study, in which I’ve tried to understand the complexity of my life, time, and place. However, a close look at the world through books and the experiences of others often creates more quandaries than resolutions. Next, the threshold of listening begins at home in San Diego, as short-pitched and distinguishable sounds of the delicate hummingbirds fill the courtyard. They enthusiastically appear in the courtyard to accompany colourful flowers; their presence and actions bring delight to midmornings. Ultimately, as an “alien” observing the events of the present that are the reminders of a past, I feel the return of the question of ‘what if’ in the midst of the enraged waves that destroy (literally and metaphorically)34 the shores of life in this place. This regressive action in the progressive phase of this research also reveals some differences between the current changes occurring in this place and those that happened in another time and place. The most obvious difference for me is that through the democratic process and the separation of religion from state still present in this place, Americans have been able to salvage their freedom while Iranians found themselves in the totality of a theocratic government. The juxtaposition between the present and the past, for 33 With egocentric, I mean selfish here. However, an egocentric person, as William F. Pinar (personal communication, December 10, 2020); Grumet (1988, p. 102) explained, is indeed, obsessed with other’s gaze and examination. 34 Enraged waves that destroy (literally and metaphorically) refers to the natural and the historical calamities and unrest that America has been witnessing in the recent years. 72 me, forms another inquiry. What is it that secures all existences and allows for all actions? Such a question may ultimately underscore place as a principle. 3.2 Back to the Transplanted Phase of Currere In taking a deep breath, or dam, Saadi’s words appear before me. Har nafasi ke fro ravad momede hayat ast va chon barayad mofarahe zut. pas dar har nafasi do nemat mojoud ast va bar har nemati shokri vajeb (Froughi, 1982, p. 18). I translate the prose as: every breath that goes in necessary for being is, and as it comes out revitalizing to the zut,35 (the core meaning). Then in every breath exists two gifts and for each gift an outstanding thank. Within the consciousness of a single breath, or dam, in the present, or dam, the worlds of within and without come to focus together. Within this, apparently, single silent “complicated conversation” (Pinar, 2015, p. 39) between my inner world and the existing world, dam carries connections and interrelatedness. This complicated conversation between the world and I, also reminds me that my existence depends on a “single” exchange of breath, which is the agent that also makes the remembering of my memories possible. In this discussion of my temporality, I have laid beside one another my memories. These are the memories of Norouz; of occasional detachments from the social milieu; of connections with the natural world, the roses; of a revolution; of the historical horrors and of the fears I have experienced; of the places in the “new” world; of course, of the return and the re-emergence of the uncertainties of the past in the present. I have done all those through single breaths. Another look at these images exposes a continuity, an interrelatedness between my past, present, and future—a connection between my life experiences and my academic endeavour in 35 Zut in Farsi is equivalent to essence in English. It is understood that it reveals itself in the relation between the body, mind, spirit, soul, and more. 73 the field of curriculum studies. Still researching within the within world, the question of what these gathered “photographs” (Pinar, 1975, p. 25) have for the future appears once again. What do these moments relay in the relationships of the particular person I am, with the historical and the natural worlds I have experienced? Are there possibilities of transformation? If so, what conduit in what form, can support further understandings? It is the last question that brings the investigation closer than ever to the method of currere, as I am very aware of currere’s potentiality. While keeping “the key curriculum question—what knowledge is of most worth?” (Pinar, 2012, p. xv) close by, I ask: what is of most worth in the present condition of the world? The highlighting reveals my lament for the places, which are the Earth, my own body, and the bodies of other beings as cultural and natural. With that conclusion, I move into the next phase of this research; the research becomes analytic. 74 Chapter 4: Contemplative Reflection here is not a concentrated act; rather it is marked by embodied attention, an earthened presence, and an empathetic ear. Humility. (Fidyk, explained in Jardine et al., 2015, p. 105) Now that the experiences of the days in the past and those in the present have given way to the opportunity of reflecting on them, I hope to make the flow of time clearer. I can see an interconnectedness, through which I have been able to recognize parallels and dissonances between the worlds of within and without. In this research for the meanings of my being in relation to my educational interests, curriculum studies, my emphasis continues to be on the complexity of being in and with the world. To expose the possibilities that already exist in what I have encountered, I have to accent a transition from the experienced to reflecting on them. The move from the experienced to the study of them also juxtaposes body and mind and their interrelatedness. In such a complicated process, of course, as Pinar (1975) explained, “intellectual interests” and “emotional conditions” of the particular are noteworthy (p. 26). Through description and interpretation, which, Pinar explained, “must not subordinate the lived present to an abstract” (p. 26), I try to understand what it is that drafts my mode of being in the world. However, since there is already a detection of a relation between my interest and the latent in currere, a re-turn to the method necessitates itself. Currere is more than just a method, as it is not grounded in the concept of consciousness only; it does not follow the phantom of scientific methodology claiming “twice two” through the “law of mathematics” (Dostoyevsky, 1992, p. 8), the law of quantification that sees realities of the world through signs, symbols, and numbers. Calculation is only a method, a technique, a part 75 of Lebenswelt, or the “concrete life” of every individual (Pinar et al., 1995, p. 519). The “ideational veil … of mathematical science is thus a veil of symbols which represents and at the same time masks … the world of practice” (Die Krisis der Europaischen Wissenschaften und die transcendentale phanomenologie, loc. cit., p. 52 cited in Marcuse, 1964, p. 163). Currere underscores different temporal elements constituting the self, the durational life of the body, the mind, and the spirit as well as the heart, all of which and more are involved in making of one’s meaning in being in and with the world. It is through describing my lived experiences, the thoughts they provoke, and the afterward “conceptualization” of them that I can break “into parts” my “organic whole” (Pinar 1975, p. 26). In separating the past from the present and that which is from that which can be, I am able, as Pinar explained, to gain freedom from the past and in the present (p. 26). These two forms of freedom expose a transcendental quality of currere. The word analytical in its adjective form for analysis comes from a “medieval Latin” root (Online Etymological Dictionary, n.d.). This root is constituted of the two parts of “ana” meaning “up” and “luein” meaning “loosen”. The above etymological roots, in the context of currere, for me also mean transcendence and freedom. In the light of such understandings, this study may continue with some more analyses of my experiences in the family milieu with those parental principles that set the ground for many things to follow. After the analysis of the private, the research will move into the public domain, concentrating on my relationships at school. My analyses question why and how those social relationships emboldened that which already existed in my connections with other forms of beings in being in and with the world. Of course, I also will analyze the tragic events of a revolution and its personal and societal impacts. Throughout this process, I will keep currere as close as possible. 76 4.1 Interrelatedness Is Another Principle With all the hardship that my mum and dad went through to be independent, implied in their rules was their awareness of an interconnectedness in their beings in being in and with the world. Whether they saw themselves as superior in relations with others, they thought of themselves less, basically—out of fear and respect—yielded to others, or were too proud to face the realities of their own situation and pretended to be relaxed and yielding, they always prioritized the rights of others. There was an equity that they envisioned for the other (human or non-human). Our present world and our experiences of climate change in recent years indicate the absence of this equity. What can be done regarding the current condition of the world? What Doll (2002) envisioned speaks to my heart. He said “spirituality” is not “infusion of Grace or Spirit from outside” but “a relationship of being we develop, with awe and reverence toward all creation” (p. 42). The word we, in its plural form, as “I and another or others” (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.), reveals the importance of each human being in addition to the role of humans in the development and sustenance of life and being. The words “all creation” pull the human and non-human world together. Another part of a didactic education that happened through experiencing those parental principles draws “affinity between the structure of Erlebnis … and the mode of being of the aesthetic” (Gadamer, 2013, p. 63). Aesthetic experience, Gadamer tells us, is an experience, which “represents the essence of experience per se” (p. 63).36 Therefore, in breaking down the 36 While Gadamer’s thoughts in this passage may have strictly been in relation to art, I make a reference to the aesthetic in a different way. My understanding of aesthetic here is in its root form, “aisthetikos” meaning “of or for perception by the senses, perceptive” (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.). 77 organic self that I am, I think what was “experienced aesthetically” may have been “removed from all connections with actuality” (p. 63). However, in the aesthetic experience of being in and with the world that creates and re-creates, the connection with actuality happens via “the concreteness of primal experience—i.e., the totality of consciousness” representing “an undifferentiated unity, which is differentiated and determined by the objectivizing method of knowledge” (Gadamer, 2013, p. 62). The totality of consciousness signals to all parts, not just mind, and their interconnectedness involved in the make-up of the Self, i.e., the experiencing subject. Underneath those parental principles were feelings—hardship, love, sadness, frustration, and more—all of which are the origins of thought. Such understanding recalls De Unamuno’s questions: “Can there exist pure knowledge without feeling, without that species of materiality which feeling lends to it?” Cannot one claim, “I feel, therefore I am” (De Unamuno, 1954, p. 36)? As manifold and varied as humans are, their common property, after all, is love for life and fear of death, both of which are their conscious and unconscious realities that propel Life forward. Since humans are not the only beings in the world and involved in Being, can our realities be also of other beings in the non-human world? A non-human may not be able to express love for life and fear of death via language as a human does, but these feelings are evident in all the efforts that each being makes to sustain its life. With those interpretations and conclusions, a kind of kinship appears that interconnects not only humans with one another, but also humans with non-humans. While thinking of that connection, I go back to Gadamer; he told us Hussrel saw experience was not “the actual flow” of experience of an “I,” but he understood experience “as an intentional relation” (Gadamer, 2013, p. 60). What I suggest here is: the intentional is also 78 present in the non-human, as every being in the world intends to serve a purpose in life. That statement may also lay before us other questions: what makes life itself possible on this planet? What kind of changes can the understanding of the world as a place, which interconnects all beings and allows for the intent of every being, bring into curriculum and education? To answer those questions and to reveal the possibilities of those parental principles further by disclosing their roots, this study must return to the idea of the greater good, which has been an indispensable part of this conversation from the beginning. I see that necessity, as I listen carefully; I can hear a much more ancient dēn, which means religion, in the abyss of the Self beseeching for attention. 4.2 Third Principle: Justice Settled in Dam Reflecting on those days and principles, which are the breeding grounds for the present, shifts my attention to how in their projection, those principles addressed the ambiguity and the complexity of life. The ‘if’ in the implementation of such circumstantial principles may unveil the dependency of consciousness on justification and rationalization. Such a comprehension of consciousness places adl37 and justice,38 at the centre of this dialogue. In disclosing the multiplicity of the notion of rationalization39 embedded in those principles, another religious view shows up apparently out of “nowhere.” The concept of dēn, which is a word still in practice in Farsi, “derived from the Avestan … as … a person’s (religious) vision; that is, the totality of a 37 Adl means justice in Farsi. 38 Justice in its origin form is “morally upright, righteous in the eyes of God” and “equitable” (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.). 39 Rationalization reflects ratio here in its original form of “to reckon” and to “think” (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.). 79 person’s thoughts, words, and deeds embodied as a (beautiful or ugly) woman who comes to each person” after death (compare Bd 30.14, 18; see Vahman 1985 in Stausberg & Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina, 2015, pp. 213–214). The surfacing of this ancient layer of knowing from the abyss of myself in the form of Zoroastrianism calls for description of the trinity of pendar-e-nik, goftar-e-nik, and kerdar-e-nik (i.e., good thought, good word, and good deed), which is expected to occur throughout one’s life. The suggestion here is that beautiful or ugly, good and evil, which may be descriptive of one’s pendar, goftar, and kerdar (i.e., according to the Zoroastrian perspective), are values belonging and in relation to earthly life. Even though, the judgment of one’s thought, word, and deed, supposedly, reveals itself after death in the form of a beautiful or ugly woman. After this understanding, I also question why is the appearance of beautiful or ugly in a woman’s form after life? Then, I wonder if this embodiment of female in after-life is a misrepresentation of an elementary knowing, (i.e., female power, creative ability, and nurturing capacity in life). I further wonder if the misrepresentation has its roots in the experience of the “insect taboo” that caused the severance of boys from their mothers and the consequent social demand from them to become “men,” that is, not women, as Grumet (1988, p. 22) and Pinar (personal communication, April 20, 2021) explained. Could this embodiment be a compensation, a ‘promise’, that man made up for after-life in return for what he was experiencing in private and in life? I wonder if in “the process and experience of reproducing” (Grumet, 1988, p. 4), man sought to trump up and to control. I wonder if, through their take on procreation, men also thought of themselves as the masters of the earth, females, and other forms of beings. Ultimately, I wonder if a “feminist epistemology” that “reflects” a “dialectical” interrelation between “subject and object” (Grumet, 1988, p. 27) is integral to sustaining both education and life. 80 The thinking on the notions of good thought, good word, and good deed also discloses the relationship between mind and body, between “a cultural being that” one’s “thought tends toward rather than encompasses, just as” one’s “body orients itself and makes its way among objects in a familiar setting without … needing to represent them to” itself “explicitly” (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/2014, p. 387). At the core of these experiences, expressions, and thoughts in life is “self-consciousness,” which does not exist alone by itself, but in relation with my being in being in and with the world. Ultimately, with the focus on one’s good thought, word, and deed in being in and with the world, justice also discloses itself in life, not after-life. With those conclusions, mind discloses its relation to body, transcendence reveals its dependence on immanence, and after-life displays its relevance to life. These realizations bring the study back to the Earth and into the present. 4.3 Past Parental Principles, Present Education, and New Technology Analyzing those parental principles loosened some of their heuristic qualities and their latent possibilities. But to deepen the understanding of the present, one is, once again, to step outside of the private milieu to expose the possibilities of a public education. To do so, first, it seems necessary to know the etymology of the word education and the thoughts behind it. Etymologically, the word “educate,” from the Latin word educere, usually refers to “bodily nurture, or support,” while educare “refers frequently to the mind” (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.). Educere also means “bring out, lead forth,” as the source claims. Since the growth embedded in the word “education” involves the students, the educators, and the subjects that interest them, education cannot be a “reference to chopped-up sections of a ready-made universe of knowledge” (Dewey, 2001, p. 64). To educate, for me, also means to remain open. 81 Thinking of education as an everlasting and an unfinished task is indicative of a reality: the thoughts of human is never complete and/nor comprehensive. To understand “curriculum” also requires going back to the roots of the word. The word curriculum originated from “curricule,” referring to “a light, open, two-wheeled carriage pulled by two horses side by side” (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.). The same source explains: curricule also appears in its Latin form as “currere,” meaning “to run.” In the latter form, the preposition of “to” accompanying the verb “run,” which also means “discourse” (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.), reveals the continuity of discussions, i.e. investigations, studies, and analyses. Implied in the perpetuation of education as such is not only the diversity of the subjectivity and understandings, but also the ambiguity of reality, both of which require the continuity of education, ultimately communicating and conveying possibilities of renewals. Education from the perspective of currere in the action of to run, which also means to “take part, participate, and join in” (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.) also has the implications of openness to the flow of knowledge from parties involved in it. This openness is to allow for the discloser of that which is within each person and the revelation of its contribution to education. That positioning for education and curriculum unveils that in educating themselves, students are to study different subjects in curriculum as that is one wheel that pushes forward the chariot of education. They are, simultaneously, to understand themselves by including their own experiences, desires, and volitions, all of which is the second wheel of the chariot. This engagement has repeatedly indicated the importance of Aoki’s “curriculum-as-lived experience” (1986/1991, p. 161). This is a form of curriculum concerned with the interrelations of the individual’s past, present, and future in relation to being in and with the world. Dewey’s argument that only by “being true to the full growth of all the individuals who make it up, can 82 society by any chance be true to itself” (2001, p. 5) also reveals the veracity of a curriculum that cares for the growth of those who constitute the life of the educational institutions. The curriculum of the present, nevertheless, mostly emphasizes the “arrangement of subjects, a structure of socially prescribed knowledge, or a complex system of meanings which may or may not fall within grasp” (Greene, 1971, p. 235). The focus on a socially prescribed and flattened knowledge—that is, “information” (Pinar, 2015, p. 3)— falls short of understanding the complexity and specificity of each individual and the worlds in which they live. Present versions of the current curriculum over-emphasize an endless list of literacies and programs, which speed, equip, and deploy teachers and students to the market. Such education promises a better economic end that ostensibly ‘frees’ educators and students to ‘solve’ their problems. The latter analysis reveals the nature of hyper-technological consumer-based capitalism, in which “the more completely” students and the teachers “accept the passive role imposed on them the more they tend simply to adapt to as it is and to the fragmented view of reality deposited in them” (Freire, 2000, p. 73). The so-called progress of the recent years through technology has placed education on a path to totalitarianism. As Grant asserted, “technology … is a universal tyranny” (quoted in Pinar, 2015, p. 119) which, he thought, was “destined to eradicate the historic aspirations of the Western world and particularly its North American experiments” (p. 119). Grant “was prescient, as we see technology—despite our dependence upon it—represents” (W. F. Pinar, personal communication, April 20, 2021) worldwide malignant predicament, with which the whole world grapples. What is one to do in such a sombre and murky situation? As Pinar explained, “Grant knew that one could not escape technology” (2015, p. 120): one cannot live outside of the beliefs and the expectations of one’s time, but “as educators, like 83 Grant, we can decline to coincide with them” (p. 120). Focusing on the latter part of the suggestion, to coincide, to equate, and to be the same, reveals another alarming reality: as “we disappear into the technoculture we created and which now recreates us as its subjects, technology surpasses our capacity to grasp it” (pp. 120–121). Such a situation exposes the danger of today’s education and the vulnerability of the subject. What will happen through a technology-driven education? The loss of freedom exposes itself immediately after understanding: conformity occurs through possession of the next new gadget in the market. Through such compliance with technology, the allegiance of one in and with the world is through the market, and a false kinship one finds when confined to the machines. A one-sided “relation” emerges, entailing education only in terms of economic “betterment.” Therefore, a technology-based education, alleged to emancipate, also reveals its potential for slavery. In what is to follow and in the context of technology and progress, I will describe and interpret my world of the past once again. I do this with the hope of clearing some of the ambiguities of here and now. 4.4 Technology: Past and Present Imperialism, Colonialism, and Capitalism In the loosening of the social and the political history here, I rely on my experiences and the thoughts of those who came before me. Looking at the Revolution and Iran’s history, I can trace the footprints of imperialism, colonialism, and capitalism in that history. One of the powers involved in the political scene of Iran for a very long time was Britain. Ansari wrote in the Sunday Times that “Iranian history is very political in a way that long has escaped westerners” (2007, p. 14). He continued: it is “not unusual to find ordinary people and politicians alike debating the finer points of the past 200 years as if they happened yesterday” (p. 14). As Ansari explained, “Britain, along with Russia and the United States, loom large in this narrative” (p. 14). 84 Persian magnificence, Said Ansari, “could never reconcile itself with British prudence”; a shrewdness that had already realized that with the growth of the empire’s expenses, Britain’s increased reliance on “financial and political levers of influence” was necessary (p. 14). The Shah (i.e., Mohammed Reza) felt different restraints, as in another article in 2001, Ansari explained that the Shah often became impatient when American diplomats who forced him to modernize Iran at a fast pace. Ansari explained that the Shah said to American diplomats that he could start a revolution40 for them, but they “won’t like the end result” (Ansari, 2001, p. 1, citing Andrew Roth’s article in Spectator on October 3, 1958). Due to the influence of foreign powers in Iran’s domestic policies and politics, the Pahlavi leaders’ actions were either inclusive of these foreign interests, or at the very least, did not contradict them. We should not forget Reza Shah’s reigning was short-lived. When the country took its first steps toward sovereignty, in 1953, through another coup, this time engineered by both British and Americans, Mohammad Reza came to “the throne” (Sreberny & Torfeh, 2008, p. 526). The main motivation for this British and American action was to protect both powers’ exploitation of the vast oil deposits and the rich and diverse natural resources of Iran. Their “contribution” in return was, of course, selling their outdated technology to Iran. Occasionally, both superpowers sold their latest war machines and intelligence-related technologies to Iran to 40 Revolution here refers to the White Revolution of 1963 during the ruling of Mohmmad Reza Shah. It was a land reform that changed the traditional feudal system of Iran, encouraged and supported industrial growth, authorized the privatization of some state-owned factories, expanded the construction of roads, dams, railroads, and much more, and made the enfranchisement of women possible. all of that, resulted in the isolation of rural communities and disconnection of people from the land. 85 secure their dominance and further their exploitations in the region. In such a ‘relationship,’ the colonizer expected the country’s total and “gracious submission”41 (Pinar, 2012, p. 34). The idea of imperialism arose from uncontrollable greed. In the case of Iran and its natural resources, that appetite was for oil more than anything else. Such a high prize required the control of everything else, especially education. British imperialism started in Iran by granting drilling rights to William Knox D’Arcy, a British investor, in 1901(Zahrani, 2002, p. 93). In 1908, the “oil was struck,” and, at the same time, the conversion of British Navy vessels from steam to oil took place (p. 94). In 1914, just before the First World War, the British parliament took unprecedented action to invest “2.2 million pounds to acquire 51 percent of stock” (Zahrani, 2002, p. 94) in an “Anglo-Iranian Oil Company” through which Britain benefited from “a considerable international market share for crude and petroleum products” (Ghasimi, 2011, p. 442). In addition, Britain enjoyed a “60-year concession” (Zahrani, 2002, p. 93). Mossadegh (the 35th appointed Prime Minister of Iran), who was aware of the unauthorized historical splitting of Iran between Russia and Britain in 1907 for oil and other natural resources, saw the “oil issue as a test of sovereignty” (p. 94). His nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company did not sit well with Britain and what Clark and Bellamy Foster (2009, p. 311) eloquently explained as “ecological imperialism.” In 1951, Britain “symbolically” ended “the 41 Of course, Pinar’s thoughts on gracious submission are in the context of education and clarifying the relation between curriculum theorists and teachers. To express his interpretation of that relation, Pinar adopted “gracious submission” from another context, which was the “southern Baptist” description of “wives” relations to their husbands” (Pinar, 2012). I, on the other hand, saw the footprints of the colonialist, imperialist, and capitalist throughout Iran’s modern times and in all aspect of its life including education. Hence, to express that thought, I saw the expression relevant. Simply, it was meditating on the concept of “gracious submission” that revealed its other possibilities. 86 long era of British dominion of Iran” (Zahrani, 2002, p. 95). But the election of 1952 brought the Republican Party and President Eisenhower to power in America. At the same time, the return of Winston Churchill and the Conservative Party in Britain, set an agreeable ambiance between the two superpowers. The result was the removal of Mosaddeq. “On February 3, 1953, two weeks after Eisenhower’s inauguration, top US and British officials met to review” Iran’s situation (Zahrani, 2002, p. 95). Seeing the necessity of their political and military symbiosis, the two countries’ officials plotted a coup against the government of Mohammad Mossadegh through a joint effort in 1953 (Zahrani, 2002). While the financial benefits of removing Mosaddeq were an obvious motivation for the British, the Americans had a different incentive in mind. The Eisenhower administration was interested in initiating “a new global strategy,” which was to act “more aggressively … using a wider variety of initiatives against communist adversaries” (Zahrani, 2002, pp. 96, 97). Of course, historically, communism has always played an important role in US domestic and international politics and policies. This issue still plays an important role in the present-day’s American political arena. The thoughts of Bolton, the former White House national security adviser to President Trump, provide an example for that claim. Bolton, who is “an inveterate cold war,” saw the “leftist regimes” of Cuba and Venezuela in a group with Nicaragua and viewed the three as a “troika of tyranny,” bringing to life the “axis of evil” he once condemned as an official in the George W. Bush administration (Tharoor, 2018). Of course, the ghost of “Latin American leftism has haunted Washington” for a long time, said Tharoor (2018). Bolton’s claim is not new; politicians have been well aware of the problem of communism and have been unable to resolve it. The question is what Bolton was trying to achieve through that proclamation. The understanding comes through another announcement Bolton made; he praised the election of 87 “like-minded leaders” such as the far-right President Bolsonaro of Brazil, as reflecting a “growing regional commitment to free-market principles, and open, transparent, and accountable governance” (2018). I interpret “free-market” principally as capitalism here. Reflecting on the past, I suggest that Iran’s most important problem in the complicated situation that led to revolution was education, which still lagged behind everything else. The Shah, a detached king with an egocentric personality, viewed himself as an adept ruler. He tried to re-live the illusion of a long-gone-by ‘great’ culture and tradition. In doing so, he underestimated the cunning power of those who had brought him into power and those who wanted him out. Hyper-ambitious in his will and determined to prove himself to all those who thought he was weak and incapable, he, too rapidly, imported the civilization and the technology of the British and American, who (Summitt, 2004) explained, had their own interests in mind. Over time, imperialism, colonialism, and capitalism made Iran’s social and political milieu ready for a revolution. The so-called White Revolution42 forced upon the Shah by the Kennedy Administration (Summitt, 2004) is yet another example of capitalism that has used technology to the end of control and profit. Summitt’s claim that John F. Kennedy “intended to work with whomever necessary to further his aim: to minimize Soviet influence in the region and safeguard Western access to oil” (2004, p. 561) is another example of how far capitalism would go for profit. Of course, the use of technology to gain power, control, and profit was never fully realized and addressed when Iranian Revolution took a religious turn. The slogan of death to the Shah was a projection that viewed the Shah as the only obstacle. 42 Please refer to footnote 38 on page 79 for an explanation. 88 A final reflection on the revolution may also reveal a fundamental fact: how a movement, which through its initial phases, as Al-I Ahmad (1984) conveyed, was opposed to the fast-paced progress, modernity, which shared roots with imperialism, capitalism, and colonialism, changed direction, gained destructive power, and, in time, ironically re-turned to the principles of capitalism and modernity. Remembering Al-I Ahmad (1984) may make the matters clearer: The “West” began calling us … the “East” just when it arose from its medieval hibernation, when it came in search of sun, spices, silk, and other goods. First it came in the grab of pilgrims to the Christian holy places of the East (Bethlehem, Nazareth, and so forth), and then in the armor of the crusaders. Next it came in the dress of merchants, then, under cover of cannon, as shippers of goods, and most recently as apostles for “civilization.” This last name was really heaven-sent. Isti’mar (“colonization”) is from the same roots as ‘umran (“settlement”). And whoever engages in ‘umran is necessary concerned with cities. (p. 32) As clearly stated, the concern of Al-I Ahmad and other intellectuals of the time was about the rapid change that was occurring through imported technologies that brought upon people and other beings the insanely fast development of cities, dams, roads, and so on. The concerns arose from the reasons for such progressive actions as well as their purposes and goals. Nonetheless, at the end, the anxieties about progress were covered by the shadows of a religious revolution that crystallized an “Ecclesiastical Princedom” (Machiavelli, 1992, p. 28) that was to keep the promises of an after-life world in the minds of its followers alive. Such ideology, to put it simply, promoted the instrumentality of the earthly existence and its realities by dismissing the value of an earthly life, forgetting, as the famous Iranian poet Shahriyar elucidated, ven zamin zenda-e- javidan-e-mast (M. Eill, personal communication, March 21, 2014). The words of Shahriyar 89 translates as: this Earth is our forevermore guardhouse. “Greatness’, was what imperialism, colonialism, and capitalism were also after. The ideological movement of Iran fixed, apparently, on the after-life, ignored complex interrelatedness that exist amongst all beings in being in and with the world. In modern times, though, this interrelatedness of life has remained in the shadows of a super-totalitarianism, a technological and globalized economic system of knowledge. A system that makes the control of the other—both as historical and natural—to the sole end of profit on the greatest scale possible. New technology not only ignores the subject, but also heads toward a total control through the universalization of its software (W. F. Pinar, personal communication, May 7, 2021). At the end of this discussion on greatness, technology, imperialism, colonialism, and capitalism, the research shifts to human consciousness, or its lack thereof to expose what the process of thinking is (if any) in creating those economic and political systems. 4.5 Activity, Instrumentality, and Human Consciousness Yes, climate change is real, the extinction of species is alarming, the fires in British Columbia and California are increasing annual realities, the famine in Africa is abundant, and the water shortages and sandstorms in Iran are frightening phenomena. All these occurrences and much more are daunting realities of the present world. However, they should not be taken as accidents, as they are embedded in what “conscious human” historically has done to Earth. Perhaps, conscious human is a habitual juxtaposition—a collocation—that is based on strictly speaking fetishisms that objectify, hypothesize, and idealize. This simultaneous admission and avoidance of one’s compulsions reveals that this study does not solely rely on the concept of human consciousness and does not forward a superiority for human being. The current condition of the world points to human culpability; in following an infinite greed, humans have initiated a 90 chain of actions that has created cascading effects. Fires, sandstorms, famines, and so on are the results of human fetishism with humans’ “instrumental rationality” (W. F. Pinar, personal communication, May 5, 2021). The miseries human actions have brought upon all in the world are yet to reveal their full scope in disasters. In the recent years, the world has witnessed many environmental catastrophes due to climate change. However, today’s realities have not deterred the current education and curriculum from a pre-occupation with technologies “as human activity,” which, according to Aoki, “is what Heidegger refers to as an anthropological definition of technology” (1987, p. 153). Pervasive today is technology, which in its etymological form is “systematic treatment of an art” (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.) that has nothing to do with thinking. The idea of technology “rooted in man’s interest in means, reflects his will to master, to control, and to manipulate” (Aoki, 1987, p. 153). Through technology and their activities, humans have created many historical and natural catastrophes. These descriptions of the direction human’s instrumental consciousness has taken combined with the vision that this research has for place, as historical and biospheric, bring currere into focus once again. Currere has addressed human instrumental rationale in the expansion of the social. However, by emphasizing place as bio-geospheric, the intrinsic and unparallel merit of the world may be realized. Throughout this autobiographical research, I have been lamenting the concreteness of bodies, including that of my own. However, the existence of the subject as “I” in this autobiographical research does not mean viewing the natural world as non-existence and/or non-cogito. On the contrary, I intend to divulge the interconnectedness between my being and other beings as the natural and historical and the world itself. 91 4.6 The Other in the Shadows of an Instrumental Consciousness This research through the supposed binary of subject/social has repeatedly manifested itself through other apparent dualities, of which body/mind, within/without, self/other, private/public, past/present, and passive/active are just a few. Of course, this happened through my experiences with the method of currere, which cares for the subject and the social. Occasionally, the suggestion of considering the inclusion of a third milieu, the natural, in the context of currere, has occurred to me; I saw a space for other beings in between the subject and social. The openness happened through the unfolding of myself as an all-embracing self whose being in being in and with the world has been interconnected with other beings. The hope is that the inclusion of the other than human world in the complicated conversation of curriculum, creates a threshold that can move us away from “belonging together,” which introjects “a unity of systematic totality with its onto-theological ground,” as Aoki (1990/1991, p. 395) noted when unfolding Heidegger’s thought. The aspiration is to think more sufficiently in terms of where we are at present and in life rather than where we may go after life. Such thinking that reveals the loosening of “belonging’s” respect for “together” (p. 397), liberates belonging from producing and encourages “a listening to the call of active nature of letting-belong-together” (p. 397). Such thinking may move humanity toward an understanding that underscores “belonging together” (Aoki, 1990/1991, p. 395, still reflecting on Heidegger). This is a gateway, through which students, teachers, and administrators can re-visit their life experiences and academic interests in relation to the natural environment. This research is “an attempt to think the unthought” (p. 395). The utmost revelation here, therefore, forwards a grassroots education, which started with currere, but can go farther through an openness toward the natural world. 92 In conclusion, I do not claim I have produced anything through this research; what I have accomplished is revealing my thought process. My thinking reflects my take on two languages (i.e., Farsi and English) and the two worlds they have structured. Analyzing happened on my engagements in being in and with the world. In the processes of this research I also used both Farsi and English languages. The claim and the decision may have left me vulnerable. The word ‘vulnerable’ is an afterthought, which makes reference to my position, as someone, who is a bilingual. The use of the word is also due to realizing the possibility of other’s interpretations from the beginning of this paragraph. There, I claimed that I have not “produced anything through this research; what I have accomplished is revealing my thought process.” The word vulnerable may describe one’s situation, as a person who is bilingual. Even though the matter is more palpable for us these days, we still have a long way to go to understand such persons. On the other hand, admitting that one has not produced anything in a time, when even the education system privileges productivity over understanding, makes the word vulnerable an understatement. Implied in my admission is that we, as educators, should open space for human activity of thinking and contemplation in education and curriculum rather than having a sole reliance on the activities, which focus on the end result. Through my statement, I meant I have nothing made through my hand to give, but I am expressing a series of thoughts, which are based on my experiences in relations with others in the world. That confession, however, should not give the illusion that this dissertation was purposeless and the human subject of it did not achieve anything; at the core of this dissertation, I remind the reader, has been the question of what contribution/s my academic studies make to understanding my own life and what my life experiences may offer to my academic field. To reveal the multiple actions of this research, I have offered a series of thoughts, which, I think, are worthy of consideration in education and 93 curriculum. This research reveals my theoretical actions; the End, I am suggesting, is the subject and the particular’s relations in and with the world. After all, education means to value, to nurture, and to advance each human subject in relations to being in and with the world, not what one may, or may not produce. Further thinking about the notion of vulnerability, also necessitates a description for the phrase of being in and with the world. 4.7 Being in and With the World Thus far, the focus of the reflections has mostly remained within the boundaries of the subject and the social even though the subject has emphasized the experiences with familial, social, and natural. The recognition of tragedies and triumphs appeared from a historical and familial viewing. But an ongoing consideration for natural and cultural beings and the exploitations that happened to them also revealed an inconsideration for the natural world, as the underlying cause for the tragedies and triumphs in the world. Breath, which has generated many conversations in this research, reminds us that experiencing tradition and subjectivity are secondary properties. In the sense, that their existence depends on the existence and the functioning of the natural world. This natural world is understood here as my body, the body of others (inclusive of human and non-human), and the concreteness of the world, all of which depend on breath and air for their existence and current forms. Through my breaths I turned inward and disclosed my memories. Breaths also have allowed me to express my thoughts, to connect with the outer world, and to see a collective complex and transverse web that makes the world and is made up of numerous and different interconnected parts. Latent in the phrase of being in and with the world, which has repeatedly appeared in this study, are all the beings in the world and the world itself. The phrase of being in and with the world is a thought that looks for “the truth of the present” (Pinar, 2012, p. 214). It discloses the 94 parity of my being with others (inclusive of those in the natural world) through a common entity, without which the existence of I and others is impossible, let alone our possibilities. The world in the phrase is an in-dispensable, essential matter, which bonds the two poles of culture and nature together. The phrase of being in and with the world has appeared throughout this research to remind me and the reader where we live and with who and what we live together. It reveals possibilities of not only the historical, but also the natural. There is no privilage given to the natural, or the cultural in the phrase, as the privilege is seen in the existing relations. Even though, I do not deny that “human alone was able, without giving up his sexuality, to bring forth an organization of masculine comradeship whose wealth of tensions has made historical life possible” (Jaspers, 1953/2010, p. 40). This happened through desires to control the world and to certain human superiority. A long, historical, and complicated conversation eventually exposes the “nature” of human as “artificiality” (Jaspers, 1953/2010, p. 40). Through the analyses, here, I have already detected kinships and similarities between my understanding and that of Pinar’s. I can also see the possibility of an expansion for the method of currere. One last analysis on Norouz can reveal other relations and connections; this time, relations are between the two worlds of biospheric and historic. 4.8 Biospheric and Historical Relations in Norouz The profound effects of the tradition of Norouz in my life make it worthy of further discussion. The discussion here reveals the “cultivation of a developmental point of view” (Pinar, 1975, p. 19) rather than being concerned with sequency, form, and logical coherency. Plus, repetitions seem to be an inevitable part of education. 95 Norouz is a gala stretched out for thirteen days, which begins on the first day of spring. It is one of the oldest and most influential celebrations of Mesopotamian civilization. As Sadrameli explained in North Shore News (2007, p. 3), Norouz underscores “re-birth,” which affirms relations between the Divine, myth, and the human. Norouz represents a re-enactment “of creation myths” to reinforce “the bond between gods, cosmos and human communities” for “the survival of human life” (Sadrameli, 2007, p. 30). The focus of Norouz on re-creation and survival of human life, places Norouz in the context of education as well as in the larger context of life. That focus also reveals a divine and spiritual interconnection that humans felt and envisioned through “myths” (Jaspers, 1953/2010, p. 40), which historically are present in every aspects of cultural life. These revelations also bring into view the reliance of the historical and mind on the natural world and the body. The latter understanding, for me, also reveals the importance of an education and tradition that values both “curriculum-as-plan and curriculum-as-live(d)” (Aoki, n.d., p. 449). Perhaps, embedded in the survival of human life and the re-enactment of creation myths is a historic concern about mortality that apparently began when gods decided to make death a normal end to human life (Dalley (1989, p. 8). Before that, supposedly, humans lived for hundreds of years, during which they reproduced to the point that they overpopulated the earth (p. 8). Therefore, the gods were “forced to relieve the pressure by intermittently sending plague, famine, or flood” (p. 8). However, these are all debatable knowings. Jaspers explained that there is no certain knowing of the beginning because the knowledge of today from the origin has arrived either through “the phantasy of romanticism” or “sobriety that sees in prehistory nothing but dull facts,” both of which are epistemological claims that cannot reveal any proven insights ((1953/2010, p. 31). Evident in the history, as Jaspers 96 explained, is that humans have always had anxiety about an end being reached, whether this end was “of culmination or decline” (p. 31). Open to Jasper’s claims, I reemphasis here neither is a positivist point of view, some out of context archeological finds, nor it represents an ideological perspective. To me, Norouz is about interrelationality in the existing world, whether that is with the past in the present43 through visits to the cemeteries on the last Thursday night of each year to remember the deads (i.e., to underscore the future and the body’s eternal bond with the Earth). Or whether it is its closing ceremony, which emphasizes the interconnectedness that exist in the world by taking refuge and comfort in natural settings in the company of the sun, greenery, birds, trees, mountains, valleys, lands, rivers, and each other. That conclusion forefronts a geological44 understanding; with that unveiling, my inquiry continues to move forward in unveiling the “not yet” (Pinar, 1975, p. 25). This is a “complicated conversation” that in the context of education and curriculum aims to disclose a more inclusive curriculum in which academic knowledge, subjectivity, and society through a different understanding can become reciprocally reconstructed (Pinar, 2012, p. 11). I re-emphasize that this not yet, for me and in the context of this research, is a worldly consideration. 43 Present here is again in its etymological form of “existing at the time” (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.). 44 Geological is in etymological form (“Earth-related reasoning,” of which the constituents are geo from the Greek “ge,” meaning Earth and logical from “logos” from the Greek logike “(art) of reason,” and from logos “word, reason)” (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.). 97 Chapter 5: Artificial Throughout this study I have been oscillating between the two modes of curriculum; between curriculum-as-plan, in this case, my chosen subject matter, curriculum studies, which can be regimental, and curriculum-as-live(d), my own experiences in life and in relation to my elementary school education. In these back-and-forth movements between the planned and unplanned, I have made inquiries, as in where and with what does this research end? Do my experiences in relation to my formal education underscore “deeper knowledge and understanding” of my chosen field of study and “that field’s symbolic relation to” my own “evolving biography” (Pinar, 1975, p. 27)? By re-arranging45 and putting together my experiences in the light of my reflections, I may be able to articulate that which is in me. 5.1 Re-conceptualization: Coherent is the Earth Here, I express an original affinity, which our modern time has forgotten. What does the under-standing of the historical signal to? Finally, the common ground, the shared entity, which makes all possibilities possible; which supports a collective life that is inclusive of humans and non-humans; which houses the natural and the historical concreteness and bodies in life and after-life; which makes associations and belongings possible; and which, ultimately, exhibits affinity in its most dense form of all, in black humus that is made up of all bodies, reveals itself as the Earth. 45 The prefix of “re” here means returning to a previous state and working from a withdrawn state. 98 Throughout my research, I unfolded a collective and personal history, I could see how moments linked together and gradually permeated consciousness moving me forward. Grumet told us that Habermas maintained, “in the analytic situation the very understanding of the causal connections in one’s own life history dissolves them”, and the self once “object of its history regains subject status in self-formative process” (1976b, p. 115, cited in Pinar et al., 1995, pp. 521, 522). Through such processes, the human subject increases her capacity to “direct the process of one’s own development” (Grumet, 1976b, p. 155 cited in Pinar et al., 1995, p. 522). This research was no exception. Via a research, which “is the human activity that maintains the vitality and viability of man-made form” (Huebner, 1975/2008, p. 228), I have unfolded my experiences through the method of currere. I analyzed my own experiences in the world while examining currere. Now, the time has come to draw the knowing I have through my experiences as a woman in the world into “the epistemological systems and curricular forms that constitute the discourse and practice of public education” (Grumet, 1988, p. 3). In doing so, I had to use “the unformed” and “the unconditioned … to develop new conditions;” and “to create form” (Huebner, 1975/2008, p. 227). It was by experiencing place as biospheric that the value of the world itself as a place for the Being of non-humans and humans came to focus. Thus, a new form through my knowing take form, which can open afresh chapter in curricular discourse. Breath, a repeating concept and action throughout this research and in life, this time allows “placing together. Synthesis.” (Pinar, 1975, p. 27). Through breath, which secures my being, I also realize the dependency of all other beings on it; I see without dam, as breath of air, there won’t be the Earth as we know in dam (as present, i.e., existing at the time). I also see how without here and now we cannot even be born let alone to die and go away; thus, without birth 99 and here, no other action and no there exist. This worldly emphasis makes an aperture in the method of currere; via that opening I arrive at C++ terrain of cosmo-currere. The first + sign in the C++ terrain of cosmo-currere is an opening within which I find the kind of multiplicity that Deleuze (1987, p. viii) suggested (Aoki, 1992, p. 269). This multiplicity takes the focus from “noun-oriented entities” to place one in the midpoint, “the between, a site of relations which are not separable from each other” (p. 269). This opening, invites one to “the midst, between and among the cultural entities” (p. 269). That connection reveals itself in the exchange of words through each breath between Farsi and English for me. The second + sign in this terrain expands this notion of “between as a place of difference” (Deleuze, 1988, p. 21, cited in Aoki, 1992, p. 270). I listen to Aoki, who encouraged us to listen more carefully to Deleuze, saying not “to see difference in degree where there are differences in kind” (p. 270). The attention to between as a place of differences not only describes the second +sign, but it also justifies the appearance of cosmo before currere. Cosmo-currere underscores: the two worlds of historical and natural are different, so it views their equality existing in their differences, which simultaneously are “intelligible within relations of resemblances” (Pinar, in-press, p. 36), since finding likeness is possible via “the concept of analogy” (Pinar, p. 36, reflecting on Silverman, 2000). The resemblance here is living in one world, that is, the Earth. With that hindsight, co-respondence does not allow the othering of the other, understood here as natural. The word “cosmo” comes from the classical phrase of “he oikoumene (ge)” meaning “the inhabited (earth)” (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.). The terrain of cosmo-currere is not just for understanding social policies and ideologies, nor is its focus on the means that lead to a specific end. Neither does cosmo-currere make pretentious claims of de-humanizing when the 100 whole world is thoroughly colonized by human language of greed, and commercial imaginations of wanting more. Cosmo-currere understands that the being of one is entangled with others. In the context of curriculum, cosmo-currere suggests consideration for all sorts of physical interchanges and dialogues that occur between all kinds of beings on Earth. It suggests that the “world speaks through us when we let go of the metaphysical voice” (Cheney, 1989, p. 119). Within the inclusive portal of cosmo-currere, language that is in origin form of “conversation” (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.), becomes more proper through “listening” (Cheney, 1989, p. 119), by which silence completes a reciprocal cycle of communication. Cosmo-currere reveals cogitate, as “together turn over, consider” (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.) and “to think earnestly and seriously” (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.). Finally, cosmo-currere represents a precursor in its Latin form of “pre” “beyond, in front of, before” + “currere” (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.). With that comprehension, cosmo reveals its precedence in time, in importance, and in meaning, over currere through the term of cosmo-currere. Cosmo-currere suggests free from the social, one can find one’s relations with the natural world. Development of understandings, hence, are numerous through cosmo-currere. After all, “mindscapes” are, Cheney (1989) said, as various as “the landscapes which ground them” (p. 126). The findings from autobiographical research in relations with the natural world can also re-structure cultural views. Cosmo-currere rests on a re-conciliatory ground, on which everyday encounters are inextricable from spiritual experiences. Within the terrain of cosmo-currere, language and thought, still political, expand their parameters from public for humans to the larger public of environment and all forms of beings in it. Within such perspective, one’s understanding can move away from the Cartesian language of 101 “I think, therefore I am.” The mind may re-treat from factualizing by abstracting, which means withdrawal from its immediate and distant environments. Hence, the importance of body and the world, both of which are the repositories of human experiences and the sources that through time have allowed and nurtured the current images and our knowings, can appear. Education and curriculum have always been concerned with refinement. Cosmo-currere suggest introduction to the natural world can reveal the cruel means humans have taken to their ends and it can disclose the invisible side of “civilization” and “greatness.” The natural and cultural experiences of todays’ world, especially the appearance of the Covid-19 virus, emboldens and fortifies the inter-connectedness that cosmo-currere has already detected. Hence, opening up the curricular discourse to the natural world is necessary. This suggestion also brings focus on the relatedness of cosmo—the existing world—to currere and the method it offers. 5.2 The Relations of Currere and Cosmo-currere A thought, a field, a relationship is never ours alone; it is theirs as well. (Pinar & Reynolds, 2015, p. 93) As the research reaches its final destinations, the whispers of the ghosts of my past and the voices of those who came way before me into the field of curriculum become clearer. Listening carefully, I can hear the interrelational discourses and discussions of the threshold of currere and the terrain of cosmo-currere. The hyphen between cosmo and currere discloses an inclination: to reveal the interrelations of the worlds of natural and cultural by relating currere to cosmo. The hyphen in its triple action differentiates, relates, and reveals a range of values. Although, place—the world—is the focus of both approaches, currere has always emphasized place as historical through focusing on relations between the subject and the social. For cosmo-currere, though, place is viewed through a more inclusive lens, which unveils the 102 belonging of historical and natural to one place, that is, the Earth. While within the threshold of currere, the focus remains on the intrinsic value of each individual, cosmo-currere expands the intrinsic value and relates it to all kinds of beings in the world. For both perspectives, openness is the key for the revival of individual beings’ meanings. 5.3 Future Implications of Cosmo-currere No wonder that man added [cockerel] to his tame stock—to say nothing of the eggs and drumsticks. … It would put nations on the alert. … All climates agree with brave Chanticleer. He is more indigenous even than the natives[sic]. (Thoreau, 1854/2017, p. 120) In an era when the humanities are so pre-occupied with surplus or insufficiency of the market; when a formal logic tries to determine and to control the undeterminable, the real world; when the idea of transcendence and theology aims to regain power; when humans with their many new apparatuses, cog-like, turn the wheel of consumerism by acquiring the next new thing of the market, the implications of relating education to the natural world are numerous. Re-understanding and respecting the relations and the delicate balances that exist between the two worlds of natural and cultural are urgent matters. I find feeling grains of sands beneath my feet, rays of sunshine over my body, and mist settled on my skin as varied forms of an archetypical communication that perhaps can instigate the most common, simple, and yet impressive philosophical discussion: what B/being is. Between the embodied language of sunshine, which warms my body and clears my head, or its lack thereof that drags my body and mind into the slum of depressions, the reified language of the Earth, which constantly and firmly is under my feet, I feel humble. 103 Cosmo-currere relies on the humility of a human being. It understands humility can form in the recognition of self in relations with other beings (i.e., human and other than human). Cosmo-currere encourages a temperance that neither sees the value of oneself more than any other selves, does not believe in privileging human, nor frontlines humans’ deprecation. Multiple centring, which is possible through recognition of the importance of the Other, i.e., the Earth, on which we live and those with whom and which we live together, is at the heart of cosmo-currere. In reaching that temperance, cosmo-currere, of course, values each subject’s life experiences and academic interests. By refuting the binary of place as biospheric, or historical, cosmo-currere see the world as a place for the former and the latter. By adjusting each individual’s attention toward the biospheric world, cosmo-currere suggests, we, human agents, can play pivotal roles in the world in a time filled with ecosystem and ecological catastrophes. With a focus on the experiences of the subjects with the natural world, cosmo-currere expands and deepens the concept of currere. Then, we may re-understand the word aesthetic in relation to its roots of “… perception by the senses” (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.), by relaying that meaning to the other (that is, the other than human beings. Where does that re-laying emanate from? Cosmo-currere relies on another understanding that Saadi elaborated on. Through only two verses, which focus on a trying ant, and connects that existence to Being and the concept of good in the world, Saadi warns: Mayazar mori ke dane kesh ast. Ke jan darado, jane shirin khosh ast (M. Assadi, personal communication, June, 6, 2014). The following is my translation of those two verses. Do not treat an ant, which pulls grain, unfairly. 104 The ant, which has life, and Harmonious Life is good. Hidden in Saadi’s words are value and worth in every being’s being in forming the idea of good, as Harmonious Life. What would such a reconceptualization offer to the world? Cosmo-currere suggests, life as we know in the world consist of complex relationships, which depend on the existence of human and other than human beings. That understanding may also change our conceptualization of the so-called progress. Imagine if in our progress, we also see the significance, value, and consideration of and for an ant. What effects would that kind of progress have in our social world and in treating one another? Where reduction is real, cosmo-currere like currere insists diversity and inclusion are the vanguards of understanding the world and reconceptualizing our worlds. Currere understand the worth of every subject; cosmo-currere honors that understanding, and deepens it by suggesting that even weeds become worthy of being and consideration in the world in the light of understanding that insect pests feed on them (Weston, 2009). Cosmo-currere suggests, we reduce the world through language. Preoccupied with it, we no longer can listen to the language of what is around us in the world. Cosmo-currere, for example, sees literacy and sustainability as uncomfortable concepts we focus on at schools knowing those in contact with land, are often more educated in sustaining life. Being an avid hiker and runner, I can see how direct exposure to the physical and natural worlds can lead into connections with and understanding of the environment. Unless one becomes familiar with the natural and physical environments, one cannot feel and comprehend the scope of care and love that one has for it. Reconnection with and care for the Earth, cosmo-currere suggests, lies beyond the boundaries of the classrooms. Cosmo-currere proposes re-conceptualization. How is reconceptualization to occur this time? Cosmo-currere puts forward the condition of the world at the heart of reconceptualizing 105 since that is the matter that is important to all beings involved in Being. Diversion of experiences and thoughts toward the world on and with which we live, is at the centre of cosmo-currere’s reconceptualization. It is true that reconceptualization is possible through different forms of arts such as the arts of constructing, growing food, teaching, engineering, and so on and so forth. However, reconceptualization has its origin in practice, in life. Cosmo-currere is a threshold within which the emphasis of the subjects is on what they have experienced through their bodies and minds with that which is outside of the classrooms and beyond the social parameter, in the natural world. Cosmo-currere can bond schools with the world of natural through taking education outdoor. This re-connectedness may also expand the cosmopolitan concept of Pinar since as he explained: studying “the alterity of actuality cultivates cosmopolitanism” (2009, p. viii). In summary, the ongoing power of cosmo-currere reveals itself in recognizing the intrinsic value and specific purpose in every being in its being in and with the world, and the infinite effects of such a focus on the reconceptualization of our worlds. As long as the humanities remain true and open to these knowings and understandings, the future implications of studying within the terrain of cosmo-currere are as numerous as the variations in sunrises and sunsets. With a little adjustment of attention from the daily concerns for human affairs to other forms of beings in the world, the complexity and interrelationality of being will unfold itself in a variety of ways. To “foreground” the Earth (Weston, 2009, p. 171), I opened the space of cosmo-currere. Now, I am thinking in what ways I can furnish, as Grumet 1988 suggested, this room, which I have made. A breath, “from a PIE root *gwhre- “to breathe” and “life” (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.) fills my body; I realize single breaths have moved me through regressive, progressive, analytical, and synthetical phases of currere in this research. Through breaths I 106 have been able to express my thoughts in every phase of this research. I have continuously revealed the significance of breath of air, and the world. Now, I think, a further focus on those matters (in this case, my breath, my life affairs, with more focus on natural world), can disclose ethics as a “down-to-earth” and “practical” subject, and “a matter of daily activity” (Jickling, 2005, p. 27 reflected upon Saul, 2001). In this adjustment of attention, similar to Saul, I am aware of “a reliance on reason to identify and use ethics”46(p. 27). Hence, in what is to follow, I will unfold breath (i.e., life of the subject I am), more expansively. In doing so, I disclose my principles, understanding, “imagination, memories, intuition”, and “reason” (Saul, 2001 is remembered by Jickling, 2005, p. 32), with regard to bio-geosphere to make reasoning more actual. Noteworthy is that breath disclosed its importance from the beginning in this auto-biographical research. Breath and air, early on, in the context of present of this dissertation, exposed their relation with the life of the other, i.e., other than human world. At that time, I revealed the mysterious and close relation of air, night, and plants and things in the form of dew. Yet, that was not all! While present in the present and through attention to a bunch of roses on the table, a single and deep breath of air allowed me to locate myself miles away in a time and a place apparently distant to me and unrelated to the present. Understanding the multiplicity of 46 Jickling (2005, p. 32) in an endnote explained the following. “In his book, On Equilibrium, Saul describes humanism (or human potential) as a dynamic equilibrium between six human qualities of common sense, ethics, imagination, intuition, memory, and reason. Failure to attend all of these qualities (as with a reliance of just reason) results in imbalance and failed humanism. 107 operations within a single breath of air, one moment in Life47, I return to my past, to the people, and to the events of it. In this returning to the past, I followed my own consistency, which, at times, proved to be not of a logical one for the other, that is, the reader. However, to stay true to myself—a datum source—I followed a lived and a felt form of consistency, as Pinar (1975) predicted to be the case. Researching in the labyrinths of my life, I came across the concept of breath, once again, in the story of roses. I explained the way I felt close to the roses through the similarities we had as living beings and sharing the same entities (that are, The earth and the air). Looking back, in the context of justice, my parents’ principles come to focus. I can see how their principle privileged relationship. Knowing, to borrow from Weston, that “an ethic of care and special relationship is not entirely fair” (1992, p. 141). I think, that is how I found myself undoubtedly in relation with and close to the roses. Yet, that was not all! Meditating on what was that which I was after, I remembered a recent past, which was the past several summers. In that remembering, I expressed a different closeness with place through my physical activities, which included daily running from home and swimming in the ocean. There, I asked: what were the relations between seagulls’ sounds, apparent tranquility of the ocean, and whispering wind mixed with the sounds of my own breaths? Self-legitimized and Self-actualized through my breaths in the regressive and progressive phases of currere, I also inquired what were my meanings in the relations I had with the land, sky, water, and other beings in the world? Yet, that was not all! The pinnacle, in which breath, (i.e., life), came to focus, once again, and in a way disappeared, laid in a tragedy; this was the loss of my brother during an intellectual cleansing, which occurred with the Iranian Revolution. The everlasting question since then, for me, has 47 I wrote the word Life with capital L to express its meaning in general form, in which my life as a moment is. 108 been why the Iranian Revolution happened, how it happened, and what were the important factors, which instigated and operated such a movement. Through my breaths, which, at this time, also acted on behalf of my breathless brother, I disclosed the historical footprints of colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism not only on the breaths (lives) of people, but also on the lives of other than human (including the land) in that place. I also questioned the existence of freedom in a system of ruling, in which the breaths of air were stifled by pastoral religion of that place. Yet, that was not all! In 1991, I wove the atmosphere of the city of Vancouver with its green mountains, the vast ocean, and the language (carried through the breaths of people), with one another. That way, I disclosed my ‘strange’ kinship with this land through the concept of breath (i.e., life), once again. Through half a breath, I turned inward and revealed my obsession with my own being. I also revealed the besieging of the world of without by progress through exhaling the same breath of air. I committed to both actions through my breaths and the breaths of those who came before me. Through another breath of fresh air, I remembered human beings are Earth-born. With that expression, I brought attention to my body and the body of the world once more. At this time, I moved within further back and re-turned to Norouz, its tradition, the relations it created, and the travelling time during its holidays. Now, I re-member Weston, who said: we “might move New Year’s back to the Spring, where it was for the entire ancient and medieval world until 01582 when Pope Gregory XIII moved it to the dead of winter precisely” to sever connections with “pagan”48 (Weston, 2009, p. 125). I see the point in the thoughts of Weston since it was during the Spring and through Norouz travelling that I came across dragonflies, who took my breath away. Yet, that was not all! 48 The word pagan is within quotation marks in the original text. 109 Another breath helped me to move into progressive phase of my dissertation. That move allowed me to understand the past resides in me, but that did not mean my equivalence to it. Relieved through that understanding with a big sigh, another exhaling breath of air and a dam, meaning a single breath and a moment, which is the present time, I found myself alive and connected with the world, once again, through remembering another place that I called home away from home, America this time. Returning to the past, I revealed my connections with the world through that place as well. At this phase of the research, I also found my lament for my body, other bodies in the world, and different places on Earth. However, I understood I was still to understand what actions my lament for the past suggested. Yet, that was not all! Through each breath, which had a foot in my signalling world and the other in my symbolizing one, I analyzed my bodily experiences. I also expressed my values, which formed and evolved through different places, events, traditions, principles, people, and more. I suggested place is the locus; I expressed interrelatedness is another principle. Then, I settled on justice in dam, this time, meaning that which is present, the world itself. All that happened through my breath as a moment49. Yet, that was not all! When I thought I exhausted the signalling and symbolizing functions of my breath, something else occurred to me. I could see another interconnectedness; as I return to the past once again, I remember another tragedy. Even though, this time the tragedy supposedly is not of my own, I feel connected to it. This is because the tragedy is in relation to the exploitation of the people and the land of Canada that I also call home. The disaster has its origin in Fort Mc Murray in 1940s, when the city was a transportation centre for uranium, according to Blammey, O’Driscoll, & Simpson (2016). The uranium extracted from North West Territories was sent to 49 In its etymological form moment also means “importance, weight, value” (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.). 110 Ontario for refinement and then shipped to Lost Alamos, New Mexico, for making the first atomic bomb. This is the bomb that killed one hundred thousand people and unknow number of other than human beings in Hiroshima, and left tens of thousands of beings to die from radio-active poisoning. The tragedy brought by the technology of the time was not exclusive to the enemies of the time and their place. The Satu-Dene First Nations workers, who carried the heavy radio-active burlaps, were also the victims of that calamity; contaminated were their body, water, air, and land (2016). This kind of progress is a struggle, which I also could not ignore. Yet, that was not all! Then, I re-member Grumet (1988, p. 85), who explained, “the shift from farm to city, from nature to culture,” created a “profound rupture” that was never repaired, “nor was it left behind or outgrown.” Such a progress simplistically ignores a terra-lineal principle. Over time, progress in the forms of technology and to the end of profit and domination has kept humanities occupied with a kind of business that is forgetful on what basis hayat, or B/being is. Extracting raw materials to the end of making harmful and deadly technology is not exclusive to 1940s. Nor such a progress is of North American kind anymore. Technology and its latest prodigy, biotechnology are dominant parts of curriculum and education in every university in the world. As I focus on the concepts of progress, education, and curriculum, the concept of consciousness also appeared before me. I take a deep breath and I re-member Descartes and his famous proclamation of: I think, therefore I am. In this going back, I also remember the prose of Saadi, once again: every breath that goes in necessary for being is and as it comes out revitalizing to the zat (i.e., the core meaning). Then, in every breath exists two gifts and for each gift an outstanding thank. Yet, that was not all! 111 During that thinking a deep breath of air takes my attention to my body and my existence. Then, I suggest, I breathe, therefore I am since I find the suggestion a solid set forth, without which any I think falls into void. Via that breath, I also see the dependency of the world’s current condition on air. That understanding unearths the importance of the Earth in relation to the Being of all beings. Yet, that is not all! Another dam allows me to contemplate on Descartes’ expression more. I can see the failure is, in not recognizing the importance of the body, as the place of mind and the importance of the Earth, as the place for the being of every being and manifestation of every action. Hidden in the phrase, I also find human hubris, a vanity that alongside greed can turn into bigotry, which necessitates domination that uses technology, as means to cruel end. Technology to the end of control and profit is forgetful of who we are, where we live, and with who and what we live together. Yet, that is not all! Persisting on understanding rather than accepting Descartes declaration, or that of my own, I contemplated through my breath on breath of air and the words of Saadi for many years. In this multiple action of contemplation on the question of “Being” (Heidegger, 1953/2010, p. 2), centred becames breath (i.e., life) as the most worth in the “key curriculum question—what knowledge is of most worth?” of Pinar (2012, p. xv) for me. I saw, it is bio-geosphere in this question of hayat, or B/being that assures the beings of all beings. The dependency of every being on bio-geospheric world is a tangible matter of our present time. The importance of our interconnected world comes into light in those occasions, when we declare “land” as vacant while it is “teeming with life-forms” (Weston, 2009, p. 171). Then, like Weston, I thought, whoever thinks “we would do better with other planets” may consider the atrocity of “the planners who knowingly sacrificed” and drove the already endangered Florida Dusky Seaside 112 Sparrow to extinction by the construction of “Cape Kennedy” (p. 171). It is like land colonizing was not enough for the greedy and the arrogant; now, as Weston explained, we are to colonize the biosphere (2009). In the presence of the present existential threats for all kinds of beings, including ourselves, it is necessary to think of the question of hayat, or B/being. However, in that thinking we cannot be delusional believing, one way or another, we are the smartest, the best, and the most valuable creatures of all. The inconsideration for air which assures the continuation of every breath and the survival of every being, can turn the same life-giving matter of air into a source of demise. What Covid-19 virus has done in our dark age of technology is just a reminder of this reality. Yet, that is not all! To further my argument, I think of the word value in its original form of “price equal to the intrinsic worth of a thing” and “degree to which something is useful, or estimable” (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.). Then, I think, can we match a price to the intrinsic worth and value of each breath (meaning every life)? To what degree is air useful? Through this underscoring, I return to my elementary school years and the prose of Saadi, once again. This time, I alight and recite the words of Saadi slowly. (Har nafasi) ke foro meravad momede hayat ast, va chon baray(ad) mofarahe zat. Pas dar har nafasi do nemat mojoud ast va bar har nemati shokri vajeb. Meaning: (Every breath) that goes in necessary for B/being is and as (it) comes out revitalizing to the zat (i.e., the core meaning). Then, in every breath exists two gifts and for each gift an outstanding thank. I see the indisputable value of each breath (that is every life form). This slow reading also allows me to suggest what I could not express clearly before. I realize the importance of Descartes’ I, 113 who thinks. I also see the value in the I of I, who breathes. After recognizing the importance of both minds and bodies, I see (i.e., through bracketing) the indispensable value in the Other, the It, that is, the air, necessary for the being of every being. Yet, that is not all! In being in the world and in being within the riveting breaths, and in giving thanks for the perceived air necessary for my own existence and revitalization and those of the others, I think of my zat and the core meaning of this research. I can see the former disclosing itself as the interconnectedness that exist between my bodily experiences, my mind’s reflections on them, and my spirit and soul affected by those experiences and thoughts. As for the latter, the meaning of this research, I see it as a forever belonging that I have to the world and all other beings in it. Yet, that is not all! To highlight the relation between a breath of air (my own existence) and my current and eternal belonging to the world, those of the other humans and other than humans, and the dependency of the world’s current condition on it, I foreground bio-geospheric world. I take a deep breath and re-member Naess this time; he elucidated: by “ecosophy I mean a philosophy of ecological harmony or equilibrium” (Naess, 1973 as reprinted in Drengson & Inoue, 1995, p. 8 and reflected upon in Drengson et al., 2011, p. 107). He further explained, this “wisdom, is openly normative, it contains both norms, rules, postulates, value priority announcements and hypotheses concerning the state of affairs in our universe” (p. 107). To clarify the articulation of “an ecosophy as a whole personal view” further, Naess gave two kinds of statements: one was “ultimate hypothesis (H)” and the other, “ultimate norm (N)” (Drengson et al., 2011, p. 107). Naess put exclamation marks in front of his ultimate norms. The first norm for Naess is “Self-realization!” (p. 107). And the first hypothesis for that norm is: “The higher the Self-realization attained by anyone, the broader and deeper the identification with others” (p. 107). I already see 114 a form of diversification in the first norm and hypothesis of Naess in his reference to Self-realization. Yet, that is not all! Then I re-member Weston (1992) that explained, it is not “always clear exactly what is practically at stake in the current philosophical debate about justice” (p. 135). He elucidated this is the case because “much of the current theoretical work refers only to other theoretical work, especially in a debate stemming from John Rawls’1971 treatise A Theory of justice” (Weston, 1992, pp. 135, 136). Weston explained that Rawls work is practical, but “in roundabout and a highly generalized way” (p. 136). Weston focuses on John Rawls’s work, which he claimed, “seeks to articulate our values in a connected and patterned way, weaving a number of conflicting and diverse values together into a more harmonized framework” (p. 150). He further explained: Rawls’ work exemplifies what Weston described as “integrating” values (1992, p. 115). However, Weston also explained, locating “justice values” requires to follow them “in the direction of complexity and historical particularity rather than simplicity and abstraction: it is a political and historical” form of “ecology of values” (p. 154). He said, as Walzer revealed, the project of justice requires paying attention “to stories and folktales, to [exemplary] people and institutions, to establish social practices as well as persistent social tension” (1992, p. 154). This is the way we can take Rawls’ suggestion seriously (p. 154). Something else that Weston did pay attention to was language. He said, we look “around” instead of looking “down”, and we probe to “contextualize values” more willingly than to “ground them” (p. 115). In this autobiographical research, I have paid attention to the words of Naess, Weston, Rawls, Walzer, Saadi, and many others. Yet, that is not all! 115 To justify50 and to ground my values I look down. I see the value in the actual matter, on which I literally and metaphorically ponder, i.e., the Earth. I look up, down, and around; I perceive the air everywhere. I see how the air justly and impartially treats my organic body and mind, and those of others (human and other than human). Hence, I forground the indispensable value of bio-geosphere, which has precedent (i.e., in time, meaning, and importance) to that of the historical world. I remember without dam, this time as, both, a breath of air and that which is present, the Earth and Here, no going away in any form and shape and, thus, no there (wherever that would be) is. Understanding the weight is in justice for all clans’ common cause, i.e., bio-geosphere, I suggest to understand curriculum as bio-geospheric justice. After all, without bio-geospheric justice, there will, eventually, be no planet as we know and no life, on which and through which we can acquire justice for any other being. The crises of the past, the present, and the future were, are, and will be temporal and terrestrial. The analyses regarding this world may free one to transcend beyond the standards of the present. Such a fundamental revelation already disclosed bio-geospheric justice as a curricular matter. Understanding justice in the context of environment reveals a debate that no longer occurs in the battle grounds of this part of the world, or that part of the world; is of this place or that place; is for the left or the right; is for the great or the meagre. Thus, bio-geospheric justice in curriculum discloses that the undebatable discussion is environmental justice, which is in relation to a diverse range of existential matters. This autobiographical research began with my bodily experiences from different places and languages, and my reflections regarding them. The research arrived at the terrain of cosmo- 50In its etymological adjective form of just meaning “reasonable” and “combining form of facere” meaning “to make, to do” from PIE root “adhe” meaning “to set, put” (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.) 116 currere; the construction of this terrain began many years ago through the words of Saadi. I reached Saadi’s world with the help of currere. As I spent some time in the C++ terrain of cosmo-currere, I realized some contributions of cosmo-currere. To explain them clearly, I remember Saadi once again. Saadi, who lived in the 13th century, emphasized the question of H/hayat, or Being of beings through a single breath far before Heidegger of the 20th century did. The evidence to that claim rests in Saadi’s famous work of prose, Gulistan. At these final stages of this research, with a modest movement of consideration in the context of curriculum from the human world to that of the non-human, I take the study back to the central curriculum question, once more, and ask “what knowledge is of most worth?” I think of the question, the events of my own life, and the question of Being. Here again, one of the most painful tragedies of my life (i.e., the death of my brother and the spiritual purity of his youth) run through me. That remembering brings Doll (2002) into the matter too. His thoughts reverberate in his following question: “Can we accept a non-anthropocentric view of God, religion, spirituality, theology?” (Doll, 2002, p. 36). Seeing into the future, Doll wisely made another inquiry. “What will happen to these words and the values they represent if we do not?” (p. 36). It is his answer that touches my core. Similar to Doll, I “firmly believe a new sense of value must be found but that this new sense cannot be rooted in an individualistic or humanly skewed frame” (2002, p. 36). Finally, at peace, another breath comes out of me, it revitalizes my zat (as Saadi said it does), to reveal other possibilities of the terrain of cosmo-currere. Many single dam, as breath, which in its Greek form is “psukhē” meaning “the soul, mind, spirit; life, one’s life” (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.), entered my body frequently. They did exhaust the ifs of a given life. Through my breaths, I also re-member Aoki and his inquiries of “what is it?” and “what is it?” (Aoki, 1987/1999, p. 156). In this remembering, I can 117 see the connections between my breath, as psyche, and the italicized ontological and epistemological of “is” and “it.” To express my thoughts, I rearrange Aoki’s words and ask, “what is it?” I have already seen the interconnections between the “is” (i.e., Being) and the “it” (i.e., the Earth) through my breaths. In this rearrangement I focus on “it,” as the Earth, through my breaths and the breaths of those who came before me. In this rearrangement I focus on Earth, as a spatio-temporal matter and its relation to epistemology. The Earth comes to focus as the repository of all experiences and knowledge. Such understanding reveals curriculum as terra-didactic text. Breaths have allowed me to think about my experiences in being in and with the world. I re-membered Saadi and many others at different stages of this dissertation through my breaths and through the two languages of Farsi and English. At this ending, through another breath, I move within quietly, return to the past, and bring it to the present, once again. I see that I have addressed what I have been experiencing properly thus far. Then, I look toward the future, as Pinar (1975) suggested to do, in the presence of what is present, i.e., H/hayat, or the Being of beings. I re-member other words of Saadi from Gulistan: az dasto zabane ke bar ayad kaz ohdaye shokrash be bar ayad (Froughi, 1982, p. 18) meaning: whose hand and tongue/language is able to give thanks for it? With that remembrance, I also recall the key curriculum question of “what knowledge is of most worth?” (Pinar, 2012, p. xv). I see, both the latter and the former questions, as a gift and as an invitation to participate in thinking, which can only be true and proper when the question is considered tenderly and attentively. At a moment, my attention also slips into the proposition of it in the last pros of Saadi presented in this paragraph. I see the presence of Divine in the it for Saadi when referring 118 back to the previous section of his pros. I also can detect a reverence in the most worth of Pinar. For me, the meanings of the proposition of it manifest in the concept of cosmo, i.e., the world, through cosmo-currere. However, the openness of the pronoun of ‘it’ in Farsi, in currere, and in cosmo-currere leaves the relations existing between each subject’s body, heart, thought, spirit, and much more, as the determining factors in studying the inquiry of what ‘it’ is. 119 References Abram, D. (1997). The spell of the sensuous: Perception and language in a more-than-human world. Pantheon Books. Agamben, G. (2000). Means without end (V. Binetti & C. Casarino, Trans.). University of Minnesota Press. Algar, H. (2001). Roots of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Islamic Publication International. Al-I Ahmad, J. (1984) (R. Campbell, Trans.). Occidentosis: A plague from the west. Mizan Press. Andrews, T. M. (2020, Month Day). 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Thesis/Dissertation
eng
Curriculum Studies
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Graduate
Pinar, William F.
Cosmo-currere : to understand curriculum as bio-geospheric justice and terra-didactic text
Text