| On Pedagogical Encounters is an interpretive study which seeks to reveal the undercurrents of curriculum discourse by examining the nature of pedagogical encounters in classrooms. This dissertation demonstrates that our daily actions with children in schools, speaks to our historical entanglement with the traditions of curriculum. The researcher employs the historical story of Columbus' arrival to the Americas as an allegory to recreate the images she has observed of pedagogical colonization. Such images of dominance form the current prevailing narrative structure in schools. Further connections to the past are created as the voices inherent to the discourse of scientific management are brought forward.;Drawing upon teaching and personal experiences with literary and visual arts, the author then moves the research into a space of pedagogical encounters reflective of hermeneutic practice. A reconstructed description of work with primary students and the Impressionists painters, in particular Van Gogh, invites the reader to linger and watch as pedagogical practice is connected to the hermeneutic ideas from Truth and Method (Gadamer, 1989). The author completes the research by elaborating on concepts which can be infused into classroom encounters to begin the transformation of our past into what is demanded of pedagogues in the present. The concepts explored are: gathering, conversations, otherness, questions and Bildung. |
