Amongst the many ideas present in this week’s
readings I was especially drawn to many of the ideas present in Rogoff’s ‘turning’
paper in Curating and the Educational Turn.
One in particular resonated with me; the concept of can and can’t. Rogoff’s idea that endless possibility is
present in all of us is tempered by his belief that for every can there is attached to it a can’t.
He goes on to suggest that this inevitable fallibility should be seen,
not as a failing, but as a different/other form of understanding; one that is
not reductive, but productive. Here
Rogoff is presenting fallibility as a counterpoint to other ways of
understanding that, collectively, form our way of being in the world.
This philosophy towards what knowledge is and isn’t
important plays a huge role in the way curriculum is developed. The term ‘teaching to the test’ is something often
used to criticize the state of modern curricula, which is often focused on
black and white Quantitative assessment of student’s knowledge. We are beginning to see a turn in modern education
to the ideas expressed above, but issues surrounding assessment and measurement
of student growth will surly surround any future development.
I wonder if we will ever see the can’t as something other than failure? Keeping to the theme of journeys I see can’t as another path, one that is often not given the credit it might deserve. After all, can the can’t be seen as just a different route to a similar understanding?
I found the ideas of “I can” and “I can’t” in Rogoff’s “Turning” piece equally fascinating. What struck me was also how different her writing was to that of Patti Lather. Both authors seem to place a considerable amount of emphasis on language. While Lather words twist and turn, meandering through the page, leaving the reading disorientated, not knowing whether we are at the beginning or the end of this torrent. Irit Rogoff appears to focuses her attention on chosen words, and with closer inspection, suddenly that word or words seems to almost separate the lines on the page and gives you a glimpse of a different world beyond.
ReplyDeleteI understood potentiality to be the birthplace of “I can” and “I can’t”, the womb where all binaries are born. This makes me question the deconstructivist notions of Derrida, where the two opposites are displaced in relation to one another, in this way challenging the hegemony of dominant thinking. But if these binaries are produced in the same place then what really is the purpose of all this shuffling about. Maybe instead of displacing we could embrace the potentiality. We could come to terms with the idea that we carry the capacity of darkness and light and one could not be without the other. The illness of modernism from this perspective is that we are still afflicted by the determined need to try and root out our “lack”, and thereby reducing our potentiality.
I found a site, which has Rogoff speaking about her ideas of potentiality, and criticality. It’s wonderful to hear her speak; I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
http://blip.tv/carlveira/irit-rogoff-academy-as-potentiality-736706
Thank's Lucille, great to have your input on the subject. I agree with your ideas of the duality that exists in all of all, both light and dark. Your ideas of displaced rationality between the can and the can't in regards to deconstructivist thinking is also a great point for further discussion.
ReplyDeleteI'm also drawn to your use of the term "shuffling" to describe the movement of ideas being generated, as those of us, disorientated by writings, edge our way tentatively towards the potentiality of our understanding.