Space for a Place of Emptiness: Transforming Classroom Spaces Into Places of Potentiality and Makingness

• In Event: Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: Elements of Education: Time, Space, Experience, Other People

Abstract

In this paper I explore the concept of “emptiness” for it's yield within curricular enactment. “Emptiness” as a way for classroom spaces to become places of potentiality. Classroom spaces envisioned as places of making-ness: a ceaselessly aware process of knowing/doing/being. Experiences layered in places that form aesthetic community out of relationships. “Emptiness” that transcends
choking dualisms of teacher/student, theory/practice, mind/body, and self/other akin to Thomas Alexander's (2003) “'empty'... as dynamic, relational, and vague”. Connecting with metaphors from aesthetic curriculum theorists, including 'self control and social control' and 'studio as exploration and gallery as exposure,' this paper releases and 'unpacks' the potential in transformative places of “emptiness”: enlivening skies of imagination over solid grounds of discipline.

Author

• Rita Cihlar Hermann, University of Nebraska - Lincoln