The Emptying Classroom as Curricular

• In Event: 35.082 - Roundtable Session 14
  In Roundtable Session: 35.082-20 - Teaching Critically

Abstract

This paper explores classroom experiences of emptiness. Re-membering artful visual
metaphor exercise experiences, a construction of the empty classroom — alive, in
motion, as “a wave in the ocean…the moment it realizes…it is water” Hanh (2005) is in
the making.
Experiences of emptiness extend classroom into space as curriculum when teachers and
learners empty, detaching themselves. In suspension of interconnectedness with
Gadamer’s spirit, Dewey’s creation as construction, Pinar’s poor curriculum, Garrison’s
self-eclipsing teacher.
This is classroom — space we are constructing through emptiness — being curricular we
are creating curriculum. It began before it started, continues after it ends, a place alive
with its own moving— across past, present, future.

Author

• Rita Cihlar Hermann, University of Nebraska - Lincoln