The Visceral Curriculum

• In Event: Sensuous Curriculum: Of Politics and the Senses in Education

Abstract

The Visceral Curriculum explores what we feel in school through a phenomenological lens, as the writer intersperses theory with his own experiences as a teacher, a father, and someone theorizing.  Drawing on the work of Dwayne E. Huebner (Hillis & Pinar, 2008), Philip W Jackson (Hansen, Driscoll, Arcilla, 2007), and others like Maxine Greene (2000) and Anna Deavere Smith (2001), the author explores the relevance of one's physical experience as a gateway rather than an obstacle toward experiences that enlarge our sense of being. The essay, in particular, focuses on students' and teachers' experience as alternatingly embodied and disembodied beings and the impact that has on one's experience. Exploring one's visceral experience becomes a gateway towards widening our understanding of what experiences may be worthwhile in school as both subject matter and pedagogy. The essay also offers a critique of the way school's denial of one's direct, visceral experiences both damages experience and limits possibility.    
References
Greene, M. (2000). Releasing the imagination: Essays on education, the arts, and social change. San Francisco: Josey Bass.
Hansen, D. T., Driscoll, M. E., & Achilla, R. V. (1987). A life in classrooms: Philip W Jackson and the practice of education. New York: Teachers College Press.
Hillis, E. (Ed.), & Pinar, W. F. (Collected). (2008). The lure of the transcendent: Collected essays by Dwayne E. Huebner. New York: Routledge.
Smith, A. D. (2001). Talk to me: Listening between the lines. New York: Random House.

Author

• Avi Desai Lessing, Oak Park and River Forest High School