Running With Currere: Challenging Traditional Curriculum to Transform the Learning Experience

• In Event: Curricular Explorations of Self- and Teacher Identities

Abstract

The authors considered an application of Pinar’s (1975) currere in three distinctly different adult learning contexts. In extending the currere framework into the evaluative sphere, the authors explored a similar etymological concept we have termed valere. The authors have not collected, analyzed, or interpreted data. We are presenting this paper as a theoretical approach to exploring how currere can inform curriculum design. We suggest that this is a hermeneutic self-study exploration. It is research that illustrates how currere may be interpreted, applied, and negotiated within each of the authors’ curricular settings. We believe our research is unique in that it contests the ways of knowing as authorized by the status quo and centralizes the “other” ways of being and knowing.

Authors

• Tina Raymond-Carter, ASH

• Doug vanDyke, National-Louis University

• Debra Williams