Curriculum And Life

During nation-wide school curriculum reforms in recent years, there is appearing a kind of voice of "cuuriculum returning to life" in the educational circles, however, the assertion seems to be unclear, and suffered to so much dispution. A key reason of this appearance is that the comprehension of returning-life have many different viewpoints. This dissertertion primarily tries to make some considerations due to "returning view" and expatiate some contemporary enlightenments for re-reading the topic from thought archaeological position.Curriculum and life both are theoretical concepts with pluralistic connotation. How to comprehend and from what angle to comprehend the content of them are the basic premise to analyze their relationships. This dissertertion insists on that curriculum as a kind of seeking-knowledge activities for student at school, include two aspects of connotation: One is content of seeking-knowledge, another is style or process of seeking-knowledge. Life has two forms: transcendence and experience. The former includes philosophical and religious transcendent; the latter includes individual rational experience, individual sensitive experience, social normal experience. They commonly built a mutually complex life world for knowledge-seeker in western curriculum thought history.Speaking from western academic faction, M. Foucault who was concentrated on the historical studies of human science, doubtlessly was the founder of archaeology that increasingly became an important methodology to analyze social phenomena, of course, including educational activities. As a methodology of re-reading thought history, thought archaeology displays many natures such as discontinuity of history, uncertainty of language, practicability of knowledge, microcosm of power and no-center of subjective. These standpoints provide us a new theoretical angle of understanding relations between curriculum and life.Based on discontinuous perspective, the history of curriculum thought can be divided into three different periods that are separately named as classic ontology, modern epistemology and contemporary existentialism, in which relations between curriculum and life had lots of different characteristics. In terms of uncertaint view, language in curriculum shouldn't be regarded as an only, unstable knowledge source in the process of student's seeking knowledge. In fact, language also has abundant curriculum meanings. This sort of language viewpoint provides vaster living space for student. Based on practicability, knowledge is not a maidservant of so-called scientific epistemology, nor is a power to conquer and reform world, even nor is a power making knowledge-seeker alienated. The knowledge student seek not only is an object category, but also a process category, namely, the process of seeking-knowledge activities could be an important source of knowledge. According to microcosmical power, there are all kinds of power relationships when student seek knowledge in curriculum, in which, generally speaking, relations between teacher and student mostly outstand. Power not only makes student live in form that it programs, but points to student' s body according to the homologous ruling mechanism as well. Based on no-center of subjective, The pupil's birth was a synthesizing outcome of modern subjective philosophy, discipline knowledge and school, system. This means knowledge-seekers' life changed from ontology-styled to epistemology-styled. From the angle of thought archeology, in fine, history, language, knowledge, power, subjective are connected with one another, and they are mutually affected and concerned. The different attitudes of curriculum thinkers about them probably effected or decided student's living destiny.To sum it up, the stipulations and descriptions about curriculum, life and relations between them, whether all sorts of "preparation viewpoint" in western curriculum history or current "returning-life viewpoint" in our country, both are similar to "a face beside sea coast", which is possibly removed by again-and-again seawater at any time. As far as student who comes into school to seek knowledge are concerned, curriculum and life are inter-contained, namely, curriculum is in life. Meanwhile, life is in curriculum. Life just is a process, and students who live in curriculum, may be able to realize or be aware of what their own life are (actual life) or will be (possible life).