| Applying concepts from both critical theory and progressive education, this dissertation is a study in curriculum theory. Employing the encompassing metaphor of education as travel, this project describes the dispositions of orientation, disorientation, and misorientation as it investigates pedagogical practices that develop skills necessary for students to navigate their future travels as adults. As such, this describes a spatial curriculum theory that is situated in place and in the everyday lives of students. It investigates various ways students can come to know places, curriculum, and each other through dialogic inquiry. Though the value of "getting lost" or disoriented is explored, this dissertation is nonetheless largely concerned with how the high school curriculum is preparing students for their future travels as adults (their ability to map and navigate their environments), as well as instilling in them cooperative habits of journeying. All of which runs counter to current test-centered education that misorients students according to an economically competitiveness and material individualism. Critical constellations relate to the students' exercises in cognitive mapping both their geographic surroundings as well as curricular landscapes. Such constellations also involve a historical understanding of the present as well as politicizing curriculum so that students are addressing issues of power, oppression, social and environmental justice. Finally, it argues for arts integration and particularly performance theory as a means of transformative education and cooperative learning. |
