| The contribution of artistic texts to the personal and professional growth of educators is explored relative to basic curriculum questions (e.g., what is worthwhile?). Beginning with examples from my experiences in Cyprus, Saudi Arabia, and America, I relate artistic texts (films, novels, poems, songs, short stories, and plays) to my life and evolving perspective. Through graduate studies, I thought more reflectively about tensions in my personal history and able to better analyze and synthesize them more coherently. To further investigate the influence of artistic texts I interviewed fourteen educators.;As there is not much work on how artistic texts can become resources that stimulate the asking of curriculum questions of worth (Schubert et al., 2002), I focus on several sources to interpret and discuss the significance of the arts in curriculum and their contribution to the growth of educators, such as the following: John Dewey's notions of experience, education, and growth; William Schubert's ideas of curriculum inside and outside-of-school; William Pinar's concept of currere; and Louise Rosenblatt's transactionalism. I draw eclectically upon research methodologies such as autobiography, arts-based, collective case study, philosophy, aesthetic inquiry, narrative, and hermeneutic phenomenology to gather and interpret data. I use curriculum questions (Schubert et al., 2002, pp. 525--26) as interpretive lenses, as well as categories that derive from the interview questions and the responses of the interviewees.;Generalizability as external validity cannot be claimed, since the study is about the role and significance of artistic texts for particular educators as they construct their personal theories of curriculum. I conclude by discussing ideas derived from this study, e.g., valuing shared endeavor, overcoming victimization, making meaningful connections for change and to overcome limitations, and considering possibilities for artistic texts in and as curriculum, research, professional development, and the future of educational improvement. |
