ABSTRACT
Looking back at this volume in an attempt to provide conclusions is a daunting but exciting task. We have covered a lot of ground from start to finish, revealing new information, thinking about what has been taken for granted, and finding ourselves contemplating the future based upon authors’ suggestions and questions. In the end, one stance that resonates with us is that curriculum represents an “impossible fiction,” a concept used by Walkerdine (1992) to critique teacher roles, curriculum, play, school, and power within a progressive pedagogy. Where is the “impossible” for us, and where is the “fiction”? We find that most
often the curriculum presented to teachers is predetermined. If we know enough about child development, enough about important content, enough about expected outcomes, then we can assume to plan from and toward an idealized curriculum. We believe we can, indeed, aspire to fully meet children’s needs. This fictionalized story has resulted in a plethora of published curricula, all marketed as aligning with any of the potential systems of standards found from state to state and auspice to auspice. We have any number of “packages” available representing the curriculum for a group of children. This fictionalized story has also led to the teacher being positioned as the knower and the child as the known-as if human experience and identities can be controlled and fashioned into an ideal image, ignoring the complexity, uniqueness, and agency within each teacher’s, child’s, and community’s context, and without imagining other ways of being. Is this ideal possible or even desirable? We believe not. Any classroom teacher
knows how quickly the classroom becomes a messy and unique context. Children bring their own backgrounds, their funds of knowledge, and, importantly, the questions that drive their quest to make sense of the world. Furthermore, is this
form of curriculum sufficient? Is identifying the ends (in the form of standards, goals, and/or objectives that describe what children will know) and the means (in the form of activities and materials) all that curriculum is about? Ultimately, how much is knowable about the teaching and learning process, and thus predictable and controllable? The empiricists believe the task is within reach. From critical perspectives the stories are many and complex, ultimately resulting in a knowledge that is bounded and partial. In this volume we have read thoughtful critiques that reflect upon the impossible
fiction of our topic. Below we provide a summary of major ideas, followed by questions for the future.
