CURRICULUM STUDIES AND HISTORICIZING THE PRESENT: THE POLITICAL AND IMPRACTICALITY OF PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE
CURRICULUM STUDIES AND HISTORICIZING THE PRESENT: THE POLITICAL AND IMPRACTICALITY OF PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE

Summary/Abstract: We titled this special issue Curriculum Studies and Historicizing the Present: The Political and Impracticality of Practical Knowledge in order to speak about the politics of schooling in an unconventional way. To historicize the present is a strategy to study curriculum through the rules and standards of its “reason.” To study how we understand ourselves and the world is, one sense, akin to asking a fish about the water in which it swims. Our reason imperceptibly surrounds us and serves as a security blanket. It provides stability to the ordering and classifying of things. It makes life seem as natural and manageable. We can just take it for granted. When we cross the street, we want to trust in the knowledge that the red light means cars will stop; or, that it is a safe bet to think of the kinds of people sitting in the classroom as “children” who, if “practical” teaching methods are applied, will grow and develop into “reasonable people.”

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