Me and Baudrillard Down by the Schoolyard

Maybe I have drank the kool-aid, but I can't stop thinking about Baudrillard. Denis, I have to say that initially I had some strong thoughts on why you would have selected Baudrillard as a potential philosopher to connect with questions around curriculum. The only reason I chose Baudrillard was because of the date for the presentation listed in the syllabus and no other. At first glance, the reading selection seemed ridiculous and non-sensical. I believed I would have nothing intelligent to say about Baudrillard because I could not understand a damn thing he said.

So how did I go from a place of being in an intellectual Baudrillard barren wasteland, to, in this my final blog... Baudrillard rocked my world and I don't care who knows it.

Well, is it not a trip to really have your paradigm stretched, shifted and toyed with?

As a person who has been in school now for the past four years (Masters backing on the Post Bac), at times I feel "all learned out". In reading another scholar, another stance, a different way of looking at an idea, another pedagogy, there is often familiarity there. A sense of "I heard this in some way, shape or form before".

But Baudrillard...ah Baudrillard.

Things are not as they appear and I am so glad Morphius, I mean Denis, has laid Baudrillard and other thinkers like McLuhan down in front of us to trip us up a bit.

Without realizing it, bigger picture, out of the education realm thinkers, can help us make sense of the world we are so entrenched in. We are more systematized and caught up in the world of schooling than we know. Outsiders to education helps us to understand that it is not just in education where "ways of knowing and being" exist. Baudrillard, McLuhan and even my old pal Maxine challenge us to be in a state of "wide-awakeness" and be aware of what is potentially at play and at stake.

Ideas like simulacra may seem abstract and "way out there", but the relevance to the work we are doing with children and the curricular choices we make are rooted in the here and now.

Case in point. In reading report cards this past weekend, I was thinking about Baudrillard. What does it mean when we report to parents on what is important in our classrooms? Based on teacher comments, is the "curriculum" really about completing assignments, handing in homework, making corrections, being quiet in class, separate subjects, neatness and organization, understanding concepts and skills etc. ? Are we assessing kids on how well they "do school"? If this is what we value, is any of this "work" real? Is this the true curriculum of school if this is what we report on? Is the reality that we have created of what is "real school" is based on a non reality?

The point is that my thinking has been expanded. I could not have seen curriculum or education in those term before. I like that. I am grateful for that.

As I have said before, it is a priviledge to have the luxury of thinking, reading, blogging, and discussing along side of all of you, with the help of our new friend Denis. Thank-you for the provocation and "the trip"; to think deeply about what is so integrally important to all of us, the education of our children.

lb