Loving Language: Poetry, Curriculum, & Ted T. Aoki

Authors

  • Carl Leggo University of British Columbia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.11575/ajer.v64i1.56335

Keywords:

curriculum studies, Ted T. Aoki, poetry, language, ambiguity, Mots clés, études de curriculum, langage, ambigüité

Abstract

As a curriculum researcher and poet, I am committed to honouring complexity, asking questions, acknowledging tensions, and challenging answers. As curriculum theorists, scholars, and educators, we need to attend to language. Ted T. Aoki (2005a) reminds us to attend to “the voice of play in the midst of things—a playful singing in the midst of life” (p. 282). Poetry can invigorate our curriculum studies by helping us imagine new ways of attending to language, new ways of knowing and becoming, and new ways of inquiring about living experiences. In this paper, I offer a sequence of poems, anecdotes, and ruminations composed as responses to Ted T. Aoki’s curriculum scholarship.

En tant que poète et chercheur penché sur les programmes d’études, je suis engagé à respecter la complexité, à poser des questions, à reconnaitre des tensions et à remettre en question les réponses. Comme théoriciens du curriculum, universitaires et éducateurs, nous devons porter attention à la langue. Ted T. Aoki (2005a) nous rappelle de porter attention à « la voix ludique au milieu des choses – un chant joueur au milieu de la vie » (p. 282). La poésie peut dynamiser nos études de curriculum en nous aidant à imaginer de nouvelles façons de concevoir la langue, de nouvelles façons de savoir et de devenir, et de nouvelles façons d’étudier le vécu. Dans cet article, j’offre une série de poèmes, d’anecdotes et de ruminations composés en guise de réponses aux recherches de Ted T. Aoki sur les programmes d’études.

 

Author Biography

Carl Leggo, University of British Columbia

Carl Leggo is a poet and Professor in the Department of Language and Literacy Education at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. His research interests include: creativity, arts-based research, poetic inquiry, well-being, and contemplative practices. His books include: Growing Up Perpendicular on the Side of a Hill; View from My Mother’s House; Come-By-Chance; Lifewriting as Literary Métissage and an Ethos for Our Times (co-authored with Erika Hasebe-Ludt and Cynthia Chambers); Creative Expression, Creative Education (co-edited with Robert Kelly); Sailing in a Concrete Boat: A Teacher’s Journey; Arresting Hope: Prisons That Heal (co-edited with Ruth Martin, Mo Korchinski, and Lynn Fels); Arts-based and Contemplative Practices in Research and Teaching: Honoring Presence (co-edited with Susan Walsh and Barbara Bickel); and Hearing Echoes (co-authored with Renee Norman).

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Published

2018-05-02

How to Cite

Leggo, C. (2018). Loving Language: Poetry, Curriculum, & Ted T. Aoki. Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 64(1), 14–34. https://doi.org/10.11575/ajer.v64i1.56335