1st Edition

Finding Hope in the Turbulent Classroom Curriculum Theory, Psychoanalysis, and School-Based Practice

By Alan A. Block Copyright 2020
    180 Pages
    by Routledge

    180 Pages
    by Routledge

    This book explores the practical and psychological factors that regulate teaching and learning in the classroom, and illustrates how hope and creativity may arise out of unforeseen, non-standard, or turbulent conditions.

    Written at the intersection of curriculum theory and psychoanalysis, this volume offers an original pedagogical stance that seeks to ameliorate the impact of the classroom’s regulated and standardized environment. The author’s approach to classroom education suggests that teachers investigate students’ psychological entanglements to explain and transform difficult classroom experiences into productive, educative ones. By promoting an ethos of ironic engagement in teaching and learning, this book also demonstrates the importance of playfulness, imagination, and a readiness to make mistakes in classroom settings.

    This book will be of great interest to graduate and postgraduate students, researchers, academics, and policy makers in the fields of curriculum studies, teacher education, educational psychology and classroom management.

    PREFACE

    INTRODUCTION

    1. NOT TO CALL THINGS BY THE SAME NAME AS OTHERS

    2. TRUE/FALSE SELF

    3. DELINQUENCY AS A SIGN OF HOPE

    4. HATE IN THE CLASSROOM

    5. THE LONG RIDE HOME

    6. THAT IS NOT WHAT I MEANT AT ALL

    Biography

    Alan A. Block is Emeritus Professor of Teaching, Learning, and Leadership in the College of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Stout, USA.

    " Block offers a broad stroke perspective that includes a historical expectation of the potential of education to positively influence society, while also bringing a more focused lens on the present pedagogic climate of American education..This book will appeal to all who search for a more humane learning experience that is not, in Block’s metaphorical representation, the equivalent of teachers making deposits of knowledge in young minds that can be drawn upon on demand in the numerous assessments they face. This book does not define learning by scholarship and academia, but as a contributor to the quality of one’s life."
    -Lynn Stammers, Psychodynamic Practice