Battling the Academic Zombie: 

The Power of the Theoretical ‘Selfie,’ Pt. 3

January 22, 2014        

Place-based, narrative-driven democratic learning environment: a space in which we nurture our own story-telling capabilities in a student-driven, peer-assessed setting that embraces each culture represented within the shared space. The inherent multi-cultural, pluralistic emphasis likewise also engenders multiple learning modalities. Gruenewald summarizes the work of Woodhouse and Knapp (2000) who note that place-based education is both “inherently multidisciplinary” and “inherently experiential” thereby connecting “place with self and community” (p. 7). He explains that place-based curriculum does “not dismiss the importance of content and skills,” but adds that “the study of places can help increase student engagement and understanding through multidisciplinary, experiential, and intergenerational learning that is not only relevant but potentially contributes to the well-being of community life” (p. 7). Place-based education, because of its experiential and multidisciplinary nature integrates material into students’ day-to-day lives.

Knowledge comes to life and is a meaningful part of our daily activities. Place-based education is not merely experiential and multidisciplinary but transformative, transcending those socioeconomic demarcating lines that seemingly separate one generation from the next. Gruenewald points out that Woodhouse and Knapp (2000) note the politicized nature of community and space, “social constructions that often marginalize individuals, groups, as well as ecosystems” and that students “must identify and confront the ways that power works through places to limit the possibilities for human and non-human others” (p. 7). He notes that Sobel (1996) seeks “to create experiences where people can build relationships of care for places close to home” (p. 7). Place-based, narrative curriculum: bringing students home, establishing a sense of safety and security in which all participants are able to become more fully self-actualized within the learning environment.

As students interact with their communities through place-based curriculum, Sobel encourages them to explore the social constructions that have shaped their community, addressing the following questions: “Where in a community, for example, might students and teachers witness and develop forms of empathetic connection with other human beings? How might these connections lead to exploration, inquiry, and social action?” (In Gruenwald (2003b, p. 8). These are questions that both teacher and student must address, and by so doing, they will increase their communal interaction, disseminating a sense of exploratory socialization to their extended global community.

Place-based, narrative-driven democratic learning environment also naturally includes intergenerational interaction. Gruenewald notes that Bowers (2001) argues that critical, transformative pedagogy “must not be limited to rejecting and transforming dominant ideas; it also depends on recovering and renewing traditional, non-commodified cultural patterns such as mentoring and intergenerational relationships” (p. 9). Place-based curriculum is built upon individual cultures that nurture cross-generational instruction. Students learn their own unrecorded histories and traditions from their parents and grandparents, exploring their own narrative voices and sharing it with their peers in the process. Gruenewald concludes, “Developing a critical pedagogy of place means challenging each other to read the texts of our own lives and to ask constantly what needs to be transformed and what needs to be conserved” (p. 10).

Students and instructors alike, in the same way that in a democratic classroom they challenge and asses one anther, they challenge and assess the constructs that have shaped their communities, not merely learning a list of vocabulary terms and key concepts drawn from a classroom textbook.

Students and instructors who interact with the systems that have created their neighborhood assess how they may in the future construct these systems as active members of their community. Gruenewald adds that a place-based curriculum teaches to students to critically evaluate “the cultural, political, economic, and ecological dynamics of places whenever we talk about the purpose and practice of learning” (p. 11). A curriculum built upon place-based pedagogy increases students’ local cultural and political awareness. As students learn to “think globally,” they are better prepared to “act locally,” enthusiastically transforming their own communities.

How does place-based education create a sense of dialogue within the local community? Building a sense of community, as bell hooks (2003) notes is an integral part of critical, meaningful and transformative education, allowing students to “confront feelings of loss and restore [students’] sense of connection” (p. XV). She notes that in a transitory world, that while a sense of place may always be shifting, building a sense of community is imperative. Educators must “teach beyond the classroom setting” and open the “space of learning so that it can be more inclusive,” a practice “vital to maintaining democratic education both in the classroom and out” (p. 43). hooks adds that building a sense of community “requires vigilant awareness of the work we must continually do to undermine all the socialization that leads us to behave in ways that perpetuate domination” (p. 36). Too often students follow the lead of their instructors who hide behind the protective walls of the Ivory Tower of higher education. hooks argues that place-based education tears down these isolating walls, a process of local involvement that encourages students and educators to dig their feet into their local communities. Education transcends the isolationist walls, lending a sense of permanence to the typically transitory four-to-five-year span expended while pursuing one’s bachelor’s degree.

SAIC Graduates

May 18, 2013

Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park, Chicago, IL 

Although hooks and Gruenewald approach the concept of space from two different theoretical positions, their conclusions are essentially the same. [1] hooks places the onerous of the responsibility of undermining hegemonic forces that shape space on educators, but as Gruenewald (2003a) points out, a student engaged in place-based pedagogy shares the responsibility of identifying and addressing cultural and social domination through active engagement with their community. He notes that as students and educators become more conscious of place, “pedagogy becomes more relevant to the lived experience of students and teachers, and accountability is reconceptualized so that places matter to educators, students, and citizens in tangible ways” (p. 620). Instructors and students alike share the work of composing theoretical “Selfies” interacting, (re)conceptualizing and (re)constructing their local communities rather than transitorily passing through the space they momentarily occupy while earning their degree.

Students and instructors sharing their place-based, narrative-driven democratic learning environment are not cadaverous, zombie-like apparitions isolated in their Ivory Towers but self-actualized individuals proactively engaging in their own local communities.