Markku Niinivirta

Snellman College

Ph.D. Student University of Tampere

markku.niinivirta (at) uta.fi

Narrative - Holistic

perspective on Curriculum

is an important opening in many waysis an integrative (entity forming) approach from a

particular to the holistic view of Curriculum:1. The Autobiographical perspective; the individual journey form Phenomena Interpretation (Understanding) Experiences Meanings Narratives2. The Social perspective as an activity of learning possibilities / difficulties. 3. The Cultural perspective which indicates to the aims and the development of individual’s world view in the global context.Narrative perspective is not a method or fixed model,

but an attitude and an approach, ‘an open model’ and a possibility to create shared models together with students.

Narrative perspective:

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Brentano and intentional relations

”There is nothing in thinking that was not previously in senses (Aristotle), except thinking itself (Leibnitz)”

Three kinds of intentional relations in our soul life:1. The mental picturing of something 2. Judging 3. Feeling

(Steiner 1996, 86)

CONNELLY & CLANDININ (2009)

“The study of narratives is the study of the ways humans experience the world. This general concept is refined in to the view that education … is the construction and reconstruction of personal and social stories; learners, teachers, and researchers are storytellers and characters in their own and other’s stories”

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THE IDEALS OF EDUCATION THROUGH HISTORY (Steiner 1981) Education through art tries to engage the whole individual with the whole world.

3. Spirit Spirit DOCTOR (Vita

Spirit contemplativa)

↑ ↓ ↑ ↓ 2. Soul RHETORICIAN

↑ ↓ SoulDANCER/ GYMNAST 1. Body (Vita

activa)

GREEK ROMAN MIDDLE-AGE4

Ropo: Narrative perspective on Curriculum: 1. Autobiographical level 2. Social level 3. Cultural / Global level

Aristotelian concepts: practical wisdom

(phronesis) +action (praxis) Action competence (Toiskallio)

Embodied reasoning (Polkinghorne 2004)

Wilenius (1975): Conditions of Education:

The Knowledge of the End (Aim)

The Knowledge of

the Situation

The Knowledge of the Mean (Method)

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Narrative and life

Narrative is the representation of an event (or action) (Abbott)

Homer chanted of the Journeys of Odyssey and these verses were used as the educative stories for centuries later.Aristotle saw the educational

value of these stories.

“It is more philosophical than life but it is also, because of its concentrated spiritual actuality, more lifelike than philosophy.”

(Jaeger: Paideia) 6