Today, I read “Understanding Curriculum Amidst Doing Curriculum Research” by my professor at UVIC, Dr. Jennifer Thom. In class, we were thinking about where we are as a person, learner, and/or teacher, and where we could be. We started thinking about key experiences in our lives that shaped who we are and about what ideas and issues we see shaping where we are headed. When I was making notes on these topics earlier, I was reminded of the disconnect I feel between my two professional jobs. I sometimes feel like I have two lives. I work part-time as a teacher at an online school and as a municipal project manager. I believe that I need to connect these better in some way but do not know how to do so, and it bothers me. One sentence from the reading that resonated with me was: “where I am is neither where I think I am nor where I thought I was going to be. The compass needle still a-spin” (Thom, 2024, p.21). The part of this sentence that makes me think deeper is the not being where I think I am. I wonder where I am?

  In my role as a project manager, I am an advocate and make big changes that will last a lifetime. I am part of the creation of child care in a City that direly needs this service and work directly to build more child care spaces. I am one of a small team of people doing this work and others do not understand it. As a teacher at an online school, I feel like my impact is smaller and that the work is less important. I also have little say over the curriculum used by our school which is standardized, leading me to feel even less connected to the role.

I am left to wonder if I dig deeper into reflection, I might see some of the connections mentioned in the readings that are like what Ted Aoki explains when “a rhizomean landscape comes into being by recognizing and legitimating live (d) curricula that … have been rendered invisible” (Thom, 2024, p. 16). I am not sure if this description of curriculum can be applied to what I am experiencing, but I will keep this in mind as I learn more in my course. Maybe I will see that there are connections that are currently invisible or hidden.  

Thom, J. S. (2024). Understanding Curriculum Amidst Doing Curriculum Research. In P. P. Trifonas & S. Jagger (Eds.), Handbook of Curriculum Theory and Research (pp. 1–25). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82976-6_46-2

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