To cite this article: James M. Magrini (2015) Phenomenology and curriculum implementation: discerning a living curriculum through the analysis of Ted Aoki's situational praxis, Journal of Curriculum Studies, 47:2, 274-299, Phenomenology and curriculum implementation: discerning a living curriculum through the analysis of Ted Aoki's situational praxis JAMES M. MAGRINIThe argumentation in this paper is grounded in a critical and conceptual analysis of Ted Aoki's phenomenology, wherein curriculum is read as phenomenological text. The problem explored emerges from Aoki's critique of the Tyler rationale for curriculum design, implementation and evaluation as it is conceived and practised in contemporary standardized education, which is driven by the ideology of social efficiency. Aoki focuses on the way in which the scientific and technical modes of curriculum implementation preclude particular modes of Being-in-the-world because curriculum implementation, as a technical and instrumental process, reduces both educators and students to epistemological subjects, and beyond, objects of knowledge. By focusing on curriculum implementation as a form of 'situational-praxis' as opposed to 'instrumental-action', this paper concludes, it is possible to put educators and students in touch with the ontological aspects of their Being-in-the-world. Aoki's practice of phenomenology reveals an understanding of an attuned mode of human transcendence in learning, which opens the possibility for an authentic educational experience where educators and students dwell in the midst of the curriculum's unfolding as an ontological phenomenon.

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Jam es Magr ini College of DuPage I. A ppr oac hing Heidegger and t he Fil m James T. Hong's experimental documentary, The Denazification of MH (2006) is neither an apology for Heidegger's involvement with National Socialism nor a condemnation of that involvement. Rather, the film is a critical philosophical confrontation (Auseinandersetzung) with Heidegger's thought and the issue of his involvement with National Socialism. The film addresses the perennial concern as old as philosophy itself: the relationship between the philosopher's life and his philosophy. While the film does not adopt a definitive position regarding Heidegger, Nazism, and the issue of personal responsibility, it does suggest an affirmative response to the question posed by both Levinas and Blanchot regarding the possibility of philosophizing after Auschwitz. Considering Heidegger's influence on contemporary philosophy and literary studies, inspiring such films as The Denazification of MH and The Ister (David Barison and Daniel Ross, 2004), it appears as though it is not only possible, but necessary, to carefully and critically approach Heidegger in the effort to continue to philosophize in the wake of the most catastrophic event of the 20 th century, the Holocaust. In his thoroughly researched Film-Philosophy, 12.2

In this article I elucidate a conception of small worlds, or ‘ontological’ contexts, within the curriculum that stand out and beyond the horizon of technological‐scientific reality, which might be linked with forgotten, marginal ways of being and thinking. As I attempt to demonstrate, it is possible that such ontological worlds apart from technology's ‘Enframing’ effect might inspire the type of meditative thinking in our classrooms that is consistent with Heidegger's notion of authentic worldly dwelling as it appears in the later writings of the 1930s, or the ‘turn’.

This essay is written for practitioners and educational professionals wanting to become more familiar with technical philosophical issues in education, specifically, the issue of epistemology, or knowledge theory, as it relates to forms of learning, pedagogy, and assessment in the curriculum. There exists a gap between educational theorists and educators, which is traced by McCutcheon (1984) to the dense and overly technical language that academics often employ when communicating their philosophical ideas, "writing in jargon that renders the work inaccessible to practitioners" (p. 46). Herein, I distill the essence of the philosophical issues I am dealing with and present them in a way that is both accessible and understandable without sacrificing their depth or weight. Philosophy, after all, if it is of any importance, must be, in addition to logical and wellreasoned speech, communicable. For it is only through communication, as the "aim of philosophy," that its "other aims are ultimately rooted: awareness of being, illumination through love, attainment of peace" (Jaspers, 1954, p. 27). Bringing systematic philosophy and a formal methodology to bear on the problems of education represents an instance where philosophy contributes in a direct and positive manner to the active and ongoing processes of current educational reform. The goals and aims of education determine the planning, writing, and implementation of the curriculum. The manner in which we conceive knowledge, along with the valuation of certain forms of knowledge, relate directly to our conception of education along with the understanding of the student's potential for intellectual, emotional, and social development. In this paper, I analyze the relationship between our fundamental epistemological beliefs, pedagogy, and the modes for assessing student learning within the curriculum. To this end, two fundamental epistemological beliefs concerning knowledge forms as they manifest in the instruction of will be examined. In the first section, I provide a general introduction to epistemology and its relation to education. In the second section, I demonstrate the unique way in which knowledge manifests in the curriculum through the analysis of two reading theories and their respective notions of pedagogy and learning. In the final section, touchstone theory is explored in relation to validating competing theories of education, i.e., I explore the manner in which the reading theories presented in the previous sections of the paper might be philosophically analyzed for their epistemological validity. Epistemology and Education: Epistemology is a branch of philosophy concerned with the origin, reliability, and criterion of knowledge. Philosophy, concerned with the reliability and justification of