Curriculum theorizing of self‐other for change: To see, to observe, and to contemplate through I‐Ching (The Book of Change)

Abstract

This study is about the curriculum theorizing of self‐other and transformation. The two authors, both of Asian heritage, share their lived experience and interpretations of Chapter 20 of I‐Ching. This paper revisits a conventional, humanistic division of self‐other as a launching pad to challenge the current discourse on cultural diversity and curriculum change. Mainly, the authors revisit the dichotomous understanding of self‐other and challenge modes of curriculum change that are operated by the logic of meritocracy and individual effort. This investigation of I‐Ching opens up its landscape through a conversation about personal and social change, with an epistemological shift from the self‐other binary, thus imagining curriculum implications for a different society. The process of writing narratives is an epistemological healing process in that writing as inquiry helps revalue indigenous intellectual treasures that have been denigrated by Eurocentric ideologies both historically and politically. This examination of I‐Ching, specifically hexagram 20, will provide educators with an innovative epistemological frame that will allow them to review, rethink, challenge, and possibly advance discourses on seeing, change, and self‐other in curriculum and cultural studies.