Moving into impermanence

“Impermanence is the essence of everything.” – Pema Chödrön

Our last editorial, written in February 2020, feels distant. Like many of you reading this right now, we have been searching for ways to make sense of and move forward during this impermanent time—a time of reckoning with a global pandemic and a time of reeling, mourning, and straining collectively to destroy systems of white supremacy that feel so, so impossibly durable.

Recently, Erin stumbled onto the work of the Buddhist nun, Pema Chödrön, whose words start this editorial note. During this time of impermanence, Chödrön’s (2002) description of Bodhichitta, which means enlightenment for the sake of others, gave us pause. We certainly feel as though we’ve entered a liminal space of possibility. Liminal spaces, to our view, are pedagogical. And so, of course, they are dangerous too. We found Chödrön’s description of Bodhichitta to be instructive. Chodron describes a journey that “goes down, not up” as if “the mountain pointed toward the center of the earth instead of reaching into the sky” (pp. 118). Chödrön suggests that “instead of transcending the suffering of all creatures, we move toward the turbulence and doubt. Right down there in the thick of things, we discover the love that will not die” (pp. 118–119). We think Chödrön is teaching us the importance of moving into, not away from, pain in order to be with others, in order to awaken.

So, then, imagine our non-surprise when we reread each of the pieces in this issue and realized these searchers, these constructors of knowledge, these authors of this issue, had already demonstrated how we might do this in the field of curriculum and pedagogy. Each of the authors proposes a move toward suffering to be with suffering to find something bigger than suffering. You will see how they do this as you move through these pieces, but here is a summary of what you will find.

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Amanda Elizabeth Vickery uses the framework of (re)membering (Dillard, 2002) to tell the story of how an African American elementary social studies teacher, Ms. Henderson, used her family story and cultural memories to (re)member the past to understand meanings of African American citizenship. Demonstrating how lived experiences can be used as healing spaces, Ms. Henderson grappled “with the power and prominence of the master narrative … to embrace her own history as a way to reinsert Black Americans into the narrative of history.” Vickery’s article, which begins this issue of JCP, is entitled, “This is a story of who America is”: Cultural memories and black civic identity.

Collen H. Clements and Erin Stutelberg are the authors of Getting read as rad: Performances of “nice white lady” and tensions in teaching about white supremacy. These authors look back to curious and difficult moments as white women teachers to better understand and recount what it means to model for their students ways to recognize racist scripts. Using stories of being “read” as “rad,” they demonstrate the impossibility of performing “a perfect white, feminine embodiment of anti-racism,” recognizing that their “histories are too fraught for such a notion.” Instead, Clements and Stutelberg confront Menakem’s (2017) notion of “white body supremacy” (p. viii) as an effort to “extend radical compassion to ourselves and our students.”

Kathleen Hulgin, E. Frank Fitch, and M. Nickie Coomer are the authors of Optimizing a critical juncture: Trauma, neoliberal education and children’s agency. Through their work, they consider different ways of conceptualizing trauma that untangles trauma sensitive schooling from the stronghold of neoliberal agendas. Rather than focusing on transcending trauma in individualist ways, these scholars align trauma with critical pedagogies that develop critical knowledges in ways that account for context and agency. To that end, Hulgin, Fitch, and Coomer argue, “growing interest in children’s trauma, the alignment with trauma and critical pedagogy and the spark created by youth activism provide a potentially transformative response to the neoliberal stronghold/crisis in education.”

In the manuscript “You gotta believe in something, something, something”: Evoking literacy lives as nostalgia for the future, Scott A. Jarvie, Vaughn W. M. Watson, and Alecia Beymer are interested in how pre-service teachers evoke meanings of nostalgia when considering past literacy experiences and how teachers build upon past literacy experiences in their lives. They suggest that “teachers work within iterative processes, honing practices from a multitude of exterior and interior forces.” Drawing on St. Pierre’s (2008) words, “this story never begins but has always been, and I slip into it over and over again in different places, and it is as if I too have always been there” (p. 123), the authors imagine nostalgia for the future.

Inviting emptiness into a cluttered curriculum: Infusing pedagogical practice with Taoist philosophy as a healing balm, written by Jon Smythe, explores the “utility of using the Taoist notion of emptiness as a healing balm to soothe” to confront “curriculum anxieties.” Describing particular pedagogical practices, Smythe explores what “letting go” means in Western curricula and concludes that “Taoist philosophy holds pedagogical promise for opening up curriculum and emptying it of its biased and flawed assumptions.”

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We discussed this editor’s note at length. Other than provide a themed overview of the articles, was there really more we could add to the global conversation? Haven’t white people, in particular, said enough? Still, in some ways, this impermanent moment is nothing new for us and our work. Yes, race is at the forefront of public discourse right now. But white supremacy is nothing new. And yes, a global pandemic is wreaking havoc on the status quo. The failure of powerful people to care for less powerful people during such a time is nothing new. Our vision of teaching, learning, moving, and knowing has always been about working against the destructive forces named in this brief note. So we will keep working to continue the tradition of forwarding a kind of scholarship that, we hope, moves us into stronger understandings of being in relation with others through curriculum and pedagogy.

Stumbling is important in this kind of work. Giving pause and sitting in liminal spaces is important too. One of Sam’s white high school students once said, after spending a year learning about whiteness and white supremacy in the United States, that she was wiser than ever and more confused than ever. Her connection between wisdom and confusion seems right as we move forward together in this strange space.

To this end, we extend invitations for work that speaks to this present moment in ways that are not constrained by the processes of more formal manuscript submissions. This revival for writings called Perspectives is an intentional recognition of the value of experiential knowledge and a commitment to sharing the voices of people – students, teachers, parents, community members, and others whose perspectives can inform policy, practice, and/or research. These 1000-word or less pieces will be reviewed by the editorial team rather than sent out for blinded review, creating the possibility of quicker publication time. Please indicate upon submitting your work if you would like it to be considered for Perspectives.

Specifically, during this time of uncertainly, we welcome pieces that take up Pema Chödrön words, “Impermanence is the essence of everything.”

Erin T. Miller
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Samuel J. Tanner
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