A Time for Intuition in Curriculum Research and Design

The normative logic of curriculum design, for so long reliant on principles of backwards planning and objectives with its linear progress and development toward curricular goals (Wiggins and McTighe, Understanding by design, 2nd edn, Prentice-Hall, 2005), does not account for temporal disruptions and alternative ways of being in and becoming with time. Such temporal disruptions are not new, particularly for marginalized groups, but are increasing as public health emergencies, catastrophic weather events, and gun violence impact schools’ capacities to continue ‘as normal.’ In this chapter, I consider how an artwork, an exhibition, and a public art installation, which addressed temporal disruptions through the issues of enslavement, incarceration, and climate change respectively, raised question(s) of time for education research. From the ways those works materialized time, this chapter points toward how research in curriculum and education studies might instead respond to a time that is felt and sensed instead of a time that inevitably ticks on. To do so, this chapter assembles cultural critics and philosophers working in affect and aesthetic studies to develop a framework for understanding the role of intuition in feeling time and forging new futures from an unfolding present. The significance of intuition is that it makes felt an affective, relational experience of temporality that is neither uniform clock time nor linear arc of progress, which orders so much of formal curricular documents. Not only does this conceptual framework for understanding time change the scale and logic of curricular objectives, planning, and design; it asks researchers and practitioners to change what kind of temporal knowledge is valued and prioritized in curriculum and pedagogy.