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Journalof Curriculum Theorizing,Winter 2006

Tbe Verticat Hour:Curriculum Theory as Theater

MariaMorrisEditor, ournal of Curriculum Theorizing

Georgia Southern University

David Hare's (2006) Broadway play, The VerticalHour turns on this:In combat medicine, there's this moment... after a disaster, after a shooting-there's this moment, the vertical hour, when you can actually be of some use.(qtd., David Finkle, 2006)The play is astonishing in complexity. Interestingly enough, the first sceneopens with Julianne Moore (playing Nadia Blye) as a professor at Yale discussingwith one of her students his poorly written paper. We all know how uncomfortablethat can be! But is it? She complains that the student's paper is driven by emotion,

not reason. The paper sounds as if it is about the writer, not about the subject. Thestudent confesses that his paper was not driven by political science, but by love. Howmany of our students write papers driven by love and not by the subject at hand? Or,how many of our students' papers are driven by some other emotion, say, anger, orhatred orjealousy or envy? Is this wrong? Or is it the way we are. Do we really writeou t of emotion or reason? What is it that drives our scholarship and teaching? Eros,Thanatos or Apollo? Is it ever really the subject at hand that drives what we do, orare there always other motives "underneath"--a big word in the play.

What is stunning about seeing live drama in New York City is that, firstly,it is live. Secondly, it is in New York City-perhaps the most exciting city inthe world!! There seems a hush about and a wow at seeing familiar faces (likeMoore's) and witnessing astonishing acting (especially by Bill Nighy, playing amedical doctor and father of Blye's boyfriend).Some of the critics were especially harsh (see for example, Finkle, 2006;Brantley, 2006). From the layperson's perspective, theater dazzles no matter. The

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with a particular history and particular characters; see for example, Pinar, 1995).The ongoing battles between the Marxists and the Freudians in curriculum theoryre-appear in Hare's play. What matters most, politics or feelings? What kind ofpolitics should we be engaging in-academic or real world? What kind of life isan academic living if not directly involved in the suffering of humankind? Howdoes one square a life in the academy with the wrenching problems of the IraqWar? What should we do? What can we do? The Iraq War was the major themeof Hare's play-and rightly so. It is the issue of our day. What does a politicalscientist (Moore's character) know about being shot at and killed, or seeing one'sbuddies get killed or killing the enemies?Love. That is also a major theme of the play, The VerticalHour What is loveanyway? How does love tie in with death and violence (the Iraq War as discussedby the characters in Hare's play). Or does love have anything to do with War?What does it mean to live today-right now-in 2007, while we are engaged in awar; many of our students go off to war; Fort Stewart is very close to my home;the war is very close to home.

Love. Curriculum theory as a discipline. An intellectual is someone who lovesher discipline and is disciplined enough to work through difficult issues. One's dis-cipline should be one's life. The scholarly life requires a whole life of study andthought, writing and reading. Teaching. Asking questions. Doubting one's ownthinking. Re-thinking positions taken. Writing what cannot be written. Thinkingwhat cannot be thought. Publishing. Teachers who do not publish cannot think andcannot be good teachers, for what do they have to teach? Nothing. Scholars publish.Take risks. And love those risks. If not, they are not scholars, but charlatans.

Medicine. Delese Wear (2006)* is the best known curriculum theorist whoworks in our field teaching medical students the art of being human via the studyof literature. A long time player in the curriculum field, Dr.Wear has taught manyof us that medicine is not what it seems. The doctor (played by Bill Nighy) inHare's play is a complicated figure who suffers from memories and accidentaldeaths. He suffers from the dying of his own patients. He says that he stays withthem to the end. Do we stay with our students till the end? A lifelong commitmentis made between major professor and doctoral candidate. But how many profes-sors do stay with their students--stay in touch with their students that is-for therest of their lives? Is that part of doctoral work?Those of us who have been in the field of curriculum theorizing for a whileknow that Bill Pinar is one of those very special professors who does stay withhis students till the end. He is the most committed, well respected, well loved andwell known professor in curriculum studies. As his graduate student, I was alwaysimpressed that he spoke to me as if he respected me, sought my opinions. That

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MariaMorris 5Just what is The VerticalHour?David Hare explains in an interview on NPRthat the vertical hour is that moment when a doctor can help a patient and really

make a difference (especially in moments of trauma, like getting shot). What isour vertical hour as academics? There are moments in the lives of students whenteachers intervene at the right time, when things turn around completely. I don'tknow exactly what happens in this turning around, but you probably know your-self that some teacher somewhere turned your thoughts upside-down and changedyour life. As academics, can our scholarship serve as the vertical hour? Do ourwritings change people, say, in a split moment when a sentence is read, a mean-ing is made and a life is changed? I hope this is the point of scholarship. Bookschange lives. Freud and Marx (the two overriding thinkers ofHare's play) changedWestern thought.As Hare's play came to a close, one by one the audience began to stand up.The actors were able to generate a vast range of emotion-for me at least. I wasdeeply moved by this play and also disturbed by our troublesome times and themess we have made of Iraq. Current affairs have always served as the backdrop towork in curriculum theorizing. To contextualize one's work around socio-politicalevents is crucial to understanding the historical nature of whatever it is that oneis writing about. Curriculum theorizing, as Bill Pinar points out throughout hiswork, has turned toward history and historicizing. This move is a direct reaction tothe anti-historical nature of those in the field of education who are stuck in Tyler'srationale or Bloom's taxonomy. Symptoms. What sense do these make in a post-9-11 world, in a world where presidents are 'the deciders,' where congresses donot act, where citizens get killed, where wars are waged against the wishes of thegeneral population. This is a world of terror, a country driven by fear. What kindof taxonomy should dictate our actions? Who dictates curriculum? The state? Towhat sort ofdictatorship should we obey? Why? Where are our intellectual revolu-tionaries? To what standards should we obey? What kinds ofmultiple choice testsshould we give? What kind of an education is made up of scantrons? Educators ofall sorts should be in revolt against the idiocy of a system that mocks intellectual-work. Intellectual work is by its very essence historical.No scantron can catch thecomplexity ofwhat it is that human beings live through. Death, love, war, betrayal,lies, coercion, fear, religious hatreds, intolerance, persecution, torture.

The historical nature of curriculum work is most apparent in Pinar's (1995)UnderstandingCurriclutm and other Synoptic Texts (see Pinar, 2007). There isa specific history of players in our field. Names that most everyone knows arethese: Aswell Doll, Block,Wear, Reynolds, Weaver, Kreidel, Miller, Aoki, Hag-gerson, Britzman, Lather,Cherryhohles, Gough, Krall, Sumara, Davis, Steinberg,Kincheloe, McLaren, Giroux, Pitt, Goodman, Grumet, Morris, Salvio, Taubman

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TITLE: The Vertical Hour: Curriculum Theory as Theater

SOURCE: JCT 22 no4 Wint 2006

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