Working from within: Currere, contemplation, and lived experience

This theoretical and practice-oriented paper argues that combining currere, an autobiographical method of inquiry into lived curriculum across nonlinear time, with contemplation, which cultivates embodied stillness and relational awareness, can deepen educational life. The authors propose that their interplay enriches currere with greater attention to embodiment and sacred interconnection, while contemplation gains temporal and narrative dimensions. Drawing on theory, classroom practice, and qualitative research, they contend this convergence unsettles instrumentalist educational logics, resists the flattening of inner experience, fosters integrative personhood, and cultivates intergenerational nonviolence. They propose a praxis of depth, openness, and relational compassion for educators and learners.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Currere and contemplation both offer resistance to the forces of efficiency, measurement, and control in education. While currere centers autobiographical inquiry to reconstruct self and society across nonlinear time, contemplation cultivates embodied stillness, relational awareness, and spiritual openness. Scholarship has explored each separately, yet little attends to what their generative interplay can bring. This paper argues that bringing currere and contemplation together can deepen and enrich educational life: currere gains a fuller attunement to embodiment, subjective vitality, and sacred interconnectedness, while contemplation expands its temporal and narrative work by attending to curriculum as lived experience. Drawing on theory, classroom practice, and qualitative research, we explore how currere and contemplation coming together can unsettle instrumentalist logics, contest the efforts to flatten the inner world, foster integrative personhood, and cultivate intergenerational nonviolence. By refusing containment within technique or linear self-story, their blending opens a curriculum life attuned to emergence, ethical presence, and the transformative possibilities of lived time. This convergence offers educators and learners a praxis of depth, openness, and relational compassion.