| Summary: | This thesis details a journey of three teachers and eighteen grade six and seven students as they explored a curriculum that valued and interpreted lived experiences. Entitled Living Inquiry, this curriculum invited participants to attend to their being-in-the-world through an inquiry into four guiding, existential themes. The intention of this phenomenological/hermeneutical study was to interpret the participants’ responses to Living Inquiry and further, to begin to understand the possibilities and vulnerabilities of Living Inquiry as a pedagogical/curricular experience within an often imposing neoliberal teaching/learning context.
The teacher researcher is the primary storyteller as she documents her own introduction as a student of Living Inquiry, the impetus of the thesis, to the translation of the course for her grade six and seven students in a local public elementary school classroom, and finally to the research process of documenting, interpreting, and understanding this journey. Spanning over two years of classroom experience and formal research, Living Inquiry as Pedagogy brings together the voices of children, education theorists such as Aoki, Jardine, Smith, and van Manen, and teachers, including a professional photographer and a curriculum consultant/university professor, as they begin to make sense of the relevance and significance of Living Inquiry as a practice and a pedagogy. The study culminates with a discussion around the teaching implications and responsibilities of Living Inquiry as well as a consideration of how the inquiry served to transform the researcher’s thinking about the purpose of education and living well with children. === Education, Faculty of === Graduate
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