Curriculum as Conversation: Vulnerability,Violence, and Pedagogy in Prison

It is difficult to respond creatively to humiliation, affliction, degradation, or shame, just as it is difficult to respond creatively to the experience of undergoing or inflicting violence. In this article Aislinn O'Donnell argues that if we are to think about how to address gun violence — including mass shootings — in schools, then we need to talk about violence inside and outside schools. Honest, and even difficult, conversations about violence and vulnerability can take place in schools, and there are ways of working with curricula and student voice that can allow for this. If pedagogy is to play a role in reorienting responses to violence and vulnerability, discussion of equivocal and ambivalent responses to corporeal vulnerability, and of histories and genealogies of violence, must be invited. We need to acknowledge that we do not have, and we may well never have, a world without violence. Drawing upon the experience of teaching philosophy in nontraditional learning environments, including prison, O'Donnell argues for an approach to pedagogy and curricula that invites difficult conversations about the complexity of violence.