I’ve been trying out the term “reconstructed narrative” for awhile now in building social studies curricula, so the title stood out as having interest to me right away on the New Books shelf at UBC’s Education Library.  This book is the classic academic all-small type, no pictures.  The writing is often convoluted and off-topic and not particularly compelling in arguing for reconstructing curriculum in any practical applications. Much ground has already been covered, such as delinearized history, ‘mapping’ internal and external factors in education reform, and whether ‘science can determine truth from falsehood’.

The book is a collaboration between three authors with very different approaches, if their dedication is any indicator. One author dedicates the book to their wife, a “most natural teacher”, another to “three dozen researchers”, and the last to Allah.  At times the writing style itself is disjointed and incoherent, though at least this remains consistent throughout the entire work. It seems the authors write in a kind of academic English dialect that is not altogether straightforward.

I did find an interesting table on pages 128-129 which weakly attempts to structure “natural processes” into two categories, “Nature (ie, real)” and “Artificial (ie, Aphenomenal)”, although the descriptors in either column don’t seem to carry any meaning to either category:

Nature | Artificial

Complex | Simple

Infinite | Finite

Intangible | Tangible

Open System | Closed System

and perhaps the most disturbing…

True | False

The authors link historical acceptance of theory (“static universe, (supported by Einstein – 50 years”, p 132) to a chapter on “sustainability and change in curriculum”,  and give lengthily reviews of colonial master narratives without delving into ecological theory discussions.

Overall I’m most disappointed in this work and do not recommend it. Perhaps it is most useful for what not to do in future academic publications.

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