“Thinking back through our mothers”: A curriculum of organic relationality

Abstract

The feminist motif “thinking back through our mothers” calls us to claim the mother’s heritage, not to identify with her, not to repudiate her, but to become ourselves in a middle ground. In this article, the thread of thinking back through our mothers for a curriculum of organic relationality crosses different times and places and includes different racial, sexual, class, linguistic, and national contexts. I weave this thread thematically along three major lines. First, I explore the role of interconnectedness and relational dynamics as central to such a curriculum. Second, I discuss creative tensionality between mothers and daughters as generative and having implications for reclaiming the classroom in a space of simultaneous un/attachment, un/burdening, and non/belonging. Third, I argue that nonviolent relations across differences is the site for building a curriculum community that welcomes the alterity of the other and grows compassionate relationships. While drawing upon diverse women writers and feminist curriculum scholars, I also weave in autobiographical stories about my mother, who is a retired teacher educator in China. While this ongoing weaving does not lead to one singular blended product, gratitude despite difficulty emerges as one path to claim the maternal legacy.