What happens when you value risk taking, finding connections, living with ambiguity, building relationships and exploring possibilities? If you're a songwriter you might try completing a thesis in song...

Negotiating the Distance:  Exploring the Tension between the Pedagogical Relationship and the Formal Curriculum

Master of Arts Thesis in Teaching, Curriculum and Learning utilizing song as a methodology and means of representation.

                                          Nominated for the 2003
                              Governor General's Gold Medal Award
                                    for outstanding Master's Thesis,
                                             University of Calgary

                                                      ABSTRACT

The purpose of the study was to explore the experience of teachers and the impact of the curriculum on their relationships with students. Four teachers were interviewed over the course of five months and their experiences were interpreted and discussed within a hermeneutic framework. What emerged from those discussions was a more informed understanding of the barriers that impede good learning, how these barriers can be negotiated and why they must be explored in order to facilitate learning. A post-modern re-interpretation of the discussions revealed how the modernist conception of learning interferes with our students' ability to belong not only in the school, but also on the planet.