A field of knowledge can be organised into a teachable sequence without that sequence hardening into the only acceptable way to enter it, and the difference between the two outcomes usually comes down to whether contradiction is allowed to survive the transition into curriculum. Turning a live, contested field into a syllabus tends to smooth over the disputes that make the field alive in the first place, because disputes are harder to assess and sequence than settled positions are. Field architecture as curriculum names the alternative: building a teachable structure that preserves its internal disagreements as visible, load-bearing features rather than editing them out for the sake of a clean narrative arc. ContradictionSurvival names the specific design test this requires — whether a genuine internal contradiction of the field can still be located, and argued, inside the finished curriculum, or whether teaching has quietly converted it into doctrine along the way.
Biesta, G. (2010) Good Education in an Age of Measurement: Ethics, Politics and Democracy. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers.
Bruner, J.S. (1960) The Process of Education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Cormier, D. (2008) 'Rhizomatic Education: Community as Curriculum'. Innovate: Journal of Online Education, 4(5).
Brookfield, S.D. and Preskill, S. (2005) Discussion as a Way of Teaching: Tools and Techniques for Democratic Classrooms. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Blikstein, P. (2013) 'Digital Fabrication and Making in Education: The Democratization of Invention'. In: Walter-Herrmann, J. and Büching, C. (eds.) FabLab: Of Machines, Makers and Inventors. Bielefeld: Transcript, pp. 203-222.
