The curriculum of anticipation: Have we forgotten the pedagogy of presence?

Abstract

The contemporary curriculum has taken on an increasingly future-oriented character. Students are expected to acquire the competencies necessary for an uncertain future, prepare for lifelong learning, adapt to rapidly changing societies, and develop skills that promise future success. While today’s educational discourse is preoccupied with the question of who students might become in the future, it pays far less attention to who they are today and how they experience education in the present. taking the form of a “curriculum of anticipation.” This pedagogical orientation fails to give sufficient attention to the lived educational experience and prioritizes future possibilities. Consequently, by positioning education primarily as a preparatory process for what will happen in the future, schools run the risk of alienating students from their own educational lives. Drawing on reconceptualist curriculum theory—particularly the concepts of subjectivity, currere, work, and presence—this article discusses the future-oriented logic of contemporary education and its implications for curriculum studies. The article argues that presence must be reexamined as a pedagogical and ethical value of the curriculum. Here, presence is conceptualized not merely as physical presence or a state of psychological attention, but as the lived relationship that students establish with themselves, others, and the world through their educational experience. Rather than rejecting education’s goals for the future, the article proposes making the educational significance of the present moment visible once again. In this context, it argues that the curriculum should not only prepare students for the future but also enable them to meaningfully experience their educational journey here and now.