Curriculum and the life erratic the geographic cure - Nissen, Leslie B. (Sense Publishers, 2013)
Includes bibliographical references
1 - Introduction: Curriculum and the Life Erratic -- - Inset: Stevie, Age Seven -- - The Geographic Cure, Curriculum Theory, and Psychoanalysis -- - A Matter of Balance -- - Wisdom Figures -- - The Singular Set of Children of Alcoholics -- - 2 - The Confounded Life of an 80-Proof Home -- - Inset: Officer Jake's Steel-Toe Shoe -- - Retreats of Substance -- - Fermented Parenting -- - Taking Over -- - On Refusing to Talk About It -- - An Air Raid a Day -- - 3 - The Unhinged Lives of Kids on the Move -- - Inset: Ringo, Shut Up! -- - Families Unmoored -- - Transient Students Typically Defined -- - The Long, Loud Sigh: Student Mobility from the School Perspective -- - 4 - Drinking and Driving (Away) -- - Inset: Geography and His Sister -- - Glass Castles and Geography Lessons -- - The Buffer Has No Buffer -- - On The Fine Art of Cigarette Removal -- - Secrets and Lies, Good Moods and Goodbyes -- - Whispers in the Roar -- - Driving Away -- - 5 - "Hold Still" -- - The Laundrymat Lizard -- - Charlie's Angel and Mystical Whispers -- - The Ken Factor -- - The Golden Option -- - Naming It, Claiming It -- - The Doctor, The Cape, and the Red Letter "S" -- - Forget-Me-Nots and Contradictory Spaces -- - So, We Were STUCK In This Plastic, Outdoor Elevator ... -- - Holding Chaos at Bay -- - 6 - The Geographic Cure Writ Large -- - Inset: Stevie, Age 1
Curriculum and the Life Erratic: The Geographic Cure lays bare the untold damage done to children who are forced to endure the toxic combination of "fermented parenting" (as author Leslie Nissen has termed it) and frequent family moves at the hands of alcoholic parents who perpetually seek the elusive Geographic Cure. While such parents deceive themselves that in the next new place, sobriety will prevail, their children know better. Alcoholics who chronically uproot their families for a fresh start usually carry along every reason to drink. For the school-age children of such cure-seeking alcoholics, the torment of life with a volatile, unpredictable and chronically intoxicated parent is intensified by the anguish of being 'the new kid' who changes schools at the whim of the parent. Highly mobile children, bearing an alarmingly long list of prior schools, may be part of a group which Nissen calls Geographic Cure Children, whose chances of finding help are nearly non-existent, despite their acute need for care. The dilemma of this unique subset of Children of Alcoholics is examined via autobiographical, psychoanalytic and fictional lenses. Nissen also recounts her own urge to hit the road when diagnosed with cancer, and explores the Geographic Cure writ large, observing how the current 'testing frenzy' and clamor for cures for low test scores dominate educational policy. Could teachers' panic about accountability cause them to resent new students who appear at their classroom doors mid-year? Is education encumbered because, at the hands of policy-makers, educators are working the Life Erratic?