Product reviews for Becoming Mobius

Debra Kidd's second book Becoming Mobius sees her stepping back from the -˜front line' of her first to inhabit a series of reflective, philosophical spaces. The ideas are complex and take some work to unpack, which is only appropriate given that complexity theory and its relevance to education is the book's central matter. However, one should not be put off by the folds and diffractions in time and space that we are asked to navigate, or the multiple -˜lines of flight' that see Kidd move from reflections on personal professional struggles, to theoretical physics, to the philosophies of Deleuze and Guatarri that sit at the heart of the book. Kidd helps us to navigate complex ideas and disorientating lines of flight by anchoring them in the classroom, thus Deleuze' notion of -˜chronos' and -˜aion' time are explored through a story of helping Danny with his spellings. Extracts from her journals are wonderfully lucid and their treatment unswervingly honest and compassionate. Kidd is clearly still a teacher at heart.

Kidd argues that complexity and uncertainty are inherent within the process of learning. Rather than responding to this by reducing learning to a set of standardized outcomes, she encourages us to learn to “live with uncertainty”. Indeed it is within these moments of uncertainty that profound possibilities for learning emerge: “void space is event space in which the pedagogical aim has not been -˜the transmission of the same, but the creation of the different'”.

We see this in action in a school curriculum designed to engage students with questions for which there is no easy answer: “Is the world a fair place? What is a good person?” Relating to and understanding complex concepts takes precedence over getting the right answer. Within such a curriculum the notion of standardization becomes absurd and Kidd argues very powerfully, unjust. The blunt tools of high stakes testing and inspection do not help us make sense of these complex environments and processes.



What gives Becoming Mobius its vitality is its humane and empowering approach to its subjects. Kidd steadfastly refuses to allow the voices of the students to become mere data asserting “[t]o be worthy, I need to make the children more than text - more than characters in a story”. In an education system obsessed by data it is refreshing to read a book that brings human beings back into the center of educational discourse.