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The McIntosh essay on curricular re-vision was intriguing but somewhat unsatisfying. While I found her discussion of the five curriculum phases to be a helpful contextualization of her ideas, I think that she spent too much time dwelling on abstractions. It is not until the last few pages of her essay that she provides us with concrete examples of the sort of curriculi she is addressing. Thus, we spend most of the essay hearing about the phases in abstract terms, lacking any real sense of how they play out in real life. For example, on page 13, McIntosh states that "all teachers are trained to isolate bits of knowledge and that this very training keeps their students in turn oblivious of the larger systems which hold pyramids of power in place." Can she describe this training? Can she describe how this plays out in the classroom? By staying in the realm of abstract theories, McIntosh evades reader criticism...her ideas sound good, but she gives us an insufficient amount of information to decide if they are actually valuable. In other words, can she suggest a new kind of training for teachers?

I was also interested in McIntosh's statement that "the mountainous and pyramidal form of our society and of our psyches is a social construct invented by us" (5). While I agree with her point that power structures are social constructs, I am uneasy with her implication that this "unnaturalness" makes themunjust or invaluable. While the actual structures may be social constructed, the need for such hierarchies may be innate. Thus, the more challenging issue is how to address this need without empowering some groups and disenfranchising others. 

I liked the way that McIntosh summarized the five phases on page 3, because they seemed to model the movement of the more general feminist mission. In other words, the waves of feminism seem to progress in a similar manner to the phases of curriculum.

Finally, I couldn't help but read this article and consider which phase Bryn Mawr was in. It seems like we are constantly moving between phases 3, 4, and 5. One question I have is whether it is possible to jump to a higher phase or whether the earlier phases must be tackled in order to move to a higher level. In speaking of levels, I can't help but address the slight paradox here- isn't McIntosh herself providing us with a hierarchy, a sense of good, better, best?