A conversation...

I had an interesting conversation with my intern, that I am sharing with Jim. He is teaching a social science and it has been an eye opening experience for him. It's like a tale of two worlds from the hard core sciences (Chem & Bio) and the students that are found there, compared with the diachotomy of an open social science class that is an elective. With getting ready for upcoming report cards he found it hard to believe that students fail.

But I digress and am getting away from the conversation. The conversation stemmed around his "surviving" his workload. He has found the curriculum guide essential in helping him plan for the course in question, relying on it as a crutch to support him in as he transitions from teaching three courses to four.

The insight that I found incredibly insightful was his take on the person that wrote the curriculum. He stated that he felt that the person who wrote the curriculum just simply picked ideas that they seemed to enjoy with very little experience in the actual field. "It's like he sat down and picked what he/she wanted to learn and wrote the curriculum for themselves."

Is this the trap for any curriculum writer? For a beginning teacher to realize this and make this statement I think is very profound (in my belief).

Quote

Here is another quote that I found the other day by Cornbleth (1990) that speaks to me about the nature of curriculum.

• "Curriculum construction is an ongoing social activity that is shaped by various contextual influences within and beyond the classroom and accomplished interactively, primarily be teachers and students. The curriculum is not a tangible product but the actual, day-to-day interactions of students, teachers, knowledge and milieu."

This speaks to me as many sources act and interact to create the curriculum. The interactions are the key and I see this as a natural development of myself as a teacher. Though I never saw myself as a true authoritarian teacher at the front of a classroom I think I had that belief. However over the past few years I see myself building relations between parties involved in education as my interaction with students come more and more frequent. This partnership is directing the activities of the classroom away from an established curriculum set down from on high by the powers that be in Regina. Also the mix of students directs where the courses go and how it develops.

To me the curriculum is becoming a living breathing entity that is guided by many forces.

A thing that has always bothered me...

One thing that has always bothered me about seeing the child as an empty vessel (as in realism) to be filled with knowledge is how can anyone be seen as empty. No one can be entirely empty...life is filled with experiences that shape and direct a person to be who they are. As the child grows and develops life shapes experiences in their psyche shaping the child and their future behaviour.

I have this picture in my head about the concept of realism. If the teacher is the jug to fill the student (the cup) eventually waste will happen. The student is not empty...life fills students...so as more and more knowledge is poured into the student the student begins to fill and fill. Eventually as more and more knowledge is imparted to the student the cup will fill and where is the knowledge? On the floor wasted!

In this day and age with students coming with more and more baggage and more complex life experiences the concept of jug and cup no longer applies unless we can empty some of the previous "water" (knowledge/life experiences) from them. Only then can we fill their minds with new experiences without wasting it.

I remember...

I remember one of my first years here I went to a Social Science Special Subject Council. As I was new to the province I was still a little lost on the use of curriculum guides (see my post on my experience in Nova Scotia for more on this). I remember going to one on Psych 20 and talking with various teachers about using the Psych 20 curriculum.

We sat together with about 5 of us in a group and shared with one another assignments and what we did in class. I was shocked by the number of teachers that literally took the curriculum as the "bible". They simply photocopied the notes or ran them off into an overhead and went step by step through the guide. They did nothing to adapt it for their own needs and I was told by two...why do the work when it is done for you. These were not just beginning teachers, but those in many years of service. I can remember thinking how sorry I felt for their students to be put through this "torture" of re-writing the curriculum.

I rely on the guide as a guide but adapt it to the needs and interests of that particular classroom. I argued that it was merely a map of where we can start and end. I argued that I could let it show me a way but how I chose to get there, with students as my co-pilots, was our decision. I was actually ridiculed and told that I would lose my job if they caught me doing that. This scared me a little but I still believe that it is merely a guide. Not the definitive end all to be all. I go where the students take me. I see myself as a guide within a museum...sharing info when asked or when interest is shown by the visitors.

I'm Back...

Well it's been a long week as I was in PEI for the National Student Leadership Conference. Amidst the chaos, the excitement, and the occasional down time I couldn't help but think about curricular issues. I felt myself drawn to the idea of extra-curricular as a title for those events we advise or coach. Why is it extra? Is it because it is done during after traditional school time?

I believe that events such as sports, drama, music, SRC are all very important and often times this is where some students excel and live for, not school. I have known two students over the last couple of years that have lived for their "extra" curricular. To the point that one of them basically comes for just that reason and then when the season was over left or dropped out.

I like the idea of co-curricular instead running alongside the tradiational curricular subjects. For some students this hands on living experience is more powerful and more life altering than subject areas. I am sure in a lot of "extra" curricular events one can incorporate real world experiences from subject matter within the event. In drama we look at values and morals to help define character roles. Math is used in construction. Etc. SRC has much of this moreso ingrained in this.

I believe that by calling it "extra" curricular is doing it a diservice. Co-curricular encompassing curricular ideas and subjects would be more proper.

This idea began as we finished that chart in class about the various types of "isms". I find myself following around with Dewey and the idea of experiential learning being the best and most productive and this reminded me of the "extra" curricular events.