A quote from another...

I find in amusing as we go through our Masters degree the extent to which we take things for granted and how with each class my eyes are opened up to see things in a new light. I can remember becoming a parent and seeing for the "first" time how many mini-vans are out there. Experiences such as this shape how we see things...either for the first time or just changes our perceptions to see things in another light.

I was flipping through a book that my wife borrowed from the library (and if you are not a library member you should be) about 100 Best Worldwide Vacations to Enrich Your Life. A quote from Miriam Beard, an American writer and traveler, spoke to me. Change a key word and could we not be talking about curriculum. With a nod to Miriam Beard the quote would read as such..."Curriculum is more than the written goals and outlines; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent." Within this statement are many different layers.

Firstly that curriculum can be both explicit and implicit. What is taught in class does not necessarily have to be what the students learn. I cannot really recall any student thaanking me for teaching a specific piece of knowledge. However students have thanked me for teaching them other "unplanned" lessons about life.

Secondly is that curriculum can be both negative and positive. We like to think that we always create a positive change but as in life there can be a "dark side" to curriculum (implicitly or explicitly). Is everything that is modelled within a curriculum a positive change? Perhaps an innocent comment taken wrong can undue positive change. I seem to recall many of us arguing something similar when talking about the roles of homes in a child's life and how what is taught within the hours of 9-3:30 can be gratly undone by the influence of their homelife.

Finally the deep and permanance of the curriculum. Do we really know how deeply we might change and alter a student's life/perceptions/etc? Though not an example from school it is something that happened to me and my parents. When I was a child I ate everything in sight. However upon a visit to our family doctor he said that vegetables weren't all that important. As an impressionable young child I took it literally and refused to eat veggies again. My mother could have killed him. This innocent comment greatly effected my outlook towards veggies that has lasted til this very day. Could a lesson do this? Can we as teachers do this? Yes if we are not careful.

I have to be careful what books I pick up...who thought a travel book could evoke a thought about curriculum?