"are we over analyzing curriculum?"

A couple things caught my attention last class. A few were on topic and a few are kind of following a tangent that may (or may not) be clearly aligned with the topics of EDUB 7560.

Lana’s discussion question of “Are we analyzing curriculum too much?”
The discussion of to who (or what) do people pledge allegiance in different countries?

Are we analyzing curriculum too much?

I guess my first question for Lana (and the rest of you) would be “who are you defining as we?” If you are placing only traditional classroom teachers in that group of “we” then I agree, classroom teachers, especially those in survival mode or in the first few years of teaching, don’t have the time or energy left to engage in the philosophical questions of the Null curriculum. Their days are full enough with prep, extra-curricular activities, making connections with students (for isn’t that the purpose of teaching?…but that’s for another post), and marking stack of papers.

However, if the “we” referred to above is meant to include us, a group of educators who have made the decision to study curriculum at a higher level, then I believe it IS our responsibility to contemplate these questions. If not us, then who else? By joining the program are we not committing (or at least attempting) to consider these tough questions, propose solutions, research answers, and make strive to make changes to the inadequacies of the system?

Pledging Allegiance to the _____________.

I found the discussion about Discover Canada quite interesting. It was odd that much of what the creators of Discover Canada deemed important a group of graduate level thinkers didn’t know. Perhaps they should poll Canadians to gather what information they feel is most important for inclusion. This would at least give the new Canadians more knowledge that is in line with current Canadian thought.

I also found it odd that an immigrant applying for citizenship of a country needs to recite an Oath or Pledge of Allegiance but a born and raised citizen never needs to recite anything. Do any other countries make children of a certain age recite a pledge or oath? How many Canadians right now would feel comfortable reciting the oath? Should Canada integrate a citizenship program into elementary school? Middle school? High school? Or does the provincial curriculum documents effectively 'citizenize' us already?

On the same train of thought (but slightly less on topic) I’ve always hated it when I hear US Presidents say “we must return to the ideas and values of our founding forefathers.” Why? Who made them God? Were those not the same people that legalized slavery? Why does everyone think that they had it all figured out? Just a thought………..

Curriculum Design - define that one?

I just finished reading/skimming the three articles in preparation for this weeks class and thought i'd share a few thoughts. (Not too many as i want to save some thoughts and questions for class discussions)

On the Meaning of Curriculum Design struck a chord with me as I mentioned my previous experience in Thailand working with curriculum and programming. I was about half done reading the article and i found myself saying "Ok..makes sense. So what I was doing Thailand was actually more curriculum design writing than writing a new curriculum." I did very little work with the content matter or objectives but spent most of my time focusing on how to organize the documents in a user friendly way with clearly outlined activities that could be used (not mandatory) if teachers were struggling for ideas.

Just when i was prepared to think of myself as a curricular designer instead of a curricular writer then article ends by saying curriculum design can't really be defined "until agreement is reached on the meaning of terms, particularly of 'curriculum.'"

Like i said. Don't want to waste all my observations regarding the articles...just wanted to a few initial thoughts out there.

New Methods of Assessment - genius or catastrophe?

To begin class Dr. Hlynka shared four relatively current blunders in the field of education and curriculum. I immediately asked myself the question...
What are we doing in today's classroom that we may/will regret in the future?

I couldn't help but think of the provincial educational debate regarding assessment. Teachers are no longer allowed to include behavior or participation when assessing assignments or deduct marks for late assignments. In theory this makes sense as each students mark would then represent their abilities or achievements regarding course content. For example, the report card marks I am in the process of calculating should represent the students abilities in English, NOT their classroom behavior. However, personal experience during this entire semester has shown it a struggle to motivate students to hand work in "on time." Students, contrary to popular belief, are quite bright, and it didn't take them very long to realize that I couldn't punish them for late assignments. Many people stronlgy disagree with this movement claim that we losing the chance to teach students the valuable lesson that deadlines are important.

Despite the frustrated tone you may have noticed in the above paragraph I am actually personally in favor of this new trend. That is, of course, as long as there is additional areas (in report cards, progress reports etc) for reporting and assessing student participation and behaviour. This format would give the best of both worlds....it would provide feedback on the students actual abilities in the subject as well as comment on his "student-ness."

I asked myself the question - If report card marks still include behaviour/participation and i found two students with identical 55%'s....from an outside perspective would that give me any indication of their abilities? What is one student was a bright kid who didn't hand assignments in on time and the other an ESL student who tried enough to fill the participation column of the rubric of each assignment but achieve few of the actual outcomes. Would it not be more valuable to see the two students' reports broken down the following way

Student #1 -
Academics --> Met all grade level expectations
Behaviour/Participation --> Rarely on task, struggles with attendance and participation

Student #2 - Not yet meeting grade level expectations
Behaviour/Participation --> on task, attends and participates in all activities

I feel that in time, as Universities will have to adjust their acceptance criteria as the traditional "marks" will have changed. Perhaps students motivation to hand in assignments in on time will increase if university screening processes take behaviour into consideration. Would they ever?

If you were a university would you rather have a "rough student" with potential or a slightly less gifted student with proven motivation? Any ideas?

Our discussion on the 3 methaphors of curriculum

Reflections from first class (Jan 12, 2010)

I’ve been lucky (or unlucky… depending on your view of curriculum work) to have had the chance to work on some curriculum and program development while living in Thailand. Although grossly under qualified I was given the responsibility of revising and editing the schools Manitoba Based English, Math, and Science curriculum. This experience forced me to investigate and familiarize myself with many of the Manitoba curriculum documents. That experience helped me learn and solidify some basic theoretical knowledge regarding curriculum and I decided to return to Canada and begin a more formal study in curriculum. However, since beginning my formal studies it seems that every course and class discussion leaves me less and less able to formally define curriculum. The more I learn what curriculum is, has been, and could be, the more I struggle with a definition….funny how that works!
I look forward to discussing these issues with you all this semester!

I'm in....let the blogging begin!

Looking forward to chatting with you all soon!