At a recent Curriculum Coaches’ meeting I was asked, “Why do teachers tend to associate the word curriculum with a teacher manual?” After spending the last several years on the other side on the interview table, asking potential teachers about the ways in which they teach curriculum to elementary aged students, I continue to be amazed that the words curriculum and teacher manual are used interchangeably! I have noticed this not only with prospective teacher candidates, but also with my fellow colleagues who have been in this profession for years. Personally, I feel the term curriculum entails an extensive and limitless quantity of ideas, which may be difficult to define within a simple dictionary definition. It is a much more complicated and complex notion. Is the root of the confusion amongst teachers? How did it come to be that “curriculum” is often found in teacher guide?
As an early elementary teacher, I quickly learned that “curriculum” could not always be found in teaching guides or manuals. My teacher edition of Saxon Math doesn’t tell me how to teach a child that refuses to participate in my math lesson, except for his occasional inappropriate outbursts. I am almost positive that the teacher manual for Harcourt Brace doesn’t address what to do with children that tease other children for their limited reading abilities. Even though social skills in a school setting may not be a mandated “curriculum” from the state, it is an especially real concept that is taught during school hours. Additionally, according to the Common Core Standards, which 45 out of the 50 states have adopted, instruct teachers on which English Language Arts and Mathematical Standards to teach students according to grade level, yet it seems to be missing a plethora of “curriculum” concepts, besides academics, that undoubtedly need to be addressed between the school hours of eight and three!
Where are the standards for self-help abilities, social skills, or even proper conversational skills? As a first grade teacher, I am mandated to teach seven year olds to “compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in stories,” yet they can’t put their own pants on the correct way let alone politely ask for help. Are we limiting “curriculum” to strictly academic concepts? Is it unimportant to wear your pants the correct way? According to research, “The extent to which children and adolescents possess good social skills can influence their academic performance, behavior, social and family relationships, and involvement in extracurricular activities.” If this statement is true, why are we only focusing on academic-based curriculum found in a teacher manual?
This brings me to Donovan! What is important for Donovan and other students with severe disabilities to learn in an educational setting? According to Donovan’s mother, Michelle Ford, her son should “spend more time working on his practical challenges, like his self-abusive habit of hitting himself in the face…” As an educator, I tend to agree with Donovan’s mother. Donovan needs to learn skills that will assist him with his own self-improvement and growth. Time spent on working towards minimizing self-abuse will meet this goal. How about teaching coin identification? Should her son’s teachers even be required to teach him how to identify coins when it is known that he will never use this skill? Identifying coins just may be a waste of time in this situation. Just as important as identifying an individualized “curriculum,” the school and Donovan’s mother need to work together in order to best meet the student’s needs. Personally, I believe that this applies to most students. “It takes a village to raise a child” and even more so to educate a child based on specific needs.
Noddings wrote, “To provide an equal quality of education for all of our children does not require identical education for all.” In the case of Donovan, I found this to be obviously accurate. However, this statement led me to consider the curriculum for my typical developing students. As a society, we should realize that one size does not fit all, yet teaching is almost a one size fits all concept. Hmm? Is “liberal education an inappropriate ideal for general education…?” Should students receive an education that meets their specific needs, capabilities, and interests? I once read On Being a Teacher by Jonathan Kozol. It encouraged me not only to open my mind to issues that I haven’t spent much time considering, but also to rethink my own personal judgments of our education system that I have acquired over the years. Specifically, Kozol’s chapter entitled “Secret Records,” surely sparked my interest. Initially, I thought that Kozol seemed a bit paranoid about the danger of students’ cumulative files. He writes, “It grants a great deal too much power to a small number of people to affect the present lives and future hopes of far too many” (44). But after reading this section, I begin to think about the documentary, Waiting for Superman. Both On Being a Teacher and Waiting for Superman addressed the issue of students’ cumulative files and how the files are used to track students and determine their educational futures. I am not sure if I have been naïve or ignorant about this subject because I teach at the lower elementary level, but this book definitely opened my eyes and questioned our education system. Should we rethink the “curriculum” within our school systems? My answer is absolutely! There are numerous deficiencies with the curriculum that we utilize in this country. However, I will be the first to admit . . . I do not have a solution!
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ReplyDeleteAmy,
ReplyDeleteAs I read through your blog I found myself nodding along to many of the points that you made. I feel that we have some of the same concerns, limitations, and distresses with the term “curriculum” and its purpose.
I too found it hard to define curriculum. It is more complex and complicated than what people, especially those outside the field of education, may think. At the elementary level, and most likely at all level of education, it encompass much more than academics: facts, dates, and formulas. You put it nicely when you said that the term entails an extensive and limitless quantity of ideas, which may be difficult to define within a simple dictionary definition.
Much of my day’s “curriculum” in second grade is focused on the emotional, social, and physical needs of my students. From feeling hurt when not asked to play a game at recess and helping students to voice their feeling in a conversation to the other end of the spectrum, when making a belt out of yarn for a student who, all day, has been concerned that his pants will fall to his ankles at a given moment.
Until we address these needs, how can our students engage in meaningful learning? When a child enters our room we need to remember that they too have so much going on in their personal lives that can effect how they learn and participate in school. You are right in questioning if we are limiting curriculum to only academic concepts.
I recently read an article in Scholastic that addressed this issue. The article “Why Social Skills Are Key to Leaning” spoke to instilling in children the social skills they need to acquire before they can learn academics. The first basic skills, which they referred to as “The Four Cs”, are confidence, cooperation, curiosity and communication. I agree that children need these basic skills before academic focus is appropriate.
Jenna Desiderio
When I read the Donovan article, I too agreed with what the mother felt was important for her son to learn: skills that would help him with his own unique growth. With having an inclusion classroom, I feel that this idea can be applied ALL learners, special needs or not. As an educator I want to provide my students with skills that will help them as they grow, and that may not always be identifying the verbs in a sentence but instead how to ask for help.
ReplyDeleteIn other courses I have looked to Noddings on his views of education. In any Professional Development or conference I have attended the big idea is that children are unique and learn in different ways. Why then is this “one-size fits all” model, as you stated, accepted by society? I am lucky to work in a charter school that is challenging this view and not accepting that this is the “best” way to teach. If you were to walk in at any given moment you wouldn’t see one teacher at the board teaching to 25 students. Instead you would walk in on small group instruction, group work, and discovery and inquiry lessons with engaged students, wherein students are guiding their learning. Our learning targets, or goals, are relatively the same throughout the grade, but how we reach those goals looks differently for each class, and more so each type of learning and furthermore each child.
Kozol has been another guru that I have looked to in my exploration of the field of education. He is so raw in his thoughts and is the quintessential “tell it like it is” person. I think that in order to change the way we look at curriculum we need more educators like Kozol that are ready to advocate for children and are willing to take on the repercussions of going against the grain, so to say.
Like you, I don’t have the answers to what curriculum is and what its purpose is. What I do know is that in order to meet the needs of our increasingly diverse population of students we need to start at the very core of our teaching. The why and the what.
Thank you for your insightful views and honest concerns. It is comforting knowing that others share the same concerns and fears.
Hi Amy,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your work!
It is great to see you and Jenna connecting--I share many of your concerns. I find it very fascinating that you ask why people--even teachers, who should know better--equate curriculum with facts and manuals. You are right to ask this. Surely, our technocratic mindset (state departments of education, colleges of education, administrators) has led us to this conclusion. Others have argued that the gulf between parents and teachers, the mistrust that has developed over the past century, is so great, that textbook companies become the obvious beneficiary. When no one is really talking to each other, when the gap between home and school is allowed to be so wide, then the "quick fix" becomes the best fix.
(As an aside, I was very interested in your IEP link. Both of my boys are speech delayed, and we have IEPs for them. I was amazed at, despite the good relationship with the teachers, and my obvious interest in my boys lives, how little I was consulted in the lead up to the meeting!)
I take a big view of curriculum--its the entire set of life experiences that are significant for a person in defining who they are. It's the journey each and every person is on. It's so exciting to be a teacher, because we are guides on all these different journeys.
I loved the back and forth between you and Jenna on social skills. Again, with a four-year old and a two-year old, how could I disagree? Except I would add that intellectual, social, emotional--these are all tied to together. Show me a scientist, a laywer, a doctor, who is not passionate about what they do, who is not a good colleague, and you've shown me a poor scientist, lawyer or doctor!
You are an adept blogger, weaving links and thoughts and readings into a satisfying whole! I look forward to more!
Kyle
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