Cycle Two: What Should the Content of Curriculum Be?

            When analyzing curriculum we first looked at the sole purpose of curriculum.  Many thoughts were developed and I still find myself pondering concepts I discovered.  Now we dive into the question of what should the content of curriculum be?  I found a quote while reading from Hirsch that depicted my thought process of our last topic as well as the current one.  Hirsch stated that he believes the role of school is to be a system of preparing children for broader activities of society and train them in literature public culture.  These words made me realize that I want to better my ideas from the last cycle and implement them into this one.  So let us continue our journey of curriculum by talking about the content and what that should entail.

            What I love about education is that there are many leaders that have given us their own personal thoughts as to pedagogy, philosophy, psychology, and method of curriculum. One in particular was John Dewey.  I remember first hearing about him in my undergrad courses and thinking to myself what a genius he was.  My 19-year-old self fell in love with his romantic ideas of progressive education.  After reading some of his ideas about the content of curriculum I found there were ideas I would like to modify to fit my idea of content.  Dewey’s approach was that curriculum should be child centered.  Each child has his/her own experiences in which to develop on and adhere to with its education.  The curriculum should center on the differences of its students.  The truths of the child are moving and fluent verses stagnant.  Our role as the teacher is to provide direct information in an indirect way and allow the child to make connections and personal experiences from that medium.  We need to provide medium but make sure not to take away from a child’s ability to develop his/her own ideas.  To me the concept as a whole should be adjusted.  I feel students do have differences.  I have a student who moved from Texas with his mother who is currently in law school.  He had two brothers living with him that were very domineering as his dad is out of the picture.  Both brothers are very smart and moved out attending highly accredited colleges in other states.  Marcos who is the youngest and now left with a busy mother is struggling in school.  He is adapting to the current environment he is in.  As of now school is the last place he wants to be.  So yes, he is different from the boy next to him who was born and raised in Lansing.   He has two married parents and a very close family all at which that live together.  Allen is getting all A’s and constantly pushes himself to do better, while Marcos could care less.  Allen’s parents challenge him and have time to do so.  Marcos’ mother doesn’t have the time to make sure his homework is being done, or that his personal best is showing at school.  These boys are very different and Dewey does have a point that it is my job to differentiate in order to create connections for these boys, which are completely different.  However, Hirsch’s point that students should all learn the traditional materials lies true as well. 

            From Dewey I learned to make sure my students are connecting to what they learn and this concept is close to Hirsch’s theory because he too stated that this part of the intensive portion of curriculum is necessary.  From Hirsch I discovered that it is not neither fair, nor just to just accept that certain kids will know less than others.  No, I want all students to receive the same highly traditional educations.  In this way they will receive the same opportunities and make their own choices later in life based on those opportunities.  A student from poverty and a student from privilege should receive mathematics, Latin, English, sciences, and social studies because it will prepare them for the broader activities of society as mentioned earlier.    Is this core list of knowledge that all Americans need to know attainable?  Of course it is.  I remember making copies in the workroom 4 years ago and seeing a sign that simply stated your classroom is the environment you choose.  It made me see that my kids will behave the way I demand of them, they will learn as much as I teach them, and will reach as high as I push them.  So not only is it attainable, but it is desirable because every student should receive the best education and one with a curriculum that is enriching.    This ideal content would have ideals from Dewey of differentiating your instruction to engage all learners, but to also teach the needed traditional materials to produce the literate students once created in the late 1800’s. 

            In conclusion, the content of curriculum should be one with a balance of differentiated methods of delivery but that focuses on the traditional to produce a literate future.  I had a student today tell me that she now gets where the word hemisphere comes from because she learned Greek and Latin root words.  This is traditional teachings but is creating meaning to her on a personal level.  A balance. 

Resources

Websites:

http://www.coreknowledge.org/

This site is an excellent source to find out more about what Hirsch referred to as core knowledge. It is a foundation built on those principals with curriculum, schools, and how to get involved.

http://www.illinoisloop.org/coreknowledge.html

This site was helpful for me because it encloses websites with core knowledge curriculum to help me get a better understanding of how it looks.  It also includes articles discussing the core knowledge idea.

Articles:

http://www.journalpatriot.com/news/article_dcc196b4-491c-11e1-921a-001a4bcf6878.html

This article was helpful to me because it demonstrated that the common core includes teaching how and not just the what.  It talked about a school which will be implementing Core Knowledge next year.  Blooms Taxonomy will be used and their goal is to develop innovative thinkers in their students.

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/18/nyregion/education-about-education.html?src=pm

This article was about a man who helps students in poor environments of  a minority race, excel and perform at their best abilities.  He is compared to Dewey in his methods.  I appreciated this article because it reminded me that in my reflection I made appoint to note that in our delivery as teachers, it is very important to teach to our students’ needs.  They have so much going on and learn in different ways. 

Blogs:

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/

I discovered this blog when researching different curriculum sites.  It is an edweek blog that contains multimedia, discussions, article postings, etc. all on curriculum topics.  I can see this blog helping me in future reflections as it entails so much with curriculum.  

What is curriculum and what is its purpose?

Cycle 1: What is curriculum and what is its purpose?

            Curriculum directors, new curriculum, curriculum development plans, curriculum enhancement, curriculum changes, and many other phrases are heard on a daily basis in the educational world.  As educators we follow the orders of the curriculum and teach what is expected of us.  Do any of us really sit back and think about what exactly curriculum is?  More importantly do we ever ponder our main purpose of teaching the curriculum to our students?  By definition curriculum is  the course of study.  Okay so we have a definition, but what does that really mean?  Does every child receive the same curriculum, is the curriculum providing each student success, and why are we teaching it?  I’ve been teaching for three years now and have only just began my journey into the world of curriculum but have some ideas as to what teachers need to think about.

            Everything in life should have a purpose.  So what is the purpose of curriculum you ask?  To me it is to prepare students to function as successful members in society.  They are the future and it is our job to ensure the future has people who can think and act within their best abilities.  We are preparing future career persons for jobs that may or may not be created already.  When I teach an objective I make it a point to my students when in the “real world” they are going to use it.  For example, when teaching measurement in fourth grade, the students need to be able to decide on the proper tool of measurement.  Whether they are building something in their home, or creating the next tallest building in the world, they must be able to do this.  Not only is that important to their success in later life but also the basic components such as multiplication and division for converting units with the measurements they make are imperative.  What they learn is vital in their success when finding their careers. 

            Teaching every student everything they need to know for the future sounds amazing, but is it even possible?  Each subject area is loaded with objectives that may or may not even be used in the future which then poses the dilemma of what is important to teach and what isn’t?  Well this depends on whom you ask.  To me there should be a balance.  Today my students created a timeline of major Michigan events between 1920 and 1980.  Will knowing this information help them become successful members of society?   I think so.  If they know how we got into the Great Depression then they will know how to alleviate this from happening in the future. I don’t , however, believe that students need to learn as many objectives of history that is required of them now.  When I taught 6^th grade last year, the students were expected to know too many objectives regarding European history.  There were not enough hours in the day or days of the year to cover all of it.  Quality is more important than quality and we need to find out what will help them in the future.    Another issue arises as well when ideally teaching every child the same content.  How can we teach students like Donovan?  I have not personally had a student with severe enough disabilities that their IEP goals couldn’t be met.  He hadn’t met them in years and was 20 years old, a senior making very little progress, which depended on the aid and teacher he had.  His mom had a valid point of teaching him the basic life skills and his principal had a good point that the academia is important.  I feel Donovan may not be able to reach the high goals  demanded but any progress is good progress in his case.  He needs balance.  Not just life skills and not only academia.   Wouldn’t Donovan benefit more from a good balance of academia and life skills that could help him in a better way?   I think each student is capable of different things and his IEP should be tailored to fit his needs and interests.   We have to accept that not every student is going to retain what is being taught because they have home lives, influences, physical disabilities, emotional disabilities, and many other obstacles in their way.  Individualizing goals can still each each student but not benefit others while others fail the system. This brings me to my next point of what do we do about it?

            Complaining about the system may make us feel better but it won’t fix the issues at hand.  There are many people who say a lot but again what is being done?  We are competing with countries like China who defeat us in schools.  One idea is a nationwide curriculum. I have a student who moved from Texas this year.  He is two years behind when it comes to what our students are expected to learn.  One reason is because Texas has completely different curriculum guidelines than Michigan and the other reason is because our school has different curriculum guidelines than schools in the area.    A nationwide curriculum would help this issue.  For students like Donovan and students who may not be of the math mind or literature expertise, I think the idea of going in between the liberal education concept and the idea of having schools grouped with students based on their talents and skills would the very beneficial to our students.  Students need to learn the basics no matter what their career pathway.  We need to decide on what core concepts must be learned and then those concepts would be taught in K-8.  Then in high school students could go to schools based on their talents and skills.  This would serve the best needs of each child and every child would still be receiving an excellent education, but it would be based on them and what they can do.    This idea is grand and I know there are complications but again nothing great in life is ever easy.

Resources

http://www.nasponline.org/resources/principals/Transition%20Planning%20WEB.pdf

This article written by Edward M Levinson and Edward J. Palmer supports my theory of obtaining students skills and interest and then providing them with vocational trading.  This article is geared towards students with disabilities.  Not students as severe as Dobovan, although a case could be made that providing him with some skills training on very minimal work could give him enough skills for a job.  The article explains that when students with disabilities enter high school, many of them drop out.  The other portion is likely to be unemployed after high school and often does not go to college.  As of right now colleges do not offer a lot of support for the disabled so students without disabilities are trained in high school for academic success in college and leaving their disabled others behind.  The system referred to in the article would help those students have successful futures after high school.

http://cirrie.buffalo.edu/encyclopedia/en/article/114/

This article made a valid point regarding creating curriculum that is relevant to the needs and interest of the students.  It coincided with my emphasis on life skills for the severely disabled and did argued that using a curriculum that is more individualized to tailor students needs which agrees with my concept of making the learning meaningful to the students to prepare them for real world scenarios.  I also enjoyed that it made a valid point by stating that students with severe disabilities can rise to the occasion when it comes to teaching them academia.


http://coffeetheory.com/2011/12/22/on-the-importance-of-a-liberal-education/


Coffeetheory is a blog where books and other components of intellectual culture are presented.  The author is giving his feedback on a book about Liberal Education.  I wanted to read proponents of Liberal Education to get a better idea of it's importance to some.  This blog helped me have a better understanding of liberal education which is why I do believe teaching trades and grouping based on interest and talent should wait until high school.


http://www.educationworld.com/a_issues/chat/chat192.shtml


Education world is a wonderful website that offers lessons, professional development, and school topics.  I found an article that discussed a teachers methods in teaching students "critically" which means having them question and reflect daily in order to relate content to daily lives.  This theory supports my ideas of preparing students for the real world and providing relevance to education.


http://educationnorthwest.org/projects


This site supports my theories of a nationwide curriculum.  One of the projects on the site is known as common core standards.  These are standards that any state in the United States is welcome to use.  It is voluntary but would serve as a great method until all schools are required to follow a national curriculum.