Two or three 'stops' you have in this article
1. "One of the first things a student learns - and the lesson is taught throughout his or her school career - is to provide the teacher with what the teacher wants or expects."
This quote reminded me of the reading about grades for our inquiry class. By telling students what is going to be on the test, we are conditioning them to pay attention to these topics and revisit them later when studying. This type of school culture is persistent throughout an entire lifetime. Children try to find out what they parents want and expect, they then try to give their teachers what they are looking for and often ask other students or former students such as older siblings what that particular teacher's tests are like and what they need to do in order to get a certain grade. As the reading points out, students spend an awful lot of their lives in school exposed to this culture and it continues throughout their lives. Whether they go on to post secondary and try to do the assignments so as to please the professor or if they go into the workforce and do whatever is necessary to please their boss and maintain their employment. Students are stuck in this very survivalist culture of trying to make it to the next course with a particular grade, or trying to get into university.
2. Implicit Curriculum
One thing that really stood out to me was the message that is conveyed immediately to the students by the physical set up of the classroom. If the desks are separate and in neat rows, the students know that it is an individualized learning environment with little opportunities to talk with others. On the other hand, if the desks are grouped together, students know to expect more group work and collaboration. This was less surprising to me than how the scheduling of classes affects how the subject is seen by a student. While I was in high school, our blocks were rotated throughout the year so that each subject was experienced at different times of the days. It was different in elementary school where art was typically reserved for afternoons. Many times while I volunteered at a kindergarten class the students were working on art or play in the afternoons while they had reading and math lessons in the mornings. This type of scheduling definitely contributed to the status of art and reading in the classroom. When a lesson was not finished on time, the math class or reading class would carry into the art class cutting it short. Certain students were unable to begin their artwork until after they completed their math/reading assignments. However, if an art activity was not finished it was seen as acceptable to just leave it for another day or the student could finish if they were able to complete the math/reading activity early. I was surprised that none of the students questioned why the math/reading was prioritized over art. Sure they were disappointed and complained but they never argued that art was as important as math/reading. It is amazing how early these subtle messages take affect.
3. Null Curriculum
As a high school student I always wondered how the duration of the subjects was determined (e.g why we needed 5 years of ELA, 4 years of math, and no mandatory art/music/dance/film studies etc.). What was so special about ELA, math and science and so dispensable about art and music?Having this conveys the message that ELA and math and science are superior subjects to art and music. Only students who are interested in pursuing art or music will immerse themselves in those subjects or enroll in special programs so as to get into a post secondary program for these areas. However, this implies that students other students will not benefit from having these types of experiences or classes throughout their schooling. Likewise, students entering art or music programs will see no need for math and science and determine it as a hurdle to jump over rather than something that could assist their studies and improve their learning.
Another aspect of the null curriculum that struck me was the omission of certain topics within a subject. For example, conics was a section that was taken out of the curriculum while I was in high school yet it was something I encountered during my university studies. Why was this topic removed and what was put in its place (if anything)? What about conics did the curriculum decision makers feel was so unimportant that it was removed entirely?
Ways that this might expand our ideas about what is meant by 'curriculum'. How does the mandated BC Provincial Curriculum connect with Eisner's ideas?
Before this reading I equated curriculum with the explicit curriculum but I realize there is much more to curriculum then simply a list of requirements. Curriculum also encompasses what is left out, how the material is presented and how the environment is set up for the students among other things.
BC is helping to connect with Eisner's ideas by providing more opportunities for other types processes for students such as increasing collaboration, increasing ways of knowing such as Indigenous ways of knowing, using different modes of instruction, different modes of assessing.
It also focuses on decreasing the null curriculum by adding financial literacy to the math curriculum. Students will leave high school with some basic understanding of finance such as knowing how they will be taxed and how to calculate their hours when completing a time sheet.
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